Life is a Tapestry with many Hidden Threads

by J. Dylan Morgan (ABGS 1957–1964)

A school reunion has many ingredients. But memories are the filling in the pie. Without them the whole thing would be empty and flat. Some of the memories are like the faces - each unique to the owner. Others are held in common, like the school uniform, the Head Master and the Bog. But at times, fascinatingly, there is the magic of an episode captured by the camera of the memory from quite different angles by different individuals. These can then reveal a whole drama by splicing together the individual clips.

Our first scene is set on a sunny winter’s day. The snow lies deep as it did every winter in those long-lost days before the world became overheated. And all red-blooded boys - and that was in days when blood was red! - naturally turned this gift of heaven into its intended form: an arsenal of snowballs.

See the bloods of the school scooping up handfuls of the white stuff. See them moulding it with hands of steel into balls fit for the canon of a Welsh Drake or Nelson. See them hurling them with superhuman accuracy at each other with mirth and high spirits. Then see the inoffensive Religious Education Teacher, bald and muffled against the inclement weather, making his careful way along the treacherous pavement on the other side of the main road.

As is the hart to the hunter with a bow and arrow, or the rising grouse to the gun, so is a teacher fair and heaven-sent game to our stalwart youths. With a single mind the whole crowd stood, took aim and fired. Their target and the wall behind him was white with the snow of their missiles. Truly it was a magnificent moment, long to be cherished in the annals of the school (and in the memory of Keith, not least among the warriors of that great day).

Our second scene is sombre. Morning Assembly the next day. The sky is dark and stormy and dark the visage of Mr. Warren the Headmaster who thunders of the vengeance that will be his when he finds the culprits, or if it should happen again. The school stands in its serried rows with downcast eyes. Perhaps the juniors were reduced to tears by the righteous wrath? Nameless seniors were doubtless hiding secret smiles.

The third scene is bright with the hope that always rose again and again in the breasts of those who were young in those glorious days when the world was young. It is the lunch hour. The snow still lies deep. The Park across the road is a hunting ground rich enough for any. And now we see another small laughing band of comrades returning from their adventures. They still clutch their weapons - no warrior of mettle went empty handed in those dangerous days! Though this band has not the target or perhaps the bloodlust of that of yesterday, they could at least emulate the forbidden feat and hurl their salvos across the road. They did, and showed great courage, for the Head was not too far away to see them! However there were wings on the very feet in those days, thanks to the rigors of life before it got soft, and they readily outran his fury and lost themselves in the mass of milling pupils awaiting the tolling bell. This scene comes fresh from the mind of Colin who also watched in horror as time moved on heavy and relentless feet to the next shot.

See a solitary figure emerging from the Park gates. There is a look on his face as if pondering on some deep or mysterious matter. He does not notice Mr. Warren just across the road in front of the clock tower.

“Hey, Boy!”

The boy looks around and locates the voice.

“Is that a snow ball in your hand?”

Dylan looks down and notices that he is in fact holding a snow ball. You’d look a fool without one on such a day. He recalls the morning’s stern injunction. The salient feature of it had seemed to be one of those inexplicable idiosyncrasies to which teachers were prone: Mr. Warren had fulminated against the passage of snow from the park side of the road to the school side as the Klu Klux Klan did against the passage of blacks into a white neighbourhood.

Reasoning with his usual logic (a sadly fallible method of dealing with Headmasters!), Dylan lightly tossed the snowball back whence it had come, over the park railings.

But this action, innocent enough in itself, was enough to make something snap in Mr. Warren’s mind. Had he not laid down the law, and his thunderous words been treated as if they were “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Had he not been made a fool of repeatedly? A lens of glass may focus the light of the sun into the heat of a furnace. One sphere of frozen water may focus anger into incandescent rage. What more natural than to see the thrown ball as yet another gesture of defiance: a lifting of two fingers to his very face?

Through Colin’s grief-stricken, guilt-ridden eyes we may see the solitary sacrificial lamb treading his wretched way across the road, into the school. From thence we may picture through Dylan’s eyes the long climb behind the black-cloaked law-giver, judge and executioner to the dread chamber high in the clock tower. We see the Head reaching for his cane. We see the small hand held out. We see and hear the six strokes which served to atone for the infamous deeds that had been done and also to satisfy the righteous wrath of the ruler.

That is the end of the film.

Or is it? Perhaps the bewilderment, far more lasting than the transient pain that vanished as completely as the snows of those few days, was a seed? The seed was a deep and unanswered question regarding the mysteries of the mind of man. Perhaps the fruit was not to come for many years?

Cut to a consulting room forty years on. Dr. Dylan Morgan is now quietly and patiently helping a client who is in a trance to come to understand and harmonize the many curious pathways of the subconscious mind. They are no longer a mystery to him.

And all thanks to Keith and friends, and Colin and friends and of course Mr. Warren, may he rest in peace.