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Interview with "Sbu"" Sibonelo Mbongwe 2007

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000932
  • Item
  • 2015

Interview with “Sbo” Sibonelo Mbongwe – 2011
Sbo first came to St David’s from Montrose Primary and joined grade 8. He remembers the grade 8 camp
and camping at the top of a big hill. Mr Rod Smith, Mr Lotter and Mr Williams were there with the boys and
Mr Williams joined the boys on a hike.
Sbo joined “The Bishops” house. His teachers, Mrs Russell - Maths in grade 8, very helpful and patient; Mr
Lotter – Accounts, Mrs Khanyile – isiZulu, a stern motherly figure, Mr Smith – English and Ms Cambitzis
who taught him in grade 11 and 12, he recalled that she gave them an insight into the life ahead of them
and continued to help him with his English when she moved to Kingsmead to teach there.
Sbo participated in sport, 2nd team water-polo; B team swimming and 2nd team rugby. He enjoyed drama
and was in the cast of “The Little Shop of Horrors” in 2008. He was very nervous on the opening night but
said it was a great experience. He participated in the house plays and wrote the script for the house play in
grade 11. Sbo was appointed head of culturals of The Bishops in his matric year and also received scrolls,
full colours for leadership and service, half colours for drama, a team award for music and was a peer
counsellor.
As a part of a community outreach project, Sbo and other boys went to Addo with Mr Fry and repainted a
school giving out beanies and scarves to the pupils. Sbo did this because he enjoyed it and it cemented the
need in him to give. The school motto is also very important to him “Comfortare Esto Vir” – take courage
and be a man.
Sbo remembered his matric dance and the before party with a couple of friends, the dance was held at the
Wanderers. Sbo was a member of the matric dance committee in grade 11 and assisted in the preparation
of a masked ball.
Sbo says that he enjoyed being so silly whilst at school, it was great fun with lots of laughter and jokes and
his grade are very close.
After matricualting, Sbo enrolled with UNISA and studied for a BA Accounting Sciences and is currently
attending lectures at the Edge Business School. He will complete his degree this year followed by a post
graduate year in 2016. He is a member of the MOBS committee and attended this year’s matric rite of
passage which he thought was perfect being held at St David’s. He would definitely send a son of his own
to St David’s.
JLE August 2015

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Setty Risi 1950

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000933
  • Item
  • 2013

Interview with Setty Risi – 1950
This is more of a series of recollections by Setty Risi during his time at Inanda. He was initially
at Koch Street.
Setty joined St David’s or Marist Inanda as it was then known in 1947. That year saw the start of
a transformation the college firstly in the scholastic field with the first junior matric class and in
1948 the first senior matric class began. In 1950 the senior and junior matrics prepared for a
mid-winter exam which was introduced by Br Edwin together with the College of Education in
preparation for the final exams.
The boarding section was situated opposite the classrooms and consisted of four dormitories
with A and B on the top floor and C and D on the bottom. Each dorm housed plus, minus 60
boys. The boarders study and college chapel were located at the opposite end facing the junior
school; the former on the ground floor, and the latter upstairs. The boarders’ dining room and
kitchen faced the quadrangle. The college chef, Piet Tshabalala who retired in 1950, had been
with Marist Brothers for over 40 years and had been personally employed by Br Frederic at
Koch Street. Setty met Br Frederic when he was a boarder at Marist Brothers, Uitenhague. Br
Frederic sadly died 4 weeks before his 100th birthday.
The brothers had their own cottage, which has since been demolished situated directly opposite
the old swimming pool.
The principal of the junior school was Mrs Kempster and the senior school, Br Urban until he
passed away in 1949 and Br Edwin took his place. Br Urban, a strict but fair man, very proud of
the progress achieved during his term as principal, was loved and respected. He believed that
every Marist Inanda scholar should take heed of the college motto – Comfortare Esto Vir –
Strive to be a Man. He had planned a trip to his homeland Australia but died in the presence of
his colleague Br Justin.
Br Edwin was a South African and came from a well know SA family. This was his first post as
principal of a college and his passion was rugby. As a Science teacher many a lesson was
disrupted by his talks on rugby, showing the boys press cuttings from his scrapbook which
described him as an excellent rugby player and a magnificent centre. Whilst he was studying for
the brotherhood, he was being groomed for provincial honours but was seriously injured in a
match suffering severe back and neck injuries resulting in permanent paralysis of the neck. He
was unable to turn his neck to the left or right, nevertheless this did not deter him from
appointing himself as the 1st XV coach. He was nicknamed “Jack Bones” and proved his worth
by turning the 1st XV into a real mean machine. He perfected the scrummaging and backline
with the end result proved his point with the team playing 10 matches, winning 7, losing 2 and
drawing 1.
The staff were Br Bartholemew – cricket coach; Br Alban – rugby and cricket coach who was
transferred to St Henry’s in 1949; Br Thomas; Br John; Br Lewis; Mr B. Singleton; Mr R. Bishop;
Mrs A Basson – Music teacher. In 1948 Br Celestine (Caesar) joined the staff as Maths and
Latin teacher. He was the only teacher who wished to be called Caesar and made it a ritual
every time he started a lesson. The boys would all stand, right arms raised, fists clenched and
shout “Hail Caesar”.
In 1947, rugby was introduced as a sport, two tennis courts were erected and the grading and
making of a new sports field. The new sports field which was used mainly for rugby and cricket
events was called the bottom field of which the top portion is the swimming pool today. Top
fields had three soccer pitches with the main field adjoining Rivonia Road sloping to the second
field and the third field at the back on Boundary Road. In 1948, the grading and levelling of the
main and second soccer field commenced and a turf wicket laid. The main rugby field was
parallel to Rivonia Road, B field adjoined 1st Avenue and one soccer field remained at the back
on Boundary Road. Soccer was restricted to the junior school only and the cricket pitch was
named “The Urban Oval”.
Tennis was in its infancy and there was great competition amongst the boys to represent the
school. Eventually 3 teams were selected and the school had the good fortune to have Jaraslav
Drobny, ex Wimbledon champion as a coach for a week. In1949 the doubles team played 8
matches, winning 6 and the singles champion advanced to the last 8 participating in the U/18
Transvaal championships held at Ellis Park.
Boxing was another popular sport which was initially contested between the houses, Benedict,
Bishops, College and Osmond. In 1949 the only tournament arranged was against Observatory
at Obs. The popularity of boxing was however on the decline and was eventually discontinued.
Swimming was the weakest link in the sports curriculum with mediocre swimmers although the
school did compete in the high school gala at Ellis Park. What the Marist boys, together with
Jeppe High was the highlight was the destruction of the KES school mascot, a giant teddy bear.
This was brought on by sour grapes as KES won this gala year after year.
1948 was quite a year for athletics the highlight of which was the build up to the athletics
meeting against rival Marist Observatory held at Obs. Frank McGrath, against all odds pipped
the Observatory sprinter at the post receiving a replica of the Callixte shield. This shield was
named after Br Callixte and was contested by the junior schools from Marist Koch Street,
Observatory and Inanda. Early in 1949, the athletics track which circled the cricket oval was
completed, this coincided with a triangular meeting against CBC Boksburg and CBC Pretoria
held at the college. The school was fortunate enough to have members of the visiting US
olympic athletics team visit the college as a good will gesture. Their shot putt champion gave
the boys some valuable tips. A floating trophy for athletics was donated to the college by Mr
Julius Risi.
During 1941 – 46, cricket achieved first team status by competing against 1st X1 teams from
other schools ending the season having played 10 matches winning 4, losing3 and drawing 3. In
1948 the Australian cricket team, led by Lindsay Hasseti touring South Africa had a Marist touch
to it as three members of the team were Marist old boys. Amid much excitement they paid a visit
to Inanda and left a signed cricket bat as a memento to be presented to the batsman who
scored the most runs during the season. Sadly the bat went missing in 1949. During 1949 the
1st XI cricket team improved a great deal and 2 members were invited to attend Nuffield week
and, although they were not selected for the team they gained valuable experience..In 1950
there was a short but successful tour of Natal winning 1 and drawing 1 match.
In 1974, soccer had two divisions the U16 and U18. The standard of soccer was excellent with
both teams excelling during the season. The U16 finished second on the log to Mayfair Highland
and the open team, which proved to be one of the best school open teams, played in the U\20
league against such teams as Wanderers, Y.M.C.A., Rangers and Marist.
Rugby was introduced late in the season in 1947 and, due to the excellent coaching and
knowledge of Br Alban, and that many senior boys knew the fundamentals of the game, it took
little time for them to get into the swing of the game. Thirty boys were selected and the best
fifteen were given Ist team status. Setty was the first ever scrum half and played 1st team rugby
for 4 years. The school played 6 games winning 3, losing 2 and drawing 1. As the team was still
in the novice class, 3 of the matches played were against the 2nd XV from Marist Observatory,
Monument and Fakkel, winning the former and losing the latter. The members of the 1st XV of
1947 were reselected for the 1948 season as the college only obtained complete high school
status in 1948, the first senior matric class Marist Inanda was listed as a day scholar and
boarding school. What a season that was. Prior to its start, Br Alban informed the school that
the team would be given full 1st XV status, rugby scrolls would be awarded and the school
would only participate against 1st XV’s from other schools. As 90% other team were boarders
they started their training early in the season and in the evenings after study, talks were given
about rugby. Highlight of the season was the match against the unbeaten, star studded
Parktown Boys. Before the game Br Urban gave an inspirational talk to the team. A walkover by
Parktown was inevitable, however the team performed a David and Goliath act and beat them
11-8. After the match the team created the war cry which was accepted until 1950:-
Killamanaio! – Waa!- Killamanaio – Waa!
Zucka-Zucka-Zunka-Zinca-Zinca-Zaa! Zaa!
Chia-Chia-Chaa! Chaa!
Ina-Ina! Aah!
I-N-A-N-D-A
Marist Inanda
In 1949 the All Blacks toured South Africa and the 7 Marist members of the team were invited
as spectators to a home match with a combined 7 players from Marist Inanda together with 8
from Marist Observatory playing against a combined visiting Marist St Henry’s and St Charle’s
team. Some brilliant rugby was enjoyed by a large crowd with the home side winning 13-10 A
“combined Marist scroll was awarded to the 15 members of the local team by a member of the
All Blacks. The college team ended the rugby season having played 13 matches, winning 8,
losing 4 and drawing 1.The names of the players appear at the end of this document.
The rugby highlights of 1950 were versus Marist Observatory where, before a record crowd,
Inanda recorded their first draw against them, having lost the last 3 encounters. The next game
was against St Henry’s played at the Old Maristonian Club. Br Alban, their previous coach had
been transferred to St Henry’s the previous year, so it was a nostalgic match which Inanda won
5-3 and Br Alban said he was proud of them. The next highly competitive game was against St
Charles in Pietermarizburg. Br Edwin was determined that they should win although St Charles
were far superior with 5 members of their team representing Natal Schools. The team went into
vigorous training weeks before the event with Br Edwin teaching them coded moves which they
perfected. The team was accompanied by Br Matthew and on their arrival at Pietermaritzburg
station on the Saturday morning at 4.00am, after 12 hours travelling prior to the game that
afternoon, they were met by Br Ralph and the team captain. With jeers and laughter Br Matthew
was asked if this was Inanda’s U15 side. Then they were taken to St Charles and told to share
the 8 mattresses that had been prepared in the school hall. This and the negative comments by
their boys did not deter the Inanda team. There was a competition predicting the score which
had St Charles victorious by 60-0. At 2pm they were driven to the main rugby ground as the
game was a curtain raiser to a main fixture between a local side and the Old Marists from
Durban. In front of an enormous crowd of 5 – 6,000 supporters to Inanda’s total of 2, their
linesman and Br Matthew, it did seem as if it were Inanda’s U15 team compared to the weight,
strength and height of the St Charles boys. Five minutes into the game St Charles scored and
converted a try, 5-0. However Inanda’s defence was excellent and they held their own in the
scrum even though St Charles had a tremendous weight advantage. Inanda counteracted this
by packing very low which upset the opposition. After half –time, with the support of the large
crowd the team was fired with enthusiasm and their confidence increased as the game
progressed. A scrum on St Charles try line using a code move, wheeling left instead of right
allowed their flanker to barge over. The try was converted and the game ended in Inanda’s
favour 8-5. In appreciation, a portion of the crowd carried each team member off the field
shoulder high and at the station that evening to see them off, Br Matthew bade a sombre Br
Ralph farewell saying, “ Brother that was our U15 team luckily for you we did not bring our 1st
team”. Br Edwin was a happy man the mighty St Charles had been humiliated.
In 1948 the first matric dance was held in the boarders study.
There was some drama in 1949 with the murder of Bubbles Shroeder at Hlati-Kulu the
magnificent house with its entrance directly opposite the school gates. The police presence with
sirens wailing went on for months which was an exciting time for the boarders who were able to
witness the comings and goings in the evenings and Piet the chef kept the boys well informed
as he was friendly with the chef at Hlati-Kulu.
In 1950 there was an incident when some senior boarders hatched a scheme whereby they
planned to enter Br Florian’s room in the brothers’ cottage to peruse the exam papers, take
notes on the questions asked and give this to their colleagues. This was done without the
knowledge of the prefects or other senior boys. Saturday morning at 7am was selected as the
time when the boarders had their coffee break and all the brothers attended Vespers from 7 –
8am. All went well and the boys accomplished their mission but one of the boys involved
realised that his right glove was missing and he presumed he had left it in Br Florian’s room.
The boys concocted a story whereby they said they were playing with Spotty, Br Florian’s fox
terrier and the dog ran off towards Br Florian’s room with a glove. The boys said they were
wearing gloves because it was so cold. Br Florian said he would investigate and nothing more
was said until a few days later when the whole school was told to assemble in the quad. In
school hours this was most unusual. The culprit was told to repeat his story in front of the whole
school. Br Edwin was furious and accepted that the glove was found in Br Florian’s room,
however it was found not on the floor but under a pile of exam papers. The other boys owned up
and told the truth and fortunately for them Br Edwin believed that no-one else was involved. He
intended to expel them immediately but had a change of heart as they were senior matric pupils
and the final exams were only months away, nevertheless he cancelled all the exam papers.
During this period all the class and sports photos had been taken, colours blazers and scrolls
awarded and Br Edwin was adamant that he would have cancelled all these awards if this had
happened earlier. He decided that no photos, scholastic or sports activities would be included in
the school records for 1950 and would be deleted.
On matriculating, Setty left to join his father’s business in township development of areas such
as Risidale, Lynmeyer etc. The business was sold in 1979 and Setty who loved gardening
joined Kirchhoffs Seeds where he remained until his retirement in 2000.
The names of the players representing the 1st XV
1949 1950
H. Gearing Full Back C. Leon
F.McGrath Wing M. Rogers
M. Gonsalves Wing T.Kilgour
E. Hulse Centre D. Rethman (Capt)
L. Da Cruz Centre R. Gibson
R. Buffa Flyhalf J.Pacheco
S. Risi Scrumhalf S. Risi
K. Kannaugh 8th Man M. Forretti
C. Clarke Flank R. Perino
T. Smyhte Flank A. Zylstra
D. Smith Lock M. Madeyski
P. Spencer Lock B. Babaya
E. Barale (Capt) Front Row P. Cazales
J. Airoldi Front Row R. Kippen
L. Steyn Hooker I. Kealey
JLE April 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Simon Franklin 1985 - Standard 7

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000934
  • Item
  • 2012

Interview with Simon Franklin – 1985 Standard 7
Simon and his brothers Adrian and Jeremy attended St David’s with Adrian (vice head boy)
matriculating in 1984 and Jeremy in 1985. Their father was chairman of the board during the
time they were there. Simon didn’t stay on to matric but left and went to St Andrews,
Grahamstown at the end of 1985 when Mr Boswell was headmaster. There are a couple of
reasons for this, Simon got into some arguments relating to his almost certain election as a
prefect simply because he was a Franklin, this did not go down well with him and the fact that
his brother lost his honours blazer due to the disastrous non-catholic retreat in 1985. St David’s
was going through a bad time without strong leadership and Simon felt it was time to leave.13
out of 15 boys in the U14A rugby side, a really good team losing only a couple of matches that
season, also left that year.
Simon began his career at St David’s in standard 3 in 1981 and cycled to school, the family
home being in !st Avenue. He and his brothers used to access the school through a hole in the
fence. Brian MacFadden lived on the school grounds and Simon used to hang out with him at
his house and the pair of them used to ride a motorbike around where the Inandas are today.
They were naughty and considered the school their playground. Willy Castle and his wife and
young children lived next door to Brian.
Having two older brothers at the school made a big difference with Jeremy being the prop for
the 1st team rugby for two years, he was a big strong boy but is now much slimmer and an artist
who exhibits at the Everard Read, Standard Bank, and Goodman Galleries. Adrian who was
vice head boy to Nick Pruims, head boy is now a successful businessman running one of the
Fortune 100 companies.
Simon was a great sportsman playing A team rugby, cricket, swimming, athletics and held the
high jump record. When his brothers were playing 1st team rugby, his father invited the rugby
team to Dullstroom for the weekend together with Mr Collier and Mr MacFadden.
The teachers he remembers are Heather Joseph, the art teacher, a Mr Kotze who looked like
Freddie Mercury, someone who taught technical drawing who was a stand up comic and was on
TV sometimes. Finlayson was the rugby coach, Isaak Cronje, Walter Cronje’s brother, the
Physical Education trainer and Mr MacFadden who taught History and French and whom the
boys liked.
He enjoyed the prep but the high school doesn’t really stand out apart from the time spent on
the sports field. Academically Simon’s performance was poor, he did enough to get by and his
friendships with his peers and sport were more important to him. He participated in a “Can Can”
production in standard 3 in the old hall with Heather Joseph as producer and his Gran made him
a black and red outfit with stockings.
Of his peers Grant Dykes left at the end of prep, others were Brian Steele, Paul Allen, Sean
Johnson and Greg Black with whom he is still in touch. He recalls Gary Beuthin breaking his leg,
with the whole leg in plaster which did not deter him from lying on his motor bike and riding to
school. Mike Erery, matric 1985 a huge guy who drove a really small car. Other names he
remembers are Michael Wood’88, Tonetti and Roland Retz.
Being an Anglican, the Religious Education was something Simon had to do and didn’t really
appreciate until later and especially at St Andrews where he was nicknamed “The Rev” because
of his knowledge. He felt he was given the tools to decide whether or not he wanted religion in
his life.
Simon was 17 when he matriculated and went into the army in the medical corp it was the last
year of intake and he finished in 1990 when he enrolled at the Cape Technikon to study
marketing and played ruby for Villagers rugby. His first project was the 1995 World Cup which
took him all over the world. He joined FIFA in 2006 until 2011 which gave him huge exposure,
travel and introduced him into a different way of thinking. He was then commercial director for
SAFA and is now with Megapro.
Simon has a son currently in grade 0 at St David’s. Simon is glad to see that St David’s has
adopted football and that a number of boys have been assigned to professional soccer league
teams. He feels that the sport has improved over the last few years and believes that academics
are crucial but that sport is very important and the school’s performance on the sports field.
JLE November 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Stephen Eilertsen 1994 - 1997 Staff

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000935
  • Item
  • 2012

Interview - Stephen Eilertson – Staff 1994 -97
Stephen was teaching at Sandown High when Rod Smith, the former headmaster then teaching English at
St David’s, introduced him to the school. Gary Norton who was the then acting headmaster employed
Stephen to implement the building and opening of the first computer centre shared by both the prep and
high schools. Paul Edey was eventually appointed the headmaster with Malcolm Williams as his deputy in
1995.
The IT department was successful and Stephen implemented the first Computer Literacy classes followed
by Computer Science. Computer Science was not taken seriously enough and was only taught as a 7th
subject for matric. The genius of St David’s revolved around its sporting achievements.
Stephen remembers his notable pupils such as Daniel Wright, now with Google who wrote the algorithm for
the programme that handles all advertising for Google (Google adwords). This sophisticated world class
software brings Google 90%of its income. Daniel was one of the top 3 boys that Stephen taught, was an
extreme computer nerd but commanded respect in his own way participating in sport at his own level.
Daniel also wrote a DOS based programme identifying birds in 1996 just for fun. He now lives in Canada
with his family.
Another boy was Rafiq Sarlie, 1996 who headed a team competing in a South African schools competition,
sponsored by Microsoft to see who could make the best website. Stephen felt that Rafiq should possibly
have followed Gladwell’s ideas and become an entrepreneur and not necessarily followed the conventional
route of school, matric and university. He wonders what happened to this extremely talented pupil.
Some of the teaching staff he remembers well , Lesley Henning a focused academic; Mitchel who spent 4
years in jail as a conscientious objector and was tortured, he taught RE and started the “Saint of the Day”
focusing on martyrs of their time. He is now head of a school in Soweto. In 1995, Debbi Cameron and
Stephen organised a tour to Europe for 30 boys. One of the cities visited was Amsterdam where a free
evening was planned. He recalled Adriano Iorio’s leadership skills in averting a crisis when one of the boys
bought some dagga and Adriano and some of the other boys persuaded him to get rid of it. Also Adriano, in
consultation with other boys on the tour, decided it would be wiser to spend the night in the hotel than roam
the streets of Amsterdam.
There was an incident when Stephen’s son Michael was in standard 9 when, prior to a long weekend, he
took his son in full uniform to a world preview of Star Wars during the school day. Malcolm Williams was
absolutely furious and Stephen believes that this incident influenced whether Michael became a prefect or
not.
Stephen is justifiably proud of his son, also a St David’s pupil who recently was awarded second place in
Africa at the annual SMME awards and has been incorporated into a painting of the 100 greatest people,
past, present and future in South Africa.
Stephen left St David’s to head up Ambassador College which was later integrated into Boston City
Campus. He now runs a family business investing in the internet, marketing companies using search terms
and key words and graphic design. He deals with small to larger companies and also runs a course entitled
“Dead Men with White Collars”.
JE October 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Steve Duley 1975

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000937
  • Item
  • 2014

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

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Steve Muller 1952

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000938
  • Item
  • 2011

Interview with Steve Muller 1953
Steve came to St David’s in 1941 even though there was no grade 0 in those days, and was
effectively in grade 0 until 1943. His mother said he talked too much and obviously thought
school would do him good, especially as his older brother was there too. He thinks he is the only
old boy to attend St David’s from 1941 until 1952 – check photo taken on steps by what is now
Malcolm William’s office. All three of his sons attended St David’s and his youngest son, Gavin
(87) was the first to complete 13 years, the other sons Graham and Brian completed matric in
1982 and 1980 respectively. His wife was the granddaughter of the first Marist pupil – Peter
Busschau.
The Brothers lived in a farm cottage, the land was all originally part of a Portuguese vegetable
farm. Steve can still remember the brothers walking across the veldt to school.
He was a boarder from standard 5. The senior school and boarding opened at the same time
(1948?)
The teachers, Mrs Kempster ran standard 4 and taught the boys how to write. Mrs Lidstone
owned the ‘Hudson Terror plane’ and used to pick up boys in Rosebank, corner Tyrwhitt and
Oxford where there was a Greek shop. The boys would travel with her along the then sand
roads at a rate of knots. A number of boys used to hang onto the strap at the back.
Brophy and Stirton taught the grades, Hoare standard 3, Kempster standard 4 and the Brothers
taught from standard 5 up. Brother Paul was blind.
He remembers Darko Vidas – a naughty boy. Mike von Guillieaume matriculated the same year
as Steve, Vito used to call him ‘Baron’ as his family originally German and had a castle.
Steve was not a great sportsman but participated in 1st team rugby. He was a good swimmer
and joined in the field events for athletics but never got colours for sport however he achieved
academic studies (60% in standard 9) and was a prefect. He was good at Mathematics and
received the Br Paul medal for Maths which he still has. Steve questions the high number of
distinctions pupils now achieve and remarked that a particularly bright boy, Anthony Radziwill
only achieved 5 distinctions in the JMB matric.
St David’s was always a big part of his life and still is. He enjoyed boarding, thinks it was the
best part of his life and feels very passionately about the school. He remembers his father
saying it was cheaper to send the boys to boarding school than keeping them at home, where
they would have eaten them out of house and home!
When he left St David’s he studied optometry at Wits University. He was an optometrist in
Rosebank for 40 years and in town for 10 years before that and worked until he was 70. He had
3 sons and a daughter. The daughter went to Rosebank convent.
Steve was chairman of the board of governors when, in 1981 Steve’s son was elected head
boy, although Steve knew this he kept it as a secret from his son at the time as he wanted it to
be a surprise. The board at the time was run by Vito, a farmer and Steve and optometrist. Steve
was still chairman 1982 when Br Timothy left and the first lay teacher became headmaster. It
was a difficult time, with both the parent body and many of the staff not being accepting of this
change. Tim Marnewick was vice-chairman and kept in touch with Mr Murphy, who was
originally interviewed by Br Timothy and Br Jude together with Steve. It was a tough time for the
school and many pupils left. A combined staff room for the prep and the high school was
introduced by Murphy, which proved to be an unpopular move with some of the staff.
Mr Manolios, the then prep headmaster was fired, without consultation, by Murphy for
inappropriate behaviour with mothers and a female member of staff. Murphy was also fired
when he appeared as a wrestler on TV. Br Anthony went off to Cape Town to investigate. It also
came to light later that Murphy was not as qualified as he had claimed.
At the end of 1986 when things were more settled, Steve handed over to Kevin Brewer who was
really good and has done a lot for the college.
JE June 2011

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Steven Giuricih 1994

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  • 2012

Interview with Steven Giuricich – 1994
Steven began his career at St David’s in Gr0 until he matriculated as head boy in1994. On his
first day he was dropped off by his mother, his teacher was Mrs Walton and he was befriended
by Dale Forssmann.
The teaching was of a good standard and he remembers that Mrs Snyman was an institution at
the school, very strict and a tough cookie. Willy Castle also stands out in his memory, also strict
but many boys respected him and still do to this day. Mr Brownlee taught Geography and was
housemaster for Osmond, Mr Cotze, standard 5 was quite fearsome, Mr Girdwood, English, Mr
Lamb married Antoinette von Guilleaume who taught Afrikaans. Mr Davies was the headmaster
of the high school, was respected and regarded as a good leader. Father Brewer was a great
man always there to talk to and very helpful. He was very involved with the school and the
sporting activities.
Steven enjoyed the sport and participated in swimming, soccer, cricket and athletics. He wasn’t
really much of a sportsman in the prep but came into his own in the high school with rugby,
swimming and water polo and made the 1st rugby team. He went on the swimming and a water
polo tour to St Henry’s followed by Midmar. He also went on rugby tour to St Charles.
Academically he was just above average and was in a small matric class of about 38 – 40 boys.
He enjoyed the drama and was a member of the backstage team. There was no outreach that
he recalls.
The matric dance was held at Oakfields Farm and had a medieval theme but the 1993 matric
dance was held in the old school hall.
After he matriculated he went to study BSc Building Science at Wits University. He then started
his own business in residential housing and renovations but joined the family business in 2008.
He is married with a son Danillo who will start grade 00 in 2013 and a daughter Valentina who
will be going to St Mary’s for grade 000 in 2013.
Steven is a member of MOBS and is still in touch with Kerry Gibson, Clifford Kopstave, Andrew
Harris and Robert Laing.
JLE October 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Sven Arp 1980

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  • 2013

Interview with Sven Arp – 1980
Sven joined St David’s in 1978 going into standard 8. As his parents had divorced, Sven left St Albans as a
boarder to spend time with his mother and attend school as a day boy. He found the St David’s to be a
breath of fresh air, less regimented and the environment was more relaxed from a teacher pupil
perspective.
Brother Timothy was the headmaster, he was tough but ok. Headmasters are never popular individuals.
Sven recalls that he did something “silly” and Br Timothy told him to “think about the consequences of what
he did in life” which has somehow stuck with him ever since.
Sven played 1st team rugby, was a B team swimmer with an occasional visit to the A team but he didn’t
ever play cricket. Overall Sven enjoyed his time at St David’s with rugby matches always being auspicious
occasions; the boys were under a lot of pressure especially playing centre. Tackles were not! to be missed.
Sven considered himself a decent sportsman but no superstar.
He recalled having a blind date for the matric dance he attended in standard 9, the night did not go that well
date wise. He is vague on his standard 10 matric dance but did have a regular girlfriend at the time.
Although St David’s was and still is a great school the boys learnt to be humble and not to expect to win all
the time, even today. He feels that intense pressure amongst schools to win (which seems even worse
today) is not entirely healthy.
Of the teachers, he remembers Mrs Natrass who came right at the end, she totally lacked self confidence
but could teach amazingly well. If you took the trouble to do past papers she would get them back to you
the next day, marked with full explanatory comments. Trudie Elliott taught English and was a character in
her own right. Mr Neft, Afrikaans also a character. As a non-Catholic, Sven received separate religious
instruction from the Catholic pupils.
Academically Sven did well and was in the top 5 most of the time. He was awarded an academic tie,
honours blazer, became a prefect and won a trophy for the Maths prize.
His Grade 11 results got him into Onderstepoort, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria
which was fortunate as his appendix burst midway during the matric exams and he had to write supps for 4
subjects. He eventually achieved 2 A’s but would have hoped for more.
After spending 5 half years qualifying at Onderstepoort, Sven went into the army and was based in
Kangwani, Badplaas in the Eastern Transvaal. He married whilst he was in the army and on completing his
army service went into small animal veterinary work and, in 1990 started at Olivedale clinic which now
operates with a compliment of 4 vets.
Sven has two sons Reinhardt who matriculated from St David’s in 2009 and Ronan who is currently in
grade 6 at St David’s. Although it’s quite a trip every day to and from the family home in Olivedale Sven
believes it is worth it for his son to be a St David’s boy and they spend some quality time on the drive to
and from the school.
Sven does a lot of pro bono work with feral cats in the area and for the Animals in Distress organisation.
Vets are also involved in the development of individual community clinics in the Eastern Cape which is
spreading. He has no direct involvement in those but feels they are a great initiative.
Sven hosted a MOBS event at his home earlier this year (2013) The “boys” had all just turned 50 or were
about to do so, nostalgia prevailed. Brian Muller and Trevor Christie-Taylor were visiting from Australia.
Fifteen of them got together with their wives and children including George Daras (head boy) and Alphonso
de Chaud (vice head boy) who together with Gavi McLaughlin made it all the way up from Cape Town. It
was a truly special day to catch up with mates some of whom had not seen each other since the last day of
school. School friendships are of the best.
JLE October 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Svend Littauer1988

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  • 2013

Interview with Svend Littauer – 1988
Svend came to St David’s in 1984, standard 6, he had just returned from being a few years
in Denmark and started school during the mid-term. It is never easy to try and integrate
when everyone already has their group of friends but he was made welcome by having a
designated person to look after him who he proudly still can call a friend 30 years later.
He always generally enjoyed school as an opportunity to be social and if the curriculum was
engaging enough it ensured that he was interested. Unfortunately during his time at St
David’s there were some “scandals” relating to the headmaster which meant that there was
no strong leadership in place. The reputation of the school suffered and the loss of the
brothers took away the specialness of the school.
Svend did not enjoy prefects’ teas – the thought that someone 17 years old had the authority
over you and, depending on their character, what punishment they could inflict.
Svend played tennis, rugby, hockey and cannot recall which team but he was briefly in the
rugby team before injured knees meant he had to swap to hockey..
The teachers that he remembers are Ms Joseph who was a fun Art teacher, Mrs De Wit and
Mr De Souza; Svend enjoyed their commitment to teaching.
One year the matrics apparently bounced the mini belonging to the Biology teacher up to the
first floor but as Svend wasn’t a witness he was not sure whether this was an urban legend.
Of his last day Svend remembers that it was with an element of sadness as it was where he
had spent the past 5 years however with it being the final year before embarking on the next
journey it was fairly exciting. He was with a number of boys going to St John’s to complete
their A’levels, during the uncertain times when they weren’t sure what the future in SA held.
After matriculating Svend went on to St John’s to write A level’s then onto RAU where he
studied for a BCom Law from 1992 – 94 and then Economics Hons in 1995. He is a fellow of
ICSA and is currently head of corporate legal and HR, Goodwille Ltd., St James House, 13
Kensington Square, London W8 5HD.
Svend had no sons who attended St David’s and visited St David’s 10 years ago but is still in
contact with George Neville Griffin, Stephen Klein, Beau Nicholas White and Edric von
Meyer.
JLE July 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Ted Barale 1984 Standard 9

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  • 2012

Interview with Ted Barale – 1984 (Std 9)
Although Ted eventually matriculated at Damelin College he was a pupil at St David’s from
grade 1 until 1984. Ted’s family lived in Krugersdorp which entailed Ted and his brother
Anthony catching a train at 4.30am from Krugersdorp to Park Street and then taking 2 buses to
get to school, repeating the process on the way home. He was a day boy but had lunch at
school and most Fridays the brothers used to go and have dinner with his parents at their
hotel,the Lewisham Hotel. Ted got a lift there and back with the brothers so he was ready for
rugby on Saturday.
Ted remembers Brother Anthony, and Mr Manolios, Brothers Andrew, Bernard, Aquinias and
Timothy. He remembers that Br Anthony used to allow the boys to choose their cane for
punishment.Br Anthony was popular with the boys and parents. He recalled an occasion when
one of the brothers was writing on the board and one of the boys flicked his fountain pen and
the ink went down the brothers back. The following day he came in facing the class and
eventually the culprit owned up and was sent summarily to Br Anthony’s office
The Herbert Baker house consisted of classrooms and stables were where the present grade 00
block is.
Ted loved the sport, playing hooker in rugby and made the cricket B team but did not do well
academically and battled with English and reading but enjoyed Biology and the Art classes. Ted
hated exams and the English lessons.Ted was the rebel and his brother Anthony, who became
a doctor and is now living in Canada was the clever one. Ted’s father was Italian and his mother
Afrikaans which didn’t help. His mother was chairlady of the ladies committee together with
Moni’s mother.
When Ted left school he went into the family business and has always been in catering and now
runs his own restaurant Picolinos in Fourways.
Ted still sees some of friends from school and some of them visit him at his restaurant. Paul
Moni, Nicholas Erleigh, Kevin Peel, Sean Davidson, Mike Stanley.
JE July 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Temba Bavuma 2007

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  • 2015

Interview with Temba Bavuma – 2007
Temba moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg with his parents in 2003 and first went to Fourways High
School joining St David’s in grade 10 when he was awarded a sports scholarship to play cricket. He was
spotted by Shane Gaffney and Roger Budd at a regional U15 cricket week.
At first he found the school rather intimidating and didn’t know quite what to expect as a co-ed school is run
somewhat differently. He made friends easily especially with his sporting background being involved with
rugby, soccer, cricket and cross-country.
Temba was awarded colours for soccer and cricket but didn’t play in an open year. He played for the A or
1st team in all the sports in which he participated and at one time soccer was his first love before cricket. He
struggled in the first few years but represented Gauteng U19 cricket. Initially he was going to study at UCT
having gained 3 distinctions in matric but he stayed on at St David’s and completed a post-matric year
which qualified him to play for SA Schools. It was a very tough year having to come back to school in
uniform and repeating matric subjects again. However, it did make him mentally stronger as an individual
and from a cricketing point of view.
Temba enjoyed the brotherhood at the school with a tight relationship amongst the guys especially in rugby
and cricket.
Temba did struggle with all the discipline and school regulations and those parameters but, with hindsight
he now appreciates it. He found all the teachers to be different and he could relate to them. Mr Ireland
didn’t show much emotion presenting a tough facade but Temba enjoyed him. Mrs Deetlefs had a vibrant
nature and always engaged with the students and Ms Cambitzis tried to break the student, teacher barrier.
Temba feels he owes a lot to Shane Gaffney who gave him the opportunity to succeed and contributed
greatly to enable Temba to get to where he finds himself now. Shane was very strict but tried to get the
best out of him and the other boys.Temba also had a good relationship with Amarinda Binder who helped
him a lot.
One unfortunate incident which stands took place during his grade 11 year when Sello M........... lost his
soccer boots and assumed that Temba had them. Sello took Temba’s school and cricket bag in revenge
which meant that Temba couldn’t do his homework or attend cricket training. This was a disaster for
Temba.
Temba went on school tours to Maritzburg and was involved in the St Albans tournament for cricket and
with soccer went to Kloof High and Durban, and played rugby in Bloemfontein at Gray’s College and St
Peter’s.Temba remembers that before his matric dance he was playing cricket all day and wondered if he
would ever make it.
The friendships he made at school he will always cherish and he remembers in particular Sabelo Sithebe,
head boy whom everyone respected, he was inspiring.
Temba matriculated in 2007 and 2008 with Accounting, Biology, Zulu, English, Business Economics and
Mathematics. He admits that his focus was not on marks but on cricket and was fortunate to play SA
Schools and for the SA U19 team, memories which he will cherish forever.
Temba appreciated the support he was given by being at St David’s, the way the school was run with its
systems and structure which enabled him to become the person he is today. It shaped him and encouraged
him. The values and principles the school instilled in him whilst he was there. The biggest thing wasn’t
about academics but how to be a man amongst other men. Comfortare Esto Vir: Take courage and be a
man.
In 2009 Temba enrolled at University of Johannesburg to study for BComm Finance. He finished the first
year but dropped out in the second due to his cricket commitments, enrolled at Unisa and finished his
degree in June 2014. He found it difficult to study and play sport. It was hard to find the energy after a
tough days training to apply himself to his studies. At the moment he is focused on his cricketing career and
a coaching facility at St David’s which he hopes will start at the end of March. He will be touring India and
Bangladesh during the winter.
Temba is now receiving information from MOBS and hopes to get more involved in future.
JLE February 2015

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Terence Lavery 1967

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  • 2013

Interview with Terence K. Lavery -1967 aka – T
Years attended Marist Inanda – 1956 -1967 – Matriculated 1967
My oldest brother Rory (1965) and I carpooled from Emerentia Ext. with Kevin & Johnny Peel
from 1956 – 1965. In 1966 & 1967 I boarded at Marist InandaThere really were not any pros to
being a day boy, it was what it was and we didn’t know anything else and I did feel sorry for the
boarders that had to remain at school over the week-ends but sports and activities made the
week-end go by quickly.The cons to being a day boy for the Lavery’s & Peel’s were that we had
to get up rather early to execute the carpool and that we were dropped off early, usually 1 to 1-
1/2 hours before school started (until standard 7, when they implemented a new period that
started @ 7:45am) and we were picked up 5:00pm to go home. This made an extremely long
day, especially in the early years. Special arrangements had to be made when we were let out
of class early and many times we had to wait until 5:00pm to be picked up. The other con was
that we did not get to play or know the children in our neighborhood, since we arrived home so
late.
The pros to being a boarder, especially in standard 9 & matric was the structured day, study
hall, rosary, chapel, meals and bedtime. Boarding (and the military service) taught you to eat
anything and everything otherwise you went hungry. You became better friends to your
boarding classmates.
The cons were the limited access to radio music (a form of broad punishment) and news
papers. In hind sight I missed a lot of music influences in 1966 & 1967 and world and local news
events (Sharpsville riots) that influence and mold teenagers in that age bracket. This really
showed up when I was attending the University of Washington in Seattle, WA 1970-1974.
My 1st day is still a vivid memory, very apprehensive but not like some others that day as I was a
3rd sibling and my oldest brother Rory already attended Marist Inanda. My mother walking me
into the courtyard of the grade school, on the way to Mrs. Bricks classroom when she spotted
another mom and son next to us walking in the same direction, she grabs his arm and asks
“what your name? – Robert Ashby he replies – good, this is Terence Lavery, you are now
friends.” Robert and 11 other boys walking to Mrs. Brick’s classroom that day matriculated
together in 1967.
My last formal day before matric exams began consisted of short time in the classroom followed
by Joe Stravino, Johnny Astrup and I (only 3 matric boys with cars) deciding to race our cars
around the cinder athletic track, NASCAR style early years, sliding around 3 corners (track had
3 legs of cinder and 1 of glass) completing 1 lap and after 2 additional corners finding Br.
Anthony standing squarely in the middle of the track, hands on his hips causing us to come to a
screeching stop. When each of us exited the track onto the road he asked us “What are you
doing? I’m not going to let you take the final exams.” We went to his office to beg for
forgiveness, and permission to be allowed to take the exams.
I cannot remember the theme of the matric dance but I do remember that the standard 9’s had
done an excellent job of decorating the dining hall and that Susan Davey and I had a wonderful
time. I also remember that my sister Trisha, who attended Holy Cross Convent, helped set up
Joe Stravino with Zenda Lutz and Derrick Schoombie with his date for that night and that they
both of them married their dates that night later in life.
I enjoyed the all boys’ school, the uniforms, the small class room sizes, the brothers, the lay
teachers, the discipline, the friendships, ethnic diversity and the athletic fields, the requirement
to participate in a sport every season.
The aspects I least enjoyed were wearing ties on a hot summer day, caning the entire class for
an infraction by one student, competing against larger schools in sports – KES, Parktown Boys
and Marist Obs and getting crushed. But the passage of time, the 46 years, has diminished the
majority of dislikes.
The Marist Centennial celebration in 1966 with 3 bus loads of students travelling down to St
Joseph in Rondebosch, Cape Town was memorable in more ways than one. Best left
unspoken.
The worst moments at school, in my experience, comprised of the strict and severe disciplinary
measures metered out by the brothers. I recall my 1st caning in grade 2 and my last episode 1
week before I matriculated. But the most memorable was a severe dose metered out by Brother
Andrew one morning in 1st period standard 8 because the entire class was were talking and not
studying as instructed. The entire class was marched out single file to an empty class room and
individually brought back for 4 strokes with the cane. When it was my turn Brother Andrew, who
was left handed, seemed to dispense the strokes with extra vigor and on my return to the class
room I felt blood dripping down my buttocks. Being macho and amongst peers you did not show
any sign of pain or crying and were usually laughing out of pain. I let my peers know that I
believe I was bleeding and was called upon to prove it. I dropped my pant to display the
bleeding to all in attendance, only to have Brother Andrew enter the class room to see me with
my pant around my ankles. “Lavery - What are you doing? Do you want 4 more?” When I turned
around to face him he noticed the blood streaming down my leg and his jaw dropped in surprise,
his eyes got bigger and he mumbled “Get dressed!” and left the class room.
As an epilogue to the above story I do not feel that any of the discipline I received was
undeserving or malicious in nature and it never affected me mentally or physically. I never
notified my parents of any incidents because my father was an old Marist Observatory boarder
from grade 1 to matric (1933) and he would have supplemented the punishment. He too was a
strict disciplinarian.Unfortunately time has erased the funny/amusing incidents but I sure if I
were to attend a class reunion my recollections would be rekindled.Once again, unfortunately
time has erased the names and faces of the teachers but the following 3 were clearly influential
in my development. Brother Anthony, Brother Andrew & Brother Timothy come to mind.I was a
prefect but didn’t receive any special awards other than for athletics.
I played all sports at Marist Inanda at that time 1956  1960 swimming, tennis, athletics and
soccer.
1961  1967 – I participated in swimming and water polo team, cricket, tennis, field hockey,
soccer and athletics. We did not attend or have any camps available to us. In all sports I was on
the 1ST Team except cricket which I did not participate in. From 1965 as I was playing baseball
for the Pirates Club and the 1967 1st XV rugby teams as I was training for the Springboks
European tour 1967.I competed for the Southern Transvaal athletics teams from 1964 – 1968 in
all provincial competitions and South African championships and was selected as a Junior
Springbok to compete against Germany 1966 in Bloemfontein, OFS and to tour with the Senior
Springbok team for 4 weeks in Europe July 1967. I still hold 4 South African records in the 100
yards, 220 yards, 220 low hurdles & 440 yards in the U-17 age group.I was selected to attend
the South African Air Force in Valhalla and after my service was completed was given a bursary
to attend Stellenbosch University. I toured with the University of Stellenbosch athletics’ team in
1969 in Rhodesia.
In 1970 at the advice of a mentor, rather than attend the University of Stellenbosch, I applied for
athletics’ scholarships to 14 different USA universities in western or southern states. I accepted
an athletics’ (track) scholarship to the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington State. I
chose to study Business Administration and graduated in December 1974 with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Business Administration with a minor in marketing. In 1975 I attended Wits
University MBA program which I did not complete as I returned to USA in August 1975.
In order to return to the USA on a working permit I was offered a job as an outside Industrial
salesman for a plumbing, commercial and pipe, valves and fittings distribution company in
Seattle, WA. I have been employed there for 38 years and hold the position of national account
manager for The Boeing Company. In this position I administer the support to Boeing for its
ground assembly facilities across the USA, supporting Boeing’s locations in the Puget Sound,
Portland, OR, Southern California, Mesa, AZ, Salt Lake City, UT, St. Louis, MO, El Paso, TX,
San Antonio TX, Philadelphia, PA and Charleston, SC. In 1988 my company Familian
Northwest, Inc was sold to an English company Wolseley, PLC. Which today is the world’s
largest distributor of plumbing, commercial plumbing and pipe, valves and fittings in the world
and USA.
Since I was out of the country I had none of my 3 children attend St. David’s, Marist, Inanda.The
last time I visited St. David’s was in January 2002.
The story I recollect regarding the sports field north (?) of the school is as follows – I believe the
50 acres of property were donated to the school in 1965 +/- and that our students were granted
access to a usually prohibited piece of property for the 1st time. The newly assembled marching
band members use it to practice their bugles and kettle drum music and some members of the
1st VX rugby teams chopped some of the trees down as strength training. Then they started to
bulldoze the lower area for rugby fields and after months of work with large earth moving
equipment the fields had their final shape. I remember that Brother Anthony hire a water
dowsing expert to locate an underground stream or water source and that Brother Andrew, who
maintained the cinder track and cricket pitches, showed us how by using willow branch we
could confirm the location of the water. This is where Mr. Simaan enters the picture, Br. Andrew
was tasked with planting the grass on the newly bull dozed fields, he would allow a selected few
Std 9 & 10 students out during the evening study hall to walk with him as he survey this
monumental task. I’m not sure how this transpired but in short time George Da Matta offered his
father’s flat bed produce truck to Br. Andrew and that a number of us students went over to Mr
Simaans property the following week-end, armed with picks, shovels and pitch forks to harvest
the kikuyu grass that surrounded his property. We returned with a truck load of kikuyu starts that
were subsequently planted in rows starting in the corner closest to the road between the shed
and the property. George Da Matta, Dave Palmer and others that grew up on farms, knew how
to operate the tractor and plow and they hoed perfect rows for us to plant the kikuyu starts. We
did this in the evenings after the african workers had completed their work during the day.
JLE June 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Teresa Voorendyk 1999 to date Staff

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  • 2014

Interview with Teresa Voorendyk - Staff – 1997 to date
Teresa joined the staff of St David’s in 1997 together with Dave Smith and Stuart Foulds. She was
appointed as librarian and English teacher by Paul Edey, the same position she had with her former
employer KES. She recalled being interviewed by Paul Edey, Gary Norton and the head of English, Richard
Girdwood.
In her first year she taught two English classes and MUG (media user guidance) to the grade 8’s and 9’s.
Teresa shared the library facility together with the prep school librarian, Mary Clover. With the different
teaching hours and timetables, the conditions were not ideal however she enjoyed the freedom to buy
books and encouraged her library monitors to select books within an allocated budget she set them.
Teresa eventually moved into teaching English full-time and was peripatetic for a few years until she
inherited her present classroom from Liz Sheratt.
Teresa has filled a number of roles in her time with the school being, head of English, housemistress of
Benedict, mentor to the matric group and now being head of Life Orientation, she has enthusiastically run
the long distance running activity at the school and also takes the boys on corporate relays and other runs
outside of school.
She has seen people come and go with many changes some good some not so good. She has so many
memories of events, individuals, matric groups, and the long distance runners and now some of the pupils
she taught are colleagues such as Matthew Schneider, Richard Carey and Kyle Biller. She recalls the
matric group of 2005 as being very special, they were an odd ball bunch of characters but she had a close
bond with them. She still sees some of “her” runners, many of whom have continued to compete after
leaving school.
Teresa has been very happy at St David’s. It has become a very busy school and initially she and other
colleagues were able to attend all the events and functions but now there are too many to cope with. In
1997 there were 42 boys in matric which are now 112 and with 610 in the school. Previously there was time
to talk to each other and the boys, now it is not quite the close knit community it used to be. The school is
competent in so many areas and so many things. Teresa knew not only the names of the boys she taught
but of all the boys in the high school, now there are far too many. She realises that St David’s has to move
with the times and has to compete with other schools.
Teresa prides herself on being the only high school teacher who still has a blackboard in her classroom.
This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t use technology and is not IT illiterate but she prefers the old way of
teaching.
For sometime Teresa was responsible for the school’s trophies, taking over from Father Brewer when he
became ill. This has now been taken over by Karina George and Teresa is grateful that she no longer has
to track down and ensure the return of the many trophies, ensuring they were in good condition and
engraved every year in time for prize giving.
Teresa always enjoys seeing the old boys and there are very few of whom she has negative memories.
She helped many of the boys without charge, some appreciated this and others took it for granted.
Of her colleagues she remembers Paul Edey who made people believe in themselves, he was warm and
kind and made her feel special and she valued that she mattered. Although she initially didn’t get on with
him, she ended up teaching grade 10’s with Rod Smith and he was immensely supportive when she was
made housemaster. She regards Willy Castle as very special and she would run through a brick wall for
him. During her bleakest year in 2005, he encouraged her to run the Comrades marathon and she hasn’t
looked back since. He has been her mentor, friend, running partner and has the ability to make people
believe in themselves.
Teresa has changed direction in her career and is happy to remain at St David’s until she retires; she
regards St David’s as her home. St David’s is a special place and the pride and tradition doesn’t just belong
to the men and the boys and old boys. She was greatly affected by the “bus incident” and how it impacted
on the school and finds it difficult to understand the mentality of the matrics and their expectations of how
they want to treat the grade 8’s.
Teresa believes that the school needs staff that understands and relate to what the staff actually do here
and are prepared to contribute. One has to believe in what one is doing and that not every day is going to
be fun.
JLE February 2014

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Terry van Heerden 1972

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Interview with Terry van Heerden – 1972
Terry started at St David’s as a boarder in standard 5 in 1967. On his first day he remembers his
mother crying, lots of other mothers crying, some boys crying, his father helped him carry his trunk
up to the dormitory, rows and rows of beds with military corners, emptying his trunk into his locker,
everything new and labeled with his name. Thomas Manko, whose locker was next to his, men
wearing dresses, big scary boys telling him what to do and where to go, dinner in the hall, loneliness,
homesick already.
The day boys didn’t get to play as much sport, and have endless opportunities to create mischief as
boarders, not that all the boarders considered that a con. In every other respect Terry would have
preferred to have been a day boy and live with his family, date girls, go to parties, wear cool clothing,
listen to music and so on. Terry also felt that boarding did not prepare you for a normal life and in his
first year at university he likened himself to an untrained dog that had been let off its leash. He
knows that the same thing happened to most of the boarders.
Terry most enjoyed the sport, comraderie, the “Boys Own sort of life” that they led and, in an odd
sort of way, the routine of the life. He also enjoyed learning. The habit has stayed with him all his life
and he owes it to the teaching he received at St David’s.
Terry doesn’t have memories of his last day but he is sure that he would have had mixed feelings;
relief that it was all over, excitement about the future, sadness to be leaving what had become, with
all its warts, home.
However he didn’t enjoy the hours of boredom (especially on visiting weekends when most of his
mates went home and he and other boys whose parents lived so far away were stuck at school with
no one to play with), the constant hunger and being homesick.
He has good memories of every rugby game that he ever played. Rugby was a big thing in his life
and Nassey Simaan had a lot to do with that. He lit the fire. Their loss to KES in 1972 still rankles to
this day. It was the only blemish on the “72 team’s record. Heplayed a lot of sport. Terry was in the
school’s swimming and athletics teams and held many records in both disciplines. And he was
captain of the 1972 1st XV rugby team which was the most successful team the school had had up
to that point. Lawrence Saad and Terry were the only two St David’s boys to have been invited to the
Transvaals schools rugby trials. Terry made it to the final 30 but on Br Anthony’s advice to his
parents he withdrew to concentrate on his studies. He later played a few games for the Western
Province U20 team.
Of the teachers, Brother Timothy was an influence. Like Mr Simaan, he had a passion for rugby and
it rubbed off onto him. He also taught him biology and that’s what he went on to study at university.
Another brother, whose name he won’t mention, brought some sanity into our boarding school lives
by supplying us with the occasional beer and cigarette.
Hunger was always with the boarders, and there was this story about earlier generations of
boarders raiding the kitchen at night. They didn’t know exactly how they did it, but they figured it
must have been by climbing out a dormitory window and crossing the roof, which is what they did,
him and Nichas and a couple of others whose names he’s forgotten. They never got caught. It was a
lot of fun. And while everyone else was losing weight, they started putting it on.
His closest mates were among the boarders: Harry Curtis (who, like him, was a Zambian), and
George Nichas and James Cronin (his equals, if not betters, when it came to getting up to no good).
But through sport and being the school’s vice-head prefect he got to know just about everyone.
Among the day boys he was close to Colin Rezek whose family graciously took him into their home
at weekends. Regrettably, he doesn’t keep in regular touch with anyone.
After matriculating, Terry studied for a BSc at UCT then gained a post graduate diploma from Wits
and an MBA from UCT. He is currently the managing director and major shareholder of a group of
companies in Australia – Salima |Holdings Pty Ltd..
Terry last visited St David’s in 1992 for a 20 years reunion.
JLE July 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Thabo Harmanus 1992

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Interview with Thabo Hermanus – 1992
When Thabo matriculated from St David’s, Paul Davies was headmaster, he had come from St
Albans. He remembers that he didn’t resonate with him and his parents only picked this up after
a while. People were pulling out of the school and a lot of black pupils left during Thabo’s high
school years. From standard 7 until his final year he was the only black boy in his class with
another joining in his matric year. One could see the degradation in the high school’s reputation
and what an impact a head has on a school and its teaching staff.
Thabo started school in Alexandra, passed top of the class in each year. When he completed
standard 2 at M.C. Weiller, instead of going to standard 3 remaining in Alexandra, he started at
St David’s going backwards to standard 1 and did marginally well. While at the time this was
difficult for him as he thought he would get left behind by his peers from Alexandra, over time
and, looking back he realised that most of the boys he was at school with in Alex didn’t even
make it to matric. It was a real sacrifice for his parents but it was so far sighted of them. His
mother was a teacher in Alex and his brothers also started at St David’s, although they
completed their matric at Wendywood High. His mother had said to him that if he failed one year
he would be out of St David’s. He worked hard and came third in standard 1 during his first year.
He felt being older helped with his confidence considering the jump in the standard of education
he had to contend with and he mentioned Gladwell’s: The Outliers in this context.. After a year
he had got used to the school and it exposed him to a whole new world. He wasn’t envious or
jealous of the lifestyle he saw that the white children had but it created ambition in terms of
defining what success was, the picture was bigger now and it was no longer necessarily out of
reach.
On his first day he was very nervous, he remembers his cap and thinking that all the boys
looked the same. Miss Keating was his teacher.
There were the odd incidents of naive questions and observations. His father drove an old
beetle and he recalls visiting Mark Pardini’s home and Mark’s little brother asking him why his
father drove a beetle. It was not malicious, just a boy who could not have been older than seven
years old being curious and noticing differences in material wealth. Bullying was normal and
part of the package. On one occasion he went to the tuck shop and bought a toasted sandwich,
another boy told him to give him a bite; he was a large boy, rugby type. Thabo broke a piece off,
gave him the smaller piece. The boy insisted on having the bigger piece and instinctively Thabo
stuffed the bigger piece into his own mouth. The boy punched Thabo for the “offence” which
Thabo could do nothing about given the David and Goliath scenario. He remembers thinking,
“Wait until I get to be your size”.
Even canings hurt but was what they all knew, so it was acceptable. Words can scar a lot more
as far as Thabo is concerned. The worst caning that Thabo remembers was with Mr Webster
and he knew rather to stand at the front of the queue and get it over and done with.
One of the most memorable classroom incidents he remembers involved seeing current in
action. There was a funny incident in the Science lab. Stuart Dickey had a pen set and he stuck
a pen in one plug and then the pencil, mistakenly creating a current, there was a loud bang,
Stuart got the fright of his life and his pen and pencil were welded together. Thabo chirped that
the bang made him feel at home coming from Alex and everyone packed up laughing which
calmed the air a bit from the shock.
He played rugby, basketball and was in the athletics squad in the high school while in the prep
he played soccer. He gained half colours for rugby and basketball.
He is still in touch with Justin van Linden, Yoav van der Heyden, Jeetesh Kathawaroo, Rowan
Brewer to name a few from his year and has contact with pupils from below and above and
recently got in touch with Mike von Guillaeume (2 -3 years behind him).
The teachers he remembers are Willy Castle – “Mr Fruitcake”. In the last soccer season in
standard 5, in a good team playing against a school who went on to win the championship that
year, they lost 1.0 by a silly mistake by Jeffrey Tsatsane. They played defence together and he
can still remember Willy Castle mumbling his disapproval calling out “Tsatsane”. In the high
school he recalled Mr Girdwood – an awesome English teacher, Mr Howarth – History, Mr
Finlayson – Sport and house master and Miss Von Guillaeume whom he is still in touch with
today. There wasn’t a teacher he disliked and he was taught how to think and not just
regurgitate answers, especially by Mr Howarth who spoke to them about the other side of the
story, not written in the matric History books.
He recalled a significant teacher in the prep, Mrs Hurley and a high impact moment whilst in her
class when she had a “throwing her toys” moment with him. He had got 60% for a spot History
test but she still kept him behind after school with boys who had failed. He was supposed to
have read something the day before but hadn’t and it showed. She reprimanded him in front of
his father, saying that his parents were spending all this money on him and he wasn’t working.
He never messed around after that, it was a turning point for him.
Academically he did well, receiving prizes in the prep school. It was a bit different in the high
school. In standard 5 Mr Kotze was the disciplinarian. In standard 6 he messed around a bit and
then in standard 7 he started working hard again.
He feels that a sense of worth helps but most of this comes from the home and parents should
not abdicate responsibility. He believes that boys coming from St David’s are more grounded,
humble.
His last day at school he remembers as being crazy, with everyone signing shirts and letting off
water balloons.
He struggled to get a bursary as he wanted to go to university away from Johannesburg. Justin
van Linden’s father was MD of Customs Plastics, a division of Nampak, had kept an eye on him
through the years unbeknown to him and offered him a bursary. He then went on to UCT, did a
BCom majoring in Accountancy and Economics. He planned to be a CA but hated auditing,
however he went to Nampak where he was a Management Accountant, helped his brothers
through school and university in terms of paying tuition. They are now both CA’s. He left
Nampak and went to Experiaen SA, primarily know as a credit bureau but he wanted to get into
the services industry. In 2008 he was co-founder of Nimble Collection Services and after setting
up the company they sold it. He has been in Cape Town for 4 years now and subsequent to
Nimble, together with his partner Suzanne Capper set up Find Inspired Talent (F.I.T.
Recruitment). Thabo is good with numbers but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what he
enjoys doing the most. People development and leadership are his strengths.
He is the father of two daughters aged 10 and 7, who attend the Waldorf School in Constantia,
he is on the school board and is also involved in setting up a trust to enable young black girls to
attend varsity (funding young girls from previously disadvantaged backgrounds).
He would like to keep in touch and would pledge or make a donation to the book. He would love
to participate in any celebration for the 75th. He owes a lot to his experience at the school.
JE October 2011

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Thierry Dalais 1975; St David's Foundation 2006 - 2011

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Interview with Thierry Dalais – 1975
Thierry has had a long association with Marist Brothers. His father went to St Charles and he
himself went to St Charles as a boarder in 1973 at the age of 10, he loved the school and, on
moving to Johannesburg was introduced to St David’s in standard 8 whilst Br Anthony was still
headmaster.
On his first day, school had already started and Br Anthony took him to class 8A (Class 8 was
the smarter class!) and the chaps he then met are still his friends to this day.
Thierry was very involved with sport and played everything that he could including rugby,
athletics, swimming and was a good tennis player together with Michael Lipschitz and Victor
Lalieu (now in Brisbane, Australia). He was a member of the 1st tennis and rugby teams. Brother
Timothy coached the 1st rugby team and became headmaster of the school in 1975.
Academically Thierry did well and together with John Wallington achieved the studies scroll
requiring an average of 60%. He came in late to the school but was accepted and eventually
became a prefect.
Thierry remembers Brothers such as Br Timothy, Br Ezekiel, Br Andrew, Mr Sanders and Mrs
Trudy Elliott. His colleagues included boys such as John Wallington, Case Schilperoot, Marshall
Walford, John Swingler and Mike Black. He has fond memories of assemblies, prize giving,
competitions and big events, debating, swimming galas and water polo matches. Champagnat
day was however not such a big event. Of his last day he recalls nothing remarkable, he has
very fond memories of the school and is proud to have been a pupil and sent his sons to St
David’s although they wanted to go to boarding school, being a boy thing, and one son went
initially to St Andrews and then St David’s and the other two went firstly to St David’s and
afterwards to Michaelhouse.
Thierry recalls that there were issues involved with transition in the school with the boarding
closing and other mostly political issues. The Marist Brothers underwent a tough time and
Brother Jude was very involved with the major issues of the time and the accompanying
financial restraints. The brothers were very good at teaching the boys about what was
happening in the country at the time and were rumoured to have given shelter to members of
the ANC. However there were no more brothers coming in to the country and the schools began
to introduce lay headmasters and teachers.
On leaving St David’s Thierry was awarded a bursary by Anglo American and studied
accounting and commerce at Wits University but eventually served articles and worked as an
accountant with Deloittes. He is currently executive chairman and founder of the Metier Group
based in Johannesburg. The company gives investment advice to “Love Life” and runs their
investment programme, the company’s general social responsibility being currently quite strong.
Thierry is a member of MOBS and spent 5 years on the board of St David’s Foundation, was the
first chairman in 2006 and recalls that it was initially tough going. He thinks the school still has
good values and although it may now be run as a business it has good educational principles
and values. The school has close ties to the Vatican which owns the grounds that the school
leases.
Some ideas or projects he would like to see happening within the school:
Perhaps the boys could adopt a year tracing the old boys in that year and get in touch with them
with the idea of putting contemporaries in different decades in touch with each other.
He would like to see the school yearbooks on the school website.
JE February 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Thomas Rumpelt 1972

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Interview with Thomas Rumpelt – 1972
Thomas came to St David’s from the German School, Johannesburg when it was still in Edith
Cavell Street, in the German block donated by Paul Kruger, in the original building built in 1893.
Tom wrote an entrance exam at Observatory but eventually went to Inanda for standard 6. The
family lived in Orchards at the time, his grandfather had been a Jesuit priest and his parents
thought it a good idea for both Tom and Martin, his younger brother to attend a Catholic school.
The first year at St David’s was difficult as he had to undertake all his classes in English and
had only started school at the age of 7. He was, therefore always with the older boys when it
came to sport and only learnt how to play rugby on his arrival in standard 6 He was a member of
the swimming team and athletics was compulsory. He had competed as a fencer at the German
School and continued by going to Wanderers every Saturday and duelling with Springboks. He
continued to play until the 90’s and was an inter-varsity fencer.
Academically he did well, was fortunate to have a good memory, a knack for Maths and he was
ambitious. His rival Alf Gohdes was more fastidious in standards 8,9 and 10 and Thomas had a
problem with discipline at the time.
He liked Br Andrew who was the Maths teacher and also coached team rugby. Tom recalls how
Br Mario opened his eyes regarding how critical things really were in South Africa. Br Mario took
the boys to Soweto and gave them a different exposure and perspective on life. Later he found
he couldn’t reconcile his life in South Africa especially when his brother, Martin suggested he
should perhaps get a gun for security reasons.
His worst time at school was when he was suspended for 3 days. Br Mario used to keep a close
eye on things, hence Tom was suspended for calling out “waiter” to Mrs Sacharowitz, Br
Anthony was not impressed. The boys were not allowed to smoke but did during the world C
chess championships when they would meet in the change rooms, Tom had a box of Mills and
they would smoke and play chess. Tom had long hair which he used to grease back with a lot of
Brylcream to avoid the prefects checking.
The boys had a good connection with Rosebank Convent through Steve Goodey who had a
sister there. It was part of their social life,they studied with the girls and even played hockey
against them.
Boys he remembers well are Steven Goodey, Chares and Nigel Mayer, Chris Stanley, Nolan
Springer and Mike Harris.
Tom recalled a classmate Nigel Mayer who wanted to study dentistry and repeated matric to get
better marks, he now practices dentistry in London.
One of his good memories is of a trip in the winter of 1972 with Andre Malan, the Afrikaans
teacher together with Karl Eb and Steven Goodey to Mozambique. Their car was cleaned out
and everything including passports were stolen. The passports were fortunately eventually
found at the Red Cross. He recalls that the car was a green rover and that only one tape was
left of Janice Joplin and whenever he hears that music he remembers the trip. To cap it all, the
ferry didn’t come to collect them on time to return to Lorenzo Marques, quite an experience.
Another occasion that stands out was when the “All Blacks” were in South Africa, some of the
team members including Maoris were Marist old boys, and visited the school and attended
assembly. It made him think that they were racially integrated and why couldn’t it be the same in
South Africa.
The theme of the matric dance was african dawn and Tom helped with the decorations, he was
good at Art and still paints to this day.
Add Maths was his last subject on 24 November and on his last day at St David’s, Tom had a
driving license so was allowed to take a car and packed a number of the guys in it and took
them to the Rosebank Hotel. Sadly he had to stay sober as he was the driver. They didn’t have
a matric holiday in those days just study leave.
When he left St David’s Tom was exempt from military service for medical reasons and studied
architecture but changed to civil engineering. Whilst at university he was involved in visiting
schools in Soweto encouraging the children to study engineering and not necessarily medicine.
He had a bursary from Grinakaer and worked for them but later returned to Wits to do his
masters, he then worked for SRK for 5 years. He went on to Berkley where he did his Phd in
civil engineering. He had in the meantime, married Mary, the Harrywyn’s eldest daughter and
after 4 ½ years in America, they decided not to stay. Mary had family in Belgium but they
eventually ended up in Germany where Tom was offered a job with an apartment nearby in
Stuttgart. They have two daughters and a son. He is currently involved in a lot of work in Israel
but also manages time in Berlin which he believes is the best city in Europe.
Tom feels that a good thing about the educational system in South Africa is the dual function of
many teachers with the coaching of sport. The teachers have more contact with the boys which
is very important as they see another side to a boy.
Tom went to Germany as an exchange student when he was 11 and believes this would be a
good thing for St David’s to do as a Marist exchange programme. At his children’s school in
Germany they are able to go on exchanges to many other countries including India and Mexico.
The school his children attend has a strong emphasis on Music and has an outstanding
orchestra.
Tom believes that if he hadn’t been at a Marist school he wouldn’t have been so critical of what
he saw when he worked for Grinaker in Hoedspruit, the machinists and boilermakers were
earning a lot of money and he learnt from them and the black guys who had little money and
saw how they lived. Matthew Bobett’s mother was an activist and he left in standard 8 to go to
Swaziland to a co-ed multi-racial school.
Tom’s mother is still living in South Africa and is still in touch with Br Mario.
Tom is on the MOBS mailing list and would be interested in a copy of the history of the school
and also would like to be able to access the yearbooks online. He is involved with foundations in
Germany funding the school’s choir, an English society and the Church.
JLE November 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Tim Forssman 2004

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Interview with Tim Forssman – 2004
According to his father Mark, Tim wasn’t very happy on his first day at St David’s and during the
second week jumped off the jungle gym by accident breaking his arm. Whilst in the junior school
Tim played soccer, cricket and was in the swimming team, water polo and cross country. He
was in the “A” swimming team and won some awards, notably for backstroke and freestyle and
was consistently in the top three swimmers in his age group.
When he was in grade 2, he and some other boys used to play in the area which is now the
astro turf and they were convinced that a dilapidated building, which housed a couple of ground
staff, was haunted and often used to get inside and explore. The deaths of two of the ground
staff had actually occurred in the building previously, which his father had told him about and
sent his imagination running wild.
In high school he also played rugby, was in the swimming and water polo team and again had to
participate in cross country. Tim also assisted with the SMILE programme and enjoyed Music.
He also really enjoyed Champagnat day and having a free non-academic day.
Tim remembers some of the teachers, Mr Mcmillan who used to use his cricket bat to jack boys
in trouble; Mr Van den Berg with his dry sense of humour; Mrs Kennedy; Miss Cambitzis; Mrs
Human; Mrs Marais. Mrs Roman; Mr Dave Smith; Mr Gaffney; Marius Buys; Mrs Cotton; Mrs
Snyman; Father Michael and Reverend Bruce.
Tim was academically average but managed to get 2 distinctions in matric. The turning point for
him was the cultural tour to Egypt in 2004 which influenced his eventual choice of archaeology
as a career.
During the time Tim was in the high school, a Chinese boy Mark Ma joined the school, he
couldn’t speak a word of English and was staying in a flat on his own. A request went out for
parents to accommodate him for a term and eventually after boarding with a couple of families,
the Forssman’s said he could stay with them and he ended up staying with them for 3 years in
standard 9, 10 and for his first year of varsity at Wits studying BSc Building. Mark’s father was
major of a district of Chong Ching which has a population of 32 million people. Tim and his
brother Chris visited him in China in 2009 with Warren and Justin Bessler and Jordan
Forssman. They spent 3 weeks travelling around China visiting some of the major cities and
attractions and spending much time with the Ma family.
Mark recalled another occasion when Tim was running up towards the high school quad
followed by his father, when Br Timothy, who was visiting the school shouted out “That boy must
be a Forssman”.
Tim remembered a time when he and some other matrics were up to a bit of mischief and
decided that it would be great fun to run across the swimming pool on the insulation mats. They
weren’t quite successful in their attempt to run the length of the pool but unintentionally were
tearing them apart and all the little blue balls that were encased in the mats started to come out
and spread across the pool. They were caught by an irate Mrs Snyman whilst vainly trying to
collect all the little balls. Fortunately for them they didn’t hear anymore about the incident.
Tim’s matric dance was held at the Wanderer’s Club and the theme was Studio 54 and the after
party was held at the Red Sun in Rivonia.
When Tim matriculated he went on to Wits University where he studied for a BA, then upgraded
to a BSc and in his honours year specialised in archaeology and geography. He completed his
Masters and PhD in Archaeology doing research in northern South Africa in the Limpopo area.
He is currently undertaking his PhD research at Oxford University and in Botswana. He has
recently completed a book on Bushman Rock Art which will be coming out in May.
JLE April 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Tim Johnson 2003

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Interview with Tim Johnson – 2003
Tim first came to St David’s from Buccleuch primary in grade 3. His sister was going to high school and the
timing was right for him to change. Tim thinks that St David’s was the only school that he and his parents
looked at. It was difficult at first as all the boys were a tightly knit group and had all started together
however he got to know Michael Thomas and he is currently still his closest friend and they have tendered
for the MOBS home together.
Tim was not really into sports but enjoyed the extra-curricular sport which helped him break the ice with the
other boys. He eventually dropped cricket and concentrated on swimming and played some soccer in the
winter. From grade 5 his swimming became full-time and he got to know Willy Castle well. The prep
swimming team was very successful and unbeaten in grades 5, 6,and 7. In grade7, Tim together with Kyle
Biller went to Germany with the Wanderers swimming club and swam in an international gala. It was a
great experience and they joined in some serious training sessions.
In the high school Tim also played rugby and thoroughly enjoyed it being a member of both A and B teams.
His main sport was still swimming which he took very seriously training both at school and after school and
made both Provincial and Senior National teams. He also was a member of the water polo team, qualified
for the Provincial team and was captain of the 1st team in matric. Sadly he missed out on the rugby tour to
Argentina having given up rugby for swimming.
Tim continued his water polo at Wits University and went to Australia representing Wits University at the
university games. He plays for MOBS and participated in the fund raiser in memory of Justin Bessler.
Of the teachers In the prep Willy Castle was an iconic figure and Tim believed that he helped push him
beyond his boundaries in terms of sport. Tim has remained close to Rick Wilson and found him to be a
genuine, sincere person. Mandy Everson was a particularly good teacher. In the high school, Rod Smith
was a real character; Debbi Cameron cared so much about the boys; Lizanne Nagy held her ground even
though the boys gave her such a hard time and Dave Smith was also a character with a good persona.
Father Brewer held Mass in the old chapel and Tim remembers kneeling on the hard wooden benches and
also that Father Brewer had a scottish terrier and Mr Van Der Merwe a border collie. Paul Edey stands out
as headmaster and as a very good History teacher. Tim thought it was his most interesting subject because
of Paul’s energy and enthusiasm. Tim left St David’s in grade 10 as he wanted to be independent; he went
to Kingswood in Grahamstown but didn’t last long. There were problems at the school but Paul accepted
him back unconditionally. After that experience Tim thought he was number one as headmaster and he
also had great respect for Malcolm Williams.
Academically Tim felt that he could have applied himself a bit more but his real passion and time was
dedicated to sport. However he was in the top class most of the time in high school with Art becoming his
favourite subject and loved the practical aspect of the subject. He was interested in and enjoyed Maths,
Annabel Cotton made Physics exciting and Dave Smith was always entertaining in Geography.
Tim became a prefect and was awarded an honours blazer, specific honours swimming and water polo and
general honours for sport, leadership and merit. He also received many awards for sport and at the annual
prize giving in 2003 was awarded the Reeves Trophy for senior swimmer of the year and the Clark Atwell
Trophy for water polo player of the year.
Special events that Tim remembers are when Marcellin Champagnat was canonised in 1999 and a huge
joint mass was held with all the other schools. His matric dance wasn’t that memorable but the fireworks
evening was, from the beginning on the most favourite evenings when the school took on a different
persona. Champagnat day was always good fun and he remembers the “tug of war” in the prep. Ash
Wednesday was also memorable and although Tim wasn’t Catholic he was exposed to religion and the
Catholic ways and tradition and found it interesting although it was never imposed upon him. Reverend
Bruce was also significant and Tim always enjoyed his lessons which always had a story or strong
message.
The mixed swimming and inter-house night galas were always great fun especially with the girls around.
Tim enjoyed the inter-house plays and always played a minor role. Inter- house events were always fun.
After matriculating, Tim went to Wits University to study BA Architecture and won the People’s Award in his
2nd year for design of a Transvaal home using steel. At the end of the third year they had to do a Gap year
and Tim spent the 1st year in Johannesburg and then went onto London for a further year. He then studied
further for another 2 years doing his BA Hons and then Masters - MArch.Prof. and his thesis focused on
Joubert Park and the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Tim’s current employer taught him at Wits and offered him a job at her practice, Sarah Calburn Architects.
He deals in mainly residential tailor made houses for specific clients. He has also started his own company
Greenspace Studio and his aim is to be involved in medium scale social and commercial buildings.
Tim is a member of MOBS and has participated in the matric rite of passage.
JLE December 2013

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Timothy Marsay 1970

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Interview with Timothy Marsay – 1970
In the November of 1963 Tim moved with his 8 brothers and sisters from Leeds in the UK to South Africa,
as his father had been offered a position with Crossley Carpets as marketing manager.
Tim began his career at St David’s in 1964 aged 10 coming from a Catholic family. The family initially lived
in Fourways on a guest farm before moving to Houghton.
In those days there was an A and B stream and Tim was initially relegated to the B stream moving up to the
A stream in standard 5. It was a complete culture change with a different climate and he had to learn
another type of History and Geography plus another language, Afrikaans. Tim was third in line with six
brothers of whom 5 attended St David’s the younger one going elsewhere. Three of his brothers eventually
matriculated at De La Salle the family was then living in Ferndale.
Br Anthony (Oanges) was the headmaster and Tim remembers struggling to adapt through standard 4 until
standard 5. He participated in soccer and athletics and eventually made some friends which made life
much easier.
His teacher in standard 4 was Mrs Dunsford-White, standard 5, Mrs Kenesovich, a lovely lady but a battleaxe
and Mrs Kempster. Tim’s mother also taught at St David’s for a while. Willy Castle was age 11 in
standard 6, far too young for his class, however he had a strong personality and after his matric in 1968 he
went into the air force and repeated matric in 1970.
In the high school from standard 6 there were two classes for each standard. Tim got very involved with
running formerly a timid child in the prep school he became more confident as he achieved on the sports
field. There was a big race against Marist Observatory and although U13 he ran in the U15 mile and won
the race with his older brother Andrew coming in second. The following Monday, at assembly Br Anthony
announced his achievement which put Tim on the map. He was so successful with his running that he was
prevented from playing rugby in case he was injured. In standard 7 at an athletics meet at Jeppe wearing
borrowed spikes he was observed by a Springbok runner who advised him to rather run barefoot than in illfitting
shoes. Tim then started running at club athletics and inter-provincial events. He was bottom of the
league in club running but eventually represented the province from the age of 16 onwards and Southern
Transvaal in cross country.
He ran for Diggers an Afrikaans speaking club. This improved his Afrikaans but not quite in the way that his
teacher Mr Malan would have liked. He was called out and asked if he was mixing with Afrikaans boys and
it was pointed out to him that certain words were not quite the adjectives to be used in polite conversation!
In 1970 Tim broke the record for the 800m at 2 mins 02.3 secs and the 1500m at 4 mins 17.3 secs. These
records still stand today.
Tim didn’t enjoy cadets and used the excuse of his athletics training to get out of it.
Tim remembered that when he was in standard 6 in 1966 the boys were each given a medal by some
military persona to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Republic of South Africa. He also recalled President
Verwoed being stabbed that year.
In standard 8 a new young priest, Father Tony Bailey came to the Rosebank parish and decided to make a
facility available to the boys from St David’s and the girls from Rosebank Convent. A disco room with a
coffee bar was built as a venue. This was fantastic for the parents as well as the young people who were
dropped off on a Friday night at 6pm and collected at 10.30pm. They were in a safe and supervised
environment and many marriages subsequently followed as a result.
Academically Tim did well and achieved a first class matric he wasn’t a prefect but was vice-house captain
of The Bishops and captain of the athletics team. He was awarded an honours blazer for athletics and
studies, received scrolls for merit, studies and athletics, was a member of the senior Christian life group
and in standard 9 received a prize for Latin.
After matriculating, Tim went into the air force for a year and then went onto RAU where he received a
bursary for his first year. In his second year he was awarded a sports bursary, the first ever. He studied for
a BComm Industrial Psychology but joined his father as a holiday job and is still working for the same
company W Marsay & Sons now known as Marsay Equipment. Tim got on well with his father and enjoyed
working with him.
Tim has two sons, Michael who matriculated at St David’s in 1999 and Chris in 2003. When his son Chris
was in grade 11 and fund raising for the matric dance, Tim participated in an evening when the fathers got
together and put on a show performing stage acts including excerpts from Swan Lake, The Full Monty and
the Rocky Horror Show. They sold tables and made R70 000 in one evening. Everyone involved thoroughly
enjoyed the event and Tim recalls being thrown out of Swan Lake as he couldn’t learn the routine.
Tim is a member of MOBS and is still involved with the school.
JLE March 2014

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Tristan Schafer 2010

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Interview with Tristan Schafer – 2010
Tristan came to St David’s in grade 0 in 1998, the year that grade 0 first started. A photo of himself and
Brendan Mitchell appeared in the local paper at the time.
On his first day he didn’t know anyone and Mrs Milne was his teacher. He remembers that Mrs Milne taught
the boys the alphabet with “Letter Land” and each week a new letter would appear on the chalk board and
one of the boys would be assigned to that letter. Tristan loved the twisty bread which he bought with
tokens and loved running around the playground and the jungle gym.
Mrs Nieman was his grade 1 teacher and he found all the teachers to be quite different, Mr Sinclair who
was extremely well read; Mrs McWilliams; Mr Thackwell an awesome English teacher; Gareth Dry who
brought a huge amount of professionalism and a completely different element to the school, Tristan was in
the choir and sang at the Linder auditorium in grade 6. He remembers the choir received a standing ovation
and also went on tour to the Drakensberg Boys Choir School. The headmaster, Rick Wilson used to come
and read to the boys regularly and his favourite story was that of “King Solomon’s Mines”.
Tristan was not a very good Soccer player but enjoyed the game and the Soccer clinics run by Willy Castle.
He got involved with Canoeing in Grade 5 and with other sport in Grade 7 and swam in the B team and A
team Water Polo until the age of 16 when he concentrated on paddling.
Tristan was an altar server for 5 years from grade 6 until grade 10, with Father Michael who was awesome
and also when Bishop Tigale came to the school. Tristan is not very religious but is a spiritual person.
Tristan connected more with the teachers in high school. In grade 9 he chose to do Business Studies but
hated it and then changed to Art with Anneke Carter, winning the Art prize 3 years in a row; Mohammed
Jena taught Maths and was an awesome teacher who gave a lot of his time and took the boys on a Maths
boot camp before matric; Gareth Kolkenbeck-Ruh was an old boy teaching English with whom you could
connect. Other teachers who stand out are Stephan Bauer and Bridget Fleming, Geography; Belinda
Marais who was kind hearted; Gareth Kolkenbek-Ruh and Gareth Dry with whom he did film study
“Shawshank Redemption“, “The Mission” and ”Tsotsi” incorporating visual arts, Music, and writing with all
art forms in one which was very creative.; Rod Smith was a cool guy, all the English teachers were good;
Simon Holderness was a great Maths teacher and rugby coach; Shane Lotter who took golf to a different
level; Will van den Berg; Dave Smith. The teachers were all there for the boys supporting a tradition which
holds the school together.
Tristan enjoyed the grade 8 camp, loved playing rugby and water polo and supported 1st team rugby. He
also enjoyed the weekly war cries practices. He still misses eating lunch at break with his pals, there was a
massive feeling of brotherhood and they all helped each other out. His best friends now are boys he got to
know in grade 0. A notable thing is that many of the boys in Tristan’s year went into diverse and
unconventional careers following their passion and included quite a few entrepreneurs. Brad Latilla-
Campbell went to Harvard, Barry Morisse studied Drama at Wits, Chaid White plays soccer for Jomo
Cosmos and Matthew Rigby studied Actuarial Science at Stellenbosch.
2010 was a great year for sport and gave something for the grade 8’s to aim for. The school needs that
kind of continuation. The negative thing that year for Tristan was that the prefects room and that privilege
was taken away and also that Chris Brown, climber who represented South Africa was not given an
honours blazer.
Canoeing or paddling was started at St David’s in 1995 by Willem van der Merwe a very kind hearted man
who helped many boys to find their niche in canoeing. Tristan went on prep and high school canoeing tours
which he found really cool and many of the boys became Springboks. In grade 10 Tristan was canoeing
captain with only 5 boys in the team but by the end of the year there were 25. Tristan firmly believes that
sport should be fun and is to be enjoyed.
Tristan became a prefect and was head of The Bishop’s with Gabriel Ally as head boy. Tristan was
awarded an honours blazer for canoeing and was a peer counsellor in grade 11. In 2010 for the first time,
all the prefects went on a camp with the grade 8’s and Francesco Mariano, head boy 2014, was Tristan’s
mentee.
After Matriculating, Tristan went onto study at Afda Film School covering acting, film and TV. He continued
to coach the school canoeing team for 3 years until Willem left. Whilst studying, Tristan won a few awards
with other students including the Ster-Kinekor Vision Mission award creating an advertisement for
disadvantaged children which he directed and wrote. Whilst on an exchange at Chapman University in the
US, Tristan was involved with a graduation film group that won pretty much all the categories.
Tristan has now started his own company “Old Soul Films” and is adopting that approach to storytelling and
is hoping to get into web advertising and web series especially in the US, Europe and the East.
Tristan was also involved in some charity work with Absa making 3 short films going into communities and
uplifting them. This included a bakery in Westbury that feeds the local children; a young artist in Alexandra
who was abused as a child; a woman from Somalia documenting her story and how life in Johannesburg
compares favourably to Somalia. He was paid for doing these films but then followed up on his own. Tristan
is also doing some pro-bono work for a girls’ orphanage in Malawi where the girls are taught sewing skills.
He will be filming a short documentary and will be involved in the building and construction of the sewing
room.
Tristan is a member of MOBS and would certainly send any sons he may father to St David’s.
JLE June 2015

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Tyson Sithole 2077

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  • 2018

Interview with Tyson Sithole 2007
Tyson came to St David’s from Norwood Primary School into grade 8 in 2003. This followed
a visit to Norwood Primary by Mr Edey and Mr Williams when they were showcasing St
David’s and Tyson had a brief interaction with them. Tyson was subsequently awarded an
academic bursary which enabled him to attend St David’s.
Tyson recalls his first day as being so very different to his former co-ed school, with 100
boys in grade 8 and found the first month quite nerve wracking. However once he started
making friends he settled in and refers to it as a life changing experience. Tyson never felt
discriminated against and today many of his friends are former St David’s pupils. He
concentrated on his academics and consistently made it into the top ten academics for five
years. His family unfortunately didn’t get involved during his time at St David’s, however, his
mom and Dad were very supportive of his academic endeavours.
He participated in some sport just for the fun of it but his main focus was on maintaining a
high academic performance. He was involved with SMILE on Wednesdays for four years
which he thoroughly enjoyed and found it to be good fun and very rewarding and his way of
giving back. He played chess for five years, and helped out in the library as a media
assistant. Together with Mrs Voorendyk he made visits to an orphanage in Yeoville and in
his matric year was involved in the school spirit as a cheerleader.
Tyson suffers from an eye disorder known as Keratoconus, which was first picked up during
his time at St David’s
The highlights of his school career were receiving honours in 2007 for academics and
general: academics, leadership and service, being elected as a prefect and when St David’s
rugby team beat St Stithians on Champagnat day. Graham Gallow was the first team
captain. In his grade 8 year, he recalls that the 1st rugby team beat both Kes and Jeppe
which was awesome for such a small school as St David’s was then. Tyson was also deputy
head prefect of College house.
Tyson was initially resistant to some of the school’s traditions especially when he
accidentally put a foot on the matric grass! There was an element of bullying but the school
is being more proactive in that regard.
Teachers that had a huge influence on him especially in the way that the message was
delivered were Mrs Russell, Mr Fry, Mrs Pillay, Mrs King, and Mr Van Den Berg who was his
housemaster. Mrs Marais, Mrs Egenrieder and Mrs Voorendyk were members of staff he
could talk to and relate to on a more personal level.
Tyson believes that the overall perception of the high school has changed. The other week
he attended a rugby match and met up with several of his former colleagues, testament to
the current spirit of many of the old boys.
Tyson said that the five years he spent at St David’s were life changing, developing a
mindset which helped prepare him for his university career, he was awarded a scholarship at
UCT where he studied Bachelor of Business Science, graduating with Honours in Finance.
He is currently employed by Standard Bank in the investment banking division at their
headquarters in Rosebank.
Tyson also said that if he ever has a son he would not hesitate to enrol him at St David’s and
said that many of his colleagues would really like to send their sons too.
Tyson is a member of Marist old boys (MOBS) and also a member of the Temba Bavuma
Foundation which focuses on changing cricket development in South Africa and assisting
boys with talent. Tyson is currently a trustee of the St David’s Foundation and would like to
make a meaningful contribution to his Alma Mater.
JLE March 2018

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Walter Cronje 1985.Board of Governors 2005 - 2010

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  • 2012

Interview with Walter Cronje - 1985
Walter started at St David’s in 1977 in standard 2 when his family returned to South Africa from
the UK. Walter’s father worked for BP which involved a lot of travelling which made him more
forward thinking and open to new ideas.
Mr Manolios was then head of the primary school and Br Timothy head of the high school until
Mr Murphy followed by Mr Frielick.
He recalls his first day in standard 2 N with Mrs Napier. He wasn’t used to wearing a cap as he
hadn’t worn one in the UK and was curtly told to take off his cap when a teacher greeted him.
Mrs Napier was scary and had a selection of canes in her office which she used liberally. He
remembered one occasion when Matthew Slavin was standing in line waiting for his book to be
marked and Mrs Napier put a staple straight through his thumb, there was also another incident
involving Ross Alcock. Walter had to write everything in italics with pen and ink and believes
that is why he can actually write well today.
Walter recalled a school trip in 1978 or 9 to the middle of Soweto. The boys visited a school to
hand over donations. Mrs Kenesovitch and HeatherJoseph were involved. He remembers
“Julius Caesar” was the standard 5 school play.
In primary school Walter learnt to play soccer, although he had played club rugby in England
and scored the quickest goal ever. He also played cricket and made the A team. When boys
reached standard 4 and 5 soccer stopped, rugby was introduced and the boys played rugby
U13, C and D teams for the high school. It was a great idea as the boys were introduced to
rugby and became integrated with the high school boys.
In the high school Walter played rugby, which was compulsory and cricket and participated in
athletics inter-school meetings. He was named the cricket 1st team captain in standard 9 and
again in matric. He loved school and became head boy in his matric year. One bad experience
he recalls is being asked to play in the open age group when he was currently playing in the
U14 team and his father refused. He played in the Beckwith week for 3 years and other
tournaments but it was rare in those days for St David’s boys to be selected for provincial
teams. Walter was awarded colours for rugby in standard 9 and used to go to the Wanderers
U20 rugby practise after cricket practise at school. In Craven Week he and Brett Airey were
selected to play together with Sandringham’s forward pack and Sandown’s backs against St
Stithians 1st team and they beat them 55-0. Most of the English speaking schools in
Johannesburg had excellent teams at matric level but very few boys went forward into the sport
as a career unlike James Dalton and Brian Habana.
Mr Murphy was well liked a big strong man, a disciplinarian and very strict. Walter remembered
that it was decided to put on a school musical “Oliver” and Debby Hurley, the primary school
Music teacher was conducting auditions. All the school was herded into the hall and it was
chaos, a free for all, Debby Hurley eventually had enough and walked out and everyone calmed
down. Mr Murphy walked in and blasted them all saying they had no manners, no respect and
shouldn’t treat a female member of staff in such a fashion. He then picked out some boys to go
on stage and audition and they all sang beautifully. Another incident occurred when Nick Pruim
and some of the boys were hoping to go to Argentina and Mr Murphy made them do 1000
squats, in spite of that they never got to Argentina! The boys saw him on tv on a programme
called “Late Nite Owls” showing how people earned a living after hours. Mr Murphy was a
professional wrestler performing under the guise of Sean Reagan and was unmasked. The next
day Br Anthony turned up and Mr Murphy was never seen again at the school.
Walter came second in his class in standard 2 and from then on came first, achieving seven
distinctions in his matric. He remembers “Julius Caesar was the standard 5” school play.
Some of his school mates were Rommel Gobel, Vusi Wandile, Shongwe Moponya – Solly, his
father always wanted his sons to go to a Marist school and Solly’s older brother Isak was also a
pupil.
Teachers - he will never forget Willy Castle! One of the greatest teachers was Tom MacFaden
an ex-Brother who taught History and French, he could get the best out of everybody, was
worldly wise, well travelled, well educated and well read. He taught History from matric essays
not textbooks, his goal was for everyone to pass matric and go on to university. He is now living
in Greece. Trudy Elliot, English teacher who made the boys write a matric essay every weekend
or she took their honours blazer away. Mr Collier, an Obs old boy who taught Maths, Heather
Joseph, Art in primary school. All the teachers were flamboyant and larger than life. Walter had
a number of Biology teachers and remembers that the boys had a record in standard 7 for
getting rid of the highest number of Afrikaans teachers.
Brother Timothy ran the school as an autocracy not a democracy and wasn’t answering to the
voice of the people and if the class didn’t like a particular teacher they just had to put up with it.
Walter believes that there is too much leniency these days rewarding mediocrity and feels
strongly that most especially in a boys school there needs to be a rigid line of discipline. He
recalled Br Bernard caning a boy for accidentally knocking a rubber off his desk, the boys knew
the rules and if they were contravened there were consequences. Walter cannot recall anyone
at school with him having ADD of being hyperactive. The boys started school at 7.15am and
after school there was sport either competitive or practise sessions up until 6.00pm and then
they had to go home and do their homework.
One of the negative things Walter recalls was being told at each assembly of former pupils who
had been killed whilst on border duty. A former pupil Andrew Petit who scored a hole in one
whilst at school winning a car sponsored by Volkswagen was one of those who went to the
border and was killed.
Walter was one of the last young men to do military service after varsity and felt that it had given
him a different perspective and the ability to judge what’s important and what’s not.
In his final matric year, Walter remembered Religious instruction classes were a farce and as a
consequence a decision was made to send all the non-Catholics to a retreat at Hartbeespoort.
Two Computer Science teachers were assigned to supervise the boys. The retreat ended up in
a drunken mess, boys went off in their parent’s boats on the dam and walked out of the camp.
The boys’ honours blazers were taken away and, because of this you won’t find many boys of
that time coming back to St David’s. Sadly of the 30 – 40 matrics who were expected to get the
highest number of distinctions ever, only achieved 13, the timing of the retreat was appalling.
Walter feels that if there should have been a more visible handing over interim phase with the
brothers on hand to instil the Marist ethos and way to the lay teachers and Heads which would
have helped enormously. Unfortunately the brothers seemed to disappear and just hand over to
the lay teachers. In all likelihood the school could not have afforded to entice a top principal at
the time, the school certainly didn’t have the funds to replace the school bus.
Walter is currently with the Jardine Lloyd Group. Walter was chairman of MOBS for 2 years
from 2000 and was on the board of governors from 2005 – 2010 as he felt the need to sustain
the long term stability of the school. If you want continuity and change it is often difficult to get
the right people to serve and a strong board is needed. The Foundation was a concept to raise
enough capital to enable previously disadvantaged and needy boys to be able to attend St
David’s.
JLE May 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Willem Van der Merwe 1981 - 2012 Staff

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Interview with Willem Van Der Merwe – 1981 – 2012 Staff
Willem joined St David’s as estate manager in 1981 at the time when Br Timothy, the then
headmaster left followed by the first lay headmaster Mr Murphy in 1982. Willem supervised a
staff of 20 including, ground, kitchen and cleaning staff all living on the property. Currently only
10 members of the ground staff live on the property. His foreman was Julius and George
Ndlovu. It was the beginning of the mission in Kuruman and Willem found that helping Br
Anthony was very special in the early 80’s. They couldn’t get tradesman in that part of the
country and Willem did most of the plumbing. Br Anthony was one of the best men he had ever
met in his life and was very approachable.
Paul Edey came in 1995 as college headmaster and got the school going again together with
the new development plan which saw many changes in the building and development of the
school. When Willem first arrived at the school there was no fence around the property allowing
access to all and therefore there was a problem with theft so Willem started to fence the
property in. He also constructed the roof over the terraces of the swimming pool. The PTA
funded it and Willem completed it at a far lower cost than had been quoted by outside
companies. Willem was also very much involved with the school fetes, twenty-twenty cricket and
the fireworks with this year being the best controlled event so far.
Already a paddler and, at the request of Paul Edey, in 1995 Willem initiated canoeing as an
extra-mural activity at the school. Willem has trained seven or so SA paddlers during that time.
They competed all over the country with the Duzi, Fish River in Craddock, Cape Town, the
Breede Marathon, just about every river race there was. The SA Schools was held in a different
province each year and Willem encouraged some of the weaker boys and saw the boys grow.
Alex Roberts was one of the best paddlers and the best team he ever produced was with Adrian
Gebers who was the first ever St David’s paddler to make a B final overseas in the sprints.
Willem is grateful that through St David’s he was able to give his sons Vaughan and Matthew a
good education. Vaughan, the eldest studied for a BSc Hons Anthropolgy at Wits University and
was the first person to go as a Gap student to Campeltown in Australia and now runs his own
recruiting business after trying various other options beforehand. He also has a carwash
business and was married last year. Matthew was awarded a scholarship at Varsity College but
he is now at the Design School in Greenside and doing well.
JLE November 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with William Forssman 1987

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  • 2012

Interview with William Forsmann – 1987
‘Billy’ remembered his first day at St David’s in 1975 in the first grade O class, his teacher was
Miss Jamieson (now Mrs Carol Ansell) and his son who is now in grade 2 is in the same
classroom. Billy was not particularly worried about being at the school as he had a lot of uncles
who were already pupils there. There were about 20 to 25 boys in a class and there was only
one grade O class at the time. Billy is still, after all these years, in contact with some of his
grade 0 classmates. Billy attended St David’s from grade O until standard 10 when he
matriculated. Members of the Forssman family have been pupils at St David’s without
interruption since 1968.
During his time at St David’s, Billy participated in a number of sporting activities, horse riding,
swimming, water polo, soccer and later rugby from standard 4. The horses were initially stabled
in Sandown and then later in Carlswald and the boys used to travel with the school bus for their
riding sessions. Billy’s strongest sport was swimming and water polo and was captain at some
stage. He also played 1st team rugby.
He remembers Mrs Anderson who was his standard 1 teacher but he didn’t ever have a brother
as a class teacher although Br Timothy was headmaster of the high school until 1980 followed
by Mr Murphy, Br Anthony, Mr Frielick and Mr Darryl Boswell. Mrs Trudy Elliott was his English
teacher and he remembers that she produced plays such as “Hamlet” and ran the debating
society, Billy was involved with both. He was also chairman of the matric dance committee in his
standard 9 year. Other teachers he recalls are Mr Moore (Science) and of course Willy Castle,
Mr Macfaden, Miss Glyn Thomas, Ms Joseph, Mr Finlayson, Mr Webster, Mrs de Wet
Father Brewer (College chaplin) is also fondly remembered – as he played a huge role in the
formative years of many St David’s pupils.
Academically Billy did well and achieved a university exemption for matric and went onto study
at the University of Stellenbosch where he was awarded a BCom LLB. On leaving school he
was involved in the family property business before joining RMB Properties, which later became
the Eris Property Group. Billy was also head boy in his standard 5 and matric years.
Former pupils: Tim Forssman’s father Mark 083 600 0721
Jordan Forssman now living in Taiwan +1 408 431 5600 jordanforssman@gmail.com
Gavin Muller whose brother Graham was vice-head boy 082 498 8480
Jan van den Handel
JLE April 2012

Egenrieder, Julie

Interview with Willy Castle 1957 - 1968 Pupil; 1976 -2013 Teacher; Prep Headmaster 2014

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  • 2011

Interview with Willy Castle – June 2010
In the original letter requesting the enrolment of Willy as a pupil at St David’s written by his
father, his father said that he wanted any son of his to be a Marist boy. Willy began his
career at St David’s in 1957 beginning as a day boy in grade 1 with Mrs Brick as his first
teacher until grade 5 when, because of sport, Mrs Buckley-Jones recommended that he
become a boarder.
The school hours were 8am until 2.45pm followed by sport. During his first year as a boarder
he was told to go to the chapel, he thought he had done something wrong but, sadly was
told that his father had died.
Eventually, Br Timothy was the only brother teaching at the school. Willy remembers that
Brother Benedict (Beak) was the first headmaster and that Br Bosco changed his name to Br
Mario.
The school was then considered to be out in the sticks, with no fence around it with people
taking short cuts across the school grounds. Willy used to ride his bicycle home on Sunday
with no cars around. He loved the weekends, just played sport and there was always
something on at Wanderers. A burger and a movie was the highlight of the week and it was
26 kms to Little Falls for a day out swimming.
Many boys came from all over Africa and there were 50 boarders allocated to one room –
with four dormitories A, B, C, and D. The food was magnificent with chef Piet, a huge, strong
man. The boarders had 3 meals a day with morning coffee and afternoon tea, and Sunday
roast with cold drinks and ice cream. They had to wear school uniform all the time but,
occasionally were allowed to wear a suit. Br Anthony allowed them access to the pantry but
they had to eat everything there. The boys used to climb out of the dormitories and take food
from the fridge until the brothers padlocked the fridge door, but the boys worked out a way to
lift the door off its hinges helping themselves to food during the night.
The school buildings stopped at the chapel and went down to Rivonia road which was the
Love’s farm. When the owner’s died, the school bought the land right down to the Inandas.
Maryknoll was the original farmhouse and Willy’s house was the family library. The old
workshop was originally the stables.
Because of the boarders, the school had powerful sports teams and the brothers used to
train them hard. The fields were where the current swimming pool and tennis courts are now.
Mrs Kempster, was headmistress of the prep (she retired in 1974). The current high school
library was the dining room and then the hall. The staff room and admin block was formerly a
rose garden.
Marist cricket week, which has since disappeared, was a great event. Rugby matches
against other Marist schools and rugby tours, like the 1967 tour to St Joseph’s when all the
boys were bussed down and back.
Willy recalled some incidents, In 1953 the matric exam papers were stolen, whilst on camp
at Happy Acres, Oliver Green slipped down the river bank and cut himself very badly. Willy
drove him immediately to Sandton Clinic, making the trip in 20 minutes!
There are also some sad stories. Paul Visser and his brother,who was deaf. Paul eventually
shot himself and the other brother got into an argument in a pub, ran outside and was
knocked down and killed.
Another sad event was when Keith Schafer died. Jason Giles, a naughty boy had been
caught smoking and Keith as senior housemaster had to reprimand him and he usually just
whacked the boys. Paul Davies, the then headmaster called Keith to his office and really
dumped on him. Later Keith was marking exams in the staff room and began to shake and
then fell off his chair. Someone ran to get matron who gave him oxygen; the paramedics
came too late as he had died. Keith had a son in grade 0 Andrew Schafer.
Willy also recalled a time when he offered a cash reward to any boys that told him who was
guilty of marking the bathroom tiles with his shoe every day. Willy couldn’t open his office
door because of the number of pieces of paper that had been pushed under it! Hamilton was
the guilty party.
Sean Sandie, grade 9 was walking with his girlfriend by the Braamfontein spruit when
someone grabbed his girlfriend’s handbag and stabbed him. He lost a lot of blood and had
visual damage. It was a miracle that he lived and three years later wrote matric.
Willy matriculated in 1968, came back in 1976 and 1977 as a student teacher and joined the
staff in 1978 for two terms then went off to St Stithians when Murphy was the headmaster. In
2014 Willy was appointed headmaster of the prep achieving a dream. He is currently
chairman of the Marist old boys.
The rest is history!
JE August 2011 – edited 2016

Egenrieder, Julie

Willem Van der Merwe Farewell Speech by Willy Castle

  • ZA ZAR STDS 202000958
  • Item
  • 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

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