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Interview with Steve Duley – 1975
Steve was born in 1958 and first went to school in the UK whilst living in Lincolnshire near Skegness. The
family returned to South Africa in 1963 and Steve was then a pupil at Craighall Primary and moved to St
David’s in 1965, into standard 2. David, his younger brother by two years, was also a pupil of St David’s but
eventually left and went to Hyde Park High School.
Br Anthony was the headmaster and Steve recalls Br Bosco (Mario) “Boeing”, Br Bernard who taught Latin,
Br Timothy who taught Maths and became the Headmaster in 1975, Br Aquinas – English, Trudy Elliot –
English, Badenhorst – Afrikaans, Hartman – Geography and in the junior school Mrs Kenezovitch in
standard 5 and Mrs Kempster who was head of the junior school and the librarian.
Steve was not a Catholic but has recently adopted the faith. The non-Catholics did not attend the Religious
Education classes. As his family lived in Dunkeld, Steve cycled or walked to school. He also recalls
walking to the Rosebank Catholic Church every Ash Wednesday.
Steve was a day boy and found the discipline to be incredible with the boys having to wear caps and
doffing them when greeting people, they had to wear their blazers properly and exercise good manners.
This went down well with Steve’s father who was ex Royal Navy and very strict himself.
There was a good balance between academics and sport and all the boys had no option but to take part in
sport. The teachers were good but the discipline was always heavy, with boys receiving caning for doing
stupid things. Steve had his share but generally managed to keep out of trouble.
Steve played cricket, enjoyed running, long distance and played rugby for the 3rds as fly half. The school
didn’t offer hockey as a sport but Steve played outside of school from the age of 12, he was accepted for
the junior board but didn’t go. So he played rugby during the week at school and hockey over the
weekends. There were no camps only bus trips to play rugby at Observatory, Linmeyer, St Albans Pretoria
and schools such as St John’s.
Fulton-Allem’s father donated tractors to the school when developing the playing fields. Fulton’s father, a
farmer from Viljoenskroon used to fetch him at the end of every term in the rolls royce. In those days there
were horses on the property and Steve’s sister rode at the school on a few occasions.
St Teresa’s was the sister school and a highlight was the disco on Friday nights at Immaculata Hall in
Rosebank.
In his Matric year they played a rugby match against the girls from St Teresa’s, Steve said the girls didn’t
hold back in the scrum and went for every weakness. It was the toughest game the boys had played.
For his matric dance he remembers his partner was Anthony Robinson’s sister. He met his wife Rose
through his brother, she needed a partner for her matric dance at Hyde Park High and they are still together
30 years later. They have four children, two girls and two boys who attended Fourways High School.
Steve received a studies scroll and after matriculating, went to Wits Univerity to study Aeronautical
Engineering and finished his degree in 1981 sticking to his programme of four years academics and two
years socialising. He completed his masters in1986 and started to work at CSIR for the National Institute of
Aeronautics. Much later he completed his MBA in 2006. Steve was involved in test flight engineering
(flutter) in the defence environment, unmanned aid vehicle design and manufacture, managing an aircraft
maintenance company, then moved into the airline industry 15 years ago. Steve worked for Comair and
was involved with setting up the first low cost airline in Africa – Kululah.com, his specialty being IT. He is
currently with Sabre Airline Solutions and is responsible for sales in Africa and the Indian Oceans islands.
Steve also runs his own company Aviaquest Consultancy and is a non executive director of a high
technology aircraft engine manufacturer in South Africa.
JLE January 2014