50 YEARS AT SCHOOL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 173, 9 August 1937, Page 6

50 YEARS AT SCHOOL

rupn io a neaamaster A man who never left school, Mr E. G. Holland, arrived in Sydney with his wife recently to visit their married daughter. He went to Highgate Coupcil School, London, as a pupil, stayed on as teacher, and left it as haedmaster — 50 years at the one school. The only periods in his life when he was not actvely interested in the school were the first 10 years of his life as a child and the last 10 years as its retired haedmaster. '•I was n^ne and a half whqn I first went to Highgate," said Mr Holland, "but I liked tho place so well that when I had finished tho course I decided to go on and become a teapher there. Somehow, I stayed until I found myself headmaster. It was too late to leave then. "Going to school had beoome too much of a habit to break off. I was still there wflen I retired at 60. The only breaks away wero six years in all when I was undergoing training eourses, so that I could go back to Highgate agaiu. I suppose some people would call it a monotonous existence, but I enjoyed it." Mr Holland 's daughter followed in the family tradition, becoming a French mistress at North Walsham School until two years ago, when she married Mr R. S. Swire, f armer, of Binalong. "Now I suppose *the only French she talks is to the sheep, ' ', said Mr Holland. "She was always telling up what a fine place Australia was,^so we decided to come and see. It has taken me 70 years to start on my first holiday outside England, but uow we are enjoyiug it."