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Brian Abrahams |
Navigation: Shown are “thumbnails” for each picture. Click on any photograph to get a full-size view. In full-size view, see directional arrows –> <– to keep scrolling left or right through the available photos.
The initial load of photographs below was taken from submissions to Neil Veitch’s book In A Class Of Our Own to celebrate our 50th high school reunion in 2013. If you are so inclined and wish to submit more recent photograph(s), or one of your wife or partner (with the two of you in one picture or separate—your choice), or photographs of your children and/or grandchildren, please feel free to email them to john@johncbarry.com. High-resolution head and shoulder pictures in color are preferred. Please add names for identification. Comments about this webpage are welcome. We will make this a happy family display of our RBHS E63 class. Anyone wishing to change editorial comments, feel free to email me your choice of wording or to add any wording that you would like to see under your name. If you wish to see a current title such as Dr./Prof./Lord/Mr., let me know and I will add it.
Photographs are sorted alphabetically by surname/last name. The exception to the rule is my (John Barry) entry to show a template of what is possible.
John and Linda Barry
Barry family, Left to right, top to bottom: John Barry and granddaughter Isabel (twin), Linda (wife) and Olivia (twin), Robyn (daughter), Darin (son-in-law), and identical twins Olivia and Isabel (10). John with the 4 granddaughters, son Sean, and his daughters Addison (11), and Audrey (8), Addy and Audrey again. Ages of the granddaughters accurate in October 2017.
Please see my RBPS/RBHS In A Class Of Our Own and school post here: IACOOO
Mike and Heather Allen
Donald and Sandra Andrew
Donald, Sandra, schoolboy Donald, Donald on his tricycle. Who can you identify in the group scrambling out the RBPS arch? The figure on the far right looks like Peter Hodes and next to him is definitely the late Johan van Schoor. Continuing right to left is the late Alec Cassarchis, I believe. Not sure who that is close behind me. Far left looks like, maybe, Malcolm Farquharson? Often think about the photogravure Saturday morning page in the Cape Times. The Four Seasons—school play. In June 1954 when I was 8 years old in Standard One at RBPS, a lighthearted series of photos of me winding my way home from school was published in the Cape Times Weekend Magazine. There is a steep hill on Keurboom Road as it goes down from Camp Ground Road to the Black River (which runs through the high school) where the photo of me leaning over the bridge was taken. Photo of me finally arriving home from school. In the summer holidays, my mother used to run the Cape Times Fresh Air Camp at Froggy Pond beyond Simonstown. This is a photo of her leading a line of children and counselors up from Windmill Beach with me right behind her at about age 5, about a year before I started at RBPS in Sub A in 1952 at age 6.
Alfred (Alf) Baguley
The Admirable Crichton 1962 production, left to right: Clive Downton, Susan Rowe, ???, Jan Rozwadowski, Alfred Baguely, Johnny Kipps, Gail Ashburner, Peter Barrett, Cheryl Clarke, Brian Clarke, Tessa Anderson (Kennedy), Ferdi Fischer, John Gibson, ???
Alfred Baguley and Carol Martin (Evan’s daughter) sharing an intimate moment.
Matric Dance, left to right: Renee Logie, Alfred Baguley, Diane Jack, Roy Schreiber, Neil Kritzinger, Marlene Drucker, Lindsay Kennedy, Tessa Anderson (Kennedy), Lord Richard Risby (Spring), Lorna Martin, Judith Watson, David Price
An autographed photograph of a youthful Mr. Billy Trengove (age 35) given to Alf Baguley after the production of The Admirable Crichton
Peter and Bilqees Baker
Peter Barrett
Admirable Crighton: Clive Downton, Susan Rowe, ? , Jan Rozwadowski, Alf Baguelly, Johnny Kipps, Gail Ashburner, Peter Barrett, Cheryl Clarke, Clarke, Tessa Anderson, Ferdi Fischer, John Gibson, ? .
Princess Ju-Ju. Front Row: Alan Everson, David Sonneberg , ? , Michael Stevens, David Taylor, Clive Downton, Robbie Meyer, Roy McCallum. Middle Row: Anthony Hillier, Robert Hoets, Christopher Newall, Farqhuarson, John Hill, Adrian Brinkworth, Back Row; Peter Barrett, Jack Penfold, John Barry, Allan Musker
The Four Seasons. Front Row: Paul Duminy, Alex Cohen, Peter Hodes, Robbie Meyer, Johan van Schoor, Eric Smith. Middle Row: Hugh Hodge, Roderick Lumb, Alex Cassarcis, Stephen Buchner, Donald Andrew, Robbie Thomas, Anthony Hillier, Kevin Richter, Hollman??? Back Row: Peter Barrett, Nicky Diemont, John le Roux, Trevor Blewitt, Robert Hoets, Adrian Low, Derek van den Berg, Keith Perry, Johnny Kipps.
RBPS Under 12 A. Front Row: Neil Robertson, Allan Musker. Seated: Richard Morris, Mike Taylor, Derek van den Berg, Mr. S Robinson, Douglas Crisp, Royden Wood, Roy McCallum. Standing: Peter Barrett, Sakkie de Villiers, David Finlayson, Lindsay Kennedy, Antony Davidson, Kevin Richter, Fred Versveld
Whitey Basson
Leon and Lainey Boonzaier
Steve Buchner
With Mr. Charlie Hallack
Ian and Ronnie Crawford
Alex (Morris) Cohen
Jeremy Day
Louis and Denise de Kock
Theo and Ille de Rijk
Mike and Carol Denoon-Stevens
Nick and Hilly Diemont
Clive Downton
Geoff Duckitt
Bruce Ferguson
Ferdi Fischer
Ferdi and daughter Saskia
Read about Ferdi’s trip to Patagonia here:
Peter Flint
Peter with Elvis and Sheba, and a 5-year old Peter
Richard Frantz
Last day of school photograph, left to right: Jan Rozwadowski, Theo de Rijk, Lawrence Evans, Richard Frantz, Christopher Matchett, and Paul Duminy
Brian and Cecile Fraser
Martin and Linky Furman
Martin with their 10 grandchildren
Cedric Gilmour
Peter and Carolyn Goble
To read more about the story Peter wrote to his grandchildren, click here:
Roy and Ilse Gordon
John Hill
John thought that the reaction to Helen Zille’s tweets about colonialism resulted from a lack of understanding. This addresses some of the Zille background from her trip to Singapore. Read more here.
John’s response to Helen Zille fiasco was to write an educational article on colonialism. Read his article here
Anthony (Tony) and Ann Hillier
Peter and Helen Hodes
In 2010 I successfully fulfilled a goal of taking a photograph of a different person every day of the year—it might have been a friend, a client, the fishmonger, a stranger on the bus, the check-out lady at Sainsbury. So the picture of me—taken, of course by lovely Helene, is a mosaic of those 365 images—people!
Hugh Hodge
Waiters at Matric dance 1962: Hugh Hodge, Lord Richard (Spring) Risby, M Sheppard, Peter Scholte, R Schreiber, B Buyskes, Piet Schroeder, Barry Price, Peter Barrett, Miss Denning, Cedric Gilmour, Bruce McLagan, Trevor Klette.
A tribute to Hugh Hodge by Karin Schimke, June 28, 2021, in the Daily Maverick. Hugh Hodge (1946–2021): A prolific and generous poet for the people.
Hugh Hodge, the prolific poet, who had a deep understanding of form and who, in recent years, dedicated himself to the strict brevity of haiku, was perhaps less known for his poetry than for his determined and steadfast service to poetry.
Poet Malika Ndlovu says Hodge helped make history in the local poetry scene by contributing to building a significant poetry community over several years.
Hodge was far less interested in publishing his poetry than he was in hearing and encouraging new voices at the weekly Off The Wall (OTW) sessions he ran for almost two decades, and he knew and was known – and seemingly universally loved – by almost every poet who practised in Cape Town, or who visited Cape Town from other cities and countries.
“Against endless tides of change and logistical odds,” Ndlovu said, “he ensured that OTW became Cape Town’s longest running weekly poetry open mic session and contributed substantially to local poets across our diversity, engaging in conversation, networking, encouraging, respecting each other and sharing our common love for this word-weaving art.
“Many cut their teeth with an audience here (and) went on to leap into performing regularly or, finally, publishing a poetry collection.”
Hodge welcomed everyone who loved the word as it expresses itself poetically, which means that he made no concessions to the egos of experienced poets, nor did he censor or restrict even the newest of nervous poets.
Off The Wall unconditionally welcomed every poet who ever shakily took the microphone to read poems from a grubby much-folded piece of paper torn from an exercise book, or learnt off by heart and struggled through despite nerves. Every poet received applause from the audience regardless of how their reading went or what sort of poetry they read. Hodge neither praised nor criticised. He simply welcomed and listened.
He was consistently and steadfastly egalitarian. If Hodge was in any way snobbish about poetry, it was never evident. I co-hosted Off The Wall poetry sessions with him for a few years, and he never once demonstrated any judgement towards any of the poems that were read, or the poets who read them. His partner, Julia Kramer, confirms that not even in private would he concede to preferences.
“When I said I didn’t like someone’s poem,” she told me, “he always said things like ‘everyone starts somewhere’ or ‘not everyone can like every poem’ or ‘there’s always someone for whom a poem is meaningful, even if it is not you’.”
The poet Jacques Coetzee notes that although everyone talks of Hodge’s gentleness, “people who knew him well would sometimes see flashes of something quite fierce in him in that space, and it always had to do with the fact that no one was allowed to feel more or less than anyone else there”.
He said the shape of the community he helped create was “an extraordinary feat of generosity, and we owe him a great debt of gratitude for it”.
Ndlovu recalls that Hodge picked up the torch of Off The Wall sessions from the well-known Capetonian Richard Ismail. According to Keith Gottschalk, an Off The Wall stalwart, poet and retired UWC lecturer, Ismail, a modest man despite his achievements, had been a logistics person for Umkhonto weSizwe, “running explosives into the Western Cape for MK, a seriously high-risk activity”.
Ismail ran Off Moroka, a café at the upper end of Adderley Street opposite St George’s Cathedral, and he was well connected. Gottschalk said many of the customers were MPs, parliamentary workers and their friends. Off Moroka was also popular among journalists, artists and writers.
Hodge began running weekly poetry sessions there in 2001.
For a few years, poet Primrose Mrwebi was his co-host. Poet Khadija Heeger writes that Off The Wall was “crazy – a beautiful mix of styles both contemporary, alternative and classic. Hugh is and was a great poet himself. Twinkle in his eye, six-foot-something, gentle, sharp wit. I always felt welcomed by him. He had the ability to make anyone feel seen.”
During his Off The Wall years, Hodge also served as the editor of New Contrast, the oldest literary magazine in South Africa, for five years.
Hodge was born at Tavistock in Devon, England, in 1946 and was brought to Cape Town as a babe-in-arms by his mother. His father joined them after he was discharged from the British Army during World War 2.
Kramer said that Hodge experienced his father, who made him weed the garden or recite poetry as punishment, as strict. Because of that, he was not terribly enamoured with poetry until his wife told him to stop fighting it and use what he’d learnt about poetry from his father, for pleasure.
Because of his father, Hodge could recite Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – and many other classic poems – by heart, but his favourite poet was Ted Hughes. Many remember the readings he did in his strong, mellifluous voice of Hughes’ poetry, juxtaposed with the poetry of Hughes’ wife, Sylvia Plath.
The Hodge family moved to Kalk Bay from Plumstead around the time Hodge started high school at Rondebosch Boys’. Kramer said he often told her that one of the happiest days of his life was the first day he came home on the train from Rondebosch. “He said he practically started undressing on his way from the station, so that he could get into his swimming trunks and go to the beach.”
Hodge loved the sea, despite a near-drowning, and always wanted to be in the navy. While in South Africa, he mostly lived by the ocean.
When he left school, he went to England where he did all kinds of work, including as a drayman on a horse-drawn cart, delivering beer for a brewery. Later, he went to Essex University, where he received support to study Russian literature. He spent time in Russia learning the language.
He often read the work of Russian poets in translation and encouraged everyone at Off The Wall to read in any language they liked, without translation, whether the mainly English, isiXhosa or Afrikaans audience understood the poems or not.
Hodge returned to South Africa permanently in the nineties. He’d taught himself coding and worked mainly in IT, but poetry was his passion. Kramer said that the last time Hodge wrote a poem, an activity he undertook daily, was three weeks before his death, just before being admitted to hospital a few days after a fall in which he’d broken his femur.
He ran Off The Wall mostly on his own, except for two separate periods when Mrwebi and I were his co-hosts. In 2017, a committee took over the task he’d managed for many years. He remained on the committee.
Over the years, Hodge took Off The Wall to the Franschhoek Literary and the McGregor Poetry festivals. He ran Off The Wall sessions in Kalk Bay and in Kommetjie, alongside the weekly Monday evening sessions at Touch of Madness restaurant in Observatory, which is where the sessions from Off Moroka moved to after the café closed.
International poets like D’bi Young, Brian Turner, Raymond Antrobus and Jonathan Nkala performed or read at Off The Wall, as well as many of the jewels in the South African poetry crown, including Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Gabeba Baderoon, Ingrid de Kock, Antjie Krog and Rustum Kozain.
Cape Town writer Barbara Fairhead notes that Hodge didn’t merely wait for poets to come to Off The Wall, but went out to find them. He “found” her at a reading she did at Meadowridge library. He approached her after her reading and invited her to come to Off The Wall. She said it felt like “the gentlest come-on she’d ever had”, only to find that Off The Wall really did exist and his approach had not been flirtation.
“He really did just want me to read poetry there.” Fairhead met her future husband at Off The Wall.
Almost every tribute to Hodge since his death has included the word “generous” in it. He has been described variously as kind, encouraging, open-minded, warm and “devilishly funny”. Coetzee said he’d “perfected the art of creating a safe environment without any fuss”.
Hodge, who lived in Scarborough, leaves behind his three children, Kellie, Tom and Zoë, seven grandchildren, a younger sister, Elizabeth Overton, and a younger brother Paul. He spent his final years with his partner Julia Kramer and will also be missed by her adult children. DM
Leon and Marian Hurwitz
Andrew Joubert
E1A Class, Back: Ferdi Fischer, Achim Lenssen, Richard Frantz, Jean Rozwadowski, Brian Fraser, Chris Matchett, and Theo De Rijk, Middle: Paul Duminy, Lawrence Evans, Peter Gibb, Kai Albrecht, Johnny Kipps, and Chris Newell, Front: David Geffen, Andrew Joubert, Derek van den Berg, Mr Herbie Helm, Nick Diemont, Jack Penfold, and Stephen Buchner
U16C Back: de Wet, Geffen, Basson, Meyer, Frantz, Cohen, Middle: Matchett, Ferguson, Joubert, Garrish, Payne, Buyskes, Front: Downton, Hodge, Watson, Tuchten, Russel
Lindsay and Tessa Kennedy
Johnny and Juliet Kipps
Senior Cross-Country Team 1962, Back: Daly, van den Berg, Hodge, Paul, Scholte, Mathews, Levinson, Middle: Swift, Klosser, Schrooder, Kipps, Kennedy, Jones, Duckitt, Patric, McCallum, Front: Prof Tinkie Heyns, Brice, Penfold, McLean, de Wet, Kritzinger, de Jongh, Mr. Tickie de Jager
Miss Erina Duminy: Bruce Ferguson, Johnny Kipps, Lindsay Holliman, Peter Korck, anon? and Jack Garlick.
Admirable Creighton: Clive Downton, Ferdie Fischer, Alf Baguley, Carol Martin, Carol Laubscher, Micky Kilpin, Lord Richard (Spring) Risby, Tessa Kennedy, John Gibson, Peter Barratt, Johnny Kipps, Hester Malan, Sue Rowe, Jan Rozwadowski, David Price, Gail Ashburner, (George Voight possibly?), Anne Lawrie, Andrew Joubert, Cheryl Clarke
Princess Ju-Ju. Front Row: Alan Everson, David Sonneberg , ? , Michael Stevens, David Taylor, Clive Downton, Robbie Meyer, Roy McCallum. Middle Row: Anthony Hillier, Robert Hoets, Christopher Newall, Farqhuarson, John Hill, Adrian Brinkworth, Back Row; Peter Barrett, Jack Penfold, John Barry, Allan Musker
Neil Kritzinger
Leslie Lang
John and Mosa Le Roux
Jeff Leeuwenburg
Jeff passed away on 8 November 2020. After living with Parkinson’s for a long time, he had two falls and did not recover from the second. He was upbeat and brave to the very end, and we were lucky to get the month at home, with a few warm evenings out in the garden and a trip down to the beach near our house. He was amazing right to the end – positive, optimistic, and strong. Roy Gordon attended the funeral on 18 November 2020, and it was wonderful to have him there as they had known each other for such a long time, across two countries. Rina Leeuwenburg
Joachim (Archim) and Ursi Lenssen
Barry and Anne Lloyd
Peter Loveland
Adrian and Gail Low
My lovely wife Gail died peacefully on November 20, 2017, after being diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2017. We spent the time before her death retracing our most beloved holiday destinations worldwide until Gail became very poorly in the last 2 weeks before her death. March 13, 2018, would have been her 69 birthday. Fortunately, I spent 44 fantastic years with her and she bore me 4 fabulous children all of whom are doing well.
Roy and Heather McCallum
Jimmy and Linda McDermott
Tony and Pam Monk
Richard and Nici Morris
Johann Mostert
Chris Mundy
David (Dave) and Pat Munro
Alan Musker
Ian Newall
Ian with Alf Baguley
Chris Newell
Peter Parkin
Peter and his fight for justice
Keith and Lynne Payne
Nick and Margot Penstone
Nick with daughter Nikki, son-in-law, grandchild, and brother Martin
John Quy
Lord Richard Risby (Spring)
Sandy and Shirley Rossiter
Jan Rozwadowski
Peter and Bridget Scholte
Roy Schreiber and Peter
Gordon and Lynne Slabbert
Gavin and Gilda (Gil) Stanton
Gil with a Lemur
Chris Steyn
Mr. Charlie Hallack 1963
David and Margaret Taylor
David’s Jess and Ross
Michael (Mike) Taylor
Break at RBHS circe 1960: Newell, Frantz, Gibb, Le Roux, Joubert, Taylor, Mundy, De Rijk, Kipps, van den Berg
Newlands rugby match circa 1959: Derek van den Berg (cap), Christopher Mundy (hat), John Le Roux, Hennie Mostert (standing)
Derek and Lyn van den Berg
Neil Veitch and Helen Ziegenhardt
George and Christine Voight
Johan Walters
Eric and Gail Wells
Young (U15C) Back: Morris, Swart, Duckitt, Versveld, Owen Fletcher, Clive Downton, Chris Buyskes, Mark Swift, Center: Block, Russel, Eric Wells, Jeff Leeuwenburg, Tony Monk, Sapieka, Barber, Front: Richard Frantz, Chris Matchett, John Barry, Clive Young, Johan Walters, David Cohen
Billy’s 90th birthday picture, Left to Right: Neil Veitch, Lindsay Kennedy, Mr. Billy Trengove, David Taylor.
First Hockey Team, Back Row: Alex Cassarcis, Lawrence Payne, Rory Beamish, Mr. Baard, John Boonzaier, A Clark, ??? Front Row: Bruce Ferguson, Jack Penfold, Eric Wells, ? McIntosch, Duthie(?)
Sam and Christine Wiggett
