P H Crassweller School House 1929-1933
I am sorry to say that my time at Aldenham was between September 1929 and the advent of Riding’s in 1933. I am sure that by this time you will have plenty of tales between these two dates and I won’t bore you with them. As a small boy I was perpetually dirty (when I returned after my first term my mother plunged me in a bath with a brush and Vim!) As time wore on I got a bit cleaner and on the whole enjoyed myself.
One or two brief notes. The Corps seemed to be somewhat of a joke and none of my friends took it seriously. Friday was a Camp Day and perhaps once a term we had a Field Day on Berkhamsted Common with other schools and every two years one had to go to camp with a lot of relevant ‘volunteers’, my point is that no one took it seriously. In the early 30s Hitler was little more than a joke and to suggest that we would be wearing a uniform in a real war was laughable. (I learned how to form fours and when I reached the real army I found it was abolished.)
One other point about Aldenham in the early 30s – School House was a double house, split into Odds and Evens for games purposes. In fact the ruler of the House was Mrs Baker who ran the house as her own domain. Some of her appointments were those of her own inner court and very rusty they were too. So it was a pleasure to meet Mrs Riding, so young and so attractive.
There were no politics as far as I was concerned. My great friend was John Street and we talked about everything except politics. In 1933 there existed (and probably still does) a Maurice Clift prize for English. None of John Street’s friends wanted to enter in for it, as we knew he would walk it – which he did. There was one other entrant, a boy called Killick who sprang from nowhere and wrote a long and turgid essay which I now realise was filled with remarks like “Down with the bourgeoisie” etc. I realise now that he was a communist and regarded the School with complete loathing. He left at the end of that summer term and no one has seen or heard of him since. Tradition says that he was beaten to death by SS men. At any rate he has vanished as though he had never existed.
One final remark about two years after I had left school I saw a copy of the Daily Mail where it discussed how a relation of the Romilly sisters went down to Aldenham and demanded a rising against the ‘masters’ and ‘bourgeoisie’ – they were turned on by the Corps and evicted. I think the story owes most to the Mail journalist who wrote it up.