PBHSOB ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER

Dear Old Boy

Good day Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to this virtual assembly.

Exactly one month ago, we closed school on the instruction of the State President and the Gauteng Department of Education as a means of trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus. We were hoping to re-open today but the lockdown has been extended for a further two weeks and, while it is scheduled to finish at the end of April, we have no idea when and how schools will re-open. There is talk about scrapping the academic year and putting all pupils through to the next year. There is talk that the Grade 12s and Grade 7s will be brought back in stages before other Grades. There is talk of schools resuming as normal before the lockdown. These are just theories at this stage and we are waiting to hear what the official instruction will be. This instruction will apply to all pupils at all schools and you will not be alone. You will have the full support of your teachers as we try and adapt whatever decision is made to help you cope with what is left in the year.

So far, we gave you a well-deserved holiday and then set work based on the previous term that I hope you have been doing to reinforce what was covered. Today, we will start new work. We are all learning in this process, teachers and boys, and we will need to be patient with each other as we navigate the unknown. You will need a great deal of self-discipline as you work and we have sent you various methods you can use to help you keep up. Try to get a routine going – get up, shower, get dressed and have breakfast and settle in to a routine of work on a daily basis. We are not going to replace what we would normally do in a week but set slightly less work for you as we all learn how best to deal with online learning.

You will receive communication from the sports department and the cultural department that will reassure you that we are looking at ways to re-work your extra mural year and give you as much of that side of school as we are permitted to do.

It is our hope that we can bring back the entire school and have our boarders back in boarding and you in class as soon as possible but that will depend on rules set for schools where social distancing will still be practised. The overriding concern will be your safety and the safety of our staff. But come back you will!

In all of this, I suppose two things have stood out for me. Firstly the desire for us all to be healthy and safe and the concerns that are associated with your physical and emotional well-being. Do not underestimate the effect this has had on your mental health and the strain you and your teachers are under.

The second thing is the anxiety that comes from the unknown. I have often spoken about the fear of the unknown and perhaps now you understand what I have meant. We don’t know what will happen and what will change and that makes us anxious. We had plans for the year and we had dreams and aspirations that have changed and we will have to adapt to make the best of the situation at hand.

You have been inundated with negative narrative these past four weeks. Everywhere you look there is doom and gloom as daily statistics are shared on news media and in social media platforms on the spread of the virus and the state of the various economies. It is hard to remain positive when there is so much negativity. I would like to try by sharing some things that have changed and will change that will have a tremendously positive impact on your life and the lives of your fellow human beings.

• We will appreciate people more. I know you have missed your friends and the close contact you had with them. We all realise now just how much of a social creature we are and how we need others. We will value that contact so much more as a result of this experience
• We will appreciate our freedoms more – the freedom to go to the shops, to exercise and play games with others, to travel and to leave the confines of our homes.
• We will value classroom time more and having a teacher who cares standing in front of us, helping us in person and in real time. We cannot take this for granted anymore.
• We will learn to share better and take other’s needs more in to account than before.
• Our education system in SA in particular will change to help those who need it most. Around 20% of school pupils are able to do some form of online education – 80% will not and that will change which will help our country immeasurably. Your future education will look very different and quality education will be more accessible to all.
• You have been forced in to academic independence – taking greater responsibility for your own learning and that is a very valuable skill that will help you in later life.
• You have learned to think more critically as you evaluate the material given to you.
• Your reading and comprehension skills have improved as many of the instructions will have been given in writing and you have had to read carefully instead of having someone explain things to you.
• Many of you have learned a new skill such as cleaning a house, cooking and so on. I have been learning how to bake bread and will be forever grateful for this chance to try something I perhaps would not have done.
• Many of you have read many books – always a good thing to do as it stimulates the imagination and allows us to escape reality for a little while.

“This too shall pass” is a phrase I use whenever I am anxious, worried or nervous about the situation I am in. These times will pass I am sure and we will have reinvented ourselves and the way we do things. We will have redefined “normal” and have started living this new “normal” life. We will be together again, as families, communities and as a school and I cannot wait for that to happen.

Be safe, be healthy but be positive.

Reading

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
Deuteronomy 31:8

Du’a from Qoran
Oh Allah expand my chest with confidence and make easy my affairs

For yesterday is only a dream,
and tomorrow is but a vision.
But today, well lived,
makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow
a vision of hope. -Kalidasa

School Prayer and silent reflection

Benediction
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Tony Reeler
HEADMASTER

Click here to view the 15 April Assembly on the PBHS YouTube Channel

Pretoria Boys High School Virtual Assembly: 22 April 2020 

POSTPONEMENT OF OLD BOY EVENTS

The PBHSOB Association remains in close contact with the School regarding Old Boy events, and at this stage the following events have been rescheduled:

• Class of 1960 – 60 year on reunion originally scheduled for Friday 15 May 2020 is to be held jointly with the class of 1961 on 21 May 2021
• Lowveld Annual Dinner originally scheduled for Friday 15 May 2020 – rescheduled date TBC.

We will also assess the need to reschedule the Annual Dinner as well as some of the other reunions and branch dinners scheduled for later in the year should the need arise. The new dates will be communicated to Old Boys as soon as we are able to. Please continue to visit the Association website and Facebook page to receive these updates. Thank you for your understanding in this regard. On behalf of the Old Boys Association, we wish you and your loved ones well during this difficult period.

YOU’RE SPECIAL

There I stood, a thirteen year old boy, in the huge heavily furnished headmaster’s study. The sturdy, big hardwood desk lay before me strewn with letters and documents obviously belonged to an important man. The old clock ticked monotonously in the unbearable silence, conveying a message of mystery.

I slowly ran my eyes across the room without moving my head. In the right hand corner, hanging lazily over a hook, was the prize possession of this man. It looked long, sturdy and flexible, with a slight splitting on the end, presumably caused by impact. It left me cold and jittery and I turned my head quickly away from the cane.

My eyes dropped to the floor. My dirty, black school shoes stood out like black on the wine coloured carpet. Suddenly I heard footsteps, … passing the big black oak door and dying down the passage. My heart was punching away against my chest and I was breathing short little gasps. My hands were sweaty and shaky. I realised that I was doomed to fail in this interview.

I grew impatient with waiting and my mind trailed off with the chimes clanging in the distance. But I could shake off the uneasiness and the cold impersonal atmosphere of the study. I proceeded tensely to seat myself. It felt as if everything was watching one. I refrained reluctantly from the idea.

The room seemed so dead, like a medieval castle discovered in the 20th century. No life was evident except the endless tick … tick … tick of the clock.

Suddenly the door burst open and he rushed in. I knew it was him. He looked at me indifferently as he greeted me and showed me to a seat without showing any emotion or even a grudging smile. Again the feeling of total unimportance overwhelmed me. I wanted to apologise for wasting his time.

He was silent for a while, scribbling fanatically away in a big book. He suddenly looked up and told me my name. Then he closed the book, folded his arms, and sat back comfortably. And then he blurted forth questions which was the cause of all my naughtiness the previous week.

His English was simple. I could understand it, but it made me feel very awkward. My answers were short, but heavily laden with my Afrikaans accent. Then he made a statement that made my head spin and it seemed as if the huge room was closing in on me and suffocating me.

“The regulations don’t make it easy to accept Afrikaans boys in an English school such as this.”

I stared at him wide-eyed as he flipped through the pages of a green document.

“But,” he continued after a while, “I think you’re special”.

I felt the smile spreading on my face in response to his and suddenly I knew he wasn’t so bad. The room turned warm and friendly. I’m positive the tick of the clock sounded different as he walked me to the door.

– Pierre van Niekerk Form V D, The Pretorian 1980

PRETORIA BOYS HIGH SCHOOL ON INSTAGRAM

PHSOB CLUB ANNOUNCEMENTS

Please support the PHSOB Club during the National Lockdown.

The UIF contribution will only be a portion of the staff’s salary and we would like to use these funds to top up the difference. Purchase a voucher and get 20% Extra Free PHSOB Club Rands for every voucher over R100.

You may purchase as many vouchers as you like. Send PHSOB Club Rands as gift cards to friends or family. E-mail marketing@phsobclub.com to receive the banking details and T’s & C’s.

Vouchers can only be redeemed after the National Lockdown has been lifted and are valid for 6 months. Limited offer, T’s & C’s apply

PHSOB CLUB – WALL OF HOPE 

On 22nd April we launched our PHSOB Club Vouchers to help the Club survive the Covid-19 epidemic. Thank you to the Club members that have already bought vouchers.

Once members saw this initiative they requested a Club Covid-19 donation fund.

As the virus will be affecting normal business at the Club for at least the next six months, we encourage members to support this initiative for the well being and running of the Club.

A brick space can be purchased for R500.00, and a plaque with your name will be put on a
brick on the wall between the Club and the Squash Court, in honour of your contribution to the fund during the “COVID-19 PANDEMIC OF 2020”. You may purchase as many bricks as you like. Future generations will be able to see the loyal Club supporters that helped the Club during these difficult and uncertain times.

If you would like to donate, and you know the Club’s account number, please put as reference, Covid-19 and the name and surname you would like on your plaque. For account information please e-mail marketing@phsobclub.com and request the banking details. We live in hope.

A LOOK BACK..

THE NEW BUILDINGS

The site of the new buildings seemed, in those early days, to be a very long way out of town. At the foot of Skinner Street one could climb onto a horse-tramcar and go in slow solemnity over the wooden “Tram Bridge”, past the Trevenna brewery which was then the tallest landmark in Sunnyside and the source of drowsy odours, past the tram sheds and stables and at the end of Esselen Street, and then along de Kock Street as far as Johnson Street. Beyond that point there were no houses – only along a golf course which extended to the railway-line. Beyond that, bare veld and a bare stony koppie where the school and boarding-houses were to be built.

On that koppie on the afternoon of the 11th July, 1908, the foundation stone of the new school was laid by Lord Selborne, Governor of the Transvaal. On the top of the rise, behind the builders’ tackle and sheds, could be seen a blockhouse, the relic of the war. To the north, immediately below, on the ground which was later to become the playing-fields of the school and the campus of Pretoria University, one could see the markings on the ground – rings and oblongs – of the tents of the military camp which had been there until a few years before.

Muckleneuk, to the left, and Brooklyn and Hatfield, on the right, were as yet unbuilt. The lower part of Sunnyside stretched greenly along the Walker Spruit. The younger Arcadia could be seen on the other side of the valley, its houses scattered widely and somewhat self-consciously over the slope of what was still called by some “Beckett’s Hill”. On the ridge beyond stood the newly built Government House, florid and orange-roofed, and to the left of it the few houses of Bryntirion. To the left of that again, the line of koppies was splashed from bottom almost to top by the trees of properties belonging to Mr. Andrew Johnston, Mr. T.W. Beckett, and the Hon. Hugh Crawford. Then came Meintjies Kop, empty, waiting for its Union Buildings; where the Amphitheatre now stands, there was a quarry filled with water, and the long arm of a crane stood up from it, pointing to the sky.

Below it, in the hollow, was the small town of Pretoria, with its horse-cabs and wide dusty streets. There were motor cars, but so few that we schoolboys stood and gaped when one passed. There was no tarmac, and when the wind blew strongly from the west before a thunderstorm, the rampart of dust mounting high came eastward up the valley. Such was Pretoria on that afternoon when Lord Selborne laid the foundation stone. Beyond it lay the range of the Magaliesberg, so calm, modest and beautiful – bare and arid on approach perhaps, but with here and there unexpected springs of cool water and kloofs of subtle charm: the hills stretched in long and slightly curving line towards the sunset.

On the 15th April 1909, the doors of the new school were formally unlocked by Colonial Secretary, General J. C. Smuts. A year later the new buildings housed the Amalgamated School.

HOUSES

The earliest photos of the buildings show them lonely and on the hillside – the school itself, flanked closely (perhaps too closely) by the two boarding-houses, Rissik House on the west side and Solomon House on the east. The former was named after Mr. Johann Rissik, Minister of Lands, and the latter after Mr. E. P. Solomon, Minister of Public Works.

In April, 1909, there were thirty-seven boarders and at first these were all housed and fed in Rissik House, under the acting headmaster of the Pretoria College, Mr. G. L. Thomas. From the first boarders were divided into “Solomons” and “Rissiks.” The number of boarders increased and it soon became necessary to send over boys – at first one or two and then, in June all the “Solomons” – to sleep in their own house, but the complete division could not be effected until April 1910, when Mr. W.H. Hofmeyr was appointed headmaster and took Solomon House under his charge.

House spirit grew rapidly. In September, 1909, the scribe of Solomon House wrote plaintively, “Our House started last term with 17 members. We are now lodged in our own house but are still obliged to board in Rissik House.” A note of the same date, written by a member of Rissik House, states “We are all feeling very glad that Rissik House is being run more independently of Solomon House. Last June it was decided that the Solomons should go over to their own house, so we feel freer, and, as it were, more united.” A third boarding-house was opened in April, 1915, destined to be the residence of the headmaster. It was called School House and situated to the east of Solomon House.

When the headmaster moved across to School House, Mr. James Lang became housemaster of Solomon House and remained there until 1928, when he was succeeded by Mr. Albert Meester, who in turn was succeeded by Mr. Alan MacDonald. Mr Thomas, the housemaster of Rissik House, retired in 1926 and was succeeded by Mr. Tom Wilkinson. On his death in 1933, Mr N. M. Pollock was appointed house-master.

ETHOS

And what is the resulting product of fifty years of varying talent and devotion?

… The school has been fortunate in having many Old Boys returning to serve on its staff, since they have helped considerably to foster a young but growing tradition. It has been fortunate too in being in a capital city and in what is now said to be the third largest city in the Union; Pretoria is a pleasant place to live in and offers many advantages; accordingly senior members of staff have remained long at the school and have moved only when promotion has tempted them.

Again, the school is fortunate in its position, looking down, slightly aloof, on the city in the valley below and yet near enough to it to have the benefit of such cultural activities as it offers. Few are so lacking in sensibility as not to be moved by the view from the front windows, the views if the valley with the hills beyond; or, if their duties are in the back classrooms, by the glimpses of the towering green of the trees on the koppie; and there are few who will easily forget the picture of the school from the playing fields below, the dome resting so confidently among the surrounding pines, while the notes of the chimes come languidly down from the tower.

The school began in the undeveloped outskirts of a quiet little dorp and it is now growing old in the midst of a beautiful city; school and city have grown together – a natural relationship, allowing the school to escape the self-sufficiency which purely rural surroundings may engender, and at the same time to avoid self-consciousness of an institution thrust into the midst of an established community in order to serve a particular purpose or area. It may be for these reasons that it has matured more quickly in the half century that might have been expected and has attained self-assurance rather than self-assertiveness.

In fifty years the School has acquired a character of its own, modified indeed by those currently in control, but firmly shaped and moulded by past conditions, people and events. It has been said that – by one who knew it intimately for many years – that it could educate staff, including the headmaster – the “creature” having now become “creator” and living as a separate personality. And where can you expect to find this personality, character, ethos – call it whatever you will. It is not in any one man, or group of men, in any set of instructions or even code.

It is a pleasant fancy – to think that is belongs to the Visible School, the buildings and grounds. Some time ago, on the last day of a term, after the boys had gone and the school was echoing in its emptiness, a senior boy said to a member of staff, “Isn’t it funny, Sir, that when the human beings have gone, the school seems to be even more human?” Many have said that it is possible to sense the pleasant atmosphere of the place as soon as one enters. Some years ago a master found a young man, who had attended the school but had since been away from Pretoria, standing for some time quietly in the School Hall; when eventually the master approached him, he said that he hadn’t come to see anyone in particular – he just wanted once again to get a feel of a place where he had been happy.

Is this perhaps an emanation of true School Spirit?

Extracts from The Pretorian 1960 (Jubilee Edition 1910 – 1960)

MY REASONS FOR SCORING FOR 3RDS XI

I have many reasons for scoring for the 3rds XI. Below are a few:

No. 1
It doesn’t really matter what team I score for.

No. 2
I score because of the food you get, cold meats, and appetising and delicious pudding. Tea three times a day (not actually tea, but cool drinks, cakes, biscuits etc.)

No. 3
At the house you have to watch cricket and I think it is much better watching cricket and doing something useful instead of just watching.

No. 4
you don’t have to do gardening at 3:30pm because the bus only arrives back at the school at 5:30pm.

No. 5
You don’t have to do skivvy duties.

No. 6
You don’t get bullied (or getting taught how to respect your elders as they call it) because you are just not around.

And, excluding all these things, I enjoy scoring.

M. van Os – Form 1A, The Pretorian 1970

IN MEMORIAM

DAVID DUDLEY LEPPAN (1966)

(Born : 2nd January 1948 – Died : 22nd March 2020) David grew up in Irene and proudly attended PBHS, matriculating in 1966. He was called up to the SA Navy in Simonstown and was selected for the Navy Divers, successfully completing his training in 1967. He maintained his interest in matters naval and the sea, teaching his family of four all about the sea, the tides, boating and fishing. The family, including his beloved 10 grandchildren were regularly summoned to partake in swims , regardless of the weather, at the Marine Pool over the times of the equinox high tides. He loved being in the wilderness seeking out beautiful and exciting places in his much loved old Land Rover Defender, sharing his love for nature with his family.

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