Interview with Ronnie van’t Hof 1969
Ronnie spent 12 years at St David’s, starting in grade 1 in 1958. He was a day boarder and only
boarded for a short time whilst his parents were overseas and hated it. He lived in Inanda and
cycled to school every day. Br Benedict was headmaster and Br Anthony a teacher at the
school when he started. Br Anthony was transferred to Walmer in 1959 and returned as
headmaster in 1960.
His first day at school was difficult to say the least as he didn’t speak any English, Dutch being
his home language. He was befriended by Glynn O’Leary and Victor Hamilton (now living in
Texas) and he is still in contact with them. In standard 3 he experienced a really hard time as he
was a left hander using a fountain pen was difficult as he had to push rather then pull the pen,
causing far too many ink splashes which messed up his work much to the displeasure of Mrs
Janusch.
Mrs Brick was his first teacher and he remembers she used to smack all the boys with a ruler. In
grade 2, Mrs Brophy, standard 1, Mrs Legatt, standard 2 Mrs Clay, standard 3 , Mrs Janusch
who was a tyrant and used a strap nicknamed “Oom Jaapie”, standard 4 Mrs Kempster,
standard 5, Mrs Kenesovitch.
In high school he remembered Br Bosco (Br Mario) Science, Br Patrick English, Br Michael
Maths, Br Andrew (Drac) who was also a tyrant, so much so that no-one ever fell asleep in his
class!
Academically he did very well in the prep school but his performance petered out in the high
school. On reflection he feels much of this was to do with the streaming that took place in those
days. Because of his good academic record, he received the trophy for being top of the class in
standard 8, he was placed in the so called “A” stream and studied Physics, Chemistry and
Maths instead of choosing languages and History. The wrong criteria were used in his case, he
lost interest and became demotivated, in addition he broke his leg in matric and was out of
school for 6 months.
His sport was tennis and he participated in the Cramer cup against Observatory at the old
Maristonian club near the Johannesburg drive in near the Lebanese Catholic church.
He remembers receiving a medal in 1961 commemorating the occasion of SA becoming a
republic. Andy Morris’s father was then mayor of Johannesburg and presented all the boys with
a medal and made a short presentation to celebrate.
On his last day at school, he was a prefect but missed out on a lot after breaking his leg in the
May and only returning to school in the September, he was unable to attend the matric dance
and many other events. Ronnie has very good and happy memories of the school and his son
was a pupil until the family relocated to Knysna. He recently met up with the head boy for his
year, Keith Shaw in Cape Town at a tennis tournament. Keith is involved with film-making.
Antoine Simaan was also in his matric year.
On leaving St David’s, he studied law and after completing his degree decided to go into
accounting with Deloittes.
He played the tennis circuit after completing his Law degree, qualified for Wimbledon in 1976
and is currently chairman of SA Vets, was ranked number 1 and played for SA in some events.
He was in New Zealand representing SA in the seniors event at the time of the earthquake.
Some players were actually on court at the time and had a very bad experience.
Ronnie was actively involved with MOBS for a number of years before moving to Knysna, and
organised debates with invited speakers. The main organiser was Stephen Miles who
subsequently moved to the UK. Thierry Dalais who was then an accountant at Deloittes was
instrumental in resurrecting MOBS.
Currently he is involved with his financial services company AQB – a question of balance, the
name of which has Marist origins, he was been involved in tennis development in the 80’s, is on
the board of the SA Tennis Association, is involved with SA Tennis Vets, wants to regenerate
tennis in the townships and feels strongly that sport should be compulsory in all schools.
JE February 2012