The Martin Ledwaba story

There's been a massive response in the media - mainstream and social - to the departure of Martin Ledwaba from Jeppe Boys last week.

His story is an amazing one - here's a summary of it that I wrote for the 2020 Jeppe High School for Boys Magazine last year:

The term “Mr Chips”, referring to a schoolmaster who has been at a school for a long time has become rather over-used and is often conferred on men who don’t really match up to the achievements of the fictitious Latin teacher, Mr Chipping, who the name originally referred to.

Chipping, according to James Hilton’s novel, taught at Brookfield School for 48 years and was 73 when he finally retired.

Match those numbers and you deserve the greeting “Goodbye, Mr Chips” when you leave. Well, we are saying goodbye to Martin Ledwaba this year and he not only matches those figures, he has surpassed them. 2020 was his 50^th year at the school, and he turns 80 this year. Like Mr Chips did, he has seen four generations of boys from the same families pass through the school and, amazingly, he remembers the names of most of them.

Martin never occupied the post of teacher at the school, although he did qualify as a teacher in 2011, at the age of 71 – more of that later – but he was without question a great educator. He has had an enormous influence on thousands of Jeppe boys through the years and it is him, invariably, who they seek out when they visit the school as old boys later on.

His story has been told many times: he was employed as a cleaner, became an assistant in the science labs, began presenting an increasing number of lessons and stayed on long after retirement age as a valued member of the administrative staff. He filled the role of the venue manager for functions and events and of the keeper of the school keys – opening up at 4.30am each day and locking up when the last person has left at night and he has tidied up and packed everything away, sometimes at midnight.

Just how all of that came about is a fascinating story on its own. In short, it goes like this: Martin attended a mission school in Polokwane and left at the end of grade 10. He came to Joburg with his friend, Jones Mathane who was brought here by a Mr Stone, the science teacher at the mission, who got a job at Athlone Boys’ High, first, and then at Jeppe. He trained Jones to help him the labs and when he left for another school he took him with him.

So, there was an opening at Jeppe and, having heard about Martin, some teachers went to fetch him from the men’s outfitting store in Orange Grove where he was working. “The head of the science department was Mr McCloud, but he was on long leave and it was Mrs Brand who fetched me and gave me the job,” Martin recalled.

“That was in February 1971 and they put me on trial at first, eventually employing me full time in June that year,” he said. Appointing a black man in a classroom position wasn’t allowed at that time, of course, and he didn’t have a matric, so he was officially hired as a general worker. But he worked in the labs, setting up and demonstrating the experiments. The duties of opening and locking up and running functions were added on later so that he could earn more.

Martin had a thirst for knowledge, he would listen to the lessons that his experiments formed part of and, within a few years he was teaching the entire lessons to the classes.

“As I became an expert the boys began to respect me. I would help them and I built relationships with them. That has never changed. The Jeppe boys have always been kind to me, and have treated me with respect,” he said.

In 1975 he enrolled at Damelin to complete his schooling and over the next 13 years, one subject at a time, he eventually finished it. “I mostly taught myself,” he said. “But there were teachers who helped me in certain subjects. Mr Taffy Jones, who was retired by then, but stayed in the hostel, used to mark my assignments for me before I submitted them.”

In 1989, he matriculated and could be appointed lab assistant, although he had been doing the job for 18 years already. He wasn’t finished studying, though. In 1994 he started a National Diploma in Education through Unisa. He had to do the reading late at night when he had finished his work, as was the case with his matric, so it took him quite a few years, but in 2011 he graduated and was a qualified teacher – a job he had been basically doing for years already.

“I was 71 then, and too old to teach all day,” Martin said. “But that didn’t matter, qualifying was something I wanted to do and I showed that you are never too old to learn.”

At around the same time he stopped working in the labs but carried on his other duties and became an elder presence around the school, revered and respected by the teachers and learners and fondly remembered by four generation of old boys.

In 2003, when he officially retired from the Education Department, the school’s front steps were named the Martin Ledwaba Stairs. They are a monument to the role he played at the school.

We would have loved to have Martin Ledwaba here forever, but he deserves to rest now. He departs as a highly appreciated and deeply honoured man. He will be missed.

Goodbye, Mr Chips.