We’d discovered that New York was a complex place of startling contrasts. It was not the perfect, pretty place of blinking lights and effortless lightness of our moviefuelled fantasies, but included the underworld of heavy narcotics whose victims roamed the streets of the city – especially in places like Brooklyn and some parts of the Bronx – their bodies and souls ravaged. That was the gritty side of life, a side we had never seen in Indiana or South Africa, before that. Despite all that, we enjoyed the company of some real New Yorkers and indulged and admired the great cultural extravaganza New York offers. We found the city a very stimulating place.

Nana was progressing extremely well at Hunter College. Even decades later, Nana maintains that it was in New York that she developed in a way in which she doesn’t think she would have done in any other environment. I saw that as the Dixons had told me on my arrival, ‘America is a land of boundless opportunities’ and, if you assert yourself and plan your life well and you focus, you can surprise yourself and the world with the excellence you achieve, whatever your area of interest.

Our children were fairly comfortable socially. At school, the pupil-teacher ratio was low, so they received focused attention. They were active in soccer, played piano, and took art classes – both of them have had their work exhibited at a New York museum.

At the age of seven, Thabo was playing tennis and one of his coaches, Victor Geralitis, was one of America's tennis legends. Victor later gave him a tennis racket, as a gift.

We worked hard and we could see the benefits.

Homecare assistance, which we rather took for granted back in South Africa, was extremely expensive and therefore unavailable to us. Nana and I shared the household chores equally. A challenge for me, an executive, but there was an understanding that when it came to household chores there were no female or male duties. Nana was at college for twelve hours a day, from 9 am. And every night she returned exhausted from dissecting animals and the tortuous library hours. I would make her a cup of coffee as soon as she arrived.