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Charles Goffet “CHARLIE” Here they are – CHARLIE’S LETTERS – “Cliquez Ici” “Mr. Goffet was a student at the school from 1922-1926. He returned as a teacher in 1942 and has been here ever since. He was athletics master when athletics was booming and has seen the school win the C.H.S. Cup three times. Away from the school Mr. Goffet has an academic interest in horse racing and thoroughly dislikes anything mechanical including cars, photo finishes and modern weapons of war.” |
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CHARLIE’S LETTERS
From Prime Time Supplement, Newcastle Herald, 20 February 1991
“Charlie’s no angel, but life has been full.
Charlie Goffet would probably call it misguided in the extreme, but there is among the ex-students of Newcastle Boys High School a fierce loyalty and affection for their former French teacher.
Charlie is probably better known to readers of the Newcastle Herald as an irreverent and irrepressible contributor to the newspaper’s Readers’ Opinions columns over almost 20 years.
Some of his offerings delight in taking the mickey out of serious souls and their serious pronouncements. Others embroider incidents from his youth into entertaining tales that may or may not bear passing resemblance to reality…”
Here they are – CHARLIE’S LETTERS – “Cliquez Ici”
What others say about Charlie …
Peter Watchorn … “Charlie and Neta Goffet were friends of our family for over 50 years. Dad (whose subject was music) taught with Charlie at NBHS from 1950-1955. Dad was 21 and Charlie was 41.
Charlie’s best friend was Len McCrae, the sports master (and also a modern languages teacher). Dad told a story about Charlie and Len staging a mock bull fight in the ground floor staffroom, sometime during dad’s first days there in the early 50s. Len lunged at Charlie, who held up a handkerchief in lieu of a toreador’s cape. Anyway, they connected and Charlie plunged through the (open) window, narrowly saved by his colleagues from falling 10 feet below. When they pulled him back into the room, Charlie’s first words were “Christ, I broke Neta’s fountain pen!”, which had been in his top pocket.
There are lots of other Charlie stories, too, many told by himself, including one where, while visiting a French ship docked in Newcastle Harbour, he over imbibed on a particularly strong brand of French pastisse (a highly alcoholic concoction made with aniseed), from which he passed out.
He was an amazing student and scholar of everything French, for whom conventional lesson plans were an irrelevance.
He lived his craft. For the right student he was an inexhaustible source of information and learning. Not sure how many really cottoned on to Charlie’s particular wavelength.
I’ve often found myself wishing I’d known then what I know now and simply asked him more. But he was one of the most amazing people I’ve known.
There’s simply no other way Charlie could have departed this life than instantaneously, in the middle of a speech to the students of the school to which he devoted his entire career.
They don’t make them like Charlie Goffet anymore. “Former educator” the headline says: they really had no idea.”
Ross Alexander … “A great teacher and a fun bloke – I recall a tale as told by The Late Vic Rooney,
Apparently there was a considerable level of conjecture over what the school would do about caring and supervision of students during RI (religious instruction) where the said students were exempt (by note) from participation in the RI classes.
Vic said the only person with a solution to the problem was Charlie! His solution as stated by Vic was to gather said exempt students under the shelter of the tuck shop awning.
His main objective here was to ensure the students were protected from the weather and the sun. His final tenet was that because it was substitute for RI then it should be considered that “God” would look after these boys.
Darrel Cox & Rob Greenwood … “I had the pleasure of having been taught by both of these gentlemen. Charlie taught me more English than Vic did.”