Chapter 4 - Of Noughts and Crosses

Since its inception, Whitefriars has been an all-boys school. In our time, there was little or no contact with the opposite sex other than encounters in transit. The Forgotten Year of 1983 was truly forgotten in this respect: unlike other years, no-one bothered to organise a formal gathering for us (otherwise known as a ‘Social’) with our contemporaries from Sion (mind you, most of us, the writer included, would have been terrified if such an event had eventuated). There was talk to that effect in 1980 when we were painting the backdrop to The Olympian – but it came to nothing. We breathed a sigh of relief but the torment intensified.

For instance, here is a photo taken from the October 1983 Formal Dinner at Argentis. There is one girl in picture. Sad stuff. I had the opportunity to invite along a 16year beauty to this event - as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun - but I wimped it.




















There were those who sought to capitalise on this deprivation: namely, Steff, with his famous porno-library. His locker was a den of iniquity. As far as I know, the business was never busted by the Whitefriars Morality Gestapo (spearheaded by Deckers). Steff’s mags were available for rent. The stock turned over regularly (not a few of them , it has to be said, were returned in a tattered condition). Rumour had it that Steff was ‘eating his own profits’ to a frenzied extent - hence the limited availability of key publications (Johnny Reb was also a prominent user and by virtue of their mateship, added little to Steff’s cash-flow). One day, we were returning home to Whitefriars after an excursion. Steff was sitting down the back of the bus with one of his mags. He waited for a red light, turned to the centrefold and placed it flat on the back window so that it was directly in the face of the driver of the bus behind us. The girl in question had gigantic norgs. Much to our glee, the driver rocked with laughter and not a few of his passengers rushed to the front in order to behold the curvatures. Steff spent the rest of the journey flashing the centrefold at hapless drivers elsewhere. As the poet says, “Oh, blessed rage for order!”

Priapus, the Greek God of Fertility, made his presence known too. One day – perhaps in 1982 - the bottom oval nearer to the gym was being re-sown; as such, it was denuded of greenery. Using the topsoil as his canvas, Paul Riser took this opportunity to etch a massive phallus from one goal to another, complete with testicles and a few drops of semen. We stood on top of the ridge and stared down in wonder. In its own way, it was a megalithic work of art. Riser was not popular with contemporaries; breaking the unwritten code, quite a number of the guys – from what I am told - dobbed him in. Some Year 7s were ordered to scuff out the phallus with their boots. Even so, for the duration of its existence, it was emblematic of things to come.

Elsewhere, if human sexuality - preference-wise - resembles a bell-curve, then most of us are entrenched in the mean. Others come pre-loaded with different software. Brendan O’Donnell became the College’s music teacher, circa 1982. He was committed to the theatre and Broadway - and he later spent some prayerful time with the Carmelites as a novice. Under Brendan’s leadership, the Mikado (1982) and The Witness (1983) were staged to acclaim. Moreover, Brendan attracted a coterie of like-minded students. Come lunchtime, many a show-tune could be heard from the Music Room, "Oh, We Sail the Ocean Blue and our Little Ship's a Beauty", joyfully refrained.

During our early years at Whitefriars, the few females on staff did not make one’s blood boil (Mrs Healy, Miss Miles, Mrs Duncan, Bu Diraji and Shirley Fung were all worthy individuals but not Pirelli-grade). Then all of a sudden, in year 9 or 10, two hotties showed up simultaneously: Mrs Denise Wolfe and Miss Jenny Christie.

Denise taught graphics whereas Jenny was an art-teacher. Both women were in their mid-twenties. Sandy-haired, Denise resembled Delvene Delaney from the Paul Hogan Show. She was buxom from any angle and – much to our anguish - married. Jenny was a brunette with a bohemian air; she wore tight jeans that left little to the imagination. Wandering down the corridor, not a few of us would de-accelerate as we approached Room 1 or 2 just to catch a glimpse of Denise through the window as she attempt to focus her class’ attention on the work at hand. Jenny was a ‘born-again’ Christian and some desperadoes, including yours truly, joined the Whitefriars prayer group in order to be irradiated by her presence – and oh, when she spoke about temptation, how the tempest raged! Not a few lunchtime discussions were spent debating the relative merits of their hardware. Some pseudo stalkers became so fixated with the pair that even to this day, decades later, they can still recite their licence-plate numbers verbatim - which so happen to be LZZ 299 and LNC 124 !

One day, for whatever dumb reason, I was bereft of my bike and a walk home was looming. A Toyota Celica pulled up. It was Denise. She brightly offered me a lift home. In retrospect, this was surprising as I never failed to ogle her whenever she came into view and my lust must've been known to her. Oh, how I trembled as I took a seat. It was a warm day. The Devil did not need to tempt me – the leer was on! From where I was sitting, I could see the Promised Land, crowned by the Twin Peaks of Ecstasy in their wonder. The sweat poured down my forehead as Denise tightened her grip on the gear-stick and shifted into second. I shed two kilograms in the minutes that followed. No man, woman or child in the world was sadder than yours truly when we reached my destination – it could have been Paradise; instead it was the Donvale Post Office with its chips and icy-poles.

All Flesh is as grass, it withers and fades. Scripture, sad to say, never spoke more truly. Counter measures notwithstanding, all women inevitably transform into Old Bags, just as guys become Silly Old Buggers. There are no exemptions. As much as they resonate in the collective memory of our Year, none of us, I suggest, would care to see Denise or Jenny as they are today. Perhaps they're grandmothers or zeppelins in human guise. But thy eternal summer shall not fade. Let that be their epithet.

POSTSCRIPT
Towards the end of 1983, a big chance to take off the Big V jumper was upon us, or so we assured by Gav Cleary, at no less a function than the Heatherdale Tennis Club BBQ. Big Gav solemnly assured us that at the 1982 function, Cam Mitchell had snagged three birds, whatever ‘snagged’ really meant. One of them had been ‘roasted’ up against the tennis fence itself. We drooled in wonder. It was time for the boys to become men.

Dressed in our finest and - paradoxically - ready to drop our trousers at the least provocation, we trooped over to the function in question. Expectations were high. I cannot remember who the other suckers were, but I was certainly in that number. Gav was in the lead, snorting like a stallion about to be released into a paddock of mares. Victory was nigh.

It was a balmy night. We barged through the front-door like gunslingers into the Last Chance Saloon. Much to our consternation, the function bore greater resemblance to a sedate family affair than a Roman orgy. No wench was on offer. There were a few scrubbers present but they regarded us as offal.

While there have been many let-downs in my life, that night was as deflating as they come – and in every way too. By the end of the night, we could not look each other in the eye. The Big V jumper was still firmly in place – and yep, we were duds.