Super Omnia Veritas - The truth above all things
Lord, behold us with Thy blessing; Once again assembled here; Onward be our footsteps pressing; In Thy love, and faith, and fear; Still protect us; By Thy presence ever near.
This is the hymn that we would bellow out at the first assembly of every term.
Remember the scene from the Lion King, where Mufasa holds Simba up to the kingdom after his birth, that is what it felt like that morning when Mr. Webber walked Elly and I into Miss Koening’s Standard 1 (grade 3) class for the first time. There was much excitement around the new kids. I recall one young lady, Angela Bennett, being particularly kind to me. This kindness, set off years of silent infatuation, until I got distracted in std 4 I think and I had to call off our relationship that only I was aware of. It wasn’t you, it was me. 😊 I even recall so many permutations of performing that "Angela Bennett Truly Loves Yaw Peprah" calculation to see how strong this love was. Oh to be young and foolish…now I’m just foolish I guess. I don’t recall too much from this year, other than having to sit in 2-seater wooden desks that had a round hole in the top right for your shatterproof ruler, long semi-circle groove along the top to hold your pencil when you were supposed to be paying attention. Advanced engineering I tell ya. In the earlier years, what felt like ‘punishment’ would have been to sit you next to people of the opposite sex. Older me…PUNISHMENT?!! I know I learnt quite a bit but, Daar kom die Alabama and Molly Malone are the only things I can remember learning from that year. I had passed Std 1 the year before in eSwatini, but moving to SA and having to learn Afrikaans, the folks were advised to hold me back a year. I was bleak initially but in hindsight it was the best call. I am really fond of the group I would grow with.
Junior school seemed to take forever but memories are hazy. My Std 2 teacher was Miss Buss, later Mrs Mackay. That year, we had exercise books we needed to cover. As a family, we were hip and environmentally friendly way before our time and used to cover our books with newspaper (jokes, we just used to use newspaper). I remember getting to class and being told nah man, here we use brown paper and plastic. Those white stickers with the blue borders affixed on the top right hand corner with your name and subject. Poor mama had to recover them books. Quickly got the hang of that, even got to a stage when I’d cover my own books when I got older. Remember cutting out pictures from magazines of celebs, cartoons, objects or even those puffy stickers and putting them on the cover before you put the plastic on? Remember when you would make either the brown paper or the plastic too damn tight and the book couldn’t close properly so you would have to redo it? And it was late at night and you needed to get to sleep cos tomorrow was day 1 at school. I was still relatively fresh from Ghana, we would read Kathy and Mark stories. Teacher would ask why were they laughing, I’d innocently answer because they were gay, see, up to that point, i'd known gay to mean happy, or mate to be a friend. Some of the other kids would have a wee chuckle.
I was a member of Scripture Union so we used to go on camps from time to time (i only started going to the camps a little later), but man if it rained, it would suck, tent, sleeping bag, rain, not the best mix. We would have camp outs, fairs and cake sales on the hockey fields some Friday nights, I was only allowed to go later in life though. Oh and the choir, man thought he was the next Micheal Jackson, till the voice broke, then the reality of being Ghanaian set in…let’s be honest we can’t sing 😊. The Boswell and Wlkie Circus that used to regularly stop by. Ah man then there were those times when as we got older, we were upgraded to our own wooden desks, with the lids that we’d lift up and store our books inside or our lunch from the tuckshop. The tuckshop… the days you were fortunate enough to get tuck money and not bring lunch was amazing but the queues were always long, so we’d decided to wait till just before the bell for 1st break to end to ring and then head to the tuck shop because that was when the queues would be shortest, so you could enjoy your break instead of queuing. The only problem there was that when would you eat your food, there were 2 periods between the breaks so second break was too far, we weren’t allowed to eat in class. We thought we were smart, cough…open chips or chocolate packet, grab a handful, cough again place broken piece of chocolate or chips inside mouth using hand used to cover mouth whilst coughing. But the day you bought Kreol chips, it was over for you. Delicious they were, but fishy stinky they were too. If you were caught, depending on the mood of the teachers, your meal would find itself in the dustbin or you being ejected from class.
Getting to school late really sucked because we would have to either stand outside assembly like losers or find a place to hide whilst we waited for assembly to finish so we could try and seamlessly assimilate into line before we are ushered into the class. Getting to school early however, was a treat. We would compare our silkworms and the cocoons they were weaving, eggs laid, moth conversion. Sometimes we would be met by sounds “roll up, roll up 3 catzies, a milky and an ollie”. Marbles, what a rush, the stance, the aim, the release, nooo it was a sandhits. My favourite though was open gates. A crazy game where we would line up on the one side of the hockey field and the people that were on would call someone to run past him/them to get to the other side. If the person succeeded to get to the other side, the gates were open and we all ran across. If he failed, and got caught with the mandatory “1, 2, 3, caught by me” tapped onto his back, he too was on and would help in prohibiting people from getting to the other side. Mad game, dirty game too. Torn shirts, shorts, trouser pocket, buttons and jerseys were common place. The fun far outweighed the constant thought of how you explain your filthy state to the folks at the end of school.
We were fortunate to have great educators. A few stood out for me. Mr. Rossouw, with his neat handwriting deserves a mention. Mr. Potgieter, our std 4 teacher and Miss Swinburne. I was petrified of both of them but they still stood out for me. Pottie was that guy. Cool guy, drove a VW Jetta, a great story teller, had a way with the ladies too. His laugh was such a ripper. But man you didn’t want to get caned by him, cos it was often in front of the whole class, he would place your head between the seat and the back rest at times and then tease you, sometimes let out an evil laugh before he would let rip. Miss. Swinburne on the other hand was just a good no nonsense teacher that you could learn from. Then there was Doc Bayman, our PT teacher and science/english teacher, he’d walk around in his tracksuit, wielding a wooden paddle that he used indiscriminately. His voice, in my mind, was more violent than his paddle. I recall one day he shouted at one of the class mates so loudly that the poor dude wet himself. The same dude also had quite a stutter and standing in front of the class to deliver an oral was a petrifying experience for him, It wasn't just for him. To this day i absolutely dislike having to stand in front of people to give a presentation of sorts. I blame orals or mondelinge.
PT class was the best though, we had a double period of running around, playing rounders (mini baseball), climbing ropes in the PT room, swimming was the worst though. Not only did we have to wear speedos, which some of us shy dudes detested (I even remember wishing my wiener, was smaller so it wouldn’t embarrass me by showing in the speedo, oh young naïve boy?!) Some of us couldn’t swim so we were always discarded to the shallow end of the pool and told to hold the side and kick…Daffy Ducks was our name.
We grew up in the era of corporal punishment. Our teachers would dish it out but I wouldn’t say they were abusive. I recall one time, being in Mr. Christensen’s class, our class instigator, Gamaliel Lusu had done something and Phil was getting the brunt of it with the teacher. The man had his ear in a grip and was twisting it, Phil, told him it was sore repeatedly, the man wouldn’t back down, so Phil hit his hand away and stood up the man. Remember our teachers had been to the army and had an understanding of the way of their world, this situation wasn’t one too familiar to him. Sure Phil ended up in the principal’s office but I was like ok young man, ok… possible embellishment of the story but you get the gist.
Back to PT…Early years was all about school work and sport. Playing rugby was forbidden in our house because the folks deemed it a barbaric sport. It kinda sucked cos most of the ‘cool kids’ played rugby and went away together for rugby weekends and formed bonds with the bigger kids and the hockey girls. I was kinda quick so athletics, mainly sprints (the longer stuff, 400m, 800m and cross country was hell on earth, this dislike of hiking isn’t a new thing, at least now I have aging limbs as an alibi 😊), high jump, long jump was my thing. Speaking of athletics, we had 3 houses, Smith, Richardson and Anderson. Green, yellow and black. Most of the athletically inclined, darker skinned foreigners managed to find ourselves in Anderson. Athletics was a gas. My oldest sister was ridiculously quick. Barefooted, she would roll everyone she raced against in Rizla and smoke them. With her fingers pointed as if she was shooting, she would shoot out of the blocks, 100, 200, 400, 800 too if I am not mistaken, all her competitors would see of her, was her dust. But for some reason I think because she joined the school later than us, she was in Smith House in the early years. But man Anderson used to blaze most years. Anderson Anderson what’s your cry? V I C T O R Y!!
Swimming though, another story that. If Michael and Jacqui Harrison weren’t winning haai, shem. But let’s go back to athletics cos those were fun times. Tennis was the one though erratic as fudge, but loved the sport. Coca Cola Tennis Championship was always so nerve wrecking. That and the few seconds before hearing the starter gun for a sprint… so much pressure.
Nana Sarpong was a few years ahead of me so I didn’t have to bear the comparison with hear, but Adoma was just 2 years ahead of me, a goodie goodie, model student she was. If I had a rand for every why cant you be like your sister or your sister is so… I’d have been a wealthy young man. Fortunately for Kwaku who was following a few steps behind the bar was normalized 😊
I recall many a school report with my teachers commenting on the fact that I wasn’t living up to my full potential, or I got bored quickly, or I had ants in my pants and was always in a rush to finish so I can disturb or help others. See it’s not something new ladies I’ve been like this, but I’m work in progress. That being said I was more a nerd at heart I was competent at sports which helped because then my friendship circle was larger. I performed pretty well in class, I was mostly in the top 10 students of the class and standard, I do recall std 3 when I had chicken pox and I fell out of the top 10 it was a pretty yucky feeling. The constant impression upon us of the value of education from the folks, the belief the teachers had in my potential, the pressure from the other well performing siblings, and not wanting to be out of the top 10 was the fuel that drove me to concentrate just enough to do well enough.
We grew up well but it wasn’t all roses
The folks would have verbals generally about the same thing. There would be fights with the siblings as you do. I would get uppercuts regularly from the old lady because I was Satan’s spawn. Fortunately there was always that escape to my other 2 musketeers. Dave and Ed. But man going to them was like traversing Takeshi’s Castle. Between my house and bottom forgale was an obstacle course of unnecessarily ferocious canines. There was one particular one Bobby and his bullterrier friend, Spanky. They guarded the shortest route down. I have no idea what I did to these damn mutts, black and white they both were, with a black patch over their eyes like pirates. The bullterrier didn’t bark much it would just stare you down and you knew that if this mofo ever got out that gate it would be over for you. Bobby on the other had would run up and down the fence biting at the gate, saliva dripping from its mouth. That beast was scary. Id sometimes sprint down to get past the house as quickly as possible because I don’t want to wait around for them to realise they can hop the fence or bite it open. Most times there was a chain around the gate to prevent accidental opening, but there were some days where there wasn’t if I wasn’t feeling brave enough it meant turning left up Aloe street, right into Lilly then down Sissons, a path that would add its one complexities, other dogs, more cars, more people and MORE DAMN TIME. There was a path between Aloe and Sissons street, but that path was often overgrown with weeds as tall as I and my irrational fear of snakes would not allow such a journey. Sticks and rocks was my weapon of choice on these journeys.
I would occasionally also wet my bed till a few years later than I should have. Always had a 'mackintosh' covering my mattress, in winter it was particularly cold and the sound, I can hear it now. Oh that feeling one second ahh i'm taking a wee in the toilet, oh what is that warm feeling down my leg, ahhhh man, it’s not the toilet is it? Get up get rid of wet clothes, put on new ones and carve a dry nest around the wet patch of bedding and pass out again… till the morning bellows of “YAW PONG YOU WET YOUR BED AGAIN!!”. Often I would be woken up in the middle of my snooze to go take a wee. To make sure none of the other brothers followed the bed wetting traits, we would all be woken up. On one such awakening my brother thought he was Lion-o from Thundercats, in his sleep he waved his hands shouting “Thunder, Thunder, Thundercaaats hoooo” then scratched his tummy, oblivious to the whole episode. The way we still laugh about that time. Now imagine word of that getting out, life would be over. So sleep overs were not a thing at all till much later in junior school.
I was a pretty shy lad growing up. I had a head many Ashanti’s would be proud of, flat, but fodder for cruel kids. Man was I teased at school. I remember one kid regaling a story of how I got my name to some other classmates… ”when his mother was about to give birth to him, she pushed so hard that the doctor missed him and whilst falling out the window he shouted Yaaaaaaaaaawwww, and landed on his head”, hence the name and head. So many more, like “hey Yaw come and stand against the wall we want to see if it is straight” hilarious…now, but not then. Especially when sometimes the teachers would join or laugh. I wasn’t much of a fighter, (the only altercations I recall in junior school was William Byrne punching me on the nose and Philip ‘breaking my arm’, he never broke it, but he twisted it quite a bit, we still joke about), so I’d just stew in my anger and tears would flow, and the more I tried to stop the tears the more they flowed. It led me to the solution of humour, joining them having a laugh, making everything seem trivial. It took away their power…my reaction so that eased it somewhat. The birth of the jokey guy you see today. Oh, but that shyness was still there especially around the fairer sex. I WAS SO USELESS damn! Show of interest was to irritate you or pull your bra strap when we got to our early teens…what was that?!
Yep, you ain’t going to be hearing any stories of any reciprocal romantic encounters in my youth. Rules at home were no girls for the boys and no boys for the girls. By order of government (folks). As I also mentioned I got teased plenty, rejection from a lass was not another piece of ammunition I could afford to offer my ‘taunters’. Best I could do was ask for a dance to a slow song at the school discos. The nerves just to go and say “emm, hi would you like to dance”, Laawwdd, I’d take ten athletic starter guns at the same time, anytime. I’d sit on the cupboards, kicking my feet hoping, hoping I’d be asked… that never happened.
Ei chale, It no be easy oh!
Before I move too far off TV…Back in the 80s TV was a luxury. There would be the holding pattern of a round image with different colours with SABC on the top and the time on the side I think. Until 4pm then we would watch Pumpkin Patch, Mina Moe, Engelbrecht and Emily, Brakenjan,. We grew up on a diet of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Thunder Cats, Gummy Bears, a dash of A-Team, Knight Rider, Riptide, Tales of the Gold Monkey, MacGuyver, Magnum, for spice add in some Santa Barbara (the original Mills and Boons, Kelly and Joe, wow), Ridge and Brooke who was busy with everyone in The Bold and the Beautiful, Marelena being kidnapped by Stefano and possessed in Days of Our Lives, Dynasty and Dallas (we weren’t allowed to watch the latter, but we did). Then cap it off with a sprint to fetch the radio for simulcast of TJ Hooker, Misdaad in Miami (Miami Vice), Die Man van Staal (Million Dollar Man on Saturdays always between the library and tennis). TV ended around midnight in the early days. Bed time was 8pm.
We would have to catch a lift home from time to time. There were no cellphones back in the day, so if something came up and pops couldn’t come and fetch us, we’d know if he didn’t pitch and then we’d have to walk home. Yep, pack away my knitting needles and wool and off we’d trudge. (Used to get much joy from knitting, never ever knitted anything much but casting on and just the motion of creating something was pleasant.) WHAT A HACK! Particularly if you didn’t have a back back suitcase, but rather a briefcase or a hand-held satchel. Sometimes we’d be brave enough to ask a teacher who lived near us, dear Mrs Miller for a ride, or one of the parents would give us a lift. It was no joke that walk though. It was roughly a 3.8km walk. Imagine, sun beating down, school uniform, tired, hungry, thinking sheeeee, if no one is at home you will have to sit outside and wait on top of it all. Did I mention that damn satchel with ALL YOUR BOOKS. Oh, and then oftentimes, once we got home, you had to change head to the top fields either to train for athletics or play touch rugby. Most times though you knew in advance so you would pack the clothes and stay at school. Walking to the top fields was another story, we had to cross a rickety old bridge which was rusted in places. I was scared of heights, petrified in fact, but you had to use that bridge, dare you be caught crossing the road and not over the bridge….
We used to take the bus too, sometimes in the morning the damn thing wouldn’t come and we’d have to walk. But we had to get to school at a certain time if not we stood outside the assembly hall. There were times one would try and hide at the tennis courts or in the toilets at the other end of the school so no one would see you were late and just slip in with everyone when came out of assembly. I remember I used to have a game I used to play out of boredom whilst we waited for the bus to come. I would count how many times I could cross the road before a car I saw in the distance would pass us. Right now in my ear I can hear my sisters shouting my stupidity and saying they will tell the folks when we get home. Catching the bus came with its own dangers too, there were the older boys that used to scare the bejeeezus out of me. Names that come to mind are Jeffrey Wright, Rob and Alan Maclean and Michael Jones. Those were the gents, they always sat at the back of the bus. As a youngster I would sit well in the front and keep my head down, don’t make eye contact and they wont…Yaaaaaww, come to the back, ah sheee they saw me… It wasn’t all bad though, sometimes, Gretchen used to take the bus too, but more about that later 😉
We grew up well I tell ya.
The last year of junior school culminated in a yearly outing for Std 5’s. Called “School in the Wilds”. We were to go to Howick I think it was and stay at the Umgeni river bungalows. I remember it being pretty wet at the time and us staying in a pretty cool camp vibe, guys in the one or 2 girls in the other one or 2 bungalows. We would go on walks. For some reason I remember someone having to do a no 2 pretty desperately and disappearing into the woods to relieve themselves. I remember 2 of the tough guys having a proper cry about girls they liked and ‘Slimeball’ was effortlessly taking all of her attention, the other was crying because the object of his affection couldn’t be arsed. "I've liked her since January, February Maaarch, he'd break out singing during his tears" Helluva a show. We thought they were joking but someone shone a flashlight on their faces….proper tears... Hillarious
Lord, dismiss us with your blessing; fill our hearts with joy and peace. Let us each, your love possessing, triumph in redeeming grace. O refresh us, O refresh us, trav'ling through this wilderness.
School’s out till the next year, the challenge of senior school awaits.
Well written my friend you have captured our junior years with such fond memories. I really miss those simple times....
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