Fact #175581

Joan Armatrading : I went to his house in the af­ter­noon, fully ex­pect­ing there to be a big crowd of peo­ple. Step­ping out of the car I could feel this at­mos­phere – like some­thing you could lit­er­ally touch – a pres­ence. The peo­ple who greeted me were all smil­ing, to­tally ‘up’. And then I was taken into a room to meet him and we sat and talked – don’t ask me what was said be­cause I’m not go­ing to tell you.

I thought it was for a re­cep­tion or some­thing, and I went to his house in the af­ter­noon, fully ex­pect­ing there to be a big crowd of peo­ple. Step­ping out of the car I could feel this at­mos­phere – like some­thing you could lit­er­ally touch – a pres­ence. The peo­ple who greeted me were all smil­ing, to­tally ‘up’. And then I was taken into a room to meet him and we sat and talked – don’t ask me what was said be­cause I’m not go­ing to tell you.

Then he said, ‘Let’s go into the gar­den,’ which is where the picture was taken. I thought, ‘OK – that’s where every­body else is.’ But we go into the gar­den and there’s still just the two of us! And then he said he’d like to give me his book, Long Walk to Free­dom. He signed it, and wrote some­thing to me. So that was the day. To be in­vited out of the blue like that – to be the only per­son there – it was such a priv­i­lege.

I was told that he and his fel­low pris­on­ers had lis­tened to my mu­sic in prison. I was of­fered a lot of money to go to South Africa [to per­form] dur­ing apartheid, but I would never have done that.
I was told that he and his fel­low pris­on­ers had lis­tened to my mu­sic in prison. I was of­fered a lot of money to go to South Africa [to per­form] dur­ing apartheid, but I would never have done that.
But vis­it­ing when Man­dela had just been made pres­i­dent was fan­tas­tic – to see the ex­pec­ta­tion and joy and that feeling of ‘we’ve done it!’ from every­body. You felt that even at the air­port.

Peo­ple were com­pletely sup­port­ive of him, en­thused and lifted by him, and were wait­ing for the best of every­thing to hap­pen be­cause of him. Nel­son Man­dela had this in­nate qual­ity about him. I al­ways say to peo­ple, I know why I’m here: I was born to write and to do mu­sic. And I think he was born to be that ex­am­ple and to help peo­ple to un­der­stand some­thing. To go through what he did and come out of it with that com­pas­sion and for­giv­ing na­ture; to be able to say, ‘I’m go­ing to for­give you in the proper, true sense of the word, and not hold a grudge...’ That’s a very spe­cial per­son.

Peo­ple were com­pletely sup­port­ive of him, en­thused and lifted by him, and were wait­ing for the best of every­thing to hap­pen be­cause of him. Nel­son Man­dela had this in­nate qual­ity about him. I al­ways say to peo­ple, I know why I’m here: I was born to write and to do mu­sic. And I think he was born to be that ex­am­ple and to help peo­ple to un­der­stand some­thing. To go through what he did and come out of it with that com­pas­sion and for­giv­ing na­ture; to be able to say, ‘I’m go­ing to for­give you in the proper, true sense of the word, and not hold a grudge...’ That’s a very spe­cial per­son.
(Source : interview in Daily Telegraph, 2018)