Memories of the Boys’ Boarding House   (1961 – 1968)

 

There were eight dormitories and usually you progressed up one each year depending on seniority and availability of space.

Babylon (or Baby land), the most Junior dormitory. (The “Hanging Gardens” consisted of two hanging baskets just outside the windows looking onto the High Street.) Twelve of us slept in here.  As a result, these windows were kept open at night no matter what the weather.  During the Winter of 1961, it was so cold the windows froze up on the inside with our breath and someone’s bottle of ink on the shelf above his bed froze!

Rome. This was also on the Junior side of the House, above and adjoining the Headmaster’s living quarters so they could keep a closer eye on us. This dormitory was above Jacko’s room overlooking the Headmaster’s garden, so if you had a “rumble” ( pillow fight), if he was in,  he used to come up the stairs and sometimes punished us by making us come to bed half an hour early with Babylon at 8.30p.m. We had to be in bed half an hour after this and lights out after a further half hour.  To get to the main wash rooms and toilets for these two dormitories you had to cross the Oak Hall.

Alex. This was in the main House on the top floor at the back.  It had a Fire Hatch at the back which was kept padlocked with the key suspended on a hook behind a glass fronted cage.  We found that with a piece of wire you could remove the key and so unlock the hatch which allowed us the opportunity to go out onto the roof.  One night some of us decided to follow the fire escape, over the flat roof around the glass dome in the Oak Hall and beyond over the other half of the house. However, it passed by the skylight into Jacko’s room and he saw the outline of these figures just as we saw him.  We rushed back over the roof.  Jacko also ran out of his door across the Oak Hall, through one of the senior dormitories, up a flight of stairs, threw open Athens door, switching on the light, eyebrows and moustache twitching - to be confronted by gently snoring boys in bed innocently blinking in the light.  He sauntered over to the fire hatch which was locked and the key restored to its hook.  Puzzled, he went out and switched off the light!

Thebes. This was a parallel dormitory also in the sloping eves but with windows overlooking the High Street. On this floor resided the housemaster Colin Beecham. His room was built along a corridor with a sloping wall. It had a door at either end and was separated into a living and bedroom area. He slept with his bedroom door ajar and he used to challenge boys creeping down the creaking stairs in the middle of the night. Sometimes we were just going to the toilet but occasionally we sneaked out for midnight walks in our pyjamas!  One midnight most of the dormitory left the snoring dorm prefect and sneaked out the House. We decided we would walk to Chi’. The roads were deserted so we could walk down the middle of the road in our slippered feet. We walked as far as Cocking when the six of us hitched a lift from a van who took us as far as Singleton.  We then gave up and returned to Midhurst somehow also managing to get another lift.

Sparta. This was on the first floor at the front of the school just above the granite sets that was shaded by a huge copper beech. It acted as a cut through dormitory for anyone going to Babylon, Rome or wanting to have a bath in the Washrooms. In here one  year we won the Christmas Social where each dormitory performed a skit or review to the other Boarders, Housemasters and Luke, Vera, Doreen (the O** B**, or H******) and Jacko who could be called on to play any music on the piano if required. Our prize was a large cardboard box of Tuck and Pop which we devoured that night having special compensation for a “midnight feast”. If you had resided in each of these dormitories you were now one of the B.R.A.T.S.

Carthage was parallel to Sparta but at the back. It overlooked the Boarder’s lawn on which we used to play British Bulldog or Bunker barrel; one team had to bend over to make a sort of scrum against a tree whilst the other team in turn had to leapfrog onto their backs to try to collapse the pack! You could sneak a look through a gap in the wall at the Headmaster’s immaculate lawn with its stone gazebo and unusual female Ginko tree.

Troy was also on the first floor but at the other end.  It had its own small washrooms and toilet for the seniors. Below it was the Small Common Room with a radio and tables for reading papers and the Locker room. Above it the Sixth form common room where we could play records. We set up a pirate radio station “Radio Midhurst” and broadcasted music and chat until we dismantled after a few weeks in fear of being raided by the police. As Sixth formers you had more responsibilities, with some of us even acting as Dorm prefects. Bob “Death” Davies was the Housemaster on this floor. He sometimes let us into his room so we could listen to his Bob Dylan records.

Athens. Also known as the Cubes for the prefects. This was a large, tall room at the end of the building by the main entrance to the school.  This was above the Linen room where once a week you collected your clean sheets and clothes. Old bottom sheet to the top, clean sheet on the bottom, blankets all tucked in with hospital corners, unless as a joke you made someone an “apple pie bed” by folding the bottom sheet in half and turning it over the blankets like the top sheet- a surprise for the dorm prefect or other victim. There were about ten cubicles each divided by a seven foot tall partition with a curtain over the doorway. You could still talk to each other over the top. You now had your own space that you could decorate with posters and lights.  However they were concerned by the electrics so we returned one holidays to find they had been redecorated with fixed safe bedside lamps, notice boards and blancmange pink walls. When taking our A Levels before each exam for good luck we used to play “Running Bear” by Sonny James on a 45rpm record.

Many boys left after these exams but some stayed on for a 6³. This was either to do Oxbridge scholarship exams or if they were young enough, especially if they had gone into the Remove when instead of year 4 and 5, they did O-level exams in one year, or to redo their A-levels or take S-levels.

Edward Harrison (September 2009)