Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

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HOPE HOUSE This year began with a number of inner changes in the appearance of the House, with renovations to bathrooms and carpeting for the dorms for the elite on the first floor. Needless to say the battles as to which dormitory was to use the carpet-sweeper were Homeric and the first casualty, not unex- pectedly, was the implement under discussion. It speedily dis- integrated and the combatants fell back on the old stand-by of the broom. After many arguments we finally saw the light of reason but the number of fractured brooms nearly gave the Bursar a nervous breakdown when he saw the bill for replace- ments, (you cannot play hockey in the halls with brooms). Of the previous members of the House, age and attrition reduced the ' old-timers ' to ten, and they had to bear the burden of helping the new bods find their feet. This they did with zest, but I must say that this year was the best that I have encountered for some time insofar as the settling-in process was concerned. For this I must give credit to the House Prefects who went all-out to help the new lads settle in. 27

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quote Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven, seemed like; a good idea at the time. We accepted our punishments and learnt in the process something about responsibility, not only to ourselves but, more important, to others as well. And so we finally came to the end of the year and our midnight beach party. It was fun, it was nostalgic, it was a time for reflection — and, on reflection, in spite of the moment of truth we had all faced at some time during the year, it had been fun. I enjoyed the year enormously because it was a happy, relaxed one and I must emphasise that it was so because of the attitude of the boys. They accepted the rules, learnt the meaning of responsibility and yet still enjoyed themselves and for this reason, I enjoyed being with them as part of the House. As usual, the House would have been nothing without the characters and personalities in it. Unfortunately, I only have enough space to mention a few, like the local Casanova who was constantly having to chose between the moment of magic with his girl friend and the moment of truth with his Housemaster, or our local resident Adolf (guess who?) who told everyone he kept a cross above his bed which sounded very commendable until you saw its shape! Then there was our down east character who actually tried to tell everybody that they have a good climate in Toronto. I ' ll say one thing for him — it added variety to the usual Alberta BS. Meanwhile, Brian Thorne used to pay us brief visits in between Sea Cadet inspections. Other happenings of note were Scotty Cooke never once being late for bed after evening rowing, George finally having to admit that he had failed to convert his Housemaster, Wes pretending to be a tractor, Larry watching his roommates dismantle their beds, Charlie and Bob imitating Gordon and Glen, and Kent sleeping with a rabbit. It was a great year. Th anks to you all for making it so, especially to Smiley, Bill, Tom and Herbie. They did a wonderful job running the House and were largely responsible for the fine atmosphere that was apparent to all. -N.R.B.P. 26

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One of the events of the year was the setting up of a small kitchenette for the use of the Hopefuls on weekends and in the evenings. It took quite a lot of persuading of the Headmaster and the Bursar once the Housemaster had been convinced (due considerably to the urgings of Messrs. Archer, G ray [Chopper] , Arnoldi and McGougan wtib IricFifekted that life could not pos- sibly be sustained without such an amenity). They won — but the amount of spaghetti and meatballs, pork and beans that were consumed — usually within half an hour of supper or bedtime led me seriously to consider laying in a large supply of Enos or a direct phone to Sick Bay. From bitter experience I do not advocate a late snack of incinerated pizza pie. As always there were the decor bugs, and some dormitories were quite outstanding. One (nameless), was decorated most fetchingly with a series of chains which quite impressed the Headmaster until on closer inspection he discovered they were the keys from beer cans. We had a Mexican dorm, and one festooned with various flags of the province of B.C. The only fault here was that one had to go around practically bent double. This term life was rendered chaotic by the Grade Eights who were preparing a TV film. Written, produced, acted and directed by the terrors of dorms nine and eleven, Scott Reed and Bruce Halliday proved themselves worthy of an Academy Award. Prize — one bag of popcorn. Ups and downs there were, and I was grateful to the usual scamps who spent so much time on my silver (thanks Andy), but life went on quite well. It is hard for a group of thirteen and fourteen year olds, many of whom are entirely new to boarding school life, to mold together quickly into a cohesive working unit, but to a considerable extent this was done well before Christmas. As always we had our characters, those who co- operate enthusiastically to see how many grey hairs each can produce for the Housemaster. I need hardly say that dorms three, six and eight stood well to the fore in this respect. All in all, a good year, and to the House Prefects, Peter McFarland, Bill Holmes, Jock McKinnon and Gerald Whittall, with their assistants Geoff Bowes and Bill Van der Straeten, I give my thanks for yeoman service rendered, with especial thanks to Peter and Gerald. During the Summer Term I had the capable assistance of four Monitors (all ex-Hopefuls who knew the ropes, 28