On a hillside at his ancestral home in the Eastern Cape and following a state funeral Nelson Mandela was laid to rest.

Qunu’s most famous son had come home and the world shared in the grief of his family.

Madiba as he was known had chosen the burial plot overlooking the village where as a child he had been baptised, herded cattle and gone to school. The final committal was led by Bishop Dabula

“Rest in Peace. Yours was a truly long walk to freedom and now you have achieved the ultimate freedom in the bosom of your maker God almighty. Amen.”

It was a ceremony mixed with military tradition, a bugler sounding the last post which echoed across the hillsides after a salute from the air with flags of the rainbow nation which Nelson Mandela had led to democracy.