Reminiscences: Joseph Wolfgang Rich (pupil, 1947-1948)

I had to attend a Prefects ' after-school detention once for failing to pick up some paper I had dropped in the playground. But teaching staff usually found it was enough to speak sharply to anyone who stepped out of line ... . I recall being mortified ... at a school assembly when the Principal, a distinguished, silver-haired gentleman whose nickname was 'Jazz ', found it necessary to break off in mid-sentence to say, "Rich, will you be quiet or would you rather see me afterwards?'"(Boys were always called by teachers, and called each other, by their surnames; I never got to know the first names of most of my classmates. The fact that such a distant and illustrious personage as the Principal even knew my name was itself a mark of ignominy.) ... The only corporal punishment of which I was aware ... was administered by a Geometry master who periodically expressed his dislike of one particular boy by slapping his face . The rest of us measured the impact by the size and opacity of the cloud of chalk dust generated .

. . . Today I suppose the curriculum would be considered narrowly academic. There was no art .... We did woodwork once a week at a neighbouring school but only in first term of first year. Each boy had to make an article of his choice. Tools, benches and materials were supplied but no one taught us how to use them. It puzzled me that the others all seemed to know ... . Each week we had one ... Music lesson. . . . I remember . . . early in my first year the teacher announced his intention of producing HMS Pinafore. It was a single sex school -- quite separate from the adjacent Sydney Girls' High whose students we ogled through the fence during breaks. So, all roles, including the female ones, were played by boys. There were no auditions. All comers were accepted -- even if, like me, they were incapable of singing in tune. I was in the sailors' chorus . . . It was a rewarding experience. I ... was heartened to discover the capacity of the English to laugh at their own foibles -- a welcome contrast to the oppressive patriotism inculcated in primary school.