Boys High Summer Day
The Old Boys Summer Sports Day is like a pressure cooker on the stove, cooking up a healthy concoction of years and years of tradition, energy, memories, friendships, nostalgia and respect to mention a few. Food for the soul and more. It is an amazing experience! Driving to the school, one can almost hear it cooking and as the ‘lid’ opens on the day you must stand back, not for fear of a scalding injury but simply to take in the overwhelming enormity of the event! Over and above the tireless hustle-bustle of kids and adults alike, there is something happening everywhere you look and the excitement and enthusiasm that abounds is so contagious one might expect the masters to swap their gowns for lab coats. The air you breathe is thankfully as fresh as the new season and as old as the day you wrote your last exam, your lungs can’t get enough of it. When you walk around the grounds you walk among giants. From the magnificent buildings on top to the tall pine trees below, from the current masters keeping control of the masses to the memory of the legends afore, from the Loch, to the Koppie, to the gate at Abernethy, and every blade of grass in-between, the school and every pupil past and present, are swept up into the same euphoric wave of the day.
Arguably the most exhausting and yet utterly satisfying and treasured activity on the day was not the afternoon in the sun, but rather the indefatigable politeness and respectfully engaging manner of the pupils. Year after year, it never waivers and only ever grows in intensity and sincerity. One does not simply wonder around Pretoria Boys High School unnoticed. At each and every corner, as if lying await to pounce with their enthusiastic greeting, is a Boys High Boy just waiting for you to get within earshot. If you happen to fall outside this invisible boundary, the boys will jump up and run over to close the gap and greet you. Significantly, there is no effort to their actions, only choice. That’s the thing about Boys High, it teaches all pupils that they have the right to choose but more importantly, they are taught which option is the right one to choose.
If ever we were creatures of habit then this would be proof because we marvel at the same things every time we set foot onto the school grounds. In fairness it is impossible not to be impressed by the fact that so much about Boys High has remained as we knew it and yet so much has changed. I guess it comes down to one thing, perhaps it is, as they say, a Boys High thing. Sometimes said through old school rivalry, sometimes out of admiration but rarely ever mentioned in a negative context, there is a Pretoria Boys High phenomenon that binds us all. It is a part of you that gets in your blood from the very first moment and shapes you. Somehow it has the pride of place and the same time a profound effect, be it on your first day at the school or 40 years on. The Old Boys Summer Sports Day happens for just a day and it happens every year and every year it happens, makes it more than just a day. It was again a fantastic day! Oh ya, I played cricket this year.
A toast to all at PBHS for shaping the future of our country starting with one Form 1 at a time, all the time!
Cheers
Silver Medal Winner
Old Boys vs U15B 2018