The greatest man of his age

95 years. In his life, who could compare with our man (that's right, our man, your man, everyone's man) in terms of the net good achieved for humanity? I think the answer fairly definitely is no. Would you give your life or your freedom for your beliefs? I'd give a lot, but I wouldn't do that. He did. He survived on his natural intelligence, total commitment and sheer persistence.

I remember Vorster saying, like Hitler, that his cruel regime would last a thousand years, and in the dark days of the 70s and early 80s, when Reagan and Thatcher said they were perfectly happy to do business with it, I feared he might have been right. But we underestimated the raw power of Mandela's appeal to the world to help him free his people.

When Nelson was freed in January 1990 my second wife was alive, though only just. Within three months she was dead, but she said she was so glad she lived to see that day. She also lived just long enough to have seen the Berlin Wall knocked down, another marvellous and, to us in the safely cocooned west, unanticipated event. This was another huge event she lived to witness, but now, 25 years on, it is hard to say which of these great occasions was more significant. It's close, but in simple human terms Nelson clinches it, with his modesty, self effacement, his quiet but massive determination, his refusal to allow vengeance to rule following the fall of the whites, he was the man.
He is the man!