Page 163 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

John Dering Nettleton 41452
28.6.1917 - 13.7.1943

John Nettleton was born in Nongoma, Zululand, and the family moved later to Cape Town.
During the1920s they lived in Kalk Bay at the top of Lock Road in the house that since the

30s has been called “Gavenwood”. He was fondly remembered by his childhood friends
and neighbours, the late Hercules van Diggelen and his sister Felicity who recalls that

“John Nettleton was in and out of our house the whole time.”

He did his primary schooling at Stansbury’s School (later Western Province Prep.) and

then, having failed to gain entrance to Dartmouth Royal Naval College because of his poor
Latin marks in the entrance examination, he enrolled at S.A.T.S. General Botha, Simon’s

Town in January 1931. While there he excelled in cricket and boxing and in his last year he

was Chief Cadet. In June 1933 he entered the merchant navy as Apprentice on the MV
Mattawain of the Elder Dempster Line. Late in 1934 he left the sea and joined the Cape

Divisional Council as a pupil engineer.

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