[2] Born Sarah Francesca Hayfron on 6 June 1931 in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), then a British colony.

[4] She met her future husband, Robert Mugabe, in the Gold Coast at Takoradi Teacher Training College where they were both teaching, and went with him to Southern Rhodesia, where they were married in April 1961 in Salisbury.

Nhamo, as he was affectionately called, would later would succumb to a severe attack of malaria and die in Ghana on Boxing Day 1966.

[7] In 1967, Sally went into exile in London,[8] where she studied and work in a range of jobs including as secretary to Margaret Feeny, first Director of the Africa Centre,[9] Covent Garden, and Race Relations Clerk with the Runnymede Trust.

[8] Their only son, Nhamodzenyika, who was born in 1963 during this period of detention and imprisonment, would succumb to a severe attack of malaria and die in Ghana in 1966.

[2][11] Her case for residency was supported by two British Government ministers in particular: Labour MP Maurice Foley, and the Conservative peer Lord Lothian.

With Robert Mugabe's release in 1975 and subsequent departure for Mozambique with Edgar Tekere, Sally rejoined her husband in Maputo.