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Column for Sunday Independent, July 30
Life is about other things besides politics, murders, making money, falling in love, and the rest of the stuff you see in newspapers and movies. Life is also about honour, justice and learning.
You see very little of honour, justice and learning these days - especially in our schooling system. But in the Olden Days, these fine qualities were absorbed through careful caning.
When I was in prep school at the age of eight I was often allowed the honour - after "Lights Out" - of visiting the prefects' room.
The invitation was in the form of a casual cry: "Come through, all those talking." In those quaint old days, it was a point of honour that you should own up - regardless of the circumstances - if you were whispering at that moment. You would bend over in your thin pyjamas, receive two cuts then walk slowly to your bed with your hands casually at your sides - never rubbing the hot sting from your buttocks. To signal pain would bring two more cuts.
But schoolboys are cunning little creatures, and it took us only two years to work out that honour would be satisfied if only the boy talking the loudest should accept responsibility for the crime. Unfortunately, deciding who this might be often led to strong, sometimes physical, debate. In the latter case, half the dormitory would finally be invited to the prefects' room, and each boy given three cuts instead of two.
Take Justice.
I found myself walking, unavoidably, past the housemaster one day when he said, almost as an afterthought: "Oh, Tyson Junior, see me afterwards."
"See Me Afterwards" were the three most dreaded words in the English dictionary in our schooldays. They signalled the long walk to the Housemaster's study, where the ex- rugby Springbok would administer justice. You were never allowed to rear up in pain, so it was necessary to know in advance how much justice was being dispensed.
"Four cuts", the housemaster intoned.
I had taken only two of them when I did the unforgivable. I stood up.
The cane paused far above the housemaster's huge frame as I asked: "Sir, why four cuts?"
"For breaking that paling on the fence and bunking out of bounds."
"Not me, Sir."
His expression changed from irritation to puzzlement, and then I do believe I detected amusement more than remorse as he exclaimed:
"You're quite right! It was your brother. Send "Tickey" Tyson in here right away, there's a good chap."
It was with enthusiasm as well as alacrity that I summoned my elder brother and harried him all the way to within 20 yards of the housemaster's den, reminding him repeatedly to accept only two cuts.
My life is still marred by the injustice which followed. Only two cuts were administered - I counted the swish-thwack twice, from a safe place far out in the garden. But my brother refused to be substitute at the next "See Me Afterwards" which came my way, as it seemed to me he was honour-bound to do. Nor would the housemaster waive future punishment.
Take learning.
The excitement of discovery, of exploration, of erudition - these were especially stimulating in our new little world. Our particular prep school was governed by a strict set of religious commandments, including, "No bioscopes", and "No girls".
The "No girls" rule created an obsessive interest in a forbidden subject. The only available models of the mystery were two relatively young ladies, perhaps 14 or 15 years old, who teased the horde of little boys through the fence, and made jokes we had to work out afterwards. They were the subject of endless, intimate and hopelessly inaccurate speculation.
The "no bioscopes" rule led most of us to bunk to the bioscope regularly. There was a well-organised, well-patronised route, through cemetaries and along ditches to to the town centre. The route ended in a gallop up a sidestreet, into the bioscope foyer, and straight up the stairs to the projection box where we paid our entrance fee and found an illicit seat in the gallery.
It was almost impossible to get caught - except in the case of my best friend or I. My friend had a jaw the shape of the bottom of a garage door. I had one shaped like an ice-pick, and it was these physical oddities which were our undoing.
Rushing from the dazzling sunlight into the blacked-out cinema, my friend and I groped for our seats, passing in front of the projector with our heads thrust forward. The entire audience studied our profiles and roared.
"See me afterwards" said a prefect at supper that evening.
"What for?" we asked.
"You bunked to bioscope today."
"How do you know? How do you know it was us?"
The prefect just laughed. "You ought to be filmstars," he said.
We discussed the unfairness of such a "cop", to no avail.
"Who ever said life was supposed to be fair?" he laughed again.
Ah, what laughter we had, what lessons we learned, in those bad old, good old schooldays. They certainly were the best days of our lives. . . until we left school. They've been getting better and better ever since.
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