Eulogy delivered by Mr Paul Anthony
Dear Helene, Charl, family members, Dominee, friends and Old Boys
I met Mr Dorey in January 1971, a chance encounter I have never forgotten. It was my first day at Pretoria Boys High and my brother and I had been dropped off at the then North Gate. We slowly wound our way up towards the main school building. As we cut past the school pool, we stumbled across this huge, ripped, bare chested man who was punching the living daylights out of a four inch thick plank driven into the ground. As a skinny Form I in my starched khakis, the sight filled me with fear. He looked up at us, his calloused knuckles not missing a beat. ‘Hello you puddings,’ he said.
‘Hello, sir,’ we squeaked and fled in terror. As it turned out I would be fortunate enough to meet Mr Dorey later that day. He was to be my Form Master – Form 1E, Room 48, the ‘prefab’ on the koppie.
Several years later I would teach in that very class and Mr Dorey would be my trusted friend, colleague and mentor. At first we were all petrified of this colossal man with his hawk-like features. Yet when he smiled his face would light up and his thick moustache would shake as he shared his jokes, heart and wisdom with us.
‘Be careful of women, my puddings,’ he would say. ‘They will wrap you around their little fingers and spit you out. But always stand up in the presence of a lady,’ he conceded. ‘Why does our anthem say we must die for our country?’ he would muse. ‘I would rather live for my country.’
His generosity had no bounds. ‘Come here, pudding face,’ he would say. ‘Go and buy me a salad roll and buy yourself a lekker hamburger and coke.’
And then the wisdom. He had the knack of extorting the truth no matter what the means.
On one occasion a foul stench suddenly filled the classroom we were in. Mr Dorey suspected a stink bomb (the scourge of the 70s) and without fuss or hesitation he ordered us to close the windows. He then instructed Jack Fletcher and me to find out who the culprit was and report to him. He then left the classroom, shutting the stench and the door firmly behind him. After some time Jack and I emerged. I can still recall the smile on Mr Dorey’s face when Jack solemnly said, ‘Sir, after much deliberation, we have come to the conclusion that it was not a stink bomb but a genuine poop.’ The windows were thrown open and the case thrown out. In years to come, he would recount this story on more than one occasion, that same smile etched on his face.
In Matric in 1976, he was my Afrikaans teacher. What an experience to have: ‘Ruiter in Swart’ the actor, the Karate King and the Legend in one’s final year. Ons het soveel geleer. Daar was mesgooi, Karate katas, hoe om ‘n teel to breek (met jou voorkop), hoe om 12 teels to breek (met jou voorkop), hoe om 24 teels to breek (met jou vuis) – met ‘n demonstrasie ingesluit. En Natuurlik was daar ‘Huisies’ (Huisgenoot magazine). We loved Afrikaans and we loved Mr Dorey.
Yet Mr Dorey was the first to admit that he had faults. One of his favourite stories over tea with Werner Obermeyer, Tim Jaffray, Jannie Biddulph and Wally Blumenthal and whoever might have been there was when, as a young and rather arrogant teacher, he clashed with a particular pupil whose name I fail to remember, and he told the boy off, saying, ‘We don’t see eye to eye, so let’s keep out of each other’s way.’
The boy replied, ‘Sir, if you do not like me, then I have no reason to like you.’
It was an event he recalled that humbled him and changed his life.
In 1982, I took up my post as a teacher at Boys High. Eddy Dorey and Tallie van Aswegen took me under their wing. It was to be the best time of my life. We coached together, laughed together and debated together.
Eddie’s favourite sonnet was ‘Ozymandias’ by Shelley, a poem about the futile attempt of a king to build a colossal statue in praise of himself. The statue lies shattered buried in the desert sand and with it is the vain attempt of eternal recognition so sought after by King Ozymandias.
When I came home after hearing the tragic news, I told my sons that Uncle Eddie had passed away. Cameron, my eldest, remembered him as the nice man with the big moustache but Daniel didn’t know him at all. ‘Dorey field is named after him,’ I said. Then it struck me, Dorey field, like the statue of Ozymandias, would too disappear and with it Eddie’s four decades of teaching hundreds of boys under three headmasters: Mr Abernethy, Mr Armstrong and Mr Schroder.
Then as I looked at my sons, it dawned on me why Eddie loved the poem so much. Legacies are built on love, wisdom and, yes, imperfections. Unlike brick and mortar, they will never decay and erode.
The things that count, things that I learnt from Eddie, had already been passed on by me to my sons as with the hundreds of boys taught by this great man. The treasures he shared will be passed on from one generation to the next. Long after Dorey field is gone, he will still continue to touch our lives.
I recall Eddie, Tallie and myself meeting an insurance broker in the small office at the pool. The man spent the better part of thirty minutes telling us about life policies. Once he had finished, Tallie, who was then a staunch and overzealous Christian, thanked the young man and said to us, ‘We have all heard about life insurance, now lightly I want to tell you about afterlife insurance.’ God willing, one day when we take that long walk from the Pearly Gates, past the bright pool of Eternal Life, I will once again stumble across a huge bare chested man punching a four inch plank greeting me with that all too familiar smile and those trademark words: ‘Hello, my pudding’.