Johannesburg - Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu turned 83 on Tuesday.
Tutu’s spokesman Roger Friedman said Tutu was spending his birthday morning attending a Eucharist with his family.
Tutu was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp in the former Western Transvaal. According to the independent history and research institute SA History Online (Saho), Tutu had three sisters.
His father Zachariah was the headmaster of a high school in Klerksdorp and his mother, Aletha Matlhare, was a domestic worker.
His family were forced to move to Munsieville, a black location in Krugersdorp, in 1943, where Tutu earned pocket money selling oranges and peanuts.
He also worked as a golf caddie in Killarney.
When he was about 14 years old, he was hospitalised for a year with TB and during this period he became friends with Father Trevor Huddleston, who influenced him towards becoming more involved in the church.
“Tutu was accepted to study at the Witwatersrand Medical School but was unable to obtain a bursary,” the Saho article reads.
He opted to become a teacher.
Tutu was ordained as the Archbishop of Cape Town in August 1986 and became the first black person to lead the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa.
Former Irish president Mary Robinson is expected to deliver the fourth annual Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture at the Western Cape Great Hall in Cape Town on Tuesday evening.
The Star