David Marais was born in Germiston in 1925 and educated at Grey College, Bloemfontein, and Boksburg High School. He spent one year at the University of the Witwatersrand and left to join the South African Navy in 1942. After the war he spent a brief sojourn on the staff of the Cape Times and then joined the Saturday Post in Port Elizabeth. He returned to the Cape Times in 1951, and later became political and parliamentary correspondent. The Cape Times began using the caricatures that he sketched during his hours in the Press Gallery, and in due time he became both cartoonist and political reporter for the paper. He used his cartoons to attack anything which degraded people or hurt their dignity, and left a substantial collection of comments on the politicians of the 50s, 60s and early 70s. His much lamented early death occurred in January 1974.