During 1990 I had taken the decision not to make myself available for reappointment when my second term as DVC expired at the end of that year and I was succeeded by Professor June Sinclair in January 1991. I was sad to leave the student affairs portfolio but was feeling stressed at the perpetual crisis management that the job entailed. There was very little time left for creative thinking about the development of student affairs at the University. Moreover, I wanted to have the opportunity of engaging in other activities while I was still feeling energetic enough to pursue them. Finally, I had often said that I wanted to go while people were still wanting me to stay, rather than hang on until I had lost all insight into my own incompetence.

I went through a series of warm and emotional farewell parties and early in 1991 my wife Caryll and I moved to Simon’s Town where we had built a holiday home sixteen years before and had enjoyed many happy and restorative vacations. I was not long out of my job and still revelling in my independence as a pensioner when I began to feel the withdrawal symptoms associated with ‘no longer being needed’. Nevertheless I was able to do some writing in my old discipline, go back to part-time teaching in the Oral Pathology Department of the University of the Western Cape, become involved in a little political activity and in assisting with the development of the Kwazulu-Natal tertiary institutions’ Regional Institutional Cooperation Project. And to write this book.

I had not intended to include any personal memoirs but have been persuaded to do so by several people who read early drafts of the manuscript. This was not easy and in writing about the events of the 1980s I hope that I have not tended to inflate my personal contribution. So many Wits people were involved during that turbulent decade as were students and dedicated staff at other South African educational institutions and I am very happy to have had the opportunity of being one of them.