Remove

In early 1980, I graduated from the prep school to the College proper at St John’s. The transition year is called Remove—because you’ve been “removed” from the junior school and are now part of the machine. You’re issued a new uniform: long grey trousers, blazer, and in summer, a choice to khaki shorts and shirt if you prefer. I never wore the khakis. I was self-conscious about my legs—stick-thin and ghost-pale—and somehow that vanity outweighed any concern about overheating in a Joburg summer.

Despite being placed a full year behind where I’d left off in Mallorca, I was now in the “correct” year for my age. The academic standard at St. John’s was high. They streamed us by ability—A for the smart kids, D for the dummies. I hovered between B and C. Afrikaans was the exception. I was in the special group—mainly the sons of wealthy white Zimbabwean farmers. We weren’t stupid, just foreign.

Everything was foreign. I didn’t understand the rhythm of the place. There was this thing called the Acta Diurna—a printed bulletin posted on a board each week, detailing announcements and disciplinary notices. I didn’t read it. I had no idea that my mounting “hard labour” sentences were being tallied there. Hard labour was the school’s primary punishment system—assigned by teachers in half-hour chunks and served on Friday afternoons doing things like scrubbing toilets or digging vegetable gardens. I racked up weeks’ worth of it before someone finally clued me in.

Even the teachers felt like they belonged to another species. Chief among them: Iain Grant Mackenzie, an English teacher recently arrived from Zimbabwe, who fancied himself as the second coming of Shakespeare. He nicknamed me “Rosencrantz”—from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead—and that quickly became “Crunch” to my peers. It stuck. He was a petty tyrant. He’d belittle you in front of your classmates for fun. He taught literature with a sneer. You could tell he thought most of us were a waste of his time. His cruelty was surgical. I absorbed it without even knowing how deep it cut.

Then there was fagging. Twice a week, you were required to arrive early and serve the prefects (matric boys who had been give a leadership role) . You made their toast. You buttered it just the way they liked it. You filled their tea etc. You were their butler, their skivvy, their designated bitch. The power gap between a 12-year-old and a 17-18-year-old is massive. That was the point. The system was designed to indoctrinate humility—or at least obedience.

My personal nemesis was James Popper, a pimply thug with a sadist’s sense of humour. He’d make us line up against the common room wall to play “Space Invaders”—a charming game where he’d pelt us with squash balls, and if you got hit, you had to fall to the ground making the dying sound from the arcade machine. He was an ogre.

And then there was Glenn Mason—the Head of Hill House. I remember sitting on the floor frantically polishing his rugby boots one morning. He walked in, saw what I was doing, and said, “You don’t have to do that, you know. I can manage.” That was it. No performance. Just kindness. A gentleman.

That contrast—Popper and Mason—etched itself into my brain. My first real lesson in the difference between strength and cruelty. Leadership and fear.

Back in Mallorca, I’d been the head of my little gang—confident, popular, totally in my element. At St John’s, I was a clueless outsider dropped into a system I didn’t understand, constantly overshadowed by Niels’ legacy. My older brother had been a St John’s hero: first team rugby, cricket, swimming, shooting, maths Olympiad—you name it. A teacher once said to me, “Are you sure you’re related? You’re nothing like him.” He meant it as a throwaway comment. I wore it like a tattoo.

Looking back, I should’ve tried harder to adapt. The school was elite, the education top-tier, and my parents were paying through the nose for it. But whether it was my temperament or the culture shock, I just couldn’t make it work. I was defensive, homesick, and completely out of sync with the place. And instead of leaning in, I kept looking for the nearest exit.

Remove taught me that charisma doesn’t carry across borders. That reputations—especially someone else’s—can weigh more than your own. That some systems are designed to sand off your edges, and if you want to keep them, you’d better be ready to fight for them.