With Oxford bathed in beautiful June sunshine, Oxford University’s Public Orator (in latin of course) offered a welcome many feared they would never hear. “I present a star shining in the east, the light of her countrymen, Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Having left the city 24 years ago, the Burmese democracy campaigner recognised that her return to Oxford, where she had known happiness over many years as a student and later as a wife and mother, would be tinged with sadness.

Dealing with her own emotions on such a poignant visit, while responding to the honours showered upon her at the various ceremonies, cannot have been easy, even for this supremely self-disciplined woman who has survived so much.

We can only hope the rapturous welcome made her feel at home again in the city she never forgot, and which clearly will never forget her.