Visiting Rugby School, Rugby Township, England/Carlos Pueblo
While I was
checking on a train schedule poster at Birmingham Station,
I saw Rugby
and knew instantly that I found the famous Rugby School.
I used to
have an English lesson about the great rivalry of the sport
between two
schools, Rugby and Eton when I was at sophomore
English class
at high school in Taiwan. We used to have a nickel medal
with the
name and ball rugby on it. It felt very closed and remembered
when I had
that lesson. Rugby was a noble high school sport left by
Japanese
after they left Taiwan. There were only two prestigious high
schools, one
public in the north and one private in the south, to keep
the sport on
campus. I learned it well and since then I had visited the
Eton School,
now a college, upon the River Thames by the Windsor
Castle. Now,
I am in completion of my dream in the childhood. I also
realize that
how our family have had such memorandum with my Dad’s
humble
background. They were from a Japanese family that he helped
to have a
sanctuary after the War while Japanese were waiting for their
return to
Japan. I check the Google, Nihei Atsushi the President of
Taipei
Industrial School (1940-1945) was under my Dad’s help waiting
at Puli,
Taiwan. He left us many items which had influence in my life
and the life
of my children including the interest of rugby, tennis, chemistry
, and
Japanese literature. Now I know that how my Dad knows Tokyo Tech
due to Atsushi’s
alma mater where I have visited many times due to Kiyoshi
Otani, my
old neighbor and the recent retired vice president of that University.
Rugby
township is in an area outside of a metropolitan city. I marched from
the station
through a rundown section of the old city to the School. The campus
is on a much
better neighborhood with classical design of buildings as well as
many rugby
fields. It is the birth place of such sport which is still very popular
among the
Commonwealth nations. I was on campus in the middle of the
morning and
had had plenty of time to see the quiet environment of this famous
campus. A
teacher answered my questions asked me to follow him due to his
schedule. He
was very interest in my desire to visit his school.
The students
were out for lunch. They are in uniforms and I can imagine that
Rugby is a
noble institution. Both Eton and Rugby have many famous alumna
throughout
the British Empire.
