Trooping the Colour

Looking good at age 94 and 99 respectively

We are at great-great-grandma's where the TV rules the day, and have just finished watching the Queen's official birthday Trooping the Colour at Windsor Castle. It brought back memories of school days. Once a certain age all pupils, unless with good reason, had to choose to be an Army, RAF or Navy cadet and play soldiers every Friday afternoon thereafter. I choose the RAF. Most of the time we were square bashing but there was some desk work - I remember learning about the Bernoulli principle and lift. I still have a certificate from an exam we took - I'll dig it out when we get home. On one occasion the NCO giving the lecture asked the class if we knew what "info" was. Bloody information he shouted, as if that was a peculiar revelation.

Every term there would be an outing. We came to school in our cadet regalia and bearing a packed lunch and were whisked off in a hired coach to our mystery destination, often a military base with real soldiers. On one such occasion I got to fly in a chipmunk. On another we went up in a cargo plane with no windows so one wonders what the point was. We had our own firing range using .22 rifles where I seem to remember I did better than average: on one outing got to fire a .303 and experienced its considerable kick-back.

Once a year there would be a General Parade over which a visiting top-notch would preside. It meant standing for hours on end waiting for things to happen. Usually one or two cadets would faint during this ordeal and this added a bit of interest to the otherwise dullness.

John Ashurst with Duke of Edinburgh 1965

One year the top-notch was the Duke of Edinburgh. He arrived by helicopter, landing in the playing field, and that was sufficient novelty to mark the event in our memories. So we did the general salute and march past thing, like in the Trooping the Colour, in which you marched forward whilst facing to the right and saluting. And then back to standing at attention in our ranks whilst the Duke did his rounds, stopping every so often to ask some boy an inane question. And I fervently hoped that he would not stop in front of myself. The same sort of feeling as in pass-the-parcel with forfeits, or that ridiculous party game where you have to dress up and eat a bar of chocolate with knife and fork, chocolate the previous folk have slobbered over...

And on to Oxford

Back in those days caning had not been banned.

Duke of Edinburgh's visit 1965

John Ashurst (Jake) became headmaster at Peter Symond's just before I started.  He was strict and would use the cane if necessary, but just and most of us respected him.  I vaguely remember the Duke of Edinburgh's visit - it coincided with a "general inspection" of the Combined Cadet Force.  There was one of these each year: all cadets had to stand in the playing fields in full uniform for the duration, maybe three hours - thankfully at ease until the inspecting team came to one's platoon.  Inevitably several boys would feint in spite of having been told how to periodically adjust the pressure on one's feet without it showing.

All that as prelude for the fact that it was Ashurst who was responsible for me going to Oriel College, Oxford.  When it came to that time when third level education had to be decided, Ashurst told me I was Oxbridge material and, on hearing that I wanted to do Electronics Engineering, told me I should study Physics and choose Oriel College.  Thankfully it was no longer necessary to have Latin to matriculate otherwise I would not be here typing this.  There were, however, special entrance examinations which we were groomed for, and (horrors!) a requirement to pass a "Use of English" exam.  I suppose I must have passed the latter.

School days - Peter Symonds 1

Having passed my 11+ exam I graduated to Peter Symonds now a sixth form college but then a boys grammar school. The school has an impressive history.

Several other boys made the same journey as I did by rail to Winchester and then the 10 minute walk from the station to the school. I was put in form 1B and Kirby House.  There were four houses for games: Kirby (red), Mackensie (yellow), Northbrook (green) were non-boarders, and Symonds (deep blue) were boarders.  Thus my games kit consisted of a bright red shirt, thin white shorts that became translucent when wet, plimsoles and football boots.  And a duffel bag to put it all in.

Here is the old school building.  Behind this facade was Northbrook Hall which was used for the lower school assembly led my the deputy headmaster Mr Cooksie.  There was something wholesome and strong about the old school building, and it had a distinct smell .  Every summer vacation the wooden floors in the classrooms and the Hall were re-varnished to a high gloss.  The new building housed science labs, classrooms and the Varley Hall used for upper school assembly, school plays and concerts.

I think I was very different from the normal student particularly in having zero interest and very little ability in sport.  As a result I was a loner especially in my first years. I remember spending what was left of the lunch hour running around the playing fields pretending to be a train. There were wooden benches at intervals that served as stations.  I also kept a ridiculous diary, so childish that (sadly) when older it so embarrassed me that I trashed it.  By the third year I had made some friends and this become a little more normal.

This aerial photograph was taken in 1969 when I would have been in the 5th or lower 6th form. The railway station is behind the camera (shown as a blue arrow in the map) from which the walk ended in Owens Road.

"Breezy" Gale (also known as Windy) was our 3B form master, class room "Kirby" in the Old building. Breezy was OK, one of the last bastions of coshing.  Although by the 3rd year I was an incessant chatterer and joke maker I received the cosh at his hand only as a sort of mock exercise - "Bailey had better have the cosh so he knows what it feels like". Most boys were in right fear of the headmaster's (John Ashurst) cane.

It was expected that boys would know the rules of football, cricket, etc. Since I had never played football before or watched it being played (I remain incredulous as to why anyone should want to watch football on the box) I had no idea of the rules. My asking what the rules were was met with ridicule. In any case, organised sport bored me, so I would loose concentration (I did try) with the result that I would forget which goal was which with disastrous results.

As for cricket, I neither could then nor can now understand the game. My friend and I thought up a way of bringing zest to tennis - the idea is to see how many balls you can keep flying at the same time. This version of the game is better played as doubles.

One sport that did appeal to me was cross country running.  Our standard course was about 5 miles and is shown on the map above and took us to Teg Down. I think we looped around somehow before reaching Teg Down farm.  Once a year there was a cross country race where the whole year would run: typically I would end up about half way between first and last, so even with running my performance was mediocre.

More excitement when I describe some of our masters and class situations must follow in a subsequent post.