Roger Ortlepp was born in Zululand in the small town of Melmoth, into a prominent local family.  The original Ortlepps, a kinship group of nine individuals, arrived in South Africa with the 1820 settlers from England, and in the following decades they and their decendants gradually spread across the Cape and Natal Provinces.  By the 1880's one of them, Roger's ancestor Julius Ortlepp, owned a large tract of farmland in Zululand. When Julius heard that the British colonial administration was looking for a site for new settlement in the area, he quickly laid out plots for a township, and sealed the deal by naming it after the resident Magistrate of Zululand, Sir Melmoth Osborne. To this day an Ortlepp Street runs across the middle of Melmoth from one side of the town to the other. 

This is a photo of young Roger, taken before his arrival at DHS:

Roger was a boarder at DHS.  He was an amiable and popular pupil -- and also a celebrated slacker who was able to pass examinations comfortably with a bare minimum of work!   Roger played both rugby and cricket for the school (photo below) and he was also a Blackmore's house prefect in 1961.

After leaving school Roger returned for a while to Melmoth, but then later in the 1960s he moved to Swaziland where he became a sugar farmer. He soon married Anne, a young Irish lady who was on an extended visit to southern Africa. They had one child, Catherine, born in 1969.

Life for the sugar farmers of Swaziland revovled around clubs where the memhers would meet, dine, drink, and play various sports.  Here is a photo of Roger (left) with two of his fellow expat farmers:

And here he is in the grounds of one of the clubs:

Another popular pastime was traveling to Mocambique for weekends at the beach. This photo of Roger with his daughter was probably taken around 1970:

Despite the general merriment in the white farming community in Swaziland, Roger was given to episodes of severe depression.  Unfortunately he took his own life during one of these bouts, on 12 February 1971.

Roger Ortlepp was survived by his parents, his wife Anne, his daughter Catherine, and his younger brother Charles.