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Lex
Devine, a radical, founded Clayesmore. Evelyn
King, a pragmatist, combined it with Craigend from Scotland and established it
at Iwerne. Roy Mclsaac transformed
it into the financially viable school it is today.
Roy
and Audrey Mclsaac have settled into their new home not far from the cathedral
in Salisbury and one afternoon in July their peaceful retirement was interrupted
when Robert Mash and Nick Zelle turned up, with tape recorder and microphone,
for a wander down memory lane. Robert
and I felt that as Roy had been in charge of Clayesmore at such an important
time in its history - Co-education, and the linking of Senior and Prep schools
on the lwerne campus - OCs would be interested to read of some of the 'goings
on' at this time when the sound foundations of the present Clayesmore were put
in place.
Roy
was, as ever, restrained and, unlike many, determined not to hurt anyone with
his memories and comments. Here is
a transcript of our conversation.
Roy Mclsaac. You
ask me of some of my first impressions on arriving at Clayesmore.
One of my first memories, do you remember Audrey, coming and looking at
the gym with me? It was really
awful - festooned with cobwebs. The Bursar, Seagrim, said "that's nothing to do with the
staff - that's all part of the fagging system". By then, the PE master, Aldworth, had died so he could not be
blamed.
Robert Mash. You
can't do that now. Social Services
stop almost all manuals and that sort of thing.
When you have punishment manuals on Saturday, it's extremely difficult to
know what to do. You can't let them
go anywhere unsupervised. Litter is
about all they can do - otherwise you are exploiting the young. Certainly in the eighties you would not have got away with
anything that manuals did.
Roy. Another
of my first memories as well as the dirt was of the damp because not only the
bursar but the headmaster didn't put the heating on.
There wasn't much central heating anyway was there ?
Nick Zelle. No.
A whole day cutting logs.
Roy. And-
everything was dirty because we had those awful coke stoves in the common rooms
which did make things absolutely filthy and I think we were short of cash so it
took some time before we could borrow some money to get a proper heating system
installed and I remember at times that the walls were rather damp because there
was no heating on. I was partly
responsible, as Nick will remember, because I used to try to get to half-term in
the autumn without heating. There
was also the business of Roberts and another man spending a day cutting logs by
the lake so that the senior common room should have a log fire and of course
when I stopped that I was reminded how uncomfortable it was in the common room,
which I fully accepted, as there was a little pot of anti-freeze put in the fire
place and we all know who put that there (laughter).
That is early memories and I do remember - I made rather a point for
instance of not putting the fire on in my study very often and having
housemasters' meetings and I remember Jim Tilden once going out and putting a
coat on - it was all part of my feeling we had to economise and just to cap this
particular aspect of the heating thing, Seagrim colluded with me on the whole of
this. I will go on about the
governors in a minute because they did not come to the school very often.
I found them - although I got on well with the governors - really rather
remote and I used to have to go to the House of Commons interview room'J' for
meetings and a lot of the government of the school was really conducted by
Evelyn King coming in and talking to me and I gave him some gin and so on and he
talked on and made decisions on that sort of basis.
I had come from a school where I used to have the support of a small
committee which met monthly and it was a finance committee so that I could bring
my problems to them and they shared the responsibility with me.
But in many ways it was quite pleasant to have ones own head really and
not to be bothered by governors but there are things you do need support for -
particularly when it comes to spending money.
Well eventually I got a committee formed - a sort of executive committee,
but as it consisted of Ramsden who lived in, I think, Manchester, a busy surgeon
Tom Bradbeer who lived in Exeter and David Walser who was at Ely at the time, it
wasn't easy to get them all together for meetings and that became part of the
pattern of governing. But to go
back and link it with the heating, Seagrim and I were determined to try and get
some arrangements for the heating in the school, and also it links with this
business about bringing the governors to the school. We got them to come and meet in the school and we said we
would meet in the library which I don't think they ever had done before.
So I said "Well you'd better get that fire going for them".
He said " Oh no. No
good giving them a fire when we want to make them realise how cold it is".
So we sat in there in the cold while I brought up the item of central
heating and of course that helped quite a bit to get the new system.
Robert. I did exactly the same when trying to get heating in the library when
I was librarian. I had the meeting
in the library on a cold day.
Roy. I remember my appointment - this is not really sour grapes though it
may sound like it. It went quite
well at the St Ermine's hotel and I remember - Mills, the farmer.
He was a very nice man indeed. I
liked him enormously. Well he ran
us back after I had been appointed at St Ermine's.
He said 'I'll run you to Waterloo 'and I think he'd asked us about the
accommodation. We said, well yes it
was a very nice new house and so on but of course we have got three children and
I gather we are expected to entertain and if you tot up the rooms- there is one
room above the kitchen and there are three others - our bedroom and two other
very small single rooms. He said.
'That's all right we'll build you a room - an extension - over the
garage. I distinctly remember him
saying this in the taxi. Well we were there for thirteen years and it certainly was
not built in our time but I gather it now has been. All good luck to those who have lived in and enjoyed it
since, but it was a bit difficult at times and just a small anecdote that occurs
to me about that room above the kitchen. As
you remember, we used to have sixth form speakers and we nearly always
entertained the guests for supper and gave them a bed for the night, and I won't
mention the name, but he was - either a prep school headmaster or a retired prep
school master. He was a fairly
regular visitor. He had been a
friend of Burke's, I think, and he was on the list and expected to come and
anyway we had a talk from him and it was quite all right and we had got him
back, and got him off to bed and I think I made some remark to Audrey when we
were perhaps having a drink in the kitchen or just shutting up "Oh what a
cracking bore that chap is." Sometime later, Anthony who, when he was down
on vacation, always slept in that room said 'you realise you can hear every word
you say" so we often wondered what sort of reaction that had.
I don't know whether he did come after that.
Anyway I am getting rather trivial so what else can I think of?
Robert. Wasn't
he the chap that talked - an Irishman that gave a very rambling talk about
something and didn't he want Guinness, or kept Guinness under his pillow.
Roy. Yes. I remember we had Enoch Powell and he got rather skittish
when we took him upstairs. You
probably remember Clare's dog Rex. We
could not find Rex when he went up to bed - we thought he'd got under Enoch's
bed and he got really rather childish "Come on - out you come", We
found Rex asleep in his own bed downstairs!
But we had some interesting people.
Nick. You
had Lord Denning. Roy.Yes we had Lord Denning and I was really quite impressed
when I took him early morning tea. His
wife was in bed but he was fully dressed, and it was quite early I think.
He'd asked for tea and he was working on some legal papers in the window
at whatever age he was then. He was
a very pleasant guest. We had
Heenan too, and his chaplain. Oh,
and then there was the classic faux pas with C P Snow who was the first one,
whom I fetched from Gillingham and brought him back and we gave him tea and he
was our first one so we were probably a bit nervous about it all.
I was quite genuinely an admirer of C P Snow.
I had read all his 'Friends and Brothers' series and really thought them
very good. Have you read them Bob?
Robert. .Yes
- not all of them.
Roy. I liked them and got really caught up with them very much but just at
that time he'd written a book about the Moors murders - I can't now quite
remember what it was called but that was very much in the public domain at the
time and I said "I haven't read that.
I have read all your other books and liked them very much and he said.
"You should read it. It
is rather good." Audrey said 'Oh yes.
Perhaps we had better get it from the library'.
Anyway we made up for that because for some reason, I don't know quite
why, Audrey decided she'd give him some kidneys for breakfast and so we had a
pleasant breakfast - we gave him bacon and kidneys and mushrooms and so on and
he was delighted, he hadn't had kidneys for ages and ages.
So I took him to Gillingham about 11.00 or something like that. He was going back to London.
I said " would you like to be put in the restaurant?" (In those
days there were restaurants on the train.) 'Restaurant!
After your wife's breakfast.? Certainly not." We thought we'd made
up for the book from the library. Do you want me to talk about shorts?
You must have had strong views on shorts?
Nick. Yes do...............