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Interview with Ross Alcock – 1986
Ross began his career at St David’s in grade 1 in 1975. He had two older brothers at the school
and remembers being very excited on his first day. He was very familiar with the school as he
had already been there with his brothers on numerous occasions. His first teacher was Miss
Busscheau.
He remembered Father Plesters, the Chaplain who later became Monsignor, Mrs Walton grade
2, Mrs Ansell who was a temporary teacher, Mrs Webb standard 1, Mrs Napier a rather
authoritarian figure, Mrs Joseph, standard 3 and Mrs Anderson. In standard 2 Ross caught a
virus, one boy died and Ross was lucky to come through it, didn’t attend school and was unable
to walk for quite some time. Mrs Napier and Mrs Aubrey helped him with extra work at home.
Ross really enjoyed the sport and recalls sports coach Terry O’Mahoney together with Tim
Coetze standard 5 and Willy Castle standard 4. Willy also coached the grade 1 soccer team.
Br Timothy was the headmaster followed by Mr Murphy who appeared to be very authoritarian
in the beginning until his demise when he was seen by all the boys on TV as a wrestler. Mr
Frielick who was too soft followed and then came Mr Boswell, the Afrikaans teacher who was
influenced by Mrs Elliot, many of the boys thought she really ran the school and that he was
merely a figurehead. There was an incident with the non-catholic retreat in 1985 led by the
Doyle brothers which showed a lack of leadership within the school. Ross felt that the
leadership in the high school was sadly lacking and that the boys needed a strong leader.
Father Brewer was the type of person who should have led the school. He was an incredible
man, unlike a conventional priest. He taught RE but loved sport. An eminently practical and
pragmatic man he could give the boys guidance in life and, even though he was extremely
religious he was neither distant nor removed from reality. He helped Ross with extra Latin
lessons whilst he was at university and had incredible patience. Father Brewer married Ross,
counselling him and his wife beforehand, he also blessed his son but sadly died shortly
afterwards.
In standard 5 a number of boys left to go to St John’s as St David’s was then going through a
bad patch, although it wasn’t a good time for the school, the boys got on well together and there
was great camaraderie through the sport .Some of his pals at the time were Greg Lambe;
Gordon Tonetti and Craig MacKay. He remembers a black pupil joining in grade 2 and that there
were a few black boys at the school including the Shongwe brothers and a number of them went
to their father’s funeral in standard 7 held in Atteridgeville, Soweto.
Ross played rugby in standard 4 and 5 against the high school’s U13C team. As many boys left
at the end of standard 5 it was a great loss to the rugby team. Ross played Transvaal Nuffield
cricket in 1986 and stayed at Hilton College. He was awarded colours for rugby in mtandard 9
and again in his Matric year and won trophies for leadership, cricket, rugby and the Osmond
Cup for sportsman of the year. He was vice head prefect and captained the 1st rugby and cricket
teams.
His favourite year was 1985 playing 1st team rugby and cricket and he went on cricket and rugby
tours to Cape Town. At the Marist schools’ festival they had a very good side and made up the
vast majority of a combined Marist schools team. They stayed in old dormitories at St Joseph’s
and for the cricket tour stayed at the Newlands Sun and being boys managed to get up to some
mischief.
Ross was involved with inter-house plays in the primary school and remembers being in the
team that won the inter-house quiz in standard 5. However he didn’t last long playing one of the
guards in “Hamlet”, Trudie Elliott wasn’t his favourite person.
Ross loved his time at St David’s although he did have some regrets that he hadn’t gone to a
stronger school from sporting and other perspectives. He felt he would have further flourished
but only realised this later. After leaving school he played cricket for Old Eds and for Transvaal
and realised that had he been at another school he would have without doubt played Nuffield A
in 1985 and 6. He actually played for the B side and knew he was better player than many on
the A side. Because of this he didn’t return to St David’s for quite some time. Ross firmly
believes that when sport is poor the perception is that the school is poor. St David’s loses a lot
of focus on sport and does need to be more competitive.
Academically Ross was no star but did well enough to get one distinction in matric and went
into Law studying for a B Proc at Wits University and for his LLB through Unisa whilst doing his
articles. He missed the army by continuing to study and when he finished his LLB he went
overseas for a year, then did his articles at a small firm and joined Edward Nathan Sonnenberg
in 1997 and has been a partner since 2000.
Ross has two sons at St David’s and his eldest son will be going to Hilton for high school as a
boarder.
Ross’ company is the only law firm that has dedicated offices in Alexandra and Mitchel’s Plain
and everyone on the staff has to complete a certain number of hours of pro bono work to
support these offices. They also work together with the Department of Justice and Small Claims
Court in Alex and the managing partners sit on these courts and supply advice.
JLE October 2012