NORMAN'S BLOG THAT GOT US TALKING AFTER 40 YEARS
SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2006
SACS66
Gentlemen:
I have had little interest in maintaining contact with the SACS and its Old Boys Union. I was, however, surprised at my reaction to the notice of our 40th school reunion. It reminded me of how fast time was passing of time and an accompanying sense of mortality.
Over the year many SACS old boys that I have met professed a lack of interest in SACS. Some expressed anger, were vitriolic, and were disparaging and dismissive of both the school and any desire to maintain contact.
At the same time there was also a sense of pride at having being at SACS and gratitude that they had made lasting friendships at the school.
A 'curious' dichotomy? On the one hand the active disconnect from the school and, on the other, the pride of heritage and the enjoyment of the bonds of friendship that had been forged. I have wondered what were the dominant issues.
Was it because that SACS as an institution failed to provide any moral direction during a time of political turbulence and was effectively a tool for perpetuating a privileged status quo in South Africa. That it created a cocoon that excluded any view of an apartheid world around? Was it because it emphasised conformity and ‘school values’ over nurturing the individuality and talents of its students? Was it the excessive disciplinarian culture that it forced on us? Did we at some level feel betrayed by an environment that allowed alleged paedophiles in its midst? Are many of us just generally disappointed by the lost opportunity presented by a repressive, archaic and mediocre school system?
I have launched a blogger site and invite you to post your story, thoughts and anecdotes. (See attached). If this is too hard just press the ‘reply to all" response button on your e-mail.
That great British film "IF" with Roddy McDowell sums up my thoughts. Many of you probably saw this film and may have identified with it. The question in the end was which side of the divide you stood? On the side of the traditional stalwarts who put the institution ahead of the individual -- or on the side of the resisting individual who eventually subjected parents, the prefects, teachers in bat capes and others to guerrilla gunfire from the rooftops on Founders day? Arguably it was simply a teenage rebellion movie. But teenage rebellion has a lot to do with defining ones person in relation to a parent and to challenge their authority -- even if it was benevolently applied. SACS was a different story where the environment was not always benevolent.
What did an environment based on discipline, control, rote learning and obedience do to all of use? I find it interesting that so very few of us that matriculated in 1966 stood up to be counted in any significant way during the apartheid years! Did SACS ’66 breed a generation of lawyers, doctors, accountants and businessmen? ‘Ja-sayers’ that were trained to become pillars of the apartheid society.
We grew up on a diet of National Education faithfully force-fed by dedicated professionals who were committed to rote learning and espousing the party line. I remember the march on De Waal drive that held up traffic and made us late for school. Don’t recall a reaction? We can argue that our teachers were employees of the state and were concerned about their jobs. It was risky to express ones true view in the context of a repressive state and was symptomatic of the time. But surely there was opportunity to show some disapproval of the society that we lived in and perhaps sow the seed for thought that perhaps there were other ways to live that were less morally reprehensible?
I still vividly recall a history lecture on the ‘domino theory’ as justification for the Vietnam War. In the meantime the rest of the world was on fire. Students were marching. And SACS was playing cricket and rugby and keeping our records clean. We needed to preserve this vestige of Colony, Empire & privilege
One of the most unfortunate and provocative memories I have is of the persistent rumours and allegations of paedophilia that was being committed by teacher(s). In those days we used to talk about it and laugh. It seemed funny at the time in the way that little boys would snigger about something that they did not quite understand. We were too young to even have a name or language for what was going on at the school. But it destroyed an innocence and a created a sense of unease. It was generally accepted as fact that one of our teachers used to take boys - his favourites- on mountain climbing excursions that often included some alleged sexual act. We all know the name of the alleged perpetrator and his victim. I understand that this teacher was subsequently convicted. (Anyone have any details?). How did this happen without any of the other teachers at the school knowing about it. I do believe that it was possible that the powers were ignorant. It was too openly discussed and the notoriety of the perps was widespread. Was it unofficially sanctioned by some of the teachers at the school? Hidden behind some bizarre code of silence? Were we all co-opted in some way and made participant to an insidious conspiracy? We all had a sense that something was wrong but nobody said anything.
Something to be proud about at SACS?
Then there are the memories of the corporal punishment? I laugh at it today. But I recall the fear and pain of getting cuts.
I was first caned when I was about 7 years old. I was too ashamed to tell my parents about it. It was for a minor misdemeanour. I teased a boy in my lift club and his parents complained to Mr. Hunter. He gave me three cuts and labelled me to be perverse. I was in shock for weeks and it was years before I knew what perverse meant. Subsequent beatings for irrelevant misdemeanours such as playing chess under my desk with my cousin was often inflicted in a cloud of alcohol vapour.
Does anybody recall the mass caning that took place in the Junior School? I was maybe 11 at the time. One morning I arrived at in time for the assembly and found that the masters were directing students into two groups. One group was destined to be caned for some unremembered reason. Fortunately I was told to line up in the safe group. It all seemed very arbitrary. Public execution-style -- pupils were caned while others watched. Seemed like half the school was caned. To this day do not know what it was all about but I was pretty frightened to come to school for a few months.
Not only did we endure the threat of officially sanctioned violence on our persons by teachers but there were also marauding gangs of misfits on the playground whose names I remember to this day. Most of who did not make it to matric and probably belonged in institutions other than SACS. I guess that playground bullying was not confined to SACS but it contributes to my collective memory of being in a violent and dangerous place.
The High School was little different,
One could argue that this environment was much like that of the schooling in the movie "IF. There are many similarities. Perhaps these experiences built character and moral fibre and the strength to deal with the world at large. But there are better ways!
Sadly the poor teaching and the misbehaviour of a few taint the good memories. And there were many though I find them hard to recall as they are hidden behind this veil of anger. There were also the good people at the school and those that we had special attachments to. I remember Mrs Kielblock who had to be the kindest. Willie Westall in the Junior school. Esterhuizen. The good guys like Kelly, Badenhorst, Strauss, Ince, Benning. Each of us has favourites. The good guys did outnumber the bad ones. But the context was that of authority, discipline, punishment and violence. Sadly the taint is left by the few.
Is this why so many turned our backs and carry anger around to this day?
It is a small wonder that on our last day of school two raiding parties attacked the school. One group managed to enter the quad and dropped a 30-foot flagpole down a drain. The other painted the white school lions with bright red paint and attributed the vandalism to OBHS. Acts of violence that can only be made sense of in the context of rageful contempt that was unconsciously expressed through these acts.
In a lighter vein let us also use this opportunity to share some of the Nancy Rowland stories? Are we still proud that we were the first Matric year to whom Nancy decided not to give advice for the advancement of our religious and ethical futures? That he had considered us to be his worst class in his career as a teacher and beyond redemption! Needless to say it was deserved after the years of unrelenting torment to which we subjected the poor man.
Any Robin Whiteford experiences and anecdotes? We thank him for the introduction of the words ‘strange’ and ‘curious’ into our vocabulary. For sardonic and sarcastic humour. We thank him for telling us to visit the ant heap and consider its ways and not to bury our talents but to invest them. (Forget for the moment that SACS under his leadership did a good job of burying many of the embryonic talents of its student before they had a chance to develop!)
There it is! Here are some of the reasons for my resentment. I am hopeful that you will be sufficiently interested to enhance or challenge my view and recollections. It would be great if this can stimulate a discussion of the issues. Perhaps there are those of you that have a clearer and maybe a kinder view of what happened.
As for what have I done these past years: B. Bus Sc & Master in Urban Planning from UCT. 20 years in Manhattan, ten years with Donald Trump as an Executive Vice President responsible for the development of Trump City now being built on the West Side of Manhattan. (Arguably the largest and most significant downtown development in the world.) Live in Melbourne for the past 10 years, married to Suzanne, have twin boys Jacques and Raphael and own a business that imports and distributes lighting products.
I hope that you will post your reactions, stories, and anecdotes. Let's not wait till our 50th re-union. Some of us may not be here.
Let us also not forget a few of those colleagues that grew up with us over the years and did not make it to their 40th reunion. These include:
* David "Doody" Silbowitz
* Raymond Zetler
* Sydney "Sid" Gelbart
* Keith Borkum
Best regards
Norman Levin
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With all the "issues" that have been raised by Norman's thoughtful and provocative letter, I wanted to remember the guys who can't look back and reflect after 40 years.
The issues that were raised are valid. I still think about some of them today. There definitely will always be some guilt associated with growing up in such a privileged (and unfair) environment. I don't blame the teachers for not standing up and making political "statements". They were, after all, state employees. It took a brave person to make waves. Our parents have to shoulder some blame. It was not a warm nurturing environment and no effort was made to help kids with self esteem issues. I guess I was lucky.....not brilliant, but bright enough to get to university....good at some sports and considered to be a "jock"......a little thick skinned, so dealt with some of the barbs without too much life changing trauma. Certainly no PTSD! For some it must of been hell....
All the best,
Trevor.
Written by me to Alan Lipman after I posted article about the death of David Silbowitz
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I remember in E1 Norman getting an A for every essay he wrote. He certainly gets an A+ from me on his elequently put opinions. He knows how to put emotions into well articulated words.
It has been said that the strong negativity felt by most old boys of our generation, waned markedly once Whitefords ghost left SACS. The younger generation that grew up under Gordon Law do not perceive this sense of betrayal as strongly as we do. The betral by those who should have been "in loco parentis".
Regards,
Ernie Kirsten
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Hi Guys
I followed Norman's path and did not keep up with the school until my sons attended.
I'm looking forward to catching up with old classmates. No pun.
Memories of Norman - not paying attention in Adendorff's math class, Ernie - cheeking Knoetze, Sean had a whole lot of mailship postcards, Dempsey getting a side on smack from Basson that must have rattled his teeth somewhat; Lipman getting detention for whacking me with a large ruler in Fielding's class; Greg beating your lunch out of you; and MacRobert's stand up comedy with Skillicorn which I enjoyed but Skillicorn didn't.
Best Regards
Rob Cotty
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Hi Norman,
Thank you for an extremely insightful and thought provoking e-mail. It provoked memories that I believed were long gone and buried.
When my wife Melanie (34th anniversary next month) and I moved to Vancouver, Canada twenty five years ago and put our two children into the school system, we were amazed at the variety of options and subjects offered to them. As they grew older they were able to make their own education choices, not only in subjects in which they were interested, but also in sports and numerous other activities. They have both grown into thinking and caring adults capable of making their own choices in life, based on a history of choice rather than a force-fed school system of conformity. They are great people and we will become grandparents in July.
A part of your e-mail describes an environment which took me many years to truly understand just how perverse it really was. Without getting into details, there was an incident when I was about thirteen that had a profound effect on my life for many years. Reading your e-mail is, in many ways, validation that I was not alone. Thank you.
Probably the best decision I have ever made was to leave South Africa.
Experiencing life in a free and open society like North America has been, and still is, an incredible experience. I remember our "shock" when we first arrived here and saw white men digging ditches and building roads. I recall a meeting in Los Angeles in 1981 where the president of my company introduced me to Larry, a black software technician who was moving to Vancouver. I was told later that the president wanted to see my reaction to assess whether we would be able to work together. I realised then that, as South Africans, we believed that Americans and other nationalities did not understand South Africa. We believed they were wrong in their thinking. We believed that Africa is "different". We offered reasons like tribal differences and other excuses that the apartheid system had taught us. BUT WE ARE THE ONES WHO WERE WRONG.
Thanks again for your thought provoking e-mail. It was good to hear from you after all these years.
All the best,
Ivan Kalley
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What an incredibly interesting and well thought out commentary on our schooling and the issues that have shaped our lives.
Norman's article whilst written about SACS, in my view, reflects on the wider issues that was South Africa at that time and I think the SACS scenario is a microcosm of all the extensive problems that beset the broader society.
Without doubt, we were the product of an authoritarian, racially prejudiced and manifestly unjust country. Sitting some fifty years later and examining our schooling through the omniscience of hindsight, it is easy to enumerate all the ills of the system which are many and varied and all absolutely justified in their condemnation. The school almost by definition could not have been otherwise given the accepted norms of the time.
I can’t help but reflect on the present day schooling system in Australia by way of comparison. My three children have just completed 24 years of schooling in a country that is undoubtedly liberal, democratic and comparatively just in its character. Yet, the schooling system hasn’t conquered pedophilia, hasn’t produced many intellectual giants that intelligently comment on the ills of the society whilst they are going through the system, hasn’t produced teachers who in the main choose to or are capable of intelligent commentary on the country. Bullying is rife, state schools are being vacated in droves in favor of private schools with tighter discipline and relatively conservative and authoritarian in their styles and philosophies. Our Baby Boomer generation seems to be attracted to the conservatism and materialism that we so trenchantly criticized in our youth. Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same (Now if I were well educated, I would have quoted that in French!)
I think, if I look back on my schooling at SACS, I agree with Norman with many of his criticisms but it hasn’t left me with any anger or scars in my psyche that I am able to identify. I also believe there is a need for children to have the luxury of certainty in their education. With freedom of thought comes a responsibility that I think is too heavy to bear for young children and certainly for children going through adolescence. I think it would be a huge burden to put the moral onus on young kids to actively seek to change the wrongs of the society that they are born into. That is the responsibility of adults and the Governments that they produce. There is a comfort in a schooling system that allows children the privilege of acquiring knowledge without the pressure of having to analyse the value systems of the day.
I think SACS gave us the luxury to acquire the intellect to judge the ills of our past and contribute well to the betterment of our circumstances in whichever part of the world we seem to have landed. It is almost oxymoronic that Norman is so eloquently, and with such intellectual rigour, able to communicate the failings of his schooling. Maybe the harshness and toughness of our past has stood us in good stead and was a tonic for the soul, very much like the purges of ancient times!
I don’t think we should be creating hagiographies about the SACS history, but I don’t think we should be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Norman, congratulations on your article. It has given me cause to think for the first time in many years and it is a pleasure to enter into intellectual debate with you.
Alan Lipman
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norman,
your letter is certainly food for thought. the immediate responses of ernie and sean are testimony to this.
your feelings of anger,indignation, guilt, repulsion etc etc at our system of education at sacs in the 60's are totally understandable, even admirable, but surely totally misdirected.
our education would have been no better, no different , had we been educated at rondebosch , bishops wynberg etc, or even herzlia, a school which now actually actively encourages pupils to question, to challenge, to be different. a school where teachers wear jeans and t shirts and are often addressed by their first names- a true bastion of progress and liberalism.
and yet the herzlia of the 60's was no different to the sacs of the 60's.
childrens rights, human dignity, civil liberties were not values or concepts familiar or accepted in many parts of the world, let alone apartheid south africa. we finished at sacs before vietnam, before martin luther king, before kent state university.
many of our teachers were probably as much victims, rather than perpetrators, of a reprehensible system, as we were.
rather we should be greatfuil that sacs gave us the resources to write as eloquently as you do, to have been able to recognize good from evil , and for many of us to have made a difference.
remember, there are many people here that still hanker after the old order.
yet i am certain that there is not one of us among them.
i write to you not as a zealous defender and ardent supporter of everything that is sacs, but rather to put forward an alternative opinion which you may care to consider.
all the best mate (is this the right way to end off a letter to an aussie ?)
stan davis.
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Norman -
Thanks for your profound comments and reflections on our time at SACS. You certainly have "lifted a scab" for me, and I need some time to write an appropriately thoughtful response.
Being remarkably inept with all things technical, I haven't figured out how to log on to the "Blogger site". Will you send us a link?
Sean Day
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Hi Norman,
I share many of your reactions to SACS, although the authoritarianism you describe is perhaps attributable as much to the reality of South Africa as it was at that time than to the SACS that we lived and endured. Defensively perhaps, I have also tried to recast some of my negaive reactions to life at SACS into light-hearted comment about life at a privileged boys’ school. Robin Whiteford's cruel sarcasm is now the source of half-hearted amusement as I joke about his complaint in a Latin class over a particular student's confusion over tense "Aahh Class, you can just imagine X as a Roman Charioteer proclaiming to his chariot driver, 'that is a nice town, wasn't it.' Still, it was not very funny at the time, and certainly not for the pupil who was the butt of Robin’s cruel wit. It is harder to treat with humour the punishment that a now notorious primary school teacher meted out indiscriminately and with cruel precision -- a hit from his cane, often unexpected and from behind, because a particular student had failed to cross his arms exactly as instructed. My strongest feeling about SACS, however, remains shame -- shame in spending twelve years there with almost no understanding of the cruel injustices around us. As I see it, SACS insulated us from a great social wrong. Wittingly or otherwise, we were complicitious in our silence.
Leon Trakman
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I read the various comments with interest – there’s probably some truth in each of them. Life is too short to analyse schooldays 40 years back and attribute (philosophical) meaning that almost certainly conflicts with our value systems today.
So I don’t want to do it – I lean towards the comments by Stan Davis …
I’ve wondered what I would say to a SACS boy today if I were asked to reflect on my life and times gone by… and offer him some worldly advice. I think it would be this:
Education is vital - embrace it, but more than the preparation for life is life itself. Aim to do what you love (and lots of it), find time to indulge in the things that please and excite you. Plan an early retirement so that you still have the opportunity and stamina to fulfil those desires. One life, so short. Enjoy and die happy.
Peter Human
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Dear Peter:
Many thanks.
I defer to Socrates on this one: "The unexamined life is not worth living".
Regards
Norman
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I have reflected at length on Norman's comments, and those of others. What surprises me most is the blame that some place on the school for not making us more aware of the injustices around us. But surely our parents had the primary obligation to do this? Why would school teachers risk their careers to speak out if parents were not doing so in the privacy of their homes? I think many parents accepted and embraced the status quo, and would have been outraged if the school had "preached sedition"! And were we really so blissfully unaware? I remember the opposite being true, at least for me. I remember being angry about the injustices around us from my teenage years onward, and I remember being quite impressed by the outspokeness of Robin Whiteford, John Ince and others in casual conversations at Rosedale.
I would make the "time and place" argument. I think SACS did as well as it could, and I think that we were all very lucky to receive a pretty decent education at very little cost compared to the vast majority of our fellow countrymen.
Paedophilia was a problem. I know, because I was a boarder for 10 years (started at Dryfe House in Std 1 in 1957) and had to fight off housemasters 3 times. The worst was when I woke up to find a housemaster in bed with me and embracing me - I fled and woke up Whiteford who summarily kicked him out the next morning.
So much for the tough stuff. Rob Cotty is right about my ship postcards - I still have about 6,000 of them in a trunk at home. I remember talking about my love of ships and the sea in Doug Brown's guidance class, only to have him ask "Day, what possible use can all this knowledge have for your future career?" Well, happily, I have had a very fulfilling career in the shipowning industry, and enjoyed reminding Doug of his remark a few years ago.
I went to sea for a couple of years after SACS, then BBusSc at UCT followed by law at Oxford. Then lived in Asia (Hong Kong and Taiwan) for a few years before meeting a guy in a bar who offered me a job in Montreal. While there, met my now wife who is from Seattle and was in Boston at the time. So moved to New York and joined the thousands of other illegal immigrants there! Set up my own little consulting business (in one of the now famous World Trade towers)- married Ginny and became legal in 1981.
Have lived in the New York area ever since - have four daughters and still happily married. I was lucky enough to work on Wall Street doing LBOs (buying companies using leverage)in the wild '80s and used the knowledge to get investors to back me to buy a ship owning company in 1989. Ran it for 10 years and sold it in 1999. Am now chairman of four NY public companies in the shipping and investment businesses, and still enjoy the stimulation of international business.
I had very little contact with South Africa after I left in 1974. But in 1994 John Ince appealed to me to help pay for extra lessons for children at SACS Junior who were struggling after transferring from township schools. That inspired me to start looking for different ways to support education for those previously disadvantaged in SA, and so I set up a public charity in the US called Friends of South African Schools Fund www.saschools.org Over the years we have supported about 80 children from the townships at schools like SACS, Wynberg, Collegiate, Selborne etc in CT, PE and EL, providing financial support, mentoring and encouragement. As some of you may know, I have recently endowed a scholarship fund at SACS to do the same thing. I have also worked with numerous other organizations in SA (such as SACS old boy Brain Ingpen's wonderful maritime school at Simons Town High) to help provide many more opportunities for young South Africans.
I know that each of you contribute in your own way to things that matter to you, but I would suggest that for those of you who bear a burden of guilt for having benefitted from a government sponsored education at SACS at a time when most received rudimentary schooling at best, you can still compensate by helping young disadvantaged South Africans today. There is huge need - there are many excellent schools in SA but woefully little funding for talented but indigent kids from the townships to attend them.
Best wishes to all of you. I had hoped to attend the 40th but unfortunately the dates clash with family obligations here, so sadly I will miss it. Give me a call if any of you come to New York.
Sean Day
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It's taken me a long time to contribute to Norman's Blog, but not because I felt that the issues were unimportant. Norman's comments struck some very familiar chords, but then there were things I couldn't really relate to.
Norman painted quite a stark picture of SACS as an institution ruled by tyrants, petty or otherwise. I didn't see it quite that way. Maybe it's because I didn't start in Sub A, as it was then called, but only in Standard 2. I managed to survive without getting cuts, but was probably fortunate that Hunter, having taken down the name of several of us involved in a bit of a disturbance one afternoon, seemed to have forgotten about it the next day. Was I perhaps saved by the demon drink?
I certainly can't recall the incident that Norman remembers, when half the Junior School got caned. Maybe it happened before I got there, but then he would have been aged 8 or 9, not 11. But I can certainly recall teachers who didn't need much of an excuse to hit us - Mike Edwards comes to mind, although I was in the other class - the far-less-violent Joan van Dijk. My overriding recollections at the Junior school were of good teachers who weren't particularly nasty (Geo "Wurmpie" van Zyl, and Mrs "Blue Murder" Neethling were notable exceptions). Maybe I was less perverse than Norman, and escaped serious retribution, although I do recall that feeling of apprehension that punishment might lurk round any corner. One afternoon I was waiting to be fetched from school, and went on to the field to practice drop kicks (the rugby kind, not kung fu). Next minute there appeared on the scene one Hunter to crap me out for playing rugby in my school uniform. I can't remember whether I got a punishment, or just had to stop.
One of my biggest fears in high school was of being sent to detention. And sure enough, I left my Latin textbook at home one day, and Japie Irvine uttered those dreaded words "When can you go". I don't suppose detention was that bad, although it was certainly a waste of time. Double that for prefects' detention where the offenders had to perform the instructive task of writing an essay with alternate words in different colours. But when we were prefects, I don't think we gave a thought to changing the system.
With so many more teachers involved in high school education, there were bound to be some good and some bad. Overall, only a couple made a negative impression on me.
Did Nancy Rowland really refuse to give us a talk on ethics and behaviour? In retrospect I'm rather grateful, but surely there were some of us whom he didn't consider as beyond redemption, and it was unfair of him, not to say unbiblical, to deprive them of his wisdom and experience.
The other issue is whether one blames SACS for an education which shielded us from, and largely ignored, the political situation in our country. Others have already said what I also feel, that one can't blame one school when the entire school system operated in the same way. Some of us were well aware of what was happening; others (and I'd include myself in this category) didn't know all that much. I'm sure everyone remembers the day whose anniversary has just been celebrated in South Africa, but equally I remember the day school closed early and we took a roundabout route from Newlands to get home to Sea Point, because the whole of Cape Town central district was full of protesting black people. I think I was in Std 3 at the time, and when I asked what was happening, I was given some explanation or other.
Politics was not something taught at schools, and even history teachers were obviously not allowed to teach anything other than the "official" version of SA history. I can remember Andre Abrahams encouraging people like myself and Louis Baum to read books other than the prescribed "Fouler than shit", but at the end of the day you had to regurgitate the propaganda in order to do well in the matric exams.
I think schools in SA today offer a wider choice of subjects, although the latest educational reforms are looking to cut the number of subjects quite drastically. Having had two children go through the system, two things struck me. The first is that subjects such as Maths and Science have been upgraded by introducing material which we never did for matric, such as calculus. The second is that standards as a whole have dropped noticeably. I see my son who writes matric this year getting a "B" for Afrikaans, and he can hardly put two words together, and has difficulty in reading a whole sentence from an article in Huisgenoot magazine without having to ask for help in translating it. Kids today get an "A" aggregate, but it's very different from an "A" in 1966. A couple of years ago, I analysed the SACS matric results when they were published. Out of about a hundred who wrote, there were about 40 "A" aggregates. In our year, there were 2 out of about 80. In our year, though, there were thirty odd (i.e. about 40 per cent of the whole grade) who achieved what was called a "First-Class Pass" i.e. a 60% aggregate or better. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I think it's fair to say that we weren't exactly encouraged to question anything and everything that we were being taught. But I certainly learned not to accept things at face value, and to do further investigation when something didn't look quite right. All in all, I think school prepared me reasonably well for the more challenging years at university, and earning a living.
The one respect in which SACS fell short was in that it was (and still is) a single- sex school. Both my children attended co-ed schools, and I now feel (and this is purely in retrospect) that it is a better option than the single-sex school. Whether kids are better behaved at a co-ed school is debatable, but they are probably better adjusted as a result of everyday contact with the other sex.
Keith Engers
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I am grateful to you all – Keith, for coordinating this anniversary occasion, Norman for provoking this seesawing, evocative dialogue and those who are participating so generously.
I agree with Norman’s basic point as I understand it, that we should not allow this 40 year fraternity of nostalgia to distort or romanticize our memories. Frankly, I’ve thought little about SACS these past many years. I visited campus one time in the ‘90s to show my wife and daughters, and we all were impressed (it looked gorgeous) and amused (the khakis, blazers and boaters). My disengagement doesn’t reflect antipathy as far as I know. It’s just that so much life has intervened.
In terms of SACS 66, I live with a sense of good fortune and a little shame. Warm memories predominate, good friendships, a myriad of sports moments and some nurturing teachers who had the skill to teach me something, despite my intellectual apathy at the time, particularly in the yawning heat of late summer afternoons. And then of course there are darker memories…shame at having been harsh, belittling and in turn being shamed by others. I was lucky, however, to have avoided the unambiguous cruelty experienced by others.
I do recall the chronic stress of the classroom, which still has consequences for me. Too often I was embarrassed, shy and intimidated. The fit between some of my teachers (and the rigidity of those times) and my uncertainty, made it hard for me to feel good about myself as a learner. (Of course, I’m forever thankful to Alan, Dudi, Dave L., Harold, and Zet for ‘counting down the line’ and each translating a line of Virgil for me, saving me from indignity. It took a village…) But the SACS learning environment was hardly an abysmal hell, and I do not blame the school, but instead feel gratitude for the elite, privileged education I received. In fact, in many ways I agree with Norman when he suggests, that the “good guys (teachers) outnumbered the bad.”
Norman is understandably aghast at the absence of any teacher critique of the extreme injustices of that time. In an ideal world, perhaps this would have been part of their mission and responsibility. I do believe, as Sean suggests, that we all knew what was going on around us somehow. For example, I too remember the march to Caledon Square in 1960 that Norman referenced. I was at Pineland Central School, a stone’s throw from the townships. Our sports field was used as a staging ground for Saracens and troops. To my 11-year-old sensibility, this was all thrilling, and subtly terrifying and sad. Moreover, it is amazing to think that Mandela and Sisulu went to prison in 1964, when we were in Std. 10, the same year District 6 was declared “White”. Robert Kennedy was at UCT in our matric year. At some level, we all must have known. We were, after all, flat-bang in the center of it all. We knew, from our parents, churches, and synagogues and from what we could see with our own eyes and feel in the air. We knew, yet of course enjoyed enormous privilege and so must share accountability. It is comfortable to portray a victim world, and blame Robin Whiteford and our teachers from this safe distance. But I certainly don’t know what these men thought and might have struggled with. Given S.A. taboos of the time, legal prohibitions and oppressive policies, it would have taken acts of huge courage and idealism for our teachers to have stood up, putting self and family at risk. As I remember it, virtually every one of us served in the S.A. army, and in good conscience we cannot blame SACS for that. Che Guevaras we were not.
Ultimately for me, this discussion is not about my many warm memories, and it isn’t even about the quality and culture of that learning environment. It is primarily about the opportunity we had, and can own forever, to know non-hypothetically how hard it is to live bravely. It is a rude fact, to paraphrase, that the Avenue of the Righteous is a short one. Whether we stayed on in S.A. or emigrated, we are for the most part still the privileged, and are challenged daily to live decent lives.
Although I would have loved to join you in Cape Town in September, I won’t be able to make it. I’ve so enjoyed others’ updates on this blog – here’s a quick one from me. I graduated from UCT with a Ph.D. in Psychology, and then worked in the Groote Schuure Hospital system. It was there, while working at Red Cross Children’s Hospital, that I was first exposed to the emerging field of Family Therapy. I left S.A. in the late 1970s to pursue further training, initially at McMasters University near Toronto. I was then fortunate to land a training position in the Psychiatry Department of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, at that time in the forefront of the family therapy field. I had wonderful opportunities. For 10 years, until 1998, I was Director of the graduate training program there, and most important, there met my future wife, Madelaine. She too is a psychologist, born and raised in New York City. We are both now in private practice in the Philadelphia area, and have two daughters. The older is in graduate school in Chicago in film and media studies, and the younger is about to start medical school in Philadelphia. I still swim, and if the water is not too chilly (I am 57 as you well know!) I will swim in an ocean race this weekend with my daughter.
Again, thanks everybody, and if near Philadelphia, please look me up.
All best wishes,
David Abelsohn
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Well, well well.
I recall attending a school in Newlands called SACS. This particular SACS, I was told when I trundled along, alone and lonely for my interview way back in Junior school, posted a long, proud and profound history with a dynamism sufficient to take it forward not for a week or two but for many, many years.
Some 40 years plus later, the SACS that I attended - clearly not on the same lot as that attended by Norman and others - continues to uphold with dignity and purpose the values of an ever changing environment, producing young men of calibre and ethic across the colour range : I speak with the strength of knowledge that the young man who holds my daughters' heart is a man in the making that I would gladly call "son" : I am thus exposed to the SACS of today, structured off the building blocks of a yesteryear of which you and you and you were all part.
Do we think for one moment that by removing a single one of us from the fabric of the SACS universe that the country as it was then would have would changed for the better ? I think not : just as in politics, we get what we deserve irrespective of the vote cast.
That some of us voted with our feet is understandable BUT look @ what has been achieved by the very people who left this country - senior contributors to a man in thier chosen fields.
Inter alia Rhodes Scholars, men who have offered of themselves by taking risks : and what of those before us who have so eloquently flown the SACS / South African flag whether in medicine, justice, the sciences : Leon Trackman is one of these (bugger NEVER allowed me to come close to his frikking marks - clearly a man devoid of any sense of the "sporting chance" !)and I take issue with you, Leon, for from where I sit (in a rather cold study an a wintry Cape night, rain pissing down)it is we who ring the changes, it is we who make a difference, it is we who must take responsibility. Knowing the "old" Leon, I doubt that you have shirked your duty in any one of these areas and to castigate a school, any school, from your present lofty perch seems to me to be unreasonable : however, and as I said, I went to a different SACS in Newlands, on a different lot.
I cannot thank Keith Engers sufficiently for the effort and enthusiasm he has shown throughout the years and especially during this present campaign. I am not vain enought to fool myself that the name Watkins means much to many (a rather raggedy arsed mediocre student what never amounted to much at school) but I say without hesitation that the SACS I attended did me proud, that the overly regular pak slae I received from Whiteford retains a place of gratitude in my heart, that to be associated - even only if via the tenuous cord of SACS - with luminaries, scientists and men of substance makes me feel the better for having been priveledged enough to have found my lonesome and raggedy arsed way to that first interview with Mr. Hunter.
As to Socrates ? Well, I recently queried him on his purported statement (a' la Norman)as to the thinking man.
His rsponse ?
"Divorce prejudice from thought for it is the unfettered mind, a mind unencumbered by passion, a mind free of dogma that truely allows the subtle senses to go within and establish that which is most real for each one of us. Acceptance is the key".
Without saying "Goodbye", he buggered off, leaving me completely non plussed.
May you all, families included, reap the benefits of acceptance, of striving and of an understanding of what truely matters to each one of us for surely it is not what we think we have outwardly achieved in New York, Muscat or Timbuckto.
Thank you, again, Keith for the effort and the opportunity to (after a very long deliberation) participate.
Be well.
Keith Watkins
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Hi Norman and all of SACS 66!
The following high quality literary exchange via email is what’s forcing me to “write a few words on the blog”!:
“have we met before?”
Norman C. Levin
“You keep testing me Norman! Visual recognition will be the challenge on 7th Sept!”
Rory
“will recognize you by your drool pattern. How about saying a few words on the Blog?”
Norman C. Levin
Let there be absolutely no doubt that the stirrings of long suppressed memories and resurrection of old and repressed emotions, is entirely the fault of Norman C Levin!
On first reading his well written emotional catharsis, my first thought was “why bother?” So long ago and why can’t he just “get over school?” But, of course the recollections developed a force of their own and kept cropping up at odd times with remarkable clarity… as if the last 40 years had condensed into a much shorter time dimension and the happenings of those formative years seemed as “yesterday”.
I don’t have the same resentments about the injustices perpetrated against ourselves by the authorities of our old school, nor do I feel guilt about the injustices of our greater society in SA in the 60’s. While the “retrospectoscope” should not have pinkish lenses, I think that the realities of SA at the time, the mindset of our teachers and parents and the plain good fortune we as a group had, to be as privileged as we were, must all be seen in the way Stan Davis and others have put so eloquently.
Unlike Norman, I started at SACS in Std 6, along with a few other “blow-ins” like David Abelsohn, Don Foster et al. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the institution, the apparently impersonal nature of addressing each other by surname and the intimidating feeling of being a very small fish in this very big pond. Emotionally traumatised by my start at SACS, I have no doubt that I would not have stayed, if it were not for certain of our teachers such as John Ince and Ralph Kelly. Not coming from a wealthy or professional family also made me feel somewhat obliged to “succeed” and justify my parents’ sacrifices in sending me to a “good” school. I think the diverse backgrounds from which we came gave us a unique exposure to mix with a cross-section of our society, even if it was only the so-called white society. Where would Pinelands Presbyterians and Milnerton minorities have had the opportunity to rub shoulders with Karoo sheep farmers, Suid-Westers, Namaqualanders, diamond miners, Knysna hoteliers and Sea Point city slickers? Not to mention all the “normal people” in between. Certainly not at Bishops, Swaanswyk or Herzlia! Of course the enrichment of societal diversity would have been better without the racial and colour barriers of our sad homeland, but the facts are that DF Malan’s legacy of “national education” and Broederbond control of education was very much the order of the day. So with sympathetic and kind teachers that did provide great support to me, I could deal with the nasty bastards that also filled positions on the staff... but that was a plus as I see it. The bad guys like Lex Basson, who was an unrepentant Nazi sympathiser, also happened to give me, via the Mountain Club, opportunities that I would never have had, to develop my love of the mountains and hiking which I’ve continued to date. While he was an undoubted paedophile (a term which was not in my lexicon at that time), I never had any overtures made to me or witnessed any suspicious behaviour on any of our many expeditions! Was I that innocent and naive? Andre Abrahams (good guy), instilled a love of classical music which has endured, and Whiteford and his sarcasm also cultivated a confidence in debating...!
I am still a little concerned that Nancy Rowland’s assurance that my immortal soul was at grave risk, may prove to be prophetic, but even that bit of negativity probably stirred the old social conscience and makes me still strive to “do good” even if I can’t “be good”! Being caned by Japie, (standing in for the Boss) was also a memorable experience! His pipe remained “in situ”, the cuts were nowhere near the effectiveness of the Boss’s, and he apologised profusely afterwards! The fact that repeated Friday afternoon canings were being delivered to the same “core group” of Friday afternoon “canees” did not seem to dawn on the educationists as being somewhat futile…..that there was no learning from past experience, unrelated in time to the consequence, seems astonishing to today’s observer, who would have been able to identify the ADHD population at SACS in the 60’s.
So Norman’s experiences were not mine. The happiest day of my schooling at SACS, was however, my last day! As I’ve recorded elsewhere, Sydney Slome and I were drinking beer at Forries while the rest of you were still writing the last paper of the Matric Maths exam. We had made eye contact during the exam, silently acknowledged to each other the hopelessness of the situation, and quietly departed...
I won’t be able to visit Cape Town for the “gig”, but feel very privileged to be able to attend a SACS class reunion in Sydney. One of the very first phone calls I received when I moved to Sydney in January 91, was from Alan Lipman who asked whether I was THE Rory McCarthy (as I was of course not yet listed) and on confirming his suspicions, he instructed me to “hold on” as he had Keith Engers on the “other” line from SA trying to contact old boys! Having had nothing to do with SACS since 1966, I thought it a little unusual to be contacted on arriving in Sydney... but such is the network, and I’ve had several pleasant evenings at SACS old boys’ dinners at various venues in Sydney over the past 15 years. There must have been something that struck a common chord between us during those formative years, and I feel saddened that school was not a positive experience for all. I do believe, however, that SACS did not indoctrinate us with the common beliefs of the time, and the experience I had there was the development of self belief, as well as a tolerance for difference. The versatility of social interaction and resilience to deal with crap, were probably the positives I extracted from my high school experience.
After Army in 67, I did medicine at UCT, married Annelies while still a student (34 years this year and still smiling) specialised in Paediatrics and practised in George for 9 years. (I hold the dubious record of having the first non-segregated waiting room and practice in PW Botha’s electorate) where I take some pride in also establishing a non-racial paediatric ward at the local hospital (shock and horror) and also presided over the school board of the local Convent school (in spite of being non-Catholic at the time) and this school had a non-racial admissions policy which made life interesting! So while not being the Che Guevara of George, I feel that the seeds of fair play and hence rejection of racial prejudice etc. were sown by my education at SACS, in spite of an apparent lack of explicit political education. I emigrated to Australia in Jan 91, and have become a real Aussie. My eldest daughter is a specialist physician (doing Geriatrics, which may come in useful) and my second daughter is an Architect. My son is finishing his degree in Photovoltaics (Solar engineering) and was the project leader for the UNSW team in the World Solar Challenge car race which gets held every 2 years between Darwin and Adelaide (for those high-tech nerds among you that may be interested).
My own activities consist of sailing my yacht as much as possible, hiking, travelling and running an extremely busy practice with another ex-Capetonian , Mark Selikowitz (Herzlia!!!) and for those interested our web-site it can be found by clicking here: Sydney Developmental Clinic
I look forward to catching up on September 7th. Thanks Norman and Keith Engers for pulling the old threads together!
Cheers,
Rory McCarthy
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Dear Norman and our 1966 matric class,
Norman is to be congratulated for the excellent way in which he has us thinking back to our school days and of so many guys of 40 years ago. Thanks also to Trevor Kaye, who has paid special tribute to David Silbowitz. I have often remembered "Dudi", with great respect. Keith Engers writes of his being sent to DT by Japie Irving. I clearly recollect my own shock on that day - "Engers going to DT!" And David Liebeck, our First Eleven off break bowler and classy batsman - good to hear from him....and from all the others. I myself have had virtually no contact with the school.
I am sorry not to have responded sooner, but I have needed to deal with some family matters. So much of value has already been said. I will restrict myself to a few thoughts, which may be taken as more personal and practical.
I feel that we must keep in mind that each one of us at school was at a different place in our intellectual and emotional growth. We were influenced especially by our family environment and by friends. For me, the importance of national matters only dawned on me at University. The headmaster and staff were men of their own times, several coming out of the second world war and thus with certain ideas about discipline. I say this not to excuse those with whom some of us may have differed, but to understand the people involved.Also, since our young days, all of us have histories, hurts, good and bad experiences, that make us who we are at each particular moment. Politically, I certainly needed to make changes in 1976 when meaningful relationships started to develop with colleagues in Soweto and other townships. I became deeply sorry about attitudes that had grown in me since schooldays. Today much of my work is in townships with the people there. So practically it is important for me to see what we have become and not to live in the past, focussing only on what we were and on the "bad" guys of the past. Hearing what so many of our class have achieved and how excellently all communicate, it seems to me that our schooling was not all a waste of time. Also speaking practically, I am not convinced that what we have today in the school classroom is any better than we had. Sadly, there are still teachers who get into sexual misdemeanours. The pendulum may have swung to a more liberal place, but conditions in schools are not all ideal. I hear this from my wife, who is a teacher. I also see it in the schools I go into and in some of the young people the system is producing. There are the good and the not so good amongst them all - as with us! And I don't make any attempt to put a single name next to that one.
Regards to all. I look forward to seeing others at the reunion dinner which is being so dilligently arranged by Keith.
David van Duyker.
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Classmates,
I feel something of a stray amongst such illustrious company, but to try to do Norman justice, here is my bit.
To begin with, hearty thanks to Keith, Norman and Alan for your industry in setting up the re-union events.
My regret is to not be there.
Norman’s account of his school days at SACS threw down the gauntlet in startling fashion. His words plus the subsequent blog contributions have all in various and perceptive ways carried me to a realm I had presumed was well distanced. Not so.
I am not convinced of the wisdom of sifting through the past, in this instance, though I do it all the time, with little solace. Trevor’s perspective is valid and illuminating, all the same, and I was so pleased to hear from him.
We were all frog-marched into a system that did not tolerate dissent. Even today we are subjected to the affront of “You are all with us, or you are against us”……. So nothing changes.
On reflection, and as I read the bloggers, and ponder the non-bloggers’ silence, we are all so different, and would always have been so. School was not the place for political engagement as that would have set up even more divisions. We were disparate enough as it was. Children, even teenagers, must surely be entitled to those years of security, and sanctity. Goodness knows they come to an end soon enough. Anyway, children tend to reflect their parents views. Actually, as I read this I cannot help thinking that schooling ought to encourage reason, and teenagers are capable of that. But in SA at that time?
So what of my SACS days:
I arrived there mid-1961, still reeling from half a year at St George’s Grammar, ( first exposure to Shakespeare) and after having seen the mounted police parade in Government Avenue, when we were given badges and little flags to wave………..Something felt ominous then, being far from my barefooted Kalk Bay beach community. Not that I had not witnessed Friday drunks being hurled headfirst in a clatter of bones into a police van. It does not take a big brain to discern unfairness, or brutality.
SACS was my 7th school, so to remain there for the duration of high school provided stability, and also some sense of identity. It was the best my folks could manage for me. I struggled. I polished my shoes. I tried to learn Afrikaans vocabulary in the pre-dawn hours. Life felt dominated by homework, and very heavy suitcases. There was the occasional detention, but I managed to evade the humiliation of cuts.
There are many memories – Stanley and his cheerful band sweeping classroom floors using damp tea leaves. The distant groundsman rolling cricket pitches. (For others to play on). The lazy note and heady aroma of lawn mowing, the long flick of sprinklers.
Warm melktert and cold ginger beer from the tuck shop on lucky days.
“You are the biggest mompara south of the Sahara”, and “Go stand by the kubbid” – Impi Stierlin in an alcoholic haze. ( Apologies, you Latin guys )
“I don’t know your name, do you?” the Boss to me and another bewildered and terrified Std 6er as he swept past in a link passage, like the Grim Reaper. Did he ever smile?
“Uiters swak” on numerous reports from Smit, and the echoingly damning injunction from Abrahams: “This augers ill for the future”. What swagger. What damage. I liked Mr Smit.
We climbed the ladder of seniority anyway, gaining long trousers and boaters along the way, if later than desired. Some became Prefects. There must be a hierarchy.
(If only I could have objected to the nonsense of cadets, which was another banal tool of coercion.)
I recall Dr Freund’s musical appreciation sessions – probably the closest I came to anything smacking of the Arts. For a school of such self-proclaimed stature, to have precious little by way of music, or anything creative on offer was ludicrous. Yes, Gilbert & Sullivan Operetta was better than nothing, just. And it did provide the vehicle for backstage involvement, but I must have been too shy to seek participation. I do not recall it being on offer, even though I was obsessed with primitive sound reproduction at home. Kelly did his best with the choir, but that really was rather bewildering.
“ I never had the Latin”- (Peter Cooke) and from my perspective, the general sentiment was that success was hailed and rewarded, while the rest just had to get along as best they could. I often wonder what became of John Mountefield who possessed extraordinary drawing talent.
My only moment of heady euphoria was the comment via a teacher, possibly Norton, that not only the external examiner, but some classmates in C1 had admired my little electric motor. We only heard of the reassembled cat skeleton, and other inspired entries for that project.
Hockey was good fun and despite a paucity of tactics, we usually lost! Matric year was the most enjoyable because of its sense of finality. Even PT was then bearable. And there were girls out there somewhere.
There was, however, an episode in Std 8, of what could be construed as blackmail by a teacher, that involved me. To air the details now seems pointless, especially since I was not scarred, though have only recently mentioned it to others. It does link in with what some commentators have mentioned about one individual, and I only make reference to corroborate. Paedophilia was not in my vocabulary, of course, and I did not appreciate the gravity of the episode at the time. So much for security and sanctity!
But on reflection, I agree with Keith about co-education, an altogether more challenging but healthier climate. I do not recall any female teachers at the High School…………coincidence?
I regret not having made friendships which overflowed the school campus, and once most went off to military service (I was not balloted) I lost touch. When next in CT I will get hold of past School Magazines, and catch up. My interest now is with what you guys have done since ’66 – what amazing journeys you must have made, what we have all had the privilege of time and “the accident of birth” (Whiteford) to enjoy.
All those years I was acutely aware of my own sordid privileges enjoyed at the expense of so many fellow South Africans, even though I was pretty naive. I spent three futile years at UCT studying engineering, and some years in allied employment, before I packed a suitcase and took the Mail Boat to the UK in 1975. Many factors conspired to bring this about. Fortunately for me I had patriality in my favour, though no money. I sought something creative and manual. This took me from family, friends and all I knew including the Cape and the Cedarberg Mountains (which I discovered once at ‘varsity). It was a huge price to pay.
I trained as a violin maker and repairer and my life has been charmed in that respect, getting to work with the very best in London, and so being part of the musical world, which continues here. A sense of identity achieved, a home lost.
Returning to live in the Cape regrettably, has not come about, though I understand there are three violin makers in the Noordhoek area now. Oh well!
I married Linda, a Kiwi in 1989 and we came to Auckland three years ago. More adjustment, but I remain incredibly fortunate.
Relaxing at Big Break beneath the towering mountain backdrop, to the coo of Cape turtle doves has to be a priceless memory.
And so too with thoughts of those no longer with us,
My very best to you all,
Gavin Macalister
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Hi Guys
I think it is time for a very small contribution from a lesser educated E3 classmate and long-term boarder of 11 years at SACS
Firstly, thanks Keith for all your hard work over the past year
Here are several memories of my school days in no particular order:
Not being a very happy kid arriving as a boarder in Std 1 and having Hunter as headmaster
Not being a very happy kid arriving as a boarder in Std 6 and having Whiteford as headmaster
Mr Paris telling me (sometime in junior school) what an inconsiderate child I was for not lending him my brand new watch when his was broken
Hitting THE BOSS over the head with a pillow in a pillow fight with a fellow boarder. I got 6 cuts in my pyjamas for that. Not premeditated so rather heavy I think?? (I challenge anyone to better this one)
Getting another 6 cuts (also in my pyjamas) for going to the wrong movies. This one was premeditated so punishment was probably fair
Jumping against Vince van der Bijl in U15B rugby match against Bishops. He played barefoot as he left his size 14/ 15? boots behind and could’nt find any others to fit him. Still did not help us much as we were afraid we would accidentally stand on his feet. This was my last game of rugby due to back trouble. Surprise!
One for you Dave Liebeck. Dropping a catch off your bowling at short-square leg also against Bishops I think. This one still haunts me as it was probably the easiest one ever to come my way. Hope that you have forgiven me
Always getting “baie swak” for Afrikaans
THE BOSS taking Nils Warner apart one night at dinner (Rosedale) when challenged on his whereabouts one Saturday afternoon. Nils I think you got 6 cuts for this one too! Hope to see you on Thursday
Skillicorn telling E3 class how stupid we all were when discussing future career aspirations. I seem to recall him advising us not to waste our time and parents money by going to university. (I can think of a number of classmates who fortunately ignored his advice)
In closing some personal information:
Still living in CT and happily married with two children (one about to get married)
Consulting Quantity Surveyor and recently started my own practice (better late than never - unlike many of you guys who seem to be slowing down)
1 DOG & 3 CATS
Look forward to meeting some of you on Thursday
Regards
Mike McBride
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When I read Norman's e-mail my first response was – curious?
Then I got Trevor's containing the photos. That brought back a flood of memories.
So, provoked by Norman and inspired by Trevor, here is some data on where I’ve got to, a few of my experiences at SACS plus some thoughts about my classmates, the teachers and who knows what else.
Firstly, I can add Albertus Louw and Owen Metcalf to the list of those classmates who have passed on.
After leaving SACS I spent a year in the navy and then went on to UCT graduating in 1971 with a Business Science degree (along with Rob Cotty, Keith Engers and Norman Levin). I work for BP as the marketing manager for East and Central Africa - resident in Cape Town with an office in Johannesburg. A very busy job that keeps me out of mischief – generally. I’m married to Bev and we have a daughter in 3rd year at Stellenbosch and a son in 1st year at Rhodes - studying Speech and Hearing Therapy and Accounting respectively.
Cycling, golf, fishing and getting into the African bush keep me moderately fit and slightly sane.
1962 was my first year at SACS.
I got there like most of us – my parents made the decision. I my case, my mother - a teacher by training - came from Victoria West to interview the Headmasters at Rondebosch, SACS and Wynberg. In her opinion Whiteford was the best and ran the best school.
I was immediately taken by the opportunity to play organized sport as well as participate in the numerous pick-up games of rugby and cricket.
Before I got to SACS my cricket was played in the street outside my home. So, having nets to practice in, playing matches every week with coaches who had some ability really nurtured my love for the game.
So, Norman I will unashamedly admit to having been more interested in sport and the opportunity to play in a team and compete than what was happening in the wider world, despite coming from a family that was very interested and frequently discussed politics.
I am yet to be convinced that 13-18 year olds should be concerning themselves more with the politics of the day than enjoying the camaraderie of playing in a team, getting the educational value of this plus the life skills developed through competing.
In the U15 year of my very mediocre cricket career I ran into Tom Reddick and Andre Abrahams who instilled more skills and appreciation for the game of cricket than I would have developed if I’d spent a lifetime playing street cricket in Victoria West.
While in std 6 or 7 Pharrel Weiner and I attended an umpire’s course – Pharrel was a very avid cricket follower and statistician.
Rugby in Victoria West meant playing against neighbouring towns on pitches that had been ploughed to prevent serious gravel burns. You would travel in a tarpaulin covered truck on dusty roads for 2-3 hours in freezing conditions - and that was just to get to the match.
Two rugby years stand out for me. Playing in the U13B side we won the Koch Cup – awarded to the team scoring the most points in the season. John Ince was our coach - he taught me more about the game in 4 weeks than I'd learnt in 2 years in the Karoo.
The second was playing in the 2nd XV in matric. Doug Brown was the coach – in my view not a particularly good one, but he got us fit - a fundamental building block to being successful at rugby. Doody, who captained the side, decided the tactics. He had a great 'feel' for the game - apart from being, in my view, an outstanding leader.
Two U19 matches are worth mentioning. The first, against Rondebosch, we'd been relegated to one of the outer fields. This clearly irked Doody enormously. So the tactics were that the first time Pieter van Blommestein (fly half) got the ball, an up-and-under would launched and we'd tackle anybody who was near the ball. The intimidation tactic worked a treat – memory is a bit vague but I think the score was 20-0.
A few weeks later we played Bishops - the game plan was run the ball from everywhere. We won handsomely - I cannot recall the score, but clearly remember a Bishops parent coming up to us after the game and asking Dudi to let him know when next we decide to play rugby like that as he'd travel anywhere to watch us.
There were some really talented players in that team - Donald Foster - a very clever centre, Mike Baister a tear-away flank, Sean Day, Greg Ball and Victor MacRobert made up a formidable front row.
It was Piet Pretorius who convinced me (with zero musical ability) that taking part in the Gondeliers – was that the ’66 G&S production? – was a really good idea. I’m sure Peter Human and Don Foster will recall as they had leading roles and got rave reviews in the Cape Times. What I do recall was that Hallie Druker developed a real crush on the choreographer – she was rather pretty. – so quite understandable. Hallie might want to claim that it was a mutual attraction.
On to the teachers. The ones that had major positive impact on me were Whiteford, Irvine, Ince, de Kock, Norton, Abrahams, Kelly and Knoetze, while Basson and Smit fell in the avoid category.
My general impression was that we were challenged to think about what we were taught. However, I must confess to not having been particularly diligent about my studies – only doing enough not to disgrace myself. I did, however, on one occasion get a ‘Well done!’ remark by the Boss on a report.
My year at Michaelis House was not particularly memorable – I found Vlok and his cohorts Smit and Basson weird. So, moving to Rosedale the following year, was a great relief. There I spent many hours gardening – the ‘DT’ for minor misdemeanors, while the prefects handed out ‘If’s’ - rather indiscriminately at times. In our standard Victor MacRobert probably holds the record for most hours gardened and If’s written – I recall him resorting to using carbon paper in an effort getting his quota to manageable levels.
It was at Rosedale that I saw another side to Whiteford. Two incidents that struck me involved people junior to me. The first concerned a boy named Simons - I think. His father was either editor or deputy editor of the Cape Times and very outspoken about his opposition to Government policy. He had to leave the country in a hurry as he got wind that the security police were coming to get him. Every morning at Rosedale Whiteford conducted roll call. We had to line up in alphabetical order so I was very close to Simons. The Boss spent a number of minutes talking to him in a very supportive way. The second was when the younger Bam – a few years our junior- turned seriously ill and had to have an arm amputated. Whiteford engaged the 90 odd of us about what he expected when Bam returned after having been away from Rosedale for a considerable time undergoing the surgery.
Since leaving school my path has crossed that of a few classmates.
Bosie and I played rugby for UCT seconds in 1971 – we went on tour with the first team that year. By that time he’d graduated to playing lock – was an 8th man in 2nd team until his appendix laid him low in matric – and I’d discovered that playing prop presented more opportunities for somebody with limited rugby skills.
Pieter van Blommestein – a cousin - so frequently; Fram Malan – I saw a lot of him in Durban during the late ‘70’s early 80’s and then later in Namibia on my regular fishing trips. Piet Pretorius farms in Okahandja and Bev and I popped in to see him while on a trip to Etosha a number of years ago.
The last time I recall seeing Sean was on rag day in 1971 – I think he was on the Rag Committee. Let me take a moment to acknowledge Sean for the work he doing to facilitate those much less fortunate than us to get access to an education at SACS. The importance of this for both South Africa and SACS cannot, in my view, be overemphasized. The biggest challenge SA faces is developing sufficient people with the skills needed to get the economy growing at a rate sufficient to get people into jobs. Sean, it is great to see that there are people who are prepared to put something back.
Having rambled a bit, but I guess it ultimately comes down to how well SACS prepared me for life after school. At no time since leaving school have I felt that I was not adequately prepared. In fact, when I got to university I had the opportunity to compare my school experiences with those of others from every leading school in the country. In many respects I count myself as having been privileged by the education I received at SACS.
Well, what goes round comes round.
When my son got to high school age he could choose any school. He chose SACS.
He matriculated last year and I think had a really good time. Much at SACS is very different – but much is the same. It was always and still is a fine school.
After his final exam I asked what would be the one thing he’d improve at SACS. His answer – the discipline.
Interesting!
Go well and hope you all got some kicks in ’66!
Peter Theron
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A rare picture of two of our fallen friends. Paste this address into your browsers:
(Apologies, these comments don't let you add pictures directly)
Left to right: Syd Slone, Ray Zetler, Doodie Silbowitz, Terry Crowther, in front, Don Foster on stage in the Great Hall.
Don Foster
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Gentlemen,
The debate started long before the Old Boy’s Reunion. Soon after the e-mails hit the blog I had a light hearted chat to Don Foster and suggested that many people would be surprised to hear his story. I tried to encourage him to write a little about his days since leaving SACS. He laughed about the prospect but I knew he would find this difficult to do. He will not talk about himself.
Don and I have been friends since school days. I have often started one of our many times together (usually watching sport –rugby and cricket being the great favourites) determined to find out how he is doing. I end up being interviewed and unloading my current frustration of the day. Most people who come into contact with Don experience the same thing without realizing how the conversation has turned. We had some great chuckles and reminiscences over the letters posted on the blog. I suggested to Don that the whole story would not be complete unless the class of ‘66 became aware of what he had been doing since leaving school. Norman’s opening bid certainly set the challenge for this reply and I asked Don’s permission to write a biographical piece on him to post on the blog.
What follows is a remarkable tale of a class mate who used his great intellect to distinguish, for himself, the merits of right and wrong. Not only that but he had the courage of his convictions to act upon them to the detriment of his own career and safety.
After some stints working as a teacher and market researcher, DF pursued studies abroad, largely self-financed (by tutoring, stints working on building sites and lecturing at nights for the University of Maryland) in the UK, completing the MSc at London School of Economics in 1976 and a PhD at Cambridge University in 1981. (Best-man at Terry Crowther’s marriage to Lindsay Groves, Leicester, UK July 1976).
He returned to South Africa (despite good career prospects in UK), and was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Psychology at UCT in 1981. He immediately became involved in a series of anti-apartheid organisations and activities.
An abbreviated list of same such activities and organisations:
Alternatives to apartheid higher education. Political involvement with the South African Committee on Higher Education (SACHED). Active in creating alternative curricula and lecturing night-school to black and disadvantaged students. Helped in establishment of alternative higher education institutions, Khanya College, active in lecturing, course design and examination. Active in these organisations right through the 1980s.
Active in numerous organisations opposed to detention-without-trial. Campaigns from early 1980s against detention. Organisations such as Detention Action Committee (ADAC), Detainees’ Parents’ Support Committee (DPSC), the Repressive Monitoring Group (RMG), co-founder of Detainee Clinic – supplying support to political detainees and families.
Conducted a major research project on political detention and torture, published as a Report in 1985 making world headlines; numerous media interviews. Published as a book in 1987. Foster et al (1987) Detention and Torture in SA, New York, St Martin’s Press.
A several months’ long smear campaign against this “Torture Report” organisation by the Afrikaans press. The attempted smear headlined in Die Burger as “Fostergate” in 1985. He was labeled in parliament (along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu) as an “enemy of the SA state”. Numerous attacks on his home, threatening calls and death threats. The SA security police even followed him overseas and issued threats to his hotel rooms whilst travelling.
Active in organisations opposed to apartheid in the area of mental health and social services e.g. Organisation of Alternative Social Services in South Africa (OASSSA) and NAMDA. On editorial board of an alternative anti-apartheid journal: Psychology in Society. Campaigns for non-racism and equality in mental health fields. Co-edited a book on alternative approach to mental handicap: Perspectives on Mental Handicap in SA (1990). Butterworth Publications.
Don was invited by Amnesty International to conduct a speaking-tour of the USA in 1986 to expose the repressive tactics of the apartheid state, and in support of the international anti-apartheid movement. He presented numerous other international conference papers on political repression and torture.
Involved with the Danish-based organisation: Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT).
Clandestine evidence presented to the United Nations on torture and repression of apartheid state (along with Prof David Webster who was assassinated in 1989).
Presented expert evidence for the defence legal team in more than 20 political trials involving collective violence, in years between 1983 and 1991.
Wrote a range of critical publications on racism, segregation and in opposition to the Tricameral Constitution. Inaugural lecture as Professor at UCT entitled: On Racism (1991).
Underground meetings with the African National Congress in Africa during 1987, paving the way to negotiations.
Active membership of the ANC from 1990.
Member of the Goldstone Commission Inquiry into political violence in 1992; produced as a co-edited book: Towards Peaceful Protest in South Africa. Proposal led to new legislation governing gatherings, crowds and demonstrations in 1996.
Active with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997 – 1998; wrote the chapter in the TRC Report on perpetrators of political violence.
Other book publications (among some 110 other publications)
1991 – Social Psychology in South Africa
1997 – Mental Health Policy Issues for SA
2005 – The Theatre of Violence
2005 – Psychology and Law
CHRONOLOGY
1967 – Military Service: 1 Parachute Battalion, Bloemfontein
1968 – 1971 University of Stellenbosch, complete BA Honours in Psychology
1972 University of Cape Town, Secondary Teachers Diploma, STD
1973 – 1974 Teacher and Housemaster, St Georges Grammar School
1975 – 1981 Complete: MSc at London School of Economics (LSE)
(UK) PhD at University of Cambridge (Social & Political Science)
1981 Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, UCT
1985 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, UCT
1986 Study and Research : University of Bristol & University of Warwick, England
1987 – 1989 Head of Department of Psychology, UCT
1990 Professor of Psychology, UCT and active member of ANC
1993 Study and Research: University of Oxford & London School of Economics (UK)
1997 – 1998 Consultant to Truth and Reconciliation Commission
1999 – 2001 Head of Department of Psychology, UCT
1999 – 2005 Deputy Dean (Finances), Faculty of Humanities, UCT
SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS
Author of over 100 publications: books, chapters, journals articles, reviews.
Presented more than 60 conference papers in places as diverse as USA, UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Greece.
More than 150 invited talks, keynote addresses, radio and TV presentations.
Completed supervision of 15 PhD theses, 25 Masters Theses and over 80 Honours research projects.
National Research Foundation, one of the highest rated Social Scientists in SA.
Advisory Board member of numerous organisations including Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Institute of Criminology.
External Examiner at numerous Universities, including UWC, Rhodes, Wits, KwaZulu Natal, Copenhagen (Denmark).
Member and Chair of numerous Executive Committees
Member of 4 Editorial Boards of academic journals.
Member of numerous anti-apartheid organisations
Treasurer, ANC Mowbray-Observatory Branch 1994 – 2000.
There is a personal side to Don as well. He has a son, living in the UK and is presently in a relationship with a beautiful girl, Rachelle, who he met at UCT. This part of the story is for Don to tell and not me.
I am proud and privileged to have known Don even though I was not always aware of the dangerous path that he was treading. I am pleased that I can share this tale with those who saw him in his formative years. Don remains committed to the interpretation of what is right and what is wrong in every discipline that he addresses.
This is a story that I feel needed to be told.
I feel better now.
Keith Steele
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