The Word of a Gentleman his wife Nora are the focus of many chapters (and the book opens with a quotation from Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"); these reflect Niesewand's detention by Desmond Lardner-Burke under P. K. van der Byl and Smith, and his subsequent deportation, leaving behind his wife of three years, Nonie Niesewand (née Fogarty). The Word of a Gentleman The Word of a Gentleman (1981) (later retitled "Undercut") was the third of five novels written by Peter Niesewand, the South African journalist who spent 73 days in solitary confinement for his coverage of Ian Smith's government in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Hay Gaol a haunting sound and light display in the cell block. The Gaol and surrounding grounds were reserved for the Preservation of Historic Sites and Buildings by notification in the "Government Gazette" of 6 June 1975. It is now a museum and cultural centre and is open every day between 9am and 5pm. The Hay Gaol is an example of James Barnet's Hay-type gaol, a classification defined by JS Kerr in his 1988 book "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" in which Kerr differentiates Barnet's Hay-type gaol from the more common Braidwood-type gaol design of the previous colonial architect. The main