Hon Manuel lost his father when he was very young, just 13 years old, and had to find a way when he was still at school to help his mother, who survived on a garment worker's salary. He worked at odd jobs at a supermarket in Sea Point, packing shelves, and later, when he finished school, he worked for a while in a garment factory, in the dispatch section. He thought this was a dead end and told his mother so. Eventually he got a job at the civil engineering firm where they would train him as a civil engineering apprentice while he worked.