1989 Grey High School Reunion

Some things change. Some things don’t change. - by Nick van der Leek

David Bullard wrote a column last year titled Uncolonised Africa wouldn’t know what it’s missing. Shortly after being fired by that bastion of integrity that I’m sure you’ve never heard of [AVUSA], Bullard was interviewed on his next move. He said he wasn’t considering going tail between legs and hiding away somewhere in the Free State. It’s a pity he didn’t.

Because over the past weekend I went to Bloemfontein; a place colleagues have alternately referred to as a ‘shithole’ and ‘the most racist province in South Africa’. They’ve said this directly to me, which I guess says a lot about their unfathomable tolerance not only for Africans, but also towards fellow Europeans with Dutch sounding surnames. But, I digress.

Significantly, my reason for visiting Bloemfontein had a lot to do with the colonising of Africa. In fact, it had everything to do with it. Grey College, the 154 year old school I attended for 12 years, had invited my father and I to our 50^th and 20^th year reunions respectively. For my father, who was one of three Std 9’s [Grade 11’s] to pass in his year, many of his close friends would only be celebrating their 50^th year next year. For me, the idea of a Grey reunion was bitter sweet for a multiplicity of reasons.

Background

It was thanks, you see, to a colonist, a soutie, a pom, a rooinek bleeksiel, a white, a Brit, that this third oldest school in the Republic came into existence. Sir George Grey, who was then the Governor of the Cape Colony, visited the new Republic of the Orange Free State. He donated money towards the development of what he referred to as institutions for higher education. This was as long ago as October 13, 1855. Grey College which spun off Grey University College in 1906, developed together with what became the country's Judicial Capital. If South Africa has a bastion of men, a badge of honor, a firmament from which champions leapt, it was this school.

It was started with British money, and its early English traditions and codes of gentlemanly conduct were perpetuated in the parallel medium school by echelons of Afrikaners and English-speakers, [but mostly Afrikaners]. Today, privileged Africans also benefit from the pommie school deep in the Afrikaans heart of the country. And one of the privileges they enjoy today, which is one of my greatest regrets, is football in the high school. Jeepers I never had that in my time, and this added to the severe discontinuity I felt between primary school and high school.

It said that loyalty is a hallmark of the Grey boys. Loyalty is probably the highest standard I apply to others, but also integrity. In fact it’s probably true to say that loyalty is borne out of integrity. Loyalty to a blind cause is a lost cause. It is through integrity to ourselves, to others, to an enlightened and illuminated objective that we can regard as true, that loyalty begins to really shine.

Grey’s mantra is often abbreviated simply as STABILIS, which means firm, stable, steadfast. But the full mantra is NIHIL STABILE QUOD INFIDUM: Nothing is steadfast which is not true. This bears reflection, when we remember one of Grey’s recent heroes – Hansie Cronje. One can speculate that Hansie, who was my headboy when I was at Grey, could have benefited in one or two areas from being more resolute. So could all of us. Stubbornness can also be our worst enemy, or serve us well on the sports field, where we dogmatically pursue victory. The Grey boys are famous especially for their addiction to winning. And that concludes the broad background strokes on the history and context of this school. Now to the present.

The Reunion

On Friday evening, on the 9^th of October, 2009, at around 7pm, I am sitting next to David Maartens, a classmate, now accountant, on an upper balcony in the Reunion Hall. Next to him is Llewellyn Tordiffe, and next to him Robert Rafferty, another classmate. I studied law for a time with Robert after school, at Free State University. He went on to become a lawyer, I did not. Somewhere down below, among the dark suits, is my father and his pals, celebrating their 50^th anniversary.

On the stage are the likes of Mr. Volsteedt, the present principal, Dr. Heyns, and various other teachers, some that I know [like Mr. Rudd, in his 35^th year at the school, Flash Venter and Mr Grobbelaar, our PT teacher, marking his 20^th year], and many whom I don’t know.

It is while the speeches are conducted that I remember the inspiration that I enjoyed in these woody chambers. Gary Player’s was perhaps the most memorable. Many greats came here, many of them rugby players, but also well known businessmen. These old Greys imparted their wisdom to us youngsters, sharing their tremendous insights often with great humility. I suppose that the speeches given on this evening reinforced the typical perception that Grey College has a good name, that the spirit of the school continues in much the same way as it has always done.

Mr. Voldsteedt mentions in his speech that a brand is the sum total of all the people and all the behaviours that belong to that brand. He talks about a marketer who refers to South Africa’s three biggests brands as being the tree of First National Bank, the Coca Cola logo, and the Grey College badge. I find I disagree with the fingering of the FNB logo. I’m pretty sure the Standard Bank logo is not only more recognisable, but probably more fondly considered, particularly for its close association with one of our national pastimes, cricket. In any event, the Grey logo is worth examining in greater detail.

The Grey College website describes:

The three orange circles [representing] three canon balls. These canon balls … represent…faith, hope and love... If you can truly say that you have every one of these attributes, you have accomplished a great deal in life

The knight's head symbolises courage. One requires this characteristic to make a success of life and to overcome the difficulties that lie ahead.

The white unicorn, which looks lively and ready to run, represents vigour and virility. The white colour denotes peace. Just as the unicorn is ready, so should every Grey boy be ready to enter the world with peaceful vigour.

While the school’s website describes its approach as one of moderation and tolerance, I had an altogether different experience. I couldn’t help recounting this experience in my mind while the speeches wafted up over the balcony. Some inspiring sentiments landing on target, some floating off the walls and out the window. Because as I alluded to earlier, my experience at Grey was bittersweet.

Sweet because I had a wonderful 7 years in the primary school representing first the school and then the Free State in swimming, soccer and biathlon, and really becoming a very actualised youngster who loved to read, was highly sociable and popular, always in the top 5 students academically. I was one of the fittest and fastest boys in my class in the swimming pool and on the running track. I was a prefect [called a ‘monitor’] in those days, and some friends suggested the odds favoured me for head boy. In short, I emerged from primary school a very complete, happy and fulfilled eleven year old.

But this was followed by 5 very very bitter years at Grey. Bitter because my high school career was in such sharp contrast to primary school in every respect. Although I started off standard 6 [grade 8] going to the prestigious MenloPark athletics meet in Pretoria [for long jump], and winning many of my swimming races in that year, I rapidly floundered down the slippery slope from there. In terms of sport, in terms of academics, in terms of popularity, in terms of everything.

One of the initial setbacks for me, in 1985, was my brother Casey being sent to Saint Andrews Grahamstown. I idolised my brother and we were very close, and his absence during that crucial standard 6 [grade 8] year was palpable. Francois Muller, my best friend in primary school, who I'd been big buddies with for around 6 years, also inexplicably remained behind in that fateful year.

Early on in that same year, 1985, I expressed an interest in wildlife, and in particular birds, and so within the first month I’d been nicknamed ‘Bird’, or to give the full nomenclature, ‘Leek bird’. That name stuck for the following 5 years.

I was rather unfortunate in that my high school began with the wearing of an external brace, and this lasted the duration of those formative years. The result was that it had a muzzling effect both on my personality and on virtually every other aspect, my interest in sport, in girls, and increasingly, the outside world, which seemed to me to becoming increasingly belligerent, increasingly hostile, even vindictive.

It was probably half way through high school that I began to seriously consider leaving Grey – probably around Standard 8 [Grade 10]. Instead of leaving, I did something else. I started to hide away in a world of writing. I suppose I was writing long before this, I had started diaries earlier, and I'd written long 30 chapter novels even in junior school [what I called Enid Blyton stories for South Africans], but half way through high school my writing gained particular momentum. My brother, at the same time, while still at school, was becoming a skilled artist [and he is a professional artist in fine art today].

So I began writing a fantasy story somewhat reminiscent of the Harry Potter franchise, but replace wands with swords, and Voldemort with Ogilvie Skye [Harry Potter was a lithe and lanky, platinum haired, grey eyed Christopher Ulysses,] and Hogwarts was Venayshire Castle. I completed the epic story two years after I'd started it, on the morning of my matric final science exam, a few days after my mother had passed away.

And this is probably the bitterest memory of all. I was so looking forward to being free from five years of daily badgering, and just as I reached the cusp of this, with only days remaining to the moment of release from that daily siege, my mother died.

She died yesterday, a Sunday that was the 8^th of October, 20 years ago. I reflect on all this, briefly, whilst sitting on the balcony, overlooking my father, and the teachers and headmasters below.

I decide that I am not here, so much, to acknowledge the last 5 years at Grey, but the first 7 years. I gratefully realise that I do, after all, have a slight majority of good memories at the school.

I am not sure how it happens, but I begin to realise that it is really due to a handful of boys, two or three, that my high school has been so effectively spoilt. I remember that one of the options was to bliksem some of my opponents, since that does tend to sometimes be the law of young men, and the way pecking orders are established, and tensions set aside. The problem was that my opponent – one in particular – was not the sort of opponent you could beat up in a fisticuff and walk away from. More than likely, you’d be attacked later when you were off guard, or from behind, and taught a lesson. It was fighting dirty, not ordinary pecking order matters.

If you think this is an exaggeration, this particular person went to jail for this sort of aggression a few years out of school. I didn’t lack the courage, or the strength – it was pointless to demonstrate a show of strength because it would have meant watching one’s back and looking over your shoulder all the time, and it simply didn’t seem worth it.

It may seem excessive to say that a few people at school can spoil your experience, but it’s not really unrealistic at all. I mean, isn’t that the story of South Africa in a nutshell? Isn’t it about a minority of people who make the country unlivable, unbearable for a majority of people who are peace-loving, and reasonably tolerant? 20 years ago that minority were the white power elite, a minority even in terms of their own people, they weren't even representative of their fellow ordinary whites. This group, perhaps 30% of the total european population made life hell for South Africa’s native population. But now the spoilers are the criminals and the corrupt.

Criminality is cited as the number one issue that worries the average South African, and also visitors. Crime is bad enough that South Africans who love the country decide instead to leave their country of birth to go and live elsewhere. And how does this happen? The leaders and the citizens allow the spoilers/criminals to ruin it, possibly because they are in cahoots, possibly because they don’t care, possibly because they feel they are sitting pretty enough and it couldn’t possibly affect them, or possibly because they don’t think they can do anything to change it. Even so, it is shirking their duty towards their fellow man, and in the long run, to their own and their children’s interests.

Remember the mantra: NIHIL STABILE QUOD INFIDUM: Nothing is steadfast which is not true. How can you expect to live happily and safely in a country if you are not true to yourself, and to your fellow man? Be accountable and hold others accountable for their actions, and you create an environment that is better for all. I suppose the same applies to your school, and your fellow pupils, especially if that school is Grey College.

It was in the Centenary Hall, where we ate a delicious two course meal, that I saw him again, and his associate, weighing a stocky 140 kilograms. The sum total of the English class of 1989 sitting at the table was four of us, a number almost certainly outnumbered by my father’s class of 1959. So much for loyalty. The arrival of…let’s call them ‘my opponents’... at around 8:30pm, brought that number to six. They also brought something else to the table. A palpable tension; for the one steered entirely clear of the table while I was there, and the other approached, then moved around to sit on the far side of the table.This was also a stark contrast to the chirpy and cheeky abuse that was the hallmark of my time with them twenty years ago. I guess twenty years isn’t enough time to get over five years of daily badgering. Certainly not for me. And I suppose when you’re an adult and in the company of adults, you can’t get away with that sort of pointless maliciousness quite as easily. And then Taggert Cooper arrived.

I took a last sip of wine, grabbed my camera and went to say hello to our headboy, Frikkie Jankowitz, who I spotted sitting at another table. Frikkie, speaking with a slight Aussie accent, looked a picture of the Frikkie we knew 20 years ago. Llewellyn Tordiffe is still Llewellyn, give or take the goatee, and Robert Rafferty is still very recognisable, although his hair is a little thinner. David Maartens is heftier, aren’t we all, but also a lot taller than I remember him at school.

Sophocles Kleovulu arrived shortly after that, seeming incredibly distracted. I’d seen him a few weeks earlier and heard he was engaged but that no longer seemed the case.

It was great chatting to Frikkie; but I had this gnawing sense, as an adult capable of making sense of the emotional tapestry within, that the reason so many high school years were spoilt really comes down to those two or three people sitting at a table behind me.

From there we go to take photographs, and immediately after I say goodbye to David, slip out, gun the jeep and make my way home.

Home

Over the weekend, whilst staying at my father’s house and visiting my sister, I search for that book that I wrote, during those agonising final years in high school. It had been in a number of boxes in various cupboards, and at some point, a box had been placed in the garage between the wall and the left rear wheel of the Mercedes. I mention to my sister the book I wrote during high school, and she suggested I go and dig it out of the cobwebs. In truth, every second or third visit to Bloemfontein I’d spend around a half hour or so digging through shelves of books and debris in search of those manuscripts.

I find a pile of paperpacks and CD’s cases in the garage that are mine. I rummage between wooden water skis and an old wicker cat carrier. Those hundred weekends, those thousand page scribblings, the furiously typewritten pages, are gone. It was originally titled VERSATILE FLYING SECRETS, and that’s what they’ll stay.

Once I finished matric, I’m happy to report that I gradually began to feel the sunshine again, and radiate confidence. Just before my 18^th birthday I ordered my orthodontist to remove my external brace and ‘railway tracks’ – this after wearing them for five years, by far a new record at the clinic. During my second year outside of the painfull morass that was high school I became a provincial athlete again, this time in triathlon.

What followed was a decade of joyful achievement and discovery, something resembling being reborn, becoming fully alive once more.

On the grey badge the golden yellow sun, at the apex of the badge, is easy to miss. It symbolises new generations. Through our learning we rise, as the sun rises, and as long as we are learning I believe we can shine. We have much to learn, all of us, in these present circumstances, these especially difficult times that lie ahead of us. These are not the things we can find or learn in books necessarily. Insight and courage – where do these come from? There is a great deal of difficulty and darkness in store, requiring the sun to shine inward and outward. This is what insight and courage is – the light of our lives shining inward, then making its way boldly outward. And whether we are Grey, white or black, colonists or natives, the same light, from the same sun, rises and sets on us all.