Mpho Tutu remembers celebrating her father's birthday with Nelson Mandela This was a very happy day. It was a party for my father [Desmond Tutu], for his 70th birthday, and it was being held at the official residence of the archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, on October 14 - a week after my father's birthday, and actually the day of my mother's birthday. It was a really wonderful party - there was beautiful sunshine and it was such fun. Everyone was especially excited to have Mr Mandela there (I'm leaning between them, and my mother is on Mr Mandela's right). Mr Mandela made a speech welcoming my father to the "club of old men." He told my father that he was an old man now, and that he needed to act appropriately. My father first met Mr Mandela when Mr Mandela was a lawyer and had come to judge a debate at my father's high school. My father was enormously impressed by this handsome, self-possessed, dapper man. Each went on his own path, but in the 1980s Mr Mandela was aware of my father, and when he was in prison my father's work was very encouraging to him. When Mr Mandela was released from prison, in February 1990, he spent his first night of freedom with [his second wife] Winnie at Bishop's Court, the official residence of my father, who was by then the archbishop of Cape Town. I was studying in America at the time, but my father rang me up that night and asked Mr Mandela to "say hi to my daughter." That was typical of my father - even when something that important was happening he had at least an eye and a half on us four children; he's not just a father, he's a real daddy. I met Mr Mandela for the first time later that year - I was running a youth programme in South Africa and I asked him to appeal to the young people, to tell them that the armed struggle was over, and that he had once been young and angry, too, but that he had changed. Over the years the friendship and respect between him and my father grew. They were quite different people - Mr Mandela was very dignified and composed, whereas my father is impish, I guess. But they played off each other well. We had a worship for my parents" 50th wedding anniversary nine years ago, and Mr Mandela and [his third wife] Graça Machel came, so of course the whole congregation attended to see him. My father stood up and said, "I'm not jealous, but it is actually my party." Mr Mandela always used to say to my father, "I'm sure you will send messages up to heaven to ensure that I get a decent reception." He was a humble man. Interview by Jessica Salter The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu (HarperOne, £14.99) is out now