VN July 2023

Vetnews | Julie 2023 23 Japie Jackson 20/08/1931 – 26/04/2023 Jakobus Johannes (Japie) Jackson was born on 20 August 1931 on the farm Riverton in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The second child of his parents, he and his older brother, Oswald, became children of the veld. His mother (maiden name Naude) died unexpectedly when he was only 13 years old. Thereafter he completed his school career as a boarder. Japie matriculated from Chaplin School in Gwelo (now Gweru) in 1948 with distinctions in six of the seven subjects in the Cambridge School Certificate examinations. Determined to become a farmer, he enrolled at Pretoria University for a degree in agriculture (BSc. Agric). However, shortly after he had completed the first-year examinations in November 1949, Oswald prevailed on him to apply for admission to Onderstepoort in order to obtain a veterinary degree. Early in 1950, Japie was informed that he had been selected as one of only 15 students for the second-year course at Onderstepoort and admission to the hostel situated on the campus. Although he had completed his schooling in English, his mother spoke Afrikaans. Consequently, he had no problem following those lectures that were presented in Afrikaans. Japie was popular with his classmates, and close friendships were formed, as almost all the students were boarders, Onderstepoort being situated about 20 km from the city centre and bicycles being the only means of personal transport for the majority of students. Japie was a serious student and never hesitated to ask penetrating questions or express a well-reasoned opinion. This was less popular with some lecturers and may well have been responsible for the additional six months he had to spend at the faculty. The result was that he qualified for BVSc in the middle of 1954 instead of at the end of 1953. However, he never complained, stressing the valuable additional knowledge he consequently attained. Japie selected his future wife, Hannalah Muller, on noticing her at a DRC church service in Pretoria North in 1950 during his first year at Onderstepoort and was introduced to her shortly thereafter by a few of his classmates. He loved her intensely, and she played a crucial role in his life. They were married in 1954 and had six children, four boys and two girls. When she died unexpectedly on 15 October 2015, Japie was inconsolable. Thereafter hardly a day went by that he did not, in his own words, ‘shed tears for her’. Another outstanding feature in Japie’s life was his unshakeable Christian faith. Japie argued that, as The Bible was God’s word, it could not be faulted or criticised in any way. Darwinian evolution was, therefore, completely unacceptable to him. Hannalah shared this devotion. Their entire lives together were therefore ruled by their faith. Japie’s veterinary career started with employment on Liebig’s ranch in Southern Rhodesia, with its some 60 000 head of cattle in 1954. He had four main tasks: • Immunisation of young calves against heartwater. It was a blood vaccine that was not available in Southern Rhodesia. Japie, therefore, had to produce it himself in heartwater-susceptible Merino sheep purchased in disease-free parts of South Africa. The laborious process of obtaining infective blood from these sheep was done on the farm, and some 10000 calves were immunised in the first season. >>> 24