Our brother killed himself with poison ...he was 18

port. She also remembers township riots and, while her parents were not involved in politics, she recalls hiding in her room when police came to ask questions.

“We always knew when riots had broken out because we weren’t allowed to leave the house, even to go to school,” she wrote in her book. “Then the next day, when I was back on the school bus, I could see it was still burning everywhere and cars had been knocked over.” When police came to the house and asked her father questions “we children had to disappear into our rooms so we didn’t get anything from the conversations”.

The family believe that for Neo this was all too much. “I think all the changes had overwhelmed him a little bit, everything had seemed difficult to him,” said Motsi.

“He had gone to a private school, but he had surrounded himself with people you might call ‘false friends.’ It was a tough time for all of us, but especially for my mum.’”

Motsi says his suicide came shortly after Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, which marked the beginning of the end for apartheid.

Oti, whose full name is Otlile, was just a tot at the time and she became the apple of everyone’s eye, helping to heal the family’s grief.

From an early age all three girls showed a talent for dancing that they inherited from their mother, and it was clear from the start that Oti had the star presence that has made her a hit on Strictly and now on The Greatest Dancer. She has told how their mum

Oti alongside Matthew and Cheryl HEARTACHE Oti lost half-brother Motsi, Phemelo and Oti all love dancing Oti Mabuse and her mother, Dudu With Graeme Swann last year