NELSON Mandela’s bodyguard, Chris Lubbe, visited Bradford Forster Academy and spent the day speaking to all the students and staff.

Drawing on his story of resistance against apartheid, Mr Lubbe kept the children "spellbound" as he took them on a journey of discovery about his life. He grew up in a ghetto in Durban, South Africa, met Steve Biko and wrote a letter to the Queen at the age of nine to ask her to help in the struggle against apartheid. She later showed him the letter when she met him at Buckingham Palace many years later when he worked for Nelson Mandela. She had kept the letter and it had inspired her to write to the South African president.

Mr Lubbe also experienced first-hand the brutality of apartheid when he was tortured in prison and he later met and worked with his torturers, who he forgave and who is now a good friend.