Bells are synonymous with boarding life, ask any boarder today or half a century ago. In 1973 an intrepid matric boarder at Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School, Alex Kincaid-Smith, made a rash decision on leaving the Boarding Establishment to take the bell that had woken her for the previous five years, as she left. Her rationale, possibly, was that she would spare generations that followed from the sound of the bell! Now 50 years later, Alex Kincaid-Smith has returned the bell to its home. In 1993 at her twentieth reunion she did confess to the then Deputy Principal, Shelagh Bowness that she had taken the bell. In October 2023 she ceremoniously handed over the bell to her long-time school friend, Aileen Metherell. This took place in Kirstenbosch in the Cape. Aileen eventually had the opportunity to return the bell to Pietermaritzburg Girls’ High School, on behalf of her friend.

Alex Kincaid-Smith, pictured with the bell in Kirstenbosch, before she ceremoniously handed it over.

Rebecca Smith, Head Prefect, 2024, happy to be holding the long-lost bell.