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  My paternal grandparents produced four children, of which my father, Cyril, was the eldest. There were also two daughters, René and Gladys, and a younger son, Leonard.

  My Aunt Gladys married a dentist in Cape Town and lived in suburbia with him for the next fifty years or so, while my father’s eldest sister, René Ahrensen, became a well-known Shakespearean exponent. In fact, she started Maynardville Open Air Theatre in Wynberg, Cape Town, with Cecelia Sonnenberg. There is a plaque commemorating these two ladies on either side of the entrance to the theatre to this day. René married briefly and gave birth to one daughter, my first cousin, Noel. Growing up, I saw Aunt René only occasionally – we were not a close-knit family.

  My father’s youngest brother, Leonard, was by far the most interesting. He obtained a master’s degree in physics from the University of the Orange Free State, and later, having been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, furthered his studies at Oxford, where he shared lodgings with Bram Fischer. When it had become known that Leonard had applied for the scholarship, Bram, whose father was judge president of the Free State and whose grandfather had been prime minister of the Orange River Colony, approached him, generously saying, ‘I see that you have applied for the Rhodes Scholarship. So have I. Because of my family connections, I will probably get it. You apply first and I will withdraw my application. I’ll apply next year and see you then.’

  That’s exactly what happened. The two friends ended up in Oxford, where they shared a house. This was around the time when communist agents were turning Oxford students towards communism, and I am sure both Bram and Len were influenced by this. Len became chairman of the British Scientific Workers Union, and who knows what may have been in store for him had he been lured into the world of Anthony Blunt, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross and others, who became communist spies after their university days in the late 1920s.

  Len worked on a great many scientific projects, and had a keen interest in the effect of current passing through gases and vacuums. He was part of the team that developed the cavity magnetron, the device that generated the microwaves used in radar and became the scientific basis for microwave ovens. He also worked on the development of fluorescent coating for cameras, in the electronics world of physics, which ultimately resulted in the invention of television. His involvement in infrared bombsights eventually brought about his demise: he was killed testing a bombsight when the Wellington Bomber in which he was flying crashed. Sadly, this all happened before I was born, and I never knew him.

  My mother’s side of the family came from the idyllic English countryside. My grandmother was born Langsford and lived on the River Tamar, which separates Cornwall from Devon in England. The Langsfords lived at the Cotehele Mill in the late 1880s, where they enjoyed a largely self-sufficient life – they made their own butter, milk and bacon and raised their own meat; they grew their own vegetables; and salmon were caught in the nearby river.

  Gran was one of thirteen children. The names of many of these children reflect the times in which they were born – one child was called Horatio and another Nelson, after the great Napoleonic Wars leader Horatio Nelson.

  My maternal grandfather, James Bruno Blatchford, was born on the island of Jersey. As a young man he had trained as a fitter and turner, and he later worked in the naval dockyards in Plymouth, about fifteen miles away from the Cotehele Mill. It was at Cotehele Mill that he met my grandmother, and they eventually married.

  Shortly afterwards, my grandfather contracted Malta fever, a form of brucellosis. The normal ‘prescription’ when a doctor didn’t know how to cure an illness in those days was a long trip to a hot, dry country. This is how my grandparents arrived in South Africa.

  My grandfather found employment on the mines as a fitter and turner. Eager to better himself, he decided to study at night. Eventually he wrote his mine-engineering ticket and became a mining engineer, a role he continued to perform for the rest of his life, on the far East Rand.

  My grandparents’ marriage was not always a bed of roses, it seems – I suspect that my grandfather had the same affinity for gambling and horse racing that my father had. Gran left him and went back to England with her first daughter when she was pregnant with her second child. My mother, Winifred Mabel, was born in Penzance shortly afterwards. A few years later, the First World War broke out, and my mother later shared with me her vivid childhood memories of seeing the Zeppelins flying over the British coast.

  At about the age of eight or nine, my mother returned to South Africa with my grandmother, and my grandparents settled back down on the mines together, where they continued with their lives until my grandfather’s death in about 1940. My mother’s older sister, Bertha Bower, married a mine official who achieved some status as the mayor of Brakpan in the early fifties. I remember having a lot of fun driving around in the mayoral car, registration TO 1, in those days. Sadly, my aunt, who was a heavy smoker, died at the young age of forty-seven, and my mother and grandmother were the only two members of the family left. My grandmother died in 1960 when she was about eighty.

  At the outbreak of the Second World War, my father signed up and went to fight. He met and married my mother towards the end of the war, and shortly afterwards, on 14 July 1944, my brother Peter was born. A few years later, on 8 December 1948, I arrived.

  My father was an immensely intelligent man. He was an expert in all aspects that make a business work, and it is a great tragedy that he never formalised his knowledge or qualifications in any field. My earliest recollections are of him working at Brakpan Motors as the company secretary for a man called Syd Israel. My mother, an efficient short-hand typist, worked there as well. She had a Standard 8 education, which was considered a good qualification for a woman in those days.

  From my early childhood perspective, we lived a happy, contented life in Brakpan, a small mining town on the East Rand, about fifty kilometres from Johannesburg. I was completely unaware of any sinister undercurrents in the family, or of any looming tragedy, but our reality was shattered in 1957, when I was nine years old. My father had a sustained and unjustified belief in his ability to predict which horses would win at the races. This caused considerable financial stress in the family after a particularly bad loss: my father was disgraced and ostracised by his friends and acquaintances, and found himself unemployable. Ruin was imminent, and he attempted suicide. The suicide attempt added to the stigma, as suicide was illegal in those days (as it still is today), and he was sent for psychological treatment. Through all of this trauma, we lost all our material possessions and my family was socially isolated.

  Eventually, an old friend in Brakpan came to the rescue. His brother-in-law owned a glassworks in Standerton, but the business was losing money, and he offered my father a position. We moved to Standerton, and for the rest of his working life my father was beholden to Julian Berman, the man who had given him another chance. With his excellent business skills, my father managed to turn the glassworks around.

  Life in Standerton for a nine-year-old was bliss. It was a rural community that made a Huckleberry Finn–type of lifestyle possible. My mother did not approve of the children who lived across the road from us, but I befriended them nonetheless. They were the children of a cabinetmaker called Alf Doubel, who was the finest wood craftsman I have ever encountered – he could make wood talk. I spent many happy hours in his workshop, and he inspired in me a love of woodworking.

  Ignoring adult prejudice and blissfully unaware of any drama in my own family, I spent many happy afternoons and weekends running around barefoot, riding my bicycle, or swimming in or canoeing on the Vaal River with my new friends. A real treat was when my mother would give me ten cents and I could go to the movies and buy a cold drink. A whole afternoon’s entertainment could be had for ten cents!

  I was baptised an Anglican, and my mother made sure that as much religion was poured into me as possible – in fact, until my cup ran over! I suspect that the rabbi and the Anglican priest drew lots over
me, and the one who lost received my soul! I was sent to an Anglican church school – St Martin’s School, in Johannesburg – after we moved to Standerton, where my brother was also a pupil. He was conscientious and well behaved. The same could not be said of me. To put it mildly, I was found to be ‘difficult’ at school, and my school reports reflected this (two of my earlier reports are included in Appendix A).

  St Martin’s was one of the more liberal establishments of its day. It had begun as St Peter’s, and one of its more famous pupils was Oliver Tambo. The headmaster, Michael Stern, was a man who judged no one unfairly. He had the ability to look past difficulties to see the potential in the unruly children in his care. He was passionate about the development of young minds, often overlooking broken rules if he could see that some good had resulted.

  One Saturday afternoon, a friend, Donald Currie, and I were exploring a drainage canal that ran near the school into Wemmer Pan. We were strictly forbidden to go to the canal, as part of the canal was covered and obviously it was a dangerous escapade. While exploring, Currie and I found the body of a newborn black baby. We went straight to the nearest police station to report it, but this was the early 1960s and nothing could have interested the police less. I said to Currie, ‘Let’s go and report this to the boss (as Stern was known to us).’ Currie was appalled, fearing a caning for breaking the school rules by going down to the canal. I insisted, and we timidly approached Stern in his office.

  His response was electrifying. He phoned the senior officer at the police station and raised hell. The next thing, a police car with a colonel and other officers arrived at the school and I went with the police to recover the little corpse. Not a word was said about the breach of school rules, and I seem to remember that Stern gave Currie and me twenty cents each. He was that kind of man.

  Michael Stern, however, committed the cardinal sin of allowing the black school cook to swim in the school’s swimming pool. This was simply too liberal for South Africa at the time, as was the teachers’ regular participation in protest marches and their resulting arrests. The upshot of all of this ‘liberalism’ was that the school board intervened, and Stern left to found Waterford School in Mbabane in Swaziland, taking some of the better teachers with him. (My brother, interestingly, went on to teach Afrikaans and Music at Waterford School the year after his matric.)

  St Martin’s provided a broad education. The teachers were unconventional and some were even a bit off the wall, but many of the more general lessons I was taught stood me in good stead. As Mark Twain said, ‘Education is what remains after what has been taught at school has been forgotten.’

  Rob Taylor taught me science in Standard 8. He must have awakened a deeply covered interest in the subject, as I went from failure marks to respectable to even good results. At that stage, I also developed an interest in biochemistry. My brother Peter was in London at the Royal College of Music at the time, and he found a second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Road where, quite serendipitously, he bought me two books, Biochemical Society Symposia numbers 22 and 23, for ten shillings.

  These books described the structure and functions of the membranes and surfaces of cells, and methods of separation of sub-cellular structural components, nurturing the seeds of my future academic interests. Much of the content was beyond me, but the books stimulated me to enquire more, and eventually my postgraduate studies focused on cell-surface biochemistry and culminated in a PhD in the subject. Rob Taylor encouraged this sort of enquiry, and I owe him much gratitude.

  The same could not be said of the other teachers at the school. They were by and large indifferent towards me, and some did not appear to be qualified in the teaching profession. I remember Mr Yule, the maths master, who suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of the Second World War. He was stern and strict, demanding respect from his pupils. Often, at the slightest provocation, he would fly into a blind rage, leaving us fearful and uncertain.

  My English master was Jeremy Taylor, of ‘Ag Pleez Daddy’ fame. He left after my first year to pursue a musical career with the Wait a Minim! show. My brother Peter, being very musically gifted, wrote down the music of ‘Ag Pleez Daddy’ in note form so that Jeremy could get the copyright.

  Michael de Lisle succeeded Michael Stern as headmaster at St Martin’s. He was a rigid man, and I learnt some valuable lessons from him – including the fact that ‘military intelligence’ is a contradiction in terms! He had been a distinguished soldier during the Second World War, and we clashed from the word go, as he believed in creating and upholding rules, no matter what the consequences. Michael de Lisle and I were not destined to be happy with each other at all.

  I had set my heart on studying medicine after school, but my grades were poor. The only way for me to be accepted was to put in many hours of extra work, which would mean studying in the library after prep, late into the evening. The school rules stated that we could do this two nights a week, and De Lisle was not prepared to waive them. He appeared to be totally insensitive to my motivation – rules were there to be obeyed.

  I did not accept this lying down, and after ongoing tension between De Lisle and me, my mother was called in and asked to take me to a psychiatrist. De Lisle thought that I had some deep-seated personality issues that needed resolution.

  The psychiatrist found me to be a reasonably normal sixteen-year-old, and I left St Martin’s and returned home to Standerton. The rest of the year was largely wasted. I attended the local Afrikaans high school to brush up on my Afrikaans, and started at Nigel High School the following year, in Standard 9 again.

  I met up with Michael de Lisle recently when he attended a public lecture that I gave. He and I appear to have mellowed considerably, and he complimented me on my performance. Memories are short, and I bear him no lasting animosity – we were both products of our own experiences.

  The headmaster at Nigel High School was Louis Spruyt. His wife had been at school with my mother, who had been taught by Louis in the early days of his career. He had a soft spot for me, and sometimes allowed me to use his office to study. There was none of the rigidity that I had encountered up until that point. I worked almost every evening up at the school library – I had my own key – and my results reflected the effort I put in.

  Looking back, what amazes me was the short-sightedness in the education system, where teachers were often more focused on upholding rules and regulations than on recognising ambition and determination, and facilitating the development of the young minds in their care. Louis Spruyt, for me, was a breath of fresh air.

  In my last two years at school at Nigel, I encountered many people who can simply be described as incredible human beings. One of these was Dr Gevers, my English master. A German by birth, he had a PhD in English and exuded wisdom and knowledge. Imposed discipline did not form part of his world: for his pupils, to disappoint Gevers was punishment in itself. We looked up to him in awe, and the many life lessons he imparted through teaching his subject still live with me today.

  Gevers was Socratic in his approach to teaching, constantly questioning and engaging in debate with his students to stimulate critical thinking. I recall one such instance when we were studying William Blake’s poem ‘The Sick Rose’:

  O Rose thou art sick.

  The invisible worm,

  That flies in the night

  In the howling storm:

  Has found out thy bed

  Of crimson joy:

  And his dark secret love

  Does thy life destroy.

  The poem’s bleak political overtones reflect Blake’s insecurities with the changing world around him. I went to Gevers with an interpretation, and his approach was mindful. He never said that I was wrong, but questioned me on how my analysis interacted with the matrix of knowledge that I had about Blake. He did not criticise my interpretation, but pointed out in a very gentle way its inadequacy with regard to what I already knew about the poet.

  These English classes taught me a number of
things, one of them being the open-endedness of knowledge. I realised that you will never know everything there is to know about your subject, no matter how limited the subject matter is. There will always be others who will surpass you in knowledge – others from whom you can learn.

  Another valuable lesson I was taught by Gevers is that whatever you know about a subject has to be factored into the matrix of your general understanding on that subject. Blake’s poem had to fit in with whatever else Blake had done and said, with his philosophies, and with how and where he interacted in other circumstances. Any interpretation of Blake’s poem had to be coherent – I could not simply create an interpretation in a vacuum.

  This is true of any scientific logic, and, of course, of forensic investigation. You have to investigate everything, covering all the intersecting points and the logical flow of events. The forensic scientist has to place the actual crime scene in the context of events leading up to the incident, and needs to investigate each event carefully to ensure a coherent conclusion.

  Even if you are seeing a situation for the very first time, you need to conduct research – you have to create the matrix of understanding to reach the correct conclusion. Let’s say, for example, that I was to investigate the properties of a protein in the blood. I would determine the name of the protein, then research and gather all the information that is at hand about that particular protein. I would then conduct a ‘what if’ set of circumstances and ask how it would react under different conditions – whether it would affect coagulation, for instance. I would plot my findings and draw scientific conclusions based on results, thereby creating a picture to aid my understanding. Those conclusions would be based on scientific information and, eventually, my comprehension would become more and more coherent, reaching a final point of scientific conclusion.