Island School: old and new
by Chris Forse
Island School teacher since 1974
Deputy Principal since 1988
Island School: old and new
Island School opened its doors to 136 students and twelve staff on 19th September 1967. It was not an auspicious time. The opening was delayed as Hong Kong - not for the first or last time - was undergoing a crisis. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was raging on the mainland. Bombs were exploding in Central. There were riots - even Government House was daubed by 'Red Guard' Big Character Posters. Water was rationed to 4 hours every 4th day as China turned off the taps. And all because (or so we are told) Star Ferry raised its fares from 5 cents to 10 cents. By October the water was again flowing from China while the flow of propaganda abated. As the political crisis waned, so a financial crisis waxed. Harold Wilson devalued Sterling in November, and the staff were faced with the prospect of a salary cut to maintain parity with the beleaguered GBP. With a hemorrhage of expats, the prospect of a still birth for the new Island School was very real.
For one student, Milan Greenhalgh, the opening of the new school had particular significance, for she was returning to the place of her birth. The original Island School building was the former British Military Hospital in Borrett Road. (Milan's form room was in fact the maternity ward in which she first saw the light of day.)
The hospital was designed in an era when an elderly Florence Nightingale superintended colonial hospital building, built in the reign of King Edward VII, and violated during the Japanese occupation. No doubt a soothsayer would say that a school born in such a time and place was bound to have a dramatic, adventurous history. Small wonder that a recently departed member of staff said that when Island School was begun, it must have been touched by a beam of light from the heavens giving it both the greatest of glories, and the greatest of tragedies.
Such thoughts were far from the minds of the founders: the Rev Geoffrey Speak, Principal, and his eleven cohorts. It was nuts and bolts practicalities that dominated: how do you teach woodwork with no woodwork teacher? The Head of Maths (Neil Harding) did it. English teachers taught Geography. The French teacher (Tony Webb) taught Economics. Improvisation was the order of the day. And yet from the uncertain chaos of those early days came two of the glories of Island School's history: its house system and belief in the importance of extracurricular activities.
House systems resonate with images of English boarding schools, but at Island School it was the focus of teaching (all its lower classes were and are taught in House groups), sports and competitions, and of pastoral care. The House was and is a microcosm of the whole, transmitting the school's ethos daily to its children. It provides, in a large school - it has risen from 136 to 1200 - a more personal meeting point of parents, children and teachers. It links brothers and sisters, and generations. It may seem hard to believe but two generations of Fleming House families have already gone completely through the system. There are two things that virtually every ex-student remembers: their school number and the Houses of their friends. Identity with House is almost as strong as it is to the school. House names may seem anachronistic (being all white dead males) but a suggestion in 1993 to change their names to reflect the imperatives of our politically more correct age, was fiercely resisted by sixth formers who saw the actual names as less important than the feelings they engender ("call it Margaret Rutherford house ... but it must remain Rutherford").
Geoff Speak sold the idea of a rich extra-curricular programme as a compensation for an amah-dependent expat culture of absentee parents. Though our clientele has changed considerably since then, the range and variety of the activities programme remains. Its importance is recognised through the post of activities co-ordinator, a position held by a series of notables from Gareth Buckland and Dave Reid, to the present incumbent, Pak Chan.
And how many people will recall that a certain Mr David J James was appointed from Jamaica in 1977 as the Activities Co-ordinator? (Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that our present Head emerged from the Activities and House systems that are such an important legacy of our founding Principal).
On the Move: 1972
The old BMH building was, of course, never going to suffice as a six form entry 11 - 18 school. We had to have a new site. Who knows what would have become of us if the permanent site had been on Violet Hill? In the end the decision was made to 'move in over the road' and the present Island School was built on hospital annexe land on a spur overlooking Central.
There can be little doubt that the school's central position, spectacular view and situation in the middle of the elite colonial ghetto of Peak and Mid Levels, has contributed much to its 'fame' (and unfortunately some of its notoriety - perhaps a 'pedestal' would be a better expression than a 'spur'!). Among its children have been the offspring of Colonial (now Chief) Secretaries, Chief Justices, Financial Secretaries, Taipans, professional footballers, musicians and, from 1992-1997, a Governor of Hong Kong (the first to have a child educated in Hong Kong).
The new school building opened in stages between 1971-73. It was at this time that Geoff Speak decided to separate the position of Secretary of the ESF and the Principal of one of its two schools. The official opening of the new school was presided over by a new Principal, Ronald Rivers-Moore. By 1974 the first cohort of original first form Islanders graduated. In the pantheon of Island School they stand as a special class - regrettably I arrived one year too late to witness their passing out. They have over the years preserved their cohesion through regular reunions, for instance on HMS Belfast on the Thames and they were represented at a handover 'fest' in one of Britain's race-courses on June 30th 1997.
Of the present staff, only Chris Murray, Marion John (nee Hegarty), Richard Abrahall and Stewart Harding taught in both the old and new schools. The last 'original' teacher to depart Island School was Neil Harding who relinquished his Deputy Principalship in 1983. The death of the Tuck Shop manager Greg Wong in 1995 saw the passing of the last person who was 'there at the creation'. But there is regeneration too. Mairi Bailey (nee McDonald), a graduate of the Nansen class of '74, and her sister Fiona (class of '77) became successive co-Principals of the Island School Evening Institute, and have children in Nansen house (of course!).
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Note: Comments and anecdotes are welcome. Please send e-mail to personal_history@ishk.org.