CHAPTER 4

The co-ed experience

As I have found throughout my professional life, the wheels of bu­reau­cracy turn incredibly slowly, and the application for the vice principalship at York High was no exception. Eventually, one evening a call came from Ron Dugmore. My promotion rating had been changed, I had been shortlisted, and the nature of the position required that both Cherry and I attend an interview in George the following weekend. We were required to be at the headmaster’s home for lunch on the Saturday, and interviews with the governing body would follow.

We drove up from Cape Town that morning and duly arrived at the headmaster’s house to find that the other three shortlisted candidates and their wives were all there for lunch, as well as the entire governing body. This was certainly an unusual arrangement, and while every effort was made to get us to relax, it was quite an awkward hour or two for all of us. It turned out that the other three candidates were indeed older and more experienced than I was, and to make matters worse, I was going to be the last one interviewed.

Our interviews were to take place at the school, while the wives were taken to the hostel and shown the accommodation available to the housemaster, or superintendent, which was the official title. While one candidate was interviewed, the others were shown around by the incumbent, who was leaving on promotion, hence the vacancy. As might be imagined, we all got to know each other fairly well by the end of the day.

The interviews were about an hour each, with the result that we ended up at the home of one of the governors for drinks, together with our wives, at about 6 pm, after which we went to our respective hotels. The interview was fairly relaxed, possibly owing to the earlier socialising and to the fact that some of the members of the governing body had known my family in earlier days, although I was not sure whether that was of benefit to me or a handicap.

Cherry shared with me her views regarding the hostel accommodation, which sounded pretty awful. The next morning, we had the first slot to view the accommodation together, as we were driving back and the others were all flying out. (We never realised that flying to George for the interview was an option.) The accommodation was indeed dreadful, and there was a certain feeling of déjà vu as I remembered some of the previous accommodation to which I had subjected my family.

The housemaster’s accommodation consisted of a long passage with a bright orange carpet on the ground floor of the hostel known as Huis Volschenk (irreverently christened Huis Volstink by the boarders), off which led a variety of smallish rooms. There was a lounge, a separate dining room, three fairly small bedrooms, an old-fashioned bathroom (I don’t think there was a shower) and a kitchen, which formed the end of the passage. The only doors leading out of this flat were one that led into the hostel itself and a back door leading out to the hostel laundry and the garage. The house had three storeys, with accommodation for the girls on the middle floor and the boys on the top floor. There were single rooms for two mistresses on the girls’ floor and two masters on the boys’ floor.

While I found the thought of the vice principalship in a new school with a good management group and a supportive and passionate gover­ning body very exciting, I felt that the accommodation might well be a factor that would count against my accepting the position if it was offered to me.

We drove back to Cape Town and settled down to another bureaucratic ‘wait and see’ period. A few weeks passed, and then one evening, with the children already in bed and asleep, the phone rang and it was Ron Dugmore offering me the position. I was about to ask for time to consider whether I would accept when Cherry, who overheard the conversation, mouthed the word ‘accept’. Dugmore must have realised my hesitation and advised that we should discuss the offer and that I should call him during the course of the next morning.

Cherry was adamant that I should accept the offer. As a family, we would cope with the move and the living conditions, and she would cope with the position of matron, second grade. She felt I should phone back immediately to show my enthusiasm and commitment, and she fetched a bottle of champagne she had been saving for the occasion and went and woke the children (aged seven, six and four) to join us for a celebratory drink. She had obviously long decided that nothing should stand in the way of my career. What a special wife, mother and learner matron!

Once again, I was about to move my family at an inopportune time, although I was beginning to wonder whether there was ever a good time to make a move. The house had to be let out, quotations had to be obtained from removal firms, and applications had to be made to schools in George. We made this move an exciting adventure for the children, emphasising in particular that the family cottage on the Island at Great Brak River was going to add a special dimension to all our lives. This new position proved to be more than a full-time post, as is often the case in a relatively small school with a small staff but one that is developing quickly and wanting to hold its own in relation to larger and more established schools in the vicinity.

Apart from running the boarding house – almost a full-time job in itself – I found that I was teaching four classes of senior English (both Standard 10 [Grade 12] classes), coaching rugby and cricket, and both coaching and playing squash for the school’s first-division side. I was a grade head and was also required to assist in running what were known as the duty panels. This was an interesting concept in which all Standard 10 boys and girls participated as leaders in the school. While it gave everyone an opportunity to lead, to exercise discipline, and to set an example in terms of involvement, it required considerable hands-on supervision, as there were inevitably those who either did not want the positions of responsibility or were just not capable of carrying out the required responsibilities. On balance, however, it was a worthwhile concept and was effective in a developing school.

The leadership situation in Huis Volschenk was somewhat different. Although there were rooms designated for both male and female staff, we understandably struggled to find assistants and keep them. Both male and female staff were required to share the ablution facilities with the boys and girls, respectively – not a happy or ideal arrangement. In addition, their accommodation was in the middle of the respective boys’ and girls’ floors, which meant there was little privacy, it was quite noisy, and they were unable to entertain visitors.

In our first year, there were only four boys and four girls in matric, two of each of whom were prefects who had to assist with the supervision of about 30 boys and girls, respectively. While the dining room on the ground floor and the prep room on the first floor were used by both sexes, all other activities were strictly separate. The girls on the middle floor were literally locked in at night, and the boys on the upper floor had no exit other than via a narrow fire escape. When I think of all the health and safety regulations of the modern school, my mind boggles at how non-compliant we were.

The other problematic arrangement was that the hostel was a good 20-minute walk from the school. With George’s famously changeable weather, commuting between the hostel and school was not always a pleasant or easy experience. The provision of meals, for instance, had to accommodate the distance and time involved, which certainly put pressure on afternoon sport and other activities.

All these unusual and idiosyncratic arrangements put added pressure on duty staff, as well as on us as a family. I had my duty day, just like the other staff, and weekends were shared. In addition, Cherry was on duty most nights, as the other matron (who mainly handled catering) lived off the premises. Cherry ran a dispensary directly after dinner each evening, which normally gave our family about eight minutes to eat. The legacy of this is that we all became notoriously fast eaters.

As most of the boarders came from neighbouring towns, they were able to go home for most weekends, which gave us a bit of relief. But there were inevitably those who could not go home, hence duty staff were required over weekends. If we were fortunate, we were able to get down to Great Brak every second or third weekend, but often only from about midday on a Sunday. It was only about 30 minutes away, and after a quick lunch, the children and the dogs went to play on the beach and we could catch a quick nap.

We named our cottage Asylum, in the sense of ‘place of safety’ or ‘refuge’ (although at times both meanings applied to us!), and it certainly was one. A couple of times a term, we would plan a ‘weekend out’ to give all staff a break. To have two nights and two days down at Great Brak with the family was truly quality time.

My mother, who was then a sprightly 75, loved Great Brak and was eagerly anticipating having Christmas with us on the Island at the end of our first year. She phoned us at the start of the holidays (our neighbours on the Island had one of the few phones), chatted to the children, and said how much she was looking forward to seeing us in just over a week. She was in a retirement home in Worcester, happy and generally in good health. After phoning us from the public phone, she returned to her room and dropped dead in the doorway. It was a great shock for us, as we loved her dearly and had learned to appreciate her and all she stood for.

When I look back on our four years at York High, I am struck by the many educational and leadership lessons I learned. The first, and one that I tried to apply in all my subsequent promotion posts, was the simple adage that if the boys and girls in your care were happy, their parents would be happy and you could then rely on their loyalty and support.

I also learned quickly that, particularly in the boarding context, both pupils and parents had to understand that, with the conditions under which the pupils lived, there would inevitably be far more rules and restrictions than in the family context. Provided that these rules were applied consistently and fairly, all parties generally were happy, although some would push the boundaries as far as possible.

A wonderful analogy that I was taught, and have used often, is between a baby in a playpen and the behaviour of a teenager. If you watch a baby in a playpen, his or her efforts are mainly aimed at getting out of it. They will shake the bars, try to climb out and even try to chew their way through the bars. The obvious reason for the play­pen is to ensure that the baby comes to no harm during the crawling and early-walking stages. The rules set for a teenager are similar to the playpen – to prevent harmful behaviour. Like a baby, a teenager will try to push the boundaries. Both the playpen and the boundaries can be lifted once behaviour becomes more responsible.

A new dynamic at this time was that I had never had to discipline girls before, and I felt a far greater responsibility towards them than I did towards the boys. A classic manifestation of this was on the occasion of my first co-ed matric dance, during which two of my four girl boarders went off on motorbikes with their partners to some after-party at Victoria Bay. When I discovered this, I expelled them from the hostel as I felt I could no longer take responsibility for them for the remainder of the year. One of the parents was upset by my actions and questioned whether I had ever been young myself. I did not see the relevance of the statement and pointed out that he would have been a great deal more upset had his daughter been involved in an accident or worse while in my care.

Another lesson was the importance for the pupil body of seeing their teachers in a different milieu from the classroom and out of the context of being disciplinary figures. York introduced an annual variety concert called ‘York Entertains’, an event enjoyed enormously by the school and the public at large. Apart from all the obvious opportunities it created for the pupils to showcase their talents and to get involved in organisation, directing and producing, the staff were encouraged to participate, which I did with some reluctance. My only previous thespian exposure had been in Standard 9 (Grade 11) at Rondebosch, as one of the crowd in Julius Caesar, with the taxing line of ‘Hail, Caesar’. Now I found myself, a mature vice principal, in drag, as one of three little maids from school, from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. Not only did I have to act the part, but I had to sing it as well!

The point of this was summed up by an article in the local newspaper that commented on the participation of the headmaster (who loved it), the vice principal (who didn’t) and staff members, and on the obvious rapport between staff and pupils. The writer went on to say, ‘All this says more about the spirit of the school than any academic dissertation.’

York High was established as the English-medium offshoot of Hoër­skool Outeniqua, which had become one of the largest schools in the Cape. Although predominantly Afrikaans, it had previously been dual-medium and had served the George English-speaking community. It was important for the headmaster and his staff to establish a school with a unique ethos that espoused all the best characteristics of the traditional English-medium schools.

York needed to compete academically with other schools in the area, which it did from the outset, but in activities beyond the classroom it was difficult to compete with some of the larger, well-established schools. Having said that, I was intrigued to see that although York was probably a fifth of the size of other schools, it produced more teams (although not at the top level) than those schools did in most, if not all, of the traditional major boys’ and girls’ sports.

The lesson for me in all this was to find and develop areas that the other schools did not offer, and so in quick time to make a mark on the educational map. This is exactly what the founding head had done, and within a few years York High was recognised as one of the top squash-playing schools in the country, particularly in the boys’ sector. Apart from playing in the top leagues locally, the boys played against and beat the top schools in Cape Town (Rondebosch, Bishops and Wynberg), as well as hosted and beat a visiting team from Merchant Taylors’ School in London. Furthermore, the headmaster and I played in the First squash team with the boys in the Southern Cape Men’s first league.

While squash catered for only a relatively small group of players, success here seemed to energise participation in other sports, and created a self-belief that a small, relatively unknown school could catch up quickly. It was not long before York could more than hold its own in the more traditional sports for both girls and boys. Great tribute must go to the members of staff who were teachers in the fullest sense, and also to the generous, loyal and supportive parent body. Comparisons are odious, but I could not help but appreciate how much more involved and dedicated our staff and parents were than those in some of our neighbouring schools.

I am not sure whether the education authorities resented the establish­ment of an English-medium school in George, but the discrimi­nation exercised by the department and the local school board against York High was something I found both frustrating and unacceptable.

I had, at this stage of my career, no experience of what it must have been like in the non-white educational sector but can only imagine how horrific it must have been when experiencing the intimidating and discriminatory practices aimed at English schools. After the National Party came to power in 1948, control of the provincial education departments and, at local level, of the school boards was vested in the Afrikaans community, and in particular the Broederbond. As previously mentioned, the conditions in Huis Volschenk were far from acceptable, but every year the promised improvements to staff facilities, recreational areas and general additions never materialised. Each year my annual hostel report would declare that our requests for upgrades would be acted upon the following year, but each year our efforts were thwarted by the apathy or sheer lack of interest in English-medium education in the town in general and York High in particular.

The school was growing rapidly in numbers and in reputation in the Southern Cape, but in spite of representations made by our very professional school committee, we did not get what we were entitled to. Our colleagues in the other hostels around the town definitely benefited from the support of the education officials, and were even allowed to order steak and lamb for their families during the school holidays. In our case we were continually harassed with inventory and invoice checks. We were even made to keep used light bulbs and empty toilet rolls in a damp walk-in cupboard.

As our numbers had grown each year, after two years we were granted an additional matron, a post that was advertised by the school board. In spite of there being a couple of suitable English-speaking women among the applicants, the person appointed was Afrikaans-speaking and in fact could barely speak or understand English. In spite of our appeals against this appointment, on the basis that the boarding house was English-speaking, her appointment was confirmed and we were informed that the matter was closed.

Cherry, as the senior matron – still second grade, according to her payslip – did all the frustrating documentation required by the school board. She kept the inventories, reconciled invoices with payment requests, counted the toilet rolls (used), and did much other mindless paperwork. One of these jobs was to apply to have certain items that were no longer usable ‘written off’. There was considerable paperwork involved in this exercise, as reasons had to be given why the items were no longer usable, why they could not be used in another capacity, and so on.

She had submitted all the paperwork in trying to write off an ancient lawnmower that had been unusable ever since we took over Huis Volschenk. It took up room in my garage and we decided it needed to go. After submitting the request a second time, and a few months having elapsed, one of the day staff at the school, on hearing the story, asked me whether he could have the mower, as he had some use for the chassis. I gave it to him with alacrity, as I could now at least open my Kombi door without it banging into the lawnmower.

Within 24 hours, the senior clerk at the school board telephoned Cherry and told her that the giving away of the lawnmower was tantamount to theft, it had to be retrieved immediately, and as there was an obvious interest in someone having it, it would need to go out to tender. She phoned me at the school and I shot down to the school board offices, where I threw my toys. I was not prepared to have it suggested that my wife was a thief and demanded to see the secretary of the school board.

The secretary was the top official in the school board office (in spite of his rather strange title), and he also carried considerable political clout in the town. I was made to wait for a fair length of time before I was summoned to his impressive office, the huge desk of which showed little evidence of work being done. I was immediately given a dressing-down for my unprofessional behaviour.

I had fortunately calmed down by then and bit my tongue, realising that any further display of aggression on my part could only be to the detriment of the school. I took full responsibility for the alleged theft and, seething inside, agreed to put the disposal of the lawnmower out to tender. It meant more paperwork for Cherry, and eventually the lawnmower was sold for one rand to my colleague.

While I cast no aspersions on any individual, I could only think that there must have been a mole in our midst who informed the school board so quickly of this heinous ‘crime’. What I learned from this episode was my absolute loathing for bureaucracy and the power that the politically connected try to exercise over people they view as less important or as minority groups. I am proud to say that I have carried this distaste for bureaucracy with me throughout my career.

In spite of the frustrations and irritations of officialdom, our busy professional and social lives were happy and fulfilling, and gave us wonderful opportunities as a family. The headmaster kindly allowed me to play squash for the George first-league side, to give me a break from travelling weekly with the boys, and I was also given carte blanche to organise the various speech nights and a carol service in the cathedral. Cherry established a theme night for the annual boarder banquet, with the assistance of our very competent and kind catering matron. We had wonderful guests of honour for our four speech nights: the Anglican Bishop of George; Bill Franklin, then chief executive officer (CEO) of Searles Ltd in Great Brak; Dr Marius Barnard, MP and the brother of heart surgeon Chris Barnard; and the absolute highlight, Dr Dulcie Howes, the legendary ballet teacher and founder of the UCT Ballet School. Cherry commented that if there were royalty in South Africa, Dulcie Howes would be worthy of being royal. This summed up the feeling of everyone who experienced her charm, grace and wisdom, and her great interest in people.

I was due for long leave, which in those days was accumulated on the basis of 12 days per year. This gave you the equivalent of a term’s leave after about five and a half years of service. I had never taken long leave, and there were rumours that it might be discontinued as a benefit in the future, so with the headmaster’s encouragement we decided to take the leave and use it for an overseas trip. The Dugmore family would move into Huis Volschenk, take over our duties there, and look after our three children – a wonderful offer that we could not refuse.

A few weeks prior to our departure, I applied for the senior deputy post at Westerford High, was shortlisted, and went to Cape Town over a weekend for an interview. This application had the full support of the headmaster, as it was a promotion post and an opportunity to return to Cape Town. Once again, the departmental wheels turned slowly, and we heard nothing by the time we left. It was our first trip overseas and the first time we were to leave our children for a protracted period.

Our first stop on the two-and-a-half-month trip was Israel. We were in in Tel Aviv when we received a message to be available for a call from South Africa later that evening. Cherry, who had once again concealed a bottle of champagne, decided that we would drink it whether the call was good news or not. We climbed into bed, opened the champagne, and poured a tooth mug for each of us as the call came through. It was Dr John Gibbon, the headmaster of Westerford, offering me the position. I accepted without hesitation this time. Ron Dugmore had already been informed and he phoned the following day to congratulate us.

While our two months overseas was a wonderful experience in many ways, as we made our way through Israel, Greece, Turkey, Italy and the United Kingdom (all on a tight budget) we missed our children desperately, and our contact with them was unfortunately sporadic. With hindsight, it was not the greatest decision to go away for so long, which we realised fully on our return.

Whether it was the fact that we were returning to Cape Town at the end of the year or that we had assumed too much by being away, our last two terms at York were not as happy and fulfilling as the previous three and a half years had been. However, our four years there had been awesome both professionally and personally. We had learned a great deal, made many friends, and would forever be grateful for the opportunities that the time had presented. After a shorter-than-usual holiday at Great Brak, we headed back to Cape Town, back to our home in Pinelands, looking forward to the new challenge ahead.

Westerford High School, situated in Newlands in Cape Town, had established an enviable reputation for academic excellence. Its out­standing academic staff included some of the most highly qualified teachers with whom I have ever been associated. John Gibbon had pioneered courses on staff development and leadership training, and worked with a team of academics at Stellenbosch University, testing many of the theories they developed through professional-growth workshops with the staff.

On a personal level, one of the most significant opportunities given to me was to serve as acting headmaster for a four-month period, having been at the school for only six months. I was deeply honoured at being trusted to run the school, and it gave me the chance to see whether I was, in fact, capable of being a headmaster. Even more important, it was a chance to see whether being a headmaster was something I wanted to do.

There were courses for fledgling heads and for aspiring heads, but the theory is often far removed from the practice, and in most cases success or failure depends more on personality than on some form of training. The problem for these fine teachers was that they never really had an opportunity to serve as head, and here was I being given that opportunity.

I looked forward to every day in my acting headship and felt almost resentful when Dr Gibbon returned from his long leave. I knew I wanted to become a headmaster and I will be forever grateful for having been given the opportunity to find that out. There are difficulties in occupying an acting position in that the school is not yours and therefore you are not really able to stamp your personality and leadership style on the school. You need to remember this constantly. Dr Gibbon and I were very different both in personality and leadership style. We were aware of, and respected, these differences and complemented one another for the benefit of the school.

I remember being interviewed by one of the editorial team of the Westerfordian, the annual school magazine, upon completion of my term as acting head. The question that stuck with me, probably because of my response and because it reflected my ever-developing personal education philosophy, was whether the importance of the individual pupil was diminished by the fact that the school was so large and organised, and offered such a wide range of academic and non-academic opportunities.

My impression was exactly the opposite. I believed that the school’s strength lay in the encouragement of individuality and independent thinking, as evidenced by the vast range of activities that it offered for the enrichment and growth of the individual. Allied to this was the sound educational principle of encouraging the pupils to question and comment on the system in which they found themselves. Both these strengths are highly commendable and essential in an institution that is offering and providing a top-class education.

Ironically, these strengths can and do also result in weaknesses, about which I felt strongly. First, the strong academic and creative drive did seem to cause polarisation, as there were boys and girls who felt that there was not a place for them at Westerford because they did not achieve in the areas that they thought we, as the staff, saw as all-important. They were wrong, but this was a perception that had to be addressed. We had to develop a clear message that there was a ‘place in the sun’ for everyone. This became a mantra for me. While it may seem romantic and unlikely to be a realistic goal, I do believe we gained far more than we lost by genuinely (not through lip service) aspiring to this view.

The second weakness was the misuse of the encouragement to question and comment. Questioning and commenting for the wrong reason, and in the wrong way, breeds people who are arrogant, demanding, lacking in grace and consideration for others, and who are ultimately difficult to teach or to live with. I certainly found some evidence of this as a potential problem, and I hope that awareness and sensitivity of this weakness enabled us to prevent it from becoming a serious issue.

In this context, I vividly remember an incident that took place during a pupil-led assembly on one of the last days the matrics were at school. Fun (or in the name of fun) was poked at individual members of staff, but the general tenor was one, I felt, of disrespect. When a young female teacher ran out of the hall in tears, I terminated the assembly, which upset a fairly large constituency, as it was viewed as a ‘tradition’. I let the perpetrators of the incident know, in no uncertain terms, that their behaviour and attitude towards the staff was unacceptable and hurtful.

I learned a great deal about teaching in my short two years at Westerford, and, perhaps even more importantly, I learned a great deal about myself. For one, I realised that I was suited to a leadership role. I made some wonderful friends among the staff and hopefully used my interests and experience from my previous schools to contribute something to arguably one of the top co-educational schools in the country.

Having always been interested in sport, I did devote quite a bit of time to strengthening this area of the holistic education offered by the school. In this respect, a wonderful Westerford story emanated from a very successful rugby dinner that had been initiated the previous year. Our guest speaker on the night was Morné du Plessis, then the Springbok rugby captain. He told us how he used to do a bit of training on the top field just below Union Avenue, as he lived in the area. Unfortunately for him, this convenient training opportunity did not last long as he was accosted one evening by a member of staff, Victor Legwale, who lived on the estate and was a fierce protector of anything Westerford. I am not sure what exactly Victor’s role was – janitor, groundsman, security – but I think if he had been given free rein he would have seriously threatened my position as deputy head!

Victor saw a man running on the field and told him to leave, as he had not been informed by the headmaster that permission had been given for this intrusion. Morné tried to explain that he was the current Springbok captain and as such a little leniency would be appreciated. This made no impression on Victor at all: Morné was told to leave immediately and never to return. As he related his first experience of Westerford, he said he hoped that the rugby dinner might be more pleasant. It was, and he gave the boys, staff and fathers an outstanding and thought-provoking address on the international sporting boycott that was starving the country of international exposure but which he hoped would be a catalyst for change, which proved to be true.

Westerford rugby dinner: from left to right are John Broster, Matthew Guiney, Springbok captain Morné du Plessis (guest speaker) and me.

I had developed a bit of a reputation as a disciplinarian and was quite tough on the boys in particular if they misbehaved. These were the days when corporal punishment was still the norm (more about this in later chapters), and while I used the cane only sparingly, I did use it. On one such occasion, while I was acting as head, a boy who had never done a thing wrong in the school context until near the end of his matric year was sent to me for truancy. Not only had he bunked a few periods but he had also brought his parents’ car to school without their knowledge (and he had no driver’s licence). He had been caught when he accidentally mounted a pavement in the school grounds and could not get the car off it.

He was terrified, so I offered him alternative punishment (a series of detentions and probably some extended community service as well) or a hiding. He nervously contemplated the options and decided that he would take the three ‘cuts’, although he had never had a hiding in his life. After the first blow, he shot up and ran around the head’s study (allegedly with me in hot pursuit, which was rubbish!) and then sped out of the door to safety. In his panic, he chose the wrong door and ran into the safe, the door of which was open. He knocked my academic gown off the hook and it fell over his head. All we could hear were muffled cries until he was rescued by one of the secretaries. I laughed so much that I could not complete the punishment and felt that the episode had taught him a lesson he would never forget.

I think my reputation as a disciplinarian was somewhat exaggerated, although my daughter, who joined the school in Standard 6 (Grade 8) – my second year – was asked if her father ever smiled.

Punishing girls was always more difficult and inevitably protracted, particularly when parents did not support the school’s disciplinary structure. I had a test case that seriously undermined our system and created a real dilemma for me. The daughter of a high-profile magazine journalist was given a detention on a Friday afternoon, having repeatedly been late for school. The mother refused to allow her daughter to go to detention, as she claimed that the fault was hers and her daughter should not be punished for something over which she had no control. The matter was sent to me. When I contacted the mother, she said that she would do the detention instead of her daughter. I called her bluff and told her that we looked forward to seeing her in detention the next day.

Fortunately, I discussed this situation with a couple of senior staff, one of whom knew the mother fairly well. They advised that she would not fall for the bluff, that she would attend, and that she would use the opportunity to lampoon the school in her popular magazine. The advice was that we should not allow this to happen, as it was likely to reflect negatively on the school. So when the mother came to the detention the following day, a couple of us waylaid her, took her to my office, gave her a cup of tea, and, in a non-confrontational environment, made peace. The daughter did the detention the following week, and I think I received a ‘get out of jail’ card. Had I not taken the advice and calmed down, and instead allowed my at times impetuous nature to rule my head, we could have ended in a real mess. Another good lesson learned.

Towards the end of the year, with the headmaster due back soon, measures had to be taken to return his office to its former sweet-smelling glory. I am sure he was aware that his superb secretary, Ela Cockrell, smoked (though surely not on duty). I smoked too, as did one of the long-serving deputies. While the cat was away … we smoked in the office. So the curtains were sent off to be dry-cleaned, and the carpet-cleaning people came in and did a superb job on all the carpets and upholstery. We did not go quite so far as repainting but all the walls were washed down. I was proud to hand over a somewhat over-clinical office to Dr Gibbon when he returned, but being the man he was, I doubt whether he was fooled by the three of us.

Knowing that I wanted to be a headmaster, and that I was sure I could do a good job, and for once mindful of my family’s need for a bit of stability, I applied for the only headmastership that became available, namely, Rhodes High School in Mowbray. My application was successful (I think Cherry had another bottle of champagne on ice for that eventuality) and I was appointed to start in January 1984.

When the headmaster announced my promotion at an assembly, I was visited straight afterwards by a boy who claimed to have many friends at Rhodes. He felt that I should reconsider my acceptance of the position, as he had it on good authority that my car tyres were likely to be slashed soon after my arrival there. I listened but happily did not take his advice. Ironically, he followed me to Rhodes – possibly to safeguard my tyres, which were never slashed!