I started at Barrow Hills in September 1961 as a boarder, leaving in July 1964 for St George’s College.
Not really being aware, in advance, of what it meant to be sent to boarding school I was very homesick at first and used to cry myself to sleep at night in the early days. This made me the victim of quite a lot of bullying, plus mockery from at least one priest who shall remain nameless, but I have never forgotten it. I guess I gradually acclimatised and coped with it (had to really) but it was a harsh experience to be sent away from home and learn independence and self-preservation the hard way. I would say it took at least the first two terms to feel accepted.
I can remember the excitement when a letter for me was put up in the rack and I always loved the weekend home breaks we had twice a term. I actually made quite a few friends at school. I particularly remember John Sinclair, John Allen, Ashley Croft, Julian Derrick, Eugene O’Reilly and Richard Cooper.
The train set was on a big board halfway up the big main staircase and I was soon a member, and then an official member, of the model train club. Model making was another interest (usually Airfix planes) and we had an area between the classroom block and the main house for this. Another interest was the chapel choir (run by the organist and music teacher, Mr Taylor). In my last year I was a soloist and remember feeling quite sad that one singing occasion was my last at the school. A big bonus was the choir tea and Tizer figured largely in this! I was reasonably good at art and even won a couple of prizes. I loved reading and was really into Biggles and Billy Bunter stories.
In February 1963 I had ‘flu bad enough to be confined to the infirmary for over a week. I think we were all secretly in love with Miss Bennett!
I always desperately wanted to get some cricket coaching but was never one of the chosen. However, in the last house match of my time there I was given the chance to bowl and took two wickets with two successive balls of my only over – so that told them!
Things I remember:
– Taking the 11+ at a local school
– Freezing cold milk in little bottles
– The weekly ‘card’, ranging from red (very good) through green, pink, yellow and, finally, white, which was terrible
– The new refectory and ‘swapping’ items I didn’t like for fried breads, which I did
– Brother Gerald’s tuck shop with his own ginger beer plus McCowan’s Highland Toffee
– Cross country runs (hated those)
– Pony riding and crossing the busy A3 in heavy traffic
– The swimming pool (Last Dive!)
– Helping produce the Barrow Hills Journal
– History outings to Stonehenge and Hampton Court
– Haircuts on an industrial scale
– Summer days on the cricket pitches listening to test matches on a transistor radio
– Trunks going out on the corridors a couple of days before end of term
– Dormitories named after Catholic martyrs
– Getting the cane for some trivial breaking of a rule
– Films on a Sunday night (can remember ‘The Desert Fox’ and ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’)
– My clothes with Cash’s Woven Nametapes in every item
– The announcement of JFK’s assassination and the Cuban missile crisis. We were told that if things got bad the whole country was at risk and they’d try to make sure we were with our parents. Scary times!
– The joy of seeing my parents’ car coming up the drive to collect me
After all this, it was on to St George’s and starting once again as a lonely newcomer.
In later life I had a varied career, starting work in Lloyd’s of London as a broker and then an underwriter in the marine market. I then spent a couple of years driving Routemaster buses at London Transport to fulfill a boyhood dream. I then went into IT working at various companies, including NCR, the Co-Op, Sky TV and lastly for an investment bank for 18 years.
In 1990, I left the South and moved to Cheshire where I got married and had two lovely daughters, and where I still live, just on the edge of the Peak District. I have got involved in quite a lot of artistic things, including theatre, playing (among other roles) Oberon in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Renfield in ‘Dracula’, and the Italian detective as well as Dickie Greenleaf’s father in ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’. I have also sung in chorus and solo roles in several operas, most memorably in a professional production of ‘Rigoletto’. I’m currently in a murder mystery company putting on events in hotels around the country, as well as, on one occasion, a cruise.
As for hobbies, I paint and draw, and I fence and am an archer, as well as a ballroom/Latin dancer. I have a guilty pleasure in running a 1970s MG Midget (on sunny days only!).