Papalscope

Extradition of the Nat West Three.

What on the earth was Parliament thinking about to legislate as they did over this Extradition Treaty? It is all very fine to hear that someone called Baroness Scotland is trying to get America to Ratify the Treaty too. That really is not good enough if America has not ratified it, then we too should suspend our agreement to deliver. Are we a Sovereign Nation or are we not? If the latter let us abolish the Houses of Parliament and stop pretending. The more time this Government is in office, the more embarrassed one becomes of it.

Papalscope

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Downside September 1948-July 1953.

I was actually known as POPE J.B. recycled number 578 on one’s Cash’s name tape, but in the great scheme of things hold the dynastic number 3992. I was disadvantaged in that an elder half brother of different surname had left the school the previous December. He had been the vice Captain of cricket, and won an Exhibition to Cambridge and only then did he have to start counting the lesser honours to which I later aspired. Well of course in 1948 the monastic staff was aware of my kinship. It saddened me to see first the sports masters, and then the ministers of academe turn away with a disappointed look on their face after first meeting me. I did not arrive at the school with any pretension to intellectual prowess. I suppose that if one had been brighter one might have founded the Dyslexia Society; or been unashamed to announce that one detested playing Games, doing Gymnastics or Boxing or idling ones youth away playing Cricket. In all my time there I never owned a Hockey stick. One had played Rugby previously, and so played it again being seemingly the proper shape to be a back row forward. ‘Put your head to his buttocks and shove’ was all that was expected of one. In the end one made the house team, and possibly occasionally the second fifteen. I enjoyed being in the Signal’s Platoon of the School Corps, because my hobby was making wireless sets, and I was prepared to go along with all the drill because that was expected of one. It was a time of National Service, and part of getting a Commission after Downside was that one had both Certificate A and B. and had passed the Empire Shooting Test, the latter an achievement for anyone who hadn’t actually shot one of his fellow cadets. One boy once told me that I liked the Corps because it was the only thing I was any good at. I hear he made a great success in his chosen career of Priest.

I think I reached Downside on the strength of my half brother’s Academic reputation and a cracking good report from Prep School that told what a splendid sort of a chap I was, despite everything.

Another disadvantage was that my widowed mother could not afford the fees, so one never quite had any money to spend on non essentials. Even one’s very basic requirements were a financial drain. Hence no hockey stick! One felt at lest financial empathy with Dickie Attenborough’s (Now Lord Attenborough H.v-z.) role as the ‘Guinea pig’. My relative penury arose through the demands of Chancery. We too awaited ‘Judgement on the day of Judgement’.

I had arrived at Downside one sunny September afternoon accompanied by my mother. First a train and then the bus from Bath. We had shared that with another new boy, whose father is well known as one of England’s most famed Composers. Unfortunately neither mother nor I had then heard of him, one hopes such ignorance did not depress Francis’ mother too much. Did I hear that Eton at least used to list boys not by name, but by order of the importance of their parents? There is much one might say in favour of the system. It wouldn’t have affected me, for any early seniority I had in the upper school was purely of an alphabetical nature.

One was greeted by ‘Tom’ the School Porter in the gate keeper sense of the word. His very smart cap was reserved for wear either on the first day of a school year, or on prize day. Tom was the most significant member of the ancillary staff, and so in our eyes out ranked his son Tony, who was the School Secretary. In Tom’s long experience new boys went into the Junior House, and that was all there was to it. Standing corrected as one was it took a while to extricate oneself from such disappointing information. Fortunately he was incorrect for I too, amidst many others that term, was but a post war anachronism. Downside had welcomed late arrivals to fill the accommodation recently vacated by the daughter foundation Worth School. As we had all missed out on the bonding delights of the Junior House then controlled by the Rev. Simon Van Zeller, every new boy of an age in every other house was installed in the Remove Dormitory. A rather capacious space that seemingly squatted between Smythe and the Junior house. It had a small room off, to accommodate a duty Prefect. It was cold it was cheerless and formed no part of the Headmaster’s conducted school tour. Thinking back on it, it was akin to an old Nightingale Ward in any Crimean Hospital, without the pleasure of the nurses.

It was there that I cultivated my reserve. Ones new friends had found the Common Entrance exam so easy, and all were in Forms higher than mine. If I wasn’t in the Junior House, I certainly met up with its lesser progeny in the classroom as I struggled to keep afloat. Somehow I finished off that first year with the form prize, in ‘Litteris Humanioribus’, I am sure that doesn’t translate as good conduct. Possibly it was for being the most trying!

Apart from that Dormitory business, one was in Barlow House; it had a new house master. Rev Cuthbert Mc Cann known, following mention in the under counter publication ‘The Rook’, as ‘The Nip of the Downside Corps Oh!’ for he had an alter ego as o/c the School Corps, and a pair of spectacles that did not fit. Four words spoken entitled him to one push up on the bridge of the frame to restore perfect vision. Head of House was A.L.Hayes Newington. I believe he was also the senior under officer of the school corps. He was only there that one last term before the army, but it’s a small world. My wife has been partnered with him either side of the same horse when assisting at Riding for the Disabled ‘You Jane? Me Tony’ the only introduction. I had seen such a recognisable name listed, but my wife said she had never met him. In one’s first year at the bottom of the house, one ‘fagged’ for Prefects. I understand from American friends that the term no longer has the same connotation. The idea was that one cleaned some Prefect’s shoes and blancoed his Corps webbing and that was more or less it. In return one might expect to receive not merely patronage, but have one’s Cinema paid for and very possibly be fed free buns. My fag-master Bobby L. was a very agreeable fellow but had apparently been unaware of the largesse of others. I never caused him any trouble, but when I eventually acquired a fag of my own, within some twenty minutes of his appointment he had redecorated my study with Spanish Bull Fighting Posters. His year was made of stronger stuff than ours.

At the time all classes tended to disperse after each lesson prior to re-grouping in a different classroom under the auspices of a different master who had in turn come from another classroom himself. The School Timetable was a work of Mathematical Art produced by Major A. H. Page who later succeeded the ‘Nip of the Downside Corps Oh’, as O/c the CCF. One heard he had received National commendation for having produced the best of School Timetables.

All teachers were male. Both School and Village were distinctly short on ladies; although there was an unending supply of fresh Irish maidens on the other side of the green baize door. One of whom was very upset when she heard herself described as a Hag, for such was their trade description. Cleaning was done by Jhons. Their main occupation seemed to be resurfacing the acreage of parquet flooring. All spoke Somerzet and possibly had seen war service. Prior to a fire some years after I left the School there was Gymnasium-Wing, this too not on the Headmaster’s guided tour for ‘prospective’ parents. Although Sgt. Phillips APTC had charge of the Gymnastics, his Gym doubled as the school Cinema, and Theatre. Adjoined to it were other men at work. Our ex. Army Barber a man full of Barrack Room Ballads, he proudly exhibited a length of a Bull’s Anatomy on his premises that new boys had the guessing of. Mr Skinner was the School Tailor, who kept very busy be-suiting one and all. I had the impression his clientele included the Monastery. There was too the Band room, and the Carpentry Workshop and the Armoury with the Office and Store of our ex. Irish Guards Regimental Sergeant-Major Patrick O’Connor. He divided his time between the Corps and the Rugger Field be that at Downside or Twickenham. More importantly the gym-wing accommodated what was to become my Holy of Holies the Corps Signals Room. There was also a separate building where Fr. Edmund ‘Spanner’ Lee ran his workshop. Apart from teaching practical engineering to some, he also taught Maths, and had the reputation of being an expert on the trajectory path of a blackboard rubber. He had built a wonderful Miniature Steam Locomotive and was responsible for the construction of the railway line that train ran along.

The School Surgery backed onto the Armoury, maybe both were in the Old House. This was Matron’s domain where assisted by either of two Nurses she supervised both Surgery and the Sanatorium overhead. Doctor Carter was an Old Boy of the School well versed when it came to relocating shoulders beside the Rugger field. It was I that put him to the test in September 1952 having returned to the School in pain after an exchange holiday with a friend in France. I was treated for the whole term and be sported myself under Sister’s Infra Red lamp for many a week without any explanation being given, until being sent home at the end of term with a bottle of Vitamin B12 (Complex) and a letter that diagnosed my problem as what was then known as Infantile Paralysis. Polio Mellitus. I still feel fortunate to have got off so lightly. One can if necessary play up the residual limp, whilst feeling fortunate to have avoided the yet to be developed Salk vaccine. One of Father Cuthbert’s favourite pronouncements was that ‘Man is a Social Animal’ it said much for my gregarious nature that no one else’ except a couple of young lady friends back home got my polio; nor any prior to that the mumps which I had enjoyed in Solitary splendour.

The Headmaster was the Rev.Wilfred Passmore, later both Prior and Abbot. He was an old boy and he had been called to the Bar en route. He was large, and was alleged to be in poor health. He was so myopic that he seemed to find it necessary to get behind a piece of paper before being able to focus his eyes on the front of it. He was a man in good control of his circumstance. He brooked no problem with the outside world and if one of his boys had one, he sorted it out there and then over the telephone being no respecter of the wrongful decisions of others. He was particularly helpful when it came to References. When Bursar he’d dismissed an alleged dishonest Store man. The reference he gave him when it was requested was that the man was ‘inclined to take things too easily’.

It was not sufficient in my CV that I liked Gilbert and Sullivan, but apparently had best mention my appreciation of Offenbach. Such manipulation caused me a problem when attending interview at London Hospital. I was possibly the only one of the Downside Contingent that day who actually was a member of the School’s Abingdon Debating Society. Seemingly all the other interviewees had been upgraded to membership too, so not only devaluing the whole, but causing me to have to explain what on the earth the Abingdon Society was. We were all offered places some even passed their first Mb. exemption and took them up. I recall Passmore’s advice that I might practice Medicine as a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. In reality one went to work in the City at Lloyds. Way back in 1953 one worked in the City, or in Medicine, The Law, Accountancy, or any of the Professions, at the very least one joined the Services. Frequently the Professions expected to be paid a premium, and at best the premium might be refunded as wages. Not surprisingly even Estate Agents expected to receive ‘cash up front’.

Every evening after dinner there was a list posted on the Headmaster’s Notice Board. Maybe six or eight boys to attend his study. There was the implication that each was to beaten not for any disciplinary matter but in causa academica. I recall mention once of an alleged poor performance in Physics, although the Master concerned had made no complaint. Fr.Wilfrid was right that I remained no scholar, but it was oppressive never to know the hour or the Day of Atonement. It was a foregone procedure. A Headmaster shining an Angle poise lamp into your face did not disguise that concealed beneath his habit; he held the strap at the ready. There was no point in discussion. The last occasion he beat me was the same day I had first been appointed a House Prefect.

At other times he would invite a group of boys in to be sociable. Each was greeted with a whole box of chocolates of his own. Seemingly the coupons involved were the gift of Nuns. Fr Wilfrid ran the Sodality for the most senior boys in the School. I suppose it was to be a preparation for life in the outside world. He also ran the Law Society. The School had fostered a very distinguished collection of Lawyers. I did hear tell of the entire bench in Cyprus being once entirely composed of old Gregorians. I have ever recalled his advice about how one was to deal with a black mailer, but as yet have never had the opportunity to try it out.

Downside fostered delusions of grandeur. Bristol Grammar School was a phrase that would always raise a hilarious jeer. Fr. Hubert van Zeller’s book ‘Willingly to School’ told of an effete generation of boys not in the context of their achievements, but in relation to the sometime status of their family wealth. More reverentially Brideshead, than inspirational. In my time there was a boy, who has since been on the Committee of the Old Gregorian Society whose perceived ‘attitude’ was explained away by his Housemaster, on the basis that his mother ran a shop. One of my Contemporaries told me that he didn’t think Downside was meant for the like of ‘us’. I thought that a harsh appreciation, but too detected that an old under current of deference persisted. It was rather as though the School was unwilling to stand up to be counted on its current undoubted worth. Seemingly preferring to view itself in the Glory days under the Headmasterships of Ramsay and Trafford. In more recent years one Staff member was heard to tell in regretful tone that a parent was more likely to be a Supermarket Manager than of the Catholic gentry. I had always kept quiet about my remote kinship to Sir Thomas Pope, who as Clerk to the Court of the Star Chamber dissolved so many of the Catholic Monasteries.

Very interesting people would visit both Abbey and School. I recall O.Gs. Peter Rawlinson, Patrick O’Connor; Boyd Neale, Muir Matheson. (once heard to tell Passmore to sit down and shut up there). (I note that Peter Rawlinson died last week, and that his funeral was held in Our Village this very morning as he had retired to an appartment at Wardour Castle); and Vaughan Williams and Evelyn Waugh. Denis Worlock and Joseph Christie were among the Eminent Clergy. All manner of other top people came. What would have been an excellent thing would have been the opportunity to meet up with lesser mortals whose lot was more likely to become our own, men one might have better competed with. One was left with the feeling that second or third best was just not worth having. Even OG. Industrialist Richard Rapier Stokes the then Minister of Works got a certain amount of stick for being a Labour MP.

House Master Cuthbert Mc. Cann who had a nephew at the School was The Barlow House Master for only two years. He had taken the House over from Fr.Victor Farwell and handed it on to Fr. Oliver Braden. I believe the latter was Censor to the English Benedictine Community. He wove church fabric as a hobby whilst he smoked home grown tobacco in quantity. He was also very good at doing crossword puzzles, talking them through each evening with his house prefects as he entertained them with coffee. He too moved on after a couple of years, seemingly becoming a member of the Community at Worth. I only know that because a Television Camera was focussed on his gravestone in the course of a recent programme concerning a Retreat there.

There was a particular monk who was never then a Priest ? He taught Scripture and Latin, knew the circumstance of every train in the Country and knew all about locks and keys. Inexplicably Latin Primers would disappear off people’s bundles of books legitimately left around the School. Unfailingly they would turn up in the possession of this one teacher, and could only be redeemed through impositions. The good Brother had the courtesy title of Father, however all his pupils were of an opinion that he used to ‘acquire’ these Latin Primers in passing. When one says he taught Scripture for ‘O’ levels that would be overstating the case. Invariably he would arrive in the class room, carrying a huge bundle of books, give some sort of an excuse and leave. That was it. I saw no evidence of him turning up in the exam room distributing the answers to the questions, or of his hiding under his desk in a thunderstorm, but certainly he insisted on the windows being closed to keep the lightning out.

The late ‘Bertie’ Howell was of importance to many a Gregorian. He taught Maths, and ran a special weekly all afternoon Maths cramming course for the less gifted usually some fifty of us. He was an excellent Teacher. He propounded the milk maid theorem and was keen on applied Maths; his wife’s knitting patterns often featured in our deliberations.

His most practical advice was that the Maths-exam consisted of five questions, each having twenty marks allocated to it, so even if you did dis-prove Einstein it was still worth but twenty marks. The other thing was that he knew what questions would come up each year, which was quite helpful. Every time there was an external exam he would have displayed the worked-out answer to each question by the time one left the examination room. Which at that time was the Gasquet Hall. He spent some spare time in Shepton Mallet Military prison, as a remedial teacher and retired to New Milton on the South Coast. I saw him in the street there once but missed the opportunity to talk. He was still wearing his brown Harris Tweed jacket.

The Classical sixth was the elite grouping in the school. Its membership seemed to border on the aesthetic. It lived and breathed the Classics under the direction of Mr. Henry, a man who bore a superficial resemblance to the late Ronnie Barker. Did they get some six Oxbridge Scholarships every year? One heard some tale of Mr. Henry eventually parting company with Downside and going to teach elsewhere.

All the teaching was excellent and Academic standards high. One has little information of the current situation however there is a Downside Diary on the Internet which portrays a far more vibrant ambience. Undoubtedly School League Tables are subject to different interpretations. The Grammar School my children attended in Salisbury seems more than competitive academically.

I never saw anyone bullied at Downside and all who went there can hold their head up high. Even so I have come to doubt that sending one’s children off to be educated by celibate monks was a good thing. If it wasn’t good for the rest of us; was it a good thing for those boys who left School to immediately enter either Monastery or Priesthood? I detect quite a lot of unhappiness amidst the clergy. Many a vocation has turned into a penance. The easier option in such circumstance is to bury one’s head beneath the blanket of despair in the hope that things will look better in the morning. It is usually too late to do any thing else.

What of an after Life?

It is all very well to blame the acquisitive society for the current dearth in vocations in the Christian Church, but possibly Religion might benefit from introspection? Maybe the old truth and certainties are no longer acceptable to the universally educated man, and ye gods let us not forget the women.

What was it my equally distant kinsman 'Alexander'said of people going to Church, not for the Religion but the music there? Life has a void that gets filled by every form of gluttony, be it avarice, drink, sex, television, reading or even writing books or Blog sites. On the positive side that void is filled by good works and Religion. ‘The Church’ is excellent when it comes to remedial work, however if there is something equally as important as Charity, it is personal involvement in the process of Government at every level. That is not to say one has to set oneself up as a Councillor or Parliamentarian. It does mean that each one of us has the duty to ensure those we so entrust in Office really represents our own point of view.

One should not support Political Candidates because they belong to a particular Party, nor if they seek office for their own or anyone else’s personal aggrandisement. Unfortunately Politics has become a sinecure for life. If one’s representative is ineffective don’t re-elect him or her next time around. Too many are in Government just for the ride. In my time at Downside there was a course run by Fr. Ralph possibly on Social Awareness. Entry to it never came my way, but these fifty years on I feel that the subject should have been obligatory. Possibly it now is. I suppose it was a matter of educating people for life rather than death.

Was it Father Passmore who said that he was educating his boys for death?

It is not unreasonable for education to stretch ones imagination beyond the school gate. In my time far fewer went to University, whilst most had to go into National Service.

My lack of Academic success was compounded by one final year in what may have been termed the Medical Sixth form. Physics and Chemistry apart our spiritual home was the laboratory on the top floor of the Science Block. Our Teacher was acquired off the shelf from Wellington College, or as he referred to it’ The Gordon Boys Home’. He smoked as a chimney and seemed to have been ‘cured’ in the process as his general complexion put one in mind of a kipper. Pupils could but conjecture over the problem he had over his moustache, first one saw it then one didn’t. Wherever possible he suffixed every word with ‘aggers’ it was this, that inspired some wag possibly the late Michael Chignell to advertise

‘Mustaggers for sale, one every six months, apply the Zoology Laboratory’

Our Mr Lewis coughed and spluttered and wore what has come to be known as a ‘flasher’s’ raincoat and beneath it a brownish Harris Tweed Suit. He swore by ‘Yapp’ when it came to Botany, and Auntie Maud (Borradaile) when it came to Zoology. I happened upon Auntie Maud’s niece once at a party, the family was delighted to hear their aunt was then still the authority at Downside. I am not sure how many of our medical sixth became Doctors.

Another great personality of my time was Paddy Roache the boxing coach formerly an all Ireland Champion. He was everyone’s friend, well liked although none took up his open invitation to 'come and watch Paddy have a shower'. Did he have some sort of premises within the Allen Swimming Pool building? That building accommodated the squash courts as it possibly still does? The afore mentioned Michael Chignell was our star player both home and away. I recall RJO Meyer the then proprietor of Millfield School would come over from Street to play against him. Millfield was regarded by us with some astonishment if not envy. Pupils, who visited Downside in support of their various Teams, came complete with girls and cigarettes. We knew the place as a cramming establishment, and a centre of Athletic excellence. I recall a Downside friend going there prior to joining the Army. I see he made it to Major General, so it clearly worked.

I never got around to becoming an ‘OG’ as such, well I did, but the membership was negotiated away behind my back by my Father’s Trustees. Such abstinence obviated any obligation to contribute funds to the cause. A couple of years back I made contact with an old boy in a neighbouring village concerning a local namesake. His phone response was ‘Downside, Yes what do you want?’ in a ‘what now?’ tone of voice. I do have an Old boys list as a book of reference, and when necessary hint that my name is omitted from it for reasons of Security. I suspect several young ladies over the years regarded me with deep suspicion when I was the subject of their possibly desperate research. I suppose as one gets older one needs aide memoirs. A couple of years back I went to the funeral of a school friend whom I had not seen since attending his wedding. The Church at Chipping Norton was resplendent with Old Gregorian Ties. Heaven only knows where Teddy had happened upon so many grey haired ageing men equipped with hearing aids and walking sticks,for I was still so young. Possibly revisiting ones youth is but another nail in any man’s coffin. J.B.P.

St.Augustines Abbey School at Hemingford 1945-1948.

Sixty years on.
They knew not St.Augustines whom only Parry Knew.

Madeley Court days started for me aged eleven at Kings Cross Station in September 1945. I had come from a Church of England Prep School evacuated from Sussex onto the Campus of Bradfield College. My home was then close enough to the Bradfield that one arrived there each term by car or taxi, despite petrol rationing.

It impressed me to find that St.Augustine's had especially reserved compartments on a train. The Monks at Kings Cross, there to accompany us, were nattily dressed in what I had hitherto regarded to be proper Clerical Garb. I have no recollection where that train dropped us off, probably Huntingdon; nor of how we transferred thence.

The School was something of a culture shock. Catholicism, the cowled medievalism of Monks, Latin, Rugger. Those outside lavatories and cheerless classrooms doubling as Day Rooms, and the idiosyncrasy of staff members both lay and clerical. At the time Fr.Abbot, who had been wounded in the First World War, was kept at arms length in Ramsgate. That winter term brought Madeley Court several other eleven-year-olds from different Schools. I had been at an excellent Prep School for the previous three years, and contrasted and compared the two. St.Augustines was for me an oppressive experience. It regimented and taught one, but gave scant opportunity for either inter -active Education or for the legitimate development of self-expression. Maybe it was too authoritarian too restrictive? I acknowledge having something of a 'hang-up' that equates my three years at Madley Court, with the same sense of frustration prevalent in all that serve their time in the wrong place. For me it was three years too long. Overall I would have preferred not to have changed schools when I did. Experience is subjective and differs for everyone whilst nostalgia is best viewed through rose tinted spectacles. Even without any there were good times, and worthwhile friendships with contemporaries. Who wrote that book 'A man of two worlds'? It concerned a black African who became a renowned Western World Pianist. He thought he was a man of two worlds, but in the end found he belonged to neither. Those three years left me short on ‘Gregariosity‘, a word I have just coined on the basis that my spell check likes Gregariousness no better. What was it Father Cuthbert Mc.Cann OSB used to tell ? 'Man is a Social Animal'

Father David Parry my first Headmaster, had a brother on the staff, possibly he was recuperating from the War?

Soon after my arrival Fr. David had given way to a new Headmaster Fr Edward Hull who had presented himself in clerical mufti. In his case the smart uniform of a RAF Chaplain freshly back from I believe Burma. Writing now aged over seventy, I am relatively far older than either Headmaster then was, so feel entitled to express my own opinion that some other person might better have been appointed to replace Fr. David.

One of our new Headmaster's earliest pronouncements was on the lines that he had never known anything so disgusting as people. It was he who had the maxim that boys should 'strip to the waist and wash both ends', but he never explained the matter.

He was not approachable, and had the look of a man with deep-seated dyspepsia, a man who never smiled. The best he could manage was a grimace that both staff and boys took to be an expression of ill humour. It would have been better had Fr. Edward delegated more. He seemed to be the Chief of Priests, a Teacher, who when doubling as an Art Master confused the subject with Draughtsmanship. He was General Manager, Headmaster, and Lord High everything else, and ran the school on the carrot and the stick principle. Did he ever get round to appointing a Head Boy I wonder? That apart '…Nil Nisi ' as the tag goes.

The post war period was a difficult time, and Fr.Edward would have been an excellent Bursar. He tried hard. created a new library and introduced us to that miracle of modern science the Neon Tube. He 'sourced' a supply of blankets, which had apparently been fumigated with sulphur dioxide. He also produced two ex. -Army bell tents with scraffitoed embellishments from which I learned much. These tents were for the use of the Scout Troop, which he had (re-) started; so too the Cub Pack of which I had the honour to be Akela's assistant. Akela and Miss Coxon were a civilising influence on the school.

First thing every day one attended Mass in the 'Colt' Chapel which the Community may have provided for themselves? There was too an evening Service six days a week. Each term would start with that Service and its 'Salve Regina' .

Did we really attend Mass twice every Sunday? We certainly went to Compline and Benediction. The latter's 'Jube Domine Benedicere.' remains ingrained on my consciousness after a lifetime of Catholic abstinence. To those of us in the Choir that vocal exchange between our first Cantor and the Headmaster was known as 'jubbing'. My immediate Choir Senior then was the late Brian Peerless who eventually became a main man at Newcourts in the city. The Choir rehearsed under Fr.Ambrose King, some two sessions every week. Rehearsals didn't end there either, because there were rehearsals for Altar Boys. Further more there was one boy in our Dormitory who then considered he would become a Priest. Thus as often as not he would recite Mass when we were in bed. His other great love was Music. Between times he would imitate and conduct an imaginary Orchestra. There was no way that any of us could make him believe that there was a serious musician known as Barbarolli. I recently saw our friend's name posted on a door at an Oxford College where he has attained great heights. 'There is a lot in these birds of a feather business!

Madeley Court was a family house prior to our advent. It had been bequeathed to someone's Housekeeper; she in turn leased it to the school. The Dormitories might therefore be better described as bedrooms. All except the one at the head of a rather grand staircase, which had the appearance of a former ballroom. It had a great grate, boarded-in at the far end. As was proper with blocked off chimneys, there was a hole left for ventilation. That proved to be a mistake. Was it flu that the whole school succumbed to? We certainly had the monks and other staff running up and down those stairs feeding us in bed. Much of the non-returnable' food got posted through that slit in the wall. A while later there was an inexplicable invasion of mice in the Dormitory. Fr. Robert, who later transferred to the Douai Abbey Community devised an automatic mousetrap which on one memorable night deposited all of thirteen mice into a container of water. May one remind readers that Continental Time, better known as Double British Summer Time was then still in operation. It was quite feasible in the summer to read in bed until about ten o'clock. It was that, combined with us being sent to bed at an unreasonably early hour, that gave scope for a lot of the afore mentioned night life. As I recall it, there was always a cane close at hand. This chiefly affected the younger boys, however there was one lad in an adjoining bed afflicted with enuresis. Apparently in those days the reflex cure for that, in the eyes of our Headmaster, was a sound caning. The school had little to be proud of when it came to corporal punishment. I recall one boy being beaten in front of the whole School which had been especially assembled to witness the event. Frequently a lad would be sent to collect the cane from the Head Master's Study in the main building across the Quad, in order that he might be beaten in the 'Library' then better known as the corridor outside the classrooms in the old stable block. Or was it a Coach House?

Everyone liked Fr Norbert Lapworth, he of the Snuff habit. A very capacious round Friar Tuck of a man pulled together in the middle by a wide leather belt. Possibly he was the Deputy Headmaster? I recall that a relation of his would send him a ginger bread cake presumably for his birthday, which he kindly shared with some of the senior boys.

Fr.Aidan Mc.Ardle the Bursar was an agreeable spiritual man who liked when visiting a house to see a 'Bible and Crucifix' when the door was opened to him. He was, and hopefully still is, empathetic so too Fr.Robert Biddulph mentioned above. The latter was indeed a very fine Conjurer and member of the Magic Circle. He taught Maths and Woodwork and was always available to listen to anyone's woes in the Carpentry Shop. He ran the School cinema projector in the Hall. His classroom blackboard always bore a Banner Heading, was it All Glory to God…..? I regret Latin and I had a confrontational relationship. I really can't remember him keeping bees then, but he certainly did so at Douai. Bees would account for his access to wax for his Carpentry shop. It was in that place that he fabricated his conjuring apparatus. There too he conjectured on the possibility of boring out Hodgson's starting pistol. That same Hodgson had legitimate access to the Village Post Office, which was covertly helpful, when it came to letters out. His mother used to send her sons the most splendidly illustrated letters worthy of Beatrice Potter. Someone used to sell Carbide? Which with added water made a Marmite Pot into an excellent Hand Grenade.

Fr.Ambrose was attached to his cane but was also in charge of the school Tuckshop as well as the choir.

Fr.William was ubiquitous. Apart from the Rugby ('Low low Go for him low whether he's fast or whether he's slow') and the Cricket, and the boxing, ('He who turns his head away is the first to see Matron') and the Track Sport, he was also the Assistant Scout Master and taught Maths. He assured us that Mr.Churchill permitted Mathematicians to use as much paper as they needed for the subject, and advised us that 'When in doubt we should factorise'. He was a man who rated people as either a 'good egg' or not, as the case might be. He was 'Hearty', and it was he who started off each day with those Gymnastics in the school Quad, be it winter or summer. Those of us there at the time will surely recall the term 'Little Bird's Flutter' which involved whacking ones thighs with the palms of one's hands.

Did we really eat conch shaped pasta, boiled in watered down milk every day as a dessert, or was it but the stuff that dreams are made of? I recall Father Edward telling us that he really didn't know how Matron managed it on the Rations. Possibly his remark was ironic? I have no recollection of the jam arrangements. Did we have jam? I certainly raffled some at 3d. a ticket raising circa 25/- odds superior to those of the National Lottery, this was followed up by raffling a bar of Russian Chocolate bought from another boy for 4/-.

A priest Fr. Payne came in from St Ives to hear Confessions. Lay staff members tended to be slightly curious. There was an English Teacher who did nothing in Class, other than read to his pupils from a bumper book of Detective Stories. Possibly he corrected 'Prep'. That occurrence apart, it is too long ago to remember detailed complaint of others. There seemed to have been so many teachers that one might wonder whether they were on shift work. Did Fr. Robert once calculate that I had had circa eight Maths Teachers between 1945 and 1948?

It wasn't all grind. There was the year the Ouse flooded the Cellars. A cold winter when Fr.Edward conspired to flood the Quad for the boys to skate over. Bit hard on shoe leather. Rugger matches gave one the opportunity to visit other schools and eat teas. Kings College Choir School amazed us in that the 'loos' had no doors to them, and that the boys had to display record of their bowel movements on a Tally Board in the dining room. An Orphanage in Bedford humiliated us when a one arm three-quarter ran rings around us. There was the occasional use of a couple of air rifles for a little rough shooting around the grounds. The Scouts and Cubs, and films, and the conjuring, school theatricals and once a birthday tea party. One boy's father, a Caterer provided an excellent spread for his son and a Refectory Table full of guests. Was that Russell? There were Essay and General Knowledge Competitions. Both probably won by Willie Charlton. A great game of 'Detective' was organised which came complete with false clues.

I managed to capture an area of an under used Classroom for my personal use over an extended period of time, and still have nightmares about having to move all my junk out on the day on judgement. It was a useful place, somewhere to mix Gunpowder albeit to the consternation of Father William who expected that it would go off bang. It was a chance to be different, as too was keeping the school supplied with ink. That gave one the opportunity to be elsewhere as necessary. Holding the key of the games-cupboard under the stable staircase or helping at tuck shop were other ways to do one's own thing.

There was a lot of bullying in such a close community. Not necessarily older boys bullying younger boys> We had no access to the news. Neither papers, nor wireless. (One had been presented to the school for the boys' use, but apart from six of us hearing the Royal Wedding on it, that was it.) It was rather as though we were trapped in an opaque-sided goldfish bowl which denied us any knowledge of current affairs. My previous school had the Broadsheet Newspapers on a daily basis. Few Speakers visited St.Augustine's; I recall talks from a Priest concerning Wartime Malta and another from a man who had been member of Shackleton's Expedition.

When parents visited, opportunities arose for tea at the guest-house in the Village, and was there some sort of a tea room at the Ouse side boat house close to the school gates? There skiffs and punts were available for hire. Both Hemingfords are pretty villages. Did we have the oldest inhabited house in England close by. Did not our village spawn the Rt.Honble John Major PC. MP.?

Times were a changing. If the staff had been affected by their war time experiences so too had both the pupils and their parents. Fr.Wilfrid Passmore RIP when Headmaster of Downside commented that

'St.Augustine Boys were all such men.'

One might wonder whether he might have said 'old men' instead? Since then the very best of Schools and Convents have either closed or been 'Secularised'.

There are many anecdotes of post war survival, however one lot of monks tends to fade into the next. I never heard the circumstance of Father Edward's violent death, nor even knew the school had finished trading.

If this 'Blog' appears to be one long moan, please understand it is but a superficial account of underlying complications. Even so it is written by the first 'chap' to be awarded the eponymous 'Fowler Wright Prize' the year it was instituted. In my case the reward for being a helpful little so and so. The prize manifested as the poems of Francis Thompson, and another book relating the seemingly masochistic penance of an Irish Priest.

If any of the original school buildings remain, there is nothing of them identifiable on the Google Satellite. .
It was nice to be able to tell the National Trust Lady at Houghton Mill that ‘Yes, I had visited previously, but had not been for sixty years.

Claremont School at 'The Close' Bradfield College, Bradfield, Berkshire. (In the UK).
From full three score years on.

It started for me in September 1942. The School had been relocated from its premises at Hove in Sussex. History had it that the day after it had moved out, a bomb had fallen on the building that the School had just vacated.

The Proprietor and Headmaster was Mr. William O'Byrne, a man of such immense height that every doorframe was an obstacle to his progress. He was assisted by his wife; his family also comprised their son Jeremy and daughter Andrea, who was in the care of her own Nanny. 'W.O'B' was a former Sussex Cricketer. Both he and his wife were well liked. Their School quite excellent in every way, despite that war raged around us.

There was a deputy Headmaster called Mr. Jenkins. He was an older man whose life style was maintained not through eating tintacks as legend had it, but medicated liquorice, were they called Negroids then? Any of his spare time was spent perfecting the manufacture of implements of chastisement. The culmination of design was a sort of paddle with a sprung handle, which added new meaning into 'this hurts me more than it hurts you'. Apart from on one occasion, the Headmaster W.O'B never actually beat anyone himself. The system was that during vacations, his son would tear sheets of paper into slips sufficiently large for notes to be written such as
'W.J.- {A.N. Other} Six hard- W.O'B'.
The idea was that after receiving such a voucher from the Head, one presented it to Mr. Jenkins for encashment.
It was either a matter of being instructed to bend over an old tea chest in his study, primarily there as a repository for Games equipment; or one was taken almost anywhere else that took his fancy. This might well be to a dormitory on the top floor of the building.

Mr. Jenkins was banker of credits, and distributor of the sweet ration. Remarkably this amounted to six sweets every Saturday. That was a lovely day. Classes would have finished before lunch. There were Soccer Matches against Schools such as the neighbouring St.Andrews Pangbourne; then run by the entirely successful Llewllyn Smith Family. Their children eventually distributing their talents as a Deputy Secretary at the Board of Trade and later Principal of St.Hilda's. Another was one of her Majesty's Ambassadors, whilst the youngest son a Professor, became Director General of CERN. Another daughter being completely normal married a schoolmaster at I believe Bradfield College.

Claremont had some sixty-six pupils, gathered from other Schools to form the homogenous whole. It was wonderful that our small establishment had thehospitality of Bradfield College. There we occupied 'The Close' and shared their magnificent Playing Fields. In those days some of the hinterland had been given over to Agriculture as a part of the war effort. We used their

Claremont had access to an area of woodland, which was quite alive with natural springs, all of us delighted to re-plumb their induced flow into Pools and waterfalls. My Source was the only one with a hot water flow. I had to show Mr.O'B precisely where I had found it. Apparently there were unaccountable problems with the hot water supplied to us by 'The House on the Hill' at the College. A mystery no longer! Not my fault I just found it Gov! The other thing that happened in the woods was the construction of camps, shelters that would have credited an African Safari guarding against lions. Our Digging for Victory took the form of a small Allotment for anyone interested in its maintenance.
Clearly most boys had parents at war, Brigadiers, and Wing Commanders abounded. My Father was already too old, but my siblings and cousins were all fighting the good fight. Claremont's windows were 'blued over' and the glass cross-taped, or each was fitted with its own blackout frame. There were high corrugated iron bastions filled with ballast to protect our designated shelter area, the games changing room. Occasionally we heard the sounds of dog fights overhead both by day and night, and once witnessed the mysterious descent of a Parachutist. Occasionally there were alleged night time Air Raid rehearsals so that we might become practised concerning what to do if the worst happened, but maybe they were not rehearsals after all?
The school was very keen to gather Rose hips each autumn. Sacks full were sent for the manufacture of Rose Hip syrup.
At some stage we welcomed two brothers (Were they called Rance?) recently escaped from occupied France, under machine gun fire as they crossed over the mountains. That was before anyone had thought of writing 'The Sound of Music'.

One bright morning we heard tell of ' D-Day', clearly after the day itself. None doubted our successful advance, which we heralded to the call of 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. The seriousness of the matter escaped the notice of ten-year-olds, but we should have known better. I caused my daughters to be on the beaches thirty years later. There were some old soldiers around, but public support was so sparse that Mrs. Eric de Mornay, whose husband was covering the event for BBC Television was reduced to chatting to us, but then that too was thirty years ago. 'Tempus Fugit'.

There was little apparent concession to the fact that there was a war on. The sun still shone, we occupied a well designed building, ate very well, attended the Village Parish Church every Sunday, after which the boys set off in crocodile formation for a walk. Prior to church one wrote home. After lunch one had a rest period, reading whilst lying on the lawn when the weather permitted. Then we went for a second walk. I think everyone at the school must have the fondest memories of time spent there. Maybe it was too soft by far? When the School returned South to newly acquired premises at Baldstow, I was sent elsewhere. It was only then that the reality of Prep School living hit me for the first time. I am sorry for any that knew no better.

New boys in 1942 were still expected to be properly equipped. Clothes Rationing did not really come into the scheme of the dress code. It was all half a dozen of this and a dozen of that, and overall a straw Boater for Sunday wear, whilst a cap was deemed adequate at other times. W.O'B once produced an enormous box of the best quality red leather cricket balls. These were retailed to the boys, at a time that such things were ‘unobtainable’.

There was an interesting selection of staff. The Gym was the preserve of Bradfield’s Sgt.-Major Hartigan. A man who threatened to use a spiked running shoe on miscreants, but of course he never did, it just seemed likely that he might. There was an incredibly old Mr Daniels from the Bradfield College retired stock, and the occasional use of their current staff members Mr. Bax and Mr. Burton Brown (B13) each a parent of boys at Claremont. Another of their masters was married to a French National. I recall her entertaining us, whilst wearing her National Costume, with a spirited rendering of 'La Normandie' and doubtlessly the Marseillaise so as not to appear too separatist.

There was Madame Perry who taught French. She was French, and every lesson started with a blackboard inscription that ' C' Est aujourdui Mercredi le Dix Juillet' or whatever. Which of us can not compete with a French man concerning the precise pronunciation of 'a','e','i','o','u'? Even so there were Elocution sessions to ensure the boys spoke English properly. None had any problem with the practical but only one boy; named 'Samuel' had any idea of how to interpret the theoretical signs and symbols on paper. It was akin to being able to use a computer, without having any need to write the software that operates the system. There were competitions for Public Speaking. I well remember the recitation of Gunga Dhin by was it Garfield? Impositions took the form of either transcribing hundreds of lines on the basis that' I shall not..............' alternatively one learned or just copied out, tracts of verse ' How Horatio held the bridge' and the 'Battle of Lake Rigilous' and 'How the good news was brought from Aix to Ghent' and too the 'Burial Of Sir John Moore' after the battle of Corunna. In these times when some might consider that little matter something to do with a football Club; the poetry endorses one's credentials amidst the similarly afflicted. Such together with the King James Bible, was the basis for a traditional English Education. Now alas swamped in the mediocrity of under achievement.

Miss. Brander was a lady with great presence, indeed stature. She had little trouble when it came to maintaining discipline. She had artistic handwriting, and was of the opinion that having put pen to paper, one should never take it off until one reached the end of the page. Maybe I had the matter confused with 'he who puts his hand to the plough and the matter of beating swords into plough shears'. The war was a confusing time for us all. Did Miss Brander have responsibility for some sort of P.T. Drill, which never quite materialised? I do not suggest she did any herself.

There was a Mr. Johnston who was an understudy to Mr. Jenkins. A man inexplicably not at war who was not only a teacher, but a general scholastic 'Mr. Fixit.' He was the apparently still vigorous member of the male staff. Miss Hutton was a respected teacher who possibly found us a little 'trying'. A Mrs Weston was always happy to lend a friendly ear. We had not only a Matron but also the housekeeper Miss Howick* who had charge of multi-purpose room devoted not only to matters of clothing, but which was used for sessions under the' Ultra Violet Lamp' and for Strip-Medicals. Did she ever realise how much embarrassment her presence caused to boys 'in the all together'? Looking at her picture now, I really can't imagine why any complained. Baths were taken on the open plan system. The bathroom doubled up as the School Surgery. It was here that Halibut Oil and Radio ? Malt and Scotts Emulsion were dispensed to those boys whose parents had provided them with such items. No doubt it was very beneficial to all that received it. The recollection of witnessing such medication, puts me in mind of the undoubted fact that one tends to see more unhealthy looking people in a Health Food shop, than one meets in a Pharmacy.

Claremont celebrated the end of the war in Europe with a bonfire, and fireworks made in the Chemical Laboratory of Bradfield College, a fitting climax to our time there.

When the O'Byrnes retired from the school there were other Heads. Their son Jeremy was the Headmaster for a short time. My wife's younger brother was a pupil then, en route for Lancing.

The Internet once suggested that Claremont had been taken over as a State School. However my more modern technology tells that it thrives in the private sector.

There was a tremendous night life in the Dormitories. A small hole was drilled through a wall, and messages were passed on cleft sticks, except when a state of war existed between the two dorms. One parent sent in an especially iced cake for a midnight feast. Every night we were entertained by the best of Raconteurs. Was there a team Monk / Ross/ Caplain/ Freeman? Phillips would sing of ‘His Grandfather’s Clock’. I do not doubt that Staff mostly turned a blind eye to these ‘goings on’. The hole in the wall caused trouble, and there was the famed occasion when Mr.Johnson un-sportingly switched the light on so catching most of us out of bed. But in those days one was never safe in an air raid, despite the Silver Swallow brand potties under the beds which might well have doubled as tin hats.

I append a photograph of the Pupils and Staff who were members of Claremont in 1942. I hope I will be forgiven if some of the names etc. are incorrectly shown or spelt.

I revisited the Close one very wet August day last year. I regret to have to advise you all, that the place had seemingly shrunk in the rain.

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John Brownfield Pope 1942-1945. mailto:pionono@tiscali.co

Tidmarsh and Pangbourne at War Berkshire in the United Kingdom

Was very probably much as was everywhere else at the time? Others have better tales to tell than I, for mine is but a child’s eye view.

We arrived somewhere between 1939 and 1940. Coming from a Mill House my Father had converted just outside Newbury. It was an unnecessarily large house. Presumably requisitioned, it became the Head Office of a Midlands Steel Company. Father had suggested that we accommodate sixty evacuees there, but mother was less keen. We never went back there after the war.

My Parents bought Tidmarsh House, then as now a gracious Queen Anne property. It too a large house. Our immediate family consisted of my parents two older half brothers and me. Father’s older offspring were variously away, mostly fighting the good fight. Again there was room to spare. So it was the Drawing Room and another room were used to store other peoples more valuable household goods; for running Depositories had been our family trade for some two hundred years, our London Warehouses seemed very vulnerable, but survived unscathed to become the Hammersmith Flyover and a Sainsbury Super Market. The ultimate place of safety was the wardrobe in my father’s bedroom, home to an allegedly very valuable stamp collection. There was still the matter of evacuees, we however accommodated two ‘Tommies’ instead whom we treated as family, letting them have my eldest brother’s bedroom whilst at the time he was fighting with the Oxon and Bucks Light Infantry. I recall the subsequent gem of knowledge that he was in the same platoon as the post war manager of Messrs Stowells the Wine Merchant in Pangbourne.

It was not only the fine furnishings that came down from London but too my Father Ernest Pope, and his Secretary Mrs Hilda Browne, ‘Brownie‘. She in turn brought her Mother with her who sported the unlikely name of Mrs Green, both Londoners to the core. Hilda remained the back bone of our family business until her death in the 1970s. The other peculiarity of their circumstance was that they boarded with an unrelated Mrs.Green and her son Jimmy, who lived in the Tidmarsh Manor Lodge at the end of Mr Shulman’s drive abutting Tidmarsh Hill., seemingly now Tidmarsh Lane. Father’s office was at first in the Dining room of Tidmarsh House, but after a while it transferred to a small back room to the rear of the Greyhound at the centre of the village. This was a more convenient location for my father. More furniture followed us down, after filling some of the stables at Hardwick House, it overflowed into the large barn at Manor Farm immediately opposite the Church. This seems now to front a farmyard development.

At the time we moved into Tidmarsh, the village had only recently been broken up. The name of the previous ownership if I remember correctly involved a Mr. C.A.Vandervel and possibly another Green! I probably don’t remember it correctly, but how will most people ever know in this day and age.

Important persons in the Village included Mr Shulman at the Manor. My brother and I never trespassed too far into his wood, because the gentleman was an unknown quantity so far as we were concerned. Then there was Mr and Mrs Page who with their son Tony ran the village Bakery. In those days all the bread was baked in their faggot oven; and was an un-rationed delicacy. The same ovens baked Lardy Cake if one provided the lard and fruit; and it obliged those of us who took up our war time entitlement to keep a pig, in so far as the actually ham wrapped in dough could be cooked in Tony’s oven after the bread came out. ‘Pages ‘was also the Village shop. Shelves of the left as you went in, with the counter to the right. There was always plenty of ‘Pop’ available and all manner of things amusing to children. There were sweets there but there was a war on. Here one might mention Mrs Davis in Sulham. She knew about confectionary and was in receipt of a sugar allocation, because she made sweets and sold them on ration from her own home.

The other three main men at the village centre were Don Piggot and Family. What ever else he did, he was the man with the humane killer gun, who would kill the aforementioned pigs, and butcher them too. There was Mr. Champ. He was an agricultural worker and helped some with their gardening. Was someone a Special Constable? But more than these was the Gale family. They lived en famille Mr Gale senior, and his son Sid and his wife in the round toll cottage. Mr Gale senior was a Game Keeper and Water Bailiff. His mode of transport so too then, as was everyone else’s a bicycle. His had a basket on the front so substantial that it may once have been a delivery bicycle. In that basket was his Terrier dog. The whole ensemble was never seen separately so far as I was concerned. Mr Gale’s remit seemed to run from Englefield Estate for the length of the river near enough to Pangbourne. A Mr Lamb was the Bailiff running Home Farm at Englefield. During the war Mr. Benyon’s Englefield Park was a Military Hospital filled with those familiar blue uniformed wounded Service men.

At that time a length of the fishing on the Pang was hired out to Harold Holt, the then famed Impresario. But such is fame; many years later chatting to a young lady who then worked for the firm still bearing his name, I was able to thrill her; but only with the information that we had known Harold Holt. Seemingly her Office had little concept that his was anything more than a business name without recent substance

At that time Tidmarsh Mill was in the possession of an Mr.Arbuthnott. I do not know if he had taken the house over when the more famous Lytton Stracheys left or whether like us he had but recently arrived. He however was an Artist, and collector of many pipes, these he was inclined to hand on to friends. I see on the Internet that The Mill is again mentioned as the home of a member of the Arbuthnott family.In those days, as no doubt now, the Pang in front of his house was where we the village children caught minnows.

I think the Mill Gardens backed onto land belonging to Mr.Burgess, there was a Mrs. Burgess, and Anne Burgess. Their land reached up to the Church. Mr Burgess was a very capable Blacksmith and Farrier, and he had his own spreading Chestnut tree to verify his status. One was permitted to spend hours watching his forge at work. I had good access to view in those days before Health and Safety because one knew Anne, who was a trifle older; but mainly because the Blacksmith’s Boy as someone waggishly described him, was our good friend Sid Gale. Sid was the one usually in possession of the Forge and seemingly was the Farrier. There were plenty of Farm Horses needing his attention.

The two local Farmers then were Mr.Tomlinson who had the farm that surrounded Tidmarsh House. (I believe we had one of his barns too as a warehouse?) The other Tenant Farmer was Mr.Waite. He was a man of variable temperament so far as young children were concerned. His son Willie was a friendly well built young man in whose company, I as a child was often entertained. There were opportunities for a ride in his horse and cart, and endless entertainment to be had slicing mangles with their chopping machine. The milk parlour delightfully old fashioned. I don’t quite recall whether that was before or after we had seemingly filled their barn with moth balls, so necessary when storing goods.

At some stage in the war it was obligatory to make provision for accommodation in an air raid shelter. We had at one time retired to the Cellar of Tidmarsh House, where we sat raids out, sitting on Calor Gas Cylinders, but after a while few bothered. My brother and I spent ‘raids’ beneath the kitchen table for the war did come to Tidmarsh. Eventually Father reached an understanding with Mr.Waite, that should Armageddon come we would share his newly dug shelter. I am not sure that it would have been a good arrangement; it was possibly a matter of pleasing officialdom. Manor Farm had an over friendly large black dog that used to jump up and put his front paws on my shoulders, this tended to terrorise me as a seven year old. The Waites eventually left and the farm sold.

Things would go bump in the night. Land Mines fell in Sulham Woods. Occasionally the area would become littered with reflective foil that had to do with Radio possibly Radar. We had a scare one day when a German Fighter Plane seemingly might have taken the chimney off Tidmarsh House, but it had one of our fighters in hot pursuit. The scare was that such an enemy plane had machine gunned Newbury. Later in the war our sky would be packed with scores of British Bombers about their business wherever.


Manor Farm was bought by one of My Father’s better friends Melville Jones. He had been Master at St Paul’s School Hammersmith, where much of ‘D’ day had been planned. Melville was a regular compiler of the Telegraph Crossword Puzzle. Father had stood down on the purchase of Manor Farm, to let him buy it for his retirement. (Was the price under two thousand pound?) He never turned up, and soon let it on to a Family called Crook. Probably they latter bought the place for I believe it was they who first started to redevelop Manor Farm. They were hard workers and at some stage, after our vacation of the barn, they let the place to an Mr.Robinson a dealer in War Surplus, Chiefly Barrage Balloons, and the fabric from which was in great demand as waterproof sheeting.

Depositories apart, my father actually made his living as what the Wokingham District Planning Officer termed, one of the very first ‘Fringe Developers’. In business it might be known as asset stripping but it was not that. Ever since the First World War Estates were being sold on as Estates. He realising there was no longer any call for such property, occasionally bought the odd affordable one, and divided it up. We still had tenants paying less than a pound a week for houses until about 1960. Some tenants with security of tenure furnished their houses, and sublet at market rates. All this did nothing for our solvency after father had died.

He had latterly sub-divided in Wargrave, and Newbury. When at Tidmarsh House he took a fancy to a range of Agricultural buildings on the far side of the Tidmarsh House Land, this was immediately adjacent to Manor Farm. Circa 1941 was not a good year for doing up property, especially something in the poor state these buildings were in. The redevelopment involved cannibalising one of two granaries, and doing everything but putting in a damp proof course. Panelling and Mahogany doors were installed from his London office this in in later years I have seen mis-ascribed as coming from Tidmarsh Manor. It really was not the idea to stay in this particular house. At the time he died in 1943 he was about to exchange contracts to buy most of ‘The Street’ from the Bakery up to and including the old Chalk or gravel pit, on the Pangbourne road. I still have plans; on the back of an envelope, for the round house with a glass ceiling he was to build in there. My mother had the option to complete the purchase but the money was no longer available so to do. Any of my readers who have doubtlessly since paid the earth for some of this property, you too may weep to hear the money involved was less than five thousand pound. Well of course few Village houses were connected to the water main. The Village pump supplied most of those properties with the water. This might account for the price! After the war at the end of the Street, maybe opposite the then new village Hall a local man set up in business making building blocks out of old ash and clinker. Everyone knew it would not catch on! His factory is now seemingly the site of Strachey Close. Further along towards Pangbourne at Flowers Hill, Cedar Close is built on what used to be the field belonging to Arthur and Beatrice Woodberry. As for that area between Pangbourne Hill, Bere Court Road, Green Lane and the Tidmarsh Road, that was at worst but a sparcity of frontagers’ Houses on unmade roads.

An important man in the Village then was our very own Rector George Walters, who had a son called Norman. He was a young man with Downs Syndrome. As is usually the case, he was very agreeable and friendly even to those of my age. The Rector of Sulham was Rev.Wilder, our sole contact with him was that when he was a young man he had often been a guest at a Villa, my half brother’s family had then owned in Baveno. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then. Until the Catholic Church built their own place of Worship in Horseshoe Road Pangbourne, Sunday Mass was shared with the Naval College in a room over their boathouse.

Other Sulham Residents included Mrs Peart a good friend, and her adult daughter May who married into the RAF, but unfortunately lost her husband in the war. There was a young son, who when I last heard of him was working at Marlborough College. On a corner between Mrs Peart’s flint cottage and Sulham Church, lived Mr Trevor who at least once, hosted the fete. I have the impression that he was a partner in the London Estate Agents of that name.

Father had been buried in Tidmarsh Church, in a grave dug by our friend Sid Gale, his coffin carried there on I believe Willie Waite’s Horse and Cart. Some fifty burials and thirty years after, the Church appeared to have recycled his plot, thus managing to accommodate several members of another family on site. I did complain to a previous Vicar, he wanted to know what I intended to do about it, but then what should one do? An acknowledgement of error would have been welcome.

Circa 1943 the Americans arrived. They occupied the Grange, built tank traps and pillar boxes between the Grange and Sulham; and they shot George our Peacock. Someone reckoned it was a Turkey that squawked too much at night and kept them awake. There were Americans camped on the fields of Manor Farm, and for decades after none in the Village went short on telephone cable. These troops opened everyone’s eyes and had in their midst the Village’s first Black Man. Their combat rations, their uniforms, and socks that they didn’t bother to mend were also a source of fascination. They had access to Jeeps to take them and their supply of Nylons into Pangbourne. There, one once offered me a dollar to take a message up to the house of a young lady who worked at the ‘Beauty Parlour.’ I was too young to understand what all this activity was about. The Riverside at Pangbourne between Whitchurch Bridge and maybe Hardwick House opposite was more or less full of parked equipment for presumably D day. Pontoons and Ducks mostly. One day the Yanks were with us being hospitable, inviting us their friends to the Garrison Cinema in the outbuildings at the Grange, the next they left throwing handfuls of gum to all they passed. I recall that they had dumped a whole lot of very expensive looking aluminium engine parts into an old excavated burrow way up above the village. Regrettably I do not recall where!

After the war the Grange was re-inhabited in it’s entirety as the home of a scientist named Dr.Leman. He involved himself there in I believe the study Cosmic Rays and as a side line invented the trusty Lemon ‘Grease-spot Photometer’ a boon to the Amateur Photographer. He had an Amateur radio transmitter and managed world wide communications. It was sometime after him that the property was sub-divided.

During the course of the war my mother registered our garden in Manor lane that now accommodates seven houses, as a small holding. This entitled us to buy chicken food maybe that was how we came by the pigs. Things were desperate for others, and it was hard to deny less fortunate what ever the regulations said. I recall one of the Cadets from the College always came to acquire an egg off the ration, so too a lady who had an egg for ‘me Yorkshire’ on Sunday. Rationing was severe, eggs unobtainable. George our Peacock ate our Cheese ration seemingly being of the opinion that was what Peacocks liked best. (After the war there was talk of one of the village farms being seized by the Ministry which considered it might be more efficiently farmed.)

There was direction of labour. Mother was allocated obligatory work in Theale. Was it a refrigerator concern? She never went because she was at the time doing voluntary work at the ‘French’ Hospital in London. She being of French Birth. It was a matter of writing letters for wounded French Soldiers, and visiting in general. Should you wonder what happened to such letters? Those that didn’t go via the Red Cross were parachuted into France with Secret Agents. Can so many films be wrong? Thus my Grandmother had news of her English Family, posted to her from Vichy France to avoid the Germans having knowledge of her involvement with the Enemy. This was how we came by our better acquaintanceship with Harold Holt. He would provide free Theatre and Concert tickets for mother to hand on to patients At the Hospital.

We celebrated the end of the war against Japan with a village bonfire in the field behind Mr.Tomlinson’s Barn, away opposite the pub. I recall dancing the Hokey Cokey en masse, but got spirited away too soon after putting ones left arm in and shaking it all about. My innocence apart there were still many sons and fathers away, my brother for one in Burma. I had celebrated the earlier VE day at my Prep school then evacuated to Bradfield, so missed out on those Village celebrations.

We had sold Tidmarsh House to a Major Mynor who was I believe in the Guards. Maybe it was he who sold the property to Sir Harold Graham Hodgson; the then recently retired Royal Family Radiologist. Sir Harold came complete with a small grey tractor allegedly given to him as a retirement gift. He became very much the gentleman Farmer, and local grandee, it was only recently I read in the paper that his daughter was more accustomed to play in the Park with our Queen, when she was but, H.R.H The Princess Elizabeth of York.

Speaking of Grandees. I believe that the Fiona Campbell Walter, the model, later to become Baroness Thyssen was as a child resident at Courtlands? If so I never met her, she was two years my senior. Admiral Boscowen lived at the Lodge as one went into Pangbourne, and some years later Air Marshall Sir Wallace Kyle in a house opposite the Pumping Station. He was an Australian who came out of retirement in the New Forest, to be the Governor of Western Australia. Commander Hutchinson in Pangbourne, later assumed command of R.N.C Greenwich. Everyone knows of the Kenneth Graham connection, Mrs Graham was still a Village resident early in the war. Their house had the gift of the ‘Church Living’ ascribed to it. The Thimbleby Family of Thimbleby and Shorland owned the property later. I believe they sported a grandfather, was he a retired Actuary, then living in the Mews behind the Pharmacy, as did Mr Talmidge the proprietor of the local Taxi.

The ‘main man’ in Pangbourne was Mr. Tidbury proprietor of the News Agents. He was the wireless engineer, and charger of wireless accumulators for those without electricity, he seemingly had a helpful finger in every pie. Before Martin and Pole took over the Estate Agents it was run as John Peters, named after the proprietor’s two sons by an earlier marriage. The first a man of the cloth was imprisoned in Changi, of variable reputation some tell it was the most benign of Japanese camps, however! John eventually became Rector of our Church in the New Forest, there instituting the Annual Memorial Service for those who gave their lives when HMS Hood was sunk. Messrs Budgens by Station Garage was managed by Mr. Butterfield and his wife. Their son John later became something rather important in Railway bridges. His appointment had a Status that entitled him to first class Travel on the train. Another important passenger was Mr. Burridge (e&oe) then the Proprietor of Harrods. In those times what became The Copper Kettle was called the Elephant; hopefully the old name is restored? The George still supplied customers with Clay Church Warden Pipes, not sure that had anything to do with the serious fire there. After the war there was a large development of Prefab accommodation on what is now the Bourne Buckley Avenue area. These seemed to be there for ever.

There was a Prisoner of War Camp at the top of Pangbourne Hill. I believe inmates had to stay on after the war ended, possibly by way of reparations. It was possible to hire them as workers at a minimal wage. They were all out on trust; we had several in succession helping with our garden. They were still prisoners, so each wore roundels fore and aft, to ensure none escaped. I suspect most were relieved not to have to try to do so. By then Times were difficult everywhere. Even so staying on was hard for men with a family needing them elsewhere.

Not strictly Pangbourne, but the Royal Veterinary College used to be dotted about Streatley until the 1950’s.

When my mother was at her hospital task, I spent a lot of time at a friend’s home in Pangbourne. We had been introduced to them, the Launay Family by Doctor Clifford Thomas the local GP, on the basis that both mothers were French by birth. They owned the lovely ‘Weir Pool’ overlooking the Swan Hotel. The house was otherwise filled with all manner of interesting folk. My visits there culminated with access to a party thrown by the ‘Woman’s Sunday Mirror’ on Satan Island in the Weir Pool. I was older by then, so guess what? I got to dance with Diana Dors. With who? Ask my grown up children. J.B.P.
.mailto:pionono@tiscali.co.uk

July 2006.

Hospital Cleanliness.

There is a renewed campaign fronted by Leslie Ash the Actor concerning this matter. Apparently she contracted MRSS in a hospital, this is a form of MRSA. A while ago to my knowledge a late Tisbury Resident contracted the latter in Salisbury’s Odstock. It alarmed me that he did so as at the time we co-habited a Ward. One must not doubt that if those in the know attribute such infection to a lack of cleanliness there is probably substance to the allegation. Our ward Floor was swept everyday and sheets were washed on the same basis. However the window ledge behind my bed was dusted by me alone. When sharing that Ward I had cause to complain to a young male nurse that it would not be a good idea, so far as I was concerned, to stick a drip line into my arm immediately after he had dropped it on the Ward Floor. He treated me to the news that it was really very hard to pick up and infection in a Hospital Ward! Well that incident or some other caused a lesser infection in me that cost the NHS a vast quantity of penicillin.

There are other problems too. Patients tend to be shuffled about with the dexterity of a card sharp. After admission ward, I made it into four more, (plus another one ) in the course of ten days. These ranged from that afore mentioned shared ward, through the seemingly terminal Geriatric, then into an Oncology Bay where I was assured that my Oxygen would be following in a minute. I told the Nurse that I had no such need, but when he proffered pills I though to ask the man if he knew my name? Silly question really, one that in all seriousness received the reply

‘You don’t know who you are’?

There was no advice to ask Matron. However one should of course ponder ones Ego, even at the best of times. After the hospitality of Oncology one found a permanent berth in a different section of the Ward.

Medical persons advise me that we all carry MRSA, be one in hospital or not. Possibly it thrives amidst the ill, especially if in possibly overheated Wards where none of the windows can be opened. In former times Matrons would sweep through both Hospital and School opening every window, would have supervised the Ward Cleanliness, and terrorised the Housemen and Nursing Staff, and too both Patients and Visitors. In those times there was a lot of hand washing amidst the staff ,whilst trips to the bathroom tended to be forbidden even to ambulatory patients. Then of course there were sufficient Staff Nurses about the place, without recourse to Bank Nurses. The Latter may be in Swindon one day, Bath or Salisbury etc the next. Surely this must be a contributory cause of cross infection?

Possibly Infection is attributable more to the circumstance of the Hospital, than to the admission of random visitors? I thank the heavens above that I was not really ill. All that apart , the Salisbury Odstock is an excellent Hospital.

Parliamentary Matters. (Or does it ?)

BBC News


Blair and Cameron suffer in double by-election rebellion
Times Online - 2 hours ago
By Times Online, Sam Coates and Greg Hurst. Tony Blair and David Cameron were both dealt by-election blows in heartland seats last night. Voters in Blaenau Gwent, South Wales, snatched by the late Labour rebel ...
By-election blows for Blair and Cameron Independent
Bring back the crossbench Guardian Unlimited

My apologies for ‘nicking’ this news report from the Beeb.
There was reference to an article in the Guardian’s ‘commentisfree.’ Site on the web, this one written by Martin Bell,

(He that dresses for that ‘Alec Guiness’ role.)

Bell’s recommendation being that we should,

‘Bring back the Cross Bench’.

Blair and Cameron have indeed suffered a double by-election rebellion clearly a few more Independents are what we need.

I tend to vote Conservative in General Elections, however do not do so out of any sense of Political Conviction, but do so because there is such little choice. ‘Always hanging onto Nurse for fear of finding someone worse’

The Conservative Party has been a shambles for most of my adult life. I owe it nothing, and have been disadvantaged by most of it’s Policy and Legislation. Whether the latter was the enfranchisement of Leaseholds, the sale of Council Houses, the Poll Tax or the Council Tax. There was the withdrawal of Immigration Officers from our Ports and the debacle they made over the Railway System, the sale of Water and other Services. Etc etc. The only effective legislation was financed by cash from our natural gas and oil reserves.

Now we have this nonsense concerning the ‘A’ list thrust upon us. As if it is not bad enough to have members of Parliament and our Councillors more or less chosen for us by a handful of local Party Activists the current proposal is that they are supplied wholesale by Central Office. Could this be because Smith Square realises that the current system is faulty? I have no argument with such an opinion, but am uneasy concerning the proposed solution.

This is a system akin to the one that filled Parliament with Blair’s Babes, or once fuelled many an Eastern European ‘Democracy’. Choosing ‘Pop’ candidates smacks of the Labour Party’s receptions for such folk at ‘Number 10.’

Party Lists are no substitute for the home grown candidate. I have no knowledge of how other Political Parties run, however my past experience of the Conservative Party has been sufficient to acquaint me with the fact that most of its troubles arise from the grass roots.

If the Candidacy of women was repressed so that they were under represented in Parliament, it was often other women on Selection Committees whom one might best blame, if only because of the obdurate application of their Veto. I recall a selection committee where all the men wanted a particular (male) candidate, the two women backed the other (male) candidate and being unwilling to negotiate, their man won. For that was the only way of resolving the matter.

Furthermore it is also likely that when it comes to the selection of lesser candidates, it is not unknown that some on the Selection Committee be they of either sex, tend not to turn up on the appropriate day. This is unfortunate because a County Councillor probably has far more influence on ones lifestyle than does a rank and file MP.

‘OUR’ Railway Franchise.

Is coming up for renewal, South West Trains remain the Leading Contender. One notes that forty million pounds of Tax payers money contributed to their recent ‘Profit’. The Service from Tisbury seems reasonable enough for all who live in the sticks. Does one really need all the upgrading some clamour for. Two Platforms to accommodate twin tracks? It would all be very expensive, and enhancement would attract more and more commuters to Tisbury, and then of course, after some thirty years none of their ‘Children’ will be able to afford a house in the Village of their birth, so more houses will need to be built. Not in Hindon Lane of course. Maybe RAF Chilmark would be a fine site, or possibly between Upper and Lower Chicksgrove. We will have to wait and see, well I won’t be around, but all those new commuters will be.

Tisbury is convenient for Eurostar at a high price, even for those benefiting from the associated concessionary fare up to Waterloo. Our Station Master assured me that the discount was better than would have been available using an OAP Travel Card . I have been going to France once or twice every year for the past thirty five years and have always previously travelled by Car Ferry. Eurostar was an interesting experience but I have no intention of using the services again. I can understand those living in London might be more grateful of it than I.

Collecting the pre-debited tickets at Waterloo was a complication. These could not be collected unless one there and then, produced the actual debit or credit card that one had used to pay for the tickets over the internet . Then there were no seats to sit on whilst waiting for the Eurostar Barrier to be opened. Once through, one was more or less ‘mugged’ by the Security Staff when the metal detector took exception to the buckle on my belt. I noticed that all four of the Security Staff happened to be Black Brits. Of itself that was unremarkable, however some days later I espied that the Security Staff at that same Security check point were all of Anglo Saxon origin. This suggests to me that deployment is less than Politically Correct. Are these teams deliberately racially segregated in any way? A matter I commented upon to the Race Relations Board, had a very nice e.mail back from Sumena Hussain, (or Sumena as we surfers address one another) with encouragement that I personally take the matter further. It just seemed to me that since we are now multi-cultural, that fact might have been better represented at the Eurostar terminus.

At the Gare du Nord in Paris, the Main Station’s own Information kiosk refused to have any dealings with a Eurostar passenger, and certainly was unwilling to tell me whether or not the Station still operated a ‘Left Luggage Office’. That was the only information I needed.

Two persons travelling from Tisbury to Paris and back pay more money than the same two and a car cost on a wisely booked Ferry. Our trip was however an interesting experience one which possibly everyone else has sampled years back.

It seems outrageous that more money be invested in the proposed ‘Chunnel Link’ , as ‘the game really isn’t worth the candle’. The tunnel has financial difficulties, it is nice that it is there, and if need be, it should be allowed to become insolvent, it would cost the Banks a lot of money, but the share holders have lost theirs already. What niggled me most was that at the Gare du Nord there was a Poster offering a week end trip to London for seventy, I am tempted to say seven euros. The French put their dots and commas in curious places. Possibly as on the Ferry one can save money by booking the return leg when in France!

Inequity of Anglo American Relations.

This Enron business and the matter of sending three of our Countrymen to America to face charges in the American Courts.

The Legislative Agreement requiring the Delivery of these men, was intended to be used against Terrorists, not for cause of alleged financial malfeasance or for which ever the actual charge is. The UK. Is required to hand these persons over without sight of any sort of evidence against them, once in America they are due to be indefinitely imprisoned pre trial. In theory the UK has a similar privilege of delivery, in practice there is no reciprocal arrangement.

What sort of a Government do we have that it plays Poodle to America’s interests. It is time that Blair resigned.

However it is not a foregone conclusion that he will be replaced in Office by Gordon Brown.

Such obsequiousness to America, whether on Iraq, or Afghanistan, or re. Guantanamo Bay is the sort of embarrassment that encourages one to support the Conservative cause, as there is no other effective choice. However it would be an excellent idea if that Party stood up to be counted on such issues. If misplaced Patriotism too is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel, there is little point in voting for anyone ever.

Metropolitan Police. There is another Blair hitting the headlines. One must await the Police Statement concerning that Forest Gate incident, not to mention the shooting on the London Underground. Of course if information is received it is right the Police act on it as they see fit. However seemingly the information was wrong. Being a Policeman is no longer an easy occupation. Senior Officers need much better training than currently available. It was a mistake to abolish the former mode of Officer entry via what was then the Trenchard Police College at Hendon. We read that currently the standards of entry to the Police are no longer what they once were, semi literacy alleged to be now acceptable to comply with political correctness. It is unacceptable to dilute what was once the best Police Force in the World with under achievers, whichever the cause of that under achievement. If some are disadvantaged maybe it would be better to deal with that aspect of our humanity. If one dubs down standards, the Police Force will become an unattractive career move.

That of course was were Lord Trenchard came on the scene in the first place.

‘If you want to know the time, ask a Policeman the Music Hall refrain’

Referred not to the customary helpfulness of the British Bobby, but to the fact that he had probably got your watch in his pocket.

Our Government had, maybe still has plans to amalgamate County Police Forces. The suggestion was met with resistance from many quarters, especially Senior Officers who realised that avenues of promotion would be unavailable to them. It was opposed by Police Committees which saw their local influence disappearing. Existing cosy arrangements have done us well enough in the past, but the world which still includes the UK is changing. All manner of Crime has to be fought on a global front and the fragmentation which subsists in the UK is in the current fashionable term ‘unfit for purpose’. Apart from the Met. which comes under the Home Secretary, there are many other autonomous bodies, including ,the Railway Police etc. The Ministry of Defence Police have authority over us all within a specified distance of any military establishment, which would include much of Tisbury. Surely we should have some sort of National Police Force. What we have is of good account, and usually acquits itself well, but there is a limit to its effectiveness against organised crime.

Is but the tip of the Iceberg being called to account?

Panegyric Appreciation of Lord Rawlinson of Ewell. PC.QC. Born 26 June 1919 died 28.June 2006.

Formerly the Member of Parliament for Epsom and Ewell, who amidst many other legal and other accomplishments, rose to the Office of Attorney General under the Premiership of the late Edward Heath PC. CH. but received no advancement under The Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, even though there was at the time the suggestion that he should have become Lord Chancellor.

In his retirement he came to live at Wardour Castle, so becoming the most senior of the many Old Gregorians scattered in this locality. He was at Downside from 1932-1938. RIP.