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It is one of the supreme ironies that on 11 February 1990, the day that Nelson Mandela was released after 27-and-a-half years in prison, the event that much of South Africa and the rest of the world had been waiting decades for, the country was not ready for him. The iconic image of that moment – a lean, beaming Mandela in a dark suit emerging from Victor Verster prison holding hands with Winnie, both raising triumphant clenched fist salutes – belied the chaos around them. The first person to shake Mandela's hand as he exited the prison gates was John Battersby, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor, who had arrived on the scene five minutes before only to walk straight into Mandela, who greeted him with his trademark bonhomie (much to the chagrin of the rest of the journalist pack, who had been waiting outside the gates for 11 hours). | 
