John is heavily involved in Rudolf Steiner education.
The following year I was in a band with Ngatai Rauputu. Ngatai was an absolute gentleman. He was so quiet and modest about his skills. He said I should have told you the year before that I would have loved to sing. We had more practices than performances, and were definitely r and b in the Yardbirds, Stones, Animals sense.
Trevor Nalder encouraged us, and got me to sing in some choir at school too. We were able to practise in the music room and sometimes in the theatre. There was another teacher who had been a drummer who would sometimes come along. I forget his name but he wouldn't let our drummer have a turn if we weren't careful.
A lot of my memories of school days are around the toughness of the culture; the bullying in 1963 that got headlines. The compulsory expeditions to Bradley's store at the bottom of the hill on behalf of someone bigger than you with stand-over tactics.
I went back in the 90s with my wife and two of my children and we walked around the grounds. She helped me to see what an extra-ordinarily beautiful place we lived in and to some extent took for granted.
I also have positive memories. I recall a tall giant from Fiji called George Meredith. When the bell went for lunchtime, roast dinner and veggies, everyone hurried over to the dining room. In those days they had carved all the meat up and served it out (later this passed onto the prefects at their tables). The queue was very long. If you were in the third form it didn't matter how quickly you got over to the dining room, you were still last to get your meal. Everyone older pushed in front. The queue was like a table of heights. It always went tallest to shortest.
There was however one exception. George Meredith never pushed in front of anyone. So when he was there the queue went from tallest to shortest with one enormous exception. George, usually amongst a collection of third formers. I have never forgotten his ability to stick to his principles.
I went to Waikato University (in its early days), and have worked as a teacher since the 1970s. I moved to Australia (Melbourne) in 1990. I have also been involved in teacher training. This story of George I have told many times to teachers and to students. He made a huge impression on me.
I was sorry to learn that Trevor Nalder had died.I remember what he brought to a rugby culture; singing the Anvil Chorus, or the whole school singing Jerusalem when Jack Webster died.