It is always valuable to hear stories from our Old Boys, of the memories they have, where life led them and how what they experienced during their time at St Charles College, has impacted their lives.
Antoni Louw, who Matriculated from St Charles College in 1971, shared the following with us:
My name is Antoni Louw – an Old Boy of the Matriculation class of 1971, now living in the state of Arizona, USA, yet still a very proud South African and even prouder graduate of St Charles College.
I was in boarding school for the last two years of my High School education, having spent the previous four at your sister school at the time, St Henry’s in Durban, which had the best tuck shop south of the Nile.
I was not the most diligent student, but I loved the school, the rugby team which I faithfully served, and the brothers whose dedication and insistence on striving towards excellence served me well later in life.
I ended up as the CEO of my own international training and consulting company (now in its fourth decade of operation) – The Louws Group – and I’d venture to guess, to the great surprise of most of my teachers.
I matriculated with an O pass, excluding me from attending university. However, I spent the next four months getting my act together, studying, and rewriting the finals to obtain an A pass. Then, in July of 1972, I went off to serve in the South African Navy.
I believe my favourite memories while at St Charles revolve around the sense of camaraderie we had as boarders and as members of the rugby team (attached are the only two pictures my parents took of me playing at St Charles – one as the kicker and one in the lineout, playing either #5 or #8).
When away teams played us on our turf or when we were away in Gauteng on tour, it was a matter of pride and dedication that kept us in the game.
Although we had far fewer students to choose from compared to most of our competing schools, we were always in the hunt and many times bested teams we had no “right” to best, especially the local Hilton and Voortrekker Colleges.
Weekends were inevitably action-packed. If not engaged in scheduled sports, almost all the boarders did something sports related. My favourite was the impromptu soccer games played in our uniforms (parents could never understand why our shoes wore out so quickly).
There are many more memories I can share; however, I will not bore you with a plethora of mine. Going down memory lane some five decades later was a delightful way to spend the afternoon.
I faithfully follow the Saints Weekly Newsletter with great interest and pride to see what St Charles College has become after so many years in the service of educating our next generations. – Mr Antoni Louw (Class of 1971)