Four decades of fantastic memories

Gay Butler retires after 44 years of teaching at Kuranui College, Greytown. Gay Butler engaging in a favourite pastime, reading in the Kuranui College library. WAG 15Dec15 - FAVOURITE: Gay Butler

Gay Butler began a two-year teaching stint at Kuranui College in 1971, and 44 years later she is finally preparing to leave.

Having previously taught at Aranui High and Linwood High in Christchurch, she fully intended to return to the Garden City and build a house, but the lure of Wairarapa put paid to that idea.

"We stayed in Wairarapa and it was just such a revelation that a place could be so welcoming, have such lovely weather and have so much to do," she said.

Mrs Butler and her husband Bryan, who at the time also taught at the college, originally moved into a school house in Grey Street, Martinborough.

"The rent was $2 a week, arranged for us by the principal. I honestly wondered if it had a roof. It was a lovely old house built in 1893. It had such a lot of history and was the old district high school principal's house. We lived there until 1984 when we moved to Greytown.

"I was really impressed by the friendliness of everybody when I started, students as well. Friendliness and a strong desire to learn were really paramount. It didn't matter that so many students went back on to family farms and not so many went on to university. It didn't matter as education was really important to everybody," she said.

Mrs Butler has fond memories of founding principal Sam Meads and was impressed by his ability to remember the names of all his 900 students. "I must say that when he died I really missed him. He used to ring me on my birthday even when I wasn't teaching full-time.

"His most endearing quality was his gardening. He was known to come to school in the summer around 5am to begin weeding the gardens and tending to them. I believe he got mistaken on a number of occasions for the gardener rather than the principal. He was a very kindly man to his staff."

Although there have been many changes, Gay said today there is the same friendly atmosphere at the college that first impressed her. "The students are still friendly and still treat you as one of the community. "The biggest change is that we don't have to have children sitting in rows facing the front, folding their arms and repressed. Classrooms are set up in lively ways so that people can interact and students learn best from each other, so they need to be in flexible groups where they can talk to each other."

"I really got the job at Kuranui on my husband's coat tails. There were two jobs going, one in geography and one in physics and mathematics, so I rang Mr Meads and said well there's no job advertised for me, but my husband would like to apply for one of the jobs. He replied that he didn't think there were any jobs in English or French, which I had taught up to then. He then asked 'Which job is your husband applying for?' I said physics and mathematics and he said 'Oh I think there'll be a job for you!' So I ended up teaching social studies."

Mrs Butler was also the head of the Futures Department, helping students on the transition to work programme and was also responsible for provisionally registered teachers, as well as being the SDT teacher who advised and worked with teachers to improve their practice.

Gay and Bryan's son Paul and daughter Rachel both went to Kuranui. Rachel has returned and is now an English and drama teacher at the college. "It was so strange at first, because I was seeing her in a different setting. It's been wonderful working with Rachel. She's a very good teacher and it's been a joy to work with her in the English department. It's been very useful as we could catch up on Mondays on family things when we did duty together."

Having given more than four decades of service to Kuranui, moving on to the next chapter in her life won't be all plain sailing for her. "I will miss the people. I'm going to miss the students and the amazing staff who are so friendly, so cooperative and supportive. It's going to be quite difficult really I think."