Page 21 - Potted History 2017

in a squad of older boys swinging
fiery Indian clubs, which often
set boys’ hair on the surrounding
green alight for brief periods.
Despite, or perhaps because
of, its obvious dangers, this part Western Mail, Hale School ‘Promo’ - 1938
of the programme was always
enjoyed by all. Coloured lights 1922
festooned the main face of the As early as 1922 it was recorded in the minutes of an Old Boy’s
school buildings, adding to meeting that T.A.L. (‘Taddy’) Davy had stated that the time would
the overall air of glamour and come when the School would have to be moved further way
excitement, speeches made and from the centre of the city. For the time being the matter was
prizes, academic and sporting, dropped as being too far into the future coupled with the onset
distributed by some notable of of the Great Depression. After numbers rose in the late 1930s the
the period. matter was raised again.
One of the more memorable and 1923
best loved characters at George
Street was William Drinkwater, the With the proliferation of state high schools in the 1920s the name
‘yardman’ who kept the grounds High School was no longer distinguishable from other secondary
clean, fed the chooks we kept George Street site, circa 1920 schools. The Old Boys’ Association subsequently called a
and did other odd jobs. He was meeting and members were asked to express their opinions
affectionately known to every as and pernicious ‘Dr Fu Manchu’ about a change of name. Some of those suggested were: Perth
‘Old Bill’. Sadly he didn’t always image that then was attached Grammar School, Hale’s School and Hale College. At the meeting
to the harmless, gentle, Oriental
live up to the image suggested of the Old Boys’ Association in 1923, T.A.L. (‘Taddy’) Davy moved
by his surname and would immigrants who tended them so that the name of High School be changed to Hale School. It took
periodically go off on alcoholic lovingly. another six years of sometimes heated debate before an Act of
binges to nearby corner pubs on Parliament eventually ratified the new name.
Milligan and Wellington Streets, The St George’s Terrace/Malcolm School Uniform - Early 1930s
Street side was much more
returning noisily to his quarters 1925
after closing time to ironic cheers up-market. Eminent medicos Arthur H Christian (1922) became the fifth Old Boy to be awarded 1929
of encouragement from dormitory proliferated everywhere – Dr
windows, My mother was fond McWhae right next door, Dr a Rhodes Scholarship. Matthew Wilson was replaced by Philip Le Couteur as
of him, and fought a continual Ambrose a short way down the Headmaster.
Terrace, Dr Trethowan on the
losing battle against bottles of
methylated spirits hidden here corner opposite; the Mount Le Couteur only stayed a short time. He was replaced as
and there by Bill, ‘against a rainy Hospital just down the road. Headmaster by Dr Arnold Buntine.
day’. Their sons were day boys at
Havelock Street, their daughters
sent to St Mary’s in Colin Street,
A short walk down hill to Dr Ken Tregonning adjudged Buntine’s time at Hale School,
Wellington Street brought one to presided over by its formidable
market gardens, about where the Headmistress, Miss Dannett. West ‘… Indeed very effective years. “Dr Buntine was a tyrant”
Metropolitan Markets later stood. Perth was a closely-knit, tree-lined, David Jenkins has written. “Masters and boys alike were
These were neatly cultivated by quiet little residential area in frightened of him, which was just as well because the
those days, where everyone knew
Chinese and had a faintly sinister 5 School had been through a bad period … “Buntine saw
reputation among the boys, everyone else.’ it was a question of discipline”. As he said at his 1932
perhaps due to the ridiculous Speech Night, School spirit could not be taught, there
were no text books, yet it was a vital subject for any
School, and for it to be good “discipline is the essential
element … moral discipline, at least in part self-imposed
and exercised in a School largely through its boys; a real
5 Frank Wilson memoir in Edgar, From Slate to Arthur H Christian discipline which is combined with real freedom.’ 6
Cyberspace, pp. 151-156.
6 Ken Tregonning (1993), Young Hearts Run Free, Wembley Downs, Hale School, p. 168