Shrine grows up to late South African president at building in Trafalgar Square that became focus for anti-apartheid protests
Standing by the steps of South Africa House on Trafalgar Square, the focus for decades of anti-apartheid demonstrations in London, Simphiwe Sikhosana could hardly have been a better representation of the transformed nation bequeathed by Nelson Mandela.
Wearing a T-shirt bearing the late South African president's beaming face and a scarf in national colours, the 53-year-old nurse briefly posed for cameras, giving a plaintive toot on a vuvuzela, the aural symbol of post-apartheid South Africa's most prominent recent moment, the 2010 football World Cup.
"I'm here because he means so much to me. He is my hero, and he's the reason I'm here, and I've had the chances I've had," she explained afterwards. "It's because of him that the doors that were closed to me are now open."
Growing up near Johannesburg under apartheid, Sikhosana joined the bloody 1976 protests against the policy of teaching black students in Afrikaans rather than English. The fact she learned English and was able to train as an operating theatre nurse eventually brought her to London 10 years ago.
"If he hadn't changed my country I would never have been able to come here," she said. "I've been at the same hospital all my time here and they treat me so well. I told them I was going to come here before work this morning and they said: 'That's fine, come in as late as you need to.'"
Equally emotional, but with a distinctly different backstory, was Gary, a 43-year-old HR manager, who paused on his way into work to add a bunch of flowers to the fast-growing shrine outside the high commission building.
When he was growing up white in apartheid South Africa, he recounted, Mandela initially meant almost nothing to him: "When I was young he was barely mentioned. It was like he didn't exist. But then he united everyone. He became the father of the nation."
Gary said he had "bawled his eyes out" on hearing the news of Mandela's death on Thursday night and awoke to find just about everyone he knew at home united in similar grief, much of it expressed on Facebook.
He said: "For us he was hope, he was freedom, he was the future. It's a lot for one man to carry on his shoulders, but he managed it."
Gary recalled seeing Mandela speak at a private event in 1994: "He has this incredible presence. When he walked into the room you had this real sense of someone arriving. That said, he was known for being awful with reading written speeches and when he started we were thinking: 'Is this what we've been waiting so long to hear?' But as soon as he got off the text he was completely different, so engaging."
London was home for many years to many of Mandela's exiled ANC comrades while he was in prison, and it was in 1960 that the hugely influential Anti-Apartheid Movement was formally launched at a rally in Trafalgar Square, under the initial name of the Boycott Movement.
The London-based organisation was instrumental in applying pressure for the decades of economic, cultural and sporting sanctions that so damaged the apartheid regime, while South Africa House was a regular venue for protests and rallies. In 1985 a Polish artist famously projected a swastika on the top of the building's portico, an image that enraged South Africa's government of the time.
About a mile down Whitehall is a symbol of a very different moment in South African history – the bronze statue of Mandela in Parliament Square, unveiled in 2007 at a ceremony attended by Mandela himself.
Another impromptu shrine was forming here, including flowers, written messages and a scattering of copies of the free newspaper Metro featuring a picture of Mandela on its front cover, presumably left by passing commuters with nothing else to hand.
Miles Ridley walked from his south London home to deposit a bunch of roses at the base of the plinth. Even for Britons like him with no direct connection to South Africa, he said, Mandela had a special resonance.
He said: "I was listening to Tony Blair on the radio this morning saying how Mandela could talk to anyone, and how when he went to Downing Street he spent ages talking to all the cleaners.
"I was talking to my sister, and she said: 'I almost felt like we actually knew him.' And that's right – in a funny sort of way it was like he was a family friend." Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
Standing by the steps of South Africa House on Trafalgar Square, the focus for decades of anti-apartheid demonstrations in London, Simphiwe Sikhosana could hardly have been a better representation of the transformed nation bequeathed by Nelson Mandela.
Wearing a T-shirt bearing the late South African president's beaming face and a scarf in national colours, the 53-year-old nurse briefly posed for cameras, giving a plaintive toot on a vuvuzela, the aural symbol of post-apartheid South Africa's most prominent recent moment, the 2010 football World Cup.
"I'm here because he means so much to me. He is my hero, and he's the reason I'm here, and I've had the chances I've had," she explained afterwards. "It's because of him that the doors that were closed to me are now open."
Growing up near Johannesburg under apartheid, Sikhosana joined the bloody 1976 protests against the policy of teaching black students in Afrikaans rather than English. The fact she learned English and was able to train as an operating theatre nurse eventually brought her to London 10 years ago.
"If he hadn't changed my country I would never have been able to come here," she said. "I've been at the same hospital all my time here and they treat me so well. I told them I was going to come here before work this morning and they said: 'That's fine, come in as late as you need to.'"
Equally emotional, but with a distinctly different backstory, was Gary, a 43-year-old HR manager, who paused on his way into work to add a bunch of flowers to the fast-growing shrine outside the high commission building.
When he was growing up white in apartheid South Africa, he recounted, Mandela initially meant almost nothing to him: "When I was young he was barely mentioned. It was like he didn't exist. But then he united everyone. He became the father of the nation."
Gary said he had "bawled his eyes out" on hearing the news of Mandela's death on Thursday night and awoke to find just about everyone he knew at home united in similar grief, much of it expressed on Facebook.
He said: "For us he was hope, he was freedom, he was the future. It's a lot for one man to carry on his shoulders, but he managed it."
Gary recalled seeing Mandela speak at a private event in 1994: "He has this incredible presence. When he walked into the room you had this real sense of someone arriving. That said, he was known for being awful with reading written speeches and when he started we were thinking: 'Is this what we've been waiting so long to hear?' But as soon as he got off the text he was completely different, so engaging."
London was home for many years to many of Mandela's exiled ANC comrades while he was in prison, and it was in 1960 that the hugely influential Anti-Apartheid Movement was formally launched at a rally in Trafalgar Square, under the initial name of the Boycott Movement.
The London-based organisation was instrumental in applying pressure for the decades of economic, cultural and sporting sanctions that so damaged the apartheid regime, while South Africa House was a regular venue for protests and rallies. In 1985 a Polish artist famously projected a swastika on the top of the building's portico, an image that enraged South Africa's government of the time.
About a mile down Whitehall is a symbol of a very different moment in South African history – the bronze statue of Mandela in Parliament Square, unveiled in 2007 at a ceremony attended by Mandela himself.
Another impromptu shrine was forming here, including flowers, written messages and a scattering of copies of the free newspaper Metro featuring a picture of Mandela on its front cover, presumably left by passing commuters with nothing else to hand.
Miles Ridley walked from his south London home to deposit a bunch of roses at the base of the plinth. Even for Britons like him with no direct connection to South Africa, he said, Mandela had a special resonance.
He said: "I was listening to Tony Blair on the radio this morning saying how Mandela could talk to anyone, and how when he went to Downing Street he spent ages talking to all the cleaners.
"I was talking to my sister, and she said: 'I almost felt like we actually knew him.' And that's right – in a funny sort of way it was like he was a family friend." Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.