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Interview with Geoffrey Sater – 1949 23 May 2011
Geoffrey and his wife Sandra are friends of Tony Chappel, former chair of the board of
governors
Geoffrey came to St David’s in 1943 from Saxonwold Primary and went into Std 4. He was a
day boy living near the Zoo opposite the Westwater family. Johnny Westwater was a jockey and
a Catholic and his boys went to St David’s. Geoffrey’s parents decided it would be a good idea
to send their son there too even though they weren’t catholic. They used to catch a bus to
Dunkeld and the school transport (Chevrolet?) picked them up from there. Eventually he used to
cycle via Fricker Road.
Br Urban was the headmaster, Br Celestine taught him Latin and Maths, Br Alban – Afrikaans.
Geoff remembers him getting rather inebriated at the matric dance!
Pupils he remembers:
Malcolm Rowe whose father was principal of the Technical College in Johannesburg., retired to
a farm in Mooi River;Mark Madeyski – reugees from Eastern Europe, his father was a coal
miner and became a mining engineer in SA; Hugh Gearing - his grandfather developed
windmills to draw water. Lived in Northcliff and came to school on a motorbike;
Harry Grisdale – studied medicine and worked at Marianhill Mission station all his life;
Socrates Vartos – Greek whose parents ran a tearoom in Rosebank corner of Tyrwhitt and
Oxford; Terence Smyth (Deceased)– lived in Sunninghill , all fruit farms, they were in contact
with Sally Smyth; Boris Babaya – parents ran a butchery north of Johannesburg station;
Core Seeling – parents had a seedling business. Sandra is in touch with the family.
Stan Barale (Deceased) - was head prefect and rugby captain
The following boys came from Portugese East Africa and used to get the train to Joubert Park
and walk to Koch St. Where they would get transport to the school by Chevrolet. Carlos
Almeida, Louis Da Cruz, Danta de Nobrega
There were some Lebanese boys who were refugees from Lebanon. They didn’t play rugby or
football, were very restrained, had been persecuted. One of them he remembers is Assad.
Parents:
Asher Swede– Bookmaker who donated trophy and equipment
Awards: He was awarded a prefects scroll and was the school Dux.
Sport: He was a in the rugby 1st 1V, swam in swimming galas, played cricket 1st II, although he
didn’t regard himself as being particularly good. The sports fields were being laid out at the time
and boxing with Harry Best as Coach, was popular.
Career:
He studied Mining Geology at Wits where he met his wife. He worked in the then Northern
Rhodesia, where David Livingstone died. He went onto Canada working for the Quebec
Geological Survey having studied French at Wits. Then went onto McGill University where he
did his MSc. Came back to SA and to his future wife and eventually worked for Alcan Aluminium
in Maritzburg. Later he joined the government who sent him to London as the Minerals and
Energy representative for SA. His children, two sons and a daughter spent some time growing
up there and are all now living in the UK
JE May 2011