Bugandi: Where did we go

Weekender

By MALUM NALU
TWO contrasting pictures of Bugandi Secondary School – 48 years apart – epitomise the fall of the school, Lae and Papua New Guinea during this time.
The first, taken by then Bugandi teacher Denis Murrell in 1969, shows students from the then all-boys’ school marching along Coronation Drive in Lae in orderly formation.
The second, taken during a violent confrontation between Bugandi and Lae Secondary School students last week, went viral on the internet.
Far far away, in Macau, China, Murrell, now 70, shakes his head sadly at the images of Bugandi circa 2017.
“When I was a teacher at Bugandi, almost 50 years ago, nothing like this would ever have happened,” he tells me.
“The headmaster was strict and would send anyone home who misbehaved.
“The teachers were always available to solve problems and help the headmaster control the school.
“The prefects were always present to solve any problems between the students.
“The students realised how lucky they were to be Bugandi students. They studied hard and worked hard. The school was always calm and peaceful.”
It tears Murrel’s heart as he sees the images of last week’s violence.
“So what has happened?” he wonders.
“The students of today think that they can solve problems by leaving the school in a group, ignoring police instructions, and going to fight their imagined enemies at Lae High School?
“This is the behaviour of small children, not high school students.
“When I was at Bugandi, the headmaster, Jack Amesbury, always called the students ‘men’.
“I don’t think it would be possible for anyone to use that word now. It seems that Bugandi is now a place for small-minded children.
“I look at that photograph (of last week’s violence) above. I see only brainless, uneducated children.
“What must the parents of these little schoolboys think of them?
“I know what I think of them. I think of them as a disgusting, uncontrolled mob, intent of bringing the proud name of Bugandi to its lowest level.
“These boys must be taught that there are consequences to their ridiculous behaviour.”
Murrell, now a freelance consultant and writer in Macau, has sent me amazing old photographs of Bugandi and Lae in their glory days.
He taught at Bugandi from 1968-1971 and is now aged 70, albeit, with fond memories of Bugandi and Lae the way they used to be.
Murrell’s photographs include those of the school entrance with the Mercedes-Benz of legendary Bugandi headmaster Jack Amesbury in the background.
Under Amesbury’s guidance, Bugandi became a great and famous school – a far cry from what it is today – producing many students who went on to become academic, political and business leaders in Papua New Guinea.
“I was sent to teach at Bugandi High School in January 1968,” Murrell remembers. It was my first teaching position apart from a short spell practice-teaching at Goroka High School.
“I saw Bugandi for the first time from the back seat of the principal’s Mercedes-Benz: a neat set of single and double-storeyed buildings situated behind lush, green, well-tended parkland and sports ovals bordered with red canna lilies planted by teacher Jock Maloney many years before, variegated crotons and painted, white stones.
“Bugandi had been built on the site of a former swamp, a place where people said it would be impossible to build anything.
“At first, just 10 acres were cleared of rainforest and a mess, two houses, a dormitory and two classrooms were built. That was in 1959 and amazingly, classes began soon after on January 21, 1960.
“The school was called Bugandi Upper Primary School and there were just 78 students in standards 7, 8 and 9 and three teachers, two from overseas and one Papua New Guinean.
“By 1962, the name had been changed to Bugandi Junior High School and in the following year, a man famous throughout the land, Jack Amesbury, was appointed as principal.
“He worked successive groups of students hard over the years, to take the land back from the water, fell trees, clear undergrowth, build roads, plant lawns and gardens and construct playing fields and livestock pastures and I could see the results of this hard work as I travelled down the driveway in Jack’s car.
“The school had become a full high school in 1965.
“There were 257 students by then, enrolled in forms 1 and 2, but in 1966, Bugandi began enrolling students from all over the New Guinea mainland and forms 3 and 4 were begun.
“In 1968, for the first time, 87 boys sat for the intermediate certificate while another 58 sat for their school certificate examination.
“When I arrived there were problems; Jack was trying to develop another oval in order to accommodate all the rugby league teams that played at the school each week, but the trees were found to be full of shrapnel.
“The area closer to the Markham River had been a battleground between Australian and Japanese troops in the Second World War and students often found bits and pieces of Japanese war material and occasionally dangerous, unexploded bombs.
“So after 1968, no new land was opened up and a consolidation began. Existing buildings were improved or extended.
“The last piece of land developed was an Australian football oval while the last building erected during my stay was a chapel/assembly hall.”
Murrell remembers Amesbury as a stocky, sandy-haired man with a demanding expression and occasional wry smile, a former Royal Australian Navy man.
“He had been present on an Australian vessel at Wewak during the surrender of the Japanese and, consequently, he ran his school like the huge naval ship that he had been used to.
“Jack always referred to his students, no matter how young, as ‘men’ and his first words at every assembly were always, ‘Right men, on deck!’
“The students were up at the crack of dawn to shower in the ablution blocks.