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Fencing - The MH Way FENCING - The MH Way I had contributed this piece to Clem Lee's Goethal's Memorial School website on November 16 1999. Those days our website was not as well developed as what it is now. Clem had sent me an email asking me to contribute something to his site from MH perspective. Since there were a lot of contributions on socials in that website, I thought I would pick up on that theme since we were the only hill school that was co-ed. and our life and socials and indeed our social life was completely different from the other hill schools. By the way, I hope I am right in claiming that the originator of the term was indeed Bill Moore. Read on for the MH's presentation to other hill schools on our social life during our salad days in the 1970's and what they missed by not being a Hermonite! -------- Like Loreto and Paulites or North Pointers, Goats and Hens socials seem to have been tame "affairs". I use the word affairs with much amusement. Affairs. Yes, in a sense that is what a Hermonite will tell you when asked for the meaning of "FENCING". In our times 1969 - 1976, the originator of the word, with its special MH meaning, is generally and widely held to be Bill Moore. Bill Moore or Rev. Bill Moore was an Irishman from strife torn Northern Ireland. Naturally, he was not a Catholic. He came to MH around 1970 along with his wife, who used to be the nurse at the MH infirmary. Whilst there at MH, he was blessed with a baby boy with the most incredible blond hair that one could imagine. There was not a thing in the world that kept Bill Moore down. He was flamboyant and I am sure I speak for many when I say, he was someone most of us looked up to. He had good looks, a pretty wife, a cute son, could get along famously with all the students and staff. Most importantly he was good in football and other sports like cricket. He was wacky at times.....like when he wore a blue tie for the Edinburgh Cricket match against North Point. White cricket flannels and a blue tie?? That was way before Kerry Packer and his band of coloured cricket circus took off. In a word he was also ahead of his time. Much later when his friend, a catholic, was murdered in Ireland, he went to the funeral despite death threats because he believed in humanity. It was then natural for a colourful Irishman with a strange sense of humour to come up with this "Hermonite Speak", FENCING. In MH, during the early to mid 70's couples were allowed to be boyfriends and girlfriends. The number of couples were only limited by the number of the opposite sex available. In other words, it was the in thing to do: make a very special "friend" with the opposite sex. If you did not, you were either a loser or a nerd, to use the current word for studious types. All the jocks had girlfriends. Without exception. All the popular girls had boy friends, without exception. Possibly the only ones, as a group, who did not have special friends in the opposite sex were the day scholars. But then, they were second class citizens merely tolerated to run errands in town! In the evenings just before studies or just after dinner but before the night study couples used to walk around the school or find a secluded spot (hard to come by naturally) around the main building's perimeter fence. They used to stand close to each other and coo sweet nothings into each other's ears. This activity of standing by the fence with your beau was called fencing. A popular song from the musical "Salad Days" went, "....It is hard to forget The plays, the dances The walks around the school In the spring....." This particular song was adopted and incorporated later (ca. 1974) by MH staff and students into the various farewell songs to be sung only in November. However, one could say that it was the anthem of the fencers and it epitomised everything fencing was all about. It would be embarrassing to go into the details of fencing or to name the protagonists. Of course the list would be rather large for this piece too! It was generally accepted by the staff that boys would like girls and vice versa. Some did take advantage out of the liberal atmosphere at MH. However, I for one am glad that I was a student of MH then and had the wonderful opportunity to see fencing and how relations were built up; reach its zenith and then either continue at a steady state till the final year of school or dissolve, sometimes amicably and sometimes with lots of recriminations. What a wonderful introduction to the real world of adults! Lochan Gyawali MH '76 By : lochan Graduated : 1976 Date : 27/4/2002 3:56 |
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