Last night Mr Chalk and I went to see ‘The long walk to freedom’, a wonderful film which chronicles Nelson Mandela’s life from a young man up until the time, after his many years in prison, he became President of a democratic South Africa.

I felt that Idris Elba did a wonderful job of portraying ‘Mandiba’ and really captured the essence of him, although I know that some would have preferred a more well-known actor to have taken the role.

Mr Chalk and I – being roughly the same age – compared our memories of apartheid, and realised that  it was something we remained largely unaware of at the time, in fact it almost seemed that it was something happening way way back centuries ago, and not in a time when we were children and teenagers. It was something that was covered in school, but then somehow glossed over, and to think of this now it is unbelievable that such a thing was allowed to happen so recently in time.

Many people often complain that the world is a more sinister place with the advent of the Internet, but we both agreed that in today’s society people are able to communicate more freely, and so unjust regimes are flagged up (not necessarily dealt with however) but at least there is much more of a sense of knowledge and transparency.

The injustice that was happening in South Africa filtered through to the rest of the world, but took an incredibly long time to do so. With today’s technology, news can travel so fast and that’s a good thing.

Mr Chalk and I both remembered the concert that was held for Nelson Mandela’s birthday – a really joyful, happy affair – not long after which he was released. One official said to him the day before he turned 70 – it’s your birthday tomorrow, will you be doing anything to mark it, and he replied ‘Nothing of any consequence’ at which point we saw the thousands of people in London singing and dancing.

A truly wonderful man who was able to forgive those who had wronged him, we do miss him.

My very best wishes,
Wendy x