Warthog Kidney: The Old School Tie

I left The Old School 30 years ago. Since leaving I have only lived in Johannesburg for about a year when I was in the army, and even then I was mostly out of town in Heidelberg, some 50km away, so I’ve never really been in any danger of becoming one of those Old Boys who find it difficult to divorce themselves from the institution and sever the umbilical cord. Having said that, the institution has always held a very special place in my heart – more special than that held by my university, for which I now work, I must confess. I think it has something to do with my having been happy, popular and successful there, whereas at University I was never particularly happy, not remarkably popular nor unpopular and not particularly successful either.

Five years ago we had the Great 25Year Reunion. Old Boys from the Class of 1980 came from far and wide – Australia, Europe, North America – it was quite remarkable. I was asked to make a speech at the dinner. I made the mistake of trying to be too philosophical, speaking about the war we had fought in, the lack of recognition we had received, the passage of time, our own vulnerability – 10 of our class of 150 were already dead by then. My mistake was failing to realise that half the guys would already be half pissed by the time I spoke. Some listened, others drank more, most just waited politely for me to finish banging on and for the party to resume.

Friday

This time there were far fewer of the class present – maybe 30 out of the remaining 140. One from Europe, a few from Cape Town, mostly just the local lads. At the previous reunion I had been shocked at how jaded, overweight, and seriously unattractive we all looked. This time I guess I was more prepared and actually thought we didn’t look too shabby for a bunch of nearly 50 year olds. We started off by attending an assembly in the school hall with the boys. They respectfully let us sit whilst they stood at the back and in the gallery. The head boys of the classes of 1960 and 1985 spoke briefly about what the school meant to them. I was off the hook and was able to just sit and take it in. The huge arch, the immensely high ceilings, the long gilded lists of names on the dark wood panelling – head boys and captains of sports teams stretching back 108 years. Nothing had changed much in 30 years.

Well, not quite true. The kids are now well mixed – black, white, coloured, Asian – while in our day they were all white. Great! As one of us remarked, that was simply normalising a deeply abnormal situation. The school choir in our day was an embarrassment, mainly because any boy with the slightest musical talent, apart from being a Rock Musician, was immediately considered suspect in terms of his sexual orientation, and consequently went to great lengths to pretend that he was tone deaf, was now a thing to behold and to hear. Mainly black kids, with one or two token whities, but what a sound!

The boys treated us to the War Cry in the quadrangle after assembly. They have changed the rhythm and cadences a little in 30 years but the words are the same – “Itchy Balla Goota, Skeeta Ramma Doota, Suss Kanada, Sunna Kanassky, Boom …” Total gibberish, which is why it works. None of your “Ra, Ra Hockeysticks, we shall overcome, we will be true” crap. “… Bodias, Bodias, Bodias, as, as. Jimela! Jee! Jimela! Jee! Teddy Bears! Wah! Who are we? Teddy Bears!!” The last and only intelligible lines in deference to King Edward VII – “Teddy”. The roar of the boys reverberating off the walls of the quad made our hairs stand on end.

We checked out the new Pavilion, donated by a wealthy old boy who is younger than me, to the tune of R7m, we were told.

Next it was the Golf Day. Dread! I hadn’t played since the last reunion, 5 years previously. On that occasion, I decided that I would play better if I had a few beers before starting, which I did. Only problem was that there was a beer wagon following us around and by the time I got to the eighteenth, I could scarcely focus on the ball and was managing some shots which would not be found in any golfing book. I didn’t get the prize for the worst golfer but I must have been close. So this time, I started sober and tried to remain that way. I was playing in a four ball with an old mate, who is a reasonable golfer. Now the nice thing about this four ball idea was that you could pick your ball up if you hadn’t sunk it by Par plus 2, which meant that most holes I picked up and left my mate to do the honours. Only the better score of the two counts. I find drivers and woods very difficult and a source of much embarrassment, so this time I stuck to irons until near the green. In fact I stuck to a 5 iron almost exclusively. To cut a long (very long) story short, I hacked my way around 18 holes, back and forth from stage left to stage right, in and out of trees and bunkers and lakes, until we finally and thankfully got back to the clubhouse. My borrowed golf shoes were killing me on account of being a size or two too small.

Then it was a quick shower, a drink (Rock Shandy for me), the inhalation of a lot of second hand cigarette smoke, a raffle (yawn!) and a reasonably nice barbequed dinner. We again missed the “hosepipe” – the prize for the worst foursome – they give it to you with the words, “Stick to gardening!” I drove home.

Saturday

I spent the first part of the day playing cricket with my seven year old godson. Of course he won. When you’re seven you can change the rules, the umpires decision – in fact you can change reality. Good kid. Was too stiff after the golf to manage rugby.

In the afternoon we went through to a sports pub in FourWays somewhere and met the crowd again to watch the Springbok / Wales rugby match. Got off to a shaky start, but they rallied and eventually won. I am not a huge rugby fan, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and seeing the guys again. Then we headed home and had a quiet evening with a braai.

Sunday

Sunday was the day of the Memorial Parade. My old school has the distinction, so I have been told, of having the longest roll of honour in the World Wars of any school in the Commonwealth. Not sure if it is true, but I do know that the roll is very long and takes the headmaster a good 5-10 minutes to read.

The parade starts with the guard of honour (Grade 11 boys) falling in on the fields with their heavy old rifles (Boer War?) and then marching up to the school’s main entrance. They then slow-march into the quadrangle, while the pipe band flanks the entrance and plays “The Skye Boat Song”. When the pipes cut, a lone snare drum continues until all the troops are in place in the quadrangle. It is very impressive. Then there are sundry hymns, the laying of wreaths, readings and so on. The climax is the reading of the Roll of Honour and the one minute’s silence, which is timed to happen at 11:11. Of course for some of us it means more than for others – I think of my late uncles who both fought in the SA forces, and of my father whose family faced the bombers in London and Surrey during the dark days of 1940 and 1941. But I also think of some of my own friends and acquaintances who were killed in the South Africa Border War in the eighties and whose names are now of the Role – Daniel de Klerk, Steve Watts, Howard Remmington, Mark Mason … there but for the grace of God went I. After the silence, the words on the cenotaph are repeated: “Sons of this place, let this of you be said, that you who live are worthy of your dead. At the rising of the sun and the going down of the same, we will remember them. We will remember.” And we do remember.

As if that wasn’t enough, we then have the lament. A lone piper plays “Flowers of the Forest”. He starts in the quadrangle, but then moves to the stairwell and playing, down the stairs and out to the fields. The effect is that the notes fade away gradually and then disappear. Powerful stuff, and then it is over. Tea and cakes, a display by the band, chat with a few old connections and home for lunch.

A braai, a beer, a trip to the airport and a flight back to Cape Town and another anniversary is over. I guess we’ll continue to do this every five years until there is no-one left standing, or at least no-one capable of making it to Johannesburg. As the years slip by the numbers will diminish, the representatives of the class of 1980 grow more stooped, less active, more confused perhaps (is that possible?). No doubt the school will change, so that the institution which we come to visit will look less and less like the one we remember. But my guess is that there will always remain behind enough of the old friendship, camaraderie and, dare I say it, love, to make it worthwhile and meaningful. If you don’t agree, or simply don’t understand where I am coming from, go and see the movie “Spud”. Extremely strong bonds are forged in the “coming of age” years.