Koos Kombuis height - How tall is Koos Kombuis?

Du Toit grew up in Riversdale, Paarl, Wellington, Kuruman and in Bellville, before the family settled in Stellenbosch (and later in Pretoria), where he spent the last year of high school at Paul Roos Gymnasium. After school, Du Toit did his compulsory military service: apparently he was so bad at shooting that he was posted in the fire brigade. After this, Du Toit went back to the fire brigade several times, the only job he claims he was never fired from (Kombuis 2000: 78).

At this point he started sending his short stories to Afrikaans weekly Huisgenoot, and spent the next few years as a freelance writer, publishing several novellas, volumes of poetry and short stories. His first (semi-autobiographical) novel Somer II ("Summer II") appeared in 1985. His next autobiography, Seks & Drugs & Boeremusiek: die memoires van 'n volksverraaier ("Sex, drugs and Boere (folk) musiek: the memoires of a national traitor") appeared in 2000. In this book he corrected many of the more far-fetched claims he made in Somer II.

Du Toit started out as a poet and novelist in the early 1980s writing under the name André Letoit, (a non-intentional anagram for "toilet") but wanting something more colloquial-sounding for his musical career, settled on Koos Kombuis.

He finally went back to his parents in Pretoria and asked to get medical help. After seeing several psychologists and being severely medicated, the decision was taken to give him shock therapy. Du Toit claims that after ten treatments, he suffered amnesia and effectively can't remember the year 1976 to date. After this treatment his parents had him committed to Weskoppies psychiatric hospital in Pretoria (wrongly) diagnosed as having schizophrenia. This was decided after a questionnaire and a single rorschach test [1]. After psychiatrists realised that he wasn't sick, he'd spent a year in a psychiatric ward.

Koos Kombuis (born André le Roux du Toit, 5 November 1954) is a South African musician, singer, songwriter and writer who became famous as part of a group of anti-establishment maverick Afrikaans musicians, who, under the collective name of Voëlvry (directly translated meaning "Free as a bird"; in Afrikaans "voëlvry" is synonymous to the words "fugitive" and "outlaw"), toured campuses across South Africa in the 1980s, to "liberate Afrikaans from the shackles of its past". Fellow musicians of this movement were Johannes Kerkorrel and Bernoldus Niemand (James Phillips).