Listening to Madiba

The first time I was introduced to Nelson Mandela he asked: 'Don't I know you from television?' I responded: 'It's possible, Madiba. But I certainly know you from television.' He laughed in the way I came to recognise over the years as vintage Madiba. I miss that laugh.

I find it easy to separate out in my mind Nelson Mandela the iconic public figure on the one hand, and the human being I call Madiba on the other. The former is fundamentally a construct, a tapestrying of fact, fiction and adulation. The latter is the man I got to know as his employee.

The former, ironically, brings out the worst in everyone, including me