Noel Daniels – a life lived large in indomitable, inspiring style

28 Apr 2023

Noel’s strong sense of fairness and the collaborative leadership style he embodied were shaped in his early youth – in his parents’ Athlone home with a large number of older siblings, and at Alexander Sinton High and in the Crawford Civic during the heady resistance to apartheid in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Noel Daniels’s death on 18 April 2023 from heart failure was a shock to all who knew him. He knew, and we knew, he had a weakened heart after his first heart attack a few years earlier, yet he deliberately chose to continue living life to the fullest, as he had always done. But still, his end came too soon and so suddenly.

Noel attended Alexander Sinton High School in Athlone, the area he grew up in. He was at school during the student revolts of 1976 and rose to the challenge of the time, becoming part of a group of students who were leading their peers; he was head prefect and an SRC executive member, early signs of the leadership roles he would play all his life.

After obtaining his BA in mathematics and economics in 1980, he completed the Higher Diploma in Education, Postgraduate (Secondary) at the University of Cape Town, which he passed with distinction. He started his career in education as a senior mathematics teacher at Groenvlei High School in neighbouring Lansdowne.

It is at Groenvlei that he became part of a group of committed and politically aware teachers – Godfrey Hendrickse, Patrick Hendrickse, Gail Prodehl, Helen Smith, Celeste Perez, Bryan Slingers and Glen van Harte – who were not only excellent at teaching their various disciplines, but also engaged their students in sport and culture as part of their broader challenge to apartheid oppression.

It is indeed in these earlier years that key elements of Noel’s leadership tenets were shaped.

Throughout his working life, Noel played a leading role provincially and nationally in school, adult, teacher and higher education. After he left the Hewat College of Education, where we both taught in the late 1980s, he joined the South African Committee for Higher Education Trust (Sached) where he later became the Western Cape regional director. At Sached his focus shifted to adult basic education and training (Abet).

In 1996 he published Give Us Voices: A Book Education Resource for Teachers with Jean Pease, Brian Dublin and myself. Looking back, the very title of that book captures the spirit that has animated Noel’s work in education and the arts throughout his life – his commitment to serve others.

Noel was a supreme and astute organiser, who could actively steer an institution or turn a party into a loud, raging jol.

In 2015, Noel landed what he considered the crowning job of his career – the position of CEO at the Cornerstone Institute, which he led with vision, care and his strong sense of social justice. His strong sense of fairness and the collaborative leadership style he embodied were already shaped in his early youth – in his parents’ Athlone home with a large number of older siblings, and at Alexander Sinton High and in the Crawford Civic during the heady resistance to apartheid in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Love and friendship

Noel was widely known for his capacity for close, intense friendships, his love of music, and an unflagging support of singers, poets, dancers and artists.

Faiez Jacobs recalls: “Many of us have fond memories of the club called The Jol, which he owned and ran with Zenariah Barends in the city. The club was a safe space for comrades, revolutionaries, misfits and everyone celebrating their diversity, embracing their varied heritage and sexual orientation. It was where many of us found love and friendship, and it symbolised the heady days of post-1994 freedom.”

Read more in Daily Maverick:

Stephanie Kemp, 1941–2023 – A fierce patriot and warrior of the South African Struggle

Father Albert Nolan – priest, anti-apartheid activist, author and renowned theologian

Noel had a deep appreciation for how culture could so profoundly transform lives and society. I often joked with him that he had missed his real calling – an active patron of the arts.

Noel was a supreme and astute organiser, who could actively steer an institution or turn a party into a loud, raging jol, transforming into DJNoel and Noel the Great Dancer. There was his home, which, like his heart, was open to family, his very many friends, comrades, male lovers and artists.

Big heart

Noel knew how to live and he made others feel free to join him in living, creating moments of sheer, indulgent joy and togetherness. As the poet Khadija Heeger tellingly writes in a poem dedicated to Noel: “I know I laughed more, felt more respected, felt seen, felt more at home, in your company.”

In the last phase of his life, however, it was his love of his daughter Carla, and his partnership with Dawn, Carla’s mother, which took centre stage. Together Noel and Dawn dedicated their last 22 years to Carla’s coming into the world. When Carla was born, Noel was so ecstatic that the maternity staff asked him to leave because he kept snatching up his newborn daughter to parade her round the ward. He has, since then, often repeated to many of us: “I am the proud father of a girl who keeps me young and current.”

Noel had his first near-fatal heart attack while on a hospital bed. He happened to be surrounded by doctors, who rapidly intervened to save his life. Once recovered, Noel boasted and loudly proclaimed in that puckish way of his: “I had a cold, the flu, pleurisy, a massive heart attack, and I survived!”

That was Noel – indomitable optimist, a big heart full of joy and generosity, and an infectious, wide-open smile inspiring others he touched to commune with his love of people and of life.

Shaun Viljoen is Deputy Dean of Education at the Cornerstone Institute and Emeritus Associate Professor in the English Department at Stellenbosch University.

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Love and friendship

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