Celebrating Clives life

Big wild heart of Africa

“Izinyoni zenzeka ebuntwini.”

Birds are born among people.

Clive would hate nothing more than a stuffy in-memoriam blog post commemorating the history of his life—and more than that, he'd loathe the idea of such an homage sitting on a business website. He was, after all, the very embodiment of oppositional defiance disorder (ODD)—a term created by one of my family. He never agreed with anything in a hurry, not if he could help it. That said, it’s important he appears somewhere on this website for at least two reasons.

First, he dedicated over 40 years to the Wilderness Safaris projects at Ndumo and Rocktail, and later to the Big Skies initiatives at Gugs and Ubunye. Second, it was Clive who came up with the name Big Skies. The name is almost childlike—two simple words stitched together into something a little silly. But that was precisely what I loved about Clive. After everything he had seen and endured, he still managed to look up at the skies with childlike wonder.

It’s little wonder that, at his funeral, somewhere between 600 and 800 people from his village of Mboza gathered to say goodbye. Sangomas traveled from all over northern KwaZulu-Natal. Cultures from across the region came together to honour the great man.

So this is my homage.
Not an exhaustive history of his time as an activist and spy for uMkhonto weSizwe during apartheid.
Not a detailed account of how he championed rhino conservation in KwaZulu.
Not even a retelling of how he gave away most of his own worldly belongings to his friend Russell after Russells’ house burned down.

Instead, I’ll say this:

Clive, I’ll see about that bottle of Ataraxia when I reach wherever it is you are now, and I look forward to hearing about all the stories you’re already getting up to in the next life.