My Sixth Form Year

After my initial rocky start – see blog 22 June regarding cadets, caning and the hostel - in the sixth form at Christchurch Boys’ a sense of coherence slowly returned as the scholarly mainstream current took over, a sense of pattern and direction challenging me intellectually. I enjoyed the massed singing at assembly – I sensed ritual and fellowship. Clifton Cook the music master was one of those legendary teachers. There was also the attraction of a new library, crammed with late Victorian and Georgian books.

I, along with one other sixth former, studied Latin with a fourth form class. I found the subject stimulating and fascinating. Old Boys of the school still reminisce about Spud Moffat who taught that class. I am grateful for the experience. The history master inspired me to do that subject at University, for which I am also grateful.

The school also introduced me to Coghill’s translation of Chaucer. The English teacher, after handed out a class set of Penguins, and telling us to read The Pardoner’s Tale, went out to roll his beloved cricket pitch for a forthcoming inter-school match. As soon as he went through the door someone suggested we read The Miller’s Tale. The sound of sniggering filled the classroom as we read the crude, rollicking yarn. The description of the heroine having “a weasel’s body, softly slender” appealed to this country boy though I was a bit shocked at the seducer having his bottom branded. Having watched the Little River blacksmith at work over the years I knew the burn the brand could inflict.

My Akaroa School Cert marks counted. They earned me places in the second streams in English and Geography. The top groups obviously scholarship material were given the best teachers and pushed. The rest were "also-rans". Fortunately, my History mark scraped me into the A stream; probably that’s why I enjoyed that subject so much. Narrative has always gripped me. Thinking about that narrative was an enlivening activity. Biology ran in several blocks so I went into a mixed ability grouping. I still recall information about liverworts and dogfish and seeing a speck of my own blood full of lively dancing cells.

At the end of the year I knew quite a while before the lists were posted I had gained university entrance by accreditation. While the master was out of the room someone picked the lock on his desk and we all had a look at his record book. There was a tick beside my name, indeed most of our names. Our knowledge of who had passed and who had failed was never revealed to the powers that be. There were student codes then as now.