When I joined Aldenham, the Headmaster was H M Beck, known to us as ‘The Bulge’ due to his splendid paunch.
I was shown round by a small French boy named Bogle who, inter alia, informed me that the loos were called ‘Lats’ (with no doors!) and Changing Rooms were ‘Chags’.
My first dormitory was on an upper floor and known as the ‘Eight bedded’. Spartan beds and wash in cold water. The Praeposter i/c told me that we should quickly learn the names of all our Praes and, such was our fear of what dire punishment might follow failure in this, that, after 70 years I can tell you they were: - Hanton, Titmarsh, Street, Atkins, Davies, Barrel, Figgis and Easby.
Later, were expected to know every body’s names, including such recondite items as that of Mr Eames who drove the tractor.
As to the actual business of learning, one or two things come to mind.
There was a powerful master (Usher?) Mr Evans about whom there was a terrifying rumour (widely believed but certainly totally untrue) that, if he was going to beat some helpless pupil, the lad would find ‘Jock’ Evans in an empty classroom, save only for a table on which were a cricket stump and a glass of water! Needless to say, this rumour (doubtless put about by the man himself) ensured perfect classroom discipline. Then there was Mr Allsop (Lopper) who always wore very serviceable boots. He would sit facing the front row of desks and tipping back his chair, would put his feet up on the nearest desk, whereupon some daring student would try to write or draw something on the great man’s boot soles. However, he always knew perfectly well what was happening but would simply say “When you’ve quite finished with my boots, Innes“.
As to beating, this was allowed by Ushers and occasionally to Praeposters and was performed with a sawn off cricket bat. I remember Rupert Clift, English Master, who when asking a question round the form and seeming unlikely to obtain an answer would get out his bat and bang his desk, saying “The old warhorse is getting restive”.
French was taught by Mr English (Fred) who, when asking questions would make us change places, moving up when right and down when wrong. He too, would beat the desk, saying “There’s a lot of muck in this form and I’m going to sift it to the bottom”.
Soon after I joined the ‘Bulge’ retired, to be replaced by G Riding who had been through WW1 and was openly sceptical about the spurious chumminess of the visiting Hitler Youth.
I remember them prancing round our stage in some rustic Teutonic dance clad in lederhosen – we found this mildly amusing but being truly British remained unimpressed by these ‘foreigners’.
By the way, I should pause to mention the most rigid protocol in the matter of the permissible degree of tilt of one’s straw hat according to length of service; also buttoned/unbuttoned jackets. Anyone brash enough to transgress these unwritten rules would, at the least, have been called a ‘guffy’ (the then current word for cheeky).
Reverting momentarily to my time in the ‘Eight Bedded’, it was possible to stand on the hard bed nearest the window looking out over the Headmaster’s garden and, on a lovely summer evening, to savour the delightful scent of the ‘Bulge’s’ cigar floating up to us.
A rather reprehensible recollection of the Library occurs to me. Slightly below the feet of the railings round the gallery and on the outer perimeter there are very pleasant mouldings including a concave section. It was found possible by some evil doers to lean over and whiz a fives ball round this enticing track until, losing its power, it would fall to the floor below with a bang, arousing squeaks of protest from Mr Stott, the Librarian.
Once a week there was the OTC when we all donned prickly khaki including puttees and brass buttons that had to be polished religiously. There were field days when we were issued with blank 303 ammunition and a packed lunch, which usually included a splendid Melton Mowbray pork pie. (By far the best part of the exercise!).
I also had the great pleasure of being in our Shooting Eight and going to Bisley where I’m proud to say I won some glory.
Reverting momentarily to the academic, all the foregoing was really leading up to the dreaded School Certificate, which I may say was tougher than GSCE in that passes in English and Maths were obligatory and failure in either one failed the whole exam. For the record, I got 4 credits but failed Maths so had to take the entire exam again a term later, trying desperately to regain the same 4 credits and scrape a pass in Maths which, the Lord be preserved, I did.
School Plays were fun. No girls of course but Hiller, brother to the actress Wendy Hiller, was a handsome chap and I recall seeing him as a truly captivating Spanish lady. The height of my own theatrical career was to play the Prince of Wales in Henry IV Part 1. 520 lines of bleak verse then, and nowadays a couplet would be my limit!
Then, at the end of a term (Christmas) we had ‘The Rec’ (or could it have been ‘The Wreck’) a knockabout variety show in which anyone, including Ushers, would take part.
One highlight was a song by Mr Jack, he was a comfortably shaped, middle aged, man with a splendidly hoarse voice, who, to our delight, sang “a Muscovite maiden her loan vigil keeps by the side of the pale Shalimar and the name that continually falls from her lips is Ivan Scavinski Skevar”! to cries of “encore, encore”.
It has become fashionable amongst the more ignorant of the chattering classes to deride Public Schools as being hotbeds of bullying, sexual deviation, snobbishness and heaven knows what besides. Well, they are so wrong, and Aldenham is there to prove it.
What Aldenham did teach was how to serve and as one progressed, how to command.
The latter being impossible to perform well without experience of the former (in my day, by sweeping up acres of incredibly dusty old floors with only a sheet of newspaper spread between the feet to collect the rubbish).