IT WILL remain one of the great what-ifs of history. What if the African National Congress had, in 1965, taken up the offer of a cam­paign song by a relatively un­­known pop band, the Beatles? Would the ANC leader, incarcer­ated at that point for three years, have been released any more quickly? It is a fascinating im­­ponderable, one of many nuggets delivered by Laurie Taylor in Making Mandela (Radio 4, Satur­day), a study of the rise of Man­­­dela as political icon in the UK.

The musician who became asso­ci­ated with the Mandela campaign was Jerry Dammers, of The Specials, through his anthem "Free Nelson Mandela". And the chal­lenges of the anti-apartheid cam­paign in this country were encap­sulated in the story that Dammers tells of his first meeting with Mandela, after his release.

Introduced as the man who penned the liberation song, Man­dela mumbled "Ah, yes, very good," before moving on; the coolness of his greeting the result of his objection to a lyric in the song that referred to Mandela's feet being too small for his shoes.

You can hardly blame Dammers for the exaggerated pathos. Few people had seen Mandela for two decades; the only pictures of him were artists' impressions. And, as Trevor Phillips, who chaired the anti-apartheid campaign for many years, said in this programme, Mandela's distance from the real, grubby world of politics lent him the enchantment of the "über-victim".

As the notional head of a move­ment whose core constituency was white, Mr Phillips clearly felt a certain tension; not least because, in the UK, black support for Man­dela was more muted. The black population in the '70s and '80s, Mr Phillips said, had their own injus­tices to worry about.

The rise of the Mandela cult within British institutions is an astonishing story. In 1964, the post of Honorary President of the Students' Union at University Col­lege, London, was created for Man­dela. By the late '80s, the prisoner had dozens of buildings named after him (and his wife - the source of some embarrassment when Winnie fell from grace), honorary memberships, presiden­cies, and a filing cabinet of honor­ary degrees.

The man who is given the credit for maintaining Mandela's profile during this period was Mike Terry, the executive secretary of the anti-apartheid movement from '75 to '94, who died in 2008. Taking over the cam­paign when it was in financial chaos, Terry instigated a series of Mandela birthday con­­­­­certs, which culminated in the 70th birthday jamboree in 1988, a ten-hour ex­­­tra­­­­va­ganza at Wembley Stadium.

Terry's account was en­­dear­­­ing; a man who, when his task was over, did not hang around, but made another career for himself as a teacher.

This was a programme about reflected glory, and a kind of hero­ism bestowed on ordinary people through contact with extra­ordi­nary circumstances. Terry and Lyons, Phillips and Dammers - all, in different ways, were en­­nobled by a cause. And, even bet­ter, when the cause re-emerged as a real person, with a face and a voice, he did not disappoint.