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  • My Memory of Nelson Mandela

    I was once at a meeting and quite unexpectedly Nelson Mandela arrived.   We sat startled and spellbound as he spoke to us for about 20 minutes and everything said about his warmth, modesty, humour and humanity is true.   This was a time when the world's leaders and stars

     were clustering to meet him.   Many men would have had there    heads turned by been so lionized, but he told a story of how he  had been introduced to a small girl.   She asked him why he       had been put in prison.   He did not want to go into the detail so  he told her it was a long time ago and that he could not  remember.   She then asked what prison was like and he again  evaded the question by saying he could not remember.   "Do  you know what I think?" she asked, "you are a foolish old man."  I  left the meeting in an emotional state after such an experience  and was immediately confronted by a television team with the cameras rolling.   'What did I think of Mandela?' I was asked.   All I could say, as a tear rolled down my cheek, was "He's a saint, really he's a saint...".  Sadly I continued saying the same thing like a parrot for several minutes.   Luckily the item was to be broadcast only in South Africa.   He was not, of course, a saint, but still pretty close.

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