Not Child's Play Kidnapped. Imprisoned. A True Story.

In 1990, Dave Muller sails to Mozambique with his wife, Sandy, and two young children, to fulfil a boyhood dream of voyaging to the tropics on the yacht he’s spent ten years building. The fantasy holiday comes to a shocking end when the yacht runs aground on a stretch of beach near the Bazaruto Islands. While waiting for high tide to re-float their vessel, a patrol of five child soldiers armed with AK47s arrive, along with their two adult captives. The young boys ransack the yacht. Not Child’s Play brilliantly traverses the Mullers’ nightmare of seven weeks as hostages of Renamo, a militant resistance organisation in Mozambique. Dave and Sandy, desperate to protect their children, come close to collapse, plagued by intense mental and emotional strain. The fear of violence and death is a constant. Twice the camp in which they are held is attacked by the warring government forces, Frelimo. Yet, after 49 days, the family becomes strangely comfortable in their captivity. The Mullers’ eventual rescue, which etched their names in history and is retold remarkably here, involved a covert operation by the SA Navy and Navy Seals – the kind of dramatic stuff that Hollywood action movies are made of!

Dave Muller is a retired architect. In 1999 he was appointed as President Mandela’s architect for his Qunu home. He is also the designer of the Tricircle Pavilion, which received an Award of Merit from the SA Institute of Architects. His passion is sustainable living and he has delivered a number of lectures on this subject. Putting theory into practice, he recently designed and, largely with his own hands, built a fully sustainable, off-grid house overlooking the Gqunube River near East London where he and his wife now live.