Wanganui Technical College Reunion

Over the weekend of 19th and 20th February, my old High School, Wanganui Technical College, held its centenary reunion. The school is now called City College and is majority Maori, with Principal Peter Kaua, also Maori. On the Thursday before the reunion, I had the honour of addressing the school assembly. The local paper, the Wanganui Chronicle, made quite a splash, and in the article shown, you can see me singing the school song with gusto, no notes needed!

There were some remarkable occasions over those days. As I walked up to the school on the Thursday I saw the familiar face of my old freezing works boss, Vic Gowan. He had come especially to see me, and to tell me proudly that I was one of "his boys" who had "done well".

Another delightful aspect of the reunion was sifting through the old school magazines, but especially the enrolment forms filled out by our parents. There, in the tidy handwriting of my Mum, was her 1960's intent for my future made clear. I was to be a laywer, something she never told me about. I may have disappointed her, but my own daughter Catherine, should have fulfilled her wish, one generation later, and no doubt to her pride.

One of the magazines, from my last year at school, had some cringe-inducing poetry by me, dripping with adjectives, and far too influenced by Dylan Thomas. The class photo here has me at 17, scowling third from the right on the back row, no doubt during my "I am cool" phase.
My brother Jim was also at the reunion, getting a really big turnout from his 1950's classmates. It was a nice opportunity to spend the weekend with him. He is somewhere on the right in the group photo being taken outside the school's wharenui.

On the Saturday night, a renuion dinner was held in the Wanganui Memorial Hall, and I gave the after dinner address. A few tales from the freezing works got the necessary laughs, but there was a serious side to what I told the gathering.

"So what is it about this school that we treasure? Most of us didn’t have silver spoons in our mouth when we were born. None of us were born to rule. We had to build our own futures. That Wanganui Technical College education was our chance and it came with a whole lot of extras. “First be good and then be clever”, “All is overcome by working”, “Speak the truth and play the game”, or as (then principal) Ces Day would say, “Be magnanimous in victory and uncomplaining in defeat.” (We had few opportunities to be magnanimous as I recall). These odd, quaint phrases are burned into our brains. So yes this school has produced its share of famous pupils and I am probably as notorious as any of them. But that is not why this school is great. Its greatness is what you and I have sensed these last two days as we have met our fellow classmates. The school is great because it has produced good people who value education and are themselves well-educated and highly skilled, people who work hard and who add to community by acting fairly and honestly and with kindness. For what is being a New Zealander about if it is not about this civil discourse, this fundamental decency and kindness which marks us out in the world as a special country made up of remarkable people?"

I finish with two photos. One of me with fellow Wanganui-East boy, Rex McKinnon, the other of the river steamer Waimarie, chugging under the Aramoho railway bridge.

"Ko Whanganui Te Awa", this place of my birth, my childhood, my youth, and to which I will always belong.