Goodbye Madiba

The only thing I could find on the theme I wanted to write today's blip. Usually my blips are far more about the photo than the text, but not today.

A day of working from home so as not to travel in the wind, with a fantastic evening at camera club, where the speaker was Colin Prior. However, just as we were leaving I heard the sad, though not unexpected, news that Nelson Mandela has died.

I was born in Durban, under apartheid, my birth certificate proves it by listing my population group as white. Getting used to life out there can't have been easy for my mum, with several black relatives, moving to a place where, for example, she and my dad were not allowed to take jazz records into the country because the musicians were black, and then got in trouble for letting a black woman rent the kaiya (small house in the garden for domestic staff) when she didn't work for our family, but for another family nearby who didn't have a kaiya.

Although we left when I was six, and I don't remember any of the Zulu words my dad taught me, which he learned from the workers on the docks, and all we have from that time are a lot of family photos, we always closely followed the news there. I remember spending hours sitting in front of the TV with my mum, gran, and sister waiting to see Mandela released from prison. I also remember doing a talk in English at school, aged about 13 or 14, about what was happening in South Africa at the time, and being told I should have explained what ANC and PAC stood for, and being honestly completely astounded that there were people who didn't know, as it was almost daily news at that point, and part of constant conversation in our home.

It is amazing what Mandela has been able to achieve and in what an incredible way. He has become far more than a man, a great symbol, while still remaining a man, with flaws, humour, interest in others and so much wisdom and common sense. He and his influence will be missed around the world, but especially in South Africa. A nation with so much potential, but also so many problems, not least violence, poverty and huge social disparity.

My prayer as Mandela is mourned and South Africa moves on is Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - or God bless Africa, the words of the national anthem with verses in 5 languages are here , and you can hear it being sung by the Springboks here. Most of the versions on YouTube are the old hymn on which it is partly based, but this one has the proper lyrics, and reminds me of Mandela turning up in a Springboks shirt to cheer them on, which was incredibly important in bringing people together given how rugby had been so much a white man's sport. I do recommend this book by the way, it's an autobiography by a man who worked as Mandela's jailer for many years and got to know him well.