There's a picture in my office of myself and President Nelson Mandela taken early 1999 when he visited us at the Cape Times where I was Managing Editor.
I have an absurdly pleased expression on my face while his is his familiar comfortable and comforting smile.
Last week, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille told an audience at Alexandra in Gauteng that she was launching a campaign – a campaign to tell the untold story of the DA.
And I was immediately taken back in time to where the process really started…
February 1997, in Cape Town shortly before the opening of parliament, I was having lunch at the Round House restaurant in the shadow of Lion's Head. Sitting across the table from me was former President, former deputy-President, and now leader of the opposition Frederik "FW" de Klerk.
On June 16, 1989, London newspaper The Guardian published a report under the headline "Thatcher 'in plan to force Pretoria deal'".
The substance of that report, strenuously denied by the ANC at the time, subsequently proved to be correct. The process that would lead to the Nelson Mandela's release from prison barely seven months later had already begun.
It's the amazing thing about history – what one believes is true at the time later turns out to be idealist naiveté.