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).
New Gaol, Bristol New Gaol, Bristol The New Gaol (also sometimes known as The Old City Gaol) is in Cumberland Road, Spike Island, Bristol, England, near Bristol Harbour. The original New Gaol was designed by Henry Hake Seward and opened in 1820. In 1831, it was destroyed during the Bristol Riots and was rebuilt to designs by Richard Shackleton Pope, but was never properly completed until 1872. The gaol was closed in 1883 due to poor conditions and was largely demolished in 1898. In 1884, Horfield Prison was built to replace it. In 1821, three days after his eighteenth birthday, John Horwood was