Deon Engelke, deputy head boy in 1990

Deon lives in Port Elizabeth with his wife, a primary school teacher, and their two daughters Kirstie (16) and Jamie-Lee (13) - both of whom will soon be at Collegiate Girls' High School.

He has worked as a journalist and Corporate Communications Manager and now owns a share of a small marketing company there.

I was chatting to an Oxford graduate who completed a degree in Latin and French and he tells me that graduates of those classes are traditionally the most sought after from corporate head-hunters. This apparently has something to do with the fact that Latin teachers know how to construct and deconstruct; analyse and reason.... who would have thought???

On reflection and as sycophantic as this may sound, I believe my life course was forged in the cramped single desks of Latin classes under Keith Richardson, assemblies in the Clegg Hall and the communal Wynberg experience.

A low 'C' in matric also had a little to do with it. Ok...alot!, .... as did a growing faith in God, inspired by a class-mate who organised me a stunning matric dance date on the condition that I met her at his church.

That incident transformed my life - not the stunning date, but the God she knew and whom I learnt to know.

After the matric break, I caught an Intercape bus to Port Elizabeth; where by brother Paul (1984) had decided to study (the sea and a high D dictated) and arrived without a place to stay and no money to pay for my studies. Bus money (the exact amount!) came in an envelope by post the day of my departure from a guy I had done voluntary work for those holidays!

A Clegg bursary from Wynberg Boys, a university student loan eventually secured, and jobs that I picked up while studying enabled me to live a "normal" student life.

Three years later after finishing a basic BA degree at the NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) I walked into the wrong office and applied for a job that was not advertised at a company - or was even a company I regard as a potential employer. I got the job! It helped that my late father, Herbert, who left Wynberg when he was in Grade 10, was school friends with the Editor!

I am not going to bore you old boys' with all the threads of faith and Wynberg in my life, there have been many, as there have been trials, but Wynberg remains a core part of who I am.

Where my family life lacked "family" - my school friends and theirs stood in.
Where my home life lacked structure - Wynberg gave it.
Where I lacked direction - Wynberg had an expectation of me to be "successful".
When I didn't have a matric dance date - my buddies provided.

We didn't have money to pay for school fees, buy new rugby boots or even to join the Old Boys Union. Wynberg picked up the cost and never made me feel like an HDI. Quite literally then-coach Kallie Pretorius organised boots for me and an "unnamed benefactor" paid for my WOBU tie and membership! Christian activities at the school and the freedom to practice religion (although I was disrespectful of it at the time) has shaped me more than any single other thing.

I am a product of Wynberg - where things like Keith Richardson insisting that unscheduled Latin classes continue on the last day of Grade 11 - seemed bizarre and unimportant... until I got chatting to this guy from Oxford... SUPERA MORAS MAKES US ONE!