One of his “secrets” (though they weren’t secrets at all because he was remarkably open and frank) was the word “opportunity”. He used it often, and in varying contexts. I think he didn’t view the situation as a problem to be fixed, so much as an opportunity to be created from.

Tom, there’s so much more I want to tell you about this man and what he created which goes to your question. I want to tell you about how the group he built consisting of the leaders of the “rival” ethnic groups, the security guards, the Council rangers, the Deputy School Principals, Rotary members, the Church ministers and youth clubs would, every Thursday night, walk the community together (“together” was the theme word for everything they did, he said). And about how once they’d calmed things down, he had the youth clubs do a survey of thousands of youths about what was missing for them and they responded that they wanted a place to dance and job-seeking assistance. So now, Thursday nights in the shopping centre are about hip-hop classes and a six-weekly dance spectacular, and about job-seeking seminars.

My problem is that I’m feeling hamstrung because I want his story to be a centrepiece of the book and yet I also want to share it in full colour straightaway. If I jump the gun and tell all the stories on the blog before the book’s even been written, does it matter? I don’t know to handle this. Have you got some ideas?