My Only Story. Deon Wiggett
According to Rapport, the boy left Grey ‘after he allegedly broke a hostel rule that determines that new pupils in the residence should walk next to a wall in a specific way’.
In response, Grey College ‘expresses its regret over the incident and will continue educating the boys, based on the school’s value system and ethos where respect for each other and others plays a central part’.
The assaulted boy sent his father a picture of his welted butt, because access to one’s parents is an important element of a child’s safety. But if he had been beaten in his first two weeks at Grey, he would have had no recourse.
According to a letter sent to parents ahead of the 2020 school year, it is noted (‘NB!!!’) that all Grade 8 boarders must hand in their phones to be kept ‘in safety’ for their first two weeks in residence.
‘We rely on your cooperation NOT to supply your son with an additional cell phone,’ parents are admonished. ‘Boys who “cheat” often lose the respect of the other boarders. Do not put your son in this position and please respect our rules. If all the boys are without their cell phones, they quickly learn to depend on one another, become part of the team and part of the extended Murray House family. They are taught camaraderie. Please allow your son this opportunity by not giving him an extra cell phone. You will not have any direct telephonic communication with your son during the first week, but rest assured that you will be notified if your son feels ill or is experiencing any problems.’
It is all for the boys’ good, the school writes. ‘It has also been our experience that boys who have frequent contact with their parents during the first two weeks often struggle the most to adapt to the hostel and their new circumstances. Boys would make use of a “backdoor” rather than try to adapt. Thus, we urge you to trust us and rest assured that we only have your son’s best interests at heart. Nothing would please us more than seeing your son adapting to his new circumstances as soon as possible.’
Over and over, it is the same message: Trust the school. Trust the system. We’ve got this.
‘Please encourage your son to talk to us if he feels ill, needs comfort, feels uncertain about school work, or experiences any other difficulties during this time,’ the letter’s English version continues.
But the Afrikaans version is even more revealing. It translates back into English as: ‘Encourage him to report to us immediately if he gets sick, gets hurt, feels bad, misses home, becomes weepy, is uncertain about school work, or experiences any other problems.’
If your son goes to Grey College in 2020 and anything happens that makes him uncomfortable, he is not allowed to tell you about it. He may only tell the school, and they will deal with it. It is like Volksblad’s letters editor advised: ‘Best if the problem was solved […] in private.’
It is odd for a newspaper to encourage a powerful institution to cover up serious allegations of violent assault. (Volksblad and Rapport, for the record, both belong to Naspers.)
But even before the reports of assault, there was Grey’s sex scandal, presented locally as no scandal at all. It is 2016 and boys will be boys, Volksblad’s folksy tone makes clear. The story by Mike van Rooyen is worth translating and citing in full:
The sexy young teacher from Grey College in Bloemfontein, whose fervent kissing of a school prefect came out via a WhatsApp message, has resigned from the school.
Her resignation was tendered shortly after the kissing was reported to the school’s authorities. She is still teaching there until the end of the year.
Apparently she also learned a hard lesson: to think twice about what she sends and to whom, Volksblad understands.
In the message early in the year, she told friends about the kissing.
Months later, after an alleged row, the message appeared in printed form and was brought to the attention of the school’s authorities. Then the investigations started.
The matric boy, who is described as a brilliant pupil and good sportsman, had to sign a confidential settlement in which he agreed to resign as prefect, which he then also did.
The school’s authorities are believed to consider the matter resolved.
Someone close to the teacher told Volksblad that she had decided, even before the kissing surfaced, to only teach at Grey until the end of the year.
She will apparently not be leaving education and will be teaching at another school. ‘She is going to broaden her horizons.’
Upon enquiry, Deon Scheepers, principal of Grey College, confirmed the teacher’s resignation.
But will a cosy, local boys’ club give anybody justice or dignity? In 2019 in the Grey museum, I am looking for what it hid, and then I will tell everyone.
13
‘Yes, we do have a school newspaper,’ says Estie in the archive, and she shows me a cupboard with back issues of Stabilis.
‘Can I maybe also see the yearbooks for 1993 and 1994?’ I ask, and Estie hands them over before going back into her office to perform a dozen tasks.
I slam down the yearbooks on a glass-topped exhibition case. I feel really weird about all of this. I have now lied to both Marzaan and Estie, and I am about to see Willem the way he looked not long before I met him – the version of Willem that taught here for all those years.
My hands tremble as I page through the 1994 yearbook looking for a picture of the teaching faculty.
There they are. Row after row in black and white. I scan all the teachers’ faces, scan them twice. Then the names in the caption twice too. Willem is not there.
It could be that the staff picture was taken after he left. I open the 1993 edition and search for the staff. No Willem.
‘Um,’ I say in the doorway to Estie’s office, ‘can I maybe have 1991 and 1992?’
I find no Willem in 1992. Nor in 1991.
And only then do I get it. I have no actual proof that Willem taught at Grey. I have come here because he told me he was here. But he wasn’t. His so-called history at Grey College is nothing but a fiction; a poisonous invention from the tongue of my personal bullfrog.
I am standing in a high school’s museum on a weekday, when people like me are supposed to have careers. And for what? Willem was never here. I have come all this way to run a fool’s errand.
I am not going to lie: I was in a bleak space standing in that Grey museum. It translated into some extremely unflattering thoughts about Bloemfontein, and also about all of humanity.
I do not like it in Bloemfontein. I have already spent a night here and now I am wasting a day here. It is 11 a.m. – if I leave now, I will hit Joburg before traffic and be safely home by 3 p.m., no mess, no fuss. Plus I will have four hours in my car to think about my life choices. I do not know the first thing about being a detective. I know about advertising. I should be in advertising, like a normal person; not trying to catch my own personal sex offender in a witless, hopeless quest that will not lead to salvation, but to financial ruin and professional disrepute.
As I was saying: I was in a bleak space.
Abandoning the useless yearbooks, I gloomily page through Stabilis. It is the first edition of 1991 and not even half my heart is in it; only really my brain, which likes history and newspapers. For instance: on page 2, inspiration strikes a Stabilis staffer, who talks to some black cleaning staff oppressed by apartheid.
Under the headline ‘Hostel workers work well together’, the piece starts: ‘The Black [sic] hostel workers of Grey College are a very tight and happy unit.
‘Several Black hostel workers told STABILIS that they are extremely happy with the positions they occupy. They would not like to leave their posts either. Not one of them currently plans on leaving Grey and they