Interview with Heather Joseph – Staff - 1975 to 2019 Heather began her teaching career at St David’s in 1975 at the tender age of 19. Brother Timothy who took over from Br Anthony as headmaster was a close family friend and offered her a teaching post. One ... »
Interview with Heather Joseph – Staff - 1975 to 2019 Heather began her teaching career at St David’s in 1975 at the tender age of 19. Brother Timothy who took over from Br Anthony as headmaster was a close family friend and offered her a teaching post. One of Heather’s fondest early memories is that of the staff celebrating her 21st with champagne during break in the staff room and she remembers going back to the classroom to teach slightly tipsy! When she joined St David’s, the school was very small, the boarding had closed, the junior school had its own staffroom and they were provided with a lunch in what is now the committee room, formerly the Brothers dining room. There was unity between the junior and high schools and Heather taught in both, through the grades up until standard 8. At one time she taught the Art class from the junior school through to matric in the high school with talented pupils such as Christian Zimelke and Gregor Schafer. Heather remembers George Manolios fondly. He was junior school headmaster having taken over when Mrs Kempster retired in 1974. He was a wonderful head, very kind, supportive, who encouraged his staff and was well liked. Mr Murphy took over the headmastership of both schools in 1982 and, once he was exposed as a wrestler was replaced by Mr Frielich, then Darryl Boswell and in 1989 Paul Davies was appointed headmaster of the high school and Greg Royce headmaster of the prep school. In 1989 Heather moved to Durban and upon her return in 1993 she rejoined the staff and is still teaching Art in the prep school. In the interim Annika Carter had been appointed as the Art teacher in the high school and Heather carried on class teaching and with great determination and motivation built up the Art programme in the prep school. She organises an annual art exhibition for the prep school boys and produces some amazing work. Without her artistic skills some of the sets for the prep school plays and musical events would not be so inspired. Heather has always been actively involved in the school and was a class teacher for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6 and for standards 8 and 9 and Art for standard 10. At times she was very involved with soccer and did a course in the game and in refereeing. She scored for cricket, ran the school swimming galas and did the announcing, she also organised the compilation and publication of the school magazine for ten years and organised the matric dances. She went on several soccer tours and remembers the tour to Durban staying at the Maharani with Willy Castle, Carol Ansell and Terry O’Mahony. Then another tour to East London travelling by train and she recalled that Glenda Anderson always went along too. Some sad occasions were when Father Plestus, Monsignor and chaplain died and when George Manolius left. Staff she remembers are Br Aidan the bursar who was very kind, Ann Carpenter, Audrey Williams the secretary, Nancy Buckley-Jones the matron who had a doberman called Lola, Mary Ryan the matron who followed her, Pru Johnson a secretary whose son Simon became head boy and Gail McEwan. When the Brothers ran the school it was unbelievable, the ethos of humility and simplicity was strong, the staff very supportive and they respected one another. Heather also liked Paul Edey and felt that he brought a new dynamic to the school. Heather has taught so many boys and remembers many but some standout such as the Dedecker boys, Lucykx boys, Stephan Andradie, Siphiso Ngwenya – the first black Head Boy, Greg and Jason Zenopolis and Christian Zimelka. Outside of school and her outreach activities there, Heather is involved with animal welfare, the SPCA and the Irwin Dog Rescue Centre. JE 2012
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 ... »
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