I had my first pint in a bar named after Nelson Mandela.

I was starting my first term at university and, like most newcomers during Freshers’ Week, was desperately trying to make friends with whoever would talk to me.

This largely involved mingling in the Students’ Union bar, which naturally involved drinking watery beer in plastic glasses. Since the bar was at least six deep with thirsty freshers, not to mention second and third-year students eyeing up the fresh meat, it made sense to get pints, beginning a trend that was to last the entire three years of my student life, and beyond.

So it was that I found myself standing in a corner of the Nelson Mandela Bar, sipping my first pint of watery beer, trying to fight off an amorous second-year marine biologist bragging about his prowess as a rower.

The name Nelson Mandela didn’t mean much to me back then. I was a fresh-faced youth, living away from home for the first time and a world away from what was happening in South Africa. My knowledge of apartheid didn’t extend much beyond The Specials’ hit Free Nelson Mandela, which I’d probably danced to at a school disco once.

But as my student life progressed, so did my political horizons. I learned about feminism and got involved in projects tackling issues like sexist advertising and domestic violence; I went on marches against education cuts; joined Greenpeace; and took part in debates on everything from abortion laws to vivisection.

Looking back, I was probably a right smart Alec – but this was Thatcher’s Britain, The Smiths were the student band of choice, and I was young and idealistic.

One of the burning issues of the time was apartheid in South Africa. In the UK, there was a strong student anti-apartheid movement and within the confines of campus life you couldn’t escape information stands, demos and fundraisers supporting the cause.

True, it became a ‘fashionable’ cause to get behind, but it seemed perfectly natural to oppose such a brutal regime of segregation. When I joined a student contingent on a huge anti-apartheid march in London, the words of Jerry Dammers’ song finally came home.

The following year, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Watching his walk of freedom on TV, I thought how different he looked from the black and white photograph I remembered on the wall of the Mandela bar. He was a free man, but looked like he carried the world on his shoulders.

South Africa’s first black president leaves a legacy for the world to build on. If I had a plastic pint glass, I’d raise it in his memory.