Bothas Halte Ngk Primary School

This is the Primary School where I started school at age 6 (1959) and stayed till age 12: a Christian Dutch Reformed Church school, privately owned by farmers from the community. We had only two classrooms and two teachers. All the pupils were from the surrounding farms, and we were all related (Stofberg / Hugo / Botha) except for the very few who were the children of railway workers or farm managers - and the Ochse family children. The Ochse family had bought the farm Stilwaters and had five children. The village and all the farms (except Stilwaters) belonged to our extended family, as did the school building and the farm where it was located. The head teacher lived in a house right opposite the school. The house also belonged to family members. I cannot recall any stage where we had more than 25 pupils in the school. Numbers varied from 21 - 25 pupils, all in all. Mrs Maggie Botes was head teacher when I started school, and the assistant teacher was Miss Cloete. In the last few years there, the head teacher was Mr Marnitz Broodryk. His wife Yvonne was our Voortrekker Tannie (Scout leader) and very much part of the school, somehow. We received an excellent all round education, and most pupils went on to become high achievers in later life.