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Good morning. So Nelson Mandela has died after a time of courageous resilience, typical of him. When he emerged from 27 years in prison in 1990, many were fearing the toll that those years might have made on his character and leadership. They needn’t have worried, with an iron discipline which remained with him unto death, he had used the years behind bars to plan for the future which he always believed would come when all the peoples of South Africa would be free to vote for the government of their country. On and around his release, he not only threw himself with heart and mind into negotiations with the de Klerk government, he also taught his own ANC colleagues how to win respect and power through sticking firm where necessary, and making concessions where useful. The fruits of his efforts came in 1994 when he was elected President of his country. In a small way I saw him at work during these years. I had been chairman of the Luthuli trust, a charity raising money to educate in the universities of Britain and America the children of ANC leaders like Mandela imprisoned or in exile. The moment that Nelson Mandela was released from prison, however, the money was diverted to South Africa, and we were in the situation of not having the funds to enable several hundred students to finish their studies and get them back home to help in nation building. The Nationalist government was still in power and I asked for 200 thousand pounds from their ambassador in London. “Not unless you get the signature of Nelson Mandela”, he said. I went to Johannesburg and had three meetings with Nelson Mandela. The first was at 8 o’ clock in the morning and his secretary told me that he had already been at work for two hours. The last was at half past ten at night and I left him working at his desk. During the meetings I was cross examined by a man who had lost none of his forensic skills; he was courteous, focussed. Intentional, with a mind like a ticking clock, unhasting and unresting. I got his signature and the money, and as I flew back to London, pretty exhausted, I told myself that South Africa was going to be in safe hands. I was right. Nelson Mandela didn’t wear his religious faith on his sleeve, but on release from prison he stayed with his long standing friend Desmond Tutu , then Archbishop of Cape Town. The archbishop has spoken of Mandela’s long 27 years of incarceration as a time, not only when suffering ennobled him, but as a time when the tribulations purified the dross and deepened his spiritual resources. Certainly forgiveness and reconciliation became his hall marks, symbolised powerfully by his insistence that his white jailor from Robben Island attend his installation as president. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.