Page 34 - Potted History 2017

the system. Two of them stood afternoon wandering around the Bennett and Malcolm Treadgold, fast bowler Charlie Griffith. and life. eye my little group of friends (Bill
by me on an occasion when I Zoo. I don’t know why we did both of whom later became Like Griffith, Macca didn’t throw Over the succeeding forty plus Gibbs, Hamish Cuming, Dick
was threatened, more or less in this, but I remember that it was university professors). There all the time, only about one ball years I had only once or twice Kelsall, Angus Davidson, Dick Bird
passing, by the school bully. These peaceful and interesting at the was also a judge, a Lord Mayor in ten, but that one was 25% been back to Hale School, and company) eating our lunches
were lessons in the school of life, Zoo in contrast to the emotional (Peter Nattrass), a doctor, two faster than the others, and caused which to me is still the cluster of on the grass by the chemistry lab,
as compared to the school of impact of the ceremonies earlier dentists, a hydrogeologist, a significant damage to opposition elegant colonial brick building on and in the background Bill Altorfer
academia which the dayboys only in the day. forester (me), three pharmacists, batsmen. Havelock Street, now the State striding down from the boarding
knew. three accountants, a stockbroker, Convention Centre. It is greatly house on the curving brick path,
Speech Night, which incorporates a priest, a funeral director, My schooldays eventually came changed, and seems to me to be his gown billowing in the breeze,
There were three big ticket items prize-giving, was by unanimous an architect, a renowned to a resounding climax. Firstly extraordinarily smaller now than it his horn-rim spectacles flashing
on the Hale School calendar each vote of all students (with the commercial artist, a wine-maker there as the Leaving Exam, a as then, especially the classrooms. to left and right and the buttons
year: Anzac Day, Old Boys’ Day possible single exception of and restauranteur and a number traumatic experience, but in the Nevertheless, the place has a on his reefer jacket glinting in the
and Speech Night. These were the Dux of the School), the businessmen, farmers and end a minor triumph. We had palpable atmosphere. Without sun.
the occasions on which parents most boring night of the year. pastoralist. As far as I know, none been well prepared, I had worked too much trouble I can faintly
came to the school, mingled The entire student body plus of us went to gaol, although there hard and got through. There hear the chatter of schoolboys And when I remember these
with staff, met one’s friends, and parents would turn up, and was one who probably should was also the end-of-year School lining up for morning assembly things I cannot escape a feeling
generally provided an alternative we would be subjected to have. This is impressive, but not Dance, an old fashioned ball, at or the bellow of Under Officer of gentle nostalgia for good days
adult input to school affairs. Anzac lengthy speeches from Spud as impressive as the class of which I managed to avoid making Binks on the parade ground on long gone. Maybe they were not
Day was particularly poignant. Murphy, a clerical bigwig from which my brother was a member. a fool of myself on the dance Army Cadets day. In the old hall, the best days of my life, but they
14
The mid-1950s were not so long the Church of England (on one His fellow-Haleians included a floor. Finally I had the immense I hear an echo of three hundred were good enough.’
after the end of the war and many occasion a gaiters-wear Bishop), State Premier (Peter Dowding) good fortune of being awarded a voices singing as one in the great,
of my schoolmates had fathers the Chairman of the Board of and Opposition Leader (Bill scholarship to go on to University; crashing emphasis on the most
who had been away fighting. Governors, the President of the Hassell) and the famous author this was a watershed, across which popular line of our most popular
Also, many former Haleians had Old Boys Association, the School Robert Drewe. My brother himself I made the transition not just to morning hymn… ‘with great ador
served and died in both wars, a Captain and, for all I remember, became a doctor and later a adulthood, but a whole new world – ATCHION’. Or I see in my mind’s 14 Roger Underwood (2003), The Tree Climber, the
reminder of which we had each ‘Old Phenyle’ as well. It went on professor of medicine at the education of a forester, York Gum Publishing, pp 22-47
morning as we filed into assembly for hours into the night. I was university. In addition to all this, in Havelock Street, circa 1955
past the plaques commemorating never a prizewinner, not in the the class which fell between mine
those who had fallen. We always academic field anyway, so my and Peter’s was Hendy Cowan,
had a special assembly on Anzac appearances on Speech Night later to lead the National Party
Day, and the whole school would would be confined to something and become Deputy Premier.
fall silent for one minute and a like a quick whip up to the stage Among them was the champion
bugler would play The Last Post. as a winner of the Open High footballer Ron ‘Macca’ McBride.
Then there would be prayers and Jump. My brother, on the other
a hymn (usually The Recessional) hand, was a brilliant student and Macca played in a premiership
and one of the Old Boys who was Dux of the School in his final team with West Perth, the year
had been in the war would speak year. Regrettably I missed that after he left school. This was well
briefly about his mates. I always Speech Night, being down at before the advent of the Eagles
found all this very moving, and Pemberton at the time engaged and Dockers, in the days when
would have trouble keeping a dry in fighting a bushfire, but all the WAFL was as significant
eye. Afterwards we were awarded through the days our schooling competition. I played with Ron in
a ‘Half Holiday’, which mean that overlapped I can re-call him shyly the school First Eighteen football
we could leave school and do mounting the dais every speech team for two years and he was the
our own thing for the afternoon. night to be rewarded for winning fastest and most ferocious young
For some reason, a group of one academic prize after another. man I ever saw on a football field.
friends and I fell into a routine He was also a screamingly fast
of walking down to the Barrack I never thought of us as being a opening bowler for the school’s
Street jetty after the Anzac Day very special mob, but my Hale First Eleven cricket team, in the
ceremony, taking a ferry across School class uniquely produced mould of the feared West Indies
to South Perth and spending the two Rhodes Scholars (Bruce