St mary’s dsg old girls’ association newsletter may 2008 message from the president of st mary’s dsg old girls’ association

1969 Dinny Lawrence [e-mail]

I just wanted to let you know that I am retiring in June 2007 and my husband and I are off to Italy for three months soon afterwards.  I will have to have a serious think about what to do for the rest of my life when we get back but first, a serious holiday!

I have had a number of emails from old girls following mom's death which has been a great comfort.  I would love to continue to get the newsletter after my retirement - it's a great way to hear everyone's news.  

1971 Gill Brooks (Middleton) [e-mail]
I still live in Tzaneen and stopped teaching at the end of 2006 to help my husband on the farm and with his business. My son Michael is twenty-seven and got married in November. He is a CA and is settling in Nelspruit. My daughter also did a BCom degree and is teaching at Pretoria Girls High at the moment. I am still in touch with Ann Luther (Wall) who lives close by and also teaches at the school I have just resigned from. I do hear from Di Potgieter (Barnes) She is living in Perth Australia and has two daughters. Her email address is [e-mail]
1971 Claire Linder (Smith) [e-mail]
My family and I are living in Zürich, have been for the last six years. It is an amazing place to be with endless opportunities. However something will always be missing and that is a familiarity and shared history and so the newsletter helps to plug the gap a bit. I get back to Cape Town from time to time and manage to see those ‘71 Matrics who still live there. I would also like to say hello to the rest of the class if they should one day read this email.
1971 Lindy Bedborough (Viall) [e-mail]

I moved to Johannesburg at the beginning of the year and therefore left my position at Herschel. The reason... I am now married to Peter Bedborough

 

I am having a three-month break and then am taking up the Marketing position at St Mary's Waverley, which I am thrilled about. It will be nice to stay in schools’ marketing and St Mary's looks like a wonderful school. I start there in April.

 

News of my girls - Kathryn is a qualified doctor and doing her two year internship at Grootte Schuur. Nicole is doing her LLB at UCT. Both girls are living in my house in Rondebosch.

1972 Penny McClure (Fell) [e-mail]
Regarding your letter asking for further information about the Old Girls’ Angelus Bell, my mother, Margaret Fell (Robson) and a dear friend of hers Dorothy Green (Brown) both say that it is probably the Bell that was rung as the angelus for chapel when it was in the Moat. They both immediately remembered the bell.
1972 Sarah Lawton (Lambert) [e-mail]
2012 does sound like a date we should all be putting in our diaries.  If nothing else I might well want to escape the London Olympics!  You must all remember that I was never one for sport!!
At the moment I am looking forward to a brief visit from Terry in a few weeks’ time and she is usually my source of any DSG news.
As for my news, I have nothing of earth shattering merit.  At present we have both our children living at home which we enjoy but, at 24 and 26, they can’t wait to move on and this will happen just as soon as they are successful getting onto the property ladder.  This is easier said than done in the present market but we are hopeful for them.  More importantly, they are both employed in the fields they wanted to be in, namely documentary film making and publishing.
Within the next year, my husband Charles will be retiring and we hope to move out of London, probably to Sussex where we are renting a house at present.  It is a daunting prospect and I do not relish the idea of being a “pensioner” – that makes me feel far too old!
If ever any of you are passing through London, it would be great to meet.
1973 Gail Kelly (Currer) [e-mail]
The spreadsheet took me back looking at the names on the 1973 list, and remembering the teachers.  Mrs Van Outshoorn and Mrs Lawrence were favourites for me!

 

Yes, my mother is Pat Currer, she is living here in Sydney too, in fact she has just moved into a nursing home which has been quite stressful all round (she is now 90 years old).

 

I will certainly add something to your next newsletter, and if anyone from the school would like to get in touch, it would be a pleasure to hear from them. I feel like I have been quite slack!

 

You may also remember Janet Morris, now Currer, my sister-in-law. She and Trevor have lived in Sydney since 1994 and have five children, youngest being 17. Janet's e-mail is [e-mail] and she would love to hear from you. Her sister, Rosemary, who was in my class, lives in Brisbane. I don't have her e-mail, but have her phone no 07-38781152. I caught up with her recently at our niece's wedding (one of Janet's daughters) and we spoke of DSG and one day getting to a reunion!

 1974 Susan-Jane Goldberg (Brown) [e-mail]

I am living in Jhb near the Coca Cola Dome, have two cats and a horse (no kids – married late) and am still working in the Medical Industry, which is fraught with all sorts of challenges at the moment.
I miss the Old Girls I don’t see, but still keep in touch with Kathy Engelbrecht (Carey), Cathy Brennon (Winckworth) and Debbie Heron (Botha). I have recently reconnected with Sue Clarence (Kirk-Cohen) – whom I will definitely look up in Durban when next there. Cherry Biden (Michau) called me for my 50^th birthday to my great delight, and will also be looking her up. She has just established a private practice in Scottburgh. I would love to hear from Jenny Lundie, Margo Swan, and Judy Welsh. Love to Liz (Poynton) and Margie (Salmon) and Jean (McIvor). Perhaps we will all meet for our 40^th?
1974 Margot Swan (Williams) [e-mail]

Sadly I see there was very little contact from my Matric year of 1974 - and I too was guilty of not getting news to you earlier but hopefully this can make it into the next one.

I am living in Atlanta, GA USA with my husband (of 26 years) Clive and our three children, Chris (22), Alastair (20) and Lucy (16) - having moved here in November 1999.

We are so proud of our children who have settled so happily into life in the USA and are making the most of every possible opportunity.

Chris who is doing extremely well in his Civil Engineering degree here at Georgia Tech and in August will be going to do a year of study abroad at Leeds University in England. He is also very involved in and excited about a program being started up by Georgia Tech to link up with "Tukkies" in Pretoria, to help struggling countries in Africa with the improvement of their infrastructure to better the quality of life for the people.

Alastair graduated from High School last May and is also going to study Civil Engineering, but at Georgia Southern University nearer the Georgia coast. He has had a wonderful four years in High School, doing really well on the Cross Country and Lacrosse teams. He is hoping to continue playing Lacrosse at university.

Lucy started High School last August, and is also an avid lacrosse player. I have become a real lacrosse fanatic and thoroughly enjoy being involved in my kids sporting activities and vicariously reliving my youth through them without all the moods and drama of my own.

1976 Janet Bull (de Beer) [e-mail]

 

A long lost sheep returns to the fold here!    For what it’s worth, here is my typically long-winded life’s summary. I’d like for my email to be added to your mail listing as I’d love to receive further newsletters.   This address will be good until June 2008, when we move to Switzerland).

 

My sister in law, Jane Doherty, has just forwarded your Old Girls newsletter on to me.   It has been absolutely years since I had contact with good old DSG and all the news of Old Girls.    I was very sad to read that Mrs Lawrence had died this year – she lived around the corner from us in Waterkloof and bravely taught me English.  My regards to her two daughters, who I remember as being beauties but whom no doubt, have no idea who I am, especially as I was such a junior at the time of knowing their mother.   It was great to sit down to read all the entries made by so many people I remember with fondness. 

 

It is hard to think “my year”, 1976/77 are all now middle-aged and the sort of age that many of our teachers were when we were at school.  Only teachers and parents ever seem to be middle-aged – not us!!   But………..

 

I have lost touch most sadly with all my school chums, (Caroline de Groot, Liz Carey, Fran de Klerk, Sandy Collins, Sue Morris, Harriet Gavshon, Tony Schumlow, Anne Sutton, Shelagh ?, from Waterkloof Ridge – yikes, the old memory is playing up here, know the scenario anyone? Sorry Sheelagh!)   If anyone knows how I could contact them, I’d be delighted to receive their email addresses.

 

I have been living in Eastern Europe for the last 12 years, bringing up and even adding to my family.  Gary, my husband is with SABMiller and we pioneered out to Poland first, where our “laat lammertjie” Nicholas was born, 10 years ago – but they didn’t want to give him a Polish passport, nor did the British, nor did the South Africans – so poor tot was stateless for weeks until the South African authorities relented, but not without a hammering fight!   Next we headed for Prague, Czech Republic, quite the most beautiful city and now Budapest, Hungary where we’ve been for four years.   We’re destined for Zug, Switzerland in June 2008, but not before our 2^nd eldest, Gabby-17, has completed her International Baccalaureate diploma at the American International School of Budapest.  (The US/International academic system is so very different from what DSG was like; one just cannot even start comparing the two systems and methodologies).   Our eldest, Jemma, 19, is a successful graduate of the International system and is studying Business at Surrey University in Guildford.  

 

Sadly, none of my children have their hearts in South Africa, not having grown up much there – they’re categorised Global or International Citizens.  They are fluent in Polish and if asked where they come from; they all think they’re Polish!  My heart breaks as there is nothing to beat the beauty, climate and vibrancy of our Mother Land!  Viva Africa.   I fly my SA flag boldly and at every opportunity I can!   Fortunately I’ve instilled the need to retain our good old SA accents!    So, there’s no tainting on that front, at least.

 

To keep my grey matter firing, I import and sell CaRRoL BoYeS pewter, have done for almost ten years,  with huge pride both as a South African expat in Europe but also because Carrol (I’m sure she’s also an Old Girl of DSG?) is a really gifted artist with a huge heart.

 

Please add me to your newsletter mailing list.   I’d love to receive news again.  Best regards to all DSG Old Girls – I still have my DSG coffee cup from at least 28 years ago, received at the one and only Old Girls Reunion I managed to attend!

 

Lovely talking to you, even if one sided.    Please send my fondest, warmest wishes to Sister Deirdre Michael – a very special lady.

1976 Darrell Farrow (Creighton-Jones) [e-mail]

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend old girls this year as I am relocating to Canada in the near future. 

1977 Ingrid Wimbury (Anderson) [e-mail]
After a long, long silence I am taking the plunge and saying hello again from the other side of the world - down under, where Chris and I and our two boys James (14) and Josh (12) have lived for the last six years. We live in rural Victoria, Australia, about three hours from Melbourne. Chris is a GP in a big practice in Horsham where we have lived for the last year. Previously we were in a really tiny farming town on the Vic South Australian border. Thankfully Horsham is bigger, more to my liking with quite an arty/cultural side to life here. I have been involved in the two arts festivals that are held in March and October and just done two months work for another festival in the Grampian Mountains south of us. The latter were celebrating the survival and recovery of the huge and devastating fires of January 2006. In between this I do my own art work, do a few courses at Uni (textiles, photography, painting and what ever else) and have just been asked to give a few classes working with people with special needs. I have also recently done a series of art workshops with migrant women, which was fascinating.
1978 Mary-Ann Dummer [e-mail]

No scintillating news as I seem to be predominantly focussed on work - real stuff which boosts the coffers, plus a voluntary side-line thing, plus editing a book for someone (effectively I'm permanently attached to my laptop) - but we're getting back to golf again in two months time which will be wonderful, and which will provide a much needed healthy activity.

1978 Trish Bishop (Elliott) [e-mail]
Hi to you all.  It has been wonderful reading all the news, from so many parts of the world.  I live in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with my husband Brian, who is a vet, and two sons, Shane now one, and Kyle nearly fourteen.  We have been here for eight years now, so we are well settled, live on a lifestyle block just out of town, and really enjoy the space, peace and tranquility it gives us after work each day.  I work as an itinerant teacher of blind and low vision kids – love the work and find it very rewarding.  Teenagers on the other hand are another type of challenge, and think I would rather have a house-full of toddlers. However, we will not be in SA for Reunion, but will look forward to hearing about it.
1978 Meg Couperthwaite (Elphick) [e-mail]
My girls are now nearly 16 and 14 and running us ragged with their social lives. Jen (16) was a Deb at school last year culminating in a Ball at the Wanderers. We had to go the whole hog with the dress, shoes, hair, partner, dancing lessons, make up etc. The one thing that has become immediately apparent is that they are no longer little girls but young ladies and are growing up far too quickly. Rob is polishing his shotgun. He is firmly convinced that his two girls are the best looking in the world. (Isn’t every Dad?)

 I contacted Dr Impey and he said that Angie has moved to London lecturing at the university. The email address he has for her is [e-mail]. She is married to a musician and has spent time in Ethiopia and Sudan studying ethnic music. Apparently Lou Meintjes has been staying with her in London so we might be able to get her email address too. Sue is back in Nelspruit and her phone number is 013 744 1912. Lauren is in Cape Town and is counselling abused children.  Lesley Lange (Heunis) is in Johannesburg running her own personnel recruitment agency. Her email address is [e-mail]. She is married with two children Nicolette and Timothy.

Fiona Carver (McHardy) is living in Irene Pretoria and is a secretary at Cornwall College. She has two children Scott (23) and Ashleigh (19). Her email address is [e-mail]

Sally Adams (Parkin) is back in South Africa and has been for a couple of years. She works as a landscape architect and loves her job. Sal is not easily contactable on email as she doesn’t believe in it!! Her numbers are 083 631 0042 or 011 467 7362. In fact it is even hard to get her by fax! She has just the one little boy – Jamie. I think Sal has not changed one iota.

Stella went back to Limassol Cyprus to get married. I saw her once when she was back visiting her family in the early 1980’s. She had a little boy by the name of George.

We saw Liz (Fourie) Vernon when we had our 20^th Reunion but I have tried to get her at all the numbers I had for her with no success. She was living in the Kyalami area, married with 2 boys. Unfortunately Fourie is too common a name to phone everybody in the directory!!

The last email address I had for Kim Mullett (Glasgow) was [e-mail] I don’t know whether that will still reach her but Anne might have an idea there. If I remember correctly the last I heard about Kim was that she was training to be a minister.

I looked up Jill on the UCT website and here is the email address for her [e-mail]

1978 Jane Mennigke (Greathead) [e-mail]
What I am currently doing is teaching art at St Johns School in Pietermaritzburg this term as a locum teacher, and working the rest of the time on my own work (recently had an exhibition of landscapes at artSPACE Durban).

Francis 17 and Luke 14 have grown up so fast. Francis matriculates this year and is contemplating doing a gap year or studying drama at Pietermaritzburg or Rhodes.

All my sisters are scattered in different places, Bainbridge Island (Seattle) Nelspruit, Cape Town, and UK, near Northampton...little village story.

Stuart is chaplain at St Anne’s, Hilton, after several years travelling doing consultancy work with Coprorate leadership development. Quite a change from being a full time parish priest, but he enjoys being back in it again.

1978 Lesley Lange (Heunis) [e-mail]
I have often wondered what has happened to everyone since “the Matric lawn” days. H and I bump into each other quite regularly as our girls are at the same school. Nicolette is 16, grade 11 and has just enjoyed the tradition of doing the Matric dance for the grade 12s. I had the joy of discovering two days before the event that the cool drink order had actually never been put through! The trauma of the dress and the partner is now behind us, a happy memory, and she is back to the mundane of hockey practices and endless assignments. Tim is thirteen and in last year of junior school. He plays the sax for the musical ones amongst us (and at least it doesn’t sound like a violin when practicing, H!) He is lucky enough to be going to a Maths competition in Hong Kong next month. As Meg mentioned I have been in my own business for six years. I head-hunt senior people for companies and have been lucky to run a virtual office from my back yard with someone else helping me from her home. It is been very hard work but interesting getting to know emerging business leaders and I have got to know some amazing people and grown lots of grey hairs. We are hoping to spend some time in Maputo in August where Bruce grew up. Like Jane I am glad that school is a distant memory, but have such nice images in my mind of all of you at different stages in our 12 year slog. Thanks for the update.
1978 Liz Gray (Johansen) [e-mail]
Well, I've resisted responding as I feel a bit like the cuckoo in the nest - but have so loved reading everyone's emails that I have decided to join in! I can't even quite remember whether I was part of your class for four or five years (standards 4 - 8?) but I do remember so many of you and have lots of happy memories of individuals - such as many of you in Midsummer Night's dream, Nerina and her flute, Sue-Anne being sporty, Helen and Louise being brilliant and so on, and so although I didn't make it to the end I hope I can still count a bit as part of the class of '78.
Then we moved to the UK and well ... I grew up, went to Uni, became a teacher, got married had kids etc! I have been married to Simon since 1984 and have three kids: Adam (21, at Uni studying medicine), David (19, at uni studying dentistry) and Fiona (16 with one year of school to go...).
I have taught maths for years and gradually worked my way up through the system. For two months last year I was Head of Upper school at a large, boys, private school, Whitgift School in Croydon. But then the time came to move again - and so we have immigrated to Washngton DC where Simon has accepted a job with the IMF (so getting a bit closer to your heavenly sounding place, Sue-Anne). Before that I had a wonderfully hectic summer - taking a group of kids from our church to build a garden in an orphanage in Azerbaijan, then going to Thailand to look at a teacher training project on the Thai-Burma border which I am hoping to get involved in ... before going to DC and then doing - well, who knows??
1978 Gwen Littlewort [e-mail]
I live a quiet, happy life - very busy, but simple. I had a rip-roaring time in my 20s and 30s and now I just enjoy my organic garden. What can I say? I live in San Diego, in the suburbs (actually Solana Beach is a great, compact, surfer community), and I have a husband who considers Vancouver to be home, who is also a scientist (no surprise there) and two wonderful kids in
elementary school -  they are both artists, very imaginative and a bit weird, Sarafina is 11 and Dante is 10. I don't have any photos on my work computer to send but there might be on my website  http://mplab.ucsd.edu/~gwen/  but part of the "quiet life" is that I don't update my website. I work on facial expression analysis, so sometimes I post related images. Maybe if I knew people might look there, I'd put up more stuff, but I kind-of prefer writing to people by email.

Louise Meintjes is an Ethno Musicologist at a university in the mid Atlantic. I haven't been in touch for years, so I don't know exactly where she went after she left Austin, Texas. We had a few fun adventures in the Cape as students.

1978  Liz Beach (Nuttall) [e-mail]
Tanya (Rogers) and I have remained very firm friends (although sadly we don't get to see each other much) over the years, and she and Sandy (McIntosh) were my bridesmaids 20 odd years ago. Sandy, now in NY was out last year and it was great to see her. Imagine our delighted surprise recently, when her daughter Angela (18, at Randolph High School) invited my son Andrew (18, at Michaelhouse) to be her friend on this new Global engine "Face Book", the detail being that they met "randomly" through their mothers! The last time they saw each other was when they were 3! To confirm, the world is becoming a very small place.

 

Rob and I still live near Howick, Stuart is 10 and at school in Hilton. Rob will be attending the 30 year reunion for his St Albans year in October, all being well. We run our own business, bottling honey and jams, have a small multi-faceted farming operation and own The Rotunda in Hilton.

Jane is married to Stuart Mennike and lives in Hilton. Their boys are with ours, in the same house at Michaelhouse. I will forward all the emails to her at [e-mail]
1978 Sandra Wrigley (McIntosh) [e-mail]

 

It was wonderful to hear from Anne again, she is doing a great job getting everyone together for the big reunion of 2008!  I occasionally met up with Anne when I lived in Cape Town for 20 years, but three years ago we moved to Randolph, New Jersey, USA as my husband works for Pfizer and was transferred over here.  We are enjoying life in the north eastern USA, but the winters here are brutal, that is when we long for the hot African sun!

We have two daughters, Angela who is 18 and Sarah who is 16; they have adapted remarkably well to life in the USA, going from a private all girls Catholic school to a co-ed public American school!  We are trying to decide which university Angela should go to, there are over 3000 to choose from.
I am working at Columbia University in New York doing research into the genetic cause of epilepsy, I work part time.  I hope I will be able to come to Pretoria for the reunion. My dearest/oldest friend Liz Beach (Nuttall) and I met last year when I was visiting SA, I visited her on her farm in Natal, and I loved seeing her, Rob and their boys again.
My sister Jennifer Simons (McIntosh) and I will be attending the Old Girls Reunion on 12 July.  We are really looking forward to seeing all our old DSG friends again. I am flying all the way from New York for this special 30th reunion!