The following article appeared in the MCB magazine, December 2002
The headmaster writes;
I am delighted to introduce this special article on the reunion held in Germany of the members of the 1966 German exchange to Kirchhain. The exchange was in progress when I first joined the Classics Dept all those years ago, and I remember it well.
My congratulations to the class of 66 in maintaining the true spirit of student exchanges !
One sunny evening in Germany
This was the second reunion of the 1966 MCB Kirchhain exchange students . One sunny evening in Germany on the stroke of 7 o’clock, with a combination of Teutonic efficiency and Britannic punctuality, singly and with partners, we trooped in to the Am Hexenturm restaurant, off the ‘Schlemmerplatz’ in Kirchhain, in Hessen, in Germany. (West Germany, as it was when we were there last together – but that’s another story.)
Our first reunion was in 1996, 30 years to the day of the exchange visit. “When shall we meet again ? ” Zwei-tausend-zwei (2002), someone had exclaimed, and so it was, as we pulled up at the Hexenturm from Belfast and Berlin, Cardiff and Kassel, Lisnabreeny and London, Flensburg and Venice. First stop an excellent à la carte meal, as we exchanged greetings and anecdotes, looked at photographs, and compared notes on how we had travelled.
Peter Weil had travelled from a business conference in Munich with ZDF, the TV producers; Barbara Thompson, and husband Kenneth (also ex-MCB), had travelled leisurely through the Rhineland; Chris and Ed Seaward were taking time out from their busy schedule at Wimbledon; whilst Iain Mitchell had put Deutsche Bahn and Italian State Railways to the test, with a 13 hour marathon from Venice, via Verona, and Munich, arriving on the dot @ 8.02. If only Railtrack could manage a service like that, your writer thought, if only ...
Up early the next day, as we met for breakfast in the zur Sonne inn, then a stroll through cobbled streets, admiring the charming painted plaster and timber-beamed houses of Kirchhain, then past Michi’s pharmacy, and the Bahnhof, onto the Gesamtschule, re-named in recent years the Alfred Wegener Schule.
“Willkommen to Germany and the Gesamtschule”, greeted headmaster Klaus Dietze, explaining with a sense of occasion, his pride in being able to greet us personally, and the changes, and developments, which had taken place at the school over the years since 1966, when we had accompanied our exchange partners into History lessons, and Chemistry lessons – and joined in !
Holding aloft a certificate testifying to our achievement in meeting the true spirit of student exchange visits, he asked to whom he should present it. Your writer was volunteered to accept the certificate, fortunately having an impromptu speech in German to hand, by way of reply, just in case ...
[a copy of the certificate is on display in the college office – Ed.]
After a tour of the school by Peter Rekowski, Head of Modern Languages, and a delicious buffet lunch in the modern, well equipped Domestic Science labs, it was off to nearby Marburg for a specially arranged guided tour of this beautiful old, and as we discovered, rather famous, University town.
We learned of the role of the town, originally Marcburg, as the base of the Teutonic Knights, and of the pivotal discussions held there between Zwingli and Luther in the 16th century, the effects of which still reverberate today. Marburg is built on a hill, with quite a few steps, “Is climbing steps a German hobby ?” one of our party enquired humorously.
In the Elisabethkirche, we heard of Elisabeth of Thuringia, who had come to Marburg in the 13th century, and dedicated her life to the poor. A pleasant surprise at the door to meet curator Rudiger Lorenz, whom some of the group had met when he and Wolfgang Stenner had toured England in the 70s. (If you don’t remember the 70’s, you weren’t there – or was that the 60’s ? )
Events moved upbeat in the evening in the Gänseburg Inn with the arrival of two musicians, who clearly had remembered the 60’s & 70’s ! Another surprise, the rhythm guitarist is our old friend Jurgen Franke, a former classmate from 1966, and now head of the Realschule, in the Gesamtschule complex. He remembers us well.
During a gap in the music, Manfred, Wolfgang, Gretel, Michi, and others treated us to die Lorelei, and other traditional German songs. Rising to the occasion too, Brian Cairns and Iain Mitchell, regaled us with a rendition of the school song; “Omnes condiscipulos confidenter oro ...”, they sang. The evening ended with Gordon Higham, and your writer, jamming quietly on two borrowed guitars, with a mixture of Shadows and Deep Purple ...
Brunch the following day, followed by a leisurely stroll round the Erlensee, a scenic lake and nature reserve just on the edge of town. Then all too soon the weekend was over, and it was time to take our leave of Kirchhain, die Kirchhainer, and the GSK, and set off on our separate ways - some returning straightaway, others going on further in Europe. Last time we met, we had swopped phone numbers; this time, email addresses.
Thanks to Angelika Stenner and Karl-Hans Rothaug, and behind the scenes Werner Badouin, for their hard work & planning.
And the next reunion - Belfast ? in 2006 ?? Wir wollen mal sehen.
The writer
Michael Clemitson attended MCB 1960 –1967. Married with 2 children, he now lives in Cardiff, where he works for BT as a Software Development manager.
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