Van Rensburg: Southern African educator, social activist

His biological parents never married and his mother left the country soon after his birth.  He was brought up a Catholic and enthusiastically attended mass every Sunday during his youth.  The home language was a mixture of English, French, Afrikaans, and Zulu, all of which van Rensburg spoke fluently.

Although he chose work over college at age 17, van Rensburg soon threw himself into correspondence courses and earned a BA (English) from the University of South Africa (UNISA).  As he remarked later, his youthful experiences closely reflected the deep divisions in South Africa as a whole.