"Sorry seems to be the hardest word .."

The Sorry Trophy

Sorry!

Few teachers who have taught for any length of time on the Wynberg staff cannot boast that at some time they were not worthy recipients of the infamous Sorry Trophy.  New  teachers, however,  are normally given a period of grace before being subjected to the vicious humour which characterizes the staffroom of a boys’ school.

Thus it was somewhat unusual early this year,  that a teacher new to the ways of WBHS, found himself the bemused recipient of this not-sought-after trophy.  After his first week  of teaching at WYNBERG BOYS’ HIGH, English teacher Neil Veitch took it upon himself to thank the teaching staff for making himself feel so welcome at SACS – a school where he had been teaching for the last twelve years.  Greeted by hoots of derisive laughter, he was presented with the Sorry Trophy before he could even sit down - so ensuring that 2012 in the Wynberg Staffroom would start off in the time-honoured fashion.

The Sorry Trophy was first presented in the 1980’s to the teacher who made the biggest faux paux of the term.  The figure on the trophy is hiding its head in embarrassment under its arm.  A member of staff, ‘the Sorry Master’,  is elected whose job it is to nominate the eventual ‘winner’ from a long list of not-so-willing applicants.  It is not expected of him, though,  to observe the entire truth to the full letter of the law.   His decision is always final and no defence or debate is permitted by the recipient - but a gracious remorseful  acceptance speech usually goes down well.

Most teachers of the time will remember an early award back in the 1980’s to a teacher  - who has since taken early retirement -  who had marked the exam paper of a ghost pupil called ‘Snowball’. The teacher was unaware of the fact that a bored invigilator, Larry Moser, had written out the answers while walking around the class and slipped Snowball’s ‘answer sheet’ into the pile of papers to be marked.  The teacher marked the paper, entered the marks on a mark sheet and even wrote a report comment on Snowball!  A worthy early winner!

Since then winners have accepted the trophy who have mixed up parents at a PTA and reported at length on the wrong boy; phoned home to a parent asking where their son was when he had left school three months before; or selected a player who plays rugby into a hockey team.

Wynberg Welcomes Neil Veitch

A particular favourite story of mine is about Rodney Inglis, a poacher turned gamekeeper:  a recipient himself of innumerable Sorry Awards over the years, he is now the incumbent Sorry Master.  His Oscar Winning Sorry was when, some years back, he kept the entire Grade 11 Camp waiting for supplies at the Mizpah Camp site after he had gone through to Grabouw to replenish stocks.  Although he had been told the access number to the gate on the national road, by the time he returned from the village, the number had slipped his mind.  Cell phones were not yet in common usage, so he had to drive back to the village to phone the camp to be reminded of the number.  Who would think that 1-2-3-4 would be such a difficult number for a degreed pedagogue to remember?

As Sorry Master, he took pleasure in exacting  revenge though.  After I had taken the first assembly of the year in January 2011 and had spent some time in expounding to the boys the virtues of commitment and diligence in their academic work in the year ahead,  I ended my talk by wishing the school a ‘Happy Holiday’.  The award was handed to me by a grinning Rodney Inglis as I re-entered the staff room from the assembly…

Thank you, Neil Veitch, for ensuring that the high standards of the Sorry Award are not declining in 2012!