parents were visiting Grahamstown with her younger sister, Elsie, soon after our decision to get married. I approached Mr Dunstan while he was alone and asked him if I could marry his daughter, and he agreed right away without more ado. But Isobel’s mother, Lilian, upon hearing the news later that day, was appalled. She flatly refused to give her support. My Congregational affiliation was unacceptable (surely there were enough eligible Methodists!) and I was far too young, which was true. Isobel dug in her heels. We were in love and she was going to marry me. That was that. In December 1959, we got engaged in Cape Town. Our photograph was taken by Happy Snaps while we walked arm in arm down St. George’s Street, with Isobel sporting her modest diamond engagement ring, paid for with money I borrowed from my father. I must remember someday to repay him.
After completing her Honours degree in Mathematics, Isobel went home and taught at a high school in Johannesburg. Unfortunately, her mother died suddenly on 16 March 1960, in the same week that I turned twenty-one. Preparations were hurriedly cancelled for celebrating this traditional rite of passage in Grahamstown, and I hitched a long overnight ride to Johannesburg to be at the funeral. Not only did Isobel now have to mourn the sudden loss of her mother, but she also had to take over the responsibilities of running the family home. This meant caring for her much younger sister, and managing a household for a busy father and two very active brothers, who were just a year or two behind her. Thus she was plunged into shopping and cooking, for which she had very little preparation, while I, 1 500 kilometres away, completed my BD.
The week of Isobel’s mother’s funeral and my aborted twenty-first birthday was made far more ominous by the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. The terrible events that occurred that day rudely awakened many to the inherent violence of apartheid and the challenges facing the country. It happened just as I was finishing my studies and about to begin my ministry. I was one of a handful of theological students who signed a protest letter to the prime minister, Hendrik Verwoerd.
During that final year at university, I learnt much from Professor W.D. Maxwell, an authority on Calvin and Liturgy; studied Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology in detail; and wrote a dissertation on Congregational Ecclesiology, tracing its roots in both the Calvinist and Anabaptist traditions, and showing how it had developed since then. I completed my BD with a first class honours at the end of 1960. I had now satisfactorily concluded my training for the ordained ministry – at least, that’s what I thought. I was soon to be proved wrong, but for now my thoughts were fixed on my impending marriage.
Isobel and I were married in Johannesburg on 7 January 1961 in her home Methodist Church in Parktown North. Ian MacDonald, later professor of Philosophy at Rhodes, was my best man, and Jean Pyle, a close friend of Isobel’s, was her bridesmaid. After a fun-filled and adventurous honeymoon that took us 6 000 kilometres around South Africa in a second-hand Fiat 600 that regularly broke down, we arrived in Cape Town where I was ordained to the ministry in my home congregation in Cape Town. There was a power failure that evening at the beginning of the service, so all the ministers processed into the church by candlelight. I don’t recall much else, except that Basil Brown preached, and at one point, as I removed my handkerchief from my suit pocket, I dislodged a wad of confetti that had become embedded there at our wedding. Not a very auspicious incident on that otherwise solemn, important and joyful occasion, which concluded with a party back at my parents’ house.
4
On a sharp learning curve
I’m wondering what you’ve got in your veins these days, you young priests! When I was your age we had men in the church – don’t frown, it makes me want to clout you – men I say – make what you like of the word – heads of a parish, masters, my boy, rulers. They could hold a whole country together, that sort could – with a mere lift of the chin.
(Georges Bernanos)8
During my final year at Rhodes, I received and accepted a call to the Sea View Congregational Church in Durban. I had previously visited there to preach with “a view”, as it is said, and liked the congregation. I also liked the attractive red-bricked church with its stained-glass windows, bell tower and lych gate at the bottom of the garden path that led onto Sarnia Road. The recently built manse was situated beyond an old hall on the same property, awaiting our arrival. We moved there at the beginning of February 1961. Soon afterwards, I was inducted on a very humid evening, perspiring heavily beneath my black Geneva gown – a gift from my parents. In those days, such garb was expected, as was the wearing of a suit and clerical collar when doing pastoral visits. It was madness in Durban’s sub-tropical climate, and I would soon get out of the habit.
Apart from the assurance of a warm welcome, my letter of call informed me that my annual salary would be 550 pounds (1 100 rand), and that I would get an extra 36 pounds each year for travel, but no car. Not much of a salary after five years of studying, even in those days. But my father, in an attempt to change my mind some years before, had warned me not to expect to make money in the ministry. We had a free manse, though, and the telephone and electricity were covered. Isobel had saved enough money during her teaching year to purchase furniture, and I was able to buy basic tools for my rudimentary workshop. A Zulu family, the Mbathas, who also lived on the church premises, cared for the grounds and helped in the house.
Back then, there were no supermarkets in town; only some local grocery stores, a hardware shop, chemist, post office and garage. Each week, we bought our fruit and vegetables from the Indian market in Durban. Our monthly groceries cost ten rand a month on average, and I could fill the tank of our car for two rand.
As the custom still was, Isobel, as wife of the minister, was expected to fulfil certain roles in the congregation, which she gladly did, but from time to time she also did some relief high school teaching.
Compared to the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) down the road, whose members seemed to control the community, ours was a small congregation of not more than a hundred members. It was all white, all English-speaking, and most members were getting on in years. But there were some ex-servicemen, a sprinkling of young families, a vibrant youth fellowship, and a committed and caring leadership. Whatever anybody else thought, to my mind the congregation had a future.
So what did I have to offer in return for my monthly stipend? I felt I knew much about theology, understood the Bible, and could explain the Trinity, but I had virtually no training in pastoral care, and almost zero life experience. I was, to state it bluntly, a naive young minister, despite a projected image of competence and my BD certificate hanging on my study wall. I am now appalled at how I was let loose on the congregation, but some said they found my sermons helpful, and several of the young men in the youth group subsequently went into the ministry.
Our son Stephen was born in November 1961. I was present at his birth before the doctor arrived, and had a good look at him before Isobel cuddled him in her arms. So within one year I had graduated, married, been ordained, started my ministry and became a father. I still can’t quite understand how that all happened in such a short space of time, but it seems that we took it in our stride, as though it was perfectly normal. We got on with what had to be done; Isobel far more than I in the parenting arena, aided by Benjamin Spock’s now discredited guide to child-rearing. Isobel’s sister, Elsie, who became a boarder at Epworth Girls School in Pietermaritzburg following their mother’s death, often spent weekends with us and helped to look after Steve. Athanasius, our mongrel dog named after the fourth-century Orthodox bishop of Alexandria, made up the family complement.
I soon became involved in the regional affairs of the denomination, and got to know some of the congregations in Durban and elsewhere around Natal. I was appointed convenor of youth work, and organised several camps and conferences. Most memorably, I was a delegate to the Natal Congress, a week-long gathering in Pietermaritzburg, organised by the Liberal Party of which Alan Paton, Peter Brown and Archie Gumede were the leading figures. The congress was intended for the discussion of opposition to apartheid in the province, and the delegates did so with a defiance and
