EducAting david

Portrait of the artist as a young man: second row from the back, third from the right. Std 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 enlightenment.

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 was not always easy separating 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 on which 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