Mrs Salwa Southgate – First Female Principal

Trafalgar has a new principal and, for the first time in its 106-year history, the permanent head of our august institution is a female. The honour goes to Salwa Southgate who has the blood of Trafalgar coursing through her veins.

Her appointment was made public at the beginning of October but it came as no surprise to those in the know. She has been the acting head of the school since the beginning of the year.

Ms Southgate was also the deputy principal at Trafs for XX years.

She is only the 12th principal or acting head to lead the school since Harold Cressy became its first in 1912. Since then there have been superb educators such as PM Heneke, Ernie Steenveld, Jack Meltzer, Ismoenie Taliep and Ghoosain Emeran.

There is no doubting that Trafalgar is in her blood, in her heart, in her mind. In an interview with her, it is apparent from the get-go that she lives Trafalgar; she breathes Trafalgar.

Just look at the pedigree: “I went to school here; I had three sisters here; I started teaching here. Trafalgar is in my blood.”

So now, after 33 years, Salwa Southgate is the one in charge of the school with one of the richest histories in the disadvantaged communities in Cape Town, if not in South Africa.

She has inherited a legacy that is the envy of others. How does she feel about it?

“A couple of weeks back, I did my acceptance speech to the student body. I told them I’d like to tell them the Trafalgar story. I want them to know, and this is what I am passionate about, what it is to be a Trafalgarian,” she said.

“It still gives me goosebumps knowing that I am part of Trafalgar history. But today’s learners, they don’t know, they don’t understand. They don’t know the school song. I can’t remember when it was sung.

“We have lost a little bit in that regard. To be honest, it [the whole school aura] has lost some of its glory. .   and it’s important to a lot us..

“It has a special meaning to be a Trafalgarian. I don’t care what people say, there is something special when you enter those gates. It’s an amazing feeling and no one can take that away from us.”

Ms Southgate is still processing being the permanent head.

“I’m more busy than excited, but it’s not about the title. The title is not going to make me do anything differently. It will give me a little bit of leeway to do the things I want to do.”

After matriculating, she studied at UWC where she obtained her degree, majoring in History and Psychology and is particularly chuffed about the latter.

“The psychology qualifications have helped me understand the teenage mind better. I know what they are thinking and it’s easy for me to connect with them. I think it is an advantage when you’re dealing with adolescents and young adulthood with their moods and mood swings.”

She started teaching in the mid-80s and admits she owes a lot to Trafalgar stalwarts like Steenveld, , Emeran, Salie Adams, Miss Pedro {the Latin teacher], Cynthia Fisher [Janari] and Taliep.

“I think I am a teacher today because of Miss Pedro because I liked her so much. She would come to our class down in the ‘dungeons’ and make us do our greetings in Latin.”

What then are her views of past principals now that she is the principal?

“I know very little of Mr Heneke and Mr Meltzer, but the others taught me. And their history and legacy is second to none. What saddens me is that our children today don’t know that history and the hardships of the past and the quality of the teachers we had.

“None of them has our history, and that’s what makes me so sad,” Ms Southgate said. “Personalities have impeded much action in this regard. Maybe we can get the ball rolling again. I have had some approaches already.”

Ms Southgate was destined to become a teacher. She remembers playing “school-school” as a five-year-old in her empty bedroom.

By the time she got to matric she still yearned to be a teacher but she also had romantic thoughts of being an air hostess and see the world.

“That didn’t happen. Now I tell the kids I want them to see the world. They need to travel, they must go out, and they must go and see things.”

She wasn’t a frontline activist during the turbulent times of the ’80s but she did protest with students at UWC and did march with her Trafs teaching colleagues.

A low point in all her time at Trafs was being hijacked at gunpoint in front of the school. It shook her up for quite some time – “kids came to visit me but I did not want to see anybody”.

One thing she promises to activate sooner rather than later is a refreshed, vibrant Trafalgar High School website which hasn’t really moved since 2012.

“I have lots of things to put on it.   It’ll happen before the year, you will see. That’s is a promise I make.”

She has one strong message for anyone who has donned the uniform of her beloved school: “You’ll never really be an ex-Trafalgarian. You will always be a Trafalgarian.

“Trafalgar has a great, illustrious past. But we also have a future – a great future at that.

 

“Mr Emeran said something very nice to me when I met him a few months back: ‘You run Trafalgar the way you see fit’.

“I’m very fortunate in that I’ve chosen a career path that I love and enjoy. I still wake up in the morning wanting to come to school.   The day I wake up and I don’t want to come to Trafs, that’s the day I will give it away. Then I no longer have the purpose that drives me.”

She has a broad vision of what she wants to achieve over the next few years. One of the issues she has to address is that Trafalgar of today is vastly different to the Trafalgar of yore. The learners are drawn from areas such as Delft, Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s Plain and Philippi. The “coloured’ school drawn in the main from the “middle class” areas close by no longer exists. Now learners are bussed in from the poorer areas.

And, people who would normally have sent their children to Trafs, now send them to the former Model C schools.

“Trafalgar is, in essence, a commuter school now.   It needs to be the school it once was,” Ms Southgate says. “The ship is slightly off course and we need to get back on track. We need to become a centre of learning again, regardless of where you come from.   When they enter those gates, we need to give them the education they deserve regardless of where they come from.

“The history of our school has taught us that when they come through those gates they are proud Trafalgarians and must be given the best that we have.

“I am blessed, I don’t see colour. So if you are asking me what colour our kids are, I don’t see colour.”

She is saddened by the fact that Trafalgar’s alumni doesn’t measure up to the efforts of Harold Cressy – where they have raised funds to build a school hall – or Athlone High and South Peninsula High.

“Mr Steenveld was my English teacher. He was an amazing teacher. We would run to his class, not out of fear but for the fact that we wanted to be there. He encouraged us to join the library. We just had so much respect for him.

“Mr Emeran was very quiet, but he could get a job done without any fuss or bother. They are big shoes for me to fill. To have all these giants before me, it is quite an overwhelming feeling.

“However, we all have our own style. Things have changed; and education has changed; Trafalgar has changed. I will stand tall, I will stand proud and do the best I possibly can.”

Ms Southgate acknowledges that there many challenges she will face and one of them is the fact that she is female.

“People will have to get used to the fact that Trafs now has a female principal – with her own way of doing things. All I’m asking is: give me that opportunity, to do what I think is the right thing to do, not only for the learners, but also for the history of Trafalgar. Change is difficult. Gender is also difficult. It is also difficult at times to shake free from some of the constraints of the past.