They were all back at school, “old boys” reminiscing about their school days, 52 years after the school had closed.
Their greatest disappointment was that so much had changed at the “new” school, and they were unable to identify many landmarks they had remembered.
The reunion, which attracted over 60 former pupils, was for the men who attended Mooi River’s original Treverton School, which was established in August 1939. It was opened as the world was plunged into the dark days of the Second World War.
The founder of the school was Peter Binns, a Natal educator and grandson of a former governor of the province. He named the school Treverton Preparatory School for Boys, and it was established on the site, which was previously owned by the Anglican Church.
The school was very popular and during the war years, enrolled many boys whose fathers were serving in the armed forces. It was also a school attended by the sons of local farming families.
Binns died on August 3, 1958.
He left the school to his heirs, hoping they would continue with it as an educational institution.
The school continued until 1961, when it was closed and the property and buildings were put up for sale. A group of men of the Baptist faith led by Rev Sydney Hudson-Reed bought the property and buildings, and it was opened in 1964, as boys’ prep school but they used the same name.
Consequently a second school called Treverton, which is about to celebrate its golden jubilee, was established. The second school was in no way associated with the original school, though the property and buildings had been purchased, and the name retained.
Nevertheless, over the years there has been a steady stream of visitors to the present school by men, who each year are becoming older, to visit their former prep school. In consultation with Treverton Trust, who hosted the event at the Prep school, a reunion day was organised by for Saturday, May 10.
It was an enormous success with approximately 66-grey-headed ‘old boys’, many accompanied by the wives, attending the event, largely organised by one of their peers Pat Merrick. They wandered around the changed grounds and buildings, after tea they all met in the new Prep David Jonsson Memorial Chapel, which was developed for the opening of the new school in 1964.
At this gathering, they were addressed by Pat Merrick, Treverton Schools’ Executive Head Noel Coetzee, June Smith the author of the history of the present Treverton schools entitled “Beyond Expectations,” which is due in September, Prep Headmaster Mark Chaperon, and Jennifer Symons, secretary of the present Treverton’s old scholars association. They also watched DVDs on the present Treverton Prep and College, acknowledging how schools have changed.
There were group photograph sessions and encounters with some locally well-known people, before the group was divided into two.
Some went on a walk-about of the present Prep school and even encountered some much-changed buildings that date back to the mid-twentieth century.
Another group enjoyed a bus-tour of the College, TWA and Equestrian Centre. They later met for lunch at Mount West’s “Linga Lapa,” which is owned by another old boy, Ian Mackay, who with his three brothers all attended the school until it was closed in 1961.
The veteran Old Boy who attended the reunion is well-known Estcourt-Mooi River octogenarian- farmer James ‘Bunny’ Blaker, who was enrolled in 1939, the school’s foundation year, when he was six-years old.
Other local men who attended the early school were Eddie and Linza Veenstra, Michael Oates, Ian Fincken, who is a former General Manager of Eskort Bacon Factory, and the Pickering, Armstrong and Caldecott brothers.
Among the former students, there have been many successful academics, farmers, businessmen and writers but when they all got together, equality ruled; memories abounded and anecdotes from the days of yore were encountered with merriment and topped by another story.