the writer

Writing did not come easily, or early, to the writer. As mentioned previously he was born somewhat dyslexic and calculexic and as a result endured his school years being told he would not amount to much (some people contend this was a self-fulfilling prophecy).

 

Back in those days the kids in the brightest class were groomed for medicine or law. Next came those destined to be engineers and scientists. Below them were the future teachers, nurses, marketers and misfits.

 

Clearly our subject was a misfit and so he drifted around a while, travelling, shifting files around, mixing cement and banging nails, stamping building application forms. Having missed the boat to architecture, he thought he might have to settle for town planning. Back in the early 1970s there was no box labelled "writer".

 

But then he was given a sign. On 16 June, 1976 he watched a phalanx of black schoolchildren marching into Joburg town. "What's going on here?" he wondered. "If only I was a journalist…"

It was like the idea fell from the sky, 'as if by magic,' he muses. 
 

The day 16 June, 1976 was a turning point in South African history, as well as in the life of “the writer”.

He resigned and in short order went from Rhodes University to The Star newspaper (the largest daily in South Africa back then), to sub-editor on The Sowetan (the largest circulating paper catering to a black readership), to editor and then group editor of the Systems Publishers computer magazine division.

 

Meanwhile he and climbing buddy Clive Ward were travelling around in their spare time, climbing and collecting material for a book idea they had. Call it serendipity, but the day they walked into the offices of Struik Publishers in Cape Town, the publishing director noted: "How co-incidental, the board has just decided to publish a book on the mountains of Southern Africa."

Mountains of Southern Africa ­–The book that started, and changed, everything.

Mountains of Southern Africa hit the streets and the bookshelves for Christmas 1984 and was an instant best seller: just the thing dreams are made of. With his first royalty cheque David relocated to Cape Town to study further. He also managed to squeeze out another three books before graduating with a Masters Degree in Environmental Sciences.

 

More books followed, as well as starting a garagista publishing Pachyderm Press which published mainly food and gardening books, but also one 'magnum opus': Historic Schools of South Africa.

Fourways, the very small centre of the known universe for the kids of what later became Sandton. And what the place looks like now, but by the time this happened DB had relocated to Cape Town.

It also turns out he was born green and was always drawn to nature. It was by no act of planning that his two great passions – writing and the natural environment – came to dominate his adult life.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

George Gordon Lord Byron

2. EducAting david

Portrait of the artist as a young man: 4G (for the gentle-man Mr Genade), Bryanston Primary School 1967.

When he grew he fully expected to attend Wits University and become an architect. But, as his good friend John Lennon once said, "life happens when you are making other plans". Before long (and after an unexpectedly long stint in the military) he found himself aboard a steam train headed for what he likes to think of as his personal Hogwarts. 

 

"It was the best of times, even though I don't remember much of it," he recalls. It was, after all, the 1970s. In spite of the distractions, he departed Grahamstown (Makanda) and Rhodes University with Honours Degrees in Journalism and Speech & Drama.

For many generations of Rhodes University students the steam train from Alicedale junction was their ‘transportation’ into the world of academia and liberation.

While there he started going around with a rough crowd, and they spent their weekends hanging out in dubious places. When he left university, one thing led to another and before he knew it he was invited to be the words and photos man on a Himalayan expedition. "I did not plan any of this," he admits "it's all down to serendipity."

It was a long way from the rock faces of the Eastern Cape to the snows of the Himalayas. But, insists our subject, he was just standing there when the adventure bus pulled up.

For the past three decades he has criss-crossed Africa and much of the world beyond ("from Hillbrow to the Himalayas" he jokes). While these travels have been largely in the pursuit of bacon, bread, boodle, brass, gelt, gravy, jack, wonga, shinplasters, pasela and the lovely green stuff, it becomes hard trying to separate the work from the play.

The Getaway, or 'gotaway' years started with an out-the-blue phone call: "Do you want a job?”

 No, not really …. But turned out it was much preferable to your regular grind.

David sits on various environmental organisations dedicated to preserving the natural health of Zandvlei, an estuarine lagoon where he lives, close to Muizenberg’s famed Surfer’s Corner beach. In early 2024, with old Journalism School friend Monty Roodt, he launched Southern Right Publishers, as a go-to for writers who cannot get a foot in the door of any mainstream publishing house.

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. 
John Muir, American writer, environmental pioneer and founder of The Sierra Club

3. the family tree

Arthur Bristow / Sarah Bristow, around 1870. 

According to Bristow family mythology, we are descended from these two brave pioneers, great-great-grandfather Charles Arthur (my father was Arthur Charles) and Sarah Bristow  who arrived aboard the HMS Hebrides, at Port Natal in 1843. Charles is believed to have started a small brickworks to help the British settlers make firm foundations, who had originally been shacked up in tents and makeshift shacks on the beach. Those bricks built much of early Durban.

Research suggests the seed of the Bristow came from Bristol, which was originally spelled Bristow. In South Africa they trace their roots back to Charles Arthur and Sarah Bristow, who disembarked from the HMS Hebrides to make a new home on the sunny shore of Port Natal (Durban) in 1843. The grand patriarch started the Durban Brick Works which helped to build early Durban. The bricks all, apparently, were stamped with 'DB'. 

 

A fun fact is that there are Arthurs on just about all branches of the family tree: the subject's father was Barry Arthur Charles; his father was Arthur Bristow; his wife's father was Arthur McHattie; his maternal grandfather was Arthur Cullen; my brother is Vincent Arthur. But the Arthurs stop there.

Grandma and Pa - Granny Durban , aka Getruide Wilhelmina McHattie Bristow, with her younger sister Mona. Arthur Charles Bristow the third. He Died in 1956 or '7, so he was the unknown grandfather.

Barry, soldier, architect and father: some called him “saint”.

Colleen (second from left, with the young Oscar), nurse, entrepreneur and mother: some called her "meshuga".

The Bryanston Beatles, as some called them: Vincent (12,  rhythm guitar and vocals), Glenn (11, bass guitar) and David (10, drums). “Our mother dressed us funny”.

The progeny: Bella, Ben and Daniel, 21 years apart – same couch.