This was written by Katherine for a school reunion. Katherine Mallows. Dunt – Dunne – May - Horne – Robertson - van der Merwe – Turner (and how about you?) Junior school was a nightmare of bullying from teachers and classmates from which I quickly recovered on entering Standard 6 where I spent three years having fun, developing the social and exploring the spiritual side of SA teenage life with my chosen clique of friends (much to my Mother's chagrin at PTA meetings). Bowles - Zeeman - Cartwright. The last two years I did work a bit so as to get to university. Took a degree in Music at UCT, a couple of post-grad diplomas in Librarianship and studied some Arts subjects too, going on to finish a BA with UNISA in English and Philosophy. My first job was as Music Librarian at Wynberg Library where I saved up to go overseas. Came on a cargo boat to London in 1977 and had to do my Librarianship qualification all over again because SA was non grata at the time. Living almost penniless in London, I managed to learn some French and German and go to four concerts a week as compensation. Resulting UK jobs as a Music Librarian in Harrow, north London and Barking, east London saw me through the next eight years. Then I started out in the media, doing information work for newspaper and TV companies. At home, I had shared a flat with a bunch of crazy ex-UCT music students who gradually dispersed, leaving just two of us in London: me and the opera singer. She found her leading man and had three delightful children that she and I brought up whilst he travelled the world in order to provide. After five heavenly years of that (and working in north London for a Library Systems Supplier), the family emigrated to the USA. Broken-hearted, I left my job and trained as an English teacher, taking up a job in western Germany in 1997 and living with an old friend whom I had met in the EU Partner City Exchange Scheme. Then I got a professional job in Berlin working for another major Library Systems Supplier where I stayed for nearly five years. Those were the best of times and I was very sorry to have to leave when the company down-sized and closed the Berlin branch. I returned to England, this time to contract work in Yorkshire, later taking a permanent post at the British Library at Boston Spa, which lies between Leeds, Harrogate and York in the most beautiful county of them all. I love the walks in the countryside, the wanders on the beach and the drives over the moors. My grandmother came from around here and perhaps that accounts for me being able to settle here quite well. I still long for the life in Weltstadt Berlin and enjoy keeping up my German language skills with friends over there and also here, when I can find them, as well as translations for academic friends who publish in English journals. There are a few people in my life whom I met at school and still keep in contact with and whose friendship I truly cherish. Things have changed so much in Cape Town since I was brought up and lived there, that bringing the two together in my thoughts is peculiarly complex. I hope one day to be reconciled with the difficult experiences of being a daughter-in-exile, and to bring to the fore memories of my childhood and youth, spent on the slopes of the mountain, beneath the shade of the peak. We all know something about what being Rustibugs has meant – it’s a mark of character, a continual striving, a sense of responsibility, strength under pressure – so I'm glad I was sent there and made it through. They nurtured us well in a difficult situation and offered us a rich experience in those years we spent together. Man, I can still picture every girl at every desk in E1 and I bet everyone else can too whichever classroom they were in. I'm admiring of what everyone has achieved and just madly interested to hear about how life carries on in Cape Town, in South Africa, as well in the corners of foreign fields that have become home to Rustibugs of 1971. So I'll raise a Yorkshire pint and say "here's to us who's like us"! Kago