EQUINE | SAEVA News
About Jim
Jim, or to give his full name, Ronald James, was born,
bred and raised in Northern and Southern Rhodesia
(now Zimbabwe and Zambia). His father was an en-
gineer who built bridges for the railways and Jim says
he always naturally assumed he would follow in his
father’s footsteps and study engineering. However,
having started University in KZN, he was about two
weeks in when he went to see his counsellor and said
he wanted to change to veterinary. The reply was not
very encouraging as he didn’t even have the correct
subjects, but he managed to change and a year later
was accepted into Onderstepoort. He was home in
Bulawayo when they received a telegram confirming
his acceptance. Unfortunately it was written in Afri-
kaans, so the family had to find an Afrikaans speak-
ing neighbor before they could decipher what it said!
However, the Engineering field’s loss was the veteri-
nary profession’s gain.
local cattle farmers did not want him working on their
animals – and one particularly tetchy old gent insisted
that the ‘Engelsman’ wait by the gate while his Afri-
kaans speaking colleague attended to the cows. But
bit by bit he won them over. A few things also get lost
in translation and Jim has hilarious stories including
advising one hapless client seeking help with an ‘eek-
horing’ to feed it worms. “Well, they said it fell out of a
tree!” he laughs. Another incident included a muddle
over the word ‘muis’ which while generally used to
refer to a rodent, is also used for describing bovine
reproductive anatomy, which caused the young vet
much bemusement, but it is worth hearing him tell the
stories to fully appreciate them. Although Wellington
Animal Hospital is a general practice, he found him-
self doing a lot of work for ‘little studs’, many of which
are now gone, but gradually the horse work built up.
With his usual eye for the humour in any situation,
Jim arrived in Pretoria. At his first lecture the lecturer
asked the class – in Afrikaans – whether anyone had
trouble understanding the language. Blissfully un-
aware what was being asked, a fellow student had to
nudge Jim to put his hand in the air (and then explain
what for!).
It wasn’t the first time the language barrier would be
a problem. After qualifying, the Zim bush war meant
there was no veterinary work at home, so young Jim
came back to South Africa and eventually found lo-
cum work and finally a permanent position at Wel-
lington Animal Hospital – where he still works today.
Being in an agricultural part of the Boland, his lack
of Afrikaans again proved a challenge as some of the
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