Friday Falcon Week 05 2010

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• A story from an Old Boy.
• Weekly Bulletin - 1 February 2010

A story from an Old Boy.

Reminscences of Glenwood High School - Sixty Years Ago

To be exact it was sixty-two years ago. I matriculated from Glenwood in 1948. Now approaching my 80^th year I look at the photographs of my old school in its centenary year and can only wonder at the fantastic changes that have taken place in those sixty years.

In the first instance of course, in 1948 Glenwood was a school for white pupils only and that of course is tremendous being no longer the case. There was only half the numbers of pupils then than there are today. 1948 was the momentous year that brought the Nationalist Party into power. I remember us in the recreation room in the hostel crowded around listening to the wireless as it was called then and wondering what that would mean for the country. Although we had the radio there were no such things as computers or television and I don’t recall anybody playing chess. The rec room in fact was a space for reading, passing the time between bathing and dinner and, between dinner and bed, doing ones homework.

The hostel then housed no more than sixty boarders watched over by three masters: R.G.Slater, disrespectfully known as “Chicken”, H.R. Hawker, known even more disrespectively as “Rat” and H.G.Gray, a cycling health fanatic who spoke very little, took cold showers and abjured the use of soap. I don’t remember whether he had a nickname or not. There must have been a matron as well but I don’t remember her.

On the ground floor were the recreation room on one side of the entrance hall and the dining room on the opposite, and at the back a changing room for when one came in from something like a rugby practice, and of course the kitchen. On the first floor were the masters’ rooms the dormitories and the ablutions. ones homework really a. I remember the ablutions consisted of showers, wash-hand basins in the centre and a couple of baths to one side and, whether to save on hot water or to save time if you weren’t showering it was usual to have two in the bath at the same time and the water wasn’t changed all that often.

Looking at the photographs and taking the virtual tour it is impossible now to recognise the old school except for the façade at the front. In my time there was the main building holding classrooms, metal workshop, a small library, headmaster’s study, common room, assembly hall and, in the basement, a dim refectory that sold sticky buns, doughnuts, cakes, biscuits, sweets and fizzy rinks, all the things that would give a modern dietician nightmares. Leaving the refectory, a couple of dozen steps took one to the old concrete, brick and tin roof stands beneath whose six tiers of benches were two very primitive changing rooms and in front of which was the upper field. At the far side of that and across the road was the lower field and that was it. There was only rugby and cricket; no such thing as hockey, tennis or squash, and swimming necessitated a trip into town to use the fresh water enclosed municipal baths (very chilly) or the beach baths. The golden boy of that year as far as athletics were concerned; rugby, cricket and swimming was Peter Shedlock who excelled in all and who I am sure must have his name up somewhere on an honours board. Oh, of course there was inter-house athletics as well, four houses in competition, and he probably excelled there as well. I am afraid my name is not on any honours board because I never excelled in anything. I was hopeless at cricket, much as I love the game, and barely made the second fifteen at number eight although rugby was my passion and still is. The big rivals of course as far as sport went were DHS followed closely by Maritzburg College.

There was no school shop and our parents bought our school uniforms at the department store Payne Brothers in West Street. There was no art, no music, except for the cadet band. When I and a fellow pupil asked permission to attend a symphony concert in the city hall you would not have believed the brouhaha and consternation it set up. Trips away from school were usually for rugby matches though I do remember going to Michaelhouse for a debating competition. It was unheard of to travel any further afield. There was no drama club although there were a couple of productions thanks to an enthusiastic master. I remember in particular that hoary old one act piece, “The Monkey’s Paw”. It was my first introduction to theatre to be consolidated later at university when I was cast as Hotspur in Henry 1V Part 1, the experience that led me to being first of all an actor and then donning other caps as director, teacher, playwright and novelist.

Talking of playwrights I wonder how many boys know the origin of the school motto: ego est homo, nihil humani alienum est, also written as homo cum humani nihil a me alienum puto; that it was from a play by a freed African slave, Publius Terentius Afar, known in English as Terence. This motto has been with me all my life and I like to believe, of all the students who have graduated from Glenwood over the years, I have lived it up to the hilt: nothing that is of interest to man is alien to me. Looking through the plays I have written they are so diverse in subject matter I think this must surely be the case.

Last year my autobiography “No Official Umbrella” was published and people ask me why that title? Well, next to the school motto, another saying has stayed with me all my life and it comes from a book read at school called Kai Lung’s Golden Hours by Earnest Bramah. It reads, “It is scarcely to be expected that one who has spent his life beneath an official umbrella, should have at his command the finer analogies between light and shade.”

I look back on my years at the school with great affection. Congratulations Glenwood on your centenary year, alles van die beste and may you go on from strength to strength.

By:  Glyn Idris Jones

www.glynjones.net

info@glynjones.net

Weekly Bulletin - 1 February 2010

Daily Bulletin for Week Ending Sunday 7 February 2010 - CYCLE 2