PBHSOB ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER

Dear Old Boy

Ray Leathern was in Matheson House and matriculated from Pretoria Boys High School in 1999. As of September 1st 2020 Ray became editor of CAR Magazine, South Africa’s most-loved and longest running motoring title. He is only the tenth editor in the magazine’s storied 63 year history.

Ray recalls the open cricket trails as a Form I. He was desperate to make the U/14 A side but there were what felt to him like hundreds of kids trying out that day. He remembers how a dust cloud hung thick around the concrete nets as kids bowled and batted their hearts out. Every time he ran in to bowl, battling for traction on the loose, skiddy dust, he didn’t know if the thwack of leather on willow from an adjacent net meant a cricket ball was heading his way to bop him on the head!

” I found it all hugely distracting. How on earth was I going to make an impression on the coaches in this melee!? Long story short, I didn’t.”

Ray was devastated when he checked the cricket board the next week to see his name was listed under the U/14 B team. “I simply refused to accept it. The U/14 A practice was in the grass nets next to Brooks Field and, rather brazenly, I simply turned up to A-team practice and started bowling. “What is this guy doing here!?” I could hear the other kids scoff. I’m sure the coaches thought I was cooked in the head, too, but they let me bowl. A few games later I was in the side.”

“To this day, when I’m experiencing any self-doubt I often think about how absolutely pig-headed I was that day back in Form I and how much I believed in my own ability that I just turned up. If you want something – just turn up.”

Ray was honoured to make the First XI cricket team in 1998 and he played every First XI game in 1999, his matric year. Opening the bowling he took a hat trick and claimed a five-wicket haul on the annual Michaelmas cricket tour to KZN in 1999. Later that season he dismissed future-Proteas-captain Graeme Smith as they trounced King Edward School on their home turf: “A scalp I tell everyone about to this day. Sorry, Graeme..”

Ray was fond of Mr. Van Zyl, the First XI coach in 1999. “He believed in me and backed me no matter what. He managed to instil a quiet confidence in the First XI, too, that led us to great heights that season.” His favourite teacher was Mr. Franken. “I’m not sure he’ll even remember me because everyone loved Mr. Franken, but I enjoyed his classes, his laid-back approach, and his classroom overlooking the facade of the school.”

Ray has a Bachelor of Arts from UCT and started writing freelance articles on motoring and other topics after working in the film industry for five years after his studies. His first published work came courtesy of Independent Newspapers, GQ Magazine and the Mail & Guardian. From there he became an online editor at Media24 TopCar. Ray joined his current employer Highbury Media in 2017 as group motoring editor working across titles such as TFG Motor, Popular Mechanics, Equinox, TFG Sportsclub and all their digital offerings.

In many ways Ray agrees that his schooling at Boys High influenced who he is today..

“But it’s the legendary Pretoria Boys High manners that are worth singling out. To this day I stand whenever anyone enters or leaves a meeting room or joins a table, for example. I love the look of appreciation on their faces, like you’ve paid them the biggest compliment … and it’s merely good manners. “

Read a recent article on Ray Leathern here: Highbury Media announces new CAR editor

PRETORIA BROTHERS HOPE TO MAKE SPORTS HISTORY IN THE SWIMMING POOL

Great heights are predicted for the swimming careers of two brothers from Pretoria Boys High School, who are currently attached to the Tuks swimming club.

“Swimming is where wet dreams become a reality”.

This pithy and slightly wilful bumper sticker describes precisely what TuksSwimming’s Mahan brothers, Owethu and Tumelo, are about. Their dream is to be world-beaters in swimming in a few years from now. They are under no illusions that to do so are going to take many a long and hard hour in the pool. It is a challenge they relish.

Their dad, Dana, will vouch for it that motivation is the one thing his sons certainly don’t lack.

“Often, my wife and I have to remind our sons that they are children first and conquerors second,” he explained.

Swimming was not always the brother’s first choice when it came to sport.

“We both started out playing football. Although we enjoyed it, the reality was that we were not that talented,” remarked Owethu, who is the eldest.

The turning point came about when they went for swimming lessons. They took to the new challenge like a fish to water.

There is a good reason why for now, Owethu favours the freestyle events. He seems to be built for it. The 15-year old is 1.88cm tall and wears size 11 shoes and is still growing. (It is interesting to note that the Olympic legend Michael Phelps is 1.93m tall and wears size 14 shoes.)

Success for Owethu is all about having a balance in life. Every time he swims, it is about giving 100%. The Grade 10-learner at Pretoria Boys High School applies the same dedication when studying.

Tuks swimming coach, Linda de Jager, predicts Owethu has the makings to become a champion.

“Owethu is a late developer. He will start coming to his own in two years from now. I don’t think he is only going to excel in the freestyle. He is improving all the time in the butterfly. His biggest asset as a swimmer is his passion and dedication. He has definite ideas as to what his goals are,” she said.

The 13-year old Tumelo is currently ranked as the second-best butterfly swimmer in his age group, and he is included in the South African youth squad. De Jager emphasised that it is essential to ensure there is no pressure on him to be at his best from to a young age.

It is no surprise that Tumelo views the legendary athletes Jesse Owens as an inspirational role model. As a swimmer, he admires Chad le Clos.

Owethu is a big fan of Michael Phelps who won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games. In total, the American had won 28 Olympic medals. When the Tuks swimmers are not at school, or at training, they are involved with the youth ministry of the Hatfield Christian Church.

SOURCE: Pretoria Rekord

THE LAZY YEARS

My senior years were rather lazy ones. Although my cycle marks improved. I did not exactly strain myself in mental and physical activities. Perhaps it was old age. Not being very modest I can say that I would have been fairly good in athletics, swimming and rugby if only I had tried hard enough. In school I took the week as it came without making much effort. Now as I stand on the threshold of a new life I look back and regret all that, but will have learnt something from my folly. Looking back on my school career as a whole I realise that I have settled for a rather mediocre sort of existence, which I regret more and more each day.

P. Lambert. Form VD – The Pretorian 1970

LETTERS

The Oops in my school badge

I couldn’t help smiling when I looked at the different school badges’ in last month’s newsletter. You see mine was also, well … different. Somehow during the embroidery process, the wheels were not printed on the ox wagon. I never realised this until somebody pointed itout. Naturally I used every opportunity topoint this out to fellow scholars and teachers.With hisdry sense of humour, Mr PeterDigby responded. “Michael, that is because you neglected to move the lawn around the carriage!”

Mike Pheiffer 1980

Dear Inge,

Thank you for compiling yet another comprehensive Newsletter. I still miss the “Phobian” as a title..

The information about the School Badge is fascinating and made me wonder whether the tradition practised in my years at School (1952 – 56), when the prefects inverted their badges on Remembrance Day and on other days of mourning, wore their badges upside down. It would also be interesting to know in what year the Head Boy’s badge was first cast in gold? In our years the Head Boy wore a silver badge and the other prefects brass..

Kindest regards,
Trebot Barry

OLD BOYS IN THE NEWS

How Elon Musk’s Mars mission began at the top of his 1980s science class

EXCLUSIVE: Exam results reveal the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire’s early promise for launching rockets by excelling at physics as a teenager – but he still needs to return the how-to space manuals he later borrowed

He is plotting to colonise Mars and plans to implant artificial intelligence chips into the human brain.

Now, details revealed to the Standard of the SpaceX and Tesla founder’s teens and twenties indicate a young man obsessed with space, and an awareness he needed to excel academically to achieve his future goals.

Musk’s former science teacher dug out her physics marking book for Form 5B in 1988, and found “Musk, E” averaged 80 per cent that year, gaining academic distinction and beating his closest rivals by 13 per cent.

Then 16, he had moved to Pretoria Boys High School in South Africa after being violently bullied, before a teen growth spurt and judo and karate classes taught him to fight back against corridor thugs.

Physics quizzes included a “test on electricity”, or electrical circuits, where Musk bettered 20 class rivals in 5B, but just lost out in an exam on momentum – useful for rockets – and tied on his knowledge of Newton’s three laws of motion.

Other topics Musk found relevant for his space aspirations included the theory of inertia and the effects of gravity on free fall.

Daniela Albers, who is head of the school’s physical science department and a Star Trek fan, remembers young Musk bringing a “beautiful model” rocket into class for a project. She described her joy watching May’s SpaceX launch of two veteran Nasa astronauts in a Crew Dragon capsule on a mission to the International Space Station.

Mrs Albers said: “For me to watch the SpaceX launch, I obviously felt quite proud, thinking: “Gee, hopefully I played a small part.

“But to be honest I think he’s such an intelligent person he probably could have done it without me. ”

She added: “He was a very quiet boy, who sat at the back of the class and just got on with his work.

“Obviously he was the highest marked in the class, with a distinction for science at the end of the year.”

More than a decade later, after emigrating from apartheid-era South Africa, Musk learned how to build real rockets on the US West Coast, bankrolled by the success of PayPal, which he sold with co-founder Peter Thiel to eBay for $1.5 billion.

With cash to burn, he cold-called famed rocket engineering expert Jim Cantrell, known for his Russian space contacts.

Mr Cantrell said: “I’d never heard of PayPal, I’d never heard of Elon Musk, I thought he’d said “Ian Musk.”

Musk explained he was an internet billionaire.

“We had a lot of those,” said Mr Cantrell, who arranged their first meeting in an airport, as he was worried the tech entrepreneur could be a “kook” who might arrive armed.

Mr Cantrell said: “He gives this speech this about being a multi-planetary species, and all this happened within the first 60 to 120 seconds of the phone call.”

Musk outlined his ultimate goal of Mars mission and said he needed to get hold of a Russian rocket, although a later trip trying to purchase a former Soviet inter-continental ballistic missile was not fruitful.

The pair worked together for 15 months, with Musk deploying know-how gleaned from Mr Cantrell to start building recyclable self-landing rockets, making them much cheaper.

Mr Cantrell said Musk’s major innovation was building reusable rockets in order to create a “new economic system in space transportation”.

In 2002, the SpaceX California research facility was a converted warehouse that Mr Cantrell described as having “all sorts of rodents running around” with floors not yet painted to reflect light – and Musk ‘s McClaren F1 supercar parked inside. There were some spectacular dud rockets and explosions on the way, and the tech tycoon has admitted “there’s a good chance” that colonising the Red Planet will be fatal for the first human settlers, who he wants to shuttle there in 1,000 super-size Starship transporters on seven-month, 140 million-mile flights.

SOURCE

IN MEMORIAM

ROBIN ROY SNYMAN (1947)

Article from the Diamond Fields Advertiser: Roy Snyman

FORMER Dean and rector of the St Cyprian’s Cathedral in Kimberley, the Reverend Canon Robin Roy Snyman, died in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday morning following a long illness.

Snyman was born at Waterval Boven, in what is now Mpumalanga, in 1934 and was educated at Pretoria Boys’ High School, going on to obtain a Licentiate in Theology through the Church of the Province of Southern Africa.

According to an article by David Morris, Snyman’s his first posting, in 1957, was as an assistant curate at St Saviour’s Anglican Church in East London, going on to serve in a similar capacity at the Grahamstown Cathedral in 1960. He then served at St Leonard’s, Heston, in London from 1964.

Returning to South Africa, Snyman was instituted in 1966 as rector of the Good Shepherd Parish in East London. He was appointed as chaplain at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, in 1968.

2020, Newsletters

Issue 20 2020 – Newsletter