Anthony Hazlitt Heard, who died on 27 March aged 86, was an indefatigable fighter for social justice and media freedom with an impish sense of humour and an innate human empathy.

Tony Heard's loathing for injustice of any kind combined with unshakeable idealism was based on the belief that South Africa would overcome its post-apartheid challenges and that a nonracial democracy based on fair play would prevail in the long run.

One of the two key drivers in Heard's life was living through the horror of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and witnessing and then reporting on the historic protest march nine days later from Langa township to police headquarters in Cape Town led by Philip Kgosana, a UCT student and regional leader of the Pan Africanist Congress

The second was Heard's lifelong quest to resolve the mystery of his father, George's disappearance in Cape Town while he was on active service against Nazi sympathisers during the closing days of World War 2. Heard was seven at the time of his father's disappearance.

But the defining moment in Heard's professional life was his decision to travel to London in October 1985 to interview Oliver Tambo, the outlawed leader-in-exile of the banned African National Congress in defiance of the banning laws in South Africa.

I had been writing a column from London as bureau chief for the Morning Newspaper Group.

On several...