My friend Brian Oosthuysen, who has died aged 87, was a religious studies teacher and house master at Archway school in Stroud, Gloucestershire, for almost 20 years, and at various other schools before that. He hailed from South Africa, but came to the UK in the early 1960s to study divinity, staying for the rest of his life.
Born in Port Elizabeth, he was the son of William, a cleaning supervisor on South African Railways, and Emily (nee Nowell), a shoe factory worker. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 11, and he and his sister, Patty, were largely brought up by their paternal grandmother, Margaret. He attended Grey high school in Port Elizabeth until the family moved for two years to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he went to Milton high school.
At 15 he began work as a clerk with South Africa Harbours and Railways, soon ending up in Durban. Throughout his early years he had been conditioned to the apartheid system and it was not until he joined the Anglican church youth club in Durban at the age of 17 that he began to consider that all humans ought to be treated equally – a standpoint that led to friction with his father.
He did national service as a tank gunner, but was excluded from promotion for persistent insubordination, having on one occasion delivered a black power salute to onlookers as his vehicle trundled through a township.
Brian met Annette Cockburn in Durban, and they married in 1960. Both were opposed to apartheid, and eventually they decided to leave South Africa in 1961 with a move to the UK, where Brian began to study divinity at King’s College London. There he met fellow student Desmond Tutu, and they clung together as the only South Africans on the course, forging a long-lasting friendship.
In 1965 Brian’s marriage to Annette came to an end, and since in those days the Anglican church would not ordain divorced men, his hopes of becoming a priest came to a halt. Two years later he met Carole Howell, a teacher, and they were married in 1967.
Brian moved into teaching religious studies at secondary schools in Strood, Kent, Corby, Northamptonshire and Woking, Surrey, and then had two years with Carole teaching history in Tanzania, until in 1970 he was appointed head of humanities at Sir William Romney’s school in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. Five years later he became house master at Archway, a job that suited his pastoral skills, and he remained there until early retirement in 1993.
Living in Stroud for more than 50 years, Brian became an elder and lay preacher at the town’s Rodborough Tabernacle United Reformed Church, of which I am the current minister. He was also a parish councillor for Rodborough and from 2005 to 2021 (with a break of two years, 2009-2011) was a Labour member on Gloucestershire county council, finishing with the title of honorary alderman.
In addition he did a lot of voluntary work, including for food banks and for Stroud Women’s Refuge, and was an active member of Amnesty International. Well liked and respected in his local area, he always seemed to have a smile on his face.
Brian is survived by Carole, their three children, Nicola, Juliet and Tom, a daughter, Janet, from his first marriage, 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
