As we grow older we are happy to reminisce somewhat more than those of a younger age so I am only too happy to accede to your request about information about my life at Aldenham and the period around that time.
I was at a Preparatory School in Suffolk from 1930 – 34 and remember the Remembrance Day services every year as it was near to the Life Boat Station but can remember nothing of the Remembrance Service at Aldenham. We used to see barges sailing from the north down to the Thames. When they got into difficulties the lifeboat had to go to their aid.
At Aldenham I was a House Prefect in Cox’s House. I cannot remember what Sam Cox taught but English’s had a fearsome housemaster of the same name who taught French. Mead’s House had a reputation for having a very tough initiation ceremony for new boys. I was confirmed in the (old) Chapel but remember well the services held in what was then the new Chapel across the road. I think we even had Matins and Evensong and the details of the services became so etched in my mind that I have been able to remember both Matins and Evensong ever since. As I am now blind, it greatly helps me to remember where we are when I go to Church today.
The Headmaster was George Riding whose wife you might describe as being handsome used to walk her golden retrievers in the grounds of the School. The attitude to homosexuality was greatly different – we well remember George Riding calling us into the hall, standing with his feet apart, his hands on his lapels and saying that “The muckraker has been at work again”, which meant that two or three boys were expelled for what I think were minor homosexual acts. I think that for one or more of these the School may have been sued by their parents. One boy, John Yates, showing more initiative, was caught in one of the local ditches with one of the School maids!
The food was generally good – there was one dish which was known as Dead Man’s Leg which was an elongated pie with currants in it. I remember too that we used to heat up baked beans in our studies and eat cornflakes with condensed milk on them. The Tuck Shop was run by Mr Webber, the head of Maths and we used to buy full size Mars bars, Crunchies etc. for 2d (i.e.1p today).
The School had good cricket and soccer teams and I can well remember playing against Westminster. I remember J P Blake who played for Hampshire and I think eventually lost his life during the War. The School did very well in the Arthur Dunn Cup for old boys at soccer and I remember E D R Shearer who later became an Irish Amateur International. In my late years J D Dews who subsequently played for England, opened the batting at Aldenham. I also remember L T Mensar who subsequently was awarded posthumously a VC during the War when flying Lancasters – an almost wet individual at school but who clearly showed a degree of immense bravery at the end when I believe he allowed all of his crew to escape from the bomber and was the only man to go down with it.
I can remember the cross country runs which we did frequently and I enjoyed. We had a very tough little PT master called Buckingham and he used to get us to jump up and down – he was Sergeant Major to the OTC, a very keenly organised junior military establishment and I enjoyed the camps we had at Strensall and down near Aldershot which lasted for about 7-8 days at the end of each half-term. I don’t recollect the Hitler Youth Movement visiting the School but I left in the summer of 1938. I still have the swagger stick with a silver head and the School crest on the top which was given to officers in the OTC which I am happy to donate to the School if you would like it.
I took the Higher Certificate in Physics, Chemistry and Biology before entering Medical School. Entry to Medical School was not so difficult in those days, I can remember when I was interviewed by Dr Harris it was more of a question of “How soon can you start?”
I worked at pre-clinical work in the Medical School at St Barts and in September 1939 moved to Cambridge to do Anatomy and Physiology before War started. I was already night-blind by then and had great difficulty in getting around in the black-outs. I then went to Hill End Hospital and then back to Barts to do Clinical work. I remember doing fire watching in the City, fortunately nothing fell where I was stationed. On one occasion I also remember when travelling home from Liverpool Street to Waltham Cross where I lived, a German bomber, having been shot down, just flew over the top of our train before landing in a sewage farm – I believe he deliberately avoided hitting the train which was crowded. After qualifying in 1943 I did a House job at Hill End Hospital near St Albans and as I couldn’t go into the Forces because of my night-blindness I commenced work as a trainee Pathologist at Farnborough Hospital.
I vividly remember the first flying bombs coming over which we thought to be aeroplanes on fire. In a way they were very exciting, except when the engine cut out and you had to throw yourself to the ground, not sure whether they would fall immediately or fly on for a mile or so without an engine before crashing to the ground. We were very near to Biggin Hill and on one occasion I remember a friend of ours, quite mad, came up from the hospital and said “Look what I’ve got in my boot!” He opened it and inside was an unexploded German bomb which he had taken from a crater near the airfield. The Guys professor of Bacteriology was less than impressed and said “Doctor, you may not have concern for your own life but you might at least think of others.” This same doctor was also a Bacteriologist in a laboratory sited at the end of the garden of Down House, now the property of the National Heritage Trust and of course is where Charles Darwin did a lot of his work.
Together with another junior Doctor at Farnborough at the same time as myself, I cycled up to Knockholt which was rather hilly and also had a good pub, there we were able to see the balloon barrage which was put up to try and catch the V2s flying in from the coast. We never actually saw any brought down.
After the War I obtained the necessary qualifications and got an appointment as a Consultant Pathologist at Farnborough Hospital in the early 1950s. I married in 1943 and we now have got 7 children and 16 grandchildren. I should add that we are not Catholics and consider ourselves to be sexy Protestants! I retired some 13 years ago.
My time at Aldenham was a happy one. After school we set up an OA cricket team called the Platitudes after our founder and played a number of matches during the summer of 1939 along with a chap called John Sherard – I think we had a team tie with a duck billed platypus on it. This was the only OA cricket team at the time.