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

Page 8 text:

VALETE Leaving us are Messrs. Piechotta, Baker, Daniel and McMahan. Naturally, they have our thanks and warm wishes for happy and rewarding future days. Miss Sainasjeaves us for marriage and the bright lights of Vancouver after three years as House-mistress of MacKenzie House, our Librarian, and generally speaking a bringer of happiness to everyone she meets. We offer our warm wishes. Mrs. Ann Holden Duncan has given the school nine years of untiring, totally loyal, totally dedicated and ef- fective service. We thank her for her contribution to, Brentwood and for the fine way in which she has affected the lives of each of us who have been fortunate enough to know her.

Page 10 text:

Introduction to the Speaker and the Speaker ' s Address, June, 1981 At this moment each year, our Headmaster customarily asks me to f ultill the task of introducing our distinguished guest. This is usually done by a simple and painless method. One simply picks up the telephone and rings the office of whatever dignitary is about to be dignified, gets the secretary on the line, usually a lady with a voice strongly reminiscent of Lily Tomlin, she gives me the biographical details of the said gentleman, and I am able to stand here in perfect anonymity and introduce him. However, today is a considerably different matter, for I have a duty to perform in which I am unequipped with any anonymity whatsoever. Rather, I am afraid it is one that I must handle in the most personal terms, for I have been asked to introduce a gentleman who is, and has been for several years, one of my dearest friends. I remember that I met David Mackenzie under the most inauspicious circumstances. David himself likes to think that it was at some glamorous cocktail party on board H.M.C.S. Ontario. I assure you it was not. My memory tells me that I first met David Mackenzie at the most ghastly tea party I have ever attended. Come to think of it, I have attended very few tea parties. However, this one was given by a lady who had a duck farm and was a great believer in Scottish Country Dancing. Come to think of it, that was probably the reason why David was there in the first place. She was a very entertaining lady — I remember that she swore that she had a duck that could quack Land of Hope and Glory if you pinched a certain vulnerable part of it. Frankly, I didn ' t try. I do recall that I spoke momentarily, and I do mean momentarily, (with your Oxford dictionary definition) with David, and I remember David raising a very quizzical and critical eyebrow (of course I learned very shortly afterwards that my ' a ' s ' were too long and my ' o ' s ' a trifle too round). However, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Possibly, even more Scotch. Without question, the greatest dif- ficulty that I surely must face today is the fact that he was the real founder of this school. The gentleman who, supported by one or two well wishers, had a dream in the words of Martin Luther King. And here we all are today. That dream. The fact that I became a part of that dream has been to my endless benefit and publicly, that is what I would like to recognize today, the fact that once again I am in the presence of that gentleman who, if anybody possibly could, taught me the meaning of professionalism. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is with a sense of great personal warmth and enormous debt that I in- troduce you to my friend and my erstwhile colleague, Mr. David Mackenzie. Mr. Ross, Sir Michael Butler, Honoured Guests, Members of the Graduation Class of 1981: I suppose alter that introduction I can hardly wait to hear what I have to say. How wonderful it was to hear an introduction delivered with the grace and pomp of Shakespeare, the true majesty of the Queen ' s Literature. How like a teacher of English; I couldn ' t understand a word. The comments were rendered with an almost spiritual power which leaves o inevitably thinking of the stor j of tho psychiatrist who du ! and went to heaven one day and knocked at the pearly gates and St. Peter carne and answered them and said Yes? I would like tocome in, please . Well, what were you? I was a doctor. Well, you know these are the pearly gates — we don ' t allow doctors in here . So, the fellow was very abashed. Then St. Peter said, Well, what kind of doctor were you? I was a psychiatrist . Oh, well in that case we might be able to let you in if you do us a favour . The doctor said, What ' s the problem? Well said St. Peter, looking round, it ' s actually — I don ' t want to say it loud — It ' s actually the Old Man — God . What ' s the trouble? said the psychiatrist. Well, you see, he had delusions of grandeur. He thinks he ' s Mr. Bunch. Both of these stories are very old, and I do apologize for starting on them. I was recently in Japan and I was very conscious about my lack of knowledge of Japanese and I wanted when I spoke to them at least to address them accurately. We were standing in the foyer of the hotel a nd I saw a door through which Japanese gentlemen were going in and out, and there was a notice on the door, so I said to the interpreter, What ' s that sign, how do you say that word? and he gave me the Japanese pronunciation of it and I thought, That ' s it. I will start my speech with ' Gentlemen ' . That ' s exactly the word . So that night I came on stage and started my speech with that word. And absolute pandemonium broke out. And I said to the in- terpreter What did I say? What did I say? It ' s the first time anybody has introduced us as ' Water closets ' . I come from a country inhabited, or perhaps even inhibited, by four different races. The Welsh, who pray on their knees and their neighbours, the Irish, who do not know what the devil they want but who are prepared to fight anybody to get it, the English, who consider them- selves a race of self-made men, thus relieving the Almighty of a huge responsibility, and the Scots, who keep the Sabbath — and anything else they can lay their hands on! I am one of the latter, and I remember this well during the first summer before the School started. I remember even better the first day when we were faced with 90 parents. All the mothers were crying, I remember, all the boys were very, very uncertain, and all the fathers were running around thrusting money in my hand (If I had had the good sense at that time to run away — I would have been made for life). It never occurred to me unfortunately and Mr. Bunch took charge of everybody. He decided that the windows needed cleaning so they took a gasp, but he had them almost up on the roof clea ningoutside windows with paper towels. And I remember also the first summer when I went taking people around the school, pleading with them to look at the view since that is all there was. I remember that first summer we were trying to get hold of people who had some money, because money was the most important item in our lives at that time. And the name Mrs. Unkenford kept cropping up all the time. Mrs. Unkenford was reputed to be a lady who had lived next to the old School at the bottom of the inlet here, and it was said that she had agreed to give the Governors enough money to buy the land to retain it, so that they could start the School again. When the time was right the Governors had turned her down. Mrs. Unkenford no longer lives in Brentwood. She was rumoured to be a former Chicago policewoman and she had inherited great sums of money and had ultimately moved to California. Our scouts were out, but nobody could lay their hands on Mrs. Unkenford.