In Poor Taste
As inappropriate celebrations go, this correspondent came across a humdinger recently. It concerned the retirement due for a Mr Bruce Barrett, a school teacher for over thirty-years at Knox Grammar in Sydney Australia. It was reported that back in the early 1980’s, when he retired, the school dedicated a set of gates, and a plaque which read ‘He touched us all’ in his honour.
What made Bruce’s end-of-teaching fête (& memorials dedicated to him) inappropriate was he had been sexually abusing young boys (along with another seven teachers) for most of time, at the school, a Royal Commission set-up to investigate allegations of abuse, heard.
What made the celebration even more indecent was the headmaster of the school (at the time) had been aware of the abuse.
This tale reminded your correspondent of another inappropriate celebration back in the 1980’s. It concerned the triumph of Juventus F.C over Liverpool F.C in the 1985 European Cup Final. UEFA (European Governing Body of Soccer) presented the Juventus team (Platini, Boniek et el…….) with the trophy at the end of the game.
What made this presentation & subsequent parading of the trophy around the ground extraordinary improper was the toing-and-froing of ambulances & helicopters, at the same time, around the stadium, ferrying injured & dying Juventus fans to nearby hospitals after a wall had collapsed on them just before the start of the game.
This correspondent has been staring at his Compaq HDMI screen for the last hour in the hope of some inspiration to end this story. All he can offer, to the two regular readers of this column, as a conclusion is that plaques & trophies now carry less weight with him than they did an hour ago.
