A personal tribute to Ralph Kirsch.

Ralph’s many academic and organisational achievements have been eloquently told by many and are not the subject of this personal account. Let me explain. When I first met Ralph in the mid 1990s, he struck me as a talkative, overly nice, trying-to-make-up-for-apartheid type of man. Our family later moved to Oxford, and one day Ralph and Beverley happened to pass through. Amidst the pleasantries, I was struck by how much attention they both gave to our children – then 7 and 5. Ralph established that what the children missed most about Cape Town was playing in the swimming pool. By the end of the visit, the kids had an open invitation to swim in his pool. After 2 years of seemingly unending English winters we visited Cape Town, arriving on a warm summer’s day. Needless to say, we were made to deliver on the promise and spent far too many hours in the blazing sun.