The Legend of the Doctor    Part the Fourth


Chapter 8


Grade 12

Science Week

During the mid-year vacation of Grade 12, I was invited to Johannesburg for a winter holiday: a seven-day excursion to the big smoke.  The invite was the consequence of an unexpected success in the National Youth Science Olympiad.  Every year, many hapless victims from multiple schools across the land had a stab at the Science Olympiad, sitting through this onerous exam often under duress.
When the results were published, I had, to everyone’s surprise, including my own, managed to squeeze in to a place among the top one hundred students.  One other classmate had managed a top one hundred place.  This second successful candidate, Stephen, was well-known for his superior scientific, so we had all had expected Stephen to do well.   However, I was usually viewed as being an unfocussed and disorganized day-dreamer, thus it was felt by many that I was an imposter in the top one hundred, and that my result had most likely been the result of a mistake.
By whatever means it had come to be, Stephen and I duly received invitations to Science Week – an educational holiday, hosted at the University of the Witwatersrand; a week that enriched with a variety of scientific ingredients: workshops, excursions, lectures, movies, and, of course, entertainments.
There was a small crowd of fellow Science Week inmates on board the overnight train which carried us to Johannesburg.  One of the occupants of my compartment had achieved third place in the exam.  This bright fellow was a youngster, just fifteen years old, and unlike nearly all the other top one hundred candidates who were Matric scholars, he was only in Grade 10.  When I arrived, this tiny lad was already snuggled down in a sleeping bag, peering through large round spectacles into the pages of a substantial purple book.  The cover of the book displayed a twisted golden three dimensional triangle.  The title of the tome was ‘Gerdel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid’. 
“That looks like a complex book,” I remarked.
“Not really”, he replied, looking earnest, as he blinked up at me through his specs.  “I just brought it along for some bedtime reading.”
In Johannesburg we were royally entertained, with trips to an eclectic collection of fun and interesting places, lectures from highly rated scientists, and scientific presentations from some of the more enthusiastic students themselves.
These student lectures were optional: we had been requested to do short presentations on any scientific topic, should we be so inclined. For the life of me, I couldn’t think why anyone would want voluntarily to do a whole lot of extra work, just so they could put themselves on display before a group of one hundred student boffins, and a small crowd of knowledgeable scientists.
One presentation still stands out in my mind.  This was given by a student who had an interest in a cure for cancer.  He had researched a substance called Laetrile or Amygdalin, which is obtained from the kernels of the prunus species – apricots, peaches, plums etc.  It seems Laetrile was being researched as treatment for cancer.  The talk was well presented and interesting, but what was more interesting was the response of the scientists in the audience, to this presentation by the seventeen-year old enthusiast.
The atmosphere in the room had changed during the presentation, from one of encouragement and interest, which had greeted all the young presenters so far, to one of consternation, and then to open hostility.  By the end of the talk, when it was time for questions and comments from the floor, there was a violent outburst from several of the learned, bearded and bespectacled gentlemen.  It seems that Laetrile was a controversial topic, and was in fact a banned substance.  This was an interesting paradox as it seemed, from the research presented, that this novel drug may yet prove an effective cure for certain cancers (later I came to wonder if this may have been the reason Laetrile had been made illegal).
The scientists, who to a man seemed wholly in favour of the ban on Laetrile, maintained that it was a toxic chemical.  Apparently its molecular structure contains a cyanide molecule – which, it turns out, is the effective bit when it comes to treating cancer.  The presence of the cyanide molecule gives rise to the fear of Laetrile, as cyanide is obviously potentially very toxic.  However, the fury of the attack on the presenter surprised me, as he had laid out what appeared to be a substantial set of data supporting the use of Laetrile, and warranting further research on it for the treatment of cancer.
The scientists nonetheless tore into the presentation, ripping it apart with a vehemence which was unprecedented that week, leaving the poor presenter almost in tears.  The student was given last place in the results of the presentation competition.  I couldn’t understand at the time why this subject had produced such an emotional response from the scientists – people I had viewed up until then as being rational, unemotional, and driven by facts only.
It was not until many years later, that I could look back and see that science, even back then, had already turned away from being a process of discovery, to being a set of beliefs, theories, and modes of thought.  Challenging the prevailing paradigm was simply not allowed.  In other words, science was no longer scientific, it had become a kind of religion.  Today this still almost ubiquitous variety of science, is sometimes referred as ‘scientism’.
 

Chapter 9


Matric exams

After a seemingly interminable twelve school years, the Matriculation examinations were finally upon us. We had been released from the prison of daily formal school attendance, due back inside the boring buildings but intermittently in the near future to sit the exams.  I was looking forward enthusiastically to a life without school.
 
Our school principal,  Desmond .C. Thomson Esquire, or “Spike”, as he was known to all, had been headmaster more or less forever.  In his time he had turned our school into a polished academic institution and an accomplished sports academy, producing the region’s best academic results, and a series of almost unbeatable rugby and cricket teams.  The Spike dynasty had produced a school in which nobody failed Matric exams, ever.  Of course, the school's clever policy of excluding grade eleven pupils from entering the Matric year if they showed even the slightest sign of being unable to pass the final exams was not widely known.  However, it was a ‘successful’ policy as it ensured that my alma mater enjoyed a revered reputation: zero Matric failures, permanently. 
 
As the exams approached there was increasing apprehension among the teachers.  It was Spike’s last year at the school before retirement, so it was necessary to pull out all the stops.  In order to construct a glorious send off, the teachers conspired together to have their charges achieve the highest Matric results our already high-achieving school had ever obtained.  This process had gone on for two years – we had been grilled repeatedly on exam technique and mark hunting since the beginning of grade eleven.  The knowledge of the world imparted by this process was desperately deficient, and without any depth.  We were, however, specialists in mark hunting, our minds honed over months to reflexively produce razor-sharp, rapid responses.  We had become adept at answering any exm question specifically to satisfy exam markers.  The only goal was to be awarded the highest exam marks possible.  We had become the S.W.A.T. team of schoolboy academia.
 
Most of us were looking for at least five A symbols out of seven Matric subjects.  My own expected outcome: ‘A’ symbols for Mathematics, Physical Science, Biology, Latin and Additional Mathematics, a ‘B’ symbol for English and an ‘E’ for Afrikaans, were more or less a foregone conclusion.  Growing up in the coastal post-colonial, largely Englsih-speaking city of Durban, we were socially and politically prejudiced against Afrikaans.  (In fact, we were socially and politically prejudiced against anything that wasn't a white anglosaxon male protestant - the infamous wasp) .  Afrikaans was offered as a second language only because it was a legal requirement of the government of the day, who were deperately trying to convert the countries citizens into a patriotic Afrikaans-loving homogenous unity.  We therefore regarded Afrikaans as an idiotic thing to study - hence our disinterest in even trying to obtain a halfway decent mark for it.  As long as we obtained a pass (E or higher), we would still receive a Matrculation Exemption.
 
My only fear of the Matric Exams was oversleeping and missing an exam.  I was not an early riser, and tended to be quite sleepy in the mornings (and often in the afternoons).  To offset this I arranged a set of backup early morning arousal methods.  First, was my alarm clock, next to my bed.  I had also a second alarm clock, set for five minutes later than the first, and positioned on the other side of the bedroom.  Then there was my very good friend John.  John always stopped by for breakfast on his way to school.  After breakfast the two of us would proceed in company to school on foot.  If John found me still abed, he was adept at flinging off the covers and hauling me forth bodily from my slumbers. Lastly, for the days when John was not writing the same exams that I was, my friend Michael, who was also very efficient and an early riser, agreed to assist: in the event that Michael discovered I wasn’t at the exam venue fifteen minutes before the exam starting time, he would alert Spike's secretary, who would telephone me to rouse me from my slumbers.
 
As a result of these procedures I made it to nearly all my exams on time.  I arrived late only for Biology and Latin.  John didn’t do Biology or Latin – he was a History and Music student.  This meant that he did not come for breakfast on the mornings of the Biology and Latin exams.  As I slept through my two alarm clocks, it was left to Michael to sound the alert when he discovered that I had failed to arrive timeously.
 
For each of the exams for Latin and Biology, I had woken with a start at the sound of the telephone ringing.  It had then been a mad rush to school to avoid missing the exam altogether, leaving not even sufficient time for a cup of coffee, never mind a bit of breakfast. 
 
When the final exam results were published, the school teachers congratulated themselves on achieving their goal.  There were twenty-five boys in the A-stream of our Matric year.  Twenty-one achieved A symbols for Physical Science and Mathematics, nineteen achieved A symbols for History, and twenty-three achieved A aggregates.  These were indeed the highest Matric results our school had ever produced.  Spike floated into retirement on a stream of accolades, confirmed in the knowledge that his school was the best that ever there was.
 
My own results were rather more pathetic (and a lot lower than the grades I usually achieved at school): A symbols for Mathematics and Physical Science, that was okay, a pathetic sprinkling of B symbols for Latin, Biology and English, a catastrophic C for Additional Mathematics, and an incongruously higher than expected D for Afrikaans. 
 
The Add-maths was the only one that was awful but not entirely a surprise.  I and a few of my colleagues had, after writing the exam, expected the low Add-maths results.  In our quest to achieve as close to 100% in each subject, we had spent much time preparing for the exam by completing numerous past papers from the examinations set in previous years.  Each of these papers showed a predictable repetitive style, with the same mathematical problems being offered, disguised a little by a few small changes here and there in the data provided for each question.  These differences in the figures did not altered the mathematical methods required for the calculations in the least.  By the time we came to sit our own exam, we well knew what to expect, and how to answer all the problems we were likely to face.
 
The Add-maths examiner, however, had, apparently, developed a sense of humour before setting the exam paper in our year.  In order, no doubt, to challenge our intellectual abilities, as opposed to ascertaining the number of times we had previously answered the same questions, this sneaky examiner had subtly altered one of the major questions (the answer to which was worth over one third of the all-important marks we were seeking).  The examiner had chosen to omit crucial bits of data from this particular question.  The glaring lack of information meant that a whole extra set of complex mathematics would be required to supply the mssing data – stuff that had not been in any of the previous exam papers which we had so rigourously completed. 
 
I can still remember the shock and awe I felt while sitting in the examination hall as we read through the question paper prior to the start of the exam.  'But, but,' spluttered my unruly thoughts, panic and pandemonium setting fire to my neurons, 'where is the value of X or the value of Y,' or whatever critical information had been left unsupplied.  The examiner had always given these values in the past, but on the question paper before me they were nowhere to be found.  I searched through all the questions, turned the pages over, scrutinising the blank backs of the typed sheets, hunting desperately for the crucial, but defintitely absent information.
 
Like most of us, I had thought, until then, that this examination would be a routine matter and would be completed with ease.  I looked around and could perceive the rising consternation on the faces of my colleagues as they too read the questions and searched frantically but in vain for the absent data.  A few panicky individuals could be seen, like me, turning their question papers over and searching on the back for the missing value.  Christoff, the class clown, and an enterprising as well as entertaining individual, was bending over and scrabbling around in an apparently frantic search of the floor beneath his desk.     
 
This little scheme highlighted nicely the deficiencies both in my intellect, and in the ‘education’ we had received at our high-achieving school.  Owing to the absence of the crucial data, I was not capable of the lateral thinking required to solve the problem in the time alotted for the exam, and hence I was not able to provide a solution.  Many of us had come to depend on a routine supply of expected data in the calculation of answers to exam questions. We could not work out a method to obtain the data ourselves.  
 
In mitigation, it must be stated that, with that major question not answered, the catastrophic loss of marks meant that correct answers were required for all the other problems in the exam, just to obtain a C symbol for the paper.  Thankfully the other more routine questions posed little threat, so I managed a C, and with that I had to be satisfied.
 
My B symbols for Latin and Biology were a nasty surprise.  I usually came near the top of the form in Biology, and always received an A for Latin.  Getting B symbols for these two subjects was a blow to my self-esteem. 
 
I was determined that there must have been a clerical error that had resulted in these two shockingly low marks.  I therefore applied for re-marks of both of these examination papers.  The remarks cost money, but this would be refunded if an error was discovered and one’s marks were raised as result. 
 
I lost my money.
 
I consulted with Spinge, my erstwhile Biology master.  I was usually in Spinge’s good books as a result of my enthusiasm for Biology.  He too had been expecting a routine A from me, in keeping with the school’s quest for high marks – particularly this year of course.  The different school departments had developed a competitive spirit among themselves and an ‘A’ lost meant one less chance of a teacher achieving the most subject A’s for their subject. 
 
Spinge was furious with me.  He obviously already knew of my mark from the look on his face when we met.  In his traditional method of expressing anger, Spinge grabbed me by the shirt front and tie and pulled my face close to his. 
 
“You!” he exclaimed in a furious whisper, “you are such an arsehole.” 
 
This much I kind of felt already, and wasn’t surprised by Spinge’s anger. 
 
“Do you know what you did?” he asked vehemently.
 
“Well, I missed an A, Sir”, I replied, “but I don’t know why,” I added quickly, hopeful of distracting Spinge sufficiently to prevent him straggling once again me with my tie.
  
I had answered the questions in the exam paper more than comprehensively from my wide reading of Biology textbooks and the more comprehensive reference books found in the school library.  I had quoted from and referenced the different works and even highlighted discrepancies between them.  Most pupils answered the questions from their classroom lesson notes only, so I felt sure that the extra information I had supplied should have stood me in good stead.
 
“I tracked down your answer paper, in the exam marking pool”, continued Spinge in a tone fraught with tension.  “They don’t normally let teachers look at their own pupil’s papers, but I insisted.  I couldn’t believe that you had got less than 100%, never mind a B!”  His tone became a little less tense as he continued.  “I read your answers and, I must say, I was impressed.  I would have given you 110% for that paper.”
 
“Uh, then, um, what went wrong?” I asked, confused by this information, but gratified at the effort Spinge had expended in his quest for an explanation.
 
“What happened?” said Spinge, regaining his furious hissing tone.  “What happened was that your handwriting was so untidy, the examiner couldn’t read it!  Pages and pages of your answer book, or rather books - you do seem to have rambled on quite a bit - had been crossed out, a line of red pen diagonally across each page.  Zero marks for all of those pages full of your unreadable scrawl.  The examiner wrote one word at the end of your answer book: ‘illegible’.” 
 
He let the awful reality of what had happened sink into my brain in silence.
 
Then he added with a pained expression, “Why did you do that, after all the past exam papers we went through, after all the coaching, why?”
 
The Latin exam had probably suffered the same fate as was confirmed by the sad face of the Latin teacher, whom I met shortly after seeing Spinge. 
 
“Oh dear,” she mumbled sadly, in the gentle way that she had.  “I’m so sorry, but you really did yourself a disservice rushing the exam like that.” 
 
Like the Biology teacher, she had tracked down my exam paper and had been more than satisfied with my answers.  There was nothing she could do however about the page after page of diagonal red lines indicating that these pages were illegible and therefore had not been read by the examiner, each page achieving zero marks.
 
Consternation, despair, frustration, irritation, disappointment, all these and more I felt, briefly. Pathetic, I thought.  My teachers had, over the years, learned to decipher my practically illegible scrawl which rolled across the pages whenever I applied pen to paper.  It had not occurred to me that even my sincerest attempt at producing legible script in the examination would be thrown out, as it no doubt deserved.  Although I fretted not for any great length of time, this minor academic earth tremor nearly proved a near-fatal stumbling block to my best laid plans for the following year….

Chapter 10
 
Scraping Into Medical School
 
It was a close-run thing, but, at the age of seventeen I squeezed my way through the hallowed, well-guarded portals of the Illustrious Medical School, the IMS.  Later, I came to understand that securing admission to medical school is, in fact, one of the most challenging aspects of becoming a medical practitioner.
 
***
 
“What are your plans for next year?”
 
This was the popular question bandied around by those of us in our last year of school, asked by classmates and teachers alike.
 
I had always had only a meagre interest in making plans, but for once in my life I knew what I was going to be doing, in fact I had known for a very long time.  I’d always had an aspiration to enter the world of healthcare, to become a family physician.
 
The question arose again during a lunch break, which had seen John, Richard, and I earnestly discussing our futures. 
 
“I’m going to Medical School,” I had offered.  Both Richard and John seemed astonished.  John and Richard were my two closest friends at school.  They looked at me wide-eyed, and exclaimed in unison, “You’re what?”
 
I was surprised by their reaction.  Becoming a medical practitioner wasn’t something I had regarded as a major undertaking: it was just something I was going to do.  Naïve as I was, I had never really thought about the challenges involved. 
 
In my experience, the medical practitioners I had encountered had been friendly, gentle souls, whose care and attention had helped to relieve the uncomfortable and symptoms I had experienced during my sickly congested childhood. 
 
I came round from these ethereal thoughts to find Richard and John still staring at me, their faces expressing a medley of surprise, pity, and consternation.  I might have just announced that I was going to be the next president, or the first person to land on Mars.
 
“You will never get into Medical School,” said John finally. “You have to be really intelligent to be accepted.”
 
“Oh?” I said, raising my eyebrows in mild confusion at this unforeseen difficulty.  I hadn’t realised until then that being accepted into a medical school was a lofty aim
 
“Um, but it’s just medicine you know,” I added hesitantly. “It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything.”
 
“Yeah,” said Richard, who was nicknamed ‘Richie the Rocket Scientist’, “but getting into a med school could be a considerable challenge. I’ve heard they all receive about five thousand applications for each of the available places.”
 
“Oh?  Well, whatever,” I grunted, feeling uncomfortable.   I hadn’t considered that there might be insurmountable barriers which would prevent me from following the only predetermined pathway I had ever considered.  Richard, John, and I usually came near the top of the class, and that class was in a school which had a formidable reputation for academic excellence.  It had never occurred to me that I may have been academically inadequate to be accepted into a medical school.
 
“Have you applied to any medical schools yet?” asked John.
 
“Uh, no,” I replied vaguely, “it’s only May – there’s plenty of time.”
 
“What!” said John, “You better get a moving.  By now everyone else applying will have handed in their applications to multiple universities.”
 
“Oh,” I mumbled self-consciously, “I was going to apply towards the end of the year.”
 
“What?” said John again.  “After the closing dates?”
 
“Perhaps you had better send off a few application letters; it would be a good plan to do it sooner, rather than later,” said Richard, a tad more gently.
 
That night, seated at the dining room table, taking great pains to produce legible script, I wrote letters of application to each of the available medical schools, five in all.  There were two further universities from which I was precluded: in those dark days of apartheid, attendance at either of these two particular medical schools was reserved exclusively for Black African students.
 
I duly received five sets of replies by post, each bristling with colourful, multipage application forms.  Three of these I binned immediately, as they were in Afrikaans, and were from universities which taught in the language of Afrikaans. I had been raised in the stolidly monolingual, English colonial culture of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, where Afrikaans was generally regarded linguistically inferior.  I couldn’t understand Afrikaans, nor use it to express anything intelligible, despite ten years of compulsory study of the language at school.   This left only two possible medical schools: the August Medical School (AMS) in Cape Town and, the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
 
I completed the two sets of application forms, doing my best to neatly fit letters into the little blocks on each of the pages.  However, as I find form-filling tedious, I completed the task as rapidly as possible in, what I later came to realize, was a somewhat cursory fashion.
 
I mailed the completed application forms to the AMS the next afternoon.  I retained the documents for Wits however.  I had a trip to Johannesburg coming up shortly so I would be able to deliver these in person.
 
The following week in Johannesburg, I duly located the University of the Witwatersrand.  After wondering around the enormous campus for some time, I was forced to enquire after the whereabouts of the elusive Faculty of Health Sciences.  After a bit of searching, I located the whereabouts of the Faculty, on its own campus, some distance away.
 
The Wits Faculty of Health Sciences seemed to consist of a solitary enormous, grey concrete building.  Entirely devoid of warmth and personality, it appeared more an industrial building, than one that would house an academic facility.  Once inside the multi-storey monolith, I wended my way through its long shiny corridors, uncomfortable in the increasingly closed-in atmosphere.  The deeper into the building I meandered, the more unpleasantly claustrophobic I felt.
 
By the time I arrived, eventually, at the door marked ‘Applications and Admissions’, I had begun to feel entombed, the sensation heightened by the narrow, low-ceilinged corridor devoid of windows.  After standing outside the door for a moment of deliberation, I turned round, and headed for the exit.  With relief I stepped outside, under the bright, crisp winter sky.  I ambled slowly back to my lodgings, deep in thought.  Halfway home, having concluded my silent deliberations, I tore the Wits application form slowly into pieces. I held out the fragments between thumb and forefinger over a roadside litterbin, and then watched as the torn papers slid down into the depths of the concrete drum.
 
I remember thinking at the time that this was probably not a good idea, but I couldn’t see myself spending the next six years of my life imprisoned inside that building.
 
The foolhardiness of this action was brought home to me near the end of the year when I received from the AMS, a short polite letter informing me that they were regretfully unable to offer me a place.
 
This was my first experience of ‘failure’, which made the rejection seem devastating.  It also presented a seemingly insurmountable barrier to my plans.  I had to study medicine in order to become a medical practitioner.  This was something that was part of me -  there was simply no other choice. I had never had any great or overwhelming desires, but I had always seemed to receive the little I had wanted out of life – without much conscious effort being required on my part.  Being prevented from studying medicine was, therefore, an impossible concept, something I couldn’t fully comprehend.
 
I had, however, always regarded myself as open-minded, so when, on that same fateful day, I received a second important letter, I had to read it several times and give what it offered some deep thought. This second letter was from the national government’s Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.  It contained an offer of a generous scholarship, one which would provide a wealth of material benefits to me while at university – paying all the costs of a four-year degree, with the only proviso that I would register of Bachelor of Science and elect to read botany.  After further pondering, I began to think that maybe I had been mistaken after all, deluded about this medical school thing, and that studying botany may be my calling after all.
 
The timing of the arrival of this offer made it seem like some kind of consolation prize, or some sort of sign from the gods. The scholarship offered to cover all my costs, including university tuition fees, board and lodging costs, text book allowance, airline travel home twice a year, paid vacation employment while studying, and guaranteed employment on graduating. It all seemed rather too good to be true. 
 
Whatever degree I chose, I would be covering my own costs: my parents had been very happy for me to go to university and study whatever I liked, with the understanding though, that regardless of my career choice, they would not be contributing to my university expenses, and I would therefore be responsible for all costs incurred.  I looked carefully through the scholarship documents again, and made up my mind: I would apply to study botany.  The offer of so much material assistance was difficult to refuse.
 
The following day John came over to visit. We spent the better part of the day lounging round the pool in the sweltering summer heat, sipping ice cold drinks.  I mentioned my change of career path, the rejection by the AMS, and the offer of the scholarship from the forestry department.
“Seems like you were right,” I said, still feeling a little dejected.  “It looks like I won’t be going to medical school after all.  Anyway, maybe botany will be okay.  At least all the costs will be covered.”
 
“What!” exploded John, sitting up rapidly. “But this is ridiculous. There is no reason why they should reject your application,” he continued, neatly contradicting his original opinion of a few months back.  “And anyway,” he added, “you have had a lifelong intention to become a doctor; you cannot simply change tack just because you have received a letter of rejection from one university.  One of the other medical schools will give you a place”
“Um,” I replied hesitantly, feeling incredibly idiotic at this point. “Well, you see,” I stammered, “I applied only to the AMS.”
 
There was a momentary silence as John digested this startling piece of information, his head tilted a little to the side, his eyes looking sideways at me, his frowning look of consternation making me feel more stupid and self-conscious than ever.
 
“You did what?” he asked eventually, his voice quiet, as he shook his head slightly and puckering his eyebrows in confusion. 
 
I stared glumly back at John.
 
“You applied to the AMS only? But, why?”
 
“Well,” I explained sheepishly, averting my gaze from the astonished looked on John’s face, “uh, three of them teach in Afrikaans.”
 
“And Wits?” enquired John, raising his eyebrows, waiting to hear what could possibly be wrong with Wits.
 
“Well, um,” I explained, feeling very foolish now, “I didn’t, really, like, uh, like the look of Wits.”
 
There was more silence.  John looked slightly dazed now. After a bit he shook his head, as if to clear it of a foggy buildup.
 
“You - didn’t - like - the - look - of Wits?” he repeated slowly, emphasizing each word as if with ever-heightening incredulity.  He shook his head in disbelief.  “So you simply didn’t apply there? And you didn’t apply at Stellenbosch because it’s, Afrikaans?” The questioning intonation was unmistakable.  John’s incredulous expression seemed to grow sad as he continued slowly shaking his head in disbelief.
 
“That’s right,” I confirmed, “and UOFS and Pretoria.”
 
There was more silence as John, looking at the ground, digested this news.
 
“Well,” he said eventually, “I have never heard of such a thing.”
 
After another thoughtful pause, John continued, his tone now efficient and matter-of-fact.
 
“There’s only one thing to be done then. We will have to find out why your application was rejected.”
 
“Oh, I know why,” I said dejectedly, “it’ll be because of my exam results. I got two ‘A’s only.”
 
“But the rest of your marks were near misses,” he replied, referring to the string of B-symbols adorning my certificate.  “And you got an A aggregate,” he continued, as though that proved his point
 
“Well,” I asked doubtfully, “how would we find out what other things they also may not have liked about me.”
 
“Phone them of course!” John exclaimed. “And ask them.”
 
“Oh,” I said doubtfully. “Uh, OK, that might work.”
 
That afternoon I was standing in the hall, trying to pluck up the courage to call the AMS.  My responsible adult, Mother-Dear, indomitable and alarmingly eccentric, came in and saw me staring at the telephone.
 
“Waiting for an important call are we?” she enquired, no doubt assuming that it would have to do with a girl.
 
“No,” I grinned bleakly, “not this time. I want to phone and find out why the AMS rejected me.”
 
“Well then, pick up the telephone, and phone them.”
 
“But it’s scary,” I replied.
“Oh nonsense,” Mother-Dear remarked, and with a mischievous grin and the usual twinkle in her eyes, she grabbed the telephone receiver. “What’s the number?” she demanded abruptly.
 
I read out the phone number from the letter languishing in my hand.
 
The telephone emitted its familiar continuous clicks as Mother-Dear dialed the number.
 
“Hello,” she said into the mouthpiece after waiting a short while. “I would like to speak to someone about admissions please.”  After a pause, she continued haughtily, “My son’s application has been rejected and I would like to know why.”
 
It turned out that the woman on the phone was a member of the selection committee and was able to describe in detail the reason that my application had been unsuccessful.  Mother-Dear had a prolonged conversation with her, and then terminated the call.
 
“Your son,” mimicked Toppins, once she had replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, “has adequate academic achievement to be awarded a place at our medical school.  However, his extramural activities, which account for 25% of his admission credits, are woefully insufficient. We do not allow unbalanced academic recluses to study medicine as, in practice, medicine requires social interaction.  Purely academically minded individuals frequently find this difficult.  May I suggest that your son applies to study a pure science more suited to his possibly reclusive academic character and personality.”
 
She stared at me in total incomprehension, and then burst out laughing. 
 
“Reclusive?  Academic?  You?”   aid Mother-Dear, giggling at the thought.  “Ha, if only.”
 
On the phone Mother-Dear had tried to inform the woman that her son had spent exponentially more time engaged in extramural activities and social interactions, than he had ever devoted to his academic career.
 
“Not according to his application form,” she had been informed. 
According to my cursorily completed application form, I had participated in only one extramural activity while at school: ‘second team basketball’. This was hardly sufficient, according to the woman on the phone, to indicate a nicely well rounded personality. I may be well rounded, but perhaps more in person, than in personality.
 
It was true, that I had not regarded the ‘extramural’ section of the application form as particularly important. In fact, to me, it had seemed a trifle irrelevant, so, under the that part of the form which had instructed “Please list and describe any extramural or sporting activities in which you participate,” I had scrawled simply ‘second team basketball’ and left it at that.
 
“So,” said Mother-Dear to me, “it seems that your inability to expound and boast about yourself has counted against you. The lady on the phone said that most applicants complete three pages of closely typed annexures to the application form, describing all the wonderful activities they performed while at school. The admissions people assume that everyone is exaggerating to add gloss to their applications, so they regard only about half of the information as being true.  This one form represents twenty-five percent of your admission points.  I suppose half of ‘second team basketball’ didn’t leave them much to be going on with.”
The next morning, at the poolside once again, I relayed this surprising information to John. He thought for a bit and then announced that he had had an idea. “We will go and visit Spike”, he said. “He can write you a new testimonial which will describe all the stuff you did at school, and then you will send that to AMS.”
We got Mother-Dear to call the lady again to see if that would help.
“If you can get the letter here within the next twenty-four hours,” she advised.  “Final faculty meeting to decide on the remaining admissions is tomorrow at half past three. If the letter arrives in time for that meeting, the selection committee may re-consider the application.”
 
I tentatively telephoned our recently retired headmaster – known to all, teachers, pupils and parents alike, as Spike.  Spike had, in his decades of being headmaster, developed a reputation for being, although sincerely dedicated, a little frightening, with a gruff and strict persona.  He had mellowed in his final year before retirement, becoming more interactive and a little less formal, especially with the older boys. I was, however, still nervous on the phone. Spike was surprisingly warm and welcoming. Once I had haltingly informed him that I required his assistance, he insisted that I visit him immediately.
 
John insisted on accompanying me, and after a pleasant half hour walk across the town, we located Spike’s house. He lived not far from his beloved school, from which he had recently retired but still visited daily, even in the holidays.  We stood before an imposing semi-detached Victorian house. Pressing the bell brought Spike himself to the front door to welcome us.  Inside was a solid collection of comfortable upholstered furniture and polished dark wooden surfaces.  Smiling, Spike bade us sit on his floral sofa, and set about pouring tea, treating us, to our pleasant surprise, as though we were old friends.  He seemed delighted to have his retirement invaded by charges from his recent past.
 
“Now then gentlemen,” enquired Spike solicitously, once tea and biscuits were in hand, “how may I be of assistance?”
 
I summarized the problem for Spike. He listened carefully, leaning back in his arm chair, his chin resting on the tip of his extended index finger in a characteristic gesture of concentration. After a moment’s consideration Spike seemed to decide abruptly on a course of action.
 
“Just give me a moment,” he requested.  He picked up the receiver from a telephone on the low table next to his armchair and dialed a number. After a brief discussion into the mouthpiece he replaced the receiver, looking thoroughly satisfied.  “That was Derek,” Spike informed us. “He’s agreed to assist us with the construction of an addendum to your testimonial.”
 
Derek, Mr Graham, was the deputy-principal of our school. He had been appointed only a year previously and, in that time, the school pupils had come to know him as a stern but caring gentleman.
 
“You take yourselves over to Derek’s house – he lives just around the corner,” instructed Spike. “He will help you to set down all those wonderful things you did at school. His wife has agreed to type it all up onto a school letterhead. Bring the typed letter back to me so I can sign it. We can then send the document off by overnight courier.”
 
Spike’s helpful and decisive manner made a deep impression on me. He had always come across as distant, grim, and not easily approachable. Here he was now, recently retired, and showing a wonderfully warm, welcoming, helpful, and friendly attitude, like a long-lost grandfather. It was enough to almost bring a tear to the eye and a lump to the throat.
 
We walked around to Mr Graham’s house, as Spike had instructed. There I sat with Mr Graham at the breakfast table in his kitchen, looking through some large windows onto a peaceful treed garden. Together we compiled a comprehensive list of the many doings which had occupied so much of my time during my school years.  Once the task was complete, Mrs Graham set to work with her electric typewriter, while we stood behind her, Mr Graham helping her to make sense of his almost illegible scrawl.  Soon enough Mrs Graham had created three beautifully typeset pages.  Standing proud at the top of the document was the smart blue and gold shield of the school letterhead.  Altogether it was indeed most impressive, and none of it was exaggerated.
 
“Even if they chop this lot in half, it’s still incredibly impressive,” commented Mr Graham as he stapled the pages together at the corner and slid them into a buff A4 envelope.
 
We made our way back to Spike’s house, where we laid the letter before him. He read it through with seeming delight, seated at his antique roll-top desk, with John and I standing at his side. Spike lifted a golden fountain pen, possibly one of his many retirement presents, in ceremonious fashion and signed the last page with a flourish.  Below his signature his name was typed out: D. C. Thompson, Principal.
 
“That’s probably the last School letter I will ever sign,” said Spike with a slightly sad smile as he handed the pages back to me.
 
After thanking Spike profusely, we rushed home with the precious document, where Mother-Dear had a courier standing by.  For a hefty fee they had arranged overnight delivery of the envelope the distant to the AMS, one thousand eight hundred kilometres distant.  I fervently hoped it would be worth the money.
 
The following afternoon the AMS lady telephoned to advise that the admissions committee had received the letter just in time for their last meeting, and they had completed their deliberations.
 
“The committee has reconsidered your application in the light of the information supplied by your school,” she announced in an emotionless monotone. After a heart-stopping pause she continued, “A decision has been made to award you a place at the AMS.”
 
Silence from me. I was unable to speak.
 
“Welcome to the AMS young man,” she added, with what sounded like a smile on her face.
 
The relief was unprecedented.  Blanche did her usual thing in situations of this nature, taking John and me to our favourite eatery for a comprehensive celebratory repast.
 
The following day we presented Spike and Mr and Mrs Graham with bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates in appreciation of their services.  For Mrs Graham we purchased also an enormous bunch of flowers.  They would never be able to comprehend the value of their contributions.
 
I felt most indebted to John, my very close friend, without whose indefatigable insistence I would never have become a medical doctor.   John died before either of us had completed our studies.  After a long struggle with major depression, John killed himself in Israel while studying at his beloved Rubin Academy.  We were just entering the fifth year of our studies, the final year of a music degree for John.  He had informed me during the previous vacation that he had made a decision to take up the study of medicine himself, once he had completed his music training.  We had considered how brilliant it was going to be for the two of us to be studying at the AMS together, although I would be in final year, when John would have entered his first year there.
 
John was a musician of excellence who will be unrecognized as a result of his untimely death. He was a multi-talented, extreme personality, who lacked only the ability to give credit to the one person in the world who had earned it continuously: himself. 
 
John is ever in my memory.