| Many people today probably find reading stories
like"Decline and Fall" tedious or stupid. The only way for them to
discover the prep school life of old is via Harry Potter. And yet Harry
Potter
is nonsense and depends on fantasy for its effect, whereas "Decline and
Fall" is not only an accurate picture of what it was like to be a prep
school boy in the time of Evelyn Waugh, but funny as well. Despite
their
unlikely stories, there was more truth in Jimmy Edwards' "Whacko" and
"St
Trinians" than there is in today's Harry Potter because they were based
situations schoolchildren really did find themselves in. But who needs
Hogwarts
School anyway when you've been to Wellington, Hatch End? I knew about Wellington from an early stage because that's where Christopher went. And when we moved to Germany, Christopher stayed there as something I continually confused with a frontier. Why on earth was he called a boarder? I could never work it out and no-one ever told me what it meant. My present inability in Modern Languages comes, I think, from never having had words explained to me. I had to work them out for myself. Still, that's where he was and he occasionally came home from this mysterious place, shabbily dressed in the classic prep school uniform of the time. With its bright blue blazer edged in glossy white with a wonderful multicoloured heraldic badge, Wellington definitely had the best there was around. Christopher only managed one proper holiday while we were in Germany because during the Christmas break he spent much of the time in bed with chicken pox, covered in a fast drying pink liquid that had to be administered while he stood in the bath. In the Easter holidays, however, we were soon up to pranks, particularly in the woods across the way from Elizabethstrassë (so tactfully named I later thought) where we built imaginary tents with string. These were one day cut and destroyed by German boys who turned up on another occasion with air rifles. "Don't say anything and walk away slowly" said big brother. "Why?" I asked. "Because they're German," he whispered. He could have added "Don't mention the War," but that phrase was only to be invented later by another prep school boy and in any case, I would only have said "Which War?" Our next home was France, Christopher remaining at prep school. He seemed to be missing everything by being away and yet I was soon to discover he wasn't missing anything at all. Plans were being made to introduce me to this distant world when I would find out for myself what sort of brother I really had. At the end of the summer term of 1958, it was decided that the threat of my being taught in French the following September was too serious a risk to take. The last time it had happened, the previous September, had already confirmed that I would learn no French in France and so I may as well go to Wellington for it. And at least there was Latin, too. And football and cricket as it turned out, but we'll come to that later. Since I was only seven, it was thought inappropriate for me to be thrown in at the deep end. Rather, I should go first for a fortnight or so after my summer term in St Germain, which conveniently finished earlier than schools in England. A kind of apprenticeship. I remember walking away from the last day at school, thinking what rotten luck it was that I was now going to school in England while everyone else was on holiday, and idly picking up a stick. It turned out to be a snake and I jumped a hundred feet in the air and sprinted home. Give me prison in England rather than that, I thought. Those three weeks were horrible especially because I knew that our Mum was touring around waiting for the end of term to take us home. One night I heard her having supper with matron downstairs (strange arrangement, but there you go) and so I started being difficult in the dormitory, faking homesickness. The trouble with Mum was that she knew only too well what was up and actually came into the dormitory to tell me off in front of all the others. "Just pull yourself together, Nicholas. You're big enough now." And oddly, I felt so much better. "Pulling oneself together" was one of the cornerstones of Mum's "Philosophy of Life", and I find even now it works every time. From that moment I loved every day (and night) of boarding school and was devastated ten years later when it was all over. September 1958 and off to school. While modern parents would (both) drive their darlings to school with trunks and bags in the back, especially if it was to be the first time away, our parents must have thought there was no point in sending us to prep school if we had to be driven there. And since Christopher knew the way and was eleven years old already, there should be no problem. So the trunks went by train and boat and we were dropped off at Le Bourget; me in my brand new uniform and Christopher disguising his with a Humphrey Bogart style raincoat. No question of unaccompanied minors. On to the plane, taxi from Heathrow to the station, off at Hatch End and walk to school. We were welcomed by matron at the door and that was that. So what was Wellington like? Full of paedophiles and sadists? A den of iniquity, teaching nothing, wasting our parents' money and damaging us children for life? Well, maybe it was for some. But for me it was paradise. A world of total freedom. A place to make Summerhill seem like a borstal and AS Neil a dictator. There were, when I arrived at first, twelve boarders out of a school population of about sixty. The great old days of the mid fifties with a hundred and fifty or so were long gone but perhaps that is why it was so magical. The two old Headmasters (they were joint Heads), the magesterial Mr Scott and the kindly Mr White, were themselves 'dayboys'. In fact, I do believe they took the afternoons off as well. They owned the building and gardens which leant themselves to Wellington School, Hatch End. In the gardens had been built a gym (which served also as an assembly hall and theatre) behind which was a walled playground. Otherwise, the gardens were just gardens, nicely arranged with paths, trees and flowers and complete with pond and a huge vegetable patch which could have been the inspiration for Beatrice Potter's creation. I cannot pretend to remember exactly the inside of this elegant town house and I know I will make mistakes in trying to picture it. To the left of the columned entrance was the Heads' study and to the right, I think, a classroom. Oddly enough, I remember little of the classrooms and more of the "living" quarters. There was quite a large dining room where the boarders had supper (I do not recall a single lunch), behind which was the cavernous old-fashioned kitchen where we had breakfast. It was the most friendly room in the house and I loved coming down in the morning to the warmth of the place and to the smells of bacon and eggs. I learnt about football there from Stephen Meredith (or was his name just Meredith?) who was a formidable athlete next to my weedy frame. Meredith supported Arsenal who played in red and white in front of crowds of 60 000 and who were called the gunners. I tried to imagine what it all meant while being amazed at his muscles . "Don't worry, Nicholas, when you've had more exercise, you'll be like him," said matron. Once out of breakfast, there was assembly and then lessons. Running off from the dining room towards the back was a corridor with a classroom and the stairs going on one side down to the basement and on the other up to three more classrooms. One was really a corridor with old fashioned Eton-style bench desks and which was known as the "scholarship" classroom. Christopher was in that one, I remember; and the other two were high ceiling'd and fairly square. All very old with wooden floors everywhere. Above this area were the dormitories, up very steep stairs and practically in the attic. Somewhere, but I don't remember where, were matron's flat and presumably a room for the housemaster who was there to maintain discipline. He tried, but usually failed, perhaps because he lived elsewhere, for I do remember that as soon as lessons were over and the teachers were gone, we were free except for supper time. And free meant absolutely free especially on Fridays with the long weekend that followed. Paradise. Saturday morning and on the train from Hatch End. I tried trainspotting (the proper kind) and bought lots of bookletss to help me. Were these the "I Spy" books which we also bought for other things? I spent hours on the platform or the bridge, crossing out the trains I saw. These included the Flying Scotsman picking up speed to a hundred miles an hour on its way to Edinburgh; but mostly they were drab modern diesel trains of little interest except the nameplate stolen from its illustrious steam powered predecessor and stuck to its side. But where was Christopher? Only much later did I realise that the outing had nothing to do with trainspotting for him and his friends. "You carry on here," he would say. "We're going further up-line." I generally did what I was told at first. Later, we too went up or down-line. In fact since we didn't need to be back at school, why not? "I'm going to tell you a secret," said Paul Little. " Go on then, I replied. "I'm going to tell you how they make babies." "You don't need to," I lied, "I already know." (Only a year before I had learnt about Father Christmas, so you can imagine the state I was in). That night I went through all the possibilities and got as far as imagining that babies came by a kind of Caesarian operation. It wasn't long, though, before I got closer.... |