Step Aside, Spud

‘You would definitely not have enjoyed being Headmaster in our day,’ said Andre Badenhorst to me as he started off his speech to the assembled gathering. ‘Those teachers of ours would have tested you…’

Andre Badenhorst

The occasion was a re-union lunch for the Wynberg matric class of 1963.  Andre, a well-known Western Cape winemaker, had offered to host the occasion at his beautiful wine farm, Doran Wines, situated on the road between Wellington and Malmesbury.  The setting of the meal, in the wine tasting room, was spectacular with Red Aberdeen Angus cattle grazing next to a lake in the near distance and vineyards stretching as far as the eye could see. 

Douglas Hey, Class of '63

On the left, was the Paardeberg Mountain  and when I flippantly remarked that the mountain looked nothing like a zebra and clearly the person who named it thus had partaken far too liberally of the fruits of the valley,  Andre soon corrected me saying that the name had come from the zebras which had once roamed the valley.

Pippa and I arrived at Doran Wines to be greeted by a relaxed 1963 reunion group sampling the local wines with professional interest, clearly  not a particularly far cry from their pupil days – if the stories they were telling and retelling were correct - when they illicitly poured SAB products  down their throats on Friday nights at Cogill’s Hotel in Wynberg Main Road!  Classics from the hit-parade of 1963 provided the background music which was proving a great attraction for about twenty  Aberdeen Angus cattle, congregating at the fence near the festivities.  I told everyone that  they obviously recognised Rod Steward’s music , but they seemed to savour the Beach Boys with equal enthusiasm.

Visiting from Germany for the event:
Henry Aikman (left) and Mike Barrett

The cattle only dispersed once the speeches started which said volumes either for the quality of the music of the 1960’s or for the lack of quality of the speeches.

Prof Keith Gottschalk

Reminiscing began in earnest once the impressive lunch was over.  Prof.  Keith Gottschalk, of the University of the Western Cape, started the ball rolling by reminding everyone about the school newspaper which Rob Sladen (now a Professor of Medicine in New York) edited.  Boys wrote stories of school life and articles of interest.  Surprisingly no-one seemed to recollect, fifty years later, the article Keith wrote on rocket powered aeroplanes!

Most of the stories revolved around their memories of teachers.  It seems that post-lunch periods were a breeze at school as some of the teachers were erratic in their attendance having popped down to the Old Standard Pub for some lunch time fare that was not provided in the school tuckshop.

Many spoke of one teacher who fancied his prowess at pool. Most teachers took responsibility for their own discipline in class – normally involving a flagellatory weapon of some sort, like the back slat of a desk.  One however, decided to make an entertaining challenge of it.  ‘Double or quits,’ he used to say to miscreants in the class.  ‘If you beat me at pool at the Palace Hotel after school, we will call it quits.’

The memory, fifty years later, was that not many pupils had had the expertise or the proficiency to beat this veteran pool player. ‘Or the stupidity,’ remarked one of the class wryly.

Clearly, the newspapers of the day had far more pressing issues on which to focus their minds.  Today’s lot would have a field-day with stories like this. I can just see the headlines in Die Son: ‘Champion Wynberg Teacher remains unbeaten at Pool.’ No wonder teachers of 2013 look so harassed – the opportunities to pop out for a lunch-time stress reliever at the local are so much more limited.

Anyway, the tuckshop lunches are better.

Cliff Smit maintained that the teachers of ’63 were Real Men.  He told the story of Doc Wood whose responsibility it was to prepare the cricket pitches – so he did not teach first period every day.  Apparently some P.T. boys were congregated round the pitch while he was mowing and one of them slipped – which, knowing boys, is a euphemism for ‘was pushed’.  The mower went over the boy’s foot and two toes were cut off.

Doc Wood’s response was a classic.  ‘Now get away from him, you boys, and find those toes before the seagulls take off with them.’

Only at a boys’ school.

‘Talking about Doc Wood,’ someone else piped up. ‘Do you remember the time we found the trapdoor open under Doc Wood’s lab?  We went down and swopped the hoses between the gas tap and the water tap to the teacher’s desk?’  Apparently when Doc Wood came back in and switched on the Bunsen burner, water splashed onto his face and suit.

The class, now approaching 70, rocked with laughter.  It proves the point that men, whatever their age, do not really lose their youthful mischievous nature.  However, it did give me cause to wonder what they would say to their Grandsons today if they came home with similar stories and escapades.

Legends of Wynberg:
the late Jimmy Mathew

A Wynberg legendary teacher and cricket coach was Jimmy Matthew who, when he didn’t know an answer to a biology question, very sensibly used to say that he would get back to the pupil with an answer the next day.  He was (apparently) less than amused when the tables were turned  by one of the boys who gave the same response when asked by Jimmy where his homework was. ‘I will get back to you tomorrow with an answer to that one, Sir.’

Knowing Jimmy Matthew as I did, I suspect that he was secretly laughing at that reposte.

Arthur McKey, Class '63

Arthur McKey had us all in stitches when he recounted a story of two boys, Hanley and Apsey, who hung a willing conspirator, Malcolm Bell, out of a top story window.   They had tied a rope underneath his arms and put his blazer on to conceal the rope which appeared to be hanging him by the neck.  Malcolm played the part to perfection and lolled his head realistically with his tongue hanging out.

The ‘body’ was then dangled in front of the classroom window below where Mr Hopkins was teaching.  The boys were in on the escapade.  They pointed dramatically and vocally to the dangling body of Bell.  ‘Look, Sir, Look!  Bell has hanged himself. Do something, Sir.’

With the class calling him to action, the distraught teacher ran from the classroom and out of the building, to find ‘habeat nullum corpus’.  Bell had long since been winched up and was safely out of sight in the upstairs classroom.  No doubt shaking his head, he went back to his classroom to find the virtuous boys all sitting innocently at their desks.  That alone should have warned any experienced teacher that something was amiss!

Inevitably, the boys upstairs decided to try their luck one more time and the scenario was repeated.  This time there was an unexpected development.  Just as Bell was being lowered from the upstairs window, a lady, who was driving down Oxford Road in her Morris Minor, saw the hanging ‘body’ with the lolling neck.  In her fright and alarm, she lost control of the car which went careering into the school fence.   Startled by the crash, ringleaders Hanley and Apsey dropped the body unceremoniously and scrambled back from the upstairs ledge into the classroom window.

Bell’s neck was intact, but he suffered a broken leg.

One can only picture the scene when Mr Hopkins made his second foray outside his classroom.  Boy writhing with broken leg on the ground, Morris Minor stuck in the fence with steam coming from the engine, hysterical old lady wailing loudly, boys cheering out of windows…..

More like a scene from ‘Faulty Towers’ than ‘Spud’.

The newspaper article makes it clear that it was an internal exam not the Matric Science paper.   But then, what schoolboy  - even 50 years later – ever let facts get in the way of a good story?

When the gales of laughter had subsided after the telling of this tale, Mike Lamb followed with his story.  He told of the occasion when Wynberg DID make the newspapers – not a local rag, but in style on the front page of a Sunday paper.  A number of Wynberg boys, who for the purpose of this blog should remain nameless, had prevailed on the janitor to let them into the school safe where the papers for the upcoming matric exams were stored.  They took a Science paper and then proceeded to make copies which they sold to Wynberg, SACS and Rondebosch boys.  Sensibly, he upped the price for the Bishops boys – which proved to be his undoing.  Mike steadfastly maintained that one of the Bishops mothers – he was unsure whether she was incensed by the economic unfairness of the transaction or the lack of ethics involved - reported the matter to the Education Department and deed duly made headlines in the national press.

What really upset the ‘entrepreneur’ though, was that the Wynberg boys forced him to hand their money back.  He could not remember whether the boys from the other schools received pecuniary satisfaction.

The upshot (coincidentally?) was that exactly fifty years later, in 2013, the Western Cape Education Department made the decision that Principals must collect exams papers daily from WCED offices.

Jeff Sternslow leads the toast to
' the School & Absent Friends'

There is no need for the Class of 63 to feel guilty when they hear that I now have to fight my way daily through the early morning traffic for the six weeks of the matric exam period this year to collect exam papers.  A study of the actual newspaper  concerned  reveals that time has enhanced their factual recollection of the event….

Thankfully, Bishops’ name remains unsullied.

Towards the end of the enormously entertaining afternoon, Mike Lamb leant across to me and said conspiratorially, ‘You know, we really were the naughtiest class that Wynberg has ever known.’

I am not sure what his youngest brother, Allan, Class of ’73, would have thought of that comment.  The stories of his exploits, both on and off the field, with Western Province, Northants and England (with Ian Botham) have graced the pages of many cricket books.  No doubt his ’73 class would also rise to the challenge of claiming the mantle of the ‘naughtiest class ever’.

So would the matriculants of the other 171 years of Wynberg history. 

It was ever thus.