Trapdoor

Those of you who read Comments (many, unfortunately, do not) would have seen this one by 49er Yezad Kapadia.

Jacob,

Just to fill in on some of the queries raised.

In 1949 the Prefects' room was below the belfry which could be accessed through a vertical ladder from the Prefects' room. Once we had locked up Kali Cawasji in the belfry!!

I agree with you about what the Lesson Reading taught us.

The badge on the blazer of the Head Boy had a golden braiding whereas the one on the Prefects' badge had a silver one.

We never had a Head Boy's room in our time.

Yesh

It appears the Stationary Room of our time was the Prefects' Room and the belfry could be accessed from there. My word Yesh, you 49ers were naughty! :-)

This input was from 56er Ubi:

Subject: "School Quiz!!"

Hi,

I shall try and clear some of your cobwebs, hopefully!

1. The Prefects' ties were handed over to the recipients by the Head Boy on the stage at school assembly.

2. The Head Boy had a gold braid around the school badge on the blazer, the Prefects had silver braids.

3. The announcement of the appontment of the new Head Boy, at least in my case, was on the last day of school. The Vice-Head Boy appointment was also announced on that day. I am told that there is no Vice-Head Boy any more.

4. Both the Head Boy and Prefects had the same purple badge for their blazers, which was also given out as school colours for games.

5. House Captains, to the best of my memory, were elected at House meetings and the formal announcement was made at time the Prefects' names were announced at assembly.

I hope I got this right!

Regards,

Ubi

So we are clear on the gold and silver braids around the prefects' badge which I now assume must have been different from the school badge.

Ubi added in another email:

Subject: "How could we forget Biology"

Hi,

As a PS, you are right to the extent that boys did not have biology as a subject.

But the girls did and they did not have a lab. So, all their practicals/experiments were conducted in our Chemistry Lab!

It was also another opportunity for the girls and boys to meet!

Ubi

So was Rachod the hamal for both the Chemistry lab on the ground floor and the Physics lab on the 1st floor?

I am sure Willie and Gregory can clear this up when they read this!!

Zahid had this to add:

Ravi - you are absolutely correct.

We bought our ties and belts from near the Principal's Office. There was a steel cupboard in the corridor facing the quad, next to the old IIIB classroom, which stocked these items. The house shirts however, if I remember right, were sold in the stationary office on the 2nd floor.

I am absolutely certain there was a Mr D'Souza in charge. I faintly recollect him as a medium built, bespectacled, elderly man wearing a light coloured suit. There used to be a large register with various stationery item listed in which he would enter our names, and have us initial the last column after supplying the requested items.

I remember our note books as A book which had lined pages, C book which had alternate lined and blank pages, D book which had checked pages for maths and the F book which was for graphs. Then we had "Globe" compass boxes and wooden 12 inch rulers.

Mr J.P D'Souza was the Barham House Master and the name Ranchod definitely rings a bell !

Zahid

Zahid, I almost think you were a Stephanian with the last pun which would have been dignified with a loud (highly complimetary) shout of PJ (Poor/Pun Joke)!!

The story of Mr. D'Souza's House affiliations have taken a twist. Ubi firmly believes he was the Palmer House Master. Zahid says it was Bahram.

But this input really took the cake!

Dear Jacob,

Although Mr J.P. D'Souza was Barham House Master during my years in school, I have this niggling suspicion at the back of my mind that in 1961, when I was in std III, he was the Savage Junior House Master and he left Savage in 1962 to take over Barham from Mr Oliver who became Vice Principal after Mr Pharoah left.

Mr. C. Smith then became Junior House Master for Savage while Mr Timmins continued as the Senior House Master.

As you have a copy of the 1961 Borderer, could you please check the Savage House notes for the year which should have the name of the Junior House Master.

I would be extremely grateful if you could clarify this for me and set my mind at rest ... either way !

Kind regards,

Zahid Parkar
Savage69

I do wish I had a copy of the Borderer!

But I can confirm from my memory that what you wrote was correct. In 1959, when I was Savage House Captain, Mr. J. P. D'Souza, our History Teacher, the teacher in charge of the School Library, which was above the gym, and also the teacher who ran the debates, was Savage Junior House Master, with Mr. D. A. Timmins as the Savage Senior House Master.

I clearly recall being congratulated by both when I was elected (unanimously) at a joint meeting of the Senior and Junior Savage-ites at near the end of term in 1958!
'
However, I do not recall the procedure as whether my name was suggested by the House Master or one of the students. It was probably Peter Philip, who was the 58 House Captain that proposed my name, and I think it was late 59ers Ghatge and Arvind Thadhani that seconded it. I was intending to propose Peter Miovic who was a great gymnast, a outstanding swimmer and also, despite his English not being as good as us, he was also great in studies, especially Maths. But I had no seconders.

I was overwhelmed by that occasion as I did not think in my wildest dreams that I would be so honoured. I was a very very ordinary student, usually occupyng places between 15 and 20 during each years' class assessment of academic skills!

(Please click on the picture to see an enlarged version)

CBS 1961 Boys'School Staff, submiitted by John Billington
(Enhanced image - let me know if this is OK.)

And finally, thanks to Mr. John Billington, who was my Class Master in 1959 and also my 1959 English teacher (prior to this it was the late Rider Salmon), I have the above photographs of the 1961 Boys'School Staff. (If the text is not clear, please inform me and I wil try to put up an enhanced version as the one John sent me is perfect on my computer.) Thank you John.

I unearth another of my CatCall articles

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had written 3 articles for CatCall.

I just discovered the second.

When I was searching for postal addresses of some 59ers, I stumbled on the second of my articles entitled Diversity. Maybe I will also discover the third one that I wrote!

Many people have asked me what has been the greatest benefit to me of my having studied in Cathedral. I am sure that this is a common question to all those who have had the opportunity to study in good schools. There are indeed many possible answers. Going back to my school days itself, one would be overwhelmed and say that it was the excellent teaching staff, such as John Billington, William (Willie) Shiri and 0. A. Gregory, or the late Glyne-Howell, Arthur Morecroft (who saved my life), Stan [Pop Pharaoh, Rider Salmon, Denzel Timmins, W. H. (Hugh) Thompson, and / or the excellent opportunity not only for a format classroom education but also the availability of good sports education including athletics, badminton, boxing, cricket, football, hockey, lemon drop cricket, physical training, quad football, swimming, table tennis, tennis etc. This, despite the fact that the school was located in the centre of a massive city with not an inch of sports field in our complex. And maybe I should also add the great traditional sports like marbles and spinning tops, and other seasonal games that we played during the breaks.

more....

The findians.com domain name is now dead so you will find me at

http://jmatthan.blogspot.com

as well as this Seventh Heaven site.

Other Reunion Reports now ONLINE

After I put up the Reunion Report of 54ers, I was pressed by many who asked me to put up other Reunion Reports that I may have. It provides interesting and nostalgic reading, especially for those who were unable to attend.

As a result, I have already put up 2 Reunion Reports - the 50 year Reunion Reports of the 1949 Students who met in 1999 and the 50 year Reunion report of the 1953 Students who met in 2003.

Many thanks to 49er Yezad Kapadia and 53er Aislynn Moses (née Hyam) who had sent me the reports.

I am now preparing Web Pages of other Reunion Reports that have reached me. Stay tuned as I have several to put online and your classes may be one of them.

If you have a Reunion Report that you would like me to put up as a web page in this Section, please send me a text file (preferably not a Microsoft document but an rtf file would do just fine) of the report.

I will create the web page.

So as to make the report really meaningful, please send me any photographs that you may have taken at the reunion OR photographs of your years in school. I will use as many as possible. A photograph of the authors would also be very much appreciated.

I hope you enjoy this new feature of the Seventh Heaven Blog.

Please do not forget to view Ranko's blog, another Cathedralite from Belgrade, who is making a valiant effort to set up a nice, readable blog. the link is in sidebar of this blog.

If you have a blog meant for Cathedralites that you want listed, please send me the blog address.

Remember - what Jacob does TODAY, the others SHALL DO TOMORROW!

Mr. Rider Salmon, English Teacher d. Jan. 2002

Our great English teacher pictured above, who is sadly no more, Mr. Rider Salmon, would have shuddered at my last sentence.

This is what his wife, Pauline, wrote to me at the time of his passing:

"He was a fine humorous and loving husband for over 52 years, so it will be quite hard without him. He loved remembering his teaching years in Bombay and his pupils there."

And, I was one of his very "lucky" pupils.