We both came from journalist backgrounds and shared a fairly jaundiced view of public representatives. Both of our previous, separate efforts at authoring books had centred on pretty unsavoury characters - in Jonathan's case an apartheid spy and mine an unscrupulous businessman - and we expected Gordhan to at least have some skeletons rattling around somewhere, or maybe feet of clay.
So, we nagged his personal assistants in the public enterprises ministry until one day he popped up on our screens for a zoom interview which he began with the question: "Okay, what's your first question?"
In the months that followed, we spent several hours with him doing interviews. During them, he sketched out his extraordinary life from student activist in Durban in the 1970s, to an underground activist for the ANC (when he was brutally tortured by the apartheid Security Branch), to an important and influential player in the multi-party negotiations that gave rise to a democratic South Africa, to turning the South African Revenue Service (Sars) into a world-class organisation, and to becoming a cabinet minister. It was, of course, in this latter guise - in one of his two stints as finance minister - that Gordhan clashed with Zuma as he moved to block various state capture initiatives.
During those interviews Gordhan never once refused to answer a question or tried to influence what we would write. His openness and apparent honesty were quite exceptional.
But for every one of these there were scores of positive comments. Several of the people who knew him well said he was incorruptible. Some said he was a master strategist, while others remarked on his moral courage and that he would always do the "right thing", whether it be standing up against apartheid or against the corrupt tendencies of some of his latter-day colleagues.
