2433 Clayton C.J.

General Botha - Class of 1973 | Roll Call

2433 Clayton C.J.

I was with Unicorn up until late '75 when in a fit of pique I resigned and went off to become a Game Ranger. Six months of bouncing around the veld in a four wheel drive backie waving at tarentaale and the odd porcupine.

At this stage the love of my life decided that I "needed to do something with my life" and suggested "real" employment.

I became a Medical Representative and over the next twenty years or so worked my way up the ladder to wind up as the Business Director Southern Africa for Astra Pharmaceuticals. I travelled all over the world during the latter part of this job and one of the countries I came to was Canada when I won a Trust Fund Award to study the healthcare system here. Part of the reason I eventually wound up back here.

Along the way in my spare time I managed to start a political party (Natal Independence Action Group), be nominated three times as a political party candidate for the Democratic Party, become Chairman of Mensa in Durban and CapeTown, become a published poet, start my own business as a healthcare consultant, present papers at international conferences on managed healthcare, become a lecturer in marketing and of course get married to the above lady and have three children.

I was rather surprised to receive divorce papers on our twentieth anniversary (interesting present I might add...if not exactly in the right spirit though!) and so I found myself with three children to look after as well as all the usual debts that this involves.

So in the spirit of a good mid-life crisis I decided to immigrate and start life over in a new country. Packed up the goods and kids and moved.to Canada three years ago.

OK not quite as simple as that I admit and in hindsight another of my hare-brained schemes, but it was hastened by a few people rather close to me being murdered. So I landed here as a single parent with three children and, thanks to the overnight devaluation of the Rand, very little money. No job either which wasn't a wise thing to do.

Having gone back to school and got a computer programming Diploma I decided to go the whole mid life crisis hog and change careers as well. Into the DotCom industry! Well timed it was too. I've been in three failed Dotcoms since being here which of course doesn't look that impressive on the old resume! And not my fault either whatever anyone says.

Currently I'm the Sales Manager for Western Canada and the USA for a food ingredients company. Crap pay but at least I can pay my debts. I feel like a lightey starting life all over again.

In my spare time here I am the President of Mensa Toronto, volunteer for the local Sea Rescue crash boats and run a website and organisation for South Africans in Ontario (amongst others). I also write articles about life in Canada for e-zines and magazines. If you want to see the South African ex-pat website check out:

http://members.tripod.com/saontario

If you look hard enough you will even get to see what the years of strain have done to the once youthful countenance. Hint: look for the resume.

I also have the insane habit of jumping into Lake Ontario on New Years day in the local Polar Bear Dip but that may be curtailed a bit in future. The idiot waving the South African flag in sub-zero water on telly was me. Parts of me have yet to recover!

Of course I have left out masses of incidental details and other interesting bits of insanity that have followed me around and which make my life a trying one at times but then I want to keep all that for the biography and make money off them. It would probably wind up in the fiction section though.