On April 24 1994, I was clinging to the top of a 30-feet high tower made of scaffolding on a piece of land outside Durban in Natal KwaZulu in South Africa.

In the distance was the stage on which Nelson Mandela was about to address his final political rally before South Africa’s first democratic elections.

The scaffold tower was one of several erected for people to clamber up to get a better view of the stage.

Below me was a crowd of 120,000 people, almost entirely black. Dozens, like me, clung precariously to the scaffolding. With one hand I hung on. With the other I pointed one of my two cameras at the stage.

There was a tap on my shoulder.

I twisted round and behind me was a young black man.

He said: “I shoot you.”

For a split second I thought of jumping from the tower into the crowd.

He then reached towards me, removed one of the cameras from around my neck, took a shot of me and handed the camera back, smiling.

It was one of those experiences which stay with you for life. And I still have the photograph he took. It’s a treasured memento.

I was in South Africa covering the elections, sending reports back to the Yorkshire Evening Post, where I had been a reporter for more than 20 years.

My mission had not gone to plan. I was to have been attached to an observer group from the European Parliament, one of several international delegations appointed to see that the elections were free and fair.

On landing in Durban the leader of the group decided that the presence of a camera-wielding journalist might jeopardise the trust which it had taken two years to build between the observers and the dozens of political parties and factions taking part in the elections. So I was dumped in Durban, alone, and the observers moved on.

It was not a comfortable feeling. There were fears of violence and the atmosphere was tense. The white supremacist Afrikaner Resistance Movement had already bombed the offices of the African National Congress in Johannesburg and bombs had been planted at the city’s airport.

There had been violence between ANC supporters and those of Inkatha, the party of Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Agents provocateurs were believed to be encouraging conflict, hoping to wreck the elections.

When I booked into my Durban hotel the receptionist had said that for a few extra rand I would be given the key to a safe in my room “for your handgun.” It was a surreal concept — it shook me.

Back home in Leeds I had contacts with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and a South African comrade. I did not know it, but for over a decade he was in fact an ANC operative working under cover, raising funds across northern England during the apartheid years.

Before I left England he had given me two phone numbers “in case you need help in South Africa.”

I rang one of them. It was the home of a family of ANC activists — two teachers and their son. They were of Indian origin.

They collected me by car and I was to spend the next 10 days as their house guest, on the election trail, meeting dozens of young ANC activists. 

After a day’s electioneering we would gather at their local headquarters in a sprawling township outside Durban, eating vegetable curry and dahl from a huge communal pot as darkness fell.

Going outside I saw a figure in the shadows. It was a young ANC activist with a rifle, guarding his headquarters and his comrades.

I used the ANC fax to send reports back to my newspaper. My hosts were called Smalls and Maya. They were Hindus. I visited their temple, where I met an elderly and wise gentleman. 

I thought I knew a lot about apartheid, but learned more from him. He pointed out the geography of three neighbouring communities outside Durban — white, black and Asian.

Between the white and black communities ran an electrified railway. Between the white and Asian communities ran a motorway. Between the black and Asian communities was a huge cemetery.

The railway and motorway were obvious obstacles to any contact between the communities, routed there for that purpose.

As for the cemetery, the old man told me that members of the black community would not cross it for reasons of religion or superstition.

“So you see,” he said, “they even use our dead to keep us apart.”

Smalls and Maya were my guides and interpreters. It was they who took me to the Nelson Mandela rally. The venue was partly surrounded by hills. In the distance we could see columns of thousands of Zulus descending, swaying and chanting. The heads of the columns had already arrived, the people still chanting rhythmically.

“They shouldn’t be saying that,” said Smalls, shaking his head. I asked what it meant.

“Death to the Boer,” he said.

In Mandela’s speech to the rally, he produced a specimen ballot paper — I still have one. On it are more than 30 parties, listed by name, each accompanied by the party’s symbol, alongside a photograph of the party leader. 

The ANC symbol is a wheel, a fist grasping a spear and a traditional African shield.

“If you look down the ballot paper you will see the symbol of the ANC,” Mandela told the crowd. “And alongside the symbol you will see a photograph of a handsome young man.” He was in his seventies of course. The crowd roared.

The elections came and lasted three days. There are historic photographs of mile-long queues of people waiting to vote.

Accompanied by Maya, I interviewed some of the people queuing to vote. As I approached one black man in the queue, he took a step back apprehensively. 

I was a white man heading towards him as he was about to vote for the first time. He was suspicious, defensive, and reached for what I assume were his identity papers.

Maya reassured him. He relaxed. She translated. He told me how long he had been queuing, hours, saying that however long it took, he would vote.

I asked him who he would vote for. He replied firmly in English: “My secret!”

Whenever I hear people saying that they don’t bother to vote, I remember that man.

The young ANC activists were out campaigning every day and I went with them. In a print shop at their headquarters they were producing T-shirts with the words “Vote ANC” on the front and “Join the winning team — vote ANC” on the back.

The words are beginning to fade on the two T-shirts I brought back with me, but I still wear them.

I watched the election results on TV with Smalls and Maya in their home, and celebrated with them, their son and his fiancee. 

Later we made a visit together to the family home of the under-cover ANC man in Leeds, meeting his mother and other relatives. He is back in South Africa now.

Throughout my visit the world’s media was flitting between Capetown and Johannesburg, attending press conferences and photo-calls, interviewing important people, while I had been abandoned in Durban. And I can’t tell you how glad I am.