FLIPPING BOOK CHRONICLE 2024

when we have a vacancy, to be able to attract staff of the highest quality. Inevitably in any year we have colleagues who leave us, usually on promotion. Earlier in the year, Bradley McManus left us to take up a housemastership at Gordonstoun in Scotland, and Angela van Wyngaard, mathematics teacher, has already started teaching at Rugby School in the UK. Joshua Turnbull will be sorely missed by the boys in the Music Department when he leaves for Australia at the end of the year. Josh has made a huge impact, particularly in developing our jazz, and we thank him and wish him well on his move to New South Wales. David Pachonick has graduated from being an intern to a full-time teacher and is moving on to SACS in Cape Town. We wish him every success there and thank him for his Michaelhouse days, especially in the coaching of rugby at a high level. Gavin Erasmus is to move on after three years of steering our digital competencies to a role in Saudi Arabia, which involves re-grassing the desert. Knowing the size of the Saudi desert, this is some task! Gerry Noel will be leaving us to become the academic deputy head at St Alban’s in Pretoria. Gerry has played a key role in the development of our curriculum through our D Block Future Fit programme and in many other ways, such as in the development of the Pondoland Experience for D Block boys and in coaching rugby and water polo. We will miss him and wish him and Megan well in his new leadership venture. Aldi Smith, HoD Mathematics, has decided to return to Johannesburg where she has many friends, and we thank Aldi for all she has done in the mathematics classroom and in areas such as first aid. We pay tribute to Richard McMichael, who will be retiring after 30 years of service to Michaelhouse. We recognised, last year, his long service in the Accounting Department and in his Housemastership of Baines, and we thank him for his contribution to the lives of many boys in the classroom and on the soccer and cricket fields, amongst other areas. Anyone who has phoned Michaelhouse over the past years will have heard a friendly voice on the other end of the line. I now want to digress a little as there is a story attached to our woman in the spotlight, Shakila Moola, who is retiring after 35 years at Michaelhouse. Shakila’s great grandfather, Mr Sidhoo, came from India in 1896 and from 1913, when he moved on to the Michaelhouse estate, he was head washer at the Laundry, but he died in 1919 at the time of the Spanish Flu, which was a similar epidemic to Covid-19 in its impact. His son, Baboo, Shakila’s grandfather, was appointed as a waiter in the Senior Dining Hall in 1914 when Reverend Hugh-Jones was Rector. As you may know he is the Rector who was shot and killed by a sniper in the First World War. Mr Baboo then oversaw the dormitories and Laundry for the next 54 years until he retired in 1969. Shakila’s grandfather had eight children, and five of Shakila’s uncles and aunts, along with her parents, were employed at Michaelhouse, one as a head chef, one as a driver, one looking after the dormitories and two doing the mending of clothes. Shakila’s father, Mr Ram, started work in the school gardens when he was 17 before working as a groundsman. He was employed here for 52 years and his wife, Mrs Ram, who is obviously Shakila’s mother, worked in the linen room as a laundry supervisor for 28 years. Enter Shakila Moola, who on leaving school started in the tuckshop in 1985, but took on the role on the switchboard four years later. She and two others worked weekends and night shifts covering the switchboard in pre-cellphone days from 6am to 10pm as every incoming or outgoing call was made through the switchboard. Boys queued

up to make calls and Shakila had to be strict with boys phoning their girlfriends, allowing a maximum of ten minutes. Shakila has worked under six rectors and her retirement at the end of the year brings to an end a family connection with Michaelhouse which goes back to her great-grandfather before the First World War and embraces nearly 300 years of service to Michaelhouse. We have a gift for Shakila and it comes with our love and best wishes for a very happy and well-deserved retirement. Another feature of this year has been the development of our mentoring programme. As we all know, a 14-year-old boy has a cop as a mentor. And now a matric boy on the cusp of university entrance is able to secure a mentor who is less than five years out of school to guide him, for example, with subject selection in his degree. And that mentor, on the verge of leaving university, is able to be mentored through our Old Boys’ Club by someone who has experience in a particular field of endeavour. And so on. It is an exciting development that Michaelhouse mentoring continues throughout one’s life. This epitomizes the close relationship that the school and the Old Boys’ Club have and demonstrates that we are working ever more closely together. We are enormously grateful for that support from the Old Boys. Our boys continue to excel and to be lined up for the best universities in South Africa and internationally. About 75% will go on to South African universities, notably Stellenbosch, UCT and the University of Pretoria, but the rest will opt for top UK universities or for the Ivy League in the USA. An example is Theo Apteker, head of McCormick in 2023, who is already at NYU, and GQ Mbuyazi, whose brilliant talent in music has seen him accepted by Berklee, a specialist music college in Boston. There are also many examples of boys coming out of those top universities with first-class degrees. This is perhaps one of the reasons why we have been included in the publication of a British based journal, Spears, as one of the top-ten international schools and one of the top two schools in Africa, the other one being a prep school in Kenya. More recently we have been included in the top 150 schools worldwide by Carfax Education. I need to admit there is no basis whatsoever, in terms of data, or statistics, for these inclusions. However, it is a mantle we don’t mind wearing. There has been a positive movement towards sustainability this year and this has been particularly evident in our increased energy efficiency. We are more conscious than ever of our heritage and our need to serve those around us, as we do in the support we provide to the 16 footprint schools around Michaelhouse with which our boys and staff engage. Well done to our Community Partnership Trust and to Peta Roberts and other staff who have developed meaningful interaction between our boys and those footprint schools. Traditionally, I mention in passing some of the matriculants who will be leaving us this year; this selection is completely at random and includes a feature of their time at Michaelhouse for which we will remember them. So here goes… Katleho Mpobole will be remembered for his Rector’s Portfolio work on recycling, Rory Steyn for his skill on the drums, Kyle Farndell for his prowess on the basketball court, Angelo Nkosi and Tristan Roques for their devastating dribbling skills, Pat Lambert for refusing to concede his number one position in the year group, Make Mace, Hlohli Shikhati and Tshiamo Boikhutso for their brilliant BraveHer venture, Chris Angel for his long drives, Basti Hofmeyr for his innings against St Charles 28