Tragedy hovers when David Hill runs into former students.

It remains part of the job, even though I left the job over four decades ago.

The 45… 55… even 65-year-old stops me in the street, says “Mr Hill! Remember me?” Straightaway, I know that I need to remember, and I need to remember positively. I’ll try to explain why, later.

Surprisingly often, I do. “Hello, Tania/Tim. I taught you in my Takapuna Grammar fourth form… Hello, T / T. You were in my Inglewood High year 9.”  

If I can’t recall, I ask “Give me a name, a year, a class.” Nearly always then, the teenage identity forms. If it doesn’t, I bluff like hell. “… and just remind me, who did you sit next to?… You still in touch with anyone from that year?” 

Because the middle-aged or early-elderly faces want me to remember them. They want to have been impressive or rebellious or distinctive enough to have left a mark on times past. I see them expand when I recall any detail about them. It’s the ex-school teacher’s gift that keeps on giving.

Sometimes the setting makes recall easier. I was standing three doors up from our local branch of The Warehouse a few years back, when a figure in his 60s emerged onto the footpath, with a coterie of three or so others. As he turned in my direction, I recognised him. Nearly 50 years before, he’d been a lively, courteous form 7/year 13 student, a decent rugby player, a good swimmer, an 18-year-old who seemed to know where he was going. Media reports over the half-century since showed that he’d got there.

The group drew nearer. He glanced at me; glanced again. “David Hill! My old English teacher!” I wasn’t too happy with the “old”, but I was definitely happy to shake hands with The Warehouse founder and philanthropist Sir Stephen Tindall.

Other settings help in other ways. I walked past our regional courthouse some time ago, and was hailed by an informally-dressed 40-year-old on a bench outside. “Hey, Dave! G’day, ya bugger!”

“Hello, Jaz.” (The name came quickly.) “How’s things?”

Jaz snorted. “Pigs are chargin’  me with assault and property damage. Would ya fuckin’ believe it?”

Actually, I would. Jaz (no, of course he wasn’t really called that) had spent much of his short high school time focused on precisely those two pastimes. But on this day, he’d greeted me with his own form of amicability, and I made sure over the next few minutes that I said friendly things to him, shook his hand and wished him good luck. I wanted him to feel acknowledged and liked, to believe that not every authority figure was against him.  

And I wanted to remember Belle, who is behind my determination to acknowledge and respect every ex-pupil I meet.

My single meeting with Belle as a (just) ex-student continues to make me stand still, decades down the years. I’ll give her that name; after all, she was beautiful in the ways so many 18-year-olds of all genders are. She was gifted, clear-sighted, at ease with the world – like Stephen Tindall, though it was a different school, a different town, a different time. 

My heart lifted a bit each time Belle entered my form 7 classroom. She brimmed with eagerness; could be almost a pain sometimes, monopolising discussions, hogging Q&As, over-riding others with her quickness and exuberance. Once or twice I’d had to say to her “Belle, you’re in a cone of silence for 200 seconds, so the rest of us can get a word in.”’ She’d laugh, sit with eyes on watch, start counting aloud “10… 9… 8…”’ as the last of her time out ticked down. The class and I would all be grinning by then, too.

But in the fortnight before they left to sit the Bursary/Scholarship exams of those years, she became a definite pain. She was going to pass the exam easily. She’d worked hard, studied diligently; the sheer energy and clarity of her mind would sweep her through. The others needed to plod more slowly, so Belle’s interjections and anticipations in class were beginning to irritate some of them – and me – as the exams and their accompanying stresses drew closer. 

After one lesson where I’d had to wave her down twice, and where one of the more solid, dogged boys exclaimed “Give it a rest, eh, Belle!” as her interruption leaped two steps ahead of him, I asked her to stay behind for a moment.

She came up to me, smiling. I started to suggest she could maybe dial things down a few notches for these last few lessons, that the others might appreciate if she were a bit quieter, a bit less… prominent.

It all went wrong. I started off clumsily; struggled for the right words. Belle flushed. Her mouth went tight. “So I’m a nuisance, am I?… Thought you liked us having ideas… Anything else you don’t want me doing?” She flounced (oh, how 18-year-olds can flounce) from the room, while my mouth still flapped.

She stayed sullenly silent for the last few pre-exam lessons. The rest of form 7 began looking at her and at me uncertainly. They could tell something was awry. I taught them badly through those final days; felt irritated at myself and at Belle.

At the end of their exams, she and the other form 7s headed off to a local outdoor recreation centre for a final few days together. I saw them getting into the minibus; Belle waved at me, and I remember smiling with relief. 

They were back in time for a farewell morning tea with the staff. They were now officially ex-pupils; our principal told them so. So they turned up in mufti: glowing with the excitement of stepping into the adult world.

Belle sashayed up to me; went “Sorry, Mr H.” (She called all the teachers by their initials, and we all liked it.) “Didn’t mean to throw a shitty that time. Thanks for the year, eh? Been awesome.” I apologised in turn, told her what a privilege, what a delight, etc. She grinned, shot off to hug the senior mistress, then refuse a sausage roll. “Nah, thanks. Guts are a bit wobbly. Shouldn’t have swallowed that river water at the outdoor centre.”    

No, she shouldn’t have. Inside the next four days, the Campylobacter infection morphed into Guillain-Barre Syndrome. She couldn’t breathe properly; was in intensive care on a respirator. She had two strokes and died before Christmas. 

Let me be appallingly self-centred. If Belle hadn’t spoken to me at that morning tea, hadn’t made it all right between us, what a load of selfish guilt I’d still be carrying. 

So thanks, dear dead seventh former. For the pleasure of teaching such a glittering young mind. For that wave as you got into the bus with only a couple of weeks to live. For your generosity in coming up to me in your first hours as an ex-pupil and letting us make peace. 

You’re still in my mind whenever another former student hails me. Each time I acknowledge them and their significance in my life, I’m also acknowledging the glowing promise and the transience that was Belle.