Scotch College

Archives

Badge found in Queensland bush

Robert Hudson (’51) writes to throw light on the Scotch cap badge number 1252 found in the Queensland bush.

“In 1948 my school cap was snatched off my head at the Head of the River boat races on the Yarra. I was standing on the bank near the finishing post and suddenly my cap went missing from my head. It had my and name and details inside.

To my amazement several weeks later, it was returned by post to me at school c/o Arthur Robinson House, but the badge was missing and never found. I still have the cap.”

What still remains a mystery is who took the badge? And how did it travel to Queensland? As an old proverb probably says: To answer one question is merely to pose another.

The chapel sixty years ago

In 1934 an appeal was launched to raise money to build a chapel for the school as a memorial to William Littlejohn, the School’s third principal, who had died the year before.

The appeal was conducted by a committee appointed jointly by the Old Scotch Collegians’ Association and the Old Scotch Collegians’ Club, which was a gentlemen’s club in the City.

Forty-four drawings were submitted, including the one shown here by Keith Reid who designed about a hundred church buildings throughout Victoria and was father of John (1955) and Graham Reid (1966) who donated it to the School after Keith’s death in 1999.

Warcries

A recent enquiry about warcries for an Old Boys’ reunion reminds us of how these have changed over the years.

All the Scotchies then did cry
Hi Hi Hi
Generals Monash Smith McCay
We’ll be with you wet or dry,
Ready to do or die—hi, hi!

This dates from World War I and celebrates the three Old Boy generals: Sir John Monash (Dux 1881), Robert Smith (entered 1898), and Sir James McCay (Dux 1880).

Sir James’s surname rhymes with cry, hi, and dry, but later generations tended to say it the way it was spelt, so the warcry’s opening words changed to reflect that. By 1961 it went:

All the Scotchies then did say
Hi, hi, hi,
Generals Monash, Smith, McCay …

Another old warcry was:

You may hear a lot of the wiry [or wily] Scot
And his independent air,
But when the trumpet starts to blare,
You can bet your life he’s there.
Oh! Give us the gun
And we’ll start the fun,
And we’ll make the fiercest foeman run
As our fathers did to other foes before us.
We’re FIGHTing for the cardinal, gold and blue,
The cardinal, gold and blue,
The cardinal, gold and blue,
We’re FIGHTing for the cardinal, gold and blue.
We’ll carve our way to glory!

Was this chanted? Or was it sung and if so to what tune? Old Boys who know should get out their tape-recorders, please.

From the 1960s onwards, the above warcries fell into utter disuse and were supplanted by warcries less literary and more brutally rhythmic:

Three cheers for Scotch, hip, hip
’Ray ray ray
Tunga tunga walla walla,
Yar tiger wo!

Or

Boom chicka boom!
Boom chicka boom!
Boom chicka chicka chicka
Boom boom boom!
Here we are, here we are
S.C.! S.C.!
Yah yah yah
S - C - O- T - C - H
SCOTCH

These, too, have vanished.

In 1991 I heard

Scotch College goes heave
Scotch is hot to go
H-O-T-T-O-G-O.

which has already by 2004 transmogrified into

Scotch College goes heave
Scotch College goes heave
Scotch is hot to go
H-O-T-T-O-G-O.

Nowadays the main war cry is

Scotch College, give me an	S	(S)
	C	(C)
	O	(O)
	[and so on]

What does it spell? Scotch !

Three cheers for Scotch
Hip, hip, oi, oi, oi
All Scotch is in the crew
Oi, oi, oi
Carn Scotch we’ll be with you win or die
Win or die
Boom boom boom s, s, s
Scotch !

Such rapid and complete changes of war-cries probably reflect the nature of an oral culture and are doubtless hastened by the total turnover of the entire Senior School population every six years.

This makes it all the more important to record war-cries before they vanish, so please send any you know (preferably written out and also on tape) to Dr Jim Mitchell, Co-Archivist.

Old text books welcome

Station Book-keeping: A Treatise on Double Entry Book-keeping for Pastoralists, by Francis Ernest Vigars appeared in five editions between 1900 and 1937.

It was used at Scotch at least once because a copy has turned up in a second-hand bookshop with ‘A. A. Ettershank, IX Science, Scotch College” on the inside. Ettershank was here in 1925.

Two learned professors now "kindly request any available assistance in elucidating the use of Station Book-keeping in Australia, especially for educational purposes". They tell us that the book sold well, and was used to teach pastoral book-keeping, station management and related subjects.

If this rings any bells please contact Dr Jim Mitchell, Co-Archivist on (03) 9810 4293.

The Archives welcomes copies of any book with a Scotch boy’s name in it, whether you find it on your own shelves or in a second-hand bookstore. As you can see, old textbooks are an excellent way of indicating what was taught here.

Gates

To the south of the Monash Gates, the wire-netted pedestrian access has just had its four lanes reduced to two, changing it from a cattle-run to a more civilised passage and one that can accommodate wheelchairs. The four narrow lanes had been there for over fifty years.

During the 1940s, Glenferrie Road became lethal, as cars killed several boys. Scotch pressed the City of Hawthorn for better signs to slow the traffic, and considered a cattle pit at the Monash Gates to stop boys running through.

In 1952 the death of a boarder chasing a ball brought action. A meeting of Junior School parents was astonished that the School had not yet asked for traffic lights at the corner of Glenferrie and Callantina Roads. David Bradshaw (1924), the Junior School Headmaster, put a male teacher on duty there before school.

The City installed traffic lights in 1952 (Scotch offered to pay half the cost). Boys activated the lights by pressing a button. In Glenferrie Road, on the steep hill, elderly cars, with weak hand-brakes and engines, found it difficult to stop and restart. Sometimes it seemed almost as if the boys deliberately turned the lights red at the worst possible moment.

In Callantina Road, cars activated the lights when they ran over a rubber strip. “After school”, recalls Frank Falconer (1954), “we had great fun jumping on the strip to stop the traffic in busy Glenferrie Road, much to the displeasure of drivers who had to wait for the non-existent traffic in Callantina Road.”

At the Monash Gates, Council declared the downhill tram stop across Glenferrie Road out of bounds (as it still is) to stop boys running across the road. The gates were also put out of bounds and side-tracks were built. This is a pity. The handsome gates are marred by the tracks’ wired runs. Worse, only fifteen years after their construction, the gates were effectively banished from Scotch’s cognisance, because few people now walk past them, and their mysterious symbols excite no curiosity. – As a test, how many can you name off the top of your head.

Mystery almost solved

James Permezel (1983) laughed aloud when he saw this photo (below right) printed in the last Great Scot, because he has it hanging on his wall. It is of the 1983 First Crew rowing in (and winning) the repechage on the Barwon on the Friday.

James rowed in the 3 seat, and his identification of the photo is confirmed by Robert Law (1983) who rowed in the seat.

The photo was taken by Andrew Scott (1981) who was “dabbling in photography” at the time. Andrew knew James’s sister and she gave James the photograph as a present. How the Archives has a copy is still a mystery.