LABOR OMNIA VINCIT
(Work Conquers All)
That was the school motto, which I certainly paid little attention to. I returned to the Boarding House of Midhurst Grammar School to a number of new faces and a bit of attention from some of the girls in the Girls Boarding House. For at least a week.
It was January 1967, I flew into London and was picked up by Jim and Marjorie Norton from Heathrow and taken to their home in Three Bridges, Crawley about 30 miles from Midhurst. I had stayed there during my first and second years at MGS during Xmas, Easter, half term breaks. It was like getting into an old pair of slippers it was very comfortable, this life. I returned to the Grammar School a few days later.
Over the next two terms, roughly 6 months, a number of monumental changes occurred to me, I had missed a year and a half of academic work, not a complete loss in learning but the insufficiency in my knowledge would mean that I was playing catch up for the next year and a half to get through some O’Levels. I discovered smoking cigarettes, learned how to play basketball more proficiently, had two “girlfriends”, not at the same time, once again unsuccessful in any terms, and developed glandular fever(mono-nucleolus), was off school for 5 weeks being ill and missed my (Mock O’level) exams that year. It is also known as the “kissing disease”, uncertain as to how or why?
In addition, I got banned from the Girl’s Boarding House for a short period. After the initial fuss being made of me by various girls in the Girl’s Boarding House, I settled down to being somewhat treated like all the others. Philip Lee and Bernard Harrsion led me astray, of course. They persuaded me to join them in a Girls House dormitory, clearly not allowed. At one point, one of the girls panicked and said “You had better leave someone is coming”. Because we were on the main floor, Philip and I jumped out of the window, almost directly into the arms of the Old Boot the boys house matron (Doreen Basset). Realizing our predicament Bernie stayed in the girl’s dormitory until we had been hauled off to spend some time with Luke (the headmaster).
In retrospect, I think one of the girls became nervous about our presence and decided we needed to go and she sounded the alarm. She was more nervous of what we were going to do than getting caught with us there. Our intentions, or at least mine were completely honourable, the other two I cannot vouche for. I am sure they had ulterior motives.
After a 20 minute lecture about the evils of our ways from Luke, we received our respective punishments, because I was newly returned to the school I endured a week without going to the Girl’s Boarding House. Philip was banned for a term and when Bernie was finally brought to justice he got a term. I do not remember why, but Philip was banned for the rest of the year because perhaps he just could not control himself and went back to the Girl’s Boarding House before he had served his sentence. The look of surprise on the Old Boot’s face as I jumped out of the window was a sight to behold, it was well worth the week’s ban, not sure Philip and Bernie were so happy. It was a just punishment after all they had led me astray, not for the first or last time.
NEW FACES TO ME IN 1967
There were several new faces in the Boarding House, Philip was one and while he could run fast and was good at rugby, he was very different than us in that he only liked Classical music. Some girls, maybe one, liked him because he took an interest in poetry. To me at that time, there was only a little classical music that I could tolerate, poetry was for sissies. I mostly was interested in rock, blues and soul, and as for literature I was a complete “Philistine” .
David King and Geoff Saul showed up about a year before I returned to Midhurst and they were the football (soccer) players, no interest in rugby. Dave supported Hull City, he was at the Grammar School until the end of the following school year, our 5th Form. He then went into Banking and recently retired to his lovely place in Putney London, close to the Thames. He is currently engaged in a serious writing project that I hope he has the chance to get published. It is an intriguing story about one of the architects of the modern game of football, (soccer).
Geoff Saul was and still is a rabid Nottingham Forest football fan. He now lives in Birmingham. After Midhurst he spent a number of years in Spain and recently retired from the world of academia.
Dave and Geoff had been friends for a while (and still are despite political differences and they also live a distance away from each other*). They were friends as a result of both sets of parents being in Singapore at the same time. I believe it was armed forces, it seems to me that Geoff’s dad was a Major General in the British Army.
- Distances in North America do not compute the same way in Europe, it is 200 Kilometres from Putney to Brum (Birmingham). Here it is less than a 2 hour drive, but London to Birmingham is a lot longer time wise, and the timing of the journey is all important to avoid rush hour traffic.
Josiah Christian was at least two years younger than us and he was the first black to be in the Boarding House as a pupil, to my knowledge. I do not feel he was treated with respect except perhaps by his peers. I am aware that he was bullied by at least one older boy. Regrettably, we did nothing about it, but he had lots of spirit and got himself well and truly entrenched as part of the Boarding House. I do know that he is now living in Washington DC and made a life for himself there. He seems to have either retained his Christian faith or found it again. With his name I would assume that he was brought up in a Christian family. He seems to bear no animosity towards any one in the school, and like most of us at this age, has trouble remembering names and events. He does remember “Sweeney Todd” whose real name I cannot remember. There are other stories about Mr. Todd but in the interests of discretion I will not pass any further comment. David Marshall was another character in the Boarding House who had the greenest teeth I have ever seen. One of the Boarding Masters had the unenviable task of inspecting his choppers every morning to make sure he had brushed them. Sadly, David has subsequently passed away, judging by his FB page he barely left Midhurst. He was definitely a loner.
MIDHURST GRAMMAR SCHOOL
There were several more characters that I met upon my return to Midhurst in January 1967, some were good, others were a challenge.
CHRIS BAILY– Chris was a gentle and very troubled soul when he arrived at Midhurst. He had had a nervous breakdown prior to coming to Midhurst and had missed enough time that he had to redo a year and was one of the older boys in our year. He had a terrible stammer, which got worse if he was teased at all. Unfortunately, I was reminded of this when one of the lads noticed that I had teased Chris and suggested that I should stop. I was mortified and stopped immediately.
In later years I grew to admire his writing skill, both in appearance and what he expressed in his essays. He had a very clear idea of what his essay should look like and as it appear to be a picture which was very easy on the eye and brain. My essays were a mess, so I did aspire to be more like him in that regard. He was also an accomplished pianist and unfortunately I did not take the time to find out how good he was. He was, by all accounts a very good jazz pianist. Regrettably for me and many friends, Chris died a number of years ago and I am sad to say that he did not really recover from a set back that occurred just after I left England in 1971.
IAN MIRILEES– Ian came to us from Gordonstoun School in Scotland, the same school that Prince Charles had gone to. Ian was a troubled lad and was in and out of trouble in the short time he was at Midhurst. He was a bully and I think most were afraid of him, more from what he might do unexpectedly than fear of what he would do to us. He struggled academically and dropped out of school in the 5th Form. He purportedly blew up a “steam engine” at the Midhurst Quarry while he was there. I am not sure it was a steam engine because those would be hard to blow up. It might have been a gasoline(petrol) engine, because he left a burning cloth in the engine which caused it to blow. I am suspicious of the story since he was prone to hyperbole (one of my least favourite words, to be explained in later blogs)
He made the mistake of boasting about it so was soon in trouble again. I was rarely in trouble in the 4th Form, other than the Girls House misadventure where I was lead astray.
I believe Bernie and I visited Ian one holiday with his mum, who was very kind to us. She was quite a contrast to him. She was also very indulgent with him, she and Ian’s father were separated, it seems to me.
There is another story about Ian which (Biddy nee Hatchwell reminded me) we were in a class of Musical Appreciation and I was in the hall having been sent out for some bogus reason, clearly Mr. Broadbent the teacher was mistaken.
However, while I was at the other end of the Hall, which was a long way from the Auditorium which is where the class was being held, I heard the unmistakable sound of Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze coming from the Auditorium. As I ran back to see the devastation that Ian had clearly caused, all the classroom doors opened up to see what the racket was all about. Ian had been threatening to put on this single. Somehow he had “snuck” it on the record player and turned the volume to maximum. I do not believe we heard the vocals on this before it had been taken off and Ian sent to the Headmaster’s office without his record.
DAVE ARNOLD– Chris Baily’s best friend in the 4th and 5th Forms and a more unusual couple of friends you could not hope to find. (For me in later years Andy Arnold influenced a great deal of my musical tastes.) David was a good looking lad who was only with us for a year or more, I believe. As cerebral and academically inclined as Chris was, David was not. He was kind and generous and had a child’s naivete, and was definitely a good friend to Chris.
(Ed;I was briefly in contact with Dave some years ago but lost the connection some years ago the Arnolds are people that it wold be nice to be in contact with again)