BACK TO NEWSLETTER 2003 CONTENTS
Feb 2003
Dear Nick,
I do not suppose that you often hear from us pre-war oldies who spent happy years at the Prep School in that rather fine old country house at Charlton Marshal. I was there from 1937-40, a golden age for us youngsters, and so here are some cameos from a personal, idiosyncratic and unreliable memory which might give a flavour of the times for your records. E & O.E.!
Our excellent Headmaster was of course R. A. L. 'Hefty' Everett, who understood small boys and ran a most benevolent regime based on the minimum of punishment. He must have been tightly constrained by the finances of the day and probably ran the school on a shoestring, but still contrived to employ some good, if seriously underpaid, staff.
There was Fraser, whose party piece was to impersonate the actor George Arliss. He also wrote radio plays for the BBC at 20 guineas a time, and was writing a light-hearted risqué novel called 'Good Night Sweet Ladies', parts of which he read to us, when he discovered that the title had already been used by someone else. He got discouraged and gave up. We also much enjoyed his reading of an unexpurgated edition of 'Gulliver's Travels'.
Herrick (?) escorted a party of us down to the River Stour one afternoon for a swim in a rather deep pool. He was sitting smoking his pipe contentedly when suddenly he got up, strode chest deep into the water fully dressed with his pipe still in his mouth, grabbed a boy in trouble and hauled him to the bank. One evening he stayed to chat before turning out the dormitory lights, and got inveigled into filling somebody's miniature pipe with his tobacco. He was very embarrassed when the pipe lasted much longer than he had expected and generated a lot of smoke.
Hart-Davies managed to make the learning of Latin irregular verbs (fero; ferre; tuli; latum etc) enjoyable, which everyone will agree was quite an achievement. He also had a 101 key piano accordion, and on occasions we would gather round whilst he played by ear almost any tune that we could hum to him.
Another valuable member of staff was 'Squaw', a most kindly matron for small boys. She never mentioned the prunes and custard that I tipped out of the San window one day, and which lay in a tell tale heap on the flower bed below.
There is no doubt that food makes the best short cut to a schoolboy's heart and at Clayesmore Prep School it was generally good. We sometimes had dollops of the most delicious bright red strawberry jam, that it was reliably reported contained wooden pips in the absence of any genuine fruit. Milk and digestive biscuits at mid morning break were another favourite, but my stomach very nearly disgraced me at the dining table when I was expected to eat plain boiled slimy artichokes! A pleasure made greater by its rarity was provided by Kathleen, the Irish kitchen maid, who could occasionally be charmed and cajoled into distributing leftovers from the staff suppers.
On Sunday we attended a service in the nearby Parish Church and then wrote the obligatory letter home. Another weekly appointment was a sing song in the dinning room with Shifty Sessions from Iwerne Minster at the piano, and we had a repertoire of favourite old folk songs such as "Rats, Rats, Big as Pussy Cats". One musical highlight was when a trio of boys from Iwerne Minster, including an enthusiastic drummer, came over and hammered out some popular songs such as "A Tisket, a Tasket, I've lost My Yellow Basket", making a thunderous noise indoors at close range. By contrast there were a few magical summer evenings lying in bed near an open window in the newly built dormitory block, listening to RALE playing the cello in his nearby study.
We indulged in all sorts of crazes and hobbies which must have been repeated in every boarding prep school in the land. We whipped arrows the whole length of the rugger pitch, and left a trail of paper aeroplanes indoors and out. Brightly coloured marbles were valued possessions and legal tender, and conkers could earn high status in battle. Arrows from miniature bows made from yew belied their modest size and sailed over the school building, whilst models of all sorts, and board games such as Monopoly, occupied many evenings. It was an active culture.
Inevitably in a community of 100 boys we had a few accidents. Andrei Luboff and I were included in a working party doing some gardening on the island in the river Stour, presumably owned by the school. I watched in dismay as Andrei drove one tine of his fork through his Wellington boot and deep into his foot. On another occasion Geoffrey, or was it Robert, Atkins fell on a piece of glass and cut his thigh badly. He left a large pool of blood on the ground and a trail led into the house where RALE carried him in his arms. I managed to break a wrist when a wooden rail that I was leaning on at the top of an outside staircase gave way, and I fell eight feet to the concrete below.
We had very large grounds to wander about in and one day I was up in the park beyond the railway line and met a poacher. He was having an unproductive afternoon so he stopped to tell me some of the tricks of his illicit trade, and to compare the merits of various shotguns. he favoured a 20 bore as being more effective than a 4.10 and quieter than a 12 bore: an important asset in his business. On a few fine summer days we were allowed to pitch our tents on the field out of sight of the school buildings and wake up in a cool dewy dawn. On one occasion I was accompanied in my blanket by an enormous dark cockchafer beetle.
We played rugger and cricket. and on very wet days when the pitch was unplayable we went for a run in the surrounding countryside. We had school walks too, and on one occasion we strayed into a foot and mouth area and had to have our shoes disinfected by the local bobby.
In due course I took the Common Entrance exam at three days notice, passed satisfactorily, and was promoted to Iwerne Minster in 1940. But that is another story, and in the meantime the school building has been totally demolished and turned into a housing estate. Pity, because the new occupants do not have happy memories like ours. Perhaps they will have done in time.
With Best wishes
Alfred Priestley (37-40. 40-45)