NELSON Mandela's smile does not change. His beaming grin, which causes crinkles around his eyes, is infectious.
So it was when he visited Leeds in 2001, attracting thousands to Millennium Square at the front of Leeds Civic Hall.
Mr Mandela, Nobel Peace Laureate, man of forgiveness, the man who more than any other ensured there was no bloodbath when apartheid was abolished and power changed hands in South Africa, was in Leeds for a variety of reasons.
He was to receive the Freedom of the City. He was to formally open Millennium Square. He was to re-dedicate Mandela Gardens, named after him in 1983 as a gesture of support as he spent his 16th year in prison on Robben Island.
He was also in Leeds in recognition of the hundreds of ordinary people of the city who took action to isolate apartheid South Africa and to contribute to bringing down its Government and introducing democracy.
Collective
Leeds Anti-Apartheid group was one of many, in Great Britain and around the world, that used collective power to help destroy apartheid. Members operated in trades unions, in schools and universities.
They marched and demonstrated, lobbied politicians. They raised funds. They organised boycotts of banks and other businesses with trade links that helped prop up the apartheid regime.Many of the Yorkshire campaigners were in Millennium Square when the "old man" made his visit to Leeds seven years ago.
The day was one of many great days they had enjoyed. There was the great day on which Mr Mandela was filmed walking to freedom in South Africa. Jon Snow, TV newsman who had covered that tumultuous event, was in Leeds in 2001 for the visit.
There was the great day in 1994 when the African National Congress swept to power in South Africa's first democratic elections, with Nelson Mandela as the country's President. But now here was another great day, the day when Nelson Mandela came to Leeds.
He walked more slowly than on his walk to freedom. He had become frail. But the smile was still there. He left Leeds Civic Hall after shaking hands with civic leaders – including those who had opposed the naming of Mandela Gardens after him in 1983.
In 2001 they stood in line to greet him as one of the world's great statesman. At the time I wrote: "It is hard to comprehend the nature and character of a man whose forgiveness of his enemies is total, whose commitment to reconciliation is so absolute that not one word of anger has been recorded against those who sought to destroy him, mentally and physically, for so many decades."
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