Apartheid was in its last breath. A state of Emergency existed in the country. Military on the streets and weekly bomb drills at school.
This morning though, I found myself at the entrance to the most prestigious school in the country. Looking around at the cars parked up, it was clear most other kids had arrived via their driver. A few cars had license plates that started and ended with D. That’s Diplomats. I distinctly remember one was a Maserati BiTurbo.
Some started and ended with B…that’s police. Probably their dad was in the upper ranks.
Yet I had walked from our flat down the road I shared with my unemployed mum. And then walked up the long hill to get to the imposing entrance gates, through which, another 500m or so away I could see a most spectacular building. Boys High. I was the only one with dusty shoes at that stage. As a state school it was also selective. I had being chosen/allowed due to attending a word salad name of a place while also in junior school ( Transvaal Education Department – Centre for Highly Gifted Children). I got put onto this course from age 8. And now here I was.
The school in front of me didn’t have any other name…it didn’t need one. It was the first high school for boys in the country. Hence…Boys High. The OG as the yoof would call it nowadays. In later years they adopted Pretoria Boys High for specifics. But everyone still just referred to it as “Boys High”. In this sense, there can be only one.
A secondary school for boys, divided into four “houses” for administrations sake. Three houses were for boarding school kids, and the last one, “Town”, was for boys from the local area. Day trippers, so to speak. Me. On your first day, you would get assigned a house. This wasn’t any physical area, it was your source of pride..the team to which you belonged. I think Harry Potter stole the idea.
Oh, you’d also magically get assigned an elder. By that I mean, initiation is a bitch and it was served up on a plate that was fit for a banquet. The kids that were in their final year would all get one of us as a pet. Losing belt hoops and shirt pockets were the warm up to having your tie pulled up tight till you almost choked. I also had a mango pip, on a string, which I had to introduce to each teacher prior to lessons starting. This was a breeze compared to my peers who were in the boarding houses, as they had ironing duties to fulfill too. This was tolerated, but we were all making notes for when it was our turn to exact revenge on the new recruits in 5 years time.
The day started with assembly..prayers. School Anthems. Ra ra ra. Some bloke preaching. I envied the Chinese diplomat kids, as for some reason they got to sit this part out. And the Jewish kids. Maybe it was a religious thing. Then it was probably off to double Latin. Or double maths. Or double science. Why all the lessons were mainly double long I’m not sure, but 40 odd years later this is what I remember. The teacher owned you for 2 x 40 minutes.
At break time you could go find a spot to sit under a tree, if nobody was smoking there first. Going to the tuckshop outside by the seating area was a minefield for the younger ones like me, as the Greeks had that section cornered. They had their own table. They would mug you for money. Mug is a strong word..maybe we would use coerced nowadays, but it still felt like you got mugged.
The school desks were quaint old things, sloped down to you with a long recess to hold pens without sliding all over the place, a spot where once an ink pot would’ve sat and the lid would lift up to reveal storage space for books. I really did like them. Detention involved sanding the desks that had too much pen graffiti. It was a circular economy…those that would most likely have put pen marks on the desk, would most likely end up sanding the desks clean. The sheer amount of wood paneling on everything was the most impressive thing. I felt like I was in the Houses of Parliament.
Activities I took part in during break times were chess and ping pong. Safe for us little guys that were new to the school. Unlike Rachel from Accounts, I did actually play chess for my province…
I met Dietrich M at Boys High, one of the best chess players I had ever played against. He really didn’t know how much I envied him as a player.
Now an investment banker in the States.
Andy V, from my Latin class, was by far the most well-built individual I had ever seen. A swimmer, and diver..just physically excellent at what he did. And he ended up school valedictorian. Some guys eh?
Now an investment seed fund owner…in the States.
The school had a massive list of activities: overseas trips, field trips, inter-high competitions, sports days (normally against our ARCH ENEMIES, Afrikaans Boys High aka “affies”) and Cadets. Bagpipes. Cricket. Rowing. Massive swimming pool…I won’t remember them all as we couldn’t afford the trips so I seem to have blocked a lot of it out.
But, they also had shooting.
Anschultz .22 rimfire. Resembling the rifles I had seen the skiers use on tv..with a lovely stock and all things adjustable. Peep sights. Back when my eyes were better.
I would love the shooting range and to this day have myself a bell target for the air rifle, for when those summer days come and I have the time spare. Boys High was where my love for target shooting started.
When school ended, I would walk myself home, past Magnolia Dell (which had a small pond full of tadpoles), and make my way to Barclay Square. A small shopping mall across the road from mum’s 3rd floor flat. They had a few arcade machines, 20c each. And a cafe called “The Grapevine”…where the retired Germans ate weird sausages, drank coffee and seemingly talked rubbish the entire day. These folks had all the time in the world to talk shit and moan.
I’d lean into the arcade machines watching whomever play, learning from their mistakes until it was my turn to put my singular coin in and try my luck at Pacman, or Moon Patrol. The arcade machines were race-agnostic..it was only the younger crowd that played them, and in that sense we were more grown up about race issues. Nobody cared. You put your coin down and waited your turn, your colour didn’t come into it.. When you finished playing, you’d carry on watching until everyone’s money had run out. You can read into this that the youngsters had already broken the race barrier and found common ground.
When my father came to visit me on the weekend at a neutral location for a few hours he would give me more coins…for the tikkie box (phonebox) to call him during the week, and for more Pacman.
I only remained at tha school for another year until my father gained custody and I moved in with him in another town and started life in another school and started different adventures, as a young boy is meant to do when the whole world is in front of you on a plate and you end up with a 50cc motorcycle and a love for girls.
1992 came and I got myself online and realised the whole world thought we were the baddies and I started earnestly trying to unpick everything I had been taught to try find out what truth actually is. The rest, is history.
I’ve often think back to my time at Boys High…the kids I met and spoke to, friends I made and lost. Unfortunately, the messy divorce and custody battle that was going on occupied a lot of my thoughts so I didn’t pay all that much attention at school. I never really did…I skated through life on my ass with raw talent, as my father often reminded me when I wasn’t studying for a test, fully expecting this ride to come to an end. It hasn’t, yet, but I still don’t study so I’ve probably peaked already.
The school has an old boys network, available online, where they publish the old yearbooks and organise meet-ups. I’ve downloaded the pdf version of this year and the one after where I can go through all the class photo’s, events, sports tables/records to try remember my time there better. One thing I couldn’t remember is that I was apparently pretty good at long jump, according to the yearbook.
The world is a lovely place now: LinkedIn is great for creating and expanding work related networks…fb and twitter et al for social stuff….going through the names in the class photo brings back some memories and it is interesting finding out what has happened to class mates (as I’m sure everyone may have done at one stage or another). Majority of my class mates, including myself, have left South Africa. Roughly 50/50 split between UK and USA.
And Elon M. He would’ve been there, a year or two ahead of me. Maybe I played him at ping pong. But he left too.
The brain drain that occurred once it was clear that the direction of travel was to favour a set of individuals, once again on race quotas, has irreparably harmed that country. We could’ve all stayed and brought wealth to S.Africa. Maybe we should’ve stayed. We were nicknamed “the chicken-runners” and I did lose a few friends over my decision to leave. But it didn’t matter to me, as I now have a fantastic wife and son and have enjoyed a mostly-safe existence.
Those that didn’t leave have now, 30+ years on, been granted refugee status by Trump. Sometimes, its clear what the decision should be, but we let emotions and an irrational love for something that doesn’t exist anymore overrule our rational thoughts.
May God bless the UK going forward.
© RedBudgie 2025
