St. Olave's School 1945 -1951 part 1

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When the war ended, the school resumed in some measure the habits of 1939. Traditions returned. It did its best to maintain the character of a public school. Most PUBLIC SCHOOLs are by no measure at all public. They are the large collection of ancient foundations whose head teachers belong to the Head Masters Conference. They include Eton, Harrow, and Winchester. But in the same bundle are or were the lesser establishments such as St. Olave’s. These lesser establishments, when I was young, were most certainly public schools. The only constraint on entry was that one needed to be intelligent.

Several aspects of this ‘public school’ approach to school life are remembered….

1. The School boy’s Cap.

When was the last time a schoolboy wore a cap? This symbol of discipline(?) or loyalty (?) . Was it worn out of pride or fear? In 1944 it was instilled into us that we must wear this odd headgear all the time when going to and from school. One became so attached to it that I would wear it on holiday. I wore to go to the shops, If I left the house for any reason at any time, I would absolutely need to find my cap. I felt naked without it. If one did not wear it, you could be called before the head teacher and reprimanded. It was a SCHOOL RULE!

With shame, my endless shame, I was responsible for the suspension from school of a younger boy for this very crime of not wearing the cap. I still cringe inwardly at the incident. In the last year or so of my school career I was a ‘prefect’. That position gave one a certain prestige and a certain power. Oh dear, ‘power corrupts’. My prefect’s cap was a glory. It was made in black velvet and had a purple front rim. Just above the rim it carried a solid silver badge. One evening getting on a train to go home, a certain youth who was always a rebel, gave me his ‘lip’, that is to say made some derogatory remarks about me. He was very often in trouble over some misdemeanour. I told him to put his cap on. He refused. The next morning I reported the incident to the Headmaster and the youth was suspended.

However, some days later this same youth was on the school playing field, no doubt in search of me. He approached me and wrenched the cap from my head and stamped on it. I said nothing but when I retrieved it, I saw that the tiny silver cross which was normally there had been lost. That grieved me, but I said nothing. There was a lesson in this for me. Authority carries Responsibility.

The junior boy’s cap was similar in shape but was entirely of black cloth with purple ribs. Later on when silver badges were reduced to a small store, the badge was embroidered onto the cap by machine. But at our first arrival in 1944 we were all permitted to buy, for the huge sum of two shillings and sixpence a silver badge.

Is it possible that today this school badge still exists? The badge on the school blazer was changed to (if I recall well) a representation of an early seal of the charter of the school at some time about 1950. And school caps universally seem to have disappeared many years ago.

That which crosses my mind is the Christian symbolism of the badge. Undoubtedly the cultural basis of England is Christianity. The institutions of Britain are founded on it and without this base, Britain cannot retain its identity.

2. The School Playing Fields – Play up and play the game!

The school long ago abandoned its site at Tower Bridge, and moved to Orpington. This move was necessary. There were no playing fields at Tower Bridge. It was necessary to travel to Dulwich to the playing fields there. This was a chore. I detested sports. They were for me an unnecessary intrusion into my life. I avoided them as though they were an illness. Fortunately I found that many of my colleagues actually enjoyed them. When in the latter years, lists of teams were posted on the school notice board for the game the next Saturday morning; I found that some one would be only too happy to replace me. I simply crossed out my name and replaced it – (the replacement always agreed!). It worked for months. The teaching staff eventually became aware of my subterfuge, and I was appointed as ‘Rugby Secretary’. The intention was of course to encourage my attendance. It did not. I did the job pretty damned well and corresponded with the other ‘minor public schools’ and I believe all was smoothly organised. I never attended any organised Rugby match!

These wretched playing fields were quite difficult to reach from home. Either one had to take two train journeys or a long slow bus ride. I had other things to do with my time. My time was beeter spent cycling from home towards the countryside or walking in the woods which surrounded Eltham.

There was perhaps an (un?)fortunate lesson which I learned from my activity on the playing fields. It was that with all bureaucrats (amongst whom I could class many a schoolteacher – you must obey the rules!), one needs to present to them enough to keep them happy and to avoid a closer watch on what else is happening. It is a bit like giving a kitten a ball of wool to distract it.

There was the occasion when my brother, home for a short stay from his other home in Glasgow, decided to find me at the school sport’s day. He found me, and encouraged by his persuasion we slipped out by a back entrance and my departure was never noticed.

I find all sports incredibly boring. Cricket must be among the leaders of boredom. When bound to attend as a player, I got some delight in being appointed long-stop, a position on the ground which was fairly proximal to the allotments which edged the fields on one side. These garden allotments were managed by nearby residents to help food production during the war years. The position of long stop gave me the chance to steal a few radishes.

Physical activity is undoubtedly necessary for health. But when the physical activity demands a life of its own and takes over the person’s life to become the reason for existence, then it seems to me to be a distortion. So, I avoid the enthusiast of sport. I tend to avoid the enthusiast in anything! I once shared a room at Officer Training School with an ardent cricketer. He appeared to know the pages of Wisden from cover to cover. He was so boring. I have an acquaintance who knows the detail of every aircraft from the year dot. Yawn with me. At school there were those who knew the make of every motor-car. I was moved enough, but also uncertain of myself and my own character, to try to emulate them – to be ‘one of the boys’. It was futile. I even joined with those who collected the sightings of steam engines. There were little booklets published for the steam train enthusiasts and later the diesel engine enthusiasts and also the double decker buses enthusiasts. One marked off the number or name as one waited on the platform or at the bus depot for the machines to appear. Dear God! Is this the way to spend one’s life?

St. Olave’s had its own Steam Engine name (Southern Railway Schools Class) A grand model of it was owned by the school, though it set rather forlorn and dusty in its own glass case on a window sill. Does it yet exist?

-to be continued --

St Olave's School 1945-1951 -- part II

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The Tradition of the Public School,

3. A call to prayer.
It never occurred to me that there was anything strange about morning worship and indeed evening worship at school. Every day the whole school went to the hall first thing in the morning, and at quarter to four in the afternoon just before all went home, we met again for a few minutes of prayer and a hymn.

I am a profound agnostic. La question fondamentale is a constant worrying phrase in my head.

Nevertheless this part of the British Culture did no harm. The lesson for me was it made me ponder and wonder at the Universe.

In 1945 all the boys were issued with the school’s own hymnal – The Olavian Hymnal. This beautiful and fascinating book was abolished later and replaced with a second rate book of hymns called ‘Songs of Praise’. The Olavian hymnal was bound in red covers. On each page was some aphorism in Latin, Greek, or less often English. In these acts of worship we learned the general campus of Anglican Hymns. It was promised that each boy could keep his copy at the end of his school career. Unhappily because of the change this was not to be.

I hugely regretted the removal of my Olavian Hymnal. It was, in its contents, way out of its time. Few understood the Latin, and even less any Greek. But the principle of the book seems to me even today to be sound. It would be possible even today to produce such a book with aphorisms and comments on one’s daily life on every page – in English. Such aphorisms make you think. The concept recalls to me the Quaker approach. They have a wide searching view of the Universe, without cant, without certainty; ‘Remember, it is possible thou canst be wrong!” Quakerism has much to offer. To seek for a meaning and let your thoughts lead you to a better understanding of the ways of the World seems to produce a quietness of spirit and more than that an understanding of the hopes and fears of other people. "No man is an island unto himself".

The Roman Catholics in the school were allowed to be excused from these services, except that at the end of the service they entered the Hall to hear the general school announcements at the end. I myself was born a Roman Catholic – but no one at school knew that! These RC boys had to hang around in the entrance foyer to the school before being allowed in to the hall. It was ridiculous. Who demanded that they did this? Was it their parents? After I left, one of these boys became Head of School and later a prison officer. Some relaxation and tolerance must have entered in the scheme of things. The separation because of some mistaken difference of attitude between catholics and protestants was divisive and stupid. It remains stupid. All organised religion is surely stupid. If only people who are convinced of the certainty of their belief could be persuaded to ask themselves ‘Is it possible that I am wrong?”. The Quakers have a totally unorganised religion and profound doubt. Whatever the Profound Origin of the Universe is (or is not) it is not that uttered by any Pope, Archbishop or Ayatollah, and all 'fundamental' religion must be anathema to any thinking person

4. The School Hall.

The impact of the architecture of this building on my developing spirit was considerable. Wooden panelling in a grand style was on all sides. Many panels carried names of ex-pupils gilded onto the panels. These were the names of those who had won scholarships to the universities. I never knew if my name was ever so presented as a State Scholar to Oxford. At the far end was the War Memorial to those students killed in the Ist World War. It was (and is?) a curiously androgynous bronze sculpture. It was a cross between male and female and some Greek God. Does it still exist? It was also far too small!

This Hall was the focus of cultural education. Around its walls the Headmaster had chosen to mount prints of great artists. Only one print still impresses itself on my memory. It was some jungle scene by Rousseau.

Stretching along two sides of the hall was a wide ornate balcony, constructed in massive wood. At the far end above the main dais below, was the organ. To its left was the doorway to the Headmaster’s study. He, every morning, would leave the study and pass in front of the organ then leave the balcony to descend the stairs and enter the main concourse of the Hall by a lower door. Meanwhile the Music master would be playing a ‘voluntary’ on the instrument. It was impressive bit of ‘theatre’.

The musical heritage of Western Europe was through the voluntaries conveyed to us all. The menu of voluntaries was announced each week. In this way we learned the general range of music of Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and much more. Through such familiarity the amused titter of the school could be understood when the Headmaster’s morning parade was accompanied by the teetering tune of the ‘dance of the sugar plum fairy’.

Then we might sing the hymn written by Rudyard Kipling ‘Recessional’…

Far called our navies melt away,

On dune and headland sinks away,

Lo! All the pomp of yesterday,

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Judge of the nations, spare us yet!

Lest we forget… Lest we forget.

So significant was this to the memory of the ex-students who died in the wars of Britain and for whom the androgynous sculpture seemed so insignificant.

I and no doubt others imbibed a sense of Britain’s cultural heritage and also the responsibility we carried to bear the pride and duty of Britain in the World.

The same feeling of continuity and responsibility came through the ritual of the Annual Day and the song we sang (borrowed from Harrow School) even though that same song irritated me with its absurd chorus of ‘Follow Up.. the tramp of the 22 men’ and its reference to football! – Play up and play the game….!

But the verse… still sounds in my cavernous head.

Forty years on, when afar and asunder

Parted are those who are singing today,

When you look back, and forgetfully wonder

What you were like in your work and your play,

Then, it may be, there will often come o’er you,

Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song –

Visions of boyhood shall float then before you,

It happens that for me, it is sixty years on. The notes of that song, bellowed out by a few hundred broken and breaking male voices on the edge of manhood, echo still.

The Public School Tradition... St Olave's School III.

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The Public School Tradition continued.
5. The House System.

The school did its best to emulate, or to imitate the grand Public Schools like Harrow. At St. Olave’s the House System was an artificial concept. The notion was based on the boarding houses of those other schools. Since St. Olave’s had no boarding houses the concept of competitive ‘houses’ made no sense at all. I guess it was an attempt to instil the spirit of comradery and competition and to engender the fighting spirit. I couldn’t care a toss for the ‘fighting spirit’. My nature is totally un-comradely, and I have no desire to compete.
‘What sport do you play?’ has from time to time been asked of me. The Headmaster told my mother ‘It is important that he plays a sport.’ It was deemed necessary to be a sportsman. To play sports is to instil in you a sense of fair play – so they say. I, probably more than most have a strong sense of justice. It has always been part of my being. Being a sportsman is not.
However, the school instituted these artificial ‘houses’ and each boy was selected to belong to one or another. I was selected into ‘Drake’ house. It meant absolutely nothing to me. It was no more than an embarrassment to me and indeed an exceedingly excruciating embarrassment a few years on. It was ordained that I would be the Head of House in my final year.
I squirm with embarrassment. It concerns a music competition which was organised between the houses. I had in my early teenage years been persuaded by my mother to learn the piano. I might have done better if the music teacher which my mother chose for me, no doubt at some financial inconvenience, had not lived so far away. A piano had been acquired in about 1946, free from a neighbour of my grandparents. I was persuaded to learn. Money was certainly in short supply and no doubt the lessons were cheap. My mother in those years earned some extra funds by working as a filing clerk in a Tax Office and also by being a house cleaner for a nearby elderly couple. With that money she paid for my piano lessons. But the cycle ride to the teacher’s house was long. It was necessary to attend after school, usually in the dark and I was usually exhausted. I gave up the lessons after a while. However I learned some elements and thought I was more able than I was!
At this music competition, I (with the sense of duty of being Head of House) put myself down to play a piece by Grieg. I squirmed and wished that the floor would open and swallow me. I never played the piano again.
Competition to my mind should be downplayed in education and the spirit of mutual support engendered. But then, you may say ‘is not that the same as comradery?’. I fear that the comradery – camaraderie – encouraged by the school was more in the nature of ‘lets all be macho boys together – the Three Musketeers camaraderie.
6. The Remove
It may have been more rewarding to the school to have instituted competition between the various classes in the school. But a particular foible of the system made that unlikely. The more capable boys were after the third year projected into the ‘remove’. By this trick these boys leapt the fourth year, in effect ‘removed’ and entered the fourth ‘remove’ class, which was the examination year for the School Certificate examination.
This skipping of a year was useful in that it condensed a good deal of learning into one year. It was also a very bad notion in that it forced one to try to acquire enough learning of some subjects, otherwise difficult to learn, into the same period. So it was that I did not learn Greek in one year and of course failed the School Certificate in Greek and barely scraped through in French (my detestation of the French teacher did not help!).
Further mathematics was not given the time which would have been useful. I acquired an undeserved distinction in English Literature and generally came through the whole bundle with only adequate levels of proficiency.

St Olave's School 1945- 1951 Part IV

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The Teaching Staff – a list of those remembered – all I suppose now lost to the living.

I do not suppose that the teachers at St. Olave’s were any better or any worse than any others. Some were extremely bad, some were extremely good.

Soon after the beginning of peace in 1945 a sea change occurred. For then a younger breed of teachers arrived.

Mr. Newmarch.  

This young teacher was there throughout the war and he was the first teacher I met at the new school.  There must have been some good reason why he was not in the services. He was a teacher of Latin. This was the first new subject to me. Mr. Newmarch was approachable and charming. The text books in Latin were brand new and to me fascinating. The school was aware that if any boys were to enter Oxford or Cambridge, then it was necessary that they had some qualification in Latin! I found little difficulty with it, though I little realised why it was necessary to learn it. I remember little, but the foundation in understanding the structure of language has been very important. Apart from that it later eased my way into Oxford.

Dr R.C. Carrington

I first saw the Head Master Dr. R.C. Carrington over a year into my school life. He arrived with the main school on its return from evacuation to Torquay in Devon in 1945. He was a Classics Scholar and in the book ‘Who’s Who’ was described as onetime ‘Student of Archaeology at Rome’. He was a man smaller than his presence suggested. He had a broad high forehead and always looked well washed. Rumour had it that he was repeatedly looking for another position as Head of a far more important school. Today I consider that he was a wise man. He took it upon himself to teach some ‘general studies’ to the VIth form. He covered many subjects, with learning; The History of the United States; The History of Architecture; The Departments of the United Nations. He caused the school to receive monthly digest of United Nations reports which we VIth formers had to read and make resumés.

He even glossed on the basics of Geology, which he averred should be the a study for all students, and introduced the study of Italian. He was not a likeable man; one’s impression is that he was not liked by the staff, but I believe he had admirable ideals. His ideal seemed to me to develop in us the new ‘Renaissance Man’.

Mr. Joseph

History was taught by Mr. Joseph. His exposition of the development of 19th Britain left me somewhat bored. That which moved me most was his undoubted anger at the return of a Labour government in 1945. “That Churchill who has done so much for this country, and routed our enemies, should be ousted by those who owe him so much is a disgrace.” (They at least were his sentiments, if not his words.) Joseph was an aging man with a small moustache and greying hair. But he was a full bodied person with a dominant will.

Sikey Sinclair

He was the bête noire of the pre-peace days. He taught mathematics, looked after the silver badges for the schoolboy’s caps and was constantly angry and crushing. Sometime in my fourth year I found favour with him. A geometry homework was set and all our exercise books were marked by him. At the next maths lesson he arrived and standing by his desk, his black gown wrapped about his middle he began to disclaim to the class. “You have failed. Your work is dismal. Cave! Cave! Come out here!” I shrank and quavered and rose and slowly went to the desk. He threw in groups the exercise books to the floor and said to me –“Cave stamp on them! Stamp!” I reluctantly stepped on a few. “You Cave are the only boy to have got it right!” One did not cross with Sikey if possible.

Mr. Charlwood

He was an empty headed waste of space. He taught geography. He was inept. He was not a tall man and was thin. He had a habit of sitting on top his desk in the Gandhi position, cross legged. One such occasion was interrupted by the headmaster who entered to declaim that each boy would be issued with a ‘dip’ pen. Such pens were to used in conjunction with the ink wells, lodged in the top right corner of every desk. Fountain pens were abolished and any boy seen to use one was to have it confiscated. This ploy had the aim of improving our handwriting.

Dr. Stockwell

He was the senior teacher of French, and I hated his guts. He had the air of boredom. The most used phrase in his lexicon was “You’d better go into detention laddie.” How little he understood me or anyone. Let me recall some anecdotes. My mother had given me a wrist watch. It was my very first watch and I was proud of it. On the back was written ‘Fond acier inoxydable’. I had no idea what it meant. I took it to show Dr. Stockwell. He just brushed me aside and said ‘It is stainless steel’. I wanted to know why it meant that. Moreover I was proud of it. Could he not have spent a little more time saying how nice it was, who gave it to me, that acier means steel- inoxydable means not oxidising and that fond means base or bottom? He had no time for any boy, no patience, no love. He had no talent to be a teacher. His black gown was torn and aged beyond repair. It was so old that the black cloth was turning green in places.

My final despair of French came during one summer holiday. With some semblance of how to be a teacher he gave out small books of the Tales of Maupassant. “Read these during the holidays!” I dutifully began and I genuinely found the first tale interesting. Unfortunately a little way in I discovered that a chunk of the pages had been lost. I threw the book aside and disgusted, resolved never to bother with French again.

Now I live in France. C’est la vie.

To be continued