This former British Army base has become one of the country's main cultural and educational centres, and is also well-known as the site of the first newspaper and hotel in South Africa. Have a look at the city's official site. This is where I made the necessary payments into the relevant accounts and became a member of that August body known as Rhodents, or students of Rhodes University.  I was there for 6 years, wrapping up a B.A in English and History, followed by a postgrad thingie in International Studies and then an M.A in the same which I never got around to completing. Back then, I was keen on getting into the Foreign Service. Trouble was, I was sidetracked by some other fairly notable considerations. 

>> Didn't we look 'nice'! This was our first real dinner and dance occasion, and it was a Hall Ball if I remember correctly. 

They kept seeing me looming in the background whenever there was a political rally or a march or an anti-government speaker, and labelled me as some sort of agitator. They failed to click that I was always at these things simply because I was looking after the public address systems which the organisers had hired from us at the campus radio station we were running. Duh! 

Adamson House was a former women's residence which had been converted to be used by male students. This basically involved removing all the pretty decorations from the bathrooms and nailing the loo seats into an 'always raised' position. Apart from that, it was fine. No sinks in the rooms but we did have whatever else fell under the category of 'creature comforts'.  A bed, a chair, a desk, a wardrobe and a lockable door. The rest was up to us. Taking the interior decorating bull by the horns, I got busy and soon had my place looking like - erm - something else. Notice the bar heater glowing quietly to itself at the bottom right? This indicates two things: one, that it was Winter and two, that we'd run out of bread otherwise we'd've been toasting some on top of the heater!

A few months after meeting Laetitia, we shot this pic on a weekend away with a large group of friends in the nearest coastal resort, Port Alfred. It was my birthday and we were a happy bunch with a whole group of current and future radio and music people - and an attempted murderer! True! Someone in this group got very angry with the person taking the pic and later tried to shorten vital bits with a fishing knife. Some significant input was required on my part to rescue the situation, but all ended happily - this time.

A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK? A few years passed. Laetitia and I went to Europe and I returned in 1989. Laetitia had by now finished 'Varsity and had started working life in Grahamstown. She was in West Street (just a few metres up the road from the Cathcart Arms, South Africa's oldest hotel). This pic was taken in her lounge, and we used it to scare people, telling them that 'we'd become parents but that the new kid's appearance was causing us some concern' (it was actually our housekeeper Diana's baby).

Come 1990, I'd adopted a much more 'low-maintenance' style - shaven! I'd gone for the cut during the National DJ Championships and the look stuck. Here I am in 1990 with Chicago-bred friend Kevin O'Neil and Nikki Evans, both DJs with RMR. This was during the year that Laetitia and I had gone our separate ways, still involved but not together...It's a long story

So it was goodbye to a remarkable six years in Grahamstown, and now East London was to be home for the next four...