Flying the Flag (2) with the Men of Wynberg

When parts of Windsor Castle burnt down in and marital scandals regarding two of her sons were rocking the establishment, Queen Elizabeth 11 is reported to have said that 1992 was an ‘annus horribilis’ – a dreadful year.  In the same speech, she said:  ‘Distance is well-known to lend enchantment, even to the less attractive views. After all, it has the inestimable advantage of hindsight.’

I am sure that no Wynberg boy would ever say that his school years were ‘anni  horribiles’ largely because I suspect that they would not be able to ensure that they could parse correctly the concord of noun and adjective in the plural!

Judging by the loud and noisy conversation at the London Old Boys’ dinner last week, all the attendees found their school years ‘mirabile dictu’ – wonderful to relate. The original author quoted by Queen Elizabeth was a Scottish poet,  Thomas Campbell, who wrote:

‘Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

 And robes the mountain in its azure hue.’

There certainly was an ‘azure hue’ over the recollections of the evening – tinged later, I noticed, by the hue of London Pride.

Inside the Old Council Chamber, Chancery Lane, London. 13 November 2014

The concept of a dinner in London, after an absence of over a decade,  was conceived and driven by Grant Estherhuizen and his brother Craig – with, of course, a large dollop of help from Grant’s secretary.

The event was held in Chancery Lane – the home of London’s solicitors and barristers.  It was a most suitable venue with nearly 50 old boys attending - spanning 52 years of schooling at Wynberg from Malcolm Hunt (1952) to James Oliver (2004).  When I saw the guest list, I came to the sobering realisation that all but two of the attendees were at Wynberg during my years as teacher and Headmaster.

Surrounded by lads of Wynberg Matric 1989

Hugh Hurst, Matric 1981

Grant, mindful of the dignity of the occasion, had stipulated ‘black tie’ or ‘Old Boys’ tie and suit’.  To be safe, I brought both from Cape Town and only when I was in the hotel room, did I realise that there was no chance that I could work out the vagaries of a bow tie – certainly not without the essential support of my wife, Pippa.  I did not have the courage to put on a bourgeois clip-on bow tie certainly not after Hugh Hurst had severely wrapped me over the knuckles years ago for being so ‘common’.  He had subsequently bought me a ‘proper’ bow tie – which now lives permanently in my jacket pocket.  I knew that Hugh was coming up from Bristol for the dinner – so I went for the safe option of an Old Boys’ tie and a suit.  Throughout the evening, he made no attempt to disguise the look of disappointment on his face whenever he caught my eye, the disapproving shake of the head and the very audible tut-tutting.

It is very humbling to know that one cannot measure up to the exacting sartorial standards of one’s former pupils.

Joe Schubert (1979) was determined to attend and he made the effort to travel all the way from Denmark and a number of attendees made the effort to come up from the West Country and beyond.  Even a signal fault on one of the train lines, causing a two hour delay, failed to dampen the enthusiasm of most of those who were stranded.

One of these latecomers was Ricky Farrant, who had travelled up from Exeter.  He was in the boarding house in my first year of teaching and was one of the handful of Wynberg boys over the years who could boast a Nuffield and Craven Week cap. ‘But,’ as he said to me modestly, ’being asked to spend two years in Standard Nine did help…’.  He then proceeded to tell the entire audience (over and over again) about how my dog at the time had relieved himself on his shoes on the side of a hockey field.  He was disappointed that I had no recollection of this undoubted apocryphal  story.

Being 'restrained' by lads of the 1979 Wynberg Matrics

I was good to see Gary Sutter there.  He and I were both new boys together in Littlewood – he as a Standard Six boy and I – an equally wet behind the ears newly qualified teacher. Grant Sutcliffe, one of the stars of my first team hockey in 1975 bounced up to me.  We had so much catching up to do.  His mother, Val, was the school secretary and gave me the first welcoming phone call I received before I had even started at the school.  Grant and I reminisced about those early days where I coached all five hockey sides – three u19 and two u 15 teams.  John Baxter did assist – but his knowledge of hockey was limited to shouting ‘do something with it’ whenever a Wynberg player managed to stop a ball on that interesting field which we shared with the rugby players.  What a far cry from the quality coaches, the two astoturfs, nearly twenty teams, advanced technological assistance which characterises Wynberg hockey today.

In my second year at Wynberg, I prevailed upon a young Neil Crawford to coach the second team hockey on his ‘off’ days i.e. when he was not coaching the u14A rugby. I wonder how many teachers would do that today?  Neil went on to coach the first rugby team at Queens College – but the second hockey team of 1976 at Wynberg will all testify that he was a far better hockey coach!

There were a number of past pupils from my Latin classes over the years.  Sean Malherbe (1979) was in my first Wynberg Standard Six Latin class.  I must have given him a good linguistic foundation for he finished off the evening speaking all sorts of languages – and Latin must surely have been one of them.  I saw a momentary look of panic in Anthony George’s (1989) eyes when I asked him whether he still owed me a Caesar translation. ‘You nearly caught me for a moment, then,’ he said clearly relieved that (he thought)  I was pulling his leg.

It was also a pleasure to see a father / son combination of David (1957) and Alan (1987) Bradley.

Once the folk from the late train had arrived, Grant Esterhuizen started the proceedings by reminding everyone that we were all Wynberg men from whatever era we were at school and wherever we were in the world.  He then announced that we would be standing to sing the school song.  There was an air of panic amongst the assembled gathering.  One half of the audience (pre-1984) did not know that there was such a thing as a school song and the other half (post 1984) had the embarrassing premonition that they would be carrying the singing.

Then Grant played his trump card.  He gave a signal to his brother Craig – who pushed the button and lo and behold, the Wynberg Boys’ High choir appeared on the screen giving vent to the first verse of the school song. Chris Merrington had organised this back in Cape Town and it set just the right tone. The entire gathering from the oldies of the fifties, to the babes of the noughties, bellowed out the words.

The menu was not one that any Littlewood boy would have remembered from his days in the boarding house:  Aged sirloin of beef, braised beef crepinette, road shallot, fonant potato, stuffed cabbage roulade, Madeira jus.  Obviously there was no call on this occasion for Lappies to travel with his spit braai to London to do the catering.  However, he is under a certain degree of pressure to come up with new culinary names at the next old boys dinner in Cape Town.

It was coincidental that Lappies, having gone over to watch the rugby,  was on the same plane with me back to Cape Town.  For reasons of tact, I did not discuss the London menu with him.

With the Wynberg 175 flag behind me and a youthful Queen Elizabeth smiling down at me from the opposite wall, I went up to the podium to apprise everyone what had been happening at their old school in recent years.  I dubbed my talk: ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’  saying how the icons of the past had all influenced me and had all contributed to the Wynberg of today which was a testament to the passion and commitment of generations of educational leaders.  Neville Blackbeard, Rowan Algie, Bruce Probyn, Ray Connellan, Kobus Blom and many others all helped to build transepts of the proud cathedral which is the Wynberg Boys’ High School of today.

I told the audience that the purpose of my visit was to fly the 175 flag in London and to inform everyone of the exciting events of 2016. Our aim of the 175 year was to ‘reconnect the links of the endless chain’ and to encourage all old boys to visit the school at some stage during the year.

I shared with them the story of the 175 flag being ceremoniously piped into the hall on Founders’ Day this year to the tune of ‘Men of Wynberg’.  I mentioned the story of a grade eight boy who informed me, in all seriousness after the ceremony, that the Scots must have learnt the tune from Wynberg, because they call the tune ‘Flower of Scotland’  and sing it before their rugby matches!  I went on to play the emotional video of the procession wending its way to the stage.  In addition, they were able to listen to the pledge of matric pupil, Anthony Rowe,  as he wished the flag well on its journey to various chapters of old boy gatherings around the world.

I updated them on the story of the Oude Wijnberg Wine – a shiraz grown from vines on the Wynberg campus.  I mentioned the coffee table book authored by Neil Veitch.  I enlightened them about the memorial walk which we were planning from the Memorial Gates alongside the bank of the Hawthornden field.  On this walk would be granite slabs commemorating any old boy who wanted to have their name inscribed into the history of the school.

It was an exhilarating evening amongst of group of men who were positive and warm  and were clearly enjoying the occasion. In the end, it was transport which broke up the gathering.  Trains had to be caught and in the case of Grant Sutcliffe, a boat down the Thames.

The following day, I received an email from Ricky Farrant.  ‘I am in Cape Town in December,’ he said. ‘Would you like to play a round with me at Steenberg?  Winner buys the other a pair of shoes. ‘

Why can’t Wynberg boys just let it go?  

Anyway, I don’t need another pair of shoes.