CHAPTER 9

The value of a holistic education

My predecessors at Boys High fostered a philosophy of holistic education on which I proudly built. In Chapter 3, I mentioned the four pillars of a holistic education – academics, sport, culture and pastoral care. Arguably the most important of these is pastoral care. However, the greater part of this chapter will be about sport, which has become a controversial issue in traditional boys’ schools and has assumed a profile and importance way beyond the tenets of the holistic education we claim to espouse. The emphasis placed on sport has skewed and, in fact, destroyed the important balance of mens sana in corpore sano in the majority of boys’ schools. But, before I discuss this in greater detail, I would first like to look at the two other pillars – academics and culture.

Academically, Boys High has always been among the best. For a decade or more, it was one of the so-called project schools in the former Transvaal province (project schools were allowed to teach beyond the prescribed syllabus and were exempt from the common examinations required for non-project schools). Both Desmond Abernethy and Malcolm Armstrong were able to guide the school academically way beyond the prescription that emanated from the Transvaal education department. While, for various reasons, the project-school programme was stopped, the emphasis on true academic education, as opposed to the obsession with examinations and matric results, remained with many of the staff whom I inherited. For this, I was most grateful.

The quality of boy that Boys High attracted should have led to good results, and if this were not the case, then there would indeed be a problem. In the early 1990s, I did detect a tendency among certain boys for it not to be ‘cool’ to be too academically oriented, but luckily this phase soon passed. True to the past and to educationally sound principles, the academic staff challenged the boys way beyond the prescripts of the curriculum. Academic excursions, entry into competitions and Olympiads were encouraged, and the wide range of subject choices was retained.

Mark Shuttleworth signing the Boys High visitors’ book.

The frequent curriculum changes, including the disastrous outcomes-based education (the methodology of which had been practised here for decades), added considerably to the paperwork, much of which was pointless and unnecessary, with which the academic staff had to cope. I tried, wherever possible, to shield the staff from these pressures, to prevent the loss of valuable teaching time. Initially, there seemed to be an understanding of what we were trying to do, and that minimising some of the prescriptive material would, in fact, enhance our academic thrust.

We also managed to persuade the authorities that we did not have to write the trial examinations (mock matric) but could use the mid-year examinations for that purpose, thereby gaining almost a month of additional teaching time. It is difficult, in a school of 1 500 boys, to have only one form writing exams while the rest are having normal classes, which seemed to be a convincing argument. The department’s penchant for overexamining is a dubious educational principle and should only be applied to schools where there is a need for external assistance.

The concessions that we gained reflected well in the school’s final results, particularly for university entrance. Unlike many schools that granted study leave (legally or illegally, I am not sure), we discouraged this actively and taught up to the last day, making sure that important work was covered to the end. This was not a perfect system, and both boys and staff let us down from time to time, but I believed it was the right thing to do. We encouraged the matrics to continue to play sport during exam times as well, and a significant number did.

I found it unbelievable that there were schools – prominent ones at that – that made their matrics give up sport at mid-year to ensure that they spent more time studying, thus ensuring that the school gained prominence when the results were announced. Some of these schools also actively encouraged their pupils to take subjects on the standard grade (when grades were applicable) so that they could achieve distinctions more easily and this would reflect well statistically when the results were publicised.

It was for these reasons, as well as others, that I found the hype around the announcement of the matric results, and the comparisons between schools, particularly odious. We were not in competition with other schools; our sole aim was to make sure that our boys worked to their potential and achieved the results of which they were capable and that they deserved through their efforts.

We never cooperated with the newspapers that wanted all schools to predict their so-called high-flyers and send in pen-pictures and photographs for publication when the results were announced. In fact, I once said that I was always quite relieved when we had the odd failure, as I did not then have to go to the annual awards ceremony and collect another plastic trophy for a 100 per cent pass rate.

I am not against the acknowledgement of excellence, but I found it problematic when pupils and subjects were the victims of manipulation in order to make the school look good. To me, the greatest accolade that our school and our staff could get was the annual comments from all the universities around the country as to how well our boys did in tertiary education. I was asked on a number of occasions what our recipe for success was: apart from the obvious input from an excellent academic staff, I believe it was due to our not spoon-feeding the boys and playing down the overemphasis on the final examinations.

The third pillar of a holistic education philosophy is a school’s cultural, or non-academic and non-sporting, offering. It offers opportunities for pupils who are not strong in sport or academics, as well as providing exposure of another kind for those who may not otherwise have a particular interest in cultural matters. To refresh my memory, I paged through The Pretorian of my last year as head (2009), and was struck once again, by the range of cultural activities that schools of this kind offer. The Pretorian itself, this edition of which ran to 312 pages, gives opportunities for boys to get involved in creative writing and photography. The Boys’ Highlights, a quarterly newspaper produced by the boys for the boys, creates further opportunities for boys who may ultimately be interested in journalism. I counted 21 societies, and judging by the articles and pictures that supported each report, they are vibrant and active. While many of the societies are common in most schools of this kind, some of the less common (possibly unique to Boys High) are the Aeronautical Society, Business Club, Computer Gaming, Fantasy War Games, Historical War Games, Vedic Hindu Youth League and, one of the oldest, the Society for National and International Affairs.

Music is an area of endeavour of which all at Boys High are extremely proud. The school has more boys taking music as a subject than any other school in the country, including designated music, art and ballet schools. While the matric results are outstanding, with the majority of the boys obtaining distinctions, the real value of the music department is the exposure it gives to the many boys who do not take music to Form V (Grade 12).

The music staff consisted of 6 full-time and 13 part-time teachers, headed by Dr Niel van der Watt, and could cover virtually all the instruments on offer. The symphony orchestra and the choir were the largest groups, but the musical offering included the brass choir, two string quartets and a saxophone quartet, the internationally famous Dixie Band, a guitar ensemble and a wind band. While not part of the music department as such, the pipe band and the gumboot dancers provided further variety.

The school symphony orchestra performing at a Friday assembly.

Annually, the music department staged a three-night musical extra­vaganza called Café Concert in which all its talents were showcased. The department also played a major part in the Four Schools’ Concert, which my predecessor, Malcolm Armstrong, together with Sylvia Reid, then head of music, initiated in 1988. The concert was such a success that it was decided to make it an annual event, hosted in rotation by the four monastic (single-sex) schools – Boys High, Pretoria High School for Girls, Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (Affies) and Afrikaanse Hoër Meisieskool. The four performances became one of the hottest tickets in town as the schools not only showed their individual musical talents but also amazing combined orchestral and choral music.

In addition, the orchestra was used for musical productions, and various musical groups performed at Friday assemblies, special occasions and a variety of small recitals around the city. Having been something of a musical philistine when I came to Boys High, I have to say that I have been incredibly enriched by these boys and their teachers.

In days of yore, drama at Boys High was celebrated in the main with various Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and hardly a reunion goes by without some elderly Old Boy regaling us about his role in these much-loved productions. A tradition that was maintained throughout my 20 years was that all female parts were played by boys. With more modern musicals and theatre, this has become quite a challenge, but the boys just seem to rise to the occasion, whether part-serious or slapstick.

One of the dramatic highlights annually was the Inter-House One-Act-Play Festival. On occasion the plays were actually written and directed by the boys, although, in the main, they chose well-known and extremely funny plays. The boys loved being in these plays, they were professionally adjudicated, and the best were sent to a regional one-act-play festival.

A bit of censorship was occasionally required, particularly when some of the more macho boys played female roles. On a rugby tour to England in the late 1990s, I overheard a conversation on the bus in which one team member asked one of our most rugged forwards why he had always played the part of a girl in the house plays. He replied that it was fun because he could grow his boobs annually, and he had set a goal for a double D cup in Form V (Grade 12). I think he achieved this goal, as everyone who watched the play was highly amazed or distracted.

As I mentioned, the final holistic pillar, sport, has become controversial. Sport at the top level can offer career opportunities, which means that an emphasis on sport filters down to schools, particularly those with a strong sporting traditions.

Long before the onset of professionalism in sport, fixtures between traditional rival schools were already intense, the pressure on the coaches and the players was enormous, and crowds were frequently bigger than provincial games. Vast crowds of Old Boys would attend, often judging the success of the school on the basis of the prowess of the First XV. It did not matter that one school in a full fixture may have done well in a variety of sports, and perhaps won more games at lower levels than the opposition, but lost the First XV match. In the biased eyes of many Old Boys, the fixture was lost and the school was not as good as it was in their day.

Both as a schoolboy and as a master and coach, the Rondebosch vs Bishops game was certainly a seasonal highlight, though nothing like the hype and intensity of the annual Pretoria Boys High vs Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool rugby fixture, which I encountered on my arrival in 1990. The first match had been played in 1923 (they played three times that year) and the 100th game was played in 2005. To me, one of the most important statistics of the rugby association between the two schools was in 2004, when 30 teams took to the field.

In 1988, Affies was presented with a trophy by a group of their Old Boys, to be presented to the winning captain by the losing headmaster after the match. The match was preceded by a formal dinner at the Pretoria Country Club to which all Old Boys of the two schools were invited. The respective captains were required to speak, as were the respective headmasters, and rugby celebrities were invited as guest speakers. If that was not enough, the two First teams were made to line up before the match and were formally introduced to the respective headmasters and any dignitaries who were present. Post-match lunches for staff and governors were held, with more speeches. The Pretoria News carried a special supplement on the morning of the match, and there were billboards on the telephone poles all around the city. For someone who naively believed that the smallest Under-14F rugby player was as important as the First XV captain, this was all a bit of an anathema. The pressure on the coaches and the boys was intense, and the school was restless towards the end of Friday lessons.

I kept my peace for the first few years, but when Pierre Edwards became headmaster of Affies in 1992, we discussed how we could tone things down without losing the uniqueness of the occasion. I refused to have a special assembly, which I believe Affies did, but I did allow a special war-cry practice on Brooks Field (our main rugby field). There were a number of attempts by both schools to raid the other after second break.

I remember two occasions when Boys High took the gap and virtually the whole school went across to Affies. One year, I had come to school by car in case of such an eventuality. When I was informed about the great escape, I jumped into my car and dashed across to Affies. The scene on their first-team field was quite peaceful and they were chanting their respective war cries to each other. There seemed to be no supervision of any kind, so I got out of my car and walked down to the field to send my boys home before anyone did something silly that might spark some trouble. While my boys began to move off slowly and reluctantly, I noticed that the Affies boys seemed more daunted than mine. As they moved past me, I heard one say, ‘Oe god, hier kom Batman’ (Oh god, here comes Batman). I realised that I was still wearing my academic gown, which all staff did during the academic day.

The second occasion took place in 2001 when I was alerted to the fact that virtually the entire school was on the march to Affies, led by the head boy, Thomas Rundle. Incensed, I again drove to Affies and arrived there before the boys did. A very orderly crocodile of over a thousand boys was moving underneath the railway bridge and heading towards Affies. I got out of my car and moved towards them. If they were to ignore my presence, I was going to be trampled underfoot, but I had no alternative but to move towards them and try to negotiate. As I got closer and was identified by the leading group (once more in my academic gown), the crocodile slowly turned and moved back to Boys High. I could fully identify with how Moses must have felt at the parting of the Red Sea.

On returning to Boys High, I found a rather pale head prefect waiting for me outside my study, as he correctly anticipated that I was going to give him a tongue-lashing. He explained that he would have been unable to stop the boys, so, together with the other prefects, he decided that it was wiser to lead the boys, unlock the gate closest to Affies, get them to walk there in an orderly fashion, and allow them only to sing the school song in front of the school.

I am not sure that he would have been able to achieve what he inten­ded, but his decision was a wise one indeed. I have no doubt that the school song would have been followed by the Boys High favourite, ‘I’m a pebble, I’m a pebble, I’m a pebble from Boys High, I would rather be a pebble, than a ROCK from Affies High.’ I tried to ban this for 20 years but regretfully never succeeded. I still don’t think it was funny!

After a few years, I withdrew the Boys High participation from the pre-match dinner, as it became the equivalent of an Affies Old Boys’ function. Boys High had its traditional annual Old Boys’ Dinner, as well as reunion dinners for specific years, and our Old Boys’ attendance at the pre-match dinner had dropped to about 20 as compared to the couple of hundred for Affies. I did not experience any antagonism in making this decision, for which I was grateful.

One tricky issue was misbehaviour on pre-match days. Affies was well aware of the problem, as they had experienced some very inappropriate behaviour on pre-match days with some of their Afrikaans school opponents. To try to control the situation, Pierre Edwards and I decided to structure the last two periods on the Friday with an annual home-and-away fixture for our tenth team in the open age group.

Affectionately known as the Boom Span (boom is the Afrikaans slang word for dagga), places in this team were greatly valued by non-regular rugby players, so we thought this would be a good way of calming everyone down in a controlled environment. How wrong we were. This created more hype, and boys from both schools did silly things. The coup de grâce was undoubtedly delivered by Boys High when three of our seniors did a full streak in front of the Affies stand, in the front row of which sat about 20 Affies female teachers. This spelled the end of our Friday initiatives and also the end of three senior boarders’ spell in boarding.

As is well known, Boys High had last beaten Affies at First XV level in 1985, and while one or two games were fairly close during the early 1990s, it did not look as though we were likely to win sometime soon. We suffered our worst defeat in 1998, going down 49–0. Pressure began to mount from Old Boys and parents for professional coaching, in spite of the fact that we had arguably two of the best school coaches in Paul Anthony and Jannie Biddulph.

We had a highly successful first-ever rugby tour to England in 1997, but beating Affies was an obsession in most quarters. I received a vitriolic letter from an Old Boy in which he slated the school, me and the whole rugby set-up, all based on the fact that we had, at that stage, not beaten Affies in 13 years. I curbed my natural inclination to treat fire with fire, contacted him (he was not even a member of the Old Boys’ Association), and asked him whether I could publish his letter in The Phobian, the Old Boys’ newsletter, together with my reply. This worked superbly in our favour, as his letter was utter nonsense, and I dealt with it in the context of the success we had achieved in so many sporting and non-sporting contexts, emphasising the importance of mass participation and the unique holistic offering over so many decades.

For some reason, we were to play Affies twice that year – a prospect I never entertained again – and the boys gave all our rugby critics a far more powerful answer than my letter, turning the 49–0 defeat into a 21–21 draw. We had to wait another six years before recording our first win, 18–6, in 18 years. The match was played at home and the scenes as the final whistle sounded were amazing. Close on 1 500 boys and thousands of Old Boys and parents swamped the players. I am told that cellphone networks were jammed as the news spread around the world, and I have never been hugged by so many men and women, both young and old, in my life. Then, as if by some magic, the boys moved like a red and green wave back to their stand and sang the school song and ‘Forty Years On’ as never before.

Celebrations continued all afternoon, and at about 7 pm that evening, Cherry and I escaped to a nearby restaurant for a bit of peace and quiet. No sooner had we sat down than a bottle of champagne appeared on our table, sent across by another diner who happened to be an Old Boy we had never met. On finishing our meal, we called for the bill, only to discover that it had been settled by an anonymous benefactor, presumably another Old Boy or parent.

With Joey Mongalo having kicked all the points and Chiliboy Ralepelle having taken over the captaincy from an injured Chaska Loubser, some Old Boy suggested that the Pretoria News headline should read, ‘a black day for Affies’. We needed to explain to him and many others that we would be as gracious in victory as we had been in defeat for so many years.

In my headmaster’s period with a Form IV (Grade 11) class on the Monday morning, it was mentioned that I was very emotional after the match. I could not deny it and had no defence when one of the boys asked why I never cried when we achieved outstanding matric results.

We beat Affies again in 2005 (the 100th game), drew in 2007 and won in 2008, for the first time at Affies. I don’t remember much of the 2008 game, as I went down from the stand at half-time to control our masses of Old Boys who, smelling blood, were encroaching further and further onto the field. I am sure it was self-belief and playing for the school and each other that gave us this particularly good run of results, as unlike many other schools, we had no scholarship or purchased players; they were all just Boys High boys.

I have dealt with our rugby relationship with Affies at some length to illustrate that for many traditional boys’ schools, the pressure to succeed at sport, and in particular rugby, is extreme, without the additional pressure and obscene amounts of money spent to achieve success. This was certainly not for the betterment of the individuals but rather to enhance the name of the school within the communities that set store by it, and with no recognition of the fact that it is educationally and morally unsound and unacceptable.

I think there were basically two factors that started the practice of attracting or retaining good sportsmen, although the retention of good sportsmen dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, when many Old Boys boasted that they spent six or seven years in high school for reasons other than academic ones. With the establishment of sixth forms in independent schools, good sportsmen were tacitly encouraged to stay for an extra year, and there is no doubt that an additional year at 18 or 19 years of age does make a physical difference, as does an additional year’s experience. This resulted in some quite ferocious debates, with certain schools threatening not to play each other until an age limit was put in place.

The other factor, which came with pressure from senior rugby bodies, was the practice among mainly top Afrikaans schools of offering incentives given by the provinces to attract black and coloured boys to their schools, mainly from the Eastern Cape, South Western Districts and Boland. This was a specious attempt at transformation and had no educational merit whatsoever. The argument that these boys were being given opportunities that they would not otherwise have enjoyed was spurious to say the least. The boys so identified may have had desirable physical attributes and sporting skills, but whether 16, 17 or 18 years old they were still emotionally boys and needed to be with their parents, not in a hostel halfway across the country or a flat purchased for this purpose, in a totally strange environment.

I remember being approached by our local rugby union, sometime in the mid to late 1990s, with a request to reserve five or six places in boarding in Grades 10 to 12 for boys of their choice. The carrot dangled was that it would obviously improve our rugby, and that all financial costs would be covered. I turned their request down without any discussion, much to their amazement and annoyance. My reasons were simple, namely, that we already had pressure on boarding, that we would choose the boarders we wanted, and that we did not take boys into boarding in the higher forms unless there was a withdrawal. I also had a problem with sidelining our loyal sportsmen, who had been with us from the beginning, for some super sportsman from outside in his final year. This seemingly attractive proposition was accepted by another school, which probably had difficulty filling its boarding houses and saw an opportunity to elevate its sporting profile.

A jubilant crowd celebrates Boys High’s first victory over Affies in 18 years, 2003.

Our rugby coaches were a bit apprehensive the following season when we were due to play this particular school, as all five boys had been selected for the Craven Week side and one was tipped to make the South African Schools side. I don’t think we had ever lost to this school at First XV level and it was an away game for us, so there was a great deal riding on what seemed like, on paper, the chance to make history. At half-time the scores were even, and the class of the imported players was evident. We won the game by about 30 points, in large part due to superior team spirit and the fact that we were ‘playing for the badge’. Through no fault of their own, these boys were basically rugby mercenaries. I sometimes wondered whether they achieved the rugby greatness undoubtedly promised to them.

The other area in which extensive ‘shopping’ was done to obtain potentially good sportsmen, and in particular rugby players, was at the Grade 7 level. This was, to my mind, equally abhorrent, as money for tuition, school uniforms, sports kit, boarding, transport and even pocket money would be thrown at a 12-year-old. Stories abound of parents who literally went around selling their boys to the highest bidder. Financial need rarely plays a part in this, and it is not unknown for wealthy families to accept sports scholarships.

Some schools need significant sponsorships, which often takes the form of branded sports kit and advertising placed all over the school fields. Many will see little harm in this, and it may well be that my views are out of touch with modern reality, but I lament the passing of the days where it was even debatable whether the First XV should have a different jersey, or the First XI a different cap, to the rest of the school.

Another problem the ‘purchasers’ face is that often a 13-year-old excels because he may well be bigger than most of his age group. At age 15 or 16, others have caught up with him physically, and it may become evident that his skill level is not all that high. Does he lose the scholarship if he is no longer among the top players and may well not even make the first team at senior level? Would his parents be able to afford to keep him at that school if there is no longer financial assistance? Perhaps he will suffer the same fate as happens at the senior level – being jettisoned when no longer needed.

You hear stories, which may be apocryphal of course, of schools purchasing virtually a whole team, or of schools that are prepared to insure only the first-team players against injury. The other nauseating aspect is the obscene sums of money paid to hire professional coaches, and in particular directors of rugby. I am told that there are people in these positions who are paid salaries of R1 million for what is hardly a full-time job. I am not aware that this enormous outlay has produced the dividends that were intended.

One of the most distressing by-products of this saga is the hypocrisy and dishonesty that accompanies it. I have often been told by headmasters of schools that are party to the buying of players that they don’t totally approve, and that the governors, parents or Old Boys drive these initiatives. Who runs the school, I wonder? Sadly, outstanding schools, both public and independent, seem to have lost the plot, and I can only hope that a reminder of educational principles, economic realities or just plain decent values will, at some stage, bring this to an end.

An example of the kind of scholarship or bursary scheme that is totally acceptable, as it espouses all the right values, was initiated by Jacques Kallis. He chose four schools for this initiative: Wynberg Boys’ High (his alma mater), Selborne College, Maritzburg College and Pretoria Boys High. The schools were able to select a Kallis scholar from among those who had applied to attend the school in Grade 8. While ability at and an interest in cricket was a prerequisite, academic suitability and financial need were also factors. Should the scholar’s cricket potential not materialise as he moved through the grades, this would not be viewed as a big issue as long as he continued to play right through his school career. Jacques would meet the boys each year and took an interest in and encouraged the holistic experience that the boys were enjoying. Our experience was that while some Kallis scholars ended up in provincial teams, and others ended up playing for the Third or Fourth XI, all enjoyed the benefit of his generosity equally.

There is no doubt that all schools are particularly proud of alumni who achieve on the provincial or national and international stage in whatever sporting, academic or cultural activity they participate in. To what extent this is a result of their schooling is a moot point, although we would like to think that the school and all it stands for has played some small part in that success. These achievers frequently attribute their phenomenal success to the influence of a particular teacher or the ethos of the school. We do, however, also know of world-renowned figures who hated their schooldays and feel they achieved in spite of the school they attended.

Pretoria Boys High, like most other similar schools, has Old Boys who have done exceptionally well in their chosen fields. Among our alumni we have two Nobel Prize winners; 20 Rhodes Scholars; and leaders in politics, business, the church, education, music and art, sport and all other fields of endeavour. Of boys who attended the school during my 20 years as head, 37 obtained South African national colours in various sports, 44 obtained South African Schools colours in various sports, and 112 had national representation in various age groups or received national colours for other countries. (There is obviously some duplication here, as this information was gleaned from the honours boards at the Sommerville cricket pavilion.)

Perhaps more than these boys’ sporting achievements, what I am most proud of has been the manner in which they have handled themselves as high-profile sportsmen. John Smit, as the most capped South African rugby captain, is a case in point. His leadership was characterised by his ability to forge a team of men from vastly different backgrounds, to instil self-belief among them, and to deal with off-the-field issues with diplomatic acumen, humility and grace.

We are all inclined to laud those who have achieved great distinction in their chosen field and to use their names as marketing tools for the school. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the reality is that it is the ordinary boy or girl, who make up more than 90 per cent of a school’s population, who in fact constitute the backbone of a school. In many ways, they are its most genuine and effective marketers. They may not necessarily become high-profile achievers but they turn out to be wonderful fathers, husbands, colleagues, friends and just superb human beings.

In 2008, one late afternoon during a third- and fourth-team rugby practice, a Form V (Grade 12) boy broke his neck in a freak accident. After prolonged spells in hospital, he eventually emerged as a full quadriplegic. More than ten years later, Daniel Lombard is one of the most positive people I know, and believes he is a better person for the experience. He has a degree from the University of Pretoria, is a sports journalist (rugby, of course), and is an inspirational speaker who devotes much of his time, experience and contacts to assisting others who have suffered the same fate as he has. Daniel represents part of that 90 per cent, those ordinary boys who end up doing extraordinary things.

Whether the value systems that emanate from a holistic education will stand the test of time, I am not sure, but in my view these values transcend time and are as important today as they were in the past and are needed for the future. While I would never advocate that a school mould boys or crush their individuality, I do believe there is merit in ensuring that everyone feels a sense of belonging and is treated equally.

Over the years, I lost a number of outstanding swimmers and golfers, some of whom have reached world-class levels, because I was not prepared to allow them to come to school late, miss classes, and be away for protracted periods as required by their coaches and training programmes. This may be viewed by some as small-minded and anachronistic, and some might argue that I should have made concessions for these boys. I met one of them some time ago, and he told me how he wished he could have had the Boys High experience that some of his friends had. However, on reflection he realised that to reach the level he had in sport and attend a school like Pretoria Boys High would have been mutually exclusive. In this instance, a school like Pretoria Boys High, with its emphasis on a holistic education, was incompatible with the demands put on him as a soon-to-be Olympic star.

Perhaps the best example I can give to illustrate my point of the value we placed on a holistic education was the challenge of coping with Oscar Pistorius’s growing fame as a 17-year-old schoolboy. Oscar’s meteoric rise to worldwide iconic status is well documented. What emerged very quickly was that here was a rare talent, and that unless we were going to squash all his opportunities we were going to have to make some quite far-reaching concessions in terms of his school routine. He was a boarder, and became a school and house prefect in his final year, but at the same time I had to allow him to miss extended periods of school to be able to compete in Paralympic and other international events.

Academically, the staff went the extra mile for him, and his housemaster and fellow prefects picked up the slack in terms of duties he inevitably missed. Apart from my outlawing his sponsored motor car, everything went well and we were immensely proud of his achievements. Without his knowledge, I did decline a significant number of interview requests and photo opportunities, as we believed it was important to keep his feet on the ground – no pun intended.

Things unfortunately came to a head in September of his final year when he and his management team requested permission for him to be away from school for a couple of weeks to participate in a prestigious event in Helsinki, I think it was. I refused the request, and when this was followed by a somewhat acrimonious discussion about my reasons for doing so, I ended the unpleasant interaction by making it clear that if my refusal was ignored, he need not return to Boys High and that he could go and write his matric exams at another school.

Oscar was extremely angry, but in the end he decided to stay. My reasons were not academic at all, because with the help he had from his teachers in terms of extra lessons and his innate ability, his missing a couple of weeks would not have jeopardised his academic achievements. Rather, I wanted him to leave the school as a full-time Boys High boy, to experience all the final events, such as the prefects’ dinner, the final house dinner, the valediction service and the final assembly, and to share with his peers those special occasions that forge the brotherhood that means so much to the vast majority of young men when they go out into the world.

I make no apology for this, even though I have no doubt some people will see little merit in these practices and will view them as outdated and of no value in the modern world. Ironically, Oscar and I spent a full day together a few years after he left school, when both he and I were invited to attend a function organised by our Old Boys’ branch in KwaZulu-Natal. That day he admitted to me that I was correct in not allowing him to go and to miss something that he now believed was precious.

The story ends with the ten-year anniversary of his class of 2005, who celebrated their reunion with a formal dinner at the school. At the time, Oscar was under house arrest and as such was unable to attend. However, his house peer group bought lunch and took it to his uncle’s house, where he was staying, and had lunch with him so that he could still feel part of the group. I think my point is made.