School badge

I was at Penang Free School this morning for a meeting with the Headmaster, his Senior Assistants and several teachers. Thereafter, I requested and was given one of the school's new metal badges. I remember that the badges were launched last year at the school's Speech Day on the 21st of October. During its launch, it was announced that the metal badge was being introduced to phase out the cloth badges on the boys' uniforms. As a symbolic gesture of a return to an old school tradition, a metal badge was pinned on the School Captain. Well and good, I thought to myself. And then I heard something else; that in the past, the metal badge had always been worn by the pupils. That raised my eyebrows because I knew this statement wasn't correct, in part because recalling the past is usually limited to remembering only one's personal history. In my own past, we never had a badge, cloth or metal, on our school uniforms, not until I was in Lower Six. There was a lot of resistance to this change but unfortunately in the end, the weight of authority prevailed and we were forced into using one. 

I kept my counsel because I didn't want to take away the triumph of having the hideous cloth badge replaced. I would prefer metal over cloth any time or better still, no badge at all. But today, four months later, I need to set the record straight and for this, I shall have to refer to my own book on the school's history, Let the Aisles Proclaim.

From 1971 to 1974, KG Yogam was Headmaster of Penang Free School. Very soon after settling into this position, at his first meeting with the Board of Governors, he got the Board to agree on something rather controversial. It had appeared on pages 246 and 247 of this book:

He also told the Board that he wanted to adopt the use of school badges by all pupils so as to instil in them a sense of belonging to the Free School. This last matter did not sit well with the Free School boys who had long enjoyed the privilege of not having to wear one. The Free School boy was known for his pristine white school uniform: a white shirt unblemished by a school badge and paired with either a white pair of shorts or trousers. Soon after, a letter appeared in the School Newsletter, couched in a language to remonstrate to this Headmaster that he was ignoring one of her traditions:

Since Reverend Hutchings founded this school where only the best will do, there never was a need for Frees to be identified with a cheap form of advertisement stuck to their left-hand pocket. This advertisement is what is now being introduced for all students of this immortal institution whose members are acknowledged and recognised, not by the badge but by the way they conduct and behave themselves in public. This unwritten rule goes with the 154 years of our existence and never should it be changed. It is part and parcel of this institution which was founded on traditions. Just like British Law which is unwritten, there is a school rule, unwritten, which does not require Frees to wear badges. This passage is written to express the feelings of the silenced majority.

FORTIS ATQUE FIDELIS

(We do not need a school badge 

to remind us of this motto of ours) 

The Headmaster was livid. Never before had he encountered such defiance. But then this was no ordinary school but one where the pupils were expected to uphold truth and be fearless. Nevertheless, he demanded that the distribution of this issue of the newsletter be stopped. He called in the editor and told him that all the copies would be burnt, just because of this one offending letter. As the Headmaster, Yogam had his way but fortunately, at least one copy of this issue had survived his wrath to bear evidence of this episode.

The source of information was the minutes of a Board of Governors meeting in 1971. Also, I can reveal now that the author of that defiant note in the August-September 1971 issue of the Penang Free School Newsletter was Sukhinderpal Singh, today a senior lawyer in Penang. He was in Form Five then and thus, one year my junior in school. Today, every Penang Free School pupil owns a metal badge. In my visits to the school since the Speech Day, I've noticed that the boys are pinning them on their school neckties if their shirt pockets still have the cloth badges sewn onto them. With the new academic year starting on 20 March 2023, I'm looking forward to seeing new Form One boys being the first batch that wears the metal badges exclusively.