Nov 4, 2008
Conventional wisdom used to have it that your schooldays were the best days of your life.
I can't say that my schooldays were especially dismal, but I feel deeply sorry for those that stumbled through the rest of their miserable existence without ever experiencing anything more satisfying than that period of drab and predictable regimentation.
At Taumarunui District High the teachers were generally young, friendly and competent. They were not afraid of us. They knew us by name and talked to us as if we were fellow humans, and if Katie Holmes, in her greening academicals shouted at us that we were "blithering idiots" we always knew that her heart was in the right place. She even billeted my sister and me overnight so we could attend the school ball. Florrie Hill would have little jokes with us, and Sandy Cave could even make chemistry seem interesting.
The four years I spent at Palmerston North Boys' High were less inspiring. If the teachers knew that we had names they showed little sign of it. They seemed to see us as a mildly threatening bunch to be kept at arm's length and talked at. Soapy MacDonald wouldn't even talk to us, but spent the whole of each period writing furiously on the blackboard while we copied it down. I suppose he was mad, really. But as long as you kept your nose clean, as I was inclined to do, there was no real harm in them.
Except Snoop, the headmaster or rector as he styled himself. I think he was actually scared of us, and felt that we were forever trying to put one over him. It was as if his whole focus was on catching us out and getting even with us. . He would sweep swiftly about the corridors in soft-soled shoes with his gown flowing out behind him, and bowed forward so as to see over his pince nez . Once, when he must have been wearing his other shoes, he came into our classroom while our teacher was out, to silence us with a withering look over his glasses. Then, closing the door as he went out, he stood tramping outside the door to give the impression he was going away. Unfortunately the tail of his gown had got caught in the door and we could see it. So it was a bit of an embarrassment for him when he had to reopen the door to let himself go.
Once, when I went to see him to get my train pass stamped, he asked me what I had thought of the Anzac Day service he had just presented at assembly. I said it was alright, which didn't seem to please him much. I could hardly explain that Turnbull, whose brother had been recently killed in the war, had burst into tears and had to sit down, or that other servicemen, such as my own brother, had received no mention at all because they were not an "old boys". Old boys and tradition, were supposed to be very important at that school, at least in Snoop's opinion.
The train, even when it was on time, delivered me too late to attend phys. ed. at the beginning of school, and often I missed some of the first period too. One morning when the train was late, Snoop called me into his office to enquire about my late arrival, and when I told him he phoned the station to check whether the train's arrival time I had given him was fictitious. As it happened it was correct which was lucky. Sometimes, when the train was late, I would dawdle on the way through town because there seemed to be no point in breaking into the latin class ten minutes before it finished. Anyway Snoop then changed tack and asked why it took me so long to get to school from the station. I explained that it took about 15 minutes from the station to the Square and another 15 from the Square to Featherstone Street. Aha!
Somewhere in some dusty school regulation, that had never been explained to me, a correct route to school had been laid down through the slums, and I had erred in not following it. This was news to me, and since Palmerston North is laid out on a strict grid pattern I still can't see what difference it made. Anyway, being an obedient lad, I usually followed the official route after that.
Later, when I was in the sixth form, they put a bus on to collect all the kids from Opiki and Tokomaru and Linton and get us into school on time. The driver was a disreputable fellow called Cundy, but that's another story. One lunch time at about 20 to one, Snoop collared me to take a bundle of letters down to the Chief Post Office for him. Without a bike there was no way I could have got back in time for the start of afternoon school, and I asked if he wouldn't be better to find someone with a bike. He wasn't pleased. He seemed to assume that I was motivated by pride or something. Snoop reacted. "One day," he said, "You will come to me for a testimonial, and I will be able to say all sorts of nice things about you, but I won't be able to say that you wouldn't post some mail for your old headmaster!" Of course any normal kid would have jumped at the chance to have a bullet proof excuse to be late for classes, but I was I was not a normal kid, and was reluctant to break rules unnecessarily.
The only other time I had dealings with Snoop, was when Cundy put me off the bus about four miles from home. The tech kids had been playing with the emergency cord as they were always doing, and when Cundy stopped the bus and enquired who had pulled the cord, of course there was no response. I asked why he didn't disconnect the cord. He had done that a few months previously. He didn't respond but just told me to get off the bus. Next day he must have phoned Snoop with some yarn that I had made a rude gesture at him as he drove away. I can't say it had ever occurred to me. I told Snoop that I didn't think much of Cundy, but that I wouldn't lower myself to make gestures at him. Snoop said "No" with a thoughtful air, no doubt recalling the episode of the mail posting.
So those were my school days. They were alright but I've had many happier times since.