When Robert and Michael, a pair of starry-eyed twins see a Boeing 707 at an airport in the mid-1960s, it’s love at first sight. But who's going to one day pay for their dream to work in aviation?

This is apartheid South Africa. Coloured boys can't eat alongside white people, let alone jet off to Paris and study aeronautical engineering!

In high school they discover an unlikely aptitude for French. Armed with scholarships, they head off to Paris and their once ordinary lives are changed forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Gentle spent his childhood years in Cape Town, his teens in Zambia and his early adult years in France. He has a 30-year career in financial journalism, PR and corporate training, is fluent in French and is the author of two business books. These days he writes full-time, and still hopes to sell a movie script to Hollywood one day.

'The Scholarship Kids' is published by Melinda Ferguson Books, an imprint of NB publishers