Raymond Barnes

 
This pic of Robert Cooke, myself, Raymond Barnes and Russell Carville was taken recently near Spence Hall.

Cartoons

 

 

https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/12972cf71735788b

June newsletter

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12954c4a6e21b9d0&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D1151854f83%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12954c4a6e21b9d0%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTAAXFKxORnFPdgoMpUSmhFMkSOqg&pli=1

Sports Day 1969

College Captain Pradeep Thapar (Tubby), from L is George Shepherd, Cornwallis House. The others are Hodson House SP Singh, Lyons House AD Palmer and William Lyons, Martin House. I cannot recall who carried the second college flag.

Picnic 1960s

A picnic at the Lucknow Zoo. Kneeling (L) George, that's me, my bros Keith, Douglas and Richard. The small chaps standing is Patrick Flynn left and my brother Ian. My mother is standing (L). The others are aunts and uncles and Lauraine and the Rosairo sisters. Aunty Ivy and Uncle Ken are in the centre. (This line is added for Jean Hourigan in Melbourne).

Fwd: college

 

 

William Lyons (R) Martin House Captain, George Shepherd (L) Cornwallis House Captain. Sports Day 1969.

 

Two old tamarind trees

Kanshi Ram 20 years ago

Kanshi Ram addressing a gathering of a few hundred people near a village on Sitapur road. This was when the party had only maybe one member of Parliament. Today the Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati draws crowds going into hundreds of thousands.

Fwd: Fw: [oldmartinians] Learning starts with irreverence

Date: Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 6:10 PM
Subject: Fw: [oldmartinians] Learning starts with irreverence
To: George Shepherd <georgeshepherdlkw@gmail.com>

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "oldmartinians-owner@yahoogroups.com" <oldmartinians-owner@yahoogroups.com>
To: oldmartinians@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 5:29:03 PM
Subject: [oldmartinians] Learning starts with irreverence

 

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/entry/learning-starts-with-irreverence

Learning starts with irreverence

La Martiniere was the only school I ever went to. I joined it at 3 and passed out completing my Senior Cambridge. This is the school currently in the news because a student hung himself after the Principal caned him reportedly for not doing his homework. Corporal punishment is always a silly idea. It achieves little, hurts a lot. Depending on which part of your anatomy gets the stick. In our time it was the posterior, and as we all padded that well in advance with notebooks and towels, the Principal (who swung the cane) would first instruct us to drop our pants.

No, I wasn't caned for not doing homework. In our time, students were far more irreverent. Not doing homework was the least of our transgressions. But the ecology of schools was so different then that even when we were punished, we took it easily in our stride. Studying was never a big deal. Learning was. And the real things I learnt out there were either on the rugby field or in the boxing ring and, yes, I made a few friends who have stayed on for life. That's what schools were about in those days and La Martiniere was a fine example. It was there that I learnt music, theatre, swimming, writing, waltzing, carpentry and how to smoke grass. Geography I learnt much later while travelling the world. Poetry I found after I unlearnt Shakespeare. History I picked up from the movies. But the subject I hated the most, maths, is the one I love today thanks to Martin Gardner who taught me the art of artfully resolving any complex mathematical problem.

Caning was commonplace then. No one gave it a second thought. If anything, your classmates saw you as a hero if you got whacked. Like the time the watchman caught me climbing down the waterpipe at night from the Girls School dorm next door. A sudden burst of pigeons from the corner of a ledge woke him up and almost killed me. Another time I was caned for scribbling love notes with strong sexual undercurrents to my junior school teacher, Miss Martin. I was also whacked for helping a friend during an exam. The notes in his underwear had fallen off. The hardest whack I got was for writing an essay which questioned the existence of God and said that if I had a choice I would rather go with Madhubala. Yet I was let off with a warning when they found me, at a social, waltzing with a girl not where the others were, but behind the Tech School in the dark, under the starry skies. My school tie was off. So was her shirt.

Yes, we were punished for many reasons. But we never felt humiliated. We went back and did the same things again, just making sure we were not caught. Caning was like a badge of honour. We were heroes every time the Principal (Mr Chalk and Mr Vyse, the two fine men who wielded the cane on our bottoms) announced our names sternly at the morning service and called us to his office. We knew what that meant. But it never embarrassed us. In fact, I took bets on how many whacks I would get. Three was the max. I always got away with one. I suspect we were caned only because the Principal felt it was his duty to do so. It was an intrinsic part of the Coming of Age ritual. There was no viciousness there. Nor a mistaken belief that caning would make better young men out of us.

Today, the entire ecology of schools has changed. The charming irreverence that made our years there such great fun has all but vanished. What we have instead is a strange combination of fear and stress. The love, the warmth, the humour, the camaraderie that was an intrinsic part of our growing up years has gone. Everything is judged purely by academic performance, the marks students get. It's an edgy, competitive scenario where you perform or perish. Everyone's under great pressure. When I got a first division, I remember how disappointed I was. It was not what I wanted in life. I would have much rather run off with Mr Vyse's charming daughter, the lovely Suzette who danced like a dream and won every race at the school sports. But no, she was not mine to be. She finished school, married an Anglo Indian boy and vanished into the Great Outback.

It's this ecological breakdown that makes corporal punishment look even uglier. When a young boy in Class VIII kills himself for being caned it can only mean one thing: A total breakdown of communication between him and the world around him. School is not where you go just to get some good grades. It's a place where you grow up, make friends, learn a few sports, discover yourself and the world around you. And if someone whacks you once in a while, you take it in your stride. There's a whole world out there to be conquered. You can't give that up so easily.

Pritish Nandy

OP: 2px">Visit Your Group

Members are expected to follow the rules, regulations, and policy of Yahoogroups, US Laws and International Laws. Views expressed in the message/article are those of the author and not necessarily those of moderator or oldmartinians group.

Shahab M Khan
Hodson House
Lamartiniere Lko. 1983 - 90
Group Founder/ Moderator

Pat Lewis dead

Sunday June 13, 2010.

 

Patrick Lewis who taught maths for a year or two at the Mart around 1968 before moving on to St Francis died on Saturday in Lucknow. He was buried on Sunday at the Nishatganj Cemetery.

Fwd: Kolkata Martiniere

From The Indian Express, Lucknow edition dtd June 11, 2010.

:
Froms="gmail_sendername">george shepherd <georgeshepherdlkw@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 11:22 PM
Subject: Kolkata Martiniere
To: george shepherd <georgeshepherdlkw@gmail.com>

I wonder how much of this is politics?

Derek (Daku) West

From the past
I remember the time, Derek West (bottom right)a prefect, walked into London's hair dressing salon and Kenny Caleb and myself were waiting for a haircut. He didn't say a word to us. He first wangled us to the chair, had his s---, s---, s---- and shampoo, paid, asked us if we had exeats, which we didn't, and walked out. In the night he caned us in the dorm. Those were great days!

Happy days!

Testing my memory for names: From L: Rod Simeon, Bruce Abrahams, Robert Jordan, Dhannu 'Douglas' Ram, James Peters, Cedric Innes, Kochin Wu, Jumbo Roberts. Ram passed away a few years ago in Delhi. He was with the Delhi Police. James Peters was with the Oil and Natural Gas Commission when I met him many years ago. Haven't heard of him since.

You have got Mail from OMA !!!

From: gautam bharadwaja <jumbo.1951@yahoo.co.in>
Date: Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: You have got Mail from OMA !!!
To: hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au

I fully agree with Gautam Kaul,this advt businee is a hoax to suit some guy who has been chosen already,the reqd qualifications r being modelled to suit this chappie.Its difficult to swallow this bullshit.Shame on the scamsters who have set this in motion.The Chairman of the board should be appraised of this development immediately.Cedric Innis., MLC who stays in All'bad could be asked to take up cudgels on behalf of the OMA. Bharadwaja From: hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au <hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au> Subject: Fwd: You have got Mail from OMA !!!  Date: Wednesday, 9 June, 2010, 4:19 PM ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "Gautam Kaul" Dear All OMA guys world wide, I have been able to get a scan of an advertisement which appeared as a classified advt in the Lucknow's edition of TIMES OF INDIA. Please go to the pdf file and read it in the attachment.If this does not open, pl inform me seperately. Classified advertising is resorted first because it is the least expensive form and secondly because it is focussed to local patrons who are looking for assignments which are advertised. Here is a 170 years old institution called La Martiniere Boys College announcing it is looking for a new Principal for the school. "Administrative experience is preferred" What is this administrative experience? It can be a once upon a time being a burser and then teach for minimum 15 years in some higher secondary school , maybe even in Martinpurwa ! Conversely administrative experience need not be a qualification.( Hey what is happening in the College?) I am ashamed to see such a purile announced seeking the services of a person to be considered as a future principal. There is no suggestion for a SALARY and other perks offered for the assingment. The School is not offering a residence in the advt. or a compensation called the House Allowance. Not even a suggestion that the applicant should give his bid on what he is seeking as a financial package. Why only '15 years experience'? A principal of LMC must be a person in my view who is already working either as a Vice Principal or Principal of a reputed School or College in India for an appreciable period. 15 years experience is no criteria of academic excellence for a Head of an institution. MA Ed. as degree is not sufficient. He should be a Second Division minimum person with a foreign language diploma and well travelled. After all the guy will certainly go to Lyon in his lifetime. He needs to interact with confidence,meet senior govt. official, fight for the recall of the land occupied by the Lucknow Gold Club, safe the grounds from Mayawati's land mafia and address crowds and parents. And what about his extra curricular activities. What games has he played in his youth. Was there Rugby? I dare say, the Governing Board may be looking for a person who has not even heard of rugger! The whole advt. seems to me a big public fraud. Someone has already been selected and this selection process will be an exercise for public consumption. An interesting sidelight is the absence of no claim that LMC is a minority institution and the Principal from the minority community would be preferred, leave aside the church he serves. Will the Board set aside a highly qualified Non Christian candidate or a persons from the Seventh Day Adventists? The Chairman of the Board is Justice Pradeep Kant Senior Judge of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. Elton is the Secretary of the Board.This poorly drafted advt. could not have been approved by Justice Kant. All members are ex officio members and this is what I have in the past been saying that the Board must be expanded to include more committed persons for the welfare of the College/School. It is presntly vacation time for the Court and Jus. Pradeep Kant would be more free. Elton will not stir on this subject. We have to petition the Board Chairman to highlight the hollowness of this public advertisement, the dismay of the old studnets, and get an outcry made if possible. A worthy head of any such delegation may be Dr. Rajendra Pachauri if he can spare a day for this job. There is no OMA working in Lucknow. We have one in New Delhi and the there are OMA branches in Australia, UK . I suggest that the foreign located Branches should sent to the New Delhi Branch there resolutions expressing their concern on the type of the Advt issued and they can add their own particular sentiments. The New Delhi Branch will see its core group assembled and also take up the issue and we will petition the Chairman of the Board and meet him early. In the meanwhile we want someone in Lucknow to volunteer to revive the OMA since that is most suited to such jobs. Let the discussion and action now flow. Circulate this note to OMA persons who are not listed here for wider reception and reaction. Gautam Kaul Hodson House 1953-59 -- Original Message -- From: hitech drillers hdpl_lko@yahoo.co.in To: kaul60@rediffmail.com Subject: advertisement

From across the Gomti

Taken from about 400 metres with my camera phone which is OK for shorter distances. The water in the foreground of two pics is not that of the river but what we had been told was an oxbow lake. I recall Mr Dignum mention it. However, the bottom pic was taken from the new railway bridge, which is yet to be commissioned, so we have the river flowing below and an abandoned pontoon that looks like a floating corpse or tree. 

 

The CM's Riverfront plan

The squatters on Mart land, towards the south-east (railway track) have been evicted after, as some of them claim, 20 years. What surprised me was that even a temple has been demolished. Among today's (June 4, 2010) pictures there is one of Mr Vidhiyarthi's place now occupied by Patrick Filose and family. He is Donna Yeoward's son. They have developed their compound as a mini farm - geese, ducks and fowls. They even have a vegetable garden. The tiny figure seen is Patrick's dad, Mickey who is no less than a farmer.

Fwd: Passing - Fitzgerald 'Fitzie' Lawrence

From: hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au <hodsonhouse@westnet.com.au>
Date: Jun 3, 2010 7:12 PM
Subject: Fwd: Passing - Fitzgerald 'Fitzie' Lawrence

     This is to inform you of the sad passing of Old Boy Fitzie Lawrence in Perth on 1 June 2010.

 Fitzie attended Lucknow Mart 1930-1936 and led a very active and adventurous life.

He was a stalwart of the OMA in Perth.

 Attached are photos taken of him at Founder's Day functions and a brief write up of his life published in 1996

Our sincere condolences to his family

 May he rest in peace

This is sad news. Fitzie was a friend of my dad's and was also the Best Man

at his wedding in 1946. George Shepherd

LUCKNOW - PMG - OFFICE 1956

Here's one back to you!

From: John Cline Date: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 12:26 PM

---

Today it is the Chief Postmaster General's office

Lucknow's Hazratganj

'A view of the 'Ganj'  and the Central Bank building on June 2, 2010. The clock is dead! 

Residency pictures

These pictures were taken in May 2010. The little boy seen in some pics is my 6-year-old grandson, Darren Hopkins.