A new school, and beyond
Thirteen is a horrible age. My birthday is on the 5th of August. I was almost only just 13 when I started at Epsom. We had spent a lot of time on the school store, buying uniform. Awful itchy grey suit, detached collar shirts. [we were the last year of detached collars], games kit. And the day dawned when I started my new school.
I didn't know where to go, but I found Crawfurd House. It isn't a misprint. It was named after a guy called Crawfurd. "Durum Patientia Frango" A wonderful motto. "With patience I can break the toughest condom!" [Ok, non-Brits, Durex is a UK brand of condom]. The dayroom, for we were all dayboys, was the ground floor of a classroom block. First years to the left, second years a bit further clockwise, third years a bit further, sixth form to the right, and prefects in a sort of communal psuedo-study, "the bin". Best place for them!
I don't really remember that first day. I think it was a sort of cattle market kind of day. Old friends from Kingswood House. Old enemies (well seniors) from Kingswood House. New faces. Would they be friends? No introductions. No time for introductions. Not even time to get oriented. Chapel. First lesson. How did I find the room? I have no idea at all. Break. Time to be bewildered. Getting to know the kids in my class [M4A]. It was odd.
The intake years went into the Middle Fourth [M4A & B], and into the Upper Fourth [U4A, B & C]. Scholars went into U4A. Some of it was based on age, some on ability. I couldn't spot the system at all. I doubt it happens today.
Gradually we got sorted out. Michael Nash was my form master. A great classicist, he taught, not unnaturally, Latin and Greek. I had already had 2 years of Greek. I wanted to stop. Instead we started again. At the beginning! It was dead easy to get 23 out of 23 for the alphabet! I won the Greek prize. Good grief!
All those who have not played rugby... before!
Mr G'Nome Collington, a man of small stature and large personality, or at least a booming voice, sorted us in the chemistry lecture theatre, room 23 I think, into those who had and those who and not played rugby... before. But it didn't seem to matter. Sporty boys were put in sporty sides and unsporty boys into unsporty sides, almost by his instinct. He seemd to know those who had been good at games at prep school, and the basic shags. I had never been taught how to be good, so I was a basic shag.
If you aren't any good, you don't get taught to be any good. I wasn't taught. But I enjoyed rugby. But by definition I wasn't any good. Always in the bottom side, and no chance to get any better because we were all useless! I'd change that system if I were running school sport.
New friendships. Some to grow and vanish into thin air, some to stay, some to miss. One in particular sticks in my mind. Peter Davis. Peter because he and I just "grew together". He is still mad, yet is probably the sanest of us all, because he lived in Broome in Western Australia, making a living from the tourists. We haven't seen each other for over 30 years, but it seems only like yesterday we saw each other last. Nowadays he's moved east and lives on the other coast!
I was shy, yet it was easy to make friends. We were all shy, I suppose. And the college was a place which encouraged you to stick together. It wasn't forbidding exactly, but it wasn't friendly. When I joined it was common practice for prefects to beat other boys, especially in the boarding houses, for the most minor "crimes". It was ruled by the senior boys, and fear of prefects was not unusual.
Fagging, however, was never a problem. Fagging involved one of two types of duty. If you were a personal fag (for the Americans who are reading this, it has nothing to do with "faggot"), you made coffee and toast for the prefects, cleaned their corps kit (Combined Cadet Force - playing soldiers), were paid for the privilege, and had no other duties. It was a prized post. If you weren't a personal fag, you got a general rota of cleaning and lunch serving duties. No big deal. So why have I put it here? because I'm fed up with people misunderstanding the old systems and traditions, that's why. And you were only a fag until you reached the fifth form anyway.
We had silly privileges, from "rank". Junior boys had none. As soon as you were in "Upper School", which was broadly the second year in the sixth form, you got to wear coloured socks, have a silk pocket handkerchief, and carry a rolled umbrella. You could even walk on certain pieces of grass, and have your hands in your pockets! House Prefects could have fags (do get your mind out of the gutter), and College Prefects could walk to Chapel across the grass.
Epsom College is well defined by its prospectus. I can't put my own thoughts here, because they are personal, and may be misconstrued by some as unfair. Al went to Winchester. You can see the difference here. It suited him, and Epsom would not have.
Isle of Wight
In my second year, when I was 14, I planned a cycling trip. It was to be a holiday to the New Forest and the Isle of Wight. I invited John Bensted,* Nigel Grimshaw,** and Norman Read. I wonder where you guys are now? I had thought of camping, but we weren't allowed to borrow a tent from school, even though they were Scout Group tents and John was a scout, so we went Youth Hostelling.
One saturday at Easter, we all met in Epsom High Street, by the Clock tower, and set off for Guildford, Alton and Winchester. It was only about 60 miles, but we had a headwind, and it was raining a thin drizzle. Riding a laden bike into a headwind wearing a cycling cape redolent of a square rigged sailing ship was exhausting. We made Guildford by lunchtime, and rode along the bleak raised Hogs Back (where Mike Hawthorne, the racing driver, lost his life) into the teeth of the storm to Farnham, and along the Farnham bypass to Alton. We were completely knackered. It's only another 10 miles or so to Winchester, but we succumbed.
British Rail. Might even still have been British Railways. They provided the horsepower to get us to Winchester. Four wet, bedraggled boys and four bikes in the guards van. Bliss. Just getting warm again was bliss. Being with friends was bliss. It was a sort of male bonding thing, I suppose, but before male bonding was fashionable!
We found the Youth Hostel, and settled in for the night. It's an old water mill, and we slept with the sound of the mill race in our ears. And after a full breakfast, and having done our hostel duties, we set off for Burley, in the middle of the New Forest. The wind had gone, and the day was clear. We went past Southampton, and into the depths of the New Forest. Heck, there were many lovely days in the few we were together. It was just fun being away, being independent, being kids together, with no cares except traffic and map reading.
Isle of Wight the next day. The ferry over the Solent, finding that the island was so hilly it was evil for cyclists, nearly killing ourselves going down a huge hill which said "Cyclists are advised to dismount!" Spending a while as the only customers on a dodgem car ride at Sandown, eating in cafes. No parents. Just four kids.
We got shown around the first UK passenger hovercraft at Cowes. We got served in a pub! Under protest from the landlord because we were under age, but we got served. It was wonderful. We got home tired and totally happy. Oddly we never all hung out together after that holiday, but we never fell out while we were together.
We even sent Derek Fenner, our housemaster a postcard! Nice man, Derek. Went on to be head of Alleyns School, and died untimely young.
Accelerated a year
At the end of the U4 year, I was offered the chance to take four O-levels early. If I chose to study science, I could then go straight into the sixth from. So I jumped at the chance. It was probably the worst mistake I ever made. Can you imagine studying for A-Level maths, physics and chemistry without any grounding in the subjects at O-Level?
It was even worse that we had been guinea pigs in the School Mathematics Project "modern maths" experiment for our maths O-Level, and that we then had to unlearn all that stuff and relearn the traditional maths for the A-Level course.
It's unbelievable that anyone allowed the school to do that. Which "that"? Both "that"s. I was suddenly an under-achiever. I know how Bart Simpson feels. I just know. I couldn't do it. I had to have extra lessons. it was awful, not being able to cope. Eventually it clicked, but I got only "OK" results at A-Level. Ah well.
Being a year ahead of yourself, when already the youngest in the year you have been promoted from is not a nice experience. Luckily I sailed, so that dealt with the Summer term. I was good at hockey while it was an optional sport, and might have made one of the teams. But the next year it was made a major sport. You guessed it. Back to the basic shags side, even though I was good. No surprises there, then.
Building Bridges
The Corps was fun, though, in a perverted sort of way. I can probably still drill a squad of cadets! Was promoted all the way to Lance Corporal, and was in the REME section. Which was really the RE section. Ever the oddity, Epsom College. Still, we built a lashed trestle half bridge out of rope and telegraph poles.
I could tie knots. I was a lance idiot. So I was in charge of the lashings. TO make them tght enough we had to welt them with pickaxe handles. We didn't put much of a deck on the bridge. We'd have run out of telegraph poles. Probably just as well, though. If someone had tried to drive over it there'd have been a nasty thump at the end.
A half bridge? Well, we only had one bank to our river! We learnt how to use small explosive charges safely; we went on night compass marches; we marched around the school grounds carrying obsolete Lee Enfield .303 rifles; we generally wasted each Wednesday afternoon. Oh yes, and once a term we had a Field Day, which involved scaring the public on Headley Heath by throwing thunderflashes at them, and firing blank ammunition as well!
Once a year we had the Annual General Inspection. We all marched around the playing fields while the Corps band played mournful dirges badly. I still detest the St Anthony Chorale! We drew lots for who was going to faint, and we fainted, by lot, and in rotation. We had senior services people come and inspect us. Our kit had to be gleaming, but no-one ever looked at it except our own NCOs. Bull and bullshit.
And we had keen NCOs. I wonder if they ever made leading men. They certainly prided themselves on being leading boys. And mostly they were a complete pain in the proverbial. They were even worse when they were prefects. it is almost side splittingly funny that I saw one of the "very nice boys" who was a prefect over me when I went to concerts at Alex's school. He was a co-parent. He has never yet met my eyes, or said a word. Well, he was a small minded boy as well. And, as a prefect, so self important.
Does this sound like a diatribe against the place? Well, maybe it is, but it doesn't show that I also enjoyed it. I made friends, again lost touch with them, grew up a lot, and had a great time. No, I mean it. Despite the normal injustices I had a great time.
Material for a book?
I'm completing a book about my weird teenage years. Epsom College forms a great part of them. It was where I discovered myself, even though it was a shock to do so. And I'm setting it down in the book.
This is not about revenge, this is about atmosphere, social aspects, and what life was like without rose tinted glasses. There are only a couple of boys I fool myself that I'd like revenge on, one from Epsom College, and the other from Kingswood House. And, if I choose to take revenge, it will be different from a book!
No, the book is a charming romp through the stresses and strains of five years and a term at a middle to mediocre Public School, for that is what it was, back in the day. Like the first half of 'If... ' it is a dramatised documentary. And, trust me, "If..." was pretty accurate.
Old Friends
There are some people I'd love to meet again, though. Most of the year I joined with, and the year I left with. The three guys I cycled to the New Forest with, Nigel, John and Norman. Some of the people I was "promoted" with, like John Smithard, whom I saw briefly at a founder's day event. Or anyone who would just like to be back in touch with me. If that's you, email me and remind me about yourself. Oh yeah. Did I ever make your life hell when I was a prefect? Probably, because it was traditional. I'm sorry.
I found my bin fag on Friends Reunited. That sounds so possessive, 'my'! Phil Dickman was a self assured lad when he joined Crawfurd and seemed to want the job. I liked him a lot, but friendships between seniors and juniors were discouraged, so we were never friends. That was a shame. We weren't master and servant either. I met him very briefly by email, but contact, as so often, petered out. He had an easy ride - I had no corps kit by the time I was made, eventually, a prefect. I wonder why it mattered, except that I made it to a term of the fourth year sixth form! I hope hne liked me. He was too polite to say by email.
Crawfurd Class of 1969
I thought I'd end with a year photo or two. I forget who took it, but it's all I could collect of the guys who joined Crawfurd house in 1965. It was taken in 1969, as far as I remember.
Key, starting with the top row:
Hiding at the back: Andrew Jennings, David Kent, Julian Beaven
In front of them: David Warren, Geoffrey Illing, John Bensted, Doug Mackie, Nigel Grimshaw
Front Row: Gerry Goodman, Tim Trent, Paul Smith
Well, you've got the key above! You work it out!!
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Epsom was not the easiest school for a kid like me, though!
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*John Bensted now lives in Bristol. He's doing something quite important in Gloucester as head of the Probation Service. He's moved on, so no reunions there.
**Nigel Grimshaw and I have been planning to meet for a few years! We will. Eventually. He's in Cambridge doing something exciting with property, or building or something. No, not Lego!