Figure 1.-- Here I am at my Dorset school in 1959. It is a group of boys at my boarding house. Don't they look old-fashioned? The ones in long trousers are in the 3rd form, the others in the 2nd form.

I returned to England alone at 13, to start at a boarding school in Dorset, an experience I loathed. It was back into grey shorts for me, which I hated, for I associated wearing shorts at school with organised sports, which I have never enjoyed. I thought it was sadistic making us wear shorts all through the winter; after all, we had attained the grand old age of 13! Also, I had to join the Army Cadets, which meant spending one day a week in a ghastly khaki uniform which seemed designed to chafe and scratch at every part of the body with which it was in contact, i.e. most of it. It was even more unbearable on hot days. For the rest of the week, school uniform was all I wore, including at weekends. This was an all boys public school, i.e. a private, fee-paying school. You entered at 11, having passed the Eleven Plus exam and joined the first form. I arrived half- way through the second form year. All boys had to wear shorts until reaching the 3rd form, at 13 or 14. So when I arrived, my uniform was grey flannel shirt, school tie, grey flannel suit, (short trousers), school cap, black shoes and socks to just below the knee. In the summer we wore the school blazer instead of the jacket. This was a black and blue stripy affair with the school crest on its breast pocket. For PE lessons, we wore white singlet and shorts and to denote which team you were in when playing something like basketball, one team had to take off their singlets, and were called ‘skins’, to differentiate them from the ‘shirts’. I really loathed having to be in the ‘skins’, feeling very vulnerable and self conscious without a top on. Out of school hours, at the boarding house, the full school uniform was mandatory, unless you were wearing sports kit. Casual clothes did not exist. Baths were taken once a week, according to a roster prepared by Matron, my night being Monday. We even had to get changed into pyjamas, ready for bed, at a specific time, 8 pm, and lights out in the dormitory was at precisely 9 pm. Woe betide you if you were caught talking after lights out! When I ascended to the third form, I graduated to long trousers like the others in my form. Except, that is, for one individual, who remained in shorts all year. He was clearly embarrassed, often to be seen tugging at the hems to try to pull the trouser legs down. He was growing fast and his problems worsened as time went by. He was mercilessly ribbed for this by some of his classmates and his life was a misery. I was really glad to leave that school a year later.

Return to England

I returned to England alone at 13, to start at a boarding school in Dorset. My parents thought it was important for my education. The Government financed the education of servive people stationed abroad through the Assisted Places scheme. This meant I could attend a public school offering a better education than the school on the base in Germany. I arrived half- way through the second form year. It was an experience I loathed.

The School

This was an all boys public school, i.e. a private, fee-paying school. You entered at 11, having passed the Eleven Plus exam and joined the first form. The school was in a quiet market town and took boys from 11 to 18 years of age. It was a public school of the old type, steeped in tradition, with about 400 boys, half boarders, half dayboys. The boarders were housed in five separate boarding houses, in different parts of the town. Conditions were extremely Spartan, the double bunk beds standing on bare, wooden floors, no curtains to the windows and, of course, no heating. I won’t dwell on the diabolical food, suffice to say, it was diabolical. Of many unfamiliar and ominous routines that greeted me on my arrival, one was the compulsory removal of outdoor shoes after tea and their stowage in a boot-room, a shed in the garden. Boys would wear carpet slippers until next morning, when they would change into normal shoes before going off to lessons. Each evening, a boy was rostered to clean all the shoes in the boot-room, then lock it, and unlock it the next morning. The significance of this became clear to me one night when I was duty shoe-cleaner; one of the boys bribed me to leave the boot-room unlocked. In the middle of the night he escaped, making good his family home 20 miles away. Obviously, he couldn’t have achieved that in carpet slippers. Three days later he was brought back, whimpering sadly. It has, of course, been said that when English public schoolboys are sent to prison, they settle in quickly, it being just what they’ve been used to!

Uniform

It was back into grey shorts for me, which I hated, for I associated wearing shorts at school with organised sports, which I have never enjoyed. I thought it was sadistic making us wear shorts all through the winter; after all, we had attained the grand old age of 13! The school uniform was all I wore, including at weekends. All boys had to wear shorts until reaching the 3rd form, at 13 or 14. So when I arrived, my uniform was grey flannel shirt, school tie, grey flannel suit, (short trousers), school cap, black shoes and socks to just below the knee. In the summer we wore the school blazer instead of the jacket. This was a black and blue stripy affair with the school crest on its breast pocket. For PE lessons, we wore white singlet and shorts and to denote which team you were in when playing something like basketball, one team had to take off their singlets, and were called ‘skins’, to differentiate them from the ‘shirts’. I really loathed having to be in the ‘skins’, feeling very vulnerable and self conscious without a top on. When I ascended to the third form, I graduated to long trousers like the others in my form. Except, that is, for one individual, who remained in shorts all year. He was clearly embarrassed, often to be seen tugging at the hems to try to pull the trouser legs down. He was growing fast and his problems worsened as time went by. He was mercilessly ribbed for this by some of his classmates and his life was a misery.

Cadets

Also, I had to join the Army Cadets, which meant spending one day a week in a ghastly khaki uniform which seemed designed to chafe and scratch at every part of the body with which it was in contact, i.e. most of it. It was even more unbearable on hot days. Although I had nothing against the idea of military training at that age, the routines we were forced to endure seemed pointless to me, and utterly unfulfilling. There was rifle drill: a lot of marching around being shouted at, carrying heavy old .303 rifles almost longer than some of the smaller cadets. There were lessons in field craft, which covered little I hadn’t already picked up in the Scouts, lectures in leadership – quite beyond me – and copious instruction in looking after your equipment. That meant how to clean and wear your uniform.

Boarding House

Dickens could have learnt a lot from conditions in my boarding house. Out of school hours, at the boarding house, the full school uniform was mandatory, unless you were wearing sports kit. Casual clothes did not exist. Baths were taken once a week, according to a roster prepared by Matron, my night being Monday. We even had to get changed into pyjamas, ready for bed, at a specific time, 8 pm, and lights out in the dormitory was at precisely 9 pm. Woe betide you if you were caught talking after lights out!

East Anglia School

My parents with my two younger brothers in tow returned from Germany at were stationed as a base in East Anglia, quite a way from Dorset. They knew I was unhappy at the Doset school so they found another public school school nearby for me. I was really glad to leave the Dorset school and the East Anglia school proved a wonderful choice. I was quite happy there for my remaining school career.