‘Surely a boy of your obvious intelligence, or according to your headmaster, brilliance, must see that a vocation as a professional pugilist is not compatible with reading law at Oxford?’
‘Lord Byron was a pugilist, sir. No one doubted his intellectual integrity,’ I answered. He grunted and wrote something down on the pad in front of him. Ichabod Crane had a slight smile on his face.
‘Ah, I do not recall whether Byron was an Oxford man!’ he said, which caused his two colleagues to laugh.
‘Your point is well made, Mr… er, Peekay, but as I recall he was an amateur.’
‘There is considerable evidence that he fought on occasions for a wager which today would make him a professional, sir.’
‘Be that as it may, a small wager on the side amongst friends is hardly the same thing, is it?’
‘No, sir,’ I replied, unwilling to press my luck any further by pointing out that quite large sums of money were involved.
At the end of the interview I was asked to wait with Singe ’n Burn in the waiting room. The head seemed even more nervous than me and made me repeat every word of the interview. When I got to the bit about Byron he was delighted. ‘Excellent!’ he said, clapping his hands, but then when I told him about Byron fighting for a wager and the somewhat brusque reply I had received, he frowned. ‘That’s Lewis of Natal University, a man who doesn’t care to be contradicted.’ When I concluded my account he simply said, ‘Well done, Peekay, you have acquitted yourself well.’
We were then ushered back in and it was Ichabod Crane who announced that I had been listed in the last five candidates and would be required to sit for the Oxford University entrance examinations.
‘The Prince of Wales School which you attend has an enviable reputation, and if you are an example of its product, the least I can say for myself and my colleagues, is that we have been impressed.’ They then stood up and shook hands with us both.
Singe ’n Burn was elated, we were over the major hurdle.
They had taken my schoolboy candidature seriously. Several days later I sat with Hymie for the Oxford University entrance examinations the results of which would be announced before the Rhodes scholarships.
I arrived home for the Christmas holidays to find my picture was on the front page of the Goldfields News. Mr Hankin, frustrated newspaperman to the last, had used the picture Doc had taken of me sitting on our rock the first day we had met on the hill behind the rose garden. Despite the fact that every one in town knew who I was, above it a banner headline read: BOY ON A ROCK FOR OXFORD! I recalled with a touch of bitterness the stupid old fart’s last use of this picture on the front page, when he accused Doc of being a Nazi spy and of breaking my jaw.
I found myself a local hero once again. As far as the town was concerned my elevation to Rhodes scholarship status was all over bar the shouting. In the month it took for the results of the Oxford entrance examinations to come through, Miss Bornstein became a nervous wreck.
Down at the prison they were much more impressed with Solly’s thirteen-punch combination. If they could have chosen between a scholarship to Oxford, a place they’d never heard of anyway, or a thirteen combo, there is little doubt they’d have plumped for the latter. Once again I won the Eastern Transvaal featherweight title and also best boxer of the championships. With this, my fourth successive win, Captain Smit, in what he later described as one of the great moments in his life, was able to claim the trophy permanently for the Barberton Blues.
My examination results arrived in late January and stated that I had received a distinction in all subjects. Miss Bornstein was beside herself and it was such big news around the place that old Mr Bornstein contrived to lose the first ever game of chess to me while denying hotly that he had purposely done so. Four days later a letter arrived from the Rhodes scholarship committee.
Dear Mr ‘Peekay’,
On behalf of the selection committee for Rhodes Scholarships for the year 1951, we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful.
I have been asked by the selection committee to commend you for the manner in which you conducted yourself during your interview and for the results you achieved in the required examination.
It is the earnest opinion of the committee that, having completed your first degree, you should apply again.
Yours faithfully,
L.J. Fisher
Secretary to the Committee
The people around me had become accustomed to my winning, it was a habit they shared, an indulgence they took for granted. I could see they were shocked and bitterly disappointed that, having done their part, I had somehow failed them. Miss Bornstein and Mrs Boxall were distraught beyond belief, having quickly convinced themselves of some sort of plot. My mother, after shedding a few tears, soon concluded that the Lord had decided it was not His will for me and that, if only I would accept Him into my heart and into my life, His purpose for me would become clear. Two days later she announced at the dinner table that the Lord had guided her quite clearly and that I should give up boxing as it displeased him. When I had done so, I would be guided in the Lord’s special plans for me.
When I replied that boxing was too important to me, she had burst into sudden tears. ‘That is the devil in you talking, God is not mocked!’ she shouted, leaving the table with her face buried in her table napkin.
‘There, there. There’s a good lad,’ my granpa soothed.
The following day a letter arrived from Singe ’n Burn in which he said that he was confident I would ride through the disappointment and that I had the internal fortitude to grow stronger from the experience. He added that the true Renaissance man accepted defeat as the ingredient which made eventual success worth striving for, blah, blah, blah. He then added that he had received a letter from Professor Stonehouse of Witwatersrand University who, it turned out, was Ichabod Crane. In it Stonehouse had remarked that the committee had been visited by a Captain Swanepoel who had not been complimentary about the school and its activities and in particular my implication in these activities. He wanted to assure Singe ’n Burn that should he hear otherwise, this involvement by the police did not affect his judgement nor did it, he felt sure, affect that of his colleagues. Stonehouse concluded by saying that my application for a scholarship to Witwatersrand had been accepted and that he hoped the headmaster would be able to influence me to accept.
The following week the second scholarship, to Stellenbosch, was confirmed and I received an invitation to apply to Natal University. But I knew, in the minds of those who loved me, that this would be accepting the crumbs from the rich man’s table. They were emotionally involved with Oxford and no other place, no matter how grand, would have satisfied their expectations for me and rewarded them for the parts they had played.
Only my granpa seemed unconcerned. He’d said nothing when the letter from the committee had arrived, except of course, ‘There’s a good lad.’ I found him later in the garden grafting rose stock and we sat out of the blazing December sun in the dark shade of one of the big old English oaks. As usual he took ten minutes to tap and tamp and strike and eventually puff up a blue haze around his head. I’d given him a tin of Erinmore which I’d bought in Johannesburg and the honey-treated tobacco smoke smelt delicious as it swirled around his head.
‘My brother Arthur went to Oxford, he was the clever one in our family. Like you he won scholarships, first to grammar school and then to Oxford.’ He puffed and looked over the roof which still hadn’t been painted. ‘In my time not too many grammar school boys made it through to the dreaming spires of Oxford and Cambridge.’