St Martin's School - Rosettenville Campus Farewell - 3 December 2022
Message from Governing Council Chairperson, Tiffany Krupke
This is a very special day a culmination of hours and hours and days and years and many decades of education, hope, love, dedication, selflessness, adventure, laughter, tears, memories, heartbreak and now a new beginning.
I sat down at my desk to write this and on a small piece of paper on the side of the desk, I saw a small note I had written, I don’t event remember when, and it said, The more we trust the further we are able to venture.
We are not venturing very far geographically but we are certainly venturing very far in our absolute determination to keep this school alive. We have reimagined ourselves. Something absolutely vital in today’s climate. We may be saying goodbye to this incredibly special campus, but we are not saying goodbye to this school, a school that has crept into all our hearts.
There is sorrow attached in saying farewell to the bricks and mortar and memories that remain here, but as we walk to the Prep School today, we are taking ourselves along, which is in essence the heart and soul of St Martin’s School.
And as Idil Ahmed said: “sometimes you don’t event know what you are being protected from or where you are being guided to when you are in the midst of chaos. That’s why you just have to trust that greater things are aligning for you. Let go gracefully.
Tiffany Krupke
Governing Council Chairperson
Message from Bishop Peter Lee
Jesus said, ‘If anyone wants to take your cloak, give him your coat as well’. (Mt 5:40)
Anyone who has been part of St Martin’s over the past 65 years or so, is familiar with the story of the Roman soldier from somewhere in modern-day France who bumped into a beggar one day and chopped his military cloak in half to share it. That image has been very much part of our story: we have believed in and promoted what Archbishop Tutu used to call a caring and sharing society. As the chaplain said on St Martin’s Day, it is about generosity.
There is a big debate going on about how church schools should communicate and even enforce their values: but we have had no problem in seeing the old man as some sort of icon of generosity and sharing which have spoken to our society through changing times – first it was a sharing among white boys who took over this site, then it went co-ed, then it went non-racial; but it is part of who we are and we hope it will go with the famous statue, into the new campus.
But there is a second take on this story. Those of us who profess to be fairly serious Christians have sometime said, ‘but Jesus told us that if a Roman soldier made us carry his bags a mile, we should carry them for two’ – either to overwhelm them with generosity or to get them asking about the Gospel, or whatever; so why didn’t Martin give the man the whole thing? After all we are used these days to going through our cupboards and digging out spare jerseys and shoes for charitable bodies, sometimes those inspired by Islam like the Gift of the Givers, and we never cut the jerseys in half or send just one shoe – so why was this guy so half-hearted? Maybe he is not so much the patron saint of sharing as of the kind of half-hearted faith we sometimes meet in Christian institutions.
There is a big debate going on again about chapel in schools and whether students should be expected to attend it. Back in the days when I was asked to talk to the High School at the beginning of the year, I used to say to them, ‘you are at the age when you are going to sift through the value systems you have met at home and at primary school, and you are going to accept some, reject others, modify others, and internalize the ones that make you who you are. You will do that in a framework, whether it is at a professedly secular public school or here in the frame of Anglican Christianity; nobody can force you and you are free to think through, sort out, challenge and choose: we are just giving you a place to do it.’
That is good and right – but does it lead to inoculating kids against catching the real passionate faith which built this place, like a man giving half a donation?
There is a third interpretation of this story which I rather like. It says that as often happens in armies, the Romans paid for half a soldier's uniform and the soldier paid the rest. If that is so, Martin might have been saying to himself that he was only free to donate the part he had paid for, and he could only give the whole cloak by effectively stealing the other half of it from the army. History does not tell what the quarter-master said when he turned up asking for another half-cloak; but at least that would suggest a degree of ethical sophistication in the heat of a compassionate moment which is quite worthy. He is saying to us, ‘it’s complicated’.
So, when we think of our patron saint, we are not entirely sure if he is an icon of sharing and caring, or of half-hearted compromise, or of moral complexity and careful thought.
And that is my point: if you have been around here in the past couple of years, you know it’s complicated. Many have been doing their best to save this school or to bring it some sort of new birth. Some have been working at that for years, with or without recognition. Some have chosen to be critical of others or get into mutual recrimination. Some who have been most vocal have made big promises and broken them. It’s been complicated and it’s been painful. And it will be complicated going forward; don’t worry, it was complicated and uncertain in 1910 and in 1958, so there is no reason we should have it all easy this time. And maybe we should just hesitate before we judge who has really been caring and sharing, who has been half-hearted and who has been rightly caught up in the complexity of it all, trying to operate as truthfully and honestly as they can, but not always facing easy choices and maybe not always making the choices which in retrospect they might have wished to have made. It’s complicated and we may have to think mercifully towards others whose role in the complications may not even be known to us.
But the fact is we do have a future before us, we do have somewhere to go and to take the old statue to, as we try more importantly to take the traditions and history, the values and ethos of this school into the future.
So what have we come here to say?
I hope – THANK YOU. Obviously, thank you to those who are leaving, either because they were due to do that or because the exigencies of the school’s new plan have forced departure upon them. That’s hard: we can only say, you have helped to build this place, you have influenced dozens of lives, you have been our friends and made us laugh and we will miss you. God be with you on the journey.
Maybe today we should also broaden our focus and give thanks for a slightly wider group of people, whoever it is that you remember with gratitude today and whose life has blessed you; Dennis Maritz, Jim Welsh and his family, maybe even the irascible Piet Joubert. You name them. And let’s name those brave people who jumped in during the apartheid era and founded this school at a time of some risk, putting in significant amounts of their own money. And maybe the Church who have donated the use of this property year after year since 1958. And before that, those crazy English monks who drove a donkey cart out here into the veld around 1905 and built a castle on a koppie when that was all there was: and everyone in between.
It is perhaps symbolic that the last of the Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection who lived and worked here, departed this life last month.
We are also having to say GOODBYE. We love saying ‘its not goodbye, just au revoir’ but that is just to soften the pain; sometimes it really is goodbye. Yes we hope the new St Martin’s will come here and introduce its pupils to this campus, but it can’t be the same as walking past the bell or finding your favourite spot to eat a sandwich in a sunny corner of an old courtyard.
Then there is this crazy old chapel; they tell me that one of the first monks had been an architect before he joined the Community of the Resurrection; I am never sure if they benefited from him sacrificing his career, or whether he was such a dreadful architect that they gave him charity. It was only when we bought these pews from a redundant church in the Eastern Cape, that we realized nothing is straight in here, and the main columns are not even opposite each other across the aisle. I have sometimes compared this place to the Union Buildings in Pretoria; they are bigger and grander but were used for so many years to promote injustice and discrimination, while this church was filled with worship and prayer, young people wrestling with the great issues of life and reaching out to each other across the boundaries of age and race, gender and background, religion and opinion. Surely this place is holy ground.
We will all have our memories of the chapel, ranging from Ronnie Gill cranking up the First XV to ‘Guide me O thou Great Jehovah’ or the sadder ones when a chaplain’s child had died in a cot death or a terminally ill student came for his Confirmation. We have to leave behind the stained glass windows donated by one Matric class after another, and the lovely pastel ones at the back designed by Beyers Naude’s daughter-in-law, and maybe remember the day when the old man came to read the lesson at his grand-daughter Nicola’s Confirmation. Thank you, chapel, and goodbye.
But I have been maudlin long enough. We are also here to say WELCOME – welcome to a plan we had thought impossible, welcome to a future we could not imagine a few months ago, welcome to hope and vision and possibility. Welcome to new leaders, and God bless you in all you do. Welcome to new challenges because they will be many. Welcome to the excitement of being involved in a new thing and in working out all the answers to difficult questions.
I have one memory which will live with me. The school had invited Judge Fikile Bam, an eminent alumnus of St Peter’s, to speak at prize giving. After 10 years on Robben Island he had qualified as a lawyer and become an eminent member of the legal fraternity in this country, even serving a year as Chancellor of Wits University.
In front of me was a little black boy, gazing around and swinging his legs in manifest boredom. This went on for a while until suddenly something the tall figure in the green judicial robes had said about running around these courtyards as a boy, caught the little boy’s ear and he began to listen with rapt attention. It was as if he suddenly realized that this old man’s past was his future; and that is exactly the point of this service today. Our past can indeed be some young person’s future, and if that is what the man chopping up his cloak is about, bring it on.
Peter Lee
Bishop
Service of Thanksgiving and Hope
I add my welcome to that of the Chair of Council – it is really wonderful to see so many familiar faces, but also so many unfamiliar faces from years gone by that have joined us at this very special service. It shows what this great school means to so many people.
I love alumni gatherings at schools. All manner of interesting stories are told, most of which, of course, cannot be repeated in this chapel. Particularly as the evening drags on the wine begins to flow. The history of a school is directly linked to the students that went there and of course the teachers that taught there. Time allows me to share only a few snippets with you, two of which have to do with parcels.
“Please Father, can you get a trumpet for me”, says a precocious little grade 8 boy to his chaplain. As you know, the legendary Hugh Masekela, known as the father of South African jazz, who has enthralled audiences across the world, began his musical career as a little boy, practising scales and arpeggios on the piano in the music rooms of this lovely campus. But the story of how it all happened is rather fascinating. Masekela somehow got the idea into his head that he wanted to play the trumpet, rather than the piano. Not being able to afford such a costly instrument did not deter this young man in any way. He spoke to his chaplain, Father Trevor Huddleston, about his desire to play the trumpet and asked him whether he was able to help. In true Huddleston fashion – Go big or go home – he penned a letter to, none other than, the American trumpeter, composer and singer Louis Armstrong who has undoubtedly been one of the most influential figures in the history of jazz. His simple request: Have you got an old trumpet lying around for a keen young pupil of mine, was one of those brief, yet profoundly defining moments in Masekela’s life. There was of course no e-mail in those days let alone takealot.com, but a few weeks later, much to the surprise and delight of Trevor Huddleston, a parcel arrived for Hugh Masekela – a trumpet from the man himself. And the rest is history. It is, however, not only his musical talent that was nurtured here on these corridors, but also the tenacity and staying power which he displayed throughout his illustrious career. Anything can be done, when you believe, became the motto for his life. He would have first heard these words in this very chapel from Father Trevor Huddleston preaching on Philippians 4:13. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’.
So where did it all begin? I want to take you back to July 1902. In Mirfield, a town in West Yorkshire in England, the Mother House of the Community of the Resurrection, made a decision to become involved in the work of the church in Johannesburg. In what was called the Witwatersrand in those days, there were 45 government schools for white kids, but not a single school for black kids. Fascinating – this was long before the days of formalized apartheid. Johannesburg wasn’t much more than a miner’s camp. Gold had been discovered in 1884 and on 31 May 1902, the Boer war formally ended. An air of gloom had settled over Johannesburg and people were largely given up to the scramble for gold, the allurement of drink, gambling and women. Not really a happy place.
By 1947 CR had already established 44 schools. Lest one disparages the role of the wider church in South Africa, as some are want to do, one should be aware that formidable institutions like Michaelhouse, Hilton College, St John’s College, St Mary’s DSG, St Stithians College, St Andrew’s in Grahamstown, Hershel School for Girls, St Cyprians and Bishops in Cape Town, to mention but a few, were all started by the church. Their influence in our country in every possible sphere has been, and will continue to be, massive.
It might also interest you that in September 1905, the CR was approached to take over St John’s College (Established 1898 Eloff Street) because of the serious financial difficulties they found themselves in. They were in charge of the St John’s for 30 years and oversaw the purchase of, and the move to, the new campus.
Although there seem to be no formal records as to when this school was formally established and named St Peters, everything was in place in January of 1922 and its founder was Father Albon Winter CR. It was a school for black boys. St Peters grew quickly and in 1924 a hostel was built for 40 boys.
St Peter’s was an eyesore for the South African government. Many of those educated at St Peters had to leave South Africa because of their political involvement. The name we are most familiar with, is, of course, Oliver Tambo. His academic record at St Peter’s was quite astounding. Together with his classmate Joe Mokoena they became the first black students in the history of South African education to pass their JC exams with a first-class pass. St Peter’s was known as the ‘Black Eton’ in those days. The education kids received in these very classrooms, was, already in those days, three notches above the rest.
But Tambo was not only a pupil here, he also taught at St Peter’s for four years as a Science teacher. It might interest you that his first degree was not law, but indeed Physics and Mathematics. He was going to become a teacher! He graduated with a BSc from Fort Hare University. During his PGCE year he was hoofed out of the university and when the people here at St Peter’s found out he was looking for something to do, they brought him back as a Science teacher. When we process out later, we will walk past the very laboratory he taught in. We recently unveiled this memorial at our Prep School in memory of his contribution to our country.
But there were other big names that walked these corridors: Duma Nokwe, Joe Matthews, Zephaniah Mathopeng, and the internationally acclaimed Es'kia Mphahlele. They were all game changers in our country and left an incredible legacy.
As early as 1947 the JHB City Council was presented with a petition from 2500 residents urging expropriation of the St Peter’s land. 1948 The general election changed the face of SA as the United Party under the leadership of Gen Jan Smuts was voted out of power and the jubilant National Party started its 40-year rule. 1949 Dr Henrik Verwoerd (Minister of Education) appointed Dr Eiselen as Chairman of the Commission of Native Education. 1950 The first National Party legislation came into effect – Group Areas Act. 1951 Bantu Education Act introduced. The control of most Black schools was taken away from missionary bodies and placed under the Native Education department.
At this time, Trevor Huddleston wrote: The Bantu Education Act is designed to ensure that every African child will be taught from an early age that there is no place for him above certain forms of labour in what Dr Verwoerd described as ‘the civilised community’. 1956 St Peters was closed. Hugh Masekela was a grade 10 boy at that time. 1957 Some renovations were done to the buildings. 1958 St Martin’s opened its doors – a High School for WHITE boys.
One could be led to believe that the struggle veterans of our country only emanated from St Peter’s. This is of course not entirely true.
Back in the 1960’s, White South Africans who challenged the apartheid government, at the risk of everything most precious to them, were very few. The number of white dissenters whose first language was Afrikaans – the language of the regime that had institutionalised racism in every nook and cranny of social and personal life – was even less. A certain Marius Schoon was one of that tiny handful. He loathed the ideology of racism but loved the richness of the Afrikaans language, especially its poetry. Eugene Marais’ poem Die dans van die Reën comes to mind. Many of you will remember learning this poem at school:
Eers oor die bergtop loer sy skelm,
en haar oge is skaam, en sy lag saggies,
Charlize Theron might be pretty and famous, but she got this one wrong – Afrikaans ain’t going anywhere! Marius Schoon was an Afrikaans teacher at St Martin’s in the early 1960s. Some of you, present here, may even remember him.
In 1964, he was part of a group that planted a bomb in the Hillbrow police station. He was caught and jailed for 12 years. During this time, his wife Diana tragically committed suicide. Marius was not permitted to attend the funeral and was only allowed to see his daughter twice a year – for an hour. On his release in 1976, he plunged himself into the work of the Human Rights Committee, mobilising people and public opinion around human rights issues. It was here that he met Jeannette Curtis. Both were banned and unable to communicate lawfully, so they were married in a secret ceremony in 1977 by the also banned Afrikaner theologian Beyers Naude, hours before they crossed, illegally, into Botswana. Being a priority target and thus in danger of the South African Security Police, they later moved to Lubango in Angola where they were to live happily ever after.
The day is June 28, 1984. It’s a serene, partly cloudy Thursday in Lubango. A parcel is delivered to Mr and Mrs Schoon at their residence in Angola. Living in exile, there is always excitement when parcels arrive and news from home. This parcel is from a well-known family friend in South Africa. Marius is not at home and his wife Jeanette, debates whether she should open it or wait for Marius. Knowing that he wouldn’t mind, she starts unwrapping the parcel. A bomb explodes in her face and kills both her and their six-year-old daughter, Katryn. Their two-year-old son, Fritz, is found wandering around outside the flat. He was unharmed but spent years recovering from this terrible ordeal. Secret police agent Craig Williamson, who was involved in a series of events, including overseas bombings, burglaries, kidnappings, assassinations and propaganda during the apartheid era, had sent that parcel, which was obviously meant for Marius. He also ordered the assassination of Ruth First. These atrocities actually happened. Fascinating to note that Craig Williamson was schooled at St John’s College – in the 1960’s!! Marius could have been his teacher!
Marius Schoon then relocated to Ireland where he quickly made new friends and, despite his enormous loss, became involved in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement – again! He not only raised consciousness about apartheid, but also sought funding for the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania to which he later moved.
Now here’s the twist in the tale. Living at this campus in Tanzania, Marius Schoon took in and fostered a young boy, Tlholo Mohlathe, whose father had been called to an ANC mission in Spain. This same Tlholo Mohlathe, in his capacity as the CEO of Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College Trust, is here with us this morning, in the very school that his ‘father’, Marius Schoon, had been a teacher. Tlholo, holding their family dog, is pictured here next to Marius, with Fritz on the left. What a remarkable story!
A few other snippets:
The year is 1970. A St Martin’s old boy, Leslie Pon, is travelling home on the train from Wits University where he is studying architecture. He looks over the shoulder of an elderly gentlemen reading the Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld. To his surprise, he sees a large picture of himself in the paper, competing in an athletics event for the club he was training with. Why, he wonders, would this be newsworthy? Although he was swift on the track, he hadn’t broken any records at the event. Well, it had to do with the fact that he was of Chinese origin competing against white children. How bizarre! But that is the society many of us grew up in.
One of the founding pupils of St Marin’s recently recounted that they were in a lesson with his Science teacher Mr Vaughn Stone, when the police walked into the classroom, and asked Mr Stone go accompany them out. As he left the class, he straightened the tie of a boy sitting in the front row, and that was the last they ever saw of their Science teacher.
As a part of Ron Gill’s music lessons in the 30 plus years he taught here, all Form One pupils learnt the song Ag pleez Deddy. Jeremy Taylor, who wrote the song was an English and Latin teacher here at St Martin’s early in the 60’s. That song was known as the Ballad of the Southern Suburbs, and it sold more albums in South Africa than any individual Elvis Presley hit. It was banned from being aired by the SABC as it violated the principles of Apartheid. Taylor later went on to teach at Eaton College in the UK and he had his 85th birthday two weeks ago.
Let’s go down memory lane and listen to a slightly sanitized version of the song:
Ag pleez Deddy won't you take us to the drive-in
All six, seven of us, eight, nine, ten
We wanna see a flick about Tarzan an' the Ape-men
An' when the show is over you can bring us back again.
Chorus:
Popcorn, chewing gum, peanuts an' bubble gum
Ice cream, candy floss an' Eskimo Pie
Ag Deddy how we miss
Sugar balls an' liquorice, Pepsi Cola, ginger beer, and Canada Dry.
Anyway – to finish off the history of the school:
1971 Prep school is opened.
1976 Prep moved to its new campus in The Hill.
1977 First girls were admitted.
1981 (41 years ago) Admission of first black pupils – against the law of the country!
Discussions had started after the 1976 Soweto riots. Fr Erson as the school chaplain strongly advocated that black kids be admitted. Catholic schools were breaking the law without consequence. When would the Anglicans follow? In 1981 they did.
2022 In the centenary year of great education in this beautiful space, we say goodbye to this campus.
In conclusion: The history of a school is not only about the rich and the famous. Actually, it is about every individual who has walked these corridors and been educated in these classrooms. For 100 years now, this institution has schooled people, as we will sing in the school prayer after Bishop’s blessing, to have:
The grace of obedience,
Compassion for others,
Zeal for the truth,
And a humble spirit,
And that Christ will glorify himself in each of our lives.
Thank you.