Joan Armatrading remembers a private meeting with Nelson Mandela at his home in Pretoria, 1995

To go through what he did and come out of it with the compassion to say ‘I’m going to forgive you.’ That’s a special person

IN 1995 I WAS IN SOUTH AFRICA to give a concert, and I got a phone call saying, ‘Would you like to meet Nelson Mandela?’ I replied, ‘No thank you..?’ No, seriously, I said, of course, I’d love to.

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.

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.

When I was in South Africa I went to Robben Island, where Mandela was held, and I met some

of the guards who were ‘looking after’ him. They had fallen in love with him. They were talking about how he had changed them, and that they wished they could be looking after him now, in freedom – be a part of his household caring for him. You’re not going to get many prison wardens saying that about their former inmates.

A few years later, I was asked to write a tribute song for him, which I did, called The Messenger, and then to perform it when he came to London for a private function. He came up on stage and danced for the whole of the song. At that point he wasn’t very strong, so it was quite incredible.

I’ve been back to South Africa at various times over the years – in 2014 I was the only non-south African artist to be invited to join in the celebrations of the 20th Anniversary of Democracy. Anybody following Nelson Mandela was inevitably going to fall short. Having said that, I’m not sure the right person was ever picked to follow him, but that’s for the people of South Africa to decide. You’d be very lucky to find another Nelson Mandela. —Interview by Mick Brown

Joan Armatrading’s new album, Not Too

Far Away, is available now. Her British tour starts in September

Mandela presenting Joan Armatrading with a signed copy of his autobiography