PETERHOUSE NOSTALGIA

... MEMORIES ...

1992: SPRINGVALE HOUSE - FROM THE SECRETARY'S DESK

Look back on 1992 and I bet the first thing that comes into your mind is the drought.

For me 1992 conjures up a picture of 68 children getting off the school bus lugging five litre water bottles along with all the rest of their clobber. I remember the water-tub on the table outside my office and the slurp of thirsty children drinking. 1992 brings back cries of Don't Pull The Chain, before the dam supplying our water finally dried up and pit latrines were dug. I remember the tummy bugs and eye infections that broke out and how our primitive arrangements took the blame (eye infections!) and the night all our boarders went home with day scholars as a trial run in case we hit a total crisis. Ant Webb-Martin was standing by the buses efficiently calling out his register, when the heavens unexpectedly opened and soaked his clipboard! After eight hopeless boreholes were sunk around the school, Peterhouse came to our rescue with a 3 km pipeline from their side to ours, which for the first few days leaked the most beautiful fountains of spray at every underground join. I remember Sue Vandoros supervising the evening bath in the swimming pool with military zeal; children sitting round the edge clutching scrubbing brushes and Sue shouting out the parts of the body that were to be soaped and scrubbed before the command was given to jump in! However protected from the effects of drought our children may have been at home, at school the restrictions bit hard into everyone's comfort and certainly made us all think, which according to JBC, was the whole point.

I normally do a quick flip through my diary for some silly happening to write about in the Editorial - coming as it does after 10 pages of very serious sports results--and here it is!

April 8: visit of the Easter Bunny, leaving completely indelible footprints all over the school and what looked suspiciously like droppings on the headmaster's desk.

July 2: blasting on the Valley Field 1.25 p.m.- children sit holding their breath in the dining room waiting for the Bang. Nine massive bangs later, children cheer, while members of staff anxiously wonder if we remembered to warn the Girls School...

November 2: Grade 1 to Gosho Park - children wildly excited and most of them fall asleep on the night game- drive! Writing up diaries next day the zebra seen early in the morning and the chicken pies eaten for supper tie for popularity.

November 27 Leavers Service and Dinner: "Lord Dismiss Us" in our beautiful thatched Chapel; then "How Great Thou Art' the favourite hymn, and a perfectly aimed sermon from Alan Megahey that reduced most of our leavers to tears.

December 1 Weekly-boarders Christmas Dinner - Beaming smiles below coloured paper crowns, as 5c coins were dug out of the Christmas pudding and handed in (as per instructions) to Sir. Later, after a firework display and late night swim, Sir kindly fell into the pool in front of a delighted audience.

Jon spent the second term at a school in England and because of the different term dates he ended up with a six day Easter Break and 16 solid weeks of school! Despite this nasty blow to his leisure he was delighted on returning for the last month of term to find a Civvies Day had been planned to coincide with his arrival and the children facing him at Assembly looked more like a mob of British soccer hooligans than the clean and pleasant children he remembered! The staff were all a bit nervous that our JBC would have undergone some sort of dramatic conversion in the UK and return to ban all discipline, introduce a cigarette dispenser for the prefects and pay-phones in all dorms. It didn't happen. He found the English children's lack of discipline rather trying (notice how mildly I interpret his comments!) but enjoyed the articulate way in which they were able to express their opinions. He suggested we might allow our children a little more independent thought without them becoming too revoltingly precocious.

Grizelda Yorke is responsible for nearly all the good photographs in this magazine. She was a marvellous Junior Mistress here for the first two terms who deserves a fanfare of trumpets rather than a mere mention in the Mag. She was followed in the third term by the equally brilliant Pel Holme. Billie, Alex, Trefon, Jim and Neil also JM'd for us this year and we won't forget them either.

So that's it for 1992 - end of Springvale House's eighth year.