SA
Farewell to South Africa’s unsung “Mr Chips”
Keith Kleinot was South Africa’s own version of “Mr Chips”, an old-fashioned schoolteacher who devoted over 20 years of his career to teaching at an impoverished school in Soweto.
SUZANNE BELLING
Kleinot – who died last month – loved teaching at Lovella High and spurned the bureaucracy prevalent in many white schools during the apartheid era.
“He was your typical ‘Mr Chips’ [from the well-known book by James Hilton and subsequent movie, ‘Goodbye, Mr Chips’], leaving home just after seven each morning and returning after three, facing the dangers prevalent in the townships and meeting other teachers outside Soweto to be driven to and from the school in an armoured vehicle,” said his widow, Rachel Kleinot, an attorney by profession.
She used to worry about him until the telephone would ring. “Rochie, I’m on my way home,” he would say.
Keith was “eccentric, quick-tempered and always a liberal”, earning the love of his pupils, many of whom stayed in contact with him long after his retirement.
“Some of them, went on to have successful careers, several in the municipality and one even became a dentist.
“His children (in the school) had nothing, but they were always laughing and singing. They were happy and loved him,” Rachel said. “Although they had no playground and only a school building, the children, although deprived, were happy.”
After the first democratic elections in 1994, Keith was the only white teacher left at the school. “There were no more bullet-proof vehicles and Keith had to make his own way to and from Lovella.
“There were many hair-raising incidents – theft from outsiders, chased by tsotsis when driving in and out of Soweto and even knife fights with a class from a rival school. There was also a hold-up in the toilets. It was not the children from Keith’s school, but outsiders who were the culprits.
“One day Keith arrived to find the whole class missing. They had gone to the other school to continue the fight. Then they were back the next day as if nothing happened.”
Keith’s colleagues used to visit him at the Kleinots’ home in Highlands North and have meals there. But the children did not venture out of Soweto.
“They really appreciated him,” said Rachel, who still practices law part time. “I miss that daily call, saying I am on my way home.”
Their son Jonathan lives in England, and their daughter Karen works for the CCMA (Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration) and lives in Cape Town. They have three grandchildren.