It’s the loneliest position on a rugby field. In the heat of the battle, surrounded by opposing forces whose mission is to storm and conquer, the referee must maintain law and order with sharp eyes, deep knowledge, swift reflexes, intense fitness, and a skin thick enough to withstand a barrage of catcalls from the crowd.
Few fans are prepared to spare much love for the poor, beleaguered ref, and yet, in the history of the game in South Africa, there is at least one ref who came to be admired, respected, and yes, even loved for his cool expertise, empathy, and commitment to fair play.
The multi-capped Jonathan Kaplan blew the whistle in 70 tests during his 17-year career, a record at the time, before calling it a day in 2013. But Jonathan, who began refereeing while still in high school, after a broken nose put paid to his own rugby career, has an equally compelling tale to tell about the joys and challenges of fatherhood.
On the verge of turning 50, he made the dramatic decision to become a single dad, via surrogate parenting, a story he tells with great heart in his best-selling autobiography, Winging It. As South Africans get set to enjoy the drama, thrills, and hopefully the triumphs of the Rugby World Cup in Japan, Ruda Landman sat down with Jonathan for a heart to chat about life and off the field of sporting battle.
Hello, and a very warm welcome to another conversation about life and change and decisions, and how life sometimes throws you a curveball and you must just handle it. And our guest today is Jonathan Kaplan, who’s seen his share of that kind of both physical and metaphorical balls come your way. Thank you for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Ja, you at one point held the record for the most test matches that any referee had, had ever… how does one say it in English? In Afrikaans we say “jy blaas die wedstryd”.
Ja, yeah, if you said that in English, “he blew the game” it doesn’t sound the best. Ja, I had a very long career…
17 years?
17 year-international career, just under, and, and I, you know at once stage I did hold the record for the most test caps as a referee – which I moved from 46 when I broke Paul Honiss’s record to 70, when I set my benchmark, and then that subsequently been passed by Nigel Owens, and I think Wayne Barnes as well. And it’s, it’s good that these records do get broken because they don’t really belong to the individual, they belong to the game.
Ja. Ja. Well, every rugby lover in South Africa and internationally of course knows you and you may also know the book and this wonderful picture on the cover. It’s, it’s just such a, it catches so, so, captures so much.
Ja, ja.
What was it like to publish this, to have your story out there?
It, it was quite different, you know, it was one of the projects that I embarked on towards the end of my career. You know, people ask why are you writing a book, and for me the, the thing was I wanted to write my own story. I didn’t want somebody else to write my story for me. And I felt that it would add to legacy rather than detract from it. And there’s a couple of interesting stories, I’ve tried to be, in the book, which is my style, to be as truthful as possible without, you know, skirting around issues which may be politically sensitive, or where somebody is involved and I’m not comfortable with them as a person. So, you know, most of the book is, is a, is a chronology, so it’s like a time-based chronology until the time that I retire and, and then looking forward into where I am, possibly, at the moment or even down the track.
And the feeling when you, when you got the first copy, or when you saw it on the shelf?
I can focus quite well, I mean I’m actually quite good with attention to detail, and, but I must say the edit process was a killer, like to go through things over and over again I felt like I read the book 70 times as well. I must say I was very proud when it came out. I was proud of the product, I was proud of the way I went about doing it, but I was even more surprised when the book became a best-seller in ten days. And you know, it is a refereeing book – it’s not a World Cup rugby winning book, where the Springboks, everybody’s supporting the Springboks. I’m just a little cog in the machine, and I’m proud of my achievements, but I was little cog in the machine, and was able to produce a book which became a best-seller in ten days, and went on to multiply over time as well. So, you know, it’s, it’s, the book is, you know, you’re not going to find it readily on the shelves, but it is available on, you know, most platforms and…
When did you know that sport would be your career? You went to…
I went to King…
King David in Linksfield.
Yes
And you started playing, but you also started refereeing quite early.
Ja. It’s, it’s the, it’s the story that appears in the book, is how did I get involved and I had my nose broken in a game; my mom took me for X-rays and she said that’s the last time, you know, she’s taking me for X-rays. So she made the call to, at the time I was living in Joburg, so she made the call to Ellis Park to say, which is now Coca-Cola Park or Emirates Park or whatever – they go through multiple changes, to say I’ve got, you know, I’m interested, where do I find out how to become a ref and the lady on the line said, oh no, they don’t accept women referees. So she said no it’s not for her, it’s for her son, how old is her son, he’s 17, no he’s too young, but my mom doesn’t really take no for an answer so she pushed a little bit harder and eventually the lady said, look you can come to one of the meetings and meet Gert Bezuidenhout, who was the test referee at the time, the pre-eminent test referee at the time, and he was very nice to me. Sort of took me under his wing, he realized…
How did you experience that? I mean, did you want to do it?
Yeah, yeah. No, I was happy to be involved, you know. I realized quite soon, really, that I’m not, I don’t like the routine of gym, so, you know, doing bench press or curls repetitively – it’s not really what I, I like. I like something a little bit more artistic, a little bit more fluid, creative, and I think in that respect I felt a bit limited. Plus I’d been exposed, in seconds, and thirds, to an environment which I didn’t feel comfortable with. I, I was happy to be involved in rugby in an on-field administrative role. I sort of found my niche. Or it was found for me. And, right from the beginning, you know, I reffed Wits Old Boys and Kempton Park, I was at two clubs, and after the, during the game, I, I could see that they would, they were old men, they were double my age, most of them, at least, and they’d try to help me through the game. They were very compassionate towards me, and I was probably running around like a chicken without a head, you know, trying to be important, but also trying to let them play. And after the game, as I was getting my assessment, from the block that had come to watch me, the hooker of Wits came, he interrupted the meeting, and he said I just want to tell you you’re the best ref we’ve ever had and you must continue with it. So it sort of stopped the assessor in his tracks a little bit. I mean I, I knew from the beginning that I could do the work, I mean I, I know this sounds arrogant, but, better than anybody else. And it was just a matter of me proving it to every, all the other people that I needed to. I mean I had a feeling inside me that this would be, I didn’t know that it could become a career, or that I could earn money from it, but certainly as a hobby I knew I could achieve whatever the highest ranking was.
And then you, you went to UCT for economics, and? Philosophy.
No, psychology.
Psychology. Yeah. And what…we said earlier, what were you thinking? But it’s a serious question – why did you choose that?
I actually started off doing business science and I didn’t like the statistics side of the degree. And so I morphed it into something which I did like, which was, I didn’t mind economics – I found some parts of economics actually very interesting – and then I thought I’d add another you know, bow, an arrow to my bow so to speak, to get psychology, which was my genuine interest, as an undergrad – and potentially kick on afterwards. I didn’t, fortunately, I think, but I’m very, it’s, it’s like a realm that I’m interested in, I’m interested in all esoterics and pursued astrology as a hobby afterwards, you know, as one of the departments.
So it was, it was the classic ‘let’s just do a first degree’, the discipline of learning, etcetera, etcetera – without really a very clear idea in mind of where it would take you.
Yeah.
But then you did management, you did a master’s in…
Mark…marketing, I did an honours in marketing management.
Honours in marketing management.
Yeah. From Unisa.
Why did you do that?
I felt like I needed to get something else, to do something else – not just have that undergrad. And I, you know, marketing was as general as I could find. In hindsight, I mean, they were four years well spent for me, you know, culturally I picked up a lot from mixing with different people, and I’m happy I went to the institution that was UCT at the time and then had a different way of learning through Unisa, where a lot of it is up to you – I squashed that 2-year course into one year and I, and I did the psychology as well. So, you know, in many respects I was, but did it give me the ammunition to go out into the workplace and, and, with an, with a specific skill? No, it didn’t. So it’s a general skill, you need the, you know, confidence and obviously market yourself as well as you market product, but, you know, the marketing field was not really for me – as I found out in time.
Could you make refereeing a career? Did it, was it enough of a, I mean, did it give you enough income?
No, not at that time, it was pure hobby. I mean, literally, I don’t even know if we were getting paid petrol money at the time. I think we just got paid like a tiny match fee which was not, not, it wasn’t money that could get you through a meal almost. So, ja, it was just a hobby. But it was something, you know, in life you hold on to certain things that resonate with you, and that was one of the things. I was never gonna let go of it. I started road running as a hobby to try and get fit for rugby and I found that it, it actually, I loved it. So I carried on with road running until eventually the rugby aficionados said to me, listen, you’ve got to choose one or the other, because, I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting story, it’s not well published, but I ran Comrades in 1996 I think it was. And I was, I was just breaking through onto the Currie Cup arena, and referees, and I ran it on the Monday, it was always on the 31st of May, and I got a call on Tuesday morning from Freek Burger to say that Tappe Henning and Ian Rogers had been put on ice because of some allegedly poor performance, and I’d been given this game on Saturday between Free State and the Bulls, and Bloem, and would I like it? So I said absolutely, I’m like, I’m dead keen. And when I put the phone down, the next phone, I, I normally would have phoned my family to say look at me, and I phoned the physio, this friend of mine, James Fleming, and I said, listen, I hope you’ve got a lot of drugs, my legs are hell of a sore and I’m reffing the Currie Cup game on Saturday and I can’t get out of second year at the moment, so. Anyway, it was a process to try and get the lactic acid out of my legs, and fortunately I’d recovered by the Saturday.
So in that sense, physically, you had to choose.
I did.
It was too hard on your body.
Yeah, well, I was doing a lot of long-distance stuff and I was pretty committed, so, ja, they were right. I was happy to, to let running take a back seat and, and, and when my career started to finish as a ref, not just as a professional, but you know retired in 2003, I’d started already to explore road running as a, you know, that hobby that I enjoyed, and I, you know, I came full circle – I got my Two Oceans, the blue number, and I got my Comrades green number, so it was a beautiful, beautiful story.
After 17 years, and the, being so much a part of that world, tell me about the decision to retire.
Ja, it was very tough at the time, you know. I, rugby, I had an imbalance in my life, rugby was, it, it meant so much to me that it wasn’t just, you know, a cheque at the end of the month, it was a labour of love. I actually loved, I’m not sure everybody loved my product, but, you know, for the most part that’s why I was there, because I was good at what I did and for the most part appreciated for it. But there comes a time when everyone’s got to go and it was a little bit, I was pushed a little bit by the powers that be at World Rugby, the IRB at the time, and I was very upset about…
Why? There was, what was the argument? Kind of new blood needed, that kind of thing?
Ja, it was basically, look you’re coming to the end of the road, whether it’s this year, next year or the year after, and we feel that, you know, the timing is more or less right. So I went to the World Cup, I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t kick on to do a semi or a, you know, quarter-, semi-final, third and fourth, something like, I, I know I was earmarked for that, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. And then I was told this is your last game, take it or leave it. And I’d actually dislocated my shoulder, I’d ripped my bicep tendon off the bone, and it’s, and subluxed my shoulder during a game between Italy and Ireland, and it was searing pain, but I thought to myself if this is my last game, they’re gonna have to carry me off the field because I must finish what I started. So I, you know, waded my way through the game and, and I finished. And it was disappointing, you know, guys that were older than me that was still on the panel, much less decorated in terms of their achievements, but the management at the time had an idea of what they wanted going forward and I wasn’t part of their plans. So as hard as it was for me to accept, there was nothing I could do, so I carried on with Super Rugby for a couple of years, and then decided that it was as good a time as any.
And what did you do career-wise? What was the next step?
Well, actually the book was, the book started to take a lot of my time. So to, to get a product out that wasn’t just, you know, regurgitating some, some of my interests, but, you know, I got an author, this guy Mike Behr, in, and he hadn’t written a book before, but what I liked about him is that he almost didn’t know the domain well enough, so whenever I told him a story and he said ‘hang on, that’s gotta go in’ and I was like, ‘no, that is so mundane’, he was ‘that’s going in the book’. So, you know, I did a bit of the book, I worked as brand ambassador for a few organizations, most notably FNB, worked for Suretech for a bit. I did, I got onto the, the speaking circuit, which is quite good money for a, for a short time, that lasted for a, I mean I still do a bit of it now, but it’s not nearly as much as it was, because obviously if you don’t have a public footprint, you, you know media, social media, TV, it’s quite difficult to get appointments and we have to call a spade a spade – I’m a referee, not a, you know, not a coach or a player and so people, I think, want to hear more from the main man which is, which, which are those people. But I did a bit of that, I’ve, I’ve got passive income from some properties, and I…
So what’s your advice? You know, a career like this, whether you’re the ref or one of the players, it’s based on your physical capacity and that will go down.
Yeah.
So it has a limited lifespan.
Yeah.
What’s your advice to young people getting into sport as a career?
I think it’s fantastic. I think it’s a, it’s a, it’s a golden egg. And, and I think they should be aware of the pitfalls, that only the best will make it but then if they do make it, there is still a limited time. So for those that try and fail, it’s not actually the end of the world, because there are, they are younger, so they can still get into the marketplace. For those that keep trying and plugging along until eventually it fails, whether it’s in their 30s or in their 40s, late 40s like me, at some stage it’s gonna end, and there’s got to be some planning for that rainy day. And when I say rainy day, I like rainy days, so I don’t, you know, I’m not portraying it as, as a sad thing, because…
There must be a long-term, a long-term vision, a long-term plan.
Yeah. Yeah. And you got to be planning while you’re busy riding the wave. You know, if you, you’re riding an amazing wave and everybody’s loving you, you’ve still got to be planning for the time when they’re not. And it can change quite quickly as, as I alluded to earlier. But, but in, you know, in my case, I actually, it allowed me, because I was on the road for the better part of two and a half decades, flying an average of a hundred flights a year, being away from home for probably about average of 150 to 180 days every year, when I, when I did, you know, get the knock on the door to say it’s, your, your time is done, it actually allowed me to focus on whatever was my next project, in inverted commas, cause it’s not really a project, it’s almost like a life dream to have a family and, and children. And so the one, it was almost seamless, that the one the, the death of the one something that was that important to me, enabled me to move into something which was actually more important, you know…
Because that is actually, if, you know, your name has become synonymous with something else now, something which is very different, and again there’s a wonderful book. You just decided ‘I want to be a dad’, whether you had a partner in the picture or not. That’s quite the radical for a man. Did you always know that you want children?
Ja. So, so it wasn’t that I decided that I want children. I’d always, I’d made the decision from as long as I can remember.
Really?
Ja. I always wanted children, but perhaps because of my lifestyle, my career, perhaps because of my character, I mean I can’t discount that, perhaps circumstantially, perhaps I just, my design may be different, I never met the right person up until whenever, you know, I never settled down really. And eventually when I got to the end of that career as a professional I decided, well, this is as good a time as any. I, somewhere along the line some consciousness came towards me that there was a different way of doing things, I mean, I always grew up like a, you know, I’m gonna get married, have four children and live happily ever after. So I was always like exposed to the biblical way or the Hollywood way of, that things could, or the way they should work out, sometimes they don’t for, for many people.
So how did you set about that? You, you said, I, a man, want a baby. You need a woman in the picture. So, how did you go about that?
So, I was sort of ending it with a, with this girl that I had been dating through most of 2013, it was basically going nowhere, so I decided that I’ll explore this option of surrogacy. And I went to, I phoned a friend, a, an acquaintance that happened to go to a school of mine in Durban, a gay guy who had had twins through the process, and he said to me listen…I asked him, you’re gonna tell me in a nutshell, should I do it yes or no, what’s been fantastic about the process, and what are the pitfalls. He gave it to me in five minutes, with an emphatic stamp of yes, you do it. And so I phoned up an agency, a donor agency, which is the first step, and I said look I’m a, I’m a single, straight guy, but I’m interested in doing this, can we meet? Yes, we can, but, you know, everything’s closing down and it’s December. So I said, look, the meeting is not closing down, let’s have the meeting and let’s have a…and, and, actually the, the girl that I spoke to, her, from this agency, she said, she said in the book that it was quite disconcerting that I was so certain that I wanted to do it. Because normally she has to give information, you know, there’s, these are the costs, and this is what you’re in for, and you need this amount of time and, you know, are you sure that, do you want to think about it for a few weeks? And I was like, no, I’m doing it. So, whether I do it with you or somebody else I’m doing it.
What does this agency do? I didn’t know such things existed.
Ja, no, no, so they’re a donor agency. So young women come into the agency to donate or potentially donate their eggs for a variety of reasons – surrogacy, you know, being my pathway. And, you know, you, so as, as a potential recipient – an intended parent, it’s called an IP – you go onto the website, you log in your details, and then you can go and, and see who you would like to reserve for this process. If they’re available, then they go through the process of getting fertile, you know, taking a few drugs to make sure that they can produce…
Hormone treatment and such.
Hormone treatment, ja, ja.
Yes. So there are people who just want to donate eggs and then there are people who actually say I would be willing to be a surrogate mother, to carry a baby.
Yes, and more often than not they’re two separate pieces of the puzzle. In-between that is also the legal, the legal side of things, we have to get a rubber stamp by the High Court to say that this baby belongs to you and only you and that’s the process which takes a few months, and, and that’s not cheap either. And then and then once that is rubber stamped, then you’ve got your surrogate, you’ve got your donor, and you’ve got your intended parent and then you go forward through to a fertility clinic and they put all the pieces together and, you know, from gun to tape, mine, with my son Caleb, it took two and a half years from the time that I started the process…
Sjoe, that’s a long pregnancy!
Yeah.
Did you, did you meet the surrogate mother? Did you build any relationship?
Yes, I did. And, and I’m not usually one that’s lost, you know, at a loss for words. I can normally think coherently and I’m, in tough situations I can also express myself. But in that, that was a very tricky meeting, because here I’m speaking to somebody who’s gonna carry my child, who’s gonna give me the greatest gift that I could ever receive from anyone – let alone a stranger. And you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta disassociate the fact that she’s not your friend, you’ve never met her, she’s not your type, from the fact that she’s going to be the surrogate. So she’s going to provide a healthy environment for your, for your baby. And when I met her it was, you know, she, she is the most amazing person. I mean I can say that about her – she held my hand throughout the process. I’m, I’m a, in, in many respects I was a 16-year-old guy whose thoughts were around I want to be a dad, but didn’t really know much about the pregnancy. And she helped me through that whole process until delivery. And the nice ending to that story is that, so her name’s Jackie by the way and that’s all documented in the book, the nice ending to that is that she, it’s up to me, the intended parent, to decide whether I want to have any relationship going forward – and they know that to start with. And I asked her “What do you want going forward?” And she said to me she’d like to look at him from afar, so sort of on social media, and every now and again meet for coffee. So that’s what she got, because she’s such a, a genuine person that there was absolutely no threat to, you know, my relationship with my son. And just, with the part that you won’t know about, is that the actual donor – I found her and she found me at a similar time on social media. I can’t go into the dynamics of it, but it is the, the mother egg, in a way, and she’s also an amazing person. And, you know, she donated her eggs anonymously. We happened to meet; we’re not really interested in having a friendship or, you know, a relationship – she’s got on with her life and I’m very happy for her. But she’s given me, as well, one of the greatest gifts ’cause I can, I can tell you now, my son is the most amazing son.
What did you, you didn’t feel that immediately when you held him as a, as a baby, did you? What was your immediate response?
Ja, so because I was detached from the process, I mean, like I said this Jackie tried to help me through the various stages, but I almost felt like I was going to the hospital to get a, a lucky packet, and then, and I left the next day. So I, I literally, I put a, I got all the food and the dummies and the cot and the compactum and whatever…
The whole list.
Yeah, the list was ticked. I’m actually, my friends, most of my friends’ wives or my friends themselves, actually had a party…what do you call that party where they give you all presents and things…
Oh, ja, kind of baby…
But it’s normally for women.
A stork party.
Stork party. And you, and you have sponge cake and tea and, and mine was a little bit different, I had tequila and, and, you know, so I was having a big party. But, anyways.
Well they could drink, you were not pregnant!
Exactly, exactly, it was completely different. So, so, you know, I needed a car seat and I needed somebody to help me, because the, the, you know, the head rolls around a bit, so I had to drive from the hospital back to my house. And that’s the way I felt. I went in there, I stayed the night, the, the nurses showed me how to feed, not to be worried – I mean in the beginning it’s like, you know, the black stuff that comes out and…they just basically filled me in on a few things and helped me through the, that initial process. But I was, you know, I didn’t feel attached to my son. I thought, you know, some of my friends have said to me this is the greatest day of your life, you’ll love it, so. But when I was there, I didn’t feel like that. So I wasn’t, you know, it was almost disappointment, it wasn’t like, you know, I can’t believe that I’ve done this or I’m so disappointed, it was like, look I’m sure it will come down the track, but at the moment I’m not feeling it. So I had that…
It’s just a job I have to do you now.
Well, I subsequently found out that it’s not that unusual, this feeling of detachment. And it comes in time. And my trigger, the time that I…
Fell in love.
Ja, basically, is the first time that he smiled. ’Cause that’s the first time that I could see he was actually recognizing me; he probably recognized me before but couldn’t express. But this was the first time, after about six weeks. It was July the 8th.
That there was a connection.
That was a connection, like I could see that he knew me. And then, from then onwards, and it’s, it’s only got better, and, and only got easier as well.
You put him out there on social media to quite a large extent. Is that a choice? Why do you do that? Just because you want to share, or is there a different, different reason?
No, ja, so I was, I was very proud of myself, I was very chuffed that I had a son.
Yes.
I was very chuffed that I had offspring.
(Yes.) And a son. Happened to be.
The, the thing really for me, was about, I, I think it’s an amazing gift to give somebody, to give your, your son, in this case, ja, I’ll use the same word again, a chronology of their life before they’re able to document it themselves. And so in time where he’s, where, and this is in effect a scrapbook, but it, it’s a more thorough scrapbook, so I, I’m adding comments, people are adding comments. So it’s his life going forward from now and eventually he can take over. I mean I don’t know if Instagram’s gonna be around forever.
Yeah, but something similar.
But I can, I’ve got those, you know, I’ve got that documented, and whenever he wants he can carry on. And it’s his life. And, and I think if I could look back on some of the stuff that I’ve forgotten or some of the stuff that I never knew, I think it would enrich my life, it would enhance my life that I knew who, who my…I mean it, that, I was fortunate that I could, but some people don’t know, never know who their granny was, never know who their grandpa was, some, in some cases, terrible, they don’t know who their father was. So, I think, I think that was a strong reason behind it.
You’re not worried about the publicness?
No.
That it is out there for everyone.
No, I actually, it’s fine. There, there’s nothing hidden in the, in either the process or the outcome, because he just, he’s a, I mean, look, he’s, he’s not exactly got three million followers. There, there’s, there’s probably, I think it’s round about thirteen hundred people that are interested in this little boy’s life, and if it drops to ten people, it’s also okay. I’m not looking for, to promote him in a way, I’m just, the, this is a documentation of his life. Sometimes I like to go back and see how it was on day one, that, that day of wonder, you know, the next day when I’ve taken a photo of him leaving hospital, he’s got a bit of jaundice, the next day, you know, in his first outfit, until…you know, you can just see it’s, I think it’s beautiful. I like going backwards in time and reminiscing.
Why did you decide to write this book? Winging It.
So Winging It is a very apt title, because, like I said, I was, in many respects I was a sixteen-year-old…
Ja, well, no-one gets training to be a parent.
Yeah. Ja. So, so why did I do it? Is because of what you said initially, that I was a single straight guy following a different pathway, and I had hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, interested in how I’d gone about the process, that contacted me privately, contacted me on my social media, my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, to say this is amazing, we never knew this existed. I never knew it existed, I’m not, I’m not a guru, I’m in fact the guinea pig. But what the book attempts to do is to highlight the process involved in the form of my own story. And it’s got a real twist in the tale, like I said I actually ended up meeting the, the donor, which was a, unheard of, it’s, it’s actually quite unusual, and for me was, was a fantastic experience. Because there is a curiosity about where did this come from. And I’m very happy that she was willing to be a, a part of my life, in inverted commas, I mean, like that, you know in the back seat. And, and also that she was willing to participate in, in the writing of this book.
Be open about it.
Because, like I say, this book is not definitive. This is not a definite, this is a storyline of what is possible if you explore different pathways. You want a child, so you explore your pathways. If this is for you, then read the book, because the book will, will highlight all the ups and downs of the, of the process.
And you’ve brought someone, you can now have someone in your life – more permanently than you, it seems you ever had before?
Yeah.
Susan.
Yeah.
You met her? Where, and when, and how?
I’ve, I met her through a common friend.
How did you know that this might actually last?
I didn’t. Like, like all the others. You know you, you go down the road of being hopeful. But, but, so basically I’d met Susan before, you know, just socially, and then I, she runs as well, I run, so we, we’re part of a similar group. I’d been dating somebody else at the time, it didn’t work out for, for whatever reason. And, you know, it, but, maybe eight months after Caleb was born, I started dating Susan. And we’re still going, we’re 31 months on Sunday the 4th of August, so something’s, something’s happening.
And what makes it work this time around?
It’s a good question. It could be, it could be that this is the, the right person that, that I finally found somebody that, you know, I can make a home with.
Do you feel that, that you may be giving something slightly different? And not because of a conscious decision, but just because of the relation, how it works?
Ja, you know, there was a time we I started to think I’m, I’m, perhaps it’s me, perhaps I’m not marriage material, you know it’s not like a…and I still don’t know the answer to this. It, like I said to you earlier, it could have been my career, it could have been me, it could have been my character, it could have been a flaw, it could be a, a positive thing, who knows. You know I don’t look at marriage as something that I need to tick, to say I’ve lived a good life. Whereas the children thing were, was something that I wanted to experience, I wanted to experience the love of a dad, and being able to give love back as a dad, whether, whether… I had many girlfriends, I had many relationships, they’re all beautiful, they all had, had end points. And in some cases they had end points as relationships, but, as girlfriends, but then carried on as friends. It’s all good, that’s, that’s life. For me, you know, I’m happy that I’ve finally found somebody that I think could be the future. And, but you’re asking me what crucial ingredient it is? I, I don’t know what crucial ingredient it is. You know, we were talking about it the other day – what we’ve been through as a couple is, is pretty amazing. And the fact that we are here now, after having gone through all of that, and not least of all, you know, maybe this is one of your questions or maybe it isn’t, but I’m at, you know, she’s had to experience me going through these surrogacies when she’s around and available as well. So it, we’ve been through a lot of difficult processes, decisions, you know, we, we always seem to get through the other side with a love for each other, and long may it continue.
Respect and openness.
Ja.
How, what was it like to introduce another person into your relationship with Caleb?
Not that difficult in, in, in respect of Susan, because she’s a very good, she’s a natural mother, so she, she’s good with that. She treated Caleb as one of her own. And, you know, she’s…
She has two kids?
Ja, she’s got two beautiful daughters. Who also, I must say, have contributed, you know, you talk about how was it to introduce this person, but I come from a broken home and I know that one of the difficulties is not this person only, it’s their offspring as well. So how do, how do those relate? And, very fortunately, there’s been a, a beautiful liaison between my son and, and her two daughters.
They are teenagers?
No, no, they’re eight and nine. Sinead and Zara. Ja, they, I couldn’t imagine sisters, real sisters, doing a better job than they’ve done with my son.
That’s amazing.
Ja.
But then you, you have something very special to share today, and that is that Caleb actually has real sisters.
Ja, so I carried on with a surrogacy programme. I actually tried to get a full, full sibling, fully related sibling, so the same donor, unfortunately it didn’t work out so I’ve had to go a different pathway. And, and that in itself is not bad. And had to get a different surrogate, a different process going.
How old was Caleb when you started this? The second round?
Oh, no, he was…I’d already had the thought in my head that I, that I want a sibling for him. I, I grew up, like I said, in a broken home and I grew up living on my own for a while, and living with my brothers, and I loved the living with my brothers more than I loved being alone, so…
So you didn’t want an only child.
If that was, if that was…
If possible.
If possible. I was grateful to have my son but if I could go along the pathway to get a sibling, which is what I did, and I needed to do it sooner rather than later because I’m 52 now. Ja, so the surrogate fell pregnant, she felt pregnant with twin, twins, twin girls – it’s the first girls, I, we had nine boys in my family in a row and then, now we’ve got these two girls. So, ja, it’s very exciting, they were born this…
What did you think, feel, when you heard that you were going to have two instead of one?
I must say, like, I was completely shocked. I remember at the screening, you do these screenings in the, in the clinics…
Ja, sonar.
And I was holding a cup of coffee and, you know, the, the doctor showed me, okay, he had, this one is gonna work…I had a lot of bad luck actually, before Caleb. And, and in, in a roundabout way I’m actually grateful that I had that bad luck because I’ve ended up with the best son that, that one can imagine. But, you know, at the time I was very frustrated, I probably said things I shouldn’t have said, but it was just one of those things, like, you get to like, boiling point. And, you know, look here, and I said, that, this one is gonna work, Jonathan, this is a beautiful heartbeat, it was a very strong blastocyst, which is the embryo that they stick inside, and it is going to work, and I was so chuffed with myself that this was finally gonna happen. And then he moved it around a bit, he says, look there’s another heartbeat over there, also very strong…and I reversed into the wall, with my coffee, and I remember, I, I thought I was stuck to the wall, like…you know. And he said, no, you come back, this is a normal reaction, you know, even people who prepare for it, it’s, it is a shock. And I, I, I think I was in shock for about two or three weeks afterwards, maybe a bit longer. But, but like I’ve said from the beginning, you know, and I’m, I’m really, I am under pressure at the moment, but children are a blessing and, and I’ve never lost that theme, that idea. And I, you know, the one thing about these, these twin girls that were born on Valentine’s Day, is that, you know it’s not just a thing of ticking a box or having children, it’s like, I need to be the best father that I can be to them. And that’s, that takes incredible resolve, because it’s not an easy job and everyone knows it’s not an easy job, and as much as Susan as part of my life and she’s, and she, you know she’s great. And my mom, by the way, who lived here, you know, up until a couple of months ago, she’s, she’s also been fantastic for me as a great default when I needed to do something for myself, or Susan and I needed to do something for us, my mom would take Caleb.
One needs a support network, you can’t be a parent on your own, hm?
Ja. Well I, it wasn’t just, I, I’m telling you the main players; I’ve had a lot of people and that have helped with, with similar, similar things. Like, you know, I need to go out, wanna see a movie, I haven’t seen a movie, haven’t been to a movie house for six months, let’s go see a movie, oh hang on there’s a couple of things we got to take care of…so, I’ve got lots of friends that help. There’s, there’s…
And what’s it like to now have three little people?
I’m under the pump, I mean I’ll make no bones about it, is, it is very difficult. You know, as much as, when Caleb was born I used to scream out of the house when the nanny came in in the morning to have a cup of coffee or two or three, just to unwind. It was like I had cabin fever. And so now I’ve made it doubly or triply as challenging, but I know in time that this will pass and I’ve ended up with three beautiful children. And I do think that I did contract spiritually to bring these souls into the world and, and I’ve done it, and, and of this contract that we had somewhere out there. So I’m, I’m very happy that I brought them in and, like I said, my role for as long as I’m still alive is to give them all the necessary stuff to allow them to be the best people they can be.
What is, what are the kind of values and what’s the basic building block that you want to give them, to empower them?
Well, I think from my, you know so, so like I said I come from a broken home, so from my dad’s side, not that he didn’t give love, he did, but you know, he gave me the work ethic, he gave me the thing of discipline, you know, roll your sleeves up, sometimes life gets challenging, it doesn’t always work out well, it doesn’t always work out the best, you know, changing course and things like that. My dad tried to…
Responsibility also; taking responsibility.
Correct. So he provided me with all those things that are, you know, that some people could take for granted, but which I don’t. And then my mom was, was almost like the love component – so that nurturing, soft landing, love component that made me feel like I was Superman. So, no, honestly, like, so I had a very successful career as a referee and, and I’m very grateful for all the people that helped me along the way. And, and I probably have it in my character to do that work very well, but the person who brought it out the most was my mother, because I honestly did feel like there was nobody better than me, and I don’t think that that’s arrogant I think that’s got to do with the fact that, that I had so much love…
It’s so important, it’s such a gift for a child.
Yeah. I had so much love and so much backing, that every time I fell down, and I did by the way, many times, I had that mother, my mother mostly, but my brothers, absolutely, my grandmother, my dad, you know, people helped me when I fell down. And I think that is the other side of the coin, so if I can provide, so that’s, so I’m seeing life through my paradigm, through my, sorry, through my lens, and I’m hoping that I can provide them with that. And then if I identify things where they are deficient or where they need more or, you know, where I identify something like this is that person’s vocation, I’m gonna help them to grow into it, that’s what I’d like to do.
And the physical space that you need to create, to, to give them that, to be happy yourself? What do you look for in a home – do you look for light or security or big trees or what?
Ja, so you hit on all those things, funnily enough. So in the physical sense, I like a airy home with like, with a more traditional than a modern feel – sort of whitewashed walls in, in sort of a Greek type of way. But, but it needn’t be like that, it needs to have air, it needs to have air flowing through it, balcony, view. We mentioned trees, I’m a, like, before the drought I had sixty bonsais – I collect bonsais, that’s one of my hobbies. So, you know, it’s probably a thing of nurture as well, you know, to make sure that they’re functioning well, that they’re not dying away. Most of them, up until the drought, I, I actually had a very successful bonsai nursery in a way, and I’ve still got about just under 30 left that are doing well, I think. So the tree thing is very important for me, I like that feeling of nature around me, so if I can, if I can have both of those. And then, in terms of the, the energy in a house, I need both – I need quiet time, I need my little man cave with my books, my programmes, my rugby memorabilia, my running medals; I need my space, which is my space. But I also like a busy home with, you know, I’ve got three bull dogs which, you know, they’re not quiet in any, in any respect, you know, they, they think of sleeping and they start snoring and you can hear it from every room. So, so you know, I like a home that’s busy, that’s, I like a home that, where there’s entertainment value for, for my friends.
Well, may you be happy and may always have a home like that. And all of the very, very best with your girls.
Thank you and, and thanks for having me on the show.
Thank you for sharing that, yes.
I hope I contributed something that people can tag on to in some way or another.
I’m sure, ja. Thank you for watching this, for being with us, and good luck with all your plans in your life. Until a next time. Goodbye.
