Aren’t people funny? I know I am.
After years of anticipating school holidays and that legendary last day of school, when it finally arrived, I was slow to leave. My four and a half months of national service in the army ended the same way. I willed that moment on, but when it came, I hesitated to detach myself from the barracks and my army uniform. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps?
I never disliked school, but I looked forward to university and enjoying all the freedoms I imagined that would bring.
On my last day in sixth form at Milton High School in Bulawayo, every period was a relaxed farewell to the teacher. In my case, that totalled three. Now, they treated us like adults, and no longer like the school kids they needed to encourage, cajole, or threaten. I felt sorry to say goodbye to them.
The notice board advised us of an upper-sixth form assembly scheduled for around eleven o’clock. Reg Cowper, the sixth form principal, gave us a motivational farewell speech and announced we could leave after the assembly. But he said he’d appreciate a personal farewell interview with each departing upper-sixth pupil, in surname alphabetical order. Milton remained the biggest school in Rhodesia, so that meant a lot of interviews.
My surname began with the letter S, which meant I would need patience if I wanted to comply. The interviews were voluntary, so many upper-sixth pupils left in a hurry. For some, that presented a problem. To prevent vandalism and theft, a nine-foot-high storm-mesh fence secured almost two hundred bicycles during school hours.
The upper-sixth would leave at midday, but the rest finished as usual at a quarter-to-one. Someone forgot to inform the gatekeeper the upper-sixth finished early that day, and an impatient crowd gathered around the chained gate. One guy, in a hurry to leave school, climbed over the storm mesh fence. On the inside, he leaned a large bicycle against the fence. Then, carrying his own bicycle, he stood on the saddle of the large bicycle and tossed his bike over the top.
I wasn’t in a hurry. Few remained when I went in for my farewell interview. Reg Cowper said, ‘LTK, after today, you’ll never again have to listen to anyone telling you what to do. You will make your own decisions and choices.’ They may not have been his exact words, but close enough. Of course, he was wrong. Perhaps he never married, but he should have guessed I’d soon be up for military service.
Reg Cowper always addressed me as LTK, and although I didn’t know it then, he gave me the pen name I use today for writing my novels.
Soon after my last day at school, I bumped into a teacher crossing Fife Street near the corner of Haddon and Sly. He greeted me with the broadest of smiles and said he always believed me to be his best pupil. He told me I alone got an ‘A Level’ distinction in his class that year. Imagine my surprise, as he spent six years belittling me at every opportunity. Only then, I realised he wasn’t so bad after all.
But six weeks earlier, when he left the classroom unattended, one guy sneaked up to his desk and read out all his comments on the reports that the school would post to our parents. Everyone except me and one other received favourable comments. The two of us received a ‘Could try harder.’
A couple of weeks later, a friend persuaded me to go with him to the school headmaster’s morning tea, held in the garden of his house on the school premises. While all school-leavers got an invitation, I heard, mostly former prefects attended the annual function, and that didn’t include me. But many former prefects didn’t show up. The puzzled look on Mr Messiter-Tooze’s face told me he’d no idea who I was. Talk about keeping your head down! I think the only attendee he found more surprising was a fellow he’d recently expelled for striking a teacher.
Three and a half years later, following the army’s passing-out parade, the bus left Llewellin Barracks for town, so hanging around wasn’t an option. But my base was Brady Barracks, much closer to the city centre. After we’d completed the discharge formalities and said goodbye to our platoon sergeant and the sergeant major, we could go. Again, I wasn’t in a hurry. Like my last day at school, I was slow to leave. If not Stockholm syndrome, perhaps just nostalgia or human nature? I wasn’t compelled to stay, so I didn’t mind sticking around.
We all dressed in our army walking-out uniforms, and someone gave me a lift to town, where I needed to attend to business—like buying a new LP to celebrate my freedom. It would have been easy to rush home to my flat on the corner of Wilson Street and 14th Avenue and change into civilian clothes, but somehow that didn’t seem right. I remained in my army uniform until late in the day. But I needn’t have worried. Less than a week later, the first of my many call-ups arrived in the post.
How was your last day of school, military service, or jail? Were you also tempted to hang around a little longer?
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