The Day of the Goose

The walls of any Headmaster’s office can tell many stories - so many of life’s vignettes take place within these surrounds. Many stories of triumph, tragedy and courage happen in the ambit of this office in the course of a normal week. Adolescence is about making mistakes and thus the role of all of us in education is to mentor and advise our teenagers on how to cope with the slings and arrows which life throws at them. Headmasters’ offices can be emotional places.

There are, however, many amusing moments which lighten the atmosphere and cause much mirth.  I wonder how many Principals around the world have had to babysit an Egyptian gosling - as I once had to do?

It was a Friday in winter some years ago when a passing neighbour came into the school office with a Egyptian gosling she had found in the morning traffic floundering in a gutter .  Where else but the nearest school would you take a lost gosling which had been separated from its family? The front of office secretary, Charmaine Manley, was more than helpful.

Charmaine Manley and friend ...

‘We have a Headmaster who has ducks at home,’ she said.  ‘He will know what to do!’  No first centre in the Springbok rugby team could ever have passed a ball more quickly and more skilfully than Charmaine did that day.  However, the statement wasn’t strictly true as it was my (then) ten year son who had the ducks – not me.  We had three of them whose names varied from ‘Daisy, Donald and Daffy’ (my son’s names for them) to  ‘Breakfast, Lunch and Supper’ (my names).  These ducks were forever in the vet’s rooms with a variety of ailments from torn webbing to lacerated beaks.

We were living in Hout Bay at the time and my injunction to my wife (a farmer’s daughter) to turn left into the Spar on the occasions we had to find treatment for these three  ducks rather than right into the vet’s rooms always met with a chorus of disapproval from my son and wife.  My plea that it would save us R50 on a vet’s bill, fell on deaf ears.  I have always wondered what the Spar would have paid for fresh duck ...

Neither solution (Vet or Spar) was an option facing me with this current Egyptian gosling problem on a Friday morning.   ‘Put it in a shoe box,’ I said.  ‘Someone can take it down to the World of Birds this afternoon.’

The shoe box was only a short term solution.  The gosling gave full vent to its disapproval about being shut away with a series of continuous and piping cheeps.  No amount of attention or crumbs (from the staff room at tea time) could mollify it.

Some teachers expressed the theory that it was the quality of the staff room sandwiches that was causing the protest, but Charmaine was having none of it.   ‘It needs warmth,’ she pronounced with authority and proceeded to put the gosling in her coat pocket.  To the surprise of all of us,  this did the trick and the bird was content to spend the day in her pocket untroubled by phone calls and passing schoolboys.

The crunch time came when Charmaine had to go home that afternoon.  I was addressing  a staff meeting when there was a knock on the door and she was gesticulating to me.  I went to the door.   ‘I have to leave  now,’ she said. ‘What must I do with this bird?’

Another first centre pass ...

I did the only thing possible.  We swapped it from her coat to my suit pocket.  I then went back into the staff room to continue expounding about education to the Wynberg teachers.  My suit pocket was obviously not up to the same standard as Charmaine’s Burberry pocket and the gosling soon let out a loud and indignant cheep.  It sounded not dissimilar to a cell phone indicating that an SMS was coming in.  This resulted in an air of expectancy around the staff room.  Someone hadn't switched his phone off and it sounded distinctly as if it emanated from the Headmaster.

At this stage, I was feeling the first beads of sweat ominously building up on the base of my neck.  I sensed an air of inevitability about what would be happening next.  I started stuttering in my talk knowing that the impending moment of doom was not far off.

When it came, it was spectacular.  The gosling, tired of this inferior suit pocket, poked its head out of the Stygian darkness and with a loud, strident and vociferous cheep, announced to the world that this nonsense had to stop.

The left hand side of the staff room heard - and saw - the saga unraveling.  The right hand side heard the cell phone going off and then noticed the ever-widening grins on the other side of the room.  The right hand side were obviously not privy to the real cause of the amusement.

‘Don’t ask,’ I told the meeting as if having a gosling poking its head out of a suit pocket was a normal occurrence in the life of a headmaster.  I then bowed to the inevitable.   ‘I think that this is a good point to call the meeting to a close.’

The beads of sweat had now become a stream and I fled the staff room endeavouring to hang on to the final vestiges of my dignity.  As I left the room, the cause of this mayhem rose from my pocket to its full length and gave a final triumphant and celebratory salute to the company.

Entering my office, I sank into the chair behind my desk wondering how I was going to pull my tattered reputation back.  Not giving me a moment’s respite, my secretary, Glenda Hepworth, entered my office.  ‘Your next appointment is here.  It is Mr Tipper for the English post you advertised.’

Decision time again. Do I come out with a full confession to Roy Tipper before we start the interview or just hope that the bird would be tired and would sleep through the next twenty minutes?  The gosling took the decision for me.  It lulled me initially into false hope by remaining quietly in my pocket for about five minutes, before erupting into a series in a series of shrieks .

Roy Tipper ... an interview with the Head Gosling

‘Sorry about this, Roy,’ I said nonchalantly  as if this was a normal occurrence in my office. ‘It is just an Egyptian gosling.  Perhaps I should just let it run around.’  Surely wading through an office knee-deep in guano was preferably to the insistent and peeved cheeping in my pocket?

Wrong call. After a morning of suffering the indignity of a shoe box and a variety of coat pockets, it took off round the room like Speedy Gonzales running round and round screeching at the top of its gosling piping voice.  ‘What on earth is going on?’ said Glenda, putting her head in my office. ‘Why are you terrorising that poor thing?’

That just about the last straw.  After an hour of trying to shut up a week old chick, losing any credibility I had left with the staff room and now conducting an undignified interview with a potential teacher, it was now becoming MY fault that this poultry item was cold, hungry and missing its mother.

‘You take it,’ I instructed her.

‘Definitely not, I have far too much work to do,’ she said and primly retreated to her office.

Well, thanks very much I thought.  What does that say about my work load?

I reluctantly put the bird back into my pocket.

The rest of the interview was not a success.  Both of us were waiting for the next episode from the side pocket and neither was really concentrating on why teaching Shakespeare was so important to boys of the 21st Century.  I concluded by offering him the post -  gloomily reckoning that no sane or ambitious teacher would risk his reputation by teaching in this madhouse.

To my surprise, he accepted.  He taught for five years very happily at the school before he moved on to teach overseas.  During this time, none of us mentioned the gosling incident – it remained one of those unspoken memories that it would be impolite to bring up.  Rather like a gin-swilling maiden aunt, it was deemed better not to mention the topic in polite company.

Later that day, one of the teachers, Don Allan, who also lived in House Bay, took the by now exhausted gosling to the World of Birds. I have often wondered over the years whether those families of Egyptian geese which take up a messy residence annually in our school pool or on the astroturf are progeny of my goose.  That would surely be his final revenge ...

Earlier this year, I was invited to take part in a staff development session at Fish Hoek High School – and there was Roy Tipper in the audience having returned from overseas.  I chatted to him afterwards about various inconsequential issues.

As we parted, he said, ‘It must be nice to give a seminar without any surprises popping up.’

We both knew what he really meant.