After his return from exile, Thabo Mbeki was teaching his mentor and leader, Walter Sisulu, to drive.
The novice hiccupped along as learner drivers do, and eventually the mission was aborted. The reason: Sisulu refused to use the hooter to clear children from the streets, insisting instead on stopping the car to shoo them to safety.
Sisulu’s humanity is the most important of many virtues to have been highlighted this week, as the nation reflected on his 50 years of political service to South Africa and his unique style of leadership. His life holds lessons for his party, the African National Congress, and for the young nation he helped to shape.
All of us can draw inspiration from a young man who left rural Transkei for Johannesburg in the late 1920s with almost no education, armed with the desire to better himself. He rose from milkman to estate agent at a time when it was rare indeed for black people to own businesses.
When, a few years later, the ANC needed his services, Sisulu promptly gave up his new profession to assume the position of secretary general — the movement’s first — when there was no guarantee that he would receive a salary.
Unassuming, clear-minded and completely dedicated to the task of developing a mass movement from what had been a “toy telephone” for middle-class leaders, he played a critical role in building the ANC’s membership to more than 100 000 by the time it was banned.
More than any other factor, it was the growth of the movement among ordinary black South Africans that alarmed the National Party government of Hendrik Verwoerd and triggered the repression of the 1960s that forced the ANC underground.
The Rivonia Trial, where he appeared alongside Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and other leaders after the police raid on Lilliesleaf farm, was perhaps Sisulu’s finest hour.
It had been decided that to preserve his mythical stature from sniping by formidable state prosecutor Percy Yutar, Mandela would not take the witness stand.
Sisulu, as unofficial second-in-command, would assume this role.
For three consecutive days he held Yutar at bay, withstanding repeated attempts to draw him into incriminating his fellow accused. It is said that Yutar was so disconcerted that he had him temporarily separated from the other defendants.
To read Sisulu’s calm, rational, plain-speaking defence of the ANC’s move to armed struggle is a moving experience. Many observers believe that it was his performance in the dock, more than anything else, that saved the Rivonia trialists from the gallows.
Never one to sway with intellectual fashion, Sisulu’s belief in non-racialism was immovable through 26 years of imprisonment on Robben Island. After the ban on the ANC was lifted in the early 1990s, he would continue his low-profile service to the movement to which he gave his life, routinely appearing for work at its headquarters in Johannesburg.
As reports in this edition of the Mail & Guardian reveal, he remained humble and hard-working to the end.
In the new era — when political office frequently comes with power, perks and access to resources — Sisulu’s life poses a challenge.
His humility, and the fact that he never took government office, are a standing reproach to those in the ruling party whose overmastering concern is to amass power and influence.
His ethic of service and self-sacrifice are in marked contrast to those who view the ANC as a passport to the good life. His non-racialism, and openness to diversity and debate, stand in contrast to the lip-service often paid to such democratic values in post-apartheid South Africa.
His voice of reason, which often sought to moderate radical posturing and militant rhetoric, his thoughtfulness and plain speaking should serve as an example to present-day populists, particularly in the ANC Youth League, addicted to empty sloganeering.
His life invites party politicians and public servants to revisit their reasons for joining the liberation movement in the first place. His life also invites those of us who are outside political office to become to this nation more than bit players in our own spheres of life.
To counter “careerism” and the self-centred politics of faction, the ANC is now calling for the emergence of a “new cadre”. The governing party’s strategists says this new cadre would be a selfless servant of the nation, who even in the pursuit of individual goals and ambitions  would have the interest of fellow citizens at heart.
The model for this new cadre already exists. Sisulu, together with others of the ANC old guard, embodied all the values that the new breed should emulate.
And so as he passes on to the next world — a world devoid of prejudice, injustice and inequality — he does so without the earthly honours of office others count as marks of great leadership.
But we, the people for whom he lived his life, can reward this titan with the honour he would most appreciate: we must strive to be the human being that he was.