PBHSOB ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER

Dear Old Boy

It is a great pleasure to be welcoming to Pretoria Boys High our new Headmaster as from 1st July, Mr Gregary Hassenkamp.

Mr Hassenkamp is no stranger to the school as he received his high school education at Boys High where he was a boarder in Solomon House and a keen sportsman. He developed a deep affection for the school and it was not surprising that he was easily recruited to the staff in 1999 after having trained in Johannesburg and teaching stints at De La Salle College and in London.
While on the staff of PBHS, Mr Hassenkamp was senior housemaster of Solomon House (2003 -2007) and was appointed as a deputy headmaster, a position he held until 2013. What followed was a very fulfilling time as the Headmaster of Hermanus High School in the Western Cape. It would be difficult to exaggerate how positive an impact he made on that school and its community and he will be sorely missed.

Mr Hassenkamp is married to Amanda, herself a teacher and they have two children, Meghan who will attend Meisies Hoër and Robert who will become a Boys High boy in our Form One group.

Mr Hassenkamp returns to Boys High with all of the vigour and enthusiasm that has characterised his entire career. He is a man with a genuine concern for the interests of all his staff and pupils. He has a wealth of understanding of the workings of a boys high school and a strong belief in the value of an institution like ours. From a long association, I am convinced that he will take the school to new heights in what must be both one of the most exciting and daunting tasks in South African education.

Please join me in welcoming Mr Hassenkamp as our new Headmaster by extending our sincere best wishes for the years of leadership he will provide. It is our hope that he and his family will be very happy in the role they will play within the extended Boys High community.

John Illsley
SECOND MASTER

Click here to view Mr Hassenkamp’s first address at Pretoria Boys High School.

THE DERBY THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN

Click here to view

WE ARE NOT JUST OPPOSING SCHOOLS
WE GREW UP NEXT TO EACH OTHER
OUR RIVALRY SPURRED US ON
IT WAS ALWAYS A DERBY FOR THOSE FEW HOURS;
WHERE THE COUNTRY WATCHED IN AWE
2020, THE FIRST YEAR SINCE THE WAR
100 YEARS OF SPORTSMANSHIP
WE ALL HOPED FOR THE CENTENARY CLASH,
WHERE BOYS HIGH MAGIC MEETS AFFIES MIGHT
BUT WE WILL WAIT…
TILL WE MEET AGAIN AFFIES, TILL WE MEET AGAIN.

ONS WAS NIE NET OPPOSISIE SKOLE NIE
ONS HET AS BURE SAAM GEGROEI
ONS ‘VYANDSKAP’ HET ONS AANGESPOOR
DIT WAS ALTYD ‘N DERBY VIR DAARDIE PAAR URE;
DIE RES VAN DIE LAND HET MET AFWAGTING GEKYK
2020, DIE EERSTE KEER NA DIE OORLOG
100 JAAR VAN SPORTMANSKAP
ONS HET ALMAL VIR DIE 100 JAAR OOMBLIK GEWAG;
BOYS HIGH MAGIC TEEN AFFIES MAG
MAAR ONS SAL WAG…
TOT ONS WEER ONTMOET AFFIES, TOT ONS WEER ONTMOET.

Video by Sachin du Plooy – Naran
Special Thanks to School Sport Live for the use of their footage.

THANK YOU

Pretoria Boys High School and the Pretoria Boys High School Old Boys’ Association would like to thank two Old Boys who very generously donated to the appeal from the School earlier this year for old / unwanted laptops or tablets for deserving boys to assist them with online learning during lockdown.

Old Boys, Mr Duncan Greathead (1977) and Mr Allister Rogan (1958) donated very generously financially which enabled the School to purchase 18 new Laptops (with laptop bags) which were distributed to bursary boys in Form 2 – 4.

Pictured above is Mr Hassenkamp (far Left), Mrs Holliday (Right) and Mr Jason Webber, Association Chairman (back Right) with the elated boys who are undoubtedly smiling under their masks!

HOROSCOPES – YOUR 2010 AT A GLANCE

Aquarius (20 Jan – 18 Feb)
Beware of water during this year. Though deep water seems still, turmoil brews beneath the surface. The stars indicate that your workload is in the process of increasing tenfold and soon you will be drowning in a pool of your own inadequacy. Either that or you will soon be drowning in a pool of water.
Advice:
Do not attend physical education.

Pisces (19 Feb – 20 Mar)
You are in your natural environment at school. Watch out for sharks or any others who do not belong to the shoal. Due to global warming, the water in which you live is fast evaporating.
Advice:
Buy yourself some anti-dehydration medication or kiss your sorry fins goodbye.

Aries (21 Mar – 19 Apr)
You are in great danger of conforming to society. Following the heard is not always a good thing, especially when you can’t see that the heard is walking off a cliff. Apart from your compulsive need to conform, you are in peril of being skewered on a stick and roasted over a fire.
Advice:
Avoid rare cannibalistic tribes at all cost.

Taurus (20 Apr – 20 May)
Your bull-like tendency of charging into everything without considering the consequences has left you standing in a pile of elephant droppings. Charge out of there ASAP. There is a strong likelihood that you will soon encounter a stampede of rampaging bulls.
Advice:
Stay away from Loftus Versfeld.

Gemini (21 May – 20 Jun)
Due to the advances in the field of genetics, you will find yourself in danger of being replaced by a clone. Carry a can of pepper spray wherever you go andbe certain to prevent anyonefrom acquiring your DNA.
Advice:
Stay away from biology teachers.

Cancer (21 Jun – 22 Jul)
Life all around you is just crab. You are allergic to seafood, yet you have the star sign of a crab. What more is there to say? Life went on a definite downhill the moment the Wildlife Society introduced the spotted eagle owls into Boys High. That and the fact that the Angling Club has been experimenting with exotic types of bait that just happens to include crab meat. You futilely try to crabwalk around all this unwanted attention, but to no avail. Everyone wants a bite of the crab.
Advice:
Keep bribes of mince in your pockets to fend off the owls; hold a tree hostage to prevent disembowelment by the Wildlife Society.

Leo (23 Jul – 22 Aug)
Prepare to lose your mane of hair. The holidays are approaching and the hawk-like vision of The H has become even sharper. Although your charisma charms your peers, the teachers are not fooled. After they are through with you, the vultures will have your remains.
Advice:
Dodge The H, Mr McBride, and the Wildlife Society.

Virgo (23 Aug – 22 Sept)
You may seem innocent to the untrained eye, but hidden beneath the façade of naivety is a shrewd, cunning trouble maker. Be forewarned! The prefects have no mercy. Expect countless lates this year. Your doom lies in the electric fences into which you will run while dodging prefects.
Advice:
Stay out of the bushes and pray that Eskom is shedding its load again.

Libra (23 Sept – 22 Oct)
You are failing accounting. Balancing the books is just not your thing. You should much rather balance much larger things, like life. Wrong move! The scales are severely unstable and you have a truckload of work (mainly accounting) to do. My astral sources indicate that you might be finished off by a wrongly weighted crane falling on you.
Advice:
Avoid any and all construction sites. Good luck trying to find a construction-free zone!

Scorpio (23 Oct – 21 Nov)
You are in for a stinging defeat by hated foe. Take it with good grace and a band aid. You will soon be trapped in a room full of scorpions.
Advice:
Keep a member of the First Aid Society with you at all times.

Sagittarius (22 Nov – 21 Dec)
The hunter has just become the hunted. You are a rare unknown group at Boys High, but do not be deluded into boosting your ego. Your body parts are needed for a variety of things ranging from dark rituals to organ transplants.
Advice:
Make yourself scarce before you become extinct.

Capricorn (22 Dec – 19 Jan)
The stars say that you are in serious need of mental help. A small voice in your head keeps goading you to do incredibly stupid things, such as falling down Suicide and running into a pine tree on Polly Shorts. While your ancestors might have sympathy, the rest of the school is secretly glad that it was not them getting owned by a tree. A logical series of events leads me to believe that you might perish while falling from the gallery.
Advice:
Avoid all free periods, don’t be a matric, and don’t try to see who is sitting at the back of the hall while you are in the gallery.

Mogeshin Vandeyar – Boys Highlights, Number 14, May 2010

LETTERS

Dear editor

In response to the call for MY NEWS from old boys, I submit a short summary of my news since leaving that very excellent school on the koppie in Pretoria.

MY NEWS
After matriculating at the end of 1955 I was due to report for Active Citizen Force (ACF) training commencing in January 1956. However, two weeks before departing for camp, and after successfully undergoing the medical examination, I was informed by telegram that due to “administrative reasons” I was exempt from training. I must say that I was a little disappointed as I had been looking forward to this training but had to now make up my mind what to do. I always had the idea of studying architecture and enrolled for the Bachelor of Architecture course at the University of Pretoria.

Coming from an English speaking background I found my first three months of attending lectures in Afrikaans rather daunting until I realized that instead of translating the lectures into English and writing my notes as such, I needed to listen, think and write in Afrikaans. This was a tremendous break through although the majority of our text books were only available in English!

At the end of my 3rd year of full time study, my parents could no longer afford to pay my varsity fees and I was fortunate enough to be able to change to the Diploma course at that stage. This course required the student to attend all lectures and do all of the studio work that the full-time students had to do but in their own time. This enabled the student to work in an architect’s office and earn a salary. I was thus in a position to pay for my student fees without any outside assistance. In looking at the current situation of “fees must fall” and the cry for free tertiary education, I really feel that the South African Council for the Architecture Profession (SACAP) should seriously consider re-introducing such a course. The other benefit that I gained was that in three months working in an architect’s office, I learnt more about the practice of architecture than I learnt in my first three years at university.

The architectural practice that I joined in April 1960 was run by two PBHS old boys who had both qualified with the Diploma in Architecture at the University of Pretoria (Arthur vd Westhuizen and Leon DuToit Vlok – now both passed on). After graduating in March 1962, they offered me a partnership in this firm which I gladly accepted and we operated this three-man partnership until 1969 when we merged with another three-man practice to form the firm which was eventually registered as MV3 Architects (Pty) Ltd.

I remained a director of this practice for 43 years until I commenced my own one-man practice in 2005. During this period we opened a branch office in Johannesburg and I was persuaded to take over the management of this branch which resulted in me relocating with my family to Johannesburg where I have been living and working since 1991.

Besides being involved in my professional practice, I have served on various committees for SACAP, the South African Institute for Architects (SAIA) [was chair of the Practice Committee from 1996 to 2006], represented the SAIA on the PROCSA committee developing the standard Client/Professional Consultant Agreements [2000 to 2019]; represented the SAIA on the Joint Building Contract Committee (JBCC) and, until last month, was chair of the Board of Management of this non-profit company which has developed the standard forms of building contracts for use in South Africa and abroad. I was part of a three-man team running mid-career courses for architects in various centres in South Africa and Namibia ( South West Africa at that time), undertook a number of overseas visits including the UK, Europe, Scandanavia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel, Morocco and the USA.

After suffering a stress related heart attack in 1994 at the age of 55, I joined the Association of Arbitrators (Southern Africa) and became a Fellow of this Association after completing their Higher Diploma course. Since 1996, besides running my architectural practice, I commenced practicing as an Arbitrator, Adjudicator, Mediator and expert witness in numerous building construction disputes.

My most recent escapade in the construction industry was to update and revise a book on the Building Contract written by a colleague of mine (Eyvind Finsen) who passed away in 2007. This daunting task was spread over a period of nine years and the third edition of Finsen’s The Building Contract was published by Juta & Co in November 2018.

Having now reached the age of 81, I have discontinued my architectural practice but remain active with consultations regarding practice issues, and am involved in alternative dispute resolution matters including arbitrations, adjudications and expert reports and acting as expert witness particularly in arbitration and or legal disputes.

My last visit to the school was when we celebrated our 60th matric reunion in 2015. As our numbers had diminished and were continuing on that downward slope, we resolved that it would be the last reunion of the class of 1955.

Kind regards
Stan Segal (1955)
pr arch miarch(life) mgifa mpia riba faarb(sa) sacap788

THE SCHOOL AFTER 1:35

At 1:35 when the bell rings, boys run off. Teachers with books to mark and their robes draped over their shoulders walk away. The school empties like a bowl of water – only drops of classes who are kept behind stay in the bowl.

The school becomes as frightening as an ancient ruin. It echoes like an empty bowl. The windows are empty – no faces peer out through them. Perhaps what is strangest is that the shadows lie in the opposite direction to what one is used to. The classrooms are eerie. Orange sunlight lazily filters in though dusty panes and where the boys sat, are empty characterless desks. Only on the teacher’s desk are there dreary piles of books. It is like walking from a dream – now there is only a shell of a classroom where I wrote a test this morning.

But it is not entirely deserted. A boy usually plays Brahms in the hall. Drummers practice on desks in Room 7. Boarders play table tennis in the shadowy quad. Now and then a dove glides over and a person enters or leaves the library. In the library people glare silently as someone enters, and ones shoes sound like oars grinding in rowlocks. A bird flies into a window and the sun irritates one.

At night the school becomes a place where Edgar Allan Poe’s characters haunt. Every quarter of an hour ghosts with chains dance in the bell tower before the bell peels a hollow supernatural peel.

But when it strikes eight in the morning the shadows are back in the right position and the school is dewy-fresh and friendly.

M. Coetzee – Form 3A, The Pretorian 1970

A LOOK BACK…

2010 VALEDICTION SPEECH
Vincent Ramantsima

Good evening Mr Reeler, Honoured Guests, Staff and the Matrics of 2010. It seems like only yesterday when we came here from so many different backgrounds, so many different schools, and so many different cultures; only yesterday we sang Five Hundred Faces to a Boys High family.

Today, I’m so privileged to say that we’re part of that family and part of that society. We know only one culture, one school, one background, one set of customs, and one way of life. All we know is Pretoria Boys High.

Passionate, driven, determined, unique, is Boys High summed up in a few words.

I often look back on my life, and although I cannot remember in detail half of the eighteen years I have lived, the best and most memorable years of my life lie at Boys High. Is it the school’s sheer size and beauty… the teachers in their Batman capes or even, for the boarders, the mouth-watering dining hall food? No, it is much more. It is the Brotherhood of Men we’ve become a part of and accustomed to.

The saying that “Life is determined by what you’ve achieved or acquired” is often misinterpreted; it is rather the friends you make and the memories you leave behind that determines your life.

Here are some of my very favourite memories of the school.

7th June 2008, two minutes before the final whistle during the 1st team rugby game at that school from across the railway line. This is one of my fondest memories of PBHS. One of the biggest schoolboy rugby derbies was drawing to an end, and we were in the driving seat. History was about to be made. At that moment, nothing else mattered. Although an astounding 20,000 people were there that day, it felt as if we could almost feel a rhythm around us, every vessel and every heart was for Boys High. On that day, Victory at Affies was our destiny. When the whistle blew and we all ran onto that field to applaud our heroes, do you not remember that pride, that love, and that question you posed yourself? Why would I want to be anywhere else?

The best lessons I had as a little Grade 8 were none other than Mr Dorlas’s Science periods. We’d always be so enthusiastic to hear his war stories and his ultimate survival techniques: the push-ups, sit-ups and holding school bags over our heads for what seemed to be a lifetime and Mr Dorlas, in a very subtle tone, whispering “Welcome to Hell, boys!” For causing pain, Mr Dorlas earned a Gold Medal but for giving ‘lates’, Mr Fielding certainly takes the cake.

It is often mentioned how amazing and special it is at Boys High that the biggest slumps can bring out the most fruitful outcomes. Early this year we lost one of our fellow matriculants and shortly afterwards, his, Adam Reynecke’s funeral took place. The way in which the spirit, kindness, and love of three hundred boys amalgamated to reach out to one of their own truly touched my heart. That, right there, is a feeling unique only to this school. A feeling found only at Pretoria Boys High.

Mr Schroder’s final assembly will remain a lasting memory for those who witnessed it. Is it normal for Old Boys to travel thousands of kilometres to pay tribute to a man who has given his absolute all for a school? I was fortunate to be standing outside the hall that day when this god-like figure walked out covered in tears. Initially ten old boys started queuing to bid him farewell, then the numbers multiplied, and continued to increase.

Bearing this in mind, the last five years have been like climbing a mountain for me. We’ve endured earthquakes that have shaken us, cyclones may have broken us during our climb, and although the wind blows hard against us, we just keep on going because nothing can stop us from getting where we want to be and being who we want to be. Eventually when we triumph and get to the top of the mountain, when all the smog and fog and the rain and dew settle down, we’ll find the most amazing view at the top of that mountain we we’ve conquered, and in every direction, every course, every bearing, there will forever be a glimmer of RED, WHITE and GREEN.

Thomas Edison once said that “Life’s greatest failures are people who didn’t realise how close they were to succeeding before they gave up.” Times change, people change, and in many different ways, the school has changed too, but the core values that stay true to Boys High have never changed. The school has instilled in us a sense of accountability, responsibility and the belief that there is something more powerful than ourselves. Whether it be God or the power of love, Boys High has changed the boys I was into the almost-man I am today.

My boss, (we refer to them as “mentors” nowadays), often asked me back in 2006, “What legacy do you want to leave behind?” and I still ask myself that same question today, “When all is said and done, will you have done more that you have said you would?” The answer, ultimately, lies within.

Mr Smit and I wrote a poem about Boys High and every time I read it, it reminds me so vividly of what I will always remember and keep in my heart.

Goodbye Old School

So much to say
On this annual dreaded day.
Tears fill my eyes
As I prepare to say my final goodbyes.
We learned much wrong though never deviated from the way;
But every minute was worth the stay:
From an unforgettable First Team match
To a heart-stopping boundary catch.
Blitzes, lates and bells,
Maths, Science and school pals,
Last Post, Schroder and Jacaranda trees,
Become a part of distant memories.
This awesome school upon the hill,
Has all become so surreal.
But this place is truly not a myth,
Tis here we learned how “to live”!

– Vincent Ramantsima, Form V – The Pretorian 2010

IN MEMORIAM

CORNELIS HILDEBRAND (KERNEELS) DERKSEN (1960)

KERNEELS DERKSEN, HEADBOY OF NOTE

It’s with great sadness that we learned of the passing on June 12 of Cornelis (Kerneels) Derksen, Head Prefect of the School sixty years ago.

Sadly, he had suffered for about a year from prostate cancer that metastasized and spread throughout his body, leaving him extremely weak and bedridden with considerable pain.
Charming, popular and a constant friend and companion to many, tributes from his former contemporaries have pointed unequivocally to his wonderful rapport with all, marvelous sportsmanship and a delight in any company.

Generally remembered as one who fully aligned himself with PBHS’s values, Kerneels exhibited considerable honesty and integrity; showed a proactive and caring approach towards teachers and learners alike; and was passionate about making a difference.

2020, Newsletters

Issue 15 2020 – Newsletter