Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela spent his first night of freedom at Desmond Tutu's home.
He had not wanted to stay at Bishopscourt, he recalled later, because "I thought it would have sent the wrong signal to spend my first night in a posh white area".
But things had changed in the 27
years that Mandela had spent incarcerated at Robben Island. In 1990, Bishopscourt was still posh, but it also had non-white residents, at the insistence of the first black Archbishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize winner who had earned great respect for his non-violent campaign against apartheid.
Yesterday, Tutu presided over a remembrance ceremony for his house guest that night 23 years ago which was anything but maudlin with jokes and waves of laughter. Steadfast supporters in the fight against apartheid, including the singer Peter Gabriel and Mary Robinson, the former Irish President, were resoundingly cheered.
Madiba, said the Archbishop, was "a magician who had turned South Africa, a poisonous caterpillar, into a beautiful butterfly".
