From shack to council chamber

Writer Elaine Davie

I know what it means to live in a shack, to have the rain dripping through the roof in the winter and the cold wind whistling through cracks you didn’t even know were there,” confesses newly-elected DA Proportional Councillor Ronald Nutt, born and bred in Mount Pleasant. “And it’s not fair; everybody deserves the dignity of a decent home they can call their own.”

Although they may not have been rich in worldly goods, his mother and pastor-father brought up their three sons with a strong foundation of moral values and love of family. It is clear that this warm, friendly man with the big smile is a people’s person, deeply rooted in Mount Pleasant, his own community, as well as the greater Hermanus community.

Like many Hermanus residents, he has a irm belief that this is a special place with a unique energy and the ability to show the way to the rest of the country, in terms of community development and cultural integration. These are aspects of life in the Overstrand about which he is passionate. And as a man who believes in deeds, not empty words, he has been actively working towards that goal for most of his adult life.

Ronald Nutt, the newly appointed DA Proportional Councillor of the Overstrand Municipality.

Straight after matriculating from Swartberg Secondary School in Caledon, Ronald went to work at the Ibis stationery store in Hermanus, owned by Nico and Julie Toerien, now the owners of Oice National. When Ibis was taken over by Walton’s, he stayed on and two years ago when the business closed its doors in Hermanus, he had been working there for 24 years. “Yes,” he says, “loyalty is what it’s all about – that’s one of the values my father taught me from an early age, that and doing my best in whatever I undertake.”

Click below to read more.