St Stithians College jubilee
Yesterday I went to my old school, St Stithian's College, for the 50th jubilee celebrations, which took the form of a service on the Baytopp Field, with over 2000 pupils, 260 staff and several parents, past pupils, members of the school council and others. We sat on a bank, on a windy winter day, watching the proceedings from above.
I was there when it started, on 28 January 1953, with 84 pupils and four full-time teaching staff. At that time I was 11 years old. I witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of the chapel on 11 August 1953. It was a Methodist school, so the bulk of the ceremonies were performed by Methodist ministers, especially the renowned preacher, the Revd J.B. Webb. But the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves, was also there, wearing gaiters. There were about 600-700 people there altogether, and we pupils watched it from the upstairs verandah of the almost-completed classroom block
Fifty years later the chaplain who led the service was a black woman wearing an orange Xhosa-style head dress, who begn by drawing attention to the fact that it was being held on women's day. The service was more structured than the first one, with printed prayers and litanies, in which pupils took part. Bible Readings were in Afrikaans and Sotho. The Rector recounted the history of the school, and some of the changes that had taken place. Apart from the growth in size, the College now consisted of five schools, each with its own head -- boys and girls junior, bots and girls sentior, and that post-matric group,
After the service the staff and pupils went to the upper sports field, where they sat in designated places to form "Saints 50", for a photo to be taken from a helicopter. Val and I wandered around then. We went to the chapel, where there was very little change, apart from all the windows now being stained glass, and there being a pipe organ. It was now probably too small for all the staff, never mind the pupils. The thought that half the teachers had probably not been born when the foundation stone was laid reminded my of my age.
There was another old boy there, David Irons, who asked about where the names of the foundation pupils were in the chapel wall. I took him outside and showed him. It seems to have become the stuff of legend, but it was hardly a time-capsule sort of thing. Mr Bailey, the building foreman, said to the headmaster, Mr Mears, that they were about to close the tops of the walls, and would the pupils like to write their names on a bit of cardboard that he would put down between the inner and outer walls. So everyone signed their names on the side of an old cardboard box, and it was put between the inner and outer walls and then the top was sealed. It's not visible, and only will be if the chapel is demolished one day.
We walked up to Collins house, which, with the dining room, was the only operating building when the school opened. The terraces, which had been laboriously prepared for the building of the school, had now been turned back into the slope of the hillside. I showed Val my old room, in Collins House, and in the entrance hall we saw Mrs Walmsley, the only surviving founddation teacher from 50 years ago. The assistant housemaster, Ian Gould, took a couple of pictures of us sitting on a bench. She said she was 88 years old. She had not taught me, as she was one of the junior school teachers, but I told her I could still remember the songs the juniors used to sing when their classrooms were downstairs in Collins House.
We went back down to the sports field to buy a cold drink from the Grade 8 entrepreneurs, and a jubilee T-shirt. Then had a look at the new classrooms being built before walking past the staff houses and coming home, stopping on the way at Monte Casino, near Fourways, for lunch at an Italian restaurant, in a fairly authentic replica of an Italian town. .
I was there when it started, on 28 January 1953, with 84 pupils and four full-time teaching staff. At that time I was 11 years old. I witnessed the laying of the foundation stone of the chapel on 11 August 1953. It was a Methodist school, so the bulk of the ceremonies were performed by Methodist ministers, especially the renowned preacher, the Revd J.B. Webb. But the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves, was also there, wearing gaiters. There were about 600-700 people there altogether, and we pupils watched it from the upstairs verandah of the almost-completed classroom block
Fifty years later the chaplain who led the service was a black woman wearing an orange Xhosa-style head dress, who begn by drawing attention to the fact that it was being held on women's day. The service was more structured than the first one, with printed prayers and litanies, in which pupils took part. Bible Readings were in Afrikaans and Sotho. The Rector recounted the history of the school, and some of the changes that had taken place. Apart from the growth in size, the College now consisted of five schools, each with its own head -- boys and girls junior, bots and girls sentior, and that post-matric group,
After the service the staff and pupils went to the upper sports field, where they sat in designated places to form "Saints 50", for a photo to be taken from a helicopter. Val and I wandered around then. We went to the chapel, where there was very little change, apart from all the windows now being stained glass, and there being a pipe organ. It was now probably too small for all the staff, never mind the pupils. The thought that half the teachers had probably not been born when the foundation stone was laid reminded my of my age.
There was another old boy there, David Irons, who asked about where the names of the foundation pupils were in the chapel wall. I took him outside and showed him. It seems to have become the stuff of legend, but it was hardly a time-capsule sort of thing. Mr Bailey, the building foreman, said to the headmaster, Mr Mears, that they were about to close the tops of the walls, and would the pupils like to write their names on a bit of cardboard that he would put down between the inner and outer walls. So everyone signed their names on the side of an old cardboard box, and it was put between the inner and outer walls and then the top was sealed. It's not visible, and only will be if the chapel is demolished one day.
We walked up to Collins house, which, with the dining room, was the only operating building when the school opened. The terraces, which had been laboriously prepared for the building of the school, had now been turned back into the slope of the hillside. I showed Val my old room, in Collins House, and in the entrance hall we saw Mrs Walmsley, the only surviving founddation teacher from 50 years ago. The assistant housemaster, Ian Gould, took a couple of pictures of us sitting on a bench. She said she was 88 years old. She had not taught me, as she was one of the junior school teachers, but I told her I could still remember the songs the juniors used to sing when their classrooms were downstairs in Collins House.
We went back down to the sports field to buy a cold drink from the Grade 8 entrepreneurs, and a jubilee T-shirt. Then had a look at the new classrooms being built before walking past the staff houses and coming home, stopping on the way at Monte Casino, near Fourways, for lunch at an Italian restaurant, in a fairly authentic replica of an Italian town. .