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It is one of the supreme ironies that on 11 February 1990, the day that Nelson Mandela was released after 27-and-a-half years in prison, the event that much of South Africa and the rest of the world had been waiting decades for, the country was not ready for him.

The iconic image of that moment – a lean, beaming Mandela in a dark suit emerging from Victor Verster prison holding hands with Winnie, both raising triumphant clenched fist salutes – belied the chaos around them.

The first person to shake Mandela's hand as he exited the prison gates was John Battersby, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor, who had arrived on the scene five minutes before only to walk straight into Mandela, who greeted him with his trademark bonhomie (much to the chagrin of the rest of the journalist pack, who had been waiting outside the gates for 11 hours).

The release, at 5 pm, was an hour late. Mandela had not been seen in public in almost three decades, and that was in 1962, 14 years beforeSouth Africa got television. He had been absent all that time. Yet in his absence he had grown ever more present.

The convoy stopped a few times so that Mandela could get out and speak to ordinary South Africans along the route. People stared dazed and disbelieving as the convoy made its slow, 40-mile journey to downtown Cape Town.

In the city centre, the expectant crowd of more than 60,000 crushed into the Grand Parade in front of the City Hall, and in the extreme heat, grew restless. Late afternoon gave way to evening and hundreds of people fainted and had to be treated by the first-aid ambulances. Skirmishes broke out and a number of people were shot by police.

All eyes were on the balcony where Mandela was to make his appearance. Familiar faces showed themselves to polite cheering, but people had not come to see Allan Boesak or Jesse Jackson. When Mandela and entourage finally arrived, some time before midnight, he appeared stiff and serious. He read from a prepared speech, carefully spelling out each word.

Many South Africans were not pleased on that balmy evening with what he had to say. Mandela reaffirmed his dedication to the cause of the struggle and the African National Congress, and called for disciplined mass action. This disappointed many whites and those in the business community who, somewhat stupidly, had not expected him to sound so militant.

But he also declared that President FW de Klerk was a "man of integrity", legitimating the Afrikaner leader in the eyes of the black majority, and thereby validating negotiations with the regime as the route to liberation.

This perplexed many of his young followers who were gearing up for the final assault on the apartheid state.

His voice becoming extraordinarily powerful, Mandela closed by repeating his pledge from the Rivonia dock, before he was taken off to life imprisonment on Robben Island, that he was prepared to die in the struggle against white and black domination.

Remembering the euphoria of that night, where Mandela stood tall, reunited with his wife and family, and ready to start building the new South Africa, we could not have known that it would take four more years and many thousands of deaths to reach the promised land.