Rest well, Arch

He loved to dance, he loved to laugh - it was completely infectious.

But you also got the sense, when hearing him speak, that no one felt the pain of South Africans as keenly as our ‘moral compass’ The Arch.

Many years ago I was asked to prepare an obituary video when his health deteriorated. We were lucky that we didn’t need it for many more years. Even as we knew he was old and frail, and not likely to stay with us for a very long time, we knew the world would be a poorer place on the day that he would finally leave us.

I reflect on the times I was lucky to be in the presence of greatness throughout my career. I looked back at the heartfelt tribute he gave on a grave day in South Africa to mark the death of his great friend Nelson Mandela. Remarkably the same words could be applied to his own passing:

“We are a family devastated. It is right that we - each one of us - feel this loss. We thought we were going to be able to manage since he had begun to disappear from us physically a long while. But today we devastated. And it is right that we should feel so. For in an extraordinary way he made us feel we were members of one family. And so, we have lost our father.”

Rest well, Arch. And thank you for making us laugh, cry and reflect on the beauty and potential of our own souls.