Charmer who ended up alone
Chris Barnard’s eldest daughter, Deirdre Barnard Visser, lives with her husband in a house below Table Mountain. Until his death, her father lived a few doors up from her. Her mother, Louwtjie, the first of Barnard’s three wives, lived just down the hill until her death three years ago. A large black-and-white photograph of Barnard in his heyday hangs on a wall in Barnard Visser’s home.
Barnard Visser was close to her father and visited him every day when he was in town in his final years. Her mother would make him tripe and trotters sometimes and they would all eat together. When she was young, Barnard took Barnard Visser water-skiing every morning at dawn, training her to become a South African champion, which she achieved aged 12.
“He was the driving force for me to train and we always went out,” she said. He once told her: “You’ll never be the best; you’re such an easy loser.”
But their lives changed after the transplant. “Before that he was known as Deirdre Barnard’s father,” Barnard Visser laughed. “Then I became known as Chris Barnard’s daughter.”
She shared her father’s sense of humour and wrote a book called Fat, Fame and Life with Father.
Barnard Visser said: “He made me feel secure. If I had a problem I would phone him. He would lose his temper quickly but the next minute it would be over.” She said her father was open and honest, maybe too open about his life.
“He belonged to the world but he ended up alone. He was very depressed about the failure of his third marriage,” she said. “Our family tree is more like a creeping vine,” a reference to the youth of his second and third wives.