CHAPTER 1

From barefoot boy to head boy

The story of the first 18 years of my life is one of innocence lost. While I would later learn much about the vagaries of life, the first three years of my life were quite sheltered. I was an only child. My mother, Elizabeth Rose (Bessie) Schroder, née Vlok, was 41 when I was born. She had married my father, Edward Elliot (Sonny) Schroder, rather late in life. They lived in George, where my father worked for the Schroder family business.

My mother was five years older than my father, and although the wedding was something of a society event in George, those who knew them well did not believe they were a good match. Apparently, my father was regarded as being overly influenced by his mother and sister, both strong women who ruled the roost, particularly after his father died. Although both my father and my aunt were born in South Africa, my English-born grandparents lived a very British colonial lifestyle.

My mother, who lived literally across the street, was of Afrikaans background. Her father was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary, and the family lifestyle was simple. After she qualified as a music teacher and organist at Grahamstown Training College, she returned to George. Apart from teaching, she helped to bring up four of her late sister’s seven children until she was well into her mid-thirties. (Many years later, just before I got married, she told me and my fiancée that she didn’t really know how I was conceived. At the time of her marriage, she said, ‘Sy het nie ’n man geken nie’ – literally, she didn’t know a man. My mother was half-Afrikaans and half-English, and often mixed up the two languages. I immediately suggested that it must have been an immaculate conception!)

When I was three, my life was turned upside down when my father moved to Worcester to open an outlet for the family business. Soon he met an 18-year-old girl – an usherette at the local bioscope – and had an affair with her, after which she became pregnant. When they realised she was expecting, he panicked and made some excuse about needing to spend some time in Johannesburg. He took her away as far as possible from his family, his wife and son, and the girl’s family, who apparently had no idea that she was pregnant. It would seem that he then had a moment of guilt, because he married her while still married to my mother – a bigamous marriage that was scandalous and against the law in those days. Tragedy struck when the girl went into labour and died during childbirth. Luckily, her daughter survived.

The prudish attitudes towards sex and marriage that were still prevalent among the rural middle classes in the years after the Second World War unfortunately had a very sad consequence for my mother. Though my father was charged with bigamy and manslaughter, the Schroders were well connected and were able to use their contacts effectively to get him off the hook. My mother was eventually persuaded to get a divorce.

This all was real Sunday Times back-page stuff. In fact, that is how I found out about it. One day, when I was about 11, I was rummaging in a cupboard and found a small leather suitcase containing newspaper cuttings about the whole incident. My mother would never talk about it, and I never asked my father for details. The relative whom my mother had charged with the task of telling me if ever it became necessary was also not forthcoming.

This story explains how we ended up staying in Worcester with no money and very few possessions. It was rather ironic that not only did my father’s indiscretion take place in Worcester but also the first teaching post that my mother could get was in the town. To supplement the meagre salary of her music teacher’s post at Worcester Girls’ High, she also became the organist and choir mistress at the local Congregational Church. I later found out that the divorce settlement required my father to pay maintenance of £10 a month. My mother never received a penny from him – and also never insisted on anything.

Still, she never denied him access to his son, and I did see him from time to time during my school years, after he had moved to Natal and married for the third time. However, he never played any significant role in my life.

Every teacher and every principal was once a pupil, and this influences the kind of person and teacher they become. There were a number of key events, particularly during my high-school career, that taught me valuable life lessons and helped to make me the person I am today.

In 1950 I started in Sub A (Grade 1) at Worcester Boys’ Primary, aged five. The school had a good reputation but, although dual-medium, was very Afrikaans, with only a handful of English-speaking teachers. I don’t recall a great deal about it, but I was happy enough.

My first standout memory was when I was in Standard 1 (Grade 3). Our teacher, Miss Dreyer, had a habit most of us did not enjoy: each Friday, before she went off somewhere for the weekend, she would kiss each of us goodbye. She also collected silkworms, and we all had to take turns bringing the silkworms home for the weekend.

My turn came on a particularly hot Friday. As we never wore shoes to school, we would walk home in the furrows that had running water. I decided that instead of carrying the silkworm box, it would be easier to float it along in the furrow. I realised too late that wet cardboard was not going to keep the silkworms dry. My mother and I tried desperately to resuscitate the drowned worms, but to no avail. I was punished severely – my first caning – but there was a silver lining: I was never allowed to take her new batch of silkworms home, nor was I kissed again.

For the first four years of our stay in Worcester, we lived in a beautiful Cape Dutch house. The owners took in boarders but did not provide meals. My mother and I shared a room and we were allowed the use of a communal kitchen and bathroom. It was during this period that I learned a few life lessons, only realising their worth years later. The most obvious ones were about the need to share facilities with others and learning to accept that our circumstances were such that I could not have the material things that many of my friends had.

After four years, my mother was able to rent a house of our own, and she in turn let out a room or two. I had my own bedroom and enough of a back garden for cricket, rugby and fun with a group of neighbourhood boys roughly my age. Being the son of a music teacher, it was decided that I should take piano lessons. A few tantrums later, these came to an end, something I deeply regretted in my later years.

‘Billy’ Schroder, aged five, starting school at Worcester Boys’ Primary.

My mother, Bessie, all dressed and ready to go to our wedding, 22 June 1968.

Many primary schools, particularly in country towns, had special classes, which today would be known as special-needs centres. At Worcester Boys’ Primary, we had two special classes where boys could be kept on until the age of 15 or 16. These boys were the cause of some trouble, especially since the average age of boys in the main stream was 11 turning 12. This, together with regular nastiness towards the English-speaking boys, who were called Jode (Jews), Rooinekke (rednecks) or Souties (I’d rather not say where this word comes from!), led to incidents of bullying, both verbal and physical.

I was a victim of a particularly frightening incident, for which I was partly to blame. One day after school, a group of us were playing in the street near our houses. A trio of special-class boys walked past and we recognised them as being part of a group who had been particularly unpleasant to us at school earlier in the day, and had made derogatory comments about our size and parentage. Because there was an escape route available, we taunted them about their size, age and lack of academic prowess, threw a couple of stones, and made for the nearest garden gate. I was bringing up the rear but tripped over something and fell heavily. Within seconds, a very angry trio caught up with me.

They picked me up and carried me to a vacant plot nearby, but out of sight of the street, where there was a large cement block under a tree with large branches. One of them had a piece of rope, which they tied around my neck. They tied the other end around a branch and literally hung me in the tree, with my feet about six inches off the ground. Then, with a few words that I later learned were expletives, some comments about my being English and lots of ribald laughter, they left.

I tried to keep the rope off my neck but was not strong enough. Fortu­nately, my friends heard my screams, as did a gardener in the vicinity, and they were able to remove the noose. I had a weal around my neck for months after the incident, and it became a bit of a status symbol.

My mother was very angry with me and took me to a doctor to ensure that there were no after-effects. While some of her friends encouraged her to take the matter further, she decided not to, as I had started the fight and she believed I had to learn a lesson. With hindsight, I think she was right.

This incident taught me early on about the physical and emotional dangers of bullying. It also helped to instil in me a sense of justice. Later, as a teacher, I would encourage my students to be open to difference and not to discriminate against others.

I started playing rugby in primary school. We played not by age groups but rather by weight, starting with under 85 pounds, progressing to under 95 pounds, and top of the range was under 120 pounds. I was pretty puny in comparison to the far better-built Afrikaans boys, although the weight limits helped to level the playing field. We played barefoot and were motivated to perform by the coach, who made liberal use of a strap he carried. How different that was from acceptable coaching practice today!

As we moved into Standard 5 (Grade 7), there was much talk about high schools. Worcester Boys’ High was viewed as a good school, but many of the parents of boys in my class were considering sending their sons to boarding school in Cape Town, with the school of choice being Rondebosch Boys’ High School.

There was no question as to where I would go, as my mother certainly could not afford to send me to boarding school. Many, including my Standard 5 (Grade 7) teacher, advised her that she should contact boarding schools in Cape Town and see whether there was some form of financial assistance, as it was felt that I needed to be exposed to some strong male role models. This was probably good advice, as all my mother’s friends and colleagues were spinsters, widows or divorcees, and even in my close family there seemed to be only aunts and girl cousins. A family member and a good friend offered to help my mother financially and bridge the gap should the school offer financial assistance, but being the proud woman that she was, she felt she could neither accept assistance nor ask for any.

During the December holidays at the end of my primary-school career, my mother and I spent a few days at Belvedere Estate, near Knysna. We were staying with a friend of hers and her husband, who managed the estate, which also included a popular camping area. At lunch on our first day there, he mentioned that he had met a charming couple who were camping and discovered that the man was the headmaster of Rondebosch Boys’ High. My mother’s friend instantly suggested that my mother should go and visit them and see whether there was any chance of a late application and financial assistance.

True to type, my mother refused, but unbeknown to her, her friend filled a basket of fruit from their orchard and took it to the Clarke family. She proceeded to tell them about my mother’s situation, how she had struggled to raise me and how important, in the opinion of so many, a good boarding school was for my further education. Instead of being annoyed at the intrusion of a stranger spoiling their well-earned holiday, Alec Clarke listened to the story and accompanied her back to the house to meet my mother, who was greatly embarrassed by the whole episode, particularly as she saw the basket of fruit as a bribe.

Mr Clarke asked my mother a few pertinent questions, and then she introduced him to me. We talked briefly. I don’t think I did much to strengthen my case, as I had already given up the idea of boarding school and was also aware of my mother’s views on the subject. He suggested to my mother that, if she wished, she could submit a late application, send my school reports, and apply for financial assistance as there were a number of bursaries available to deserving boys for boarding. He told her that boarding was full and that I would be placed on a waiting list but that it was unlikely they would be able to admit me.

On returning home, and after considerable persuasion, my mother did submit the necessary documentation. We heard nothing, the new year started and I entered Standard 6 (Grade 8) at Worcester Boys’ High. Three or four weeks into the term, we received a letter from Mr Clarke offering me a place at Rondebosch, having secured private boarding for me from the beginning of the second term with a couple who lived next to the school. This would be a temporary measure until an appropriate vacancy occurred in the boarding house for junior boys.

My mother was faced with a dilemma, and being deeply religious, she prayed earnestly for guidance. It came in the form of financial assistance from an anonymous family member, school clothing from a friend whose son had outgrown his Rondebosch uniform, and a bursary from the school itself. The logistical arrangements fell into place, and all that remained was for my mother to make the decision to entrust her 12-year-old into the care of others.

I duly left for Rondebosch at the start of the new term sporting a new pair of shoes, having not worn shoes to school before. My mother accompanied me in the lift club that had been arranged, so that she could meet the people with whom I was going to stay. Everything went well, and as good fortune would have it, I was able to move into the junior boarding house a couple of months later. The next and very exciting chapter of my life had just begun.

I thought that moving into a school boarding house and a dormitory that had been established already for six months would be a problem and that I would battle as a relative outsider. Quite the contrary – there was an immediate acceptance and hardly any questions were asked about my late entry. Having two erstwhile Worcester friends in the same dormitory also made things easier. I immediately realised that a unique brotherhood prevailed at boarding school.

Within a week or so of my arrival, the whole dormitory was told by our dormitory prefect that on a given night we were to bunk out and go for a midnight swim. We were instructed that no bathing costumes were allowed (such a boy thing!), that there was no jumping into the pool from the side or diving board, as one of the ground staff had a room there and he was not to be woken, and that after the swim we would immediately return to the house and go straight back to bed.

Our prefect would not accompany us but would wake us just after midnight and arrange for the door to remain unlocked. Like Pontius Pilate, he would be able to claim no knowledge of this exercise – in the unlikely event of something going wrong. Everything went according to plan, and our group of 20 pyjama-clad little boys crept down the path from the house to the school pool in bright moonlight, not realising that we had left one of our number behind. He was perpetually late for everything, a most talented but dozy individual who had possibly gone to sleep again or turned back to fetch something.

It was a mild evening, but we all quivered and shook at the great daring of this adventure. We hung our pyjamas and other bits of clothing on the railings and slipped quietly into the pool – no noise and no splashing – whispering to each other about how brave we were. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of running feet in noisy slippers as our dormitory brother, realising he had been left behind, and forgetting all instructions, came charging down the path, shed his clothing, and dive-bombed into the pool with a shout of joy.

The game plan changed instantaneously. The groundsman came charging out of his room, shouting and shaking his fist. We all shot out of the pool and sprinted across the cricket oval without really knowing where we were going; the idea was to get as far away from trouble as we could, in the hope that he would not recognise any of us. He obviously had no intention of following us, so we decided to wait for about half an hour and then creep back, collect our clothes, and get back to the boarding house.

We duly crept back only to realise that he had outwitted us: he had taken all our clothes and gone back to bed. We returned to the dormi­tory and woke our prefect to tell him what had happened. He was totally unsympathetic, and told us we would have to face the music in the morning. Our pyjamas were duly delivered to the housemaster; as all our clothing had been dutifully marked by our loving mothers, the game was up. We were all caned, as was the custom, and life went on.

I was one of the youngest boys in the standard, having turned 13 in September of my first year. In Standard 7 (Grade 9) puberty kicked in and I suddenly started growing. Many of my friends were good sportsmen, but no matter how hard I tried, I could never get beyond the C or D team. I didn’t like the way I looked, and had to put up with a fair bit of teasing about how thin and gawky I had become. As a result, my self-confidence took a dive and I developed a very poor self-image.

We had a very strict physical education teacher who seemed to single out those of us who were physically awkward and punished us mercilessly when we were unable to do sophisticated gymnastic moves. I remember, as punishment, being made to do forward rolls on the bare floor of the gym for almost an entire period. I hated him and hated the physical education periods. I was doing well academically and loved boarding-school life, but my physical hang-ups were beginning to affect me negatively.

Looking back, having spent the greater part of my professional life dealing with adolescents in general and boys in particular who were going through the difficulties – sometimes more perceived than real – that I faced at that age, I now understand why I behaved the way I did. But at the time, I certainly did not. I had a real need to feel accepted and to find some way that would compensate for my perceived physical inadequacies. So I began to ‘hang out’ with a group of boarders and day boys who were smokers and drinkers, some of whom were a bit older and a great deal more worldly than I was.

I remember my first cigarette vividly. It was a Texan Plain, probably the strongest cigarette on the market. It all happened behind the cricket pavilion in the late afternoon. With the first drag, I think I turned green, coughed, and nearly got sick, much to the amusement of my mentors. Showing uncharacteristic perseverance and determination, and being a quick learner, I soon became a confirmed smoker. In a perverse sort of way, I felt better about myself by becoming part of a group that was so unlike me and the values with which I had grown up.

This was the start of a two-year period in which I led a double life and experienced a pervasive feeling of guilt. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was at Rondebosch on a bursary, that I was feeding my new-found habits from the hard-earned sacrifices that my mother was making to send me pocket money, and that I was spurning the generosity of family and friends in Cape Town, who assisted in different ways to ensure my well-being. I knew that if those in charge caught me smoking at school, or breaking bounds during the day and at night, I would lose my bursary (which would mean leaving Rondebosch). It would let down everyone who believed in me and had given me these wonderful opportunities. More importantly, it would break my mother’s heart.

I was either adept at staying below the radar or just plain lucky, as my double life continued apace. I was still doing well academically, still playing sport through all seasons at my rather mediocre level, and still having healthy, fun relationships with my boarder peer group. Yet I was also indulging in some unacceptable and unhealthy nocturnal pursuits.

We developed a variety of schemes to feed our smoking habits and to pay for the odd bit of cheap wine smuggled to us by ‘friends’ among the day boys. One of our ventures was the selling of so-called woodcarvings, which was one of the standard punishments meted out by prefects for misdemeanours. A woodcarving was the wording above the main entrance to the senior house, Canigou. While I can’t remember the exact wording (although I should, as I have written it out so many times), it went something like this: ‘May all who pass through here as pupils or serve here as masters forever uphold and maintain the fair name of this school – Captain Frank Joubert, Administrator of the Cape Province.’

Depending on the severity of the crime, the sentence could be as much as a dozen or more woodcarvings. Our business was simple: whenever we had spare time, we wrote out woodcarvings, stored them, and then sold them to boys who needed to hand them in at dinner time. The price of a woodcarving depended on the desperation of the purchaser, and the value escalated dramatically in the half-hour before dinner.

The other money-spinner we had was to loan out a copy of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover at a competitive price for an eve­ning’s reading. One of my business associates had somehow managed to obtain a copy of the book, which was banned at that time, from a relative visiting the United Kingdom (UK). In the late 1950s, this was the closest one could get to pornography. In a boarding house bursting with testosterone, this book was in great demand, though sadly not for its literary value, as it fell open at the ‘most interesting’ parts!

As a boy, religion was an aspect of life that I accepted automatically. Sundays were for Sunday school. My mother was a deeply religious person who had a very simple but real and unquestioning faith. As a church organist, she frequently had to play at two services on Sundays. I was baptised in the Presbyterian Church, and my mother insisted that I should be confirmed, as one was in one’s teenage years, while at boarding school.

At Rondebosch, boarders went to the church of their choosing, wearing their grey Sunday suits and hats. A roll call was taken by prefects and one was allowed an exeat only after church. The Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Catholic, Congregational and Methodist churches were all within relatively easy walking distance of the school. The Presbyterian church, being in Mowbray, was by far the most distant. This had its advantages, as it was easier to play truant, particularly as we had no prefect in church from Standard 8 (Grade 10) onwards.

Truancy was a bit difficult in the confirmation year as the minister took the confirmation classes himself after morning service, but we were able to outmanoeuvre him from time to time by using forged sick notes and by only arriving in time for the confirmation classes. He was astute enough to ask us what the theme of his sermon had been, so that was no longer a truancy option.

The other non-negotiable issue for my mother concerned the use of alcohol. She never touched a drop, and while she was not a judgemental person, she saw the use and abuse of alcohol as a sin. (She did, however, concede that she loved brandy butter on her Christmas pudding, and the more brandy, the tastier the pudding!) Her attitude towards alcohol apparently stemmed from the behaviour of her father, the Dutch Reformed missionary. The story goes that he had a weakness for the nagmaalwyn (communion wine), and his congregation always knew when he had imbibed, as he would try to shoot the pigeons nesting in the church rafters, as evidenced by the odd pellet hole in the windows.

I am sorry that I never knew him, as he sounded quite a character. He was held in such high esteem by his parishioners that they asked my grandmother whether he could be buried among them. As a result, to this day, he is the only white man to be buried in the former coloured cemetery in George.

My mother and grandmother thought that he must have been an alcoholic, and as this may well have been genetic, there was no question that liquor should have any part in our family. My mother’s only surviving sibling married into the then strictly teetotal Searle family of Great Brak River, which made the use of liquor even more taboo.

Great Brak was founded by Charles and Pamela Searle in the mid-1800s and is equidistant between George and Mossel Bay. The Searles started by operating a toll bridge, and subsequent generations established a thriving village with a shoe factory (Dr Watson Shoes), a tannery and a sawmill. There were palatial homes in the village and holiday cottages at the sea where the river formed an island as it meandered through the village before reaching the mouth. After my mother’s divorce, we spent virtually all our holidays at Great Brak, right up to my university years.

The older generation all took vows of temperance, and so there were no liquor outlets in the village. These rules applied to the extended family as well, though I have to admit that the younger generations made up for this abstinence in later years! My religious upbringing and the family attitude to alcohol explains my feelings of guilt and duplicity, as the lifestyle I had chosen flouted two issues so close to my mother’s heart.

I am fortunate to have had some outstanding teachers throughout my high school career, some of whom became good friends and mentors when I returned to Rondebosch as a teacher, ten years after matriculating. As with all staffs, both then and now, there were those for whom one had scant respect as they were lazy, brutish or just plain useless.

However, I am quite embarrassed and ashamed when I reflect on how we mistreated some of them who were unable to discipline us. The only really serious hiding I had in those years was when a number of us were caught red-handed, having put one of our masters on a chair on top of a table in order to take his photograph. We were busy sprucing him up, adjusting his tie, and combing his hair when the deputy headmaster walked in, alerted by the noise.

It was the intervention of one of the new, young teachers, at the beginning of my Standard 9 (Grade 11) year, that made me realise that, at the age of 15, I was at a crossroads in my life. I was about to throw away all the opportunities I had been given. This teacher, an assistant housemaster in the senior house, was someone who had known my family for many years and had found out about my secret life. I would guess that he had quite probably done some of the things I was doing when he was a schoolboy, and certainly as a university student. It takes a thief to catch a thief, I was once told.

One evening, just before lights out, he came into my room (we all had our own rooms from Standard 9 [Grade 11]) and said he wanted to talk to me about my unacceptable behaviour. I did not stand up when he entered the room, and must have given him some attitude. The next moment, he grabbed me by the collar, pulled me to my feet, and started using language that one did not associate with a teacher. It had the desired effect. He proceeded to list some of my nefarious activities and what the consequences would be if I continued on the path of self-destruction. Next he mentioned my mother, my bursary and everyone who believed that I was worth more than I was currently displaying. He promised that if I did not wake up, and grow up, he would personally give me the hiding of my life. If that did not work, he would expose me and my underworld colleagues. After a few more expletives, he swept out of the room, banging the door behind him. I was left verbally battered and bruised but with a great deal to think about.

I subsequently discovered that two of my good friends, knowing that the teacher knew my family, had spoken to him about my ‘other life’. I was quite keen on the sister of one of them, and I don’t think he regarded me as a suitable candidate. I decided to modulate my behaviour for a week or two and made it known to my erstwhile smoking and drinking companions that I was going to attempt to quit that part of my life. Surprisingly, they respected my decision and never tried to put pressure on me. We remained friends – a lesson in schoolboy honour, perhaps.

While I don’t believe I changed a great deal as a person, taking the decision to clean up my life took a great weight off my shoulders. I found that I was able to relate to my friends on both sides of the behaviour barrier. Ironically, my antisocial behaviour was possibly a reaction to my cloistered background. At the age of 15, I certainly had lived a bit!

Rondebosch had an interesting and effective pupil-leadership system that embraced mentoring, pupil involvement in selection and considerable staff input. There were four houses in the school – three day-boy houses and the three boarding houses, which were viewed as one. In the second term of Standard 9 (Grade 11), the senior boys in each house were invited to vote for three Standard 9 boys from each house as junior (trainee) prefects. During the remainder of the year, the staff added further names from time to time, usually ending up with a group of about 25, from whom the prefects for the following year were selected and who took over the leadership in the school from late October.

To my total amazement, I was selected as one of the three from my boarding house, and apparently attracted the most votes. Having only recently emerged from the underworld, and being a hopeless sportsman, I never believed that I had any leadership potential. Apart from this, I was also one of the youngest boys in my grade: I was still 15 and would turn 16 only in September of that year.

I guess my self-image had improved, as I thoroughly enjoyed the training and the duties involved, and even discovered that exercising discipline was not a problem. The six months that followed were among the happiest of my life as I immersed myself in all areas of school life, as well as enjoying quite a serious relationship with a lovely girl who lived near the school.

At the start of the fourth term, boys and staff voted once again for new prefects, and it became apparent that I was a contender for one of the top positions. Quite late one evening, I received a message that the headmaster, Mr Clarke, wanted to see me at his home, which was attached to our boarding house. I had no inkling of what was about to happen when I knocked on his study door. He invited me in, and in his typical self-effacing manner offered me the position of head prefect of the school, which also meant becoming head of the boarding house.

My knees turned to jelly and I think I sat down without actually being invited. He said I could think about it should I have doubts, but I should know that I had overwhelming support from both staff and boys. It all seemed unreal but I managed to stutter my acceptance of his offer.

He then told me that I would have to keep the appointment to myself as he wanted to contact my mother and arrange to bring her to Cape Town to be present at my inauguration as head boy. He added with a chuckle that what had transpired was not a bad trade-off for a basket of fruit!

A few days later, at a special assembly filled with symbolism and tradition, I was called upon to accept a charge on behalf of the new prefects, and the baton of boy leadership was handed over by my predecessor. My mother was so proud of what I had achieved, but I could not help thinking of how close I had come to a very different outcome.

Me, aged 16, going into matric at Rondebosch Boys’ High.

I had a traumatic and indeed dramatic start to my term of office. As the head prefect, I had to read the lesson in assembly, so early the next morning I went up to our prep room to practise the reading. It was a beautiful spring day, so I decided to sit on the fire escape to rehearse my reading. I opened the door and walked out onto the narrow platform straight into one of my erstwhile smoking friends, who was just lighting up.

I dropped the Bible at the same time as he dropped the lighter and almost swallowed the cigarette. At 19, he was a committed smoker, and here was I, just turned 16, the new head boy. Without a word, I walked, shaken, back into the prep room. I could have done nothing, and we could have pretended that the episode had never taken place. Unfortunately for me, our encounter on the fire escape had been witnessed by a group of boys returning from a run. I decided to take a chance and do nothing – after all, he was one of my friends.

I felt sick at the thought of what had just happened and disgusted at my cowardice. I was about to go across to the school after breakfast when I was given a message that the housemaster wished to see me. I walked down to his study to find my smoker friend standing at his open door. The housemaster called us in, and before I could say anything, my friend said that I had caught him smoking and had told him to report to the housemaster after breakfast. He had handed himself in, and I had fallen at the first hurdle in my new role. There was nothing I could do; he was punished and I learned an important life lesson.

This young man was viewed as something of a nonentity, someone of whom the school would not be particularly proud, nor was much expected from him. Yet, to me, he had a sense of honour, a clear under­standing of right and wrong, and the courage to do the right thing. I shall always be in his debt. Sadly, he was killed in a car accident shortly after leaving school.

My year as head boy passed in a flash. When I think of what we required, and in fact expected, from head prefects during my teaching career, I don’t really know how effective my leadership was. The school was doing well academically, sporting-wise and culturally, and I was totally involved in a full life – to the detriment of my academic performance, as it turned out.

The boarding house prefects – Rondebosch Boys’ High School, 1961. From left to right, seated are Jonathan Melck, Bill Schroder (head) and PJ Puttick; standing are Ian McCallum, David Blyth, ‘Bok’ du Toit, Chris Jurisch, Koos la Grange, Anton Starke and Rowan Jackson.

There were difficult challenges, some wonderful highlights and some funny occasions. One of the worst moments, which posed a big challenge for me, was when one of my closest friends (and a fellow prefect) was caught cheating in the mid-year examinations. The master who had caught him said nothing about it, but my friend could not cope with the suspense of the uncertainty and so he confided in me. The cheating had not been premeditated; it had occurred on the spur of the moment because his textbook was lying on the floor next to his desk.

Mindful of my earlier experience, I suggested that we speak to a master we could trust, but as it was a Friday evening we did not see him. Our rugby fixture on the Saturday was an away match at SACS (South African College Schools), and my friend was one of the stars of our First XV. On the touchline during the match, our acting headmaster (the head was on leave) overheard parents talking and commenting on the fact that our star player had been caught cheating in the examinations. The head called me that afternoon to ask whether I knew anything about the matter, as he knew we were in the same class and were close friends. I had to do the right thing, and so my friend was stripped of his status as a prefect and suspended for a number of rugby matches. The silver lining was that the acting head reinstated him at the end of the term, before the headmaster returned, as he believed he had learned a lesson. To me, this was another life lesson. It taught me the importance of understanding, compassion and forgiveness.

There were many highlights during the year, one of which was the annual matric dance. This was a formal occasion with a live band, and etiquette was viewed as being very important. For weeks we had had dance lessons – particularly important for me, as protocol required that I had to dance with the headmistress of our sister school, and she could only waltz. I worked hard at my waltz lessons, though with limited success.

I organised for the band to play a waltz early on in the evening, so that I could get this ordeal behind me and enjoy the rest of the proceedings. The musicians duly struck up a Strauss waltz, and I went over to the headmaster’s table and invited Miss Thompson for the waltz. Others, particularly from the staff, joined us on the floor. As we reached the part of the dance floor furthest away from the staff table, the band switched in mid-bar from a waltz to Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’. I had been set up.

Red-faced, I walked Miss Thompson back to her table, only to have the waltz resume as she sat down. I think this was one of the highlights of the formal part of the evening for the hundred-plus boys and their partners who were there. The lesson? In leadership you have to have a sense of humour, particularly as it is often at your expense.

While it wasn’t always easy growing up, I was fortunate to enjoy a privileged education that allowed me to learn many valuable lessons from both teachers and friends. High school shaped me in many important ways. In the absence of a close relationship with my father, I was lucky to have good relationships with numerous teachers. Mr Clarke, our headmaster, was a wonderful human being and role model. He placed great store on the worth of the individual. While he was proud of the many high-profile successes of a school like Rondebosch, it was turning out decent, ordinary individuals that he saw as a priority and real success. He was not interested in the trappings of power, and was known to go off on holiday with a collection of wooden peach trays filled with papers. Mr Clarke, who came across as unassuming and even shy, had little time for bureaucracy and courageously tackled the education department over what he considered to be red tape.

According to his long-time secretary, he usually achieved what he set out to do by using incisive arguments and simple common sense. She recalls that mothers would often appear at the school bearing left-at-home sandwiches, tog bags, raincoats, etc, much to the annoyance of the staff, who had more important things to do than to find the boys concerned. Often, Mr Clarke would gather up the bits and pieces and quietly deliver them himself – true servant leadership from a humble, calm, dedicated professional leader.

Mrs Clarke, his wife, was always incredibly supportive. Far more extroverted than her husband, she happily involved herself in whatever aspect of school life needed her. She was always cheerful and enthusiastic, and no task or request was too much trouble. At the start of my final year, one of our matrons died. She had no close family, and had requested that she be cremated and her ashes scattered at sea. This was no trouble to Mrs Clarke, who arranged for me, as head boy, a couple of other boarder prefects and a small group of choristers to accompany her on a specially hired tug out into Table Bay to dispose of the ashes. There was a howling southeaster, and when we reached the end of the breakwater many of us were not feeling well. Mrs Clarke determined that we had gone far enough, gave instructions to the tug master to return, and had the choristers sing ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’. I am not sure whether the hymn was for us or the matron. It did not really matter because none other than the deity could hear anything over the noise of the wind and the tug’s engine.

I was asked to throw the ashes overboard, but my efforts were undone by the wind. The fine dust blew back all over us and we had Matron in our hair, our pockets and in the turn-ups of our trousers – quite a bit of her returned to the school.

An amazing statistic that says so much about this remarkable head­master is the fact that 22 boys who were at Rondebosch during his headmastership became not only teachers but also headmasters. In his honour, we formed the Clarke Club and even had an exclusive tie made. There were also as large a number of other boys who became deputy principals, and a significant group of men who taught under him who also became headmasters. This was certainly no coincidence.

I learned much from the deep friendships I made at school. My friends taught me honour, courage, loyalty and so many other life lessons.