My brother Michael and I were awarded choir scholarships to the school. He went to St George’s in Std 1, I think, and I in Std 3. Here we are, in about 1948. He is 4½ years older than me.

 The organist at the time was Dr Alban Hamer, a prodigious musician. His extraordinary ability was demonstrated on an occasion when the tenor who was due to sing the role of the Narrator (a huge and very difficult role) in our annual performance of the St Matthew Passion fell ill on the day of the performance. Dr Hamer opened the hatches in the organ console and sang the role himself, while playing the organ accompaniment. Prodigious. He was a Yorkshireman, and received a copy of the Yorkshire Times (or it the Post?) through the mail once a month. We boys then had to listen to the same joke (the only joke in that month’s edition most mornings until the next edition arrived. “A man insulted another by calling him a mugwump. [Pron. Moogwoomp.] The second man demanded that he withdraw the term. The first offered to withdraw the ‘wump.’” Or something like that.

We had choir practice in the crypt at 7h30 from Mondays to Thursdays, and in the choir stalls at 19h00 on Fridays, with the men. The choir was huge, as you can see in the 1947 photograph in the book you showed me. The lead tenor of Cantoris at that time was “Papa” Drey, also an Old Georgian. He turned 80 that year. If you put his years together with mine, that takes you back to about 1880, I think, but he’s not here to tell us what things were like then. Papa Drey would sing “Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes” at the annual choirmen’s dinner at the Mount Nelson, with many pauses for breath added to the piece.

My brother Michael was head boy of the choir when I got there in 1947, and I followed him in 1951, I think. I was still head boy and a treble at the end of my matric year, in 1954, as my voice didn’t really break. It just slid gradually. One memorable thing for me was singing “Jerusalem” as a solo (with the rest of the boys backing me in the choruses) at the first Cape Town Carols by Candlelight, which took place at the Rondebosch Common in about 1952. Dr Hamer died shortly after that, Michael was made the acting organist of the Cathedral and I became the assistant organist, playing at the 9h15 service, which took place in the lady chapel. I was very enthusiastic and played too loudly for the congregation! An Englishman, Keith Jewell, was then appointed to the post of organist and remained in the post until 1963 (I think). I played at his wedding. When he resigned Dean King offered the job to me. I was unable to take it, but recommended Barry Smith to him, and that worked out well.

While still at school (I think – I’m sorry to be so uncertain) Michael had played piano concertos with the Cape Town Symphony orchestra to great acclaim. There is a sense in which the Brimers were the centre of music in Cape Town at the time (my mother was a musician too, as was my aunt, Ena Lotz). So, although Michael took a BA in English and History at UCT after school it was obvious that he was going to become a professional musician. He went to the UK and took various qualifications including an LRSM, an LRCM, and an MA (Cantab). While studying at Cambridge he was the organist and choirmaster of Clare College.  He was then recruited by the headmaster of the Church of England School in Brisbane, a move which has led to his living and working in Australia more than South Africa ever since. He married an Australian girl and has wonderful children. In South Africa he was invited to establish a Music Department at the University of Natal. After doing that he accepted the post of Professor and Head of the Department of Music, and Dean of the Faculty, at UCT. Then he took the equivalent position at Melbourne University, from which he has (obviously) retired. He still performs most excellently on the piano and the organ.

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Teachers I remember while I was at school: Ms MacFarlane, in Std 3.

Mr Coney, in Std 4. He was also the head of the junior school. He offended me early in the year, I refused to work at all during the year, was put on a “satisfise” card, which I was required to present to the head after assembly every Friday, was always found to be unsatisfactory, and was therefor given “four of the best” on every Friday throughout the year.

Mr Askew, in Std 5. He was a nice man. I worked for him and flourished for a while. He would make it possible for us to do our “homework” in class, if we could finish our classwork ahead of time. My mother didn’t believe that I never had any homework (I was a day-boy by then) and complained to the headmaster. Mr Askew came into class the next morning and said “Brimer’s mother…” etc, and that he would in future be setting the homework at the end of the day. You can imagine how the other boys reacted.

The rest of the teachers taught across the classes. There was

Percy Piek, Afrikaans, who was incapable of keeping discipline and therefore taught nothing.

Mr Kotze, Afrikaans, who followed Mr Piek and scared us hugely. (To be said slowly, loudly, with pauses and a smack of the cane with each letter: My naam is KOTZE: K – O – T – Z – E!)

Drybones – now nameless, who failed to teach much Maths.

Twinkletoes – now also nameless; young, shapely, in short skirts and sandals (hence the name). We looked at her instead of listening to her.

Ms Luce, Geography. A comfortable teacher. I disgraced myself once, in class, by absent-mindedly calling her “Mum.”

Witty – presumably Mr Wittingdale or something like that. A pleasant fellow with a RAF moustache, very British. Remember, this was immediately after WWII.

Jimmy Greaves, a Masters student from UCT. I believe he eventually became Professor and HoD History at UCT. He was a brilliant teacher. Having read my essay on the missionary Dr Phillip, which was diametrically opposed to the views of all the other boys in the class, he organised a school debate on the topic, with a boy called Phillips (chosen for his name) leading one side and me leading the other. I won. Calloo, callay! This victory didn’t have a significant effect on the general racism of the boys of the school, though. I’d won only because I managed to insert a smutty joke into my closing speech, not because the school had seen the need to implement the injunction to “love thy neighbour as thyself”.

Mr Skellhorn, Vice Principal, Science. Really good.

Mrs Cuckoo, the headmaster’s wife, Latin. Kindly, efficient. The prescribed text for beginners was “The Revised Latin Primer,” the title of which was always defaced to read “The Revised Way of Eating Brimer.”

Mr Cuckow, the headmaster, English and History, than whom none better. He loved poetry and communicated his love of it to even the dull among us.

The rest of my story in brief.

I went to UCT and qualified as a teacher (English and Maths). I got a job at Grey High School PE, married, had children, and by 1968 was Vice Principal of the school. I realised that I was sprinting through my chosen career and needed to change, so I accepted the post of lecturer in the Dept of English at the newly established UPE. After I got my doctorate Guy Butler featured me at the inauguration of the Settlers Monument and the simultaneous establishment of the Shakespeare Society of SA (1976?). This catapulted me into the position of Prof and Head of the Department of English at UDW. Thereafter I became the Dean of Arts, and then the Registrar of the University, the position from which I retired. I still work now, as a consultant in higher education.

I married a second time, to a wonderful lady of Indian extraction, two weeks after the abolition of the Mixed Marriages Act, having survived some years of harassment by the apartheid authorities. The harassment continued because the Gourp Areas Act was still in place, which meant that we could be legally married but could not legally live together. Ridiculous! Apartheid has not survived but the marriage has.