Ron McGregor's web site - Welcome to South Africa - aboutron.htm

ABOUT RON McGREGOR

I was born in Durban, 18 March, 1948. As my name suggests, I am of Scottish ancestry on my father's side. My grandfather was one of the schoolmasters brought out from Britain after the Anglo-Boer War, ostensibly to "civilise" the defeated Boers.

My maternal grandfather was an Afrikaner from the Western Cape. He appears to have been quite a character, but keeping records wasn't his strong suit. It appears that he was descended from a German soldier who arrived in South Africa in 1786.

When I was very young, my family left Durban to settle in Johannesburg, where I did my schooling.

I couldn't afford to go to University, but in those days it was easy to get a grant from the government to study teaching, provided that your choice of subjects satisfied the government's requirements for teachers. So I signed on the dotted line and began studying at the University of the Witwatersrand. If all had gone well, I would have become a teacher of Mathematics, Afrikaans and English.

Things didn't go well. I soon realised that although I was technically good in these subjects, I had no interest in teaching them. The government also took a dim view of students who voiced their opposition to its apartheid policies.

After a year, we agreed to part company. Being jobless, and broke, I took on a three day assignment, driving a party of American tourists to the Kruger National Park. It was rather fun. I didn't think it would ever turn into a permanent career. However, having no other ideas at the time, I began to do more and more trips until the touring company suggested that I sign on as a full time employee.

Since then, I have always been in the travel industry in one capacity or another. I got to know just about every corner of the sub-continent - South Africa itself, and the neighbouring countries too.

During the difficult times when political unrest caused tourists to avoid us, I worked in travel agencies, and also lectured at a private college, training students for careers in the travel and tourism industry.

My first love, however, has always been the "hands on" work of guiding tours, and as South Africa is now back in the international fold, we have no shortage of visitors.

Along the way, I decided that I had spent quite enough of my life in Johannesburg. I moved my base to Cape Town in 1978. I have never regretted it for a minute. Every morning, when I turn out of my driveway and look up the Mountain, I cannot believe that I have been so lucky as to be able to live in, and work from, what must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

When I am not working, I write. Anything from novels to nonsense verse. None of this is published - well, almost none of it. I write the occasional romantic short story for one of our magazines. Don't look for my name - they publish me under a female pseudonym!

In 1996 I got married. It was a rather late start, but the life of a tour guide doesn't really lend itself to getting married young. We have a son, Andy, born in 1998.

He will have to get used to Dad being away a lot of the time, but as he grows up, I hope that he will learn to know and love South Africa, and Africa, as much as I do.

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