On his way back from a European Court appeal for his son in April this year, Lim Kit Siang stopped by London to speak to students at the London School of Economics on the newly formed alternative front. I caught him after the talk and asked if I could interview him for a (now defunct) Malaysian student magazine. He agreed -- reluctantly at first -- but eventually writing down an address and phone number to contact him at in London.

Thus at 10 the following morning, I found myself outside an apartment in Bayswater, waiting to talk to the Opposition leader. I buzzed the doorbell. Once. Twice. Still no reply and I started getting apprehensive. Would the Opposition leader really have time for a student he had never met before, a magazine he had never seen?

Then I thought I heard a voice say hello faintly and I leaned towards the speaker excitedly. "Hello? Mr. Lim? This is Miss Lee from the talk at LSE yesterday," I said loudly.

"Yes, Miss Lee," said the voice, clearly and from behind me. I turned, embarrassed, to find I had been ringing the wrong bell. Lim had seen me from the window of his apartment next door and had come down to meet me. He had just the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

We adjourned to a nearby caf and ordered black coffees. He was modestly dressed in a simple brown jumper, shirt and slacks, his greying hair slicked back neatly and his eyes a bit tired behind the glasses.

He could have been any student's father taking in London's second Chinatown on a slightly overcast Saturday morning. And it was strange. I felt I knew him, but his face didn't sit in my memory anywhere. I couldn't place it.

He certainly did not look the mad dictator the way he was branded by newspaper advertisements during the election campaign over the sacking of some party stalwarts.

As we talked, he offered a reason as to why I couldn't seem to recognise him even though his name was legend.

"Have you ever seen my face in the papers?" he asked at one point.

I was too humiliated to say no, but try as I might I could not recall any clear pictures of him. Surely I could recall one instant ... but my mind was turning up blank. He was a complete stranger but for his name. I managed to shrug and cringe at the same time.

"In my 30-year career as an MP I have never once been invited to speak on television," he said simply, unsurprised, unexcited.

Relieved though I was, I kept trying to find a memory but couldn't. He easily dodged my questions about how DAP could possibly work with PAS and what he expected to do with KeADILan. After an hour I was getting exhausted and one question had been burning my tongue even though it seemed horribly facile.

"How is Guan Eng?" I blurted finally.

"Oh he's fine, he's fine ... keeping his spirits up and reading a lot," he smiled.

"You must be very ... proud of him," I said haltingly.

He kept smiling, eyes lost in a distance, and did not speak for a while.

"When I was first detained under the ISA myself, Guan Eng was only eight years old and he didn't understand what was going on. His friends at school taunted him, saying his father was a bad man because only bad men go to jail.

"Then we were both arrested under Operasi Lalang in 1987 and he got to be in jail together with me." The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. "Now he has to go it alone and he is worried about the effect it might have on his two-year-old son."

Lim's eyes were looking directly at me now and he was still smiling, but it was not the open smile with teeth that I had seen before. His lips were pressed together and he looked horribly sad even though the ends of his mouth curved upwards still.

It was the same look I saw on his face in a picture on the Internet this week, when he confirmed his loss of seats in parliament and state assembly. But there, he was not smiling any longer.

"You tell me what holds the opposition party together," he had said, further into the interview. "Money? Power? I don't have anything. I can't promise my party members anything and they know it. What can I give them to hold their loyalty?"

Why politics then, I asked. Why did he get involved? A love of the country, was his answer. His early influences in politics, he said, stemmed from the 1950s, when a large number of colonies gained their independence. He was at university then and it was a very exciting time.

"There was a wave of optimism and excitement among the Afro-Asian countries then and the first Afro-Asian conference was held in Malaysia too. There was just a great feeling that people should be part of their society and contribute to it," he said.

That feeling has never left him and that ideal is what he wants to see Malaysia return to -- "a vibrant civil society".

"You're writing this for that student magazine, aren't you?"" he asked as we parted. I nodded and said yes. "Well, I hope you get something out of this," he smiled (with teeth, normal again) and waved goodbye.

It was all optimism and hope then, just a few months ago. When we left the coffee house, there was a buzzing in my ears and I was practically dancing. Here was an example of idealism and perseverance, I thought. He paid for the coffees.

What can you say now to a man who has poured heart and soul into a country that no longer recognises as one of its voices of conscience?

Again, I find myself cringing, with words that fall far short, but I would like to say thank you, Mr. Lim. Thank you for all you have done. I won't forget what you look like and I will miss your voice in parliament.

LEE TSE YIN is doing her masters in Southeast Asian studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She would like to build her own library one day and publish a magazine in Malaysia.