It’s a Tradition!

The height of temptation at Littlewood House

‘It is a tradition, Sir,’ the boy said to me without a trace of regret or remorse when he was found by the duty hostel master clambering in through an upstairs window  a number of years ago.  During evening Prep, he had clambered onto the window sill of his dormitory window, grabbed a branch of the avocado tree and climbed out.  He had then put two large avocados into each pocket and manoeuvred himself precariously back along the same route – probably about 15 metres above mother earth.

As luck would have it, he was met by a bemused duty master who had been hovering in the area. I was summoned from a meeting at school to pronounce judgement.  As adults, words tend to fail us in this situation and we revert to rhetorical questions.

‘What do you think you were doing?’ is the immediate fatuous question which springs to our lips.  In this case, the answer was somewhat obvious as two prize avocados were sitting on the window sill.

I remember once asking a similar pointless question of another boarder, Andrew Mandy,  when he was guiltily poking his head out of the bushes on the school campus.  I posed the same inane enquiry to his retreating back as he endeavoured to leopard crawl at pace to the imagined safety of another bush.  In this instance, the question was made even more superfluous by the glowing embers of something hastily discarded and left smouldering in the dead leaves underfoot.

‘Sir, Sir!’ he said to me in feigned enthusiasm from the next bush trying to lure me away from the incriminating evidence.  ‘Just look at these bugs, Sir! They are so interesting!’

To this day, I still regret that I missed a trick.  I should have made him write a thousand word essay on the bugs of the Wynberg Campus!

Forbidden Fruit ...

The attitude of the avocado smuggler, though, was a mixture of triumph and truculence.  ‘It is tradition of this room,’ he assured me. ‘Every year, the occupants of Room 12 are expected to bring back avos for the rest of the room.’  He was probably right as stories of avo raiding were doing the rounds shortly after Headmaster Bill Bowden had originally planted the tree in the 50’s.

‘Oh well, in that case as an honorary member of Room 12 these two are mine.’ I proceeded to pocket the fruits of his escapade.  For the first time, I saw a hint of panic tinged with disappointment in his eyes.

‘If I promise not to do it again, can I keep them?  We have already bought the biscuits,’ he pleaded, showing me the packet of Pro Vita.

How could I harden my heart against such a plea?   But I had already planned my next step and organised the tree fellers to come in the next day to trim the branches of the avo tree well away from the windows to a distance which would deter even the most agile (and ravenous) boarder.

Not an Old Boys’ dinner goes past without some ex-Littlewood boy remonstrating with me that I have stymied a fine boarding house tradition.  Nicking the fruit from the avo tree without being caught by the masters (or even headmaster when he lived on the premises) was always considered a worthy rite of passage for the occupants of Room 12.

Of course it was also a traditional nocturnal exit for those who wished to savour the bright lights of the Claremont Main Road.  Many an occupant of the window beds in Room 12 will tell stories of being woken in the early hours of the morning by the rattling of a stone against the window and an urgent whisper from the branches of, ‘Let me in….’.

I am all for tradition.  Boys need it.  It is a source of pride and binds the boys to something bigger than themselves.  It enables them to feel they belong – an important ingredient for all males. However, when tradition threatens life and limb then it is probably time to draw a line.  The skill in running a school for boys – and certainly a boarding house  -  is to offer the boys challenging opportunities to flex their muscles and to test their burgeoning potential in legitimate and safe pursuits.

When I started at Wynberg many years ago there was a ‘tradition’ which covered both aspects, an opportunity to flex muscles but also to threaten life and limb – the annual staff versus school rugby match. This took place at the end of the season against a ‘3rd XV’ but was in reality a matric side.  It was talked about for weeks on end amongst the staff and it soon became apparent that the match was seen as an opportunity to settle a few classroom scores at the bottom of the rugby scrum.  I have no doubt that similar conversations were taking place amongst the boys in corridors and on the fields at break.  Most of it went  over my head as clearly they would not be needing a scrawny hockey player like me.

My shock and horror can only be imagined when the appointed captain of the staff side, English teacher Clive Jordaan, captain of False Bay,  mentioned to me in passing a few days before the match that I would be playing.  I sounded like a schoolboy who had not done his homework as the excuses poured out.  My bad back, asthma, dodgy knee, sole breadwinner for two dogs and an aged grandmother.  And I did not possess rugby boots.  I needn’t have bothered.  I was just told it was traditional for male staff.  To this day, I don’t know what trick John Baxter pulled to get out of it.

Lunch in the boarding house on the day of the match took on the air of a funereal  Last Supper. Gloomily I then dragged my feet, shod with tackies, to the field and on the way bumped into vice principal, Ray Connellan,  who was still in tie and jacket.
‘Why aren’t you playing?’ I demanded suspiciously.  ‘I thought it was traditional…’

‘I leave it to the youngsters,’ he said breezily.  I should have remembered that comment many decades later when I was prevailed upon to play in the staff hockey match. It would have saved me many agonising hours on the physio’s table.

Afternoon school was cancelled and hundreds of boys poured out to the rugby field  - reminiscent of ‘the ranks of Tuscany’ lining up along the banks of the River Tiber in Macauly’s poem on Horatius. There was a buzz of excitement in the area. While waiting for the opening whistle, I glanced across at the opposition.  My downy cheeks and boyish complexion were no match for those bruisers who clearly shaved twice a day and all seemed to have their wife and kids on the touchline.  The first half was a bruising affair in which I played a negligible role.  The forwards pounded away at each other and it was clear that events were happening in the dark recesses of the scrum which were of no concern to me.  I spent most of the half on the wing trying to look athletic and ready for any action which hopefully would not come my way.  At no point did I touch the ball and my shorts were pristine.

I did not like the tone of the half time team talk.  ‘We need to throw the ball along the backline more,’ said the skipper.

I thought it was time for me to offer my rugby advice.

‘We are doing so well keeping it tight,’ I said to the nodding approval of Terry Nelson and Johan Fourie who were loving every moment of the contest down in the scrum. Both played first team club rugby in the northern suburbs. ‘Let’s stick to what is working for us,’ I exhorted.

No-one listened to my advice and it was not long before the ball came spinning down the line.  The inside centre was Eddie Blignaut, who had played full back for WP B while at university.  I am told by those in the know that the only reason that he didn’t play for the full WP side was that a certain HO de Villiers was the incumbent.

Eddie straightened the line and drew two of the opposition and proceeded to lay a perfectly timed pass into my reluctant hands.  I looked up and there was not a single player in sight – just acres of green field and an enticing try line beckoning.  This I could handle!  I put my ears backs and with visions of glory, went into overdrive to the accompanying roar of encouragement from the ranks of Tuscany.

All the more fool me.  The school full back trotted across like a prize pony to cover the line. I decided to take him on the outside.  I was told by the boys later that I went into a wheel spin (in my tackies) as, apparently,  all the full back did was push out an exploratory arm in my direction.  I don’t recollect that bit – but what I do remember was being sent into orbit doing  three or four cartwheels  into the ranks of Tuscany. As luck would have it, I came to a standstill virtually in the lap of one Julian Hadwen, a member of my Standard Nine Latin class.

He thought Christmas had come early. ‘Bad luck, Sir!  You nearly made it.’
I banked that one.  I took great pleasure in writing the same comment on a Latin test he wrote a few days later.

When the final whistle blew, the school team all charged at the referee, Peter Broster.  He was picked up unceremoniously and dumped into the swimming pool which was alongside the field.

‘What are they doing that for?’ I asked incredulously to Clive Jordaan.

‘Tradition,’ he replied nonchalantly.

Before anyone decided to extend this tradition to the right wing,  I departed hastily for the safety of the staff room.  There I found splendid post-match fare set out on the table, ready and waiting.

Now that’s a tradition I can heartily support.