John Hume: 'the clearest and most consistent voice for peace'

He kept his word, that was the extraordinary thing, an emotional young student said, as we watched John Hume stride, smiling, through a score of cameras and towards the hall of Belfast's Dominican College.

Inside, the welcoming roar and storm of applause deferred only to the sweet, gentle strains of two young musicians playing the new Nobel laureate's favourite, heartfelt song about his native Derry, The Town I Loved So Well. These were stirring times.

Yes, he had kept his word. And, amazingly, he was on time, too, for this long-standing date with the political societies of the Dominican and Victoria Colleges, two schools bridging the political divide.

It could hardly have been a more appropriate setting, nor the introduction of Sister Rosaire Boden more fitting. John Hume, she said, signified words such as "steadfastness, nobility, self-sacrifice". In a simple school hall decorated with bunting of European flags, with the russet autumn leaves dancing past the windows, and hundreds of media from every continent, the Nobel laureate rose to say: "I don't see this as a personal award . . . but a powerful international statement of goodwill and support for the peace process and an endorsement of all those who played a role in that process."

And having got that off his chest, he delivered a diverting primer on Northern Ireland politics. To build this new society, he told this new generation, "We'll spill our sweat, not our blood."

And then it seemed perfectly natural that he should have to trot off the podium for a minute, to take a call from the White House. The morning that had started at 8.30 with Alpen and bananas had taken a sharp upward turn with a call from a journalist who had heard the news on Norwegian radio, upon which his wife, Pat, had turned to him and said: "You got it!"

And there were schoolgirls mobbing him for autographs in the first stirrings of a John Hume Superstar cult. And there was yet another media schmuck asking him what he intended to do with the money, all £290,000 of it. The answer? He'd find "a very good use for it", thank you.

With exemplary patience and "a blinding headache", he was still there at 4 p.m., solemnly repeating his views in several languages to every fresh new television interviewer, all wanting to pin down the "personal" John Hume. Finally his patience ran out.

While the cameras rolled for one British television channel, the undiluted negativity of the interviewer stung him beyond endurance. "You can always be as negative as you are, but you will never solve problems," he said sternly, before adding: "And I'm sorry I took on this interview." And forbade them to broadcast it.

No sir, we thought proudly, you don't mess with John Hume, Nobel laureate, peacemaker, superstar.

And then he got into the car provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs ("He'd have been mobbed on the train," a happy official explained) and headed for Dublin and The Late Late Show.