Memories of our Childhood

The headboy would make sure the microphone was working, and he would even throw in a "Mic check. One two one two". But that was frowned upon by the headmaster. The schools in Westlands called them Headteacher and the ones in Lavington called them Principal. Doing a mic check was frowned upon because only deejays kept saying "Mic check. One two one two". And deejays were bad elements who had refused to finish school. Then the headboy, who was also the scouts leader would unfurl the canvas flag which would droop saggily in the windless quadrangle. The National anthem was sung. And then we pledged our loyalty to the President of the Republic of Kenya. The words of the National Anthem and the Loyalty Pledge were inscribed on the inside cover of your school diary so that you would memorise each word, each reflective pause.

And the scouts leader would take a step forward, stamp his foot, do an about-turn and he would say "Scouts! At ease!" And the scouts would part their legs in equal measure and unsquare their shoulders. The scoutleader would resume his position by repeating with flourish, but in its reverse. The cubscouts and the two girlguides occupied the front left row. The class prefects would occupy the inner end of each class row. They always made an inspection before Parade and the boys with untucked shirts and loosened school ties would be asked to kneel on the cold hard tarmac for the remainder of the school Assembly.

Latecomers were not allowed to join the Assembly. They slashed grass until they got blisters in the palms of their hands.  Worst boys were never asked to slash grass. They enjoyed some kind of immunity from embarrassing punishments that involved picking of rubbish on the sportsground.

The scouts weren't ordinary civilians on Fridays. And they could name over ten different knots and go camping in a real tent without their parents. In the bush.

Then the Deputy Headmaster would step forward and shout into the microphone "Silence!" even though nobody was making a sound. Then he would take two steps back and glare at the standard Sevens and Standard Eights who thought they were men just because they wore trousers.

The headmaster would speak with a very deceptively soft voice and go slowly through the list of miscreants and additional school fees payable and inform the pupils that harambee cards were to be issued to raise money for a new Gestetner Cyclostyle Duplicator. We had all of the School Holiday to raise the money. It was rumoured that he would be the Chief Headmaster the whole of next year.

There was a comperehensive rules poster pinned on one of the notice boards outside the Headmaster's office. All the notice boards were now encased in glass. The Teacher on Duty had the keys to the notice board for a week. I couldn't post cartoons of teachers on the notice boards any longer. Nobody had snitched on me so far.

The Headmaster expected every student to memorise the twelve page Rule-Book with a blue Manilla cover. The headmaster was the only one who could expell a student. He would spell out his last warnings. He would not make eye contact with the Worst Boy.

Worst Boy was a title that took hard work to attain. It was the Second Worst Boy who invariably got expelled for doing dumb things like taking credit for what the Worst Boy had done in the generator room.

The Deputy Headmaster would then repeat the last warnings and add a new rule to be engraved on a plaque to replace Major Rule Number Ten which was "NO WHISTLING". All major rules were engraved in capitals in Times New Roman. The bell-ringer polished the brass rule plaques with a rag and Brasso every Monday morning before School Assembly. The school would remove the "NO WHISTLING" rule because everybody would be whistling on Sports Day. And nobody whistled in class or in the corridors any more. It would be replaced with "NO BOUNCING" which would later be replaced by "NO BREAKDANCING".

The rescinding of "NO WHISTLING" is met with lots of whistling. The Deputy Headmaster, while looking the Headmaster in the eye over his glasses would clarify that "NO WHISTLING" was still a rule and would not be removed from the Comprehensive Rules. This was the first time the Headmaster was hearing about this new rule. There were ninety six rules in total, inclusive of the ten Major Rules.

Roger had broken all the Major Rules and became the first to attain the title of Worst Boy in Standard five. He was the first Worst Boy in our school who still wore shorts.

The Deputy Headmaster screamed "Silence!" but the microphone wasn't working. The Headboy ran into Mr. Nyagah's office and came back with the Ahuja megaphone. He had a key to the Discipline Master's office which was basically a storeroom with a desk. It was the only key on the ring attached on his Scouts belt that worked. It was the only day he was allowed to wear his shiny brass keys to school. Tom Hardy was the only other boy who carried keys to school. His mother worked late and they didn't have a maid. The Geography teacher called him a half-caste. The Deputy Headmaster would say "That's all." And hand over the bullhorn to the Sportsmaster. He preferred Sportsmaster to P.E. teacher. We were lucky to have a P.E. teacher who had studied P.E. at Kenya Polytechnic. He had a very good command of English that made his heavy Embu accent even more comical. We called him "Firefox". He didn't mind the nickname because he had watched the movie and was a great fan of Clint Eastwood. He had a poster of Clint Eastwood on the wall of the sports storeroom.  The sports trophies were displayed in a glass case in the Headmaster's office.