SIYAFUNDA

(meaning, in Zulu, "We Write")

As an English teacher, I always encouraged my pupils to write their own poetry. At Ixopo High these poems were published each week in our school's newsletter "Indaba Zethu".

The poems were so good that, one year, I decided to preserve them by collating them into a volume which was professionally published as "SIYAFUNDA" and distributed free to all pupils. I continued to do this for a number of years at Ixopo High and, after emigrating to the UK, did the same at Kineton High and Hayes Primary.

Now that I am nearing retirement, I have decided to preserve them further and make them more widely available by publishing them on my website. I do hope that many of my past pupils will stumble across them over the next few years, and that reading their - and their friends' - poems will bring back floods of great memories.

Past pupils, please would you spread the word that these poems are now available. They are too special and precious to remain unseen!