Mr Watson – Baker starts his reminiscences by referring us to an item he wrote which appeared in Aldenhamiania 14, February 1997 he continues:
I have to say that during the two years 1935 to 1937, there was an appreciable relaxation in the strict regime. I remember that when I reached the dizzy heights of Praeposter and was responsible for discipline, I decided after some heart searching and practice of beating a cushion on the back of a chair with an OTC cane, that my ‘sinners’ would be better served by learning a Psalm. The wisdom of this was brought home to me shortly after when I found Psalm XCI a great comfort in the Burmese jungle when fighting the Japanese.
You mention the Hitler Youth Hockey Team which stayed at the School in 1938. I remember them well and was swapping reminiscences of them with Bill Kennedy quite recently. Before a game started, their XI and ours were drawn up in line facing each other and their manager read a message from the Fuhrer, which was followed by the customary cry of SIEG! HEIL! three times, after which battle commenced. Alas! They did not have our gentlemanly sporting instincts and some of our team were quickly ‘winged’. I know that at least one of our team got his own back! The young Nazis were accommodated in Houses and it was rumoured that one poor boy was threatened by our German guests when they discovered that he had German connections. The guests, it was believed, received a good beating from the Housemaster.
J P Mead mentions the hymn “God who Created me…” This was written by Charles Henry Beeching (1859 – 1910) and appeared in “In a Garden” and other poems, published by Bodley Head. It is Hymn No 327 in the School Hymn Book of the Methodist Church. I always remember “Lord dismiss us with Thy Blessing, thanks for the mercies past receive….”, sung lustily on the last day of term, and “Lord, behold us with Thy blessing, once again assembled here….”, sung with a shade less vigour at the beginning of term.
That reminds me of a certain Bishop, the Bishop of Lebombo (in what was Portuguese East Africa) who always paid us a visit and preached in Chapel when on home leave; we thought him a great man! Strangely enough our Regimental Chaplain in Burma had been his Chaplain.
In my day, some 20 minutes of our morning break was spent doing PT, in the yard under Sergeant Major Buckingham (who I am fairly sure, had served in the XIIth Royal Lancers and not the Royal Marines). A table was brought out somewhere near the poplar tree, facing the assembled company, and on this the Sergeant Major demonstrated and led us in the exercises.
Games were played every afternoon; in the absence of a medical certificate, anybody who was not playing a properly organised game was sent out on a run. On Sunday afternoons, a walk was compulsory.
If you were Church of England or Non Conformist, Chapel was compulsory every day except Thursday, which was Corps Day, and twice on Sunday. I have a memory of the OTC, in uniform marching to Aldenham Parish Church on Remembrance Day, led by the band (drums and bugles).
Half term was marked by a half-holiday, nothing more. We were allowed three Exeats a term, which meant that you could be absent from School on a Sunday from after morning Chapel until Chapel in the evening. Shops in Letchmore Heath were strictly out of bounds. A notice on the village green ‘that no sods might be removed’ caused much amusement!
Another memory I have is being brought down in our pyjamas and dressing gowns from the dormitory to the School House Dining Hall to hear the broadcast of Edward VIII’s Abdication Speech. I also recall that one could hear when in the School Library the rumble of the guns at the time of Dunkirk in 1940.