Great schoolmaster dies

Ray Connellan, a great schoolmaster and rugby man, died on Sunday, six weeks after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Ray was a man of the Eastern Cape, educated at Selborne College in East London and Rhodes University in Grahamstown, He then taught science at Queen's College in Queenstown. But then the young man went west - to Wynberg Boys' High in 1973 as a vice-principal. He stayed at Wynberg for 25 years, retiring in 1997 as the deputy headmaster to Keith Richardson, the present headmaster. After his retirement he taught for a while at SACS. An intensely loyal man he gave his greatest effort to whatever body he was involved with.

Rugby football was his greatest passion. He coached at Queen's, including a stint as the 1st XV coach, and then at Wynberg where he was the 1st XV coach for 11 years before coaching the Under-14. For Ray, coaching rugby was a part of the educational process for his boys. In other words he had it in perspective but loved especially Wynberg's 1978 victory over Grey College of Bloemfontein. His loyalty to Wynberg was intense. The last match he watched was when Wynberg played Paarl Boys'' High on 11 May and Ray went out to watch the match.

Involvement in the classroom and on the rugby field was only a part of Ray's involvement in Wynberg Boys' High.

The Cape Schools Week, which takes place at Paarl Gim on 22-25 June this year, was really Ray's idea. He proposed it to get east and west to meet. In the week Eastern Cape and Western Cape schools play each other. The first of those weeks was in 1980 and are now played every two years, East and West alternating in playing host.

Ray also served  for a long time on the Western Province Schools committee and was a selector of the Western Province Craven Week team.

After he had been told of his condition, Ray and his wife went to the UK to visit their three children and their grandchildren. Three days after they returned he died.

Raymond Peter Connellan was born on 11 February 1938. He died on 9 June 2013, survived by his wife Daphne, children Bev, Tim and Howard and their spouses Mark, Sally and Caroline, and his nine grandchildren.

Wynberg has plans to honour Ray on the 1st XV field with a scoreboard area, with a clock tower, benches and a fynbos garden.