Swimming with Cobras is a memoir about a journey to find a foothold in a foreign land grappling with it's own identity, offering rare and important insight into a corner of South Africa's past. Rosemary Smith's life as an activist in the Eastern Cape began when she moved from England with her South African born husband in the mid 1960s. They made their home in Grahamstown where they raised four children. As a member of the Black Sash she participated in events spanning three decades in an intensely politicised and oppressed province. Through her involvement she made the transition to full integration in a country that at first struck her as alien and strange.