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6. All old Abdalians
who saw the good days -An ode for a devoted teacher(Mr.Hugh Catchpole)
September 3, 2011 at
1:19am
FROM IPSWICH TO HASAN
ABDAL VIA DEHRA DUN.
Throughout one’s life, one meets many
individuals; people of all sorts. My Principal in the Cadet College, Hasan
Abdal between the period 1957 - 1958 when I was a young cadet there was for me
the most unforgettable character in my life.
Mr. Catchpole came
from Ipswich, an English town and joined the Military Academy, Dehra Don,
India. Amongst the boys he taught there were Air Marshals Asghar Khan and Nur
Khan and Lt Gen. Fazal e Haq.
I came into contact
with Mr. Catchpole when I appeared in a competition for entering the Cadet
College. I was interviewed by a board comprising of three members. Mr. Catchpole
sat in the middle as the chairman of the board. After asking me the routine
questions such as my name and my father’s name and my father’s designation, he
turned to the gentleman sitting on his left, a brigadier who asked a couple of
more questions. Then the gentleman on the right representing the Punjab
Education Department asked me more questions. Finally, Mr. Catchpole faced me
without batting an eyelid and said that I had put down on my application form
that I played cricket and asked me who was the best batsman in the world. I
replied to him that there was a tussle going on between Peter May of England
and Clyde Walcott of the West Indies as to who was the best batsman in the
world. There was a big pause in which I feared that I was not
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going to be selected
to join the College. Finally, he replied in the negative and said that the best
batsman in the world was Mr. Catchpole. He also told me that I was shortly
going to join the College and anyone asked me who was the best bowler in the
world my reply should be Mr. Catchpole.
Later on I came to
know through a friend, a cadet himself, (Late)Gul Taher Niazi , that he went to
see the Principal to find out about my marks .Mr Catchpole told him that I
secured only 15 marks in Mathematics however my marks in English were 72.
However, the Principal told him in his special way of speaking that I was
shortly going to join the College.
I joined the Cadet
College, Hasan Abdal in April 1957 and left in June 1961. My stay there was the
most remarkable period of my life. A few weeks of my joining I was in the
swimming pool learning to swim. I was at the shallow end of the pool when in
walked the Principal. He came to me and asked me if I knew swimming. I lied to
him. But I was not prepared for what happened afterwards. He beckoned a class
fellow and a friend from schooldays to give me some duckings. Akhtar Mahmood
Dad, now a Director (Engineering) with PTV, Islamabad, gave me six duckings. I
tried to shout and abuse Akhtar but I could not do a thing because water was
coming out from nose and eyes and I felt helpless. But the connivance between
the principal and the student taught me swimming and I was no longer afraid of
water. Rather I treated it as a friend.
Mr. Catchpole taught
us English and translation both from English to Urdu and vice versa, He also
taught the tenses and the lesson learnt then benefited us till this time. His
pet Urdu sentence was “ Jab main apni saheli kay ghar poncha tu maloom hua kay
vo kissi aur kay saath chali gai hai (When I reached the house of my beloved I
came to know that she has left with somebody else). In the
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College the passing
marks were 60% to prepare the cadets for the Board examinations where the
passing
marks were 33%. Once I
got 58 out of 100, two marks less than the required percentage of 60%. A dear
friend of mine, Aftab, had 59 %. Together we went to the Principal at his house
situated on the campus at 4 PM . We both thought that we had been invited by
Mr. Catchpole for tea .His house was the last one. I was the bolder of the two
.I knocked at the door. A servant appeared. Now I realized that the servant was
aware of the purpose we had came for. Many others came and went through the
same portals .He bade us to sit in the drawing room .In the drawing room, there
was a small glass paneling in the opposite wall through which everything was
visible. It was through this glass panel I saw what turned out to be my
greatest fear that the Principal was choosing a cane to beat the poor boys. I
was watching his every action from my vintage point. He raised his right hand
and I could see the glistening cane in the late afternoon sunlight. And then a
yell “ahh” pierced the daylight out of me.
That done, Mr.
Catchpole appeared in the doorway to beckon me. When I entered the Principal’s
study the other boy had vanished into the air. The same routine was followed
and the cane was chosen to hit my derriere. He threw a biscuit on the carpet
and asked me to pick it up. I bent down. The cane hit my bottom with a
lightening speed and I was only able to exclaim “ahh“. He again told me to pick
the biscuit. Again the rod hit me. He was well satisfied that he did not need
me further. He opened the other door to let me go warning me not to tell the
others what happened to me.
Mr. Catchpole was a
very stern disciplinarian. He could not brook any nonsense from the students
nor for that matter from anyone. College rules were meant to be obeyed. Once a
group of senior cadets went to see a late night show at the local cinema after
the lights out time.
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Despite their
disguise, they were discovered, caught and brought to the college. The
Principal summoned them the
next morning and gave
them three hours to leave the college.
However, he was also
very friendly with the cadets of the college. He was accessible to every cadet
at all times. There were six wings (hostels) viz. Jinnah, Aurangzeb, Liaqat,
Omer, Haider and Iqbal on the campus. Mr Catchpole made it point to go to each
wing in turn. Sometimes during the study hour in the evening. But mostly when
the boys were enjoying their recreation period, he would appear from nowhere
and challenge the boys to various indoor games. He would bet on winning but
invariably lost on purpose.
Apart from playing
indoor games, he liked playing cricket and football. Whenever there was a match
on the campus, he was always there either as a participant or as a spectator
playing with the game.
He left the Cadet
College to become the Principal of the Pakistan Air Force College, Sargodha in
October 1958. But despite the fact that he was not there any more, he ruled
over our hearts and minds.
Once a very dear
friend, Tariq Ikram, now the Chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau, met him
in Lahore many years after his leaving our College asked Mr Catchpole if he had
recognized the former. The latter immediately asked if the boy’s father was
still in jail, a reference to the latter father’s profession. His father was
the Inspector General of Prisons of West Pakistan. He had an elephantine
memory. One month after our marriage in April 1975, we went to Abbottabad on a
belated honeymoon. We also went to see Mr Catchpole, then an English teacher in
the Abbottabad Public School. I knocked at his door .He opened the door and, in
his usual
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frankness, told me
that he was to supervise a cricket match and he had only ten minutes for me. I
entered the
room. After asking
about his health, I asked him if he recognised me. He took me to a wall in the
room on which were placed group photographs of various entries to the College
.He placed his finger on my picture taken in 1957 when I had just entered the
College.
I last met Mr
Catchpole in 1979 in my office in the Ministry of Commerce. He had come to
obtain an export permit for his car to drive to India and back. He mentioned
that he had Rs 200000/- with which he wanted to set up a trust by dividing the
amount equally between the Cadet College, Hasan Abdal and the PAF College,
Sargodha. Such was the intensity of his love for his two alma maters and for
the boys of these two Colleges.
MAHFOOZ UR RAHMAN
ISLAMABAD
An old Abdalian ( from
April 1957 to June 1961)
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