Richard Clinton Best (1945)

Obituary

Richard “Dick” Best was born in Johannesburg and educated at Kingswood College, Grahamstown.
He matriculated there in 1937 and received cricket and rugby colours while playing for the first teams. After two years of employment at the Chamber of Mines he joined the South African Artillery in 1939 serving in Kenya, Abyssinia and Eritrea. He also served with The Transvaal Horse Artillery in the North African Desert in the 7th Armoured Regiment (the Desert Rats). He was hospitalised in North Africa and subsequently in a prison hospital in Italy from where he was sent to Nazi prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, where he suffered considerable hardships. While a prisoner of war from 1942 to 1945 he escaped three times, the third and successful escape during the so-called Death March, rejoining the Allied Forces and then making his way to England in the final stages of the war. He attended Rhodes University from 1946 to 1948 during which time he completed his BCom UED.
He was a member of Rhodes First Cricket XI, Sub-Warden of the Air School and ex – servicemen’s Warden of Jan Smuts House. He married Margaret Halsted in 1947. His school teaching career was at Kearsney College where he was a Housemaster from 1951 to 1963.
He was also a member of the Anti -Tank Moth Club. His Rhodes career from 1971 to 1984 included a stint as Assistant Dean of Students from 1971 to 1976. He was Dean of Students and Warden of Kimberley Hall from 1976 to 1984.
He also served on numerous Rhodes University committees. His contribution to the community included his membership of the Kingswood College Council, his Chairmanship of Bethlehem Home, an orphanage run by the sisters of the community of the Resurrection and Churchwarden of the Cathedral of St Michael and St George.
He and Margaret lived in East London after his retirement in a sea facing flat at Kennaway Court from 1984 to 2008. During this time he was Churchwarden of St John’s Anglican Church.
After a short illness he died in hospital in the early hours of Friday, June 6th 2008.
He is survived by his wife Margaret, to whom he was married for over sixty years, and his son Hubert. Now resident in London, Hubert was fortuitously visiting his parents in East London at the time of his father’s illness.
Hubert has described his father as principled and courageous, refreshing and I immensely generous, humble and full of fun. Hubert says all these characteristics and his love of and involvement in cricket was emblematic of his life. Growing up in his parents’ devoutly Christian home and witnessing the reality of what it means to be doers of the word and not hearers only gave him the model for his life.
Hubert particularly remembers two incidents which occurred while he was visiting them in Grahamstown. The first was in 1972 when his father was responsible for bailing out hundreds of students who had been arrested for participating in a protest march. He arranged to send them tray loads of sandwiches to keep them going while they were in custody and obtained the best possible legal advice for their terms of bail. The second occurred some years later when security police raided a university residence in the early hours of the morning. His father was up most of the night fearlessly making his presence felt as he safeguarded the students.
Richard Best, loving husband and father, loyal friend, kindly colleague and a very special human being will be greatly missed. All who knew him are deeply comforted by his Christian faith and his essential humanity Our thoughts and prayers are with Margaret and Hubert. May they be richly blessed and filled with God’s grace and may Richard rest in peace and be received into the joy of his Lord.
GROCOTT`S MAIL 20 Jun 2008 Page 22