When, in the 1980s and 1990s, I worked for a UK grant-making trust supporting NGOs in South Africa, I was fortunate to get to know Arthur Chaskalson a little. As Denis Herbstein's obituary implies, he was a great and wise man – but in person he was also exceptionally kind, modest and even a little shy. When we went out for a meal with my then 18-year-old son, he treated the young man as very much an equal.
When the apartheid government withdrew my visa exemption, it was Arthur who, following Mandela's release from prison, used his influence to get it back for me. As democracy came on the horizon, I asked him whether black expectations, which were very high, were not bound to be disappointed, leading to continuing political violence and turmoil. I have always remembered his reply: "Never underestimate the power of the liberation of the spirit."