Tag Archives: Kapunda High fire

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Shadows and Light at Kapunda High

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Kapunda High boasts some mightily impressive Moreton Bay Figs. They are central to the school’s landscape. With their wide limbs, they offer timeless beauty and reassurance.

After the ceremony and having taken a tour of the reopened building, I’m standing by the steps with Paul and Kerry McCarthy. We’re talking about the old Moreton Bay Fig which has stood by the side of Eringa for numerous decades and provides ample shade across the adjoining lawn. It’s a most magnificent specimen.

Kerry says, ‘On the night of the fire, Paul and I were worried we’d lose this tree too.’ I glance over at it again, its shadows spreading across the lush grass.

I reply, ‘Forget Adelaide Oval’s Moreton Bay Figs, this one here is my favourite tree, anywhere.’

Kerry nods and continues, ‘Yes, it’s mine too.’

If quizzed I’m sure it’d be the favourite of many who attended Kapunda High including a number who’re here this afternoon.

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Lady Kidman’s Bedroom looks tiny. Despite being the boudoir of Isabel or Bel as she was also known, it’s about the size of similar rooms in modern homes. It’s now an office but when I was a pupil here it was a classroom and I remember History and Geography classes in it. With less than two hundred students, our classes were always small, but I still wonder how we squeezed in here. As a prefect, I slept on the floor when helping with the year 8 induction overnight stay.

There’s about six of us in there having paused our self-guided tour and it’s crowded. Why do familiar places from our youth shrink as we age? Greg Mickan and Phil Voumard share some stories from their time in this very room. I can’t repeat them here as they both might get a (significant) retrospective suspension (and caning)! Memory and its constant companion, affection, have demanded our attendance today.

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My tour first takes me to what is now the museum. It’s downstairs and entry is gained by a long ramp. For me however, it’ll always be the Matric Centre and much of our learning, fun, and friendships happened in this subterranean space.

Descending through the doors, I immediately look right. It’s empty now but back then there was a row of carrel desks. There were only about a dozen of us in Year 12 and so we each had our own spot. In my row was Chris Rohde and Peter Davidson, and I was squeezed into the corner.

During those rare silent and secluded moments, it’s where I read and was devastated by George Orwell’s 1984 — set, as it was, just a single year in my future. On Friday afternoons we started our weekends with a study period and looking through the museum, I can hear the powerful voice of our beloved class teacher, Michael Krips. Almost every week he’d nobly remind us, ‘It’s not a half hour pack-up!’

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Making my way to the book stand I buy a copy of From The Ruins Eringa Rises. It looks (and is) great having been written and compiled by local icons Macca, Danny Menzel, and Anne Hornsey.

Groups are mingling on the lawns in the fading light. I shake hands with many of my teachers including Geoff Schell and Robin Burgess. Robin makes his now customary remark to me that given I’ve been allowed into the event, ‘Security can’t be too flash.’ I see former colleagues too and some more Mickans. In the Moreton Bay Fig shade, Andrew Hayward and I discuss the general, buoyant state of life in Kapunda and anticipate a beer together, soon.

I take a few moments to think about the day here in 2021, when Claire and I were married on this treasured lawn.

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Strolling back to my car, parked on West Terrace, I pause and turn around. Fittingly, the warm sun streams in across Eringa and its inviting gardens. The building is handsome and quietly proud. My head’s buzzing with stories and faces and recollections.

Squinting at the facade, it looks as it always did, like the fire never happened. Surely, this means the restoration is a dazzling success.

With this, Kapunda and its high school feel exactly as they should.

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Our beloved school, Kapunda High

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Word quickly escaped that a fire had ravaged our beloved Kapunda High on a Tuesday night in late March. It was awful and yet bought many together. As published in the local paper here’s my story.

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On Wednesday there was a pilgrimage to Kapunda High School, and its centrepiece, the mansion known as Eringa. People stared and shook their heads and became teary at the sight of the burned ruins.

One former student said to me that, ‘it was like someone has died.’ Indeed, the stunning structure around which the school has grown is like a much-loved old friend and main character in the town’s story. We embrace it dearly.

In our Kapunda group-chat my cousin Froggy praised the school saying, ‘Its aura and rich history have played a big part in many people’s lives.’ We all agreed.

When I began Year 8 it had less than a couple hundred students but was always at the town’s heart. It seemed snug. Even as gawky teenagers I think we realised it was special and would shape our lives for the best.

It still does.

Not purpose-built as a school, it was the residence of Sir Sidney Kidman, his wife, and children, and just like a family home, remains a source of deep pride for Kapunda. We had classes in what were servants’ quarters, high-ceiling bedrooms, and grand reception rooms with stained glass windows. It was wonderfully unique.

Every year, the prefects ran a week of lunchtime fundraising activities. A key attraction was a ghost experience in the tunnels running under the mansion. Can you imagine this happening now? Nobody was spooked but there was mischief and laughter in the darkness, and we’d emerge caked in thick dust and blinking at the sun, ready for more mayhem with Bunsen burners or hockey sticks.

My wife and I met in Year 8 and were only ever going to be married at our beloved school. The affection we hold for it, and the teachers and students with whom we shared the beautiful building and grounds meant we had to return to where it all began for us.

Our choice of wedding venue surprised some city guests who’d not ever visited Kapunda but then saw it’s no drab school. It’s a welcoming estate flanked by Moreton Bay Figs, rose gardens and a fetching sweep of lawn.

On our day last April, the setting was moving and picturesque, and this made Tuesday’s fire more devastating.

For those like me who moved away, a trip home always meant a slow lap of the town. You’d ease past the duck pond, Dutton Park (home of the Bombers), the Prince of Wales pub (there might be a car you recognise out the front) and Gundry’s Hill.

But you’d also drive to the high school, pause by the fence and smile at the view. I’m not sure other towns can make this claim. Even for those who went there our school is a tourist attraction.

Driving up late Wednesday afternoon, we wanted not to merely witness the awful smouldering ruins, but to see friends and to grieve. This was never only about the building.

At the school we saw our treasured history teacher Paul McCarthy and his wife Kerry. There were handshakes and hugs. These were precisely the people we needed to see.

Later in the pub local icon Tolly remarked that it was, ‘like a wake.’ How terrible that Eringa, the showpiece of not only the school, but Kapunda itself, has suffered this? But those who’d come and congregated weren’t really at a wake. There’s already a rugged resolve that this dreadful event not be a final chapter. Following the equally devastating fire of 1902, Sidney and Isabel Kidman rebuilt their home.

For the thousands touched by Kapunda High, we’re hopeful that this happier side of history can be repeated.