Images enlarge when clicked

For those of you who think you know me - but are not quite sure if I’m THAT Colin Roets. (Yes, strangely enough there are more than one of us with that unique combination.) Here follows a quick run down of places I’ve been and photos of how I looked if your memory needs jogging.

I’m a Briton living in Leeds. (For my American friends: Leeds is in the bit of the UK which is not London. And no - I’m not driving to London for 5+ hours if you are on a hour layover at Heathrow)

Although I’ve been here for a decade I am originally from South Africa. I was born in Port Elizabeth in 68 (which means I’m creeping up to 40 very, very soon). which means I’m 40.

The 1969 photo is of my dad and me on P. E beach on Christmas day. As you can see from our bronze tan this was the sixties.

This was when a tan was a sign of ruddy good health and skin cancer wasn’t invented yet.

Quick run down: Born in Port Elizabeth. Obsessed with airplanes. Repeatedly emulate planes by jumping of ladders. Jumps followed by being taken to hospital for stitches. Dents in head to show for it - inability to remember follows.

Seminal moment was a flight on a Boeing 727 to Cape Town.

We move to Kuilsrivier in 1972 where I have the opportunity of growing up outside, barefoot and under a clear blue sky.

I attended De Kuilen Primary. Nothing much to say. Kuilsrivier was a small town (back then). No supermarket and only a drive-in cinema for entertainment. It had one pharmacy where my dad worked. Life was good and involved bicycles and lots of cricket.

I attended 2 high schools. Firstly De Kuilen High in Kuilsrivier and then Paul Roos Gymnasium, an all boys school in Stellenbosch.

After finishing high school I went of to do national service. I ended up in sector 10, Ondangwa MBH. We where responsible for flying out in top cover choppers and doing all the casavacs; in any ‘contacts’ happening in sector 10 and anything north of it across the border in Angola. We dealt with all the trauma cases etc.

The timing was crap. South African, Namibian, Angolan and Cuban politicians where all posturing during protracted negotiations to end the Angolan and Namibian civil wars. Posturing equates to rather bloody clashes on the ground for the schmucks on both sides forced into the whole thing. We bore the brunt of it - including a seriously sleepless period in April 1989 called the “9 Days war“.

I spent a couple of years in the army, with a single tour of 18 months posted on the Namibian border. A month before I finished De Klerk announced that they would be reducing the army as a good will gesture by shortening the service time of the next intake and then phase out national service. My mindae was vol kak houding na die uitspraak!

After leaving the Army it was the beginning of the nineties. I spent the time doing all sort of things in Stellenbosch including resident dj with my friend Monty at De Eike (now a respectable middle class restaurant called “The Dros”). Then I was part of the Maverick’s Restaurant crew (not to be confused with the shady bar chain with the same name) - I think I lost 3 or 4 years there - it was 24/7 going full tilt 20 hours at a time with some interesting characters. Oh and I was a student as well.

In Stellenbosch I swapped bicycles for motorbikes. I rode a Suzuki GS Katana but these days I ride a more “sedate” Honda VfR 800. Great for day trip in the Yorkshire dales or the North York moors.

By 1996 I moved to Cape Town. Shortly there after I met Katja, a German elective doctor, who was working at Groote Schuur Trauma unit. I moved in with her and we ended up in Elgin in Scotland. (Americans: the bit of Britain that is north of England and definitely not near London where people say “perrson” or “nae bother” and men where kilts on special occasions.

I returned briefly for a spell to South Africa in 1998 riding out my visa woes in a video store (long story) and heading up training at Kryptoplus for people interested in coding for this new fangled thing called the internet.

We returned to the U.K. and got married in 1999. Since then I’ve been Technical Director for a software development house in Newcastle during the dot.com boom (Did I see some weird shit!)I now work at ripe design a marketing design agency.

If I have met you in my travels and we have lost touch (it happens when you move thousands of kilometers at a time - dont feel guilty) drop me a line. Nothing makes me happier than bumping into old friends.

Stellenbosch black and white photos - Nalanie de Villiers 1995