The following article appeared in the MCB magazine, December 2006
Elsewhere in this edition are the reports of MCB visits to the Humboldt Gymnasium (High School) in Munich, and the St Agnes Gymnasium, Stuttgart, where pupils from MCB have played their part in cultural exchange visits.
How many of them will still be in touch with each other, and their exchange partners, years later ?
Here is a report from the 1966 German exchange group, who still meet up, 40 years on.
MCB 1966 Kirchhain exchange visit reunion
♫ It was 40 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught his band to play…
Steamers, buses, cobbled streets, and long train journeys, were the order of the day forty years ago, as 11 of us from MCB travelled across Europe to meet our hosts and exchange students, on the six week (three weeks here, three weeks there) MCB exchange visit with the Kirchhain Gesamtschule in 1966.
How things have changed ! Forty years on, 8 of the former sixth formers met up in August for a reunion in Belfast with their German friends. ‘Easyjet’ flights to Shannon, Dublin, and Belfast, and hire cars from airports, were the order of the day, this time.
Most of us had met up at some time in the years since 1966 - but for many of the Germans this was their first visit to Northern Ireland in 40 years. What did they remember of their visit in 1966 ? What changes had occurred since then ? We wanted to show them Belfast and N Ireland at its best, on one brief weekend.
Where better to start than on the shores of County Down, as the lights twinkled in the lough, as we looked across to County Antrim, and at the passing ferry boats from the upstairs dining room in the Royal Northern Ireland Yacht Club at Cultra, who had kindly agreed to host us that evening.
A busy time on the following day. In the same week that Belfast City Hall had had its own 100th anniversary, greeting dignitaries and official visitors alike, we too had our own tour of the City Hall, marvelling at its splendour, the portraited faces of former officials greeting us from every corner, and a formal reception by Lord Mayor Pat McCarthy, who took time to speak to us all.
After an open-top bus tour, taking us past Custom House Square, the Titanic Quarter, the much muralled Shankill Road, and new investment such as the Waterfront Hall, we headed for MCB. But first a pit stop for sandwiches at the Wellington Park hotel, where former headmaster Wilfred Mulryne, and the Classics master for some of us in 1966, joined us, and amazed us with whom he remembered, and why !
Then on to MCB, and thanks to Olivia Moore, Head of German, for a grand tour of the MCB Heritage Centre, the Whitla Hall, the Chapel of Unity, McArthur Hall, the Biology Labs, the ‘long corridor’, and finishing appropriately at the Modern Language laboratories. What a lot of walking ! Most of us had forgotten the physical extent of MCB.
And that evening – dinner in Belfast Castle’s Cellar Restaurant, with a menu studded with delicacies, such as Salmon Kirchhain and Chicken au Collège Méthodiste.
A change of scenery the following day, with (because of the drizzle) an ‘indoor al fresco’ brunch at the home of Barbara Thompson in Lisnabreeny, with its lovely view (on a clear day) of the Ards peninsula.
With the drizzle clearing, we headed for Scrabo Tower atop Scrabo Hill, and climbed the122 steps to its parapet, from where we were rewarded by a clear view of Strangford Lough, its 365 islands, Lisnabreeny and Castlereagh, and in the distance, Scotland. Then briskly on to picturesque Donaghadee, for a stroll along the quayside and a “99” ice cream, before leaving the Ards peninsula for dinner at Spa Golf Club.
Then, the next day we went our separate ways - some returning to Great Britain, others leaving for the wilds of Donegal & Galway to continue their return visit to Ireland, and a number to the Giants Causeway, to see the eighth wonder of the world.
And what of the changes since 1966 ? Forty years is a long time back, if you haven’t been there since. For most of the Germans, what had imprinted was the memory of coming from a village or small town in Germany (West Germany as it was then, but that’s a different story) to a large capital city ~ and visiting Stormont, visiting the Giants Causeway, and travelling in double-decker busses, with their near-panoramic view, which we of course took for granted. Of the school itself, they had been impressed by the vast, huge, impressive buildings, with lots of identically uniformed pupils, working busily, like drones in some latter day Metropolis ( well, no change there then – Ed.).
Most knew little firsthand (other than through the newspaper & TV reports of the day) of the Troubles of the 70s, 80s, and 90s ~ and so for them it was a visit to a N Ireland, which, apart from a few colourful murals, had ‘remained ’ a happy and contented and affluent land, and to a Belfast enjoying its rejuvenation, seemingly untouched by the difficulties and disruptions of the intervening years.
On our 2002 reunion in Germany, Klaus Dietze, headmaster of the Kirchhain Gesamtschule, had complimented us, ‘It is an indication of an exceptional bond, that you still meet decades later, and this demonstrates the true aim of exchange visits - to create links that transcend the frontiers of geography and language, and to cultivate them’.
One of the Kirchhainers explained what they personally had taken from the 1966 exchange visit “ The time we spent with you then, and the friendships that resulted, influenced our lives in a decisive and positive way …. it made cultural differences, language problems, the colour of one's skin or the people you meet, their different professions, creeds, and who lead different lives …. seem unimportant ” ~ perhaps a relevant message for us in Britain in the ‘noughties’ (2000-09), as our N Ireland Assembly Members struggle (and possibly fail) to overcome their differences, and elsewhere, as we face a future with our own Gastarbeiter – Latvians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Asians, representing the new working class …
And what next ? Berlin 2011 ? Wir freuen uns sehr darauf !
The writer
Michael Clemitson attended MCB 1960-1967.
Married with 2 children, he now lives in Cardiff, where he works for BT as a Senior Project Manager.
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| Photos - 2006 | School Magazine article - 1996 | School Magazine article - 2002 |
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