It’s amazing that Br Bruce was so respected by generations of KC boys considering the anguish and pain that he caused them. By the end of the first week of first form every KC boy knew who was in charge of the Melbourne Campus. Mr Bruce was. He not only led devotion,
Dr. Cedric Lazarus
taught geography, patrolled the corridors and rang the bell whenever necessary, but he also carried, and used, a big stick. He reminded many of us of the principals we had left behind in primary school. Every boy knew that Douglas Forrest was in charge of North Street and Carlton Bruce of Melbourne.
It was for his regular use of the cane, to discipline us no less, that most of us will remember Mr Bruce. If a boy was ordered by a teacher to go to Mr Bruce’s office, one could bet one’s lunch money that that boy would get a caning. Some boys would return to the class room with a brave face pretending that they did not in fact get a caning but it was all pretence. Many prepared for the inevitable by padding their pants with newspaper or exercise books. Others didn’t bother to return to the classroom that day at all fearing, and rightly so, that they wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably on those metallic chairs after the whopping. Boys were sent by teachers to that infamous office for many reasons, including, but not limited to, insubordination, defiance, being disrespectful, and also for the possession and inappropriate use of a mirror. (Use your imagination here a bit).
I vividly recall that one of my 2A classmates got what we thought was the caning of his life for mirror possession and inappropriate use. That caning lasted for at least five minutes having started in the classroom and continued out unto the corridor in full view of all of us. This infraction was deemed so serious by the teacher that instead of sending the student to Mr Bruce, she called Mr. Bruce to the classroom. During his caning not once did the boy flinch and not a drop of tear was shed. It was as if he was saying to Mr Bruce, “Is that all you’ve got, yu soft!”
Another good friend of mine got a severe caning because this most unpopular English teacher was naïve enough to ask us to write an essay entitled, “What I would do if I won a million dollars.” I cannot recall what I wrote but it was probably something predictable, unimaginative and simplistic such as buying a few cars and houses and treating my classmates to Tastees patties at lunch time for a year. However, my good friend, who possessed a much more vivid and fertile imagination than the rest of us, wrote that if he were so lucky to come by such great fortune, he would immediately buy our beloved KC and summarily fire the teacher! To say that the teacher was not amused would be an understatement. She was livid. Mr Bruce was summoned forthwith and he arrived with the cane. You know the rest.
One of my friends here in Toronto recall that in the late 70s or early 80s he got the standard caning because two of his classmate had wrongfully implicated him as an accomplice in some wrong doing. After the trio got their lashes from Mr Bruce, the duo apologized to my friend for the lie that they had told on him. However, by then it was too late to ease the pain and Mr Bruce had long gone back to his office and did not hear the belated confession of the duo.
Much has been made by my classmates and others of Mr Bruce’s caning of the entire campus one afternoon as a result of the so-called “Bruce a come” incident. I recall however, (and you will forgive me if my recollection is not spot on seeing that this incident happened over 30 years ago) that two classes, then situated at the back of the campus, had escaped his wrath that day. Many reasons have been postulated for this lapse but I believe that after caning over 200 boys the VP was simply too tired to continue and had probably used up his yearly supply of canes.
Here in Toronto police reports often include the phrase, “So and so was known to the police.” This phrase is usually used to refer to someone who was shot in suspected gang on gang violence or in other questionable circumstances such as a drug deal gone bad. Reporting that “So and so was known to the police,” implies that So and so was up to no good and was either a jail bird or a suspected criminal who until that time had somehow managed to elude the cops; as such no tear should be shed for So and so, except of course by his mother and girl friends. Also implicit in the police statement is that he, for it’s always a male, had it coming. When Mr Bruce caned the entire campus, or most of us, that fateful day, those boys who were “known to Mr Bruce” got a double dose. There were at least five such boys in 2A. (Including the essay writing one and the mirror user mentioned above). On the other hand, we also had a few boys, this again being 2A, who were “known to Mr Bruce” for their academic brilliance and, presumably, their exemplary behaviour. These boys, much to the chagrin of the rest of us, got half the caning dose that day or a token caning. Up to this day we remind them of that.
Rarely, a boy on the campus would get the better of Mr Bruce. This was a rare event – like a blue moon. So picture, if you will, a boy exiting the school at about 1pm via the northern Glenmuir Road gate. He is walking calmly across the field and as he reaches the northern perimeter of the field, Mr Bruce looks out from the pavilion and sees this lone khaki clad figure heading for the exit. Mr Bruce claps his hands a couple of times to get the boys attention. The boy hears the claps, turns around, sees Mr Bruce beckoning to him from the pavilion to return and acknowledges him by clapping his hands at Mr Bruce in return. He then continues on his merry way through the gate. A brilliant but brazen, act. Score one for the boy, and, for the first time, zero for Mr Bruce. The boy knew that there was no way that Mr Bruce could positively identify him from that distance and also guessed, correctly, that the VP, being a fair minded man, would not cane the entire campus the next day for this singular act of defiance by a lone unidentifiable boy. Thankfully he was right on both counts.
I can’t recall any of my classmates getting a caning in first form, but by second form we had a lot of more testosterone and challenged teachers, especially female teachers, on a daily basis. In retrospect I blame our surging testosterone levels for this. Some of our teachers were simply not up to the challenge and had zero knowledge of testosterone surge in pre-teen boys. As a consequence we picked on them with regularity. Teachers in this group called Mr Bruce or sent boys to his office every day. However, there were teachers on staff such as Mr Bear and Miss Baxter who never had to send boys to the VP. The former dished out his own unique brand of punishment and the latter had such a larger than life presence that no boy dared challenge her authority in the class room. One stern look from her was enough to send boys back to solving their maths problems.
Arriving at North Street after two years of Mr Bruce I learnt that some teachers at North Street felt that Mr. Bruce’s main job was to turn us into manageable boys and to make us ready for Big School. If we were still rough and behaving like primary or prep school boys the impression was given that Mr Bruce had failed in his mandate. As far as I was concerned for the most part he was successful in turning us into responsible teens. If some of us did not quite make it, I am reluctant to blame the VP. He tried. Blame the testosterone surge instead.
