Sweet white wine for Madiba
2003-02-11 15:30
Cape Town - Thirteen years ago, Nelson Mandela walked to freedom through the security gates of Paarl's Victor Verster Prison.
The former president plans to mark the occasion quietly, with a glass of sweet white wine and the company of close associates and friends at his Bishopscourt residence in Cape Town.
He is not the type of person, his spokesperson, Zelda la Grange, told Sapa on Tuesday, "to remember such things".
Mandela, who turns 85 this year, has spent 27 years of his life in prison.
Asked what he would be doing at 16:16 on Tuesday - the exact moment, 13 years ago, when he became a free man - she said the former ANC leader "will be resting".
However, a dinner was planned for the evening with a number of "close associates and friends".
She declined to name those invited, and did not know what would be on the menu, although she did say Mandela favoured "very sweet white wine, probably a noble late harvest".
La Grange said Mandela was set to start work on Monday on his new book, a sequel to the bestseller "Long Walk to Freedom".
This is expected to take six months to complete.
- SAPA