Can You Imagine?

By the end of March 1981 plans were well under way for Concordia’s production of the musical version of Peter Pan. There was an air of excitement and anticipation in the school community, and 174 students had applied for a part or a role backstage. But just as musical auditions were completed and the date for the first rehearsal was set, an unexpected disaster struck. The overseas agents for Peter Pan refused Concordia’s application for performance rights.
The production team refused to give way to panic and despair and immediately considered alternatives. It was decided to create an entirely new musical around the many original songs already composed. Can You Imagine? was a fantasy adventure set in a modern musical style with a cast of nearly 80 students and teachers. The script and much of the music was written by staff members Peter Westhorp and Peter Schmidt, together with Robin Mann of Kindekrist fame and renowned musician Tim Sexton.  The pressure was intense and the deadlines unavoidable, but the process was speeded up by the use of a word processing program on the very basic and bug-riddled computer built in the College AV department. As soon as the last revision to the script was printed, the computer crashed, never to run again.

Can You Imagine? introduced the audience to many colourful and familiar characters from nursery rhymes and folk tales such as Cinderella, Punchinello, Sinbad, Aladdin and Little Boy Blue. The heroine, Mary, is a straightforward girl who becomes trapped in this bizarre world of characters quite beyond her understanding.

The show featured a number of very intricate technical effects, including a witch with exploding fingernails. Although some of the performances suffered a few memorable glitches – a poor sound system fixed only on the last night, fireworks that failed to ignite and a theatre trap-door which had been built over - packed audiences greeted this unique show with enthusiasm.

A Challenge for the Leader

1900 was a particularly difficult year for Concordia in Murtoa. Clashes involving two staff members and the college director, Pastor Peters, came to a dramatic head.
Some years previously, in 1892, Peters had employed Mr Alex Gray to teach a range of subjects, in particular, English. Gray was an Anglican, so this was a somewhat controversial appointment. A theologian was also needed for the seminary arm of the college, so Johannes Kunstmann, a 21-year old graduate from the USA joined the staff the following year. Gray proved to be a popular figure as well as an excellent teacher, attracting many new students to the college, so that it remained financially viable. However, he became rather too self-assured about his position and reputation. He began to make disdainful remarks about the Lutheran church and his fellow teachers, creating rifts between the high school students and those studying theology under the direction of his colleague Kunstmann. Unfortunately, Pastor Peters refused to listen to any criticism of his protégé Gray and labelled any complaints as ‘baseless slanders.’
Inevitably, this troublesome issue needed to be resolved. Gray was finally dismissed in June 1900, charged with open unbelief, the undermining of colleagues, neglect of duties and slander of Lutheran schools.
However, there was damaging fall-out. Although Peters had resigned as college director to concentrate on his duties as parish pastor, Kunstmann was not content to let the matter rest. He had been the main agitator for Gray’s dismissal and in the process had also lost all respect for Peters and any confidence in his leadership. Kunstmann dragged up many old grievances into the public arena, accusing Peters of acting autocratically and hypocritically. The conflict fanned by Kunstmann divided the loyalties of the whole congregation. Yet before any real resolution or reconciliation could be reached, Kunstmann took matters into his own hands, tendered his resignation and left for Germany in 1901.

The photo shows Johannes Kunstmann with his wife and family in 1899. The little boy with the long hair next to Sophia Kunstmann is Martin, born in 1897, and the older boy with the cap is Johannes, born in 1894.
(Thanks to Mark Kunstmann, grandson of Johannes, for providing these details of people in the photograph).

Music Master

On November 18^th 1929 the Concordia choral class and the orchestra staged a concert in the Adelaide Town Hall. The opening item was the orchestral selection entitled ‘Concordia’. This was conducted by the composer and singing master Hugh King who also played a group of three piano solos which were ‘appreciatively received.’
‘Captain King’, as he was known, became the college singing master in 1927. He built up a number of choirs, conducted the orchestra and was a popular teacher known for his enthusiasm, energy and good humour.
As a result of injuries suffered in the army during World War I, Captain King has lost three fingers. (This statistic is from the Brown and Gold magazine, while the history of Bethlehem Lutheran Church states that only one finger was missing!) His wrist was also partly disabled. Yet in spite of these handicaps, Captain King was a skilled pianist, having devised a completely new system of fingering. What is more, the loss of a leg and adapting to a wooden replacement did not prevent him from playing the organ.
In January 1933, while on holidays in Brisbane, he died after a short illness at the age of 39

Travelling Home

During the 1940s almost all Concordia students were boarders, with their family homes in other states and country South Australia. As a result, the long-awaited trip home at the end of term was often very drawn-out and far from straightforward.
These excerpts from two memoirs not only give an idea of what was involved, but also provide some insights into transport in the mid-20^th century.

‘Permits had to be obtained to travel during the war. To leave the hostel on a Thursday night – catch the tram in Duthy St to the city with luggage, walk to Adelaide Railway Station, board the boat train to Port Dock (Port Adelaide) and present tickets and permits to the officer on M.V. Minnippa which sailed at 7 pm for Port Lincoln – arriving Friday around 8am. The next step was to catch the 10.30am railcar at the Port Lincoln Railway Station, arriving at Minnipa at 6pm – then change to the steam train which would pick up or drop off carriages along the line and arrive at Ceduna between 8.30 and 9.30 Saturday morning.’
Val Kretschmer (Payne) Class of 1943.

‘In the early years we were in ‘dog-boxes’ in the trains: separate compartments, where passengers sat facing each other. The cases and other luggage were placed in the brass-mesh luggage rack above one's head. Obviously it was important to make sure they were firmly in place. We had more than one jerky start and blamed a novice driver. These were days of coal-powered engines, and it was a brave head which stuck out of the window in view of the flying cinders and smoke. We tried to get some sleep. There were foot-warmers on the floor, about two feet long and a foot wide and a couple of inches high. They acted like metal water-bottles.’ David Paech, Class of 1945.

By the early 1950s some students were travelling by plane. The photo shows girl boarders
at the Port Lincoln aerodrome in 1953.

Gift and Visiting Day

Concordia’s annual Gift and Visiting Day was one of the highlights of the college year and a valuable source of extra support for various projects.
The idea was proposed by Pastor Elmore Leske, a former headmaster, and although it was endorsed by the College Board of Management, there was one interesting proviso. The board believed that it would ‘not be a good move to conduct stalls for that day. This is a very controversial matter in our circles and to engage in such an activity at the central College would set the standard for the whole church.’
The first Gift and Visiting Day was organised by both the Old Boys and the Old Girls Associations and held on 20^th September 1958. Events included football and basketball competitions, organised tours of the college and a concert. There was just one stall, for refreshments only.

In the following years there were further developments, with stalls offering plants, cakes, sweets and even a lucky dip. In 1968 there was a cabaret on the Saturday evening and a special church service on Sunday morning.  The art exhibition in 1969 featured work by prominent Adelaide artists, and a piece of sculpture, ‘Born to Destroy’ (see photo), was bought for the college and displayed in the office foyer.

Major projects which benefited from the money raised on Gift and Visiting Days were the canteen and its equipment (1960-1962), basketball/tennis courts (1965), the kitchen and dining room complex (1964), the library, the college bus service (1966) and the former chapel pipe organ (1968-70).

The Croc

Many old collegians will remember the ‘croc’. This was the two-by-two procession (resembling a crocodile) of the girl boarders as they made their way between the hostel in Wattle St and Concordia. Since the college dining room was not large enough to accommodate all students, the girls walked back to the hostel for lunch before returning for afternoon classes.   At the end of the school day they made the final trip back to the hostel. The walk between the College and the hostel took around 10-12 minutes at a steady pace, and by the end of each school day the girls had covered 4 km by foot.

A boy student from the 1940s provides a personal perspective on the ‘croc.’ He remembers how the girls ‘came up the long pathway under the huge cedar trees. The senior students sat in their upstairs study windows….. and the girls displayed a casual nonchalance, knowing full well they were being watched. There is no doubt that college life was brightened considerably by the presence of girls.’

Although these walks may have helped them keep fit, the experience was not always pleasurable. A girl student from 1955 wrote that the ‘croc’ consisted of ‘seventy or eighty human automatons ….slowly but surely flattening the path between the hostel and the College three times a day. The way is hot and dusty in summer, wet and muddy in winter… In summer our shoes are brown with dust, in winter they are brown with mud, so really there is no sense in wearing black shoes. It is the unanimous opinion of the girls that the path should be bituminized.’

In 1958 another student wrote that it was ‘quite entertaining to see just how many cars and buses we can hold up whilst crossing the road, or seeing just how long we can manage to walk in ‘three’ before the prefects send the odd one to the back of the line.’

Playing Dirty

When the College introduced hockey for girls in 1960, the sport quickly grew in popularity.
Even though most of the players were raw novices, by 1974 there were four teams of girls competing with great enthusiasm.
Brown and Gold magazines for these years contain graphic reports. Hockey was described as a ‘game for the survival of the fittest’, but ‘worth the sore ankles, bluish-black bruised legs and muddy clothes that result from a hard-fought match …. ‘Hockey one, hockey two’ comes the cry from the girls playing hockey or more likely a cry of pain as someone is swiped by a stick on the ankle!’  (1968)

‘Once again this year, as winter arrived, the oval was filled with sticks and legs and little white balls. It was none other than the A hockey team, braving the wind, the rain and the mud. Success was not a key word in the A matches, and although we did not win a match, we were able to hold our opponents’ scores low. Miss Miller’s experienced coaching was much appreciated; so also was the umpiring of Paul Fielke.’ (1970)