2019 co-curricular day

Myself with Lee Eu Beng, the president of The Old Frees Association

Experienced an interesting morning yesterday at my alma mater, Penang Free School. I had been invited to their co-curricular day, you see. All those mandatory prize-giving aside, the activities both on and off the field more than made up for the boredom of watching the pupils climbing on stage to receive their certificates. It's a necessity for the school to recognise the achievers or otherwise, why hold the function?

The guest of honour was Syed Mohd Aidid bin Syed Murtaza who had a special gift of communicating well with the pupils and audience. This year, he talked about birds. How a bird in hand was worth more than two in the bush. He even brought a caged bird to the function just to emphasise that point to his audience. But frankly, that's all I remembered from his speech. Wasn't particularly paying attention....sorry. 😜



This was the march past in front of the School Pavillion, comprising the uniformed bodies of the School, led by the School Band. Crisp salutes and all that. Singing of the national and state anthems on the field. Later, the guests adjourned to the School Hall for the band display, cultural performances and the prize-giving ceremony. There was also a small exhibition in the hall to showcase some of the pupils' achievements.



This was one of the highlights of the co-curricular day: the performance by the School Band. Derrick, the trombone player who featured so prominently in this 19-minute clip, was one of the alumni from our student leadership workshops this year. He's good. A thorough extrovert who enjoys his time in school and simply bathes in the limelight.

I was so surprised when the band delved into a medley of three The Beatles tunes: All my loving, Till there was you, and I want to hold your hand. This coming from the fact that the Abbey Road album marked its 50th anniversary only the day before on 27 Sept 2019. Was this a coincidence? I'm sure it was, in which case it was a happy coincidence. But I'm equally sure too that the School Band was totally unaware of the significance of their set list.