AtoM

Interview with Cynthia Hildyard 1970 - 1985 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000748
Stuk
2010

Interview with Cynthia Hildyard - Staff 1970 – 1985
Cynthia taught grade 2 while at St D’s. Those were the days of ITA spelling which did not work
well and was later dropped. It was a very different school while boarders were here. Lunches
consisted mainly of roasts and vegetables. Matron Buckley-Jones had her room next to the old
library (now the Music centre).
Brothers she knew whilst she was teaching were Br Anthony the headmaster, Br Bosco (Mario),
Br Aidan, the bursar, a very quiet man, Br Andrew (Dracula), Br Bernard – excellent at
photography and art, Br Ronald who left very quietly, Br Mario a Mexican brother taught Maths
but the boys found it very difficult to understand him.
Old Boys she remembered were Kevin Carter who was with Ken Oostebroek when he was
killed while photographing the riots, Alexis Apostolides who had growth behind the eye and went
to America for treatment, the Slaven brothers Andrew, John and Jeffrey.
Cynthia has two sons who attended St David’s. John matriculated in 1974 and Mark in 1978.
Interview: Monday 11 October 2010 GA

Anderson, Glenda

Interview with Clare Hedding 1996 - 2014 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000742
Stuk
2012

Interview with Clare Hedding Staff – 1996
Clare started teaching at St David’s in the middle of the first term in 1996 when she took over
Glenda Burn’s class whilst she travelled to New Zealand.
Apart from the usual curriculum, Clare also taught Religious Instruction throughout the term
which was new as no-one had been teaching the subject at the time. After being at the school
for only two weeks, and having been approached by parents who were unhappy about their
children not being taught RI, Clare attended an executive meeting and presented her point of
view.
The following term, Rick Wilson phoned her as Yvonne Sandie the grade 4 teacher had had a
stroke following an attack on her son. Clare ended up teaching until the end of that year but, as
her children were still quite small she normally preferred to do relief teaching.
Mitzi Claasen, together with Sandra Tarlie, was the remedial teachers and Mitzi asked if Clare
would join the remedial team teaching remedial Maths. She remembers teaching in what is now
Magda Ceruti’s office for 4 years, mornings only.
During this time she had thought that maybe her son James could attend the school but was
rebuffed rather rudely by the then prep headmaster’s secretary.
Willy Castle then approached her and asked if she could supervise the retreats for each class,
holding them in the brother’s chapel. Then Marilyn Middlewick the Music teacher resigned, she
also taught Religion to grade 7 and Clare was asked if she would cover that too. Shortly
afterwards Father Brewer was diagnosed with cancer and struggled to say Mass. Clare then
assisted him in distributing the communion. Father Brewer subsequently retired in 1998 and
died in June1999.
Once again Rick Wilson called her in and asked if she would consider becoming the RE coordinator
when, at the time she was not even a member of staff! Darryl Webb joined St David’s
and, together with Glenda Anderson wanted to start a bridging class. Clare then started a grade
3 and 4 bridging class and went to have a look at the way the Ridge school organised theirs.
The classes began in 2002 and two years later reverted to grade 2 and 3. Clare was also
teaching RE to grade 7 and was running the chapel. Cindy Cronje eventually joined the staff,
teaching the grade 2 bridging class followed by Helen Mills.
In 2004 Clare had a break from St David’s and went to Grahamstown to support her son whilst
he was studying for Matric. She returned to St David’s again the following year and retired at the
end of 2011, her position being taken by Libby Hill. However Clare was not allowed to languish
long as a retiree and Rick called her the following year, 2012 and asked if she could possibly
teach Afrikaans to the grade 4 and 6 classes. She found this hard in the beginning but now
loves every minute of it.
The amazing thing about Clare’s career at St David’s is that she didn’t actually ever apply for
any post but was always asked to step into the breach and she felt that God just wanted her to
be there.
Clare had strong links with St David’s as a child. Her brother John was a pupil at CBC in
Kimberly 1949 -50 but was expelled and eventually became a boarder at St David’s as transport
was a problem. Clare remembers the dormitories as being huge with so many beds in them.
She also remembers an occasion when she was very young and she came to the school, John
took her to his classroom holding her hand. The brother asked her some questions and then
proceeded to pick her up and placed her on a desk, she then recited “Mary had a little lamb”,
the boys all cheered, which pleased her no end.
John was a very good sportsman, superb runner and top of his league for many years. In his
Matric year, 1954 he played the role of the admiral in the “Pirates of Penzance” and was
awarded the victor ludorum. John was very much a people person and became a prefect. His
nickname was “Doc” after his surname Livingstone.
The bell in the Chapel of Mary is there because of John. The nuns of the Carmelite Convent in
Wynberg gave him their chapel bell when the convent closed down.
Clare’s younger brother Brian, matriculated at St David’s in 1959 beginning his career there in
standard 2. In 1954 their parents went overseas for 3 months; Brian became a boarder and so
enjoyed the experience that he stayed on. Brian had a friend Derry Moore of an Irish catholic
family and Clare was introduced to Derry’s sister Coleen which was the beginning of a firm
friendship which continued until Coleen became a nun with her brother Derry taking up the
Marist Brotherhood. Derry did his training in Melbourne, Australia and taught at St Charles for
many years.
Clare’s mother was very involved with the ladies committee and organised fetes as a fund
raiser. She also supervised the matric dance and the catering. Clare remembers accompanying
her mother during school holidays and recalls that Piet the cook gave her biscuits. Her mother
was a keen gardener and used to take slips for Brother Pius and helped him to build the rockery
by reception. Clare’s father retired in his 50’s and used to “consult” with Brother Edwin regarding
maintenance and building for St David’s.
When the school needed some stalls for a fete, Clare’s father built them on the back lawn at
home and the school uses the same design to this day. Clare’s mother ran the handicraft and
needlework stall and made fairy dolls.
JE August 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Greg Royce 1989 - 1995 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000797
Stuk
2011

Greg Royce 1989 to 1995 Greg was deputy head at St Martin’s until March 1989 before being appointed as
prep headmaster at St David’s. He and his wife Pam were very touched as staff held a welcome lunch at the
tennis courts.
Greg stated that the school was running well despite the lack of a headmaster for so many years. The only
problem he found was that each person was doing their own thing instead of sharing ideas with each other.
His first task was to formalise things and found that he got on well with the staff and that they accepted him.
He always got on very well with Willy Castle and, on one particular occasion Willy wanted a meeting with Greg.
A date and time was duly arranged but Willy didn’t pitch, Greg found out later that Willy and Carol Ansell were
having lunch together and that Willy had forgotten about the meeting!
Greg worked well with his deputy, David Spence. David had a flair for implementing Greg’s many ideas and
worked hard to implement the thinking skills and helped arrange for Dr Edward de Bono to visit St David’s.
Under Greg’s guidance St David’s became the first school to introduce Kumon in South Africa. The nursery
schools were also asked not to concentrate on table top activities but rather to concentrate on gross and fine
motor activities. Greg was also instrumental in introducing remedial therapy, occupational therapy and speech
therapy into the school. He also encouraged the reintroduction of music into the curriculum. Working with Paul
Davies proved difficult at times due to Paul being very dogmatic but on the whole they worked well together.
Paul introduced the house system and he brought more formality to proceedings. Greg felt that the prep
should be represented on the board and wrote a letter requesting prep representation. This was a slow
process and took about 2 years before Greg was allowed to attend and address prep issues.
Greg always found the parents warm and supportive but unfortunately they always compared St David’s to St
John’s or St Stithian’s. The one thing the parents didn’t take into account was that the fees were substantially
lower than these other schools so the school didn’t have the funds and thus it was difficult to compete with
them. The prep pavilion was built during Greg’s stay at St David’s. Greg had budgeted for a double garage to
be built to house equipment but once the parents saw the building in progress, they willing gave money and so
the whole project expanded and a concrete slab was laid to provide for a first floor. The school expanded into
3 streams per grade, which made St David’s more competitive and also provided more capital for projects.
As regards the board, Greg felt that Terrence Wilkinson was an excellent chairman. He brought
professionalism into the board and the school started to flourish under his guidance. The PTA also played a
huge part in school life. One major project was when they erected the roof over the stands surrounding the
pool under the chairmanship of Mike O’Shea. Greg decided to leave St David’s in March 1995 because he
was offered a very good package from St Peter’s and with a growing family this was important as was the fact
that Greg was an anglican and of course St David’s was a catholic school.
Greg has fond memories of St David’s as their third child, Liam, was born while Greg was headmaster here.
Liam enjoyed the life at school and a familiar sight was Liam being pushed around the campus in his pram.
Greg loved his time at St David’s where he worked hard and played hard! He started the potjiekos competition
which still takes place, as well as the staff christmas ‘thank you’ party. Greg enjoyed his wine but also loved
the bush and nature. He encouraged the school to plant indigenous trees and also took groups of boys on
camps into the bush. Greg loved animals and encouraged the staff to look after the birds and animals in the
birdcage in the prep playground. The guinea fowl on the property had chicks but one got isolated and was
struggling to survive so Greg put it in the birdcage for protection because he felt it would not survive outside.
He, unfortunately, had to release the bird due to huge pressure, but as suspected, the bird was killed on the
first day that it was released!
In closing Greg stated that he enjoyed his time at St David’s and has fond memories. He also enjoyed working
with the Brothers and meeting the other Marist Heads. January 2011

Anderson, Glenda

Interview with Beverly Geldenhuys

ZA ZAR STDS 202000712
Stuk
2011

Interview - Beverly Geldenhuys – Staff
Bev is the third generation of her family to be linked to St David’s. Her grandmother, Beryl Smith
taught grade 1 at Koch Street, moving to Marion College when Koch Street closed. Bev’s
mother, Rosalyn Quillian, also worked at Marion College as a secretary. Bev started her
teaching career with two years at Marion College before joining the staff of St David’ in 1976.
She later took a break when her children were born but taught an hour a day at R20 per lesson
and came back to teaching full-time in 1984.
She views her time at St David’s as pieces of a jig-saw puzzle of stories. For example bumping
into a past pupil now aged 36, in a shopping centre and being told that Bev’s mantra, when she
taught him in standard 4, was one that he lived by; at the wedding of a past pupil when he broke
their walk up the aisle to introduce his bride to his former teacher, these are all pieces making
up the whole picture and the happiness and fulfilment she has had whilst working at St David’s.
She felt that when one followed the careers of many past pupils and knowing that one has had a
part to play it made it all so worthwhile.
She recalled that when she first joined St David’s, at first break, tea and cakes were served and
at second break, a three course meal which left everyone mellow and chilled and gave them
energy for the remainder of the day. Now she and many other members staff phone out to
Fabianos or Thrupps to get their food preferring freshly made fare to that which the school tuck
shop offers.
She enjoyed working with Paul Edey as headmaster, liked George Manolios and Greg Royce
but did not like Paul Davies. Greg Royce used to call her the R11 note – rare!
She remembers an occasion when she was part-time, substituting for a standard 2 class. The
children were being very naughty and on the second day they asked her why she didn’t throw
the blackboard duster at them as their teacher normally did! Bev had a style of teaching which
often saw her standing on a desk which usually grabbed the attention of all the pupils and
enabled them to remember the concepts being taught. She often thought that they were all
waiting with bated breath to see if she would fall, hence the concentration.
After her recent illness, many of her pupils ran up and hugged her on her return to school and
made her promise never to leave them again. In fact, the mother of one of her young pupils
insisted on being taken to visit her in hospital to make sure that she was still alive.
Both Bev’s sons went to St David’s and have retained friends from their days at school and her
grandson Riley will also follow in his father’s footsteps. Her son Gary didn’t miss one day of
school from grade 0 to matric and was presented with a special award by Paul Edey.
JE August 2011

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Genny Carvalho 1991 - 2007 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000784
Stuk
2012

Interview with Genny Carvalho – 1991 – 2007
Genny initially worked for Malcolm Smit who was the bursar at that time. Malcolm’s office was
where Rick Wilson’s office is now, Mike Greef’s office was the reception area. The staff working
in the bursar’s office was divorced from the rest of the school dealing only with the accounts.
The staff at the time were Malcolm Smit, Audrey Williams and Genny, they started work at
8.30am and were usually finished by 1.30/2.00pm, as the school was very much smaller then
with fewer accounts.
Genny remembers that, in the early 2000’s the school lost a number of pupils and a teacher to
Crawford College when it opened and also because of the increased traffic on the Nicol
highway.
In those day the school used to take cash payments for fees and the beginning of term was
usually “pay day” and one term an armed robbery took place and R25 000 in cash was taken.
Although no member of staff was badly hurt, they were most definitely shaken.
Once the school started to build up it did so rather quickly especially when Paul Edey was
appointed headmaster in 1995. Paul Edey, together with Kevin Brewer started an extensive
building programme and Paul made the staff feel valued for the first time. Genny also liked Greg
Royce and felt he was an excellent prep school headmaster.
Genny enjoyed working for Malcom Smit, all the books were done in long hand and she used a
manual Underwood typewriter. Malcolm did all the books and wrote out all the cheques for the
staff wages, put them into envelopes and drew a special, appropriate drawing on each one. He
used to draw mushrooms on Genny’s envelope as he said she was completely in the dark about
accounts and what she knew about figures was dangerous. On matron’s envelope he drew a
nurse in uniform.
Willem van der Merwe was very close to Malcolm and viewed him as a father. When Malcolm
wanted tea, in a loud voice he would say “It’s like a desert in here”. He was firm and could be
quite cutting but never rude. Formerly an auditor, he was retired when he came to St David’s.
The offices changed again later when Mike Forder was appointed. Mike’s office was originally
where Dave Smith’s office is now and the main office is where Malcolm Williams now resides
and Genny sat where Pam Groenewald does now. They eventually moved upstairs which was a
much better environment for them all. Di Clark was very kind to Genny and helped her with her
accountancy.
Genny had very little to do with the children and as her job increased in volume, very little to do
with parents unless they had a problem. However she does remember the mother of Steve
Bailey who passed away in his sleep in 2010 and a “Mrs Honeysuckle”, not her real name who
had had three husbands and children from each, her son was the most beautiful boy and she
was quite a stunner too. Her son matriculated in the mid 90’s and she organised a lovely lunch
and mother and son fashion show in what is now the library.
Because of Genny’s involvement with St David’s, her husband Michael got interested in schools
and, together with Mark Henning decided that there was a gap and began publishing
“Independent Education” for the private schools.

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Paul Saunders 1973 -1975 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000874
Stuk
2013

Interview with Paul Saunders -Staff 1973-75
When Paul began teaching at St David’s, Br Anthony was the Headmaster but left in 1974 to go
to Slough and Br Timothy took over in 1975. The school was much smaller with about 200 boys
in the high school with mainly brothers teaching in addition to 6 to 7 lay teachers. Paul and his
wife Hester had just married and moved into Lowndes Gate close to the school and later moved
to Woodmead Manor, Rivonia. Paul taught Afrikaans and coached U13 cricket and the 5th rugby
team.
Some lay teachers he remembers were Billy Karoo now in the USA, Mrs Elliott and Ron Hughes
who both taught English, and Mrs Wheelan. They were a small group and bonded well. The
teaching periods were much longer but very well run and hands on. The boys were scared of
the brothers but Paul found them easy to work with. Br Anthony had an irritating habit of walking
up and down the corridors. He could not be seen through the windows which hung at 22
degrees and would stand out of sight and listen to the teachers, checking up on them.
In his first year the lay teachers originally had their lunch together with the brothers in the dining
room but then moved into what is now the copying room and the lunches became a little more
frugal, sandwiches and soup which didn’t please many of the staff. The chapel was upstairs and
used by the brothers. The tuck shop was where the Music centre is now and was run by the
parents.
Some of the brothers he recalls were Br Bosco, Br Bernard, Br Andrew (Drac) who taught
Maths, Br Aidan, the bursar and Br Anthony. Br Anthony had a couple of canes in his office but
punishment was only given in class, corporal punishment was the norm.
The matric dance was held in the boarder’s dining room with a pirate theme. The club house is
now the home of the CEO, the oval is in the same location and Pete Stringer, the cricket coach
used to rule the roost there. The prep playing field was the cricket pitch for all teams other than
the 1st team
Whilst Paul was recently substituting at the school he was using the same classroom he had
when he was full time at the school. He recalled that he had a very old wooden chair which one
day eventually collapsed in front of the whole class with him in it. The boys were so well
behaved they didn’t laugh until he told them they could.
There was a big ceremony when the auditorium was inaugurated. Most functions were held in
what is now the CEO’s home. There were many well known families with children at the school
– Lebos, Kourie, Daras, Zent, Allem, Marnewick, Walfords, Peel, Brian Macmillan was in the
cricket team and in those days the boys played Nuffield cricket. Paul remembered Mr Manolios,
the prep headmaster although he didn’t deal with him directly.
Paul eventually left to teach at Damelin and later taught Science and Biology to matric. Damelin
was eventually taken over by Educor.
Paul said that Marist Brothers brings back a great nostalgia, it was a special place. Paul enjoyed
his time at St David’s and found the boys to be extremely well behaved both in and out of the
classroom.
Photos that could be included – standard 9 and one with Br Bosco (Mario) and the honours
boys and U13 cricket team.
JLE February 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Emma Sithole 1982 - 2015 Staff

ZA ZAR STDS 202000768
Stuk
2014

Interview with Emma Sithole – Staff – 1982 to date
At the age of 28, Emma joined the support staff of St David’s as Head Cleaner. She was interviewed by
Willem Van Der Merwe and reported to him. She also used to cook for the brothers when Richard or
Mjomle were away.
In those days the committee room was the brothers dining room and the staff workroom was the kitchen
and pantry. The original walk in fridge is still in existence in the tuck shop kitchen. The tuck shop was the
mothers’ kitchen and catering equipment was stored there. The current administration offices were
originally the brothers’ chapel, kitchen and dining room.
The brothers’ lunch usually consisted of soup followed by fruit. Later when Julius was away Emma would
prepare sandwiches for the brothers and staff.
Emma didn’t live on the school premises as she had six children to care for and lived in Alexandra
Township. Life was not easy for her bringing up her children during difficult and different times.
In 1991 Emma took over from Julius, cleaning the tuck shop, helping the mothers and working together with
Enoch Mhlongo. Mrs Van Guilleaume ran the tuck shop and the ladies entertainment committee with Victor
Shibambu joining the staff later.
Over the years Emma saw a lot of changes with Shelly Watson coming in then Jon Jon Dry. The tuck shop
now not only caters for the staff everyday and for individual functions but also provides meals on a daily
basis for some of the boys. Emma still makes the sandwiches and some salads for the staff. She misses
Shelly who retired last year and regarded her as a friend and mentor who took care of her.
When Emma retires she would very much like to help and do the cooking for an orphanage near her home
looking after the children with no parents and some that have aids.
Emma retired in 2015
JLE 2014

Egenrieder, Julie

Willem Van der Merwe Farewell Speech by Willy Castle

ZA ZAR STDS 202000958
Stuk
2012

Willem
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, the Marist Brothers who are present here, Mr
Greeff, Mr Wilson, Mr Williams, members of the board and PTA, staff, Vaughan and
Matthew (Willem’s sons and other family members) and all the friends of Willem J van
der Merwe. In Marist school culture there is a Marist style based on presence,
simplicity, family spirit, love of work and Mary’s way. Willem’s love for the Marist
Brothers is evident with their presence here and he really appreciates you coming to
share this occasion with him. Willem was born in Cape Town and went to school at
Northlea in Rhodesia and he is the only South African citizen that I know that has two ID
books with different dates of birth and I leave it up to your imagination as to what he
uses them for.
How do you summarise a lifetime? Well, it will take a while so I suggest you make
yourselves comfortable and pay attention.
Willem arrived at St David’s 32 years ago and I still recall my first meeting with him
when Brother Anthony introduced me to a Texan smoking, ex-Zimbabwean soldier,
cement factory builder, farmer, handyman, steel worker, grass grower, builder, plumber,
welder and fixer of anything but unfortunately Willem couldn’t swim. Willem and I took
swimming lessons at the Eskom swimming pool and I had to pretend that I couldn’t
swim so as not to embarrass him as he was training for Iron Man.
When Willem first arrived at St David’s it was very simple, there was no tractor, there
was no bakkie, no tools and there was definitely no golf cart. There were no fences
around St David’s and keeping people off the property was a huge nightmare. Pupils on
motor bikes were the worst especially when they chose to ride on the cricket pitches.
One such person, who shall remain nameless proceeded to do a victory lap down
Rivonia Rd after destroying one of the pitches and with the help of Brother Aidan’s X-ray
vision, we got his number plate and the rest was history.
Years ago the school still owned the four bottom rugby fields and additional oval that
bordered on Rivonia Road and on one of our excursions down there to see what was
happening, we found a shebeen buried in the ground. On one cold morning we had to
remove a dead body. This person had obviously succumbed to the cold weather. The
police were called and order was restored.
One weekend, on a trip to the Rugani farm, we brought the old tractor back to St
David’s where Willem fixed up Rugani 1 and that is the red tractor that you still see
driving around the school nowadays.
I see Louis, Willem’s brother, John Williamson and Alex Chemaly and a few other
friends here who attended a bachelor party at John’s grandmother’s house where we
needed to bring in a full cleaning company to restore the house to it’s former glory, after
the party. I still think Louis and Willem are traumatised by that event as they had just
arrived from calm Zimbabwe.
We all remember Willem’s big foot Ford bakkie that was used for pulling the
lawnmower, carrying building supplies from the hardware, and giving kid’s rides on their
birthday parties. Willem loved custom made vehicles and fast bikes. Every three
months the latest, fastest motor bike was heard driving out of his house on Sunday
mornings to the breakfast run.
My first recollection of Willem’s sporting ability was when we were sitting in Willem’s
lounge in January 1980 and we were watching television and Willem said how great it
would be to run the Comrades marathon that was advertised on TV. My immediate
comment was to tell him that the first thing he needed to do was to stop smoking. He
then picked up the last pack of Texan Plain and threw it in the rubbish bin and the next
10 Comrades were history.
Willem has toured the world and been to places that we would only dream of. After
returning one holiday from a trip to Tokyo and having arrived at home at 2 in the
morning, he was rudely awakened by Tom McFadden and I as we had not yet qualified
for Comrades and had to run the Benoni Marathon that morning to qualify.
Willem’s claim to fame after Comrades races was that he was always dehydrated and
had to be taken every year to hospital to have drips put into him to rehydrate him. Two
incidents that really stand out were on one of our Comrades races, at 62km, I was going
to stop with ITB. Needless to say, on sitting down on the pavement, I received a quick
smack on the side of the head and was told to get my A into G and reminded that this
was my fault and he would be dragging me all the way to Durban.
Another incident I recall was on a flight to Two Oceans with George Ndlovu, Willem’s 2
IC on the support staff. There was a bomb scare over Bloemfontein. The plane
dropped out of the sky, the chutes came out, and Willem and George had to run from
the runway to the airport. He did have quite a job to get George back into the plane to
get down to Cape Town as George had never flown before.
I’m sure Willem remembers these trips to Cape Town where we used to sleep in the
sick bay at St Joseph’s and our long chats with Bro. Benedict and Brother Lawrence in
the evenings.
Willem has, apart from Comrades, Two Oceans and Iron Man also completed numerous
94.7 and Argus Cycle races, Fish Canoe Marathons and over 20 Duzi’s. I will never
forget the day when he asked me to second him on one of his Iron Man escapades.
Needless to say that, I was more broken than he was at the end of the event.
One night when Willem and I were on a training run down Fricker Rd. All the cars were
parked on the pavement for the cricket test at the Wanderers. On running past one of
the cars, we noticed someone lying on the front seat. We decided to turn back and see
what was happening. Someone was trying to steal a radio out of the car so we decided
to play policeman and immediately hauled the chap out of the car. We managed to get
some wire and tie him up to the door until the police arrived to take him away.
When Willem arrived at St David’s, his first workshop was part of the old stables which
also doubled up as a shebeen for Osborne, next to what today is the Astro. His love of
work was pushed to the limit as the area adjacent to his workshop, the present car park,
was a huge hole where parents would drop and fetch their kids. Willem went about
filling the hole turning it into a prep school playground with grass and irrigation. It took
over 200 loads of sand to level that area.
In his first few years at St David’s, Willem’s love for family was demonstrated by
extending his involvement in school activities. Willem used to help coach rugby and
accompanied tours especially our trips down to East London where he had a fine
reputation of dancing all night in the Numbers Discotheque. He then started the canoe
club which went from strength to strength and a number of boys that he coached have
represented the country and our boys have done exceptionally well in SA championship
races particularly our prep team who, for the last three years have won the South
African prep school championship sprint awards.
If it wasn’t for Willem, I would probably not still be at St David’s, so you can blame him
for me still being here. He built my house on the property from scratch and he also built
the swimming pool roof with help and prayers from Father Brewer that makes our pool
the best school pool in South Africa. Not many of you know that Willem laid out the
piping for the clinic in Slough that Brother Anthony was building. He assembled it on
the service road and then took it apart and took it to Slough to fit into the new clinic.
Our prep pavilion was also one of Willem’s building projects. When Mr Royce, Willem
and I decided to build this we had no permission from the brothers or school to build this
facility. We had trucks delivering in the middle of the night and laid the roof between 2
and 4 in the morning so when Brother Timothy saw this building going up, he
immediately challenged us and some very smooth talking took place to allow us to
complete this building. Willem also revamped his present house which was the old
brothers quarters and sick bay and was also our fourth pub on the property on our pub
crawls. At this point the usual procedure was to drink out of the ladies shoes before
heading off to the next house. No more will be said about these escapades.
The Roxy Rhythm Bar in Melville with Brother Vincent as our handbrake often turned
into very late nights and very quiet Friday mornings.
I remember having tickets for the Michael Jackson concert and the only one I could
force to come with me was Willem. What are friends for? Willem also went to see ZZ
Top but didn’t like them too much! He was jealous of their beards.
Willem loves animals and Socks and Megan were always part of the school and
everyone on campus knew who their boss was.
At the end of each term, we always used to have fantastic staff parties and on one of
these occasions, at Glenda Anderson’s house, Willem and I managed to put a huge
rock in the passenger side of Carol Ansell’s box Renault. The car immediately tilted to
the left. After the party, we all stood and watched Carol Ansell drive home sideways
without even noticing that her car was at an acute slant and how she got home we still
wonder to this day.
Willem and I used to have great fun on evenings when Mr Paul Davies, the then
headmaster, when he would entertain and we would sit in The prep school playground
with a six pack and keep switching the lights off in his house periodically. Needless to
say, Willem was called to his office the next morning to get an electrician in to sort out
these power surges.
Our fields, buildings, gardens, swimming pool, cricket pitches hold testament to Willem’s
huge contribution in maintaining our facilities which no other school can match.
We wish Willem good luck, good health and our thanks go with him in the next stage of
his life. We are really going to miss you.
Please charge your glasses as we propose a toast to the super man of St David’s
Marist Inanda.

Castle, W J

Interview with Dave Smith 1997 to 2022

ZA ZAR STDS 202000757
Stuk
2013

Interview with Dave Smith – Staff – 1997 to date
Dave came to St David’s from Bryanston High School in 1997 as head of the Geography department. His
first impression of the school was that it was very small having come from a big co-ed high school with
1300 pupils to teach two matric classes with 5 pupils in one and 12 in the other whereas Bryanston had
three classes with 30 pupils in each. Currently 60 to 70 pupils take Geography as a matric subject which
shows the growth in the number of pupils attending the school.
Paul Edey was the headmaster and together with Kevin Brewer, chairman of the board, motivated the
development plan for the school. At the time the quad housed an ablution block and the pavilion was a
Zozo hut! The school wasn’t very competitive apart from cricket but is now very competitive and is in the
top echelon of the pantheon of boys’ schools.
The leadership programme has grown enormously. In 1997 Dave took all the matrics to a camp in the
Magaliesburg and now there are camps for every grade. The camp, specifically for the prefects with the
main focus on leadership has also grown and now any matric can get a leadership scroll other than
prefects. Thirty two matrics in 2012 received leadership scrolls.
Dave was appointed housemaster of College house in 2000 and senior deputy headmaster in 2003
overseeing student affairs and school administration. He is also editor of the school magazine and sees not
just the physical changes in the school but in the number of pupils and the range of activities on offer. St
David’s has become one of the top boys’ schools worldwide with the vision that was created by Paul Edey
and continued by Malcolm Williams. However the school does have an achilles heel, rugby.
Dave believes St David’s to be an incredibly happy school with the boys having their own identity. There is
a sense of tradition and what makes a good tradition. One regret Dave has is that he gave up mentoring
the matrics when he became deputy headmaster.
On the staff, the characters he has encountered include the likes of Rod Smith, Belinda Marais and Annika
Carter to name but a few. Malcolm William’s concept of “Presence” has been unbelievable and the energy
he put into everything he did.
JLE December 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

1982 School Function

ZA ZAR STDS 2021-01-005-03-20200222
Stuk
1982

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