Hamish Johnston

How elastic is time! Today it is fifty years since I left Durlston Court in 1958, and it seems like the day before yesterday. Yet when I went there in 1953 the Jubilee Entrance, celebrating the first fifty years of the school, was being constructed and 1903 seemed as distant to me as the Middle Ages.

In September 1953 the coronation had just taken place and Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. It was a time of hope, with the imminent ending of rationing suggesting that Britain was finally recovering from World War II, to which reference was frequently made. The school roll had about 95 names in those days – all boys between 7 and 13 years old, and all boarders.

Although confined to the school grounds we learned what was going on in the world, even if we were too young to understand the implications. There was a daily newspaper and a weekly "Illustrated London News" in the Library, and sometimes when we were eating a meal Mr. Cox, the headmaster, would report on major events. I recall clearly hearing about the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1957 launch of Sputnik in this way. I also remember him telling us that former pupil Tony Hancock (of whom he was very proud) had been nominated best TV comedian of the year.

Older boys also got weekly current affairs talks from the school’s landlord, Mr. MacLellan, who lived in a big house just inside the school gates. We were very conscious of Britain as a great power. Curiously this was reinforced by the fact that the skies above us were always filled with military aircraft. The de Havilland Aircraft Company had a factory at Christchurch, and most days we would see test flights of cutting-edge flying technology in the shape of such aircraft as the Vampire, Venom or DH110 Sea Vixen. But young as we were I think we had a sense that Britain’s future was going to be different from its past.

Our outside world consisted of supervised crocodile walks along local residential streets and round Barton Common, or to the cliffs, where we could see the English Channel and the Needles. The annual Ascension Day picnic followed a chapel service and usually took place at Wootton Bridge or Burley. Wootton Bridge was a very good habitat for butterflies – collecting them was a popular pastime. And at the start and end of each term the train (corridor and compartment carriages pulled by a steam locomotive) took us past large numbers of cargo ships and huge trans-Atlantic liners at Southampton. Commercial air travel had not yet displaced them.

Portable radios were banned, and small transistor radios had not yet been invented. Some boys tried crystal sets although I can not remember any that ever worked! Modern technology did arrive at Durlston, however. In 1958 a TV room was built for the occasional viewing of suitable programmes. This relieved Mr. Cox of having to open his sitting room for boys to watch such selected events as the Boat Race. The 33 r.p.m long-playing record was just coming onto the market, and I remember we were all treated to a hearing of "My Fair Lady", which opened on Broadway in 1956. Because the show had not yet reached the London stage it was also, perhaps, a way of somebody boasting that they had American contacts.

I should not proceed further with this memoir without mentioning the staff, most of whom I remember quite well. Pat Cox, the headmaster, must have been about 60 when I was there. He was stocky, not particularly tall, with straight silver-grey hair. Clearly the boss, firm and fair, he handled the business side of the school. He had many contacts, and once arranged for Colin Cowdrey, the master England batsman, to come to the school to coach Stevens and Close, Durlston’s two outstanding players.

The power behind the throne was undoubtedly Marjorie Dawson, an energetic and well-organised lady in her 50s, full of drive and positive enthusiasm. She controlled the pupil side of school administration and ran the Durlston Shield house system, using it to promote desired behaviours from hard work to tidiness. Sadly for me my house - St. George – was rarely successful, and I only went on the winning house’s outing three times. The one I remember is a production of "Ruddigore" by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in Bournemouth. Miss Dawson also ran basket-making groups and was one of my first English teachers. My other English teacher was Miss Edna Taylor, a rather round woman who also taught me Geography in my first year. Her main subject was Art.

Mr Vibert was my first Latin teacher. He was very keen on photography and did his own developing and printing. He had a Rolleiflex camera and always took the photographs of events such as school plays and sports days. He was also very keen on horseracing, and kept a black notebook of form, and claimed to have an infallible system for selecting winners. He also taught Maths.

I have little recollection of Mr. Ogden as a classroom teacher, but do remember his boxing classes in the two winter terms for which a ring was set up in the gym. Boxing was a voluntary activity, but it was unthinkable that one would not participate despite the scuffed leather gloves padded with horsehair. It wasn’t really much fun being bashed by flailing arms (usually), or worse by well-aimed jabs.

Captain Goodin taught me History, Geography and Maths, and also how to swim. He walked with a limp, no doubt the result of a war wound. I used to dread Thursday mornings that involved a double Maths class. Once that was over I could look forward to the weekend.

Francis Nelson-Wright was the form-master for the Upper VI and taught Latin and Greek. He was also the school chaplain and the master in charge of the Library. He waged an ongoing and often unsuccessful campaign against unsuitable books and comics. Only the "Swift" and "Eagle" were allowed. Ironically it is the banned "Beano" and "Dandy" that still thrive today.

Ian Onslow joined the school not long after I went there and taught me Geography. He had a MG sports car. He was quite a firm character who did not hold back on his opinion. He supervised the model railway room in the hut beyond the Upper VI classroom. He was also the leader of the team that in 1956 constructed the pool for sailing model boats. I remember a narrow trench being dug and then filled with concrete to form the walls before the remaining soil was removed and the concrete base poured – the entire operation done by hand. There were no JCBs in those days.

Mr Trubshaw taught me French. He was a hard disciplinarian and we were rather afraid of him, dreading the days he appeared wearing yellow socks, especially if the homework we had been set had not be learned perfectly. The music teacher in my early years was Mr. Barton. He was a very precise man, short and thin with a toothbrush moustache. He left after a couple of years and was replaced by Norman Pope, a rather more laid-back character. The non-teaching staff I remember are the matron, Miss Tewson, and her staff who changed from time to time. I remember Miss Stapley, Mrs Harrison and also Miss Adshead.

My main memory of Durlston food is (because I hated it) toast and marmite for high tea once a week, and by contrast, a slice of birthday cake if you were a friend of the birthday boy. If you were good at sport and in a team you got food at matches. For non-sporty people like me operating the score board at cricket matches gave to the teams’ sandwich spread sandwiches. I suppose that what we got to eat was determined as much by the school budget as anything. Once a week we were allowed one item from our own tuck box, which was kept locked away in the Tuck Shop, which had a painted sign outside depicting the eponymous friar. My box contained small tins of mandarins and Bounty bars.

Not surprisingly I remember much more about extra-curricular activities than school work. The Art room, which was in reality a small floored-over indoor swimming pool rendered redundant by the recently opened outdoor pool, was where we made our model aircraft. Once a week Mr Vibert, who was in charge of boys’ pocket money, would take orders for shopping and buy the necessary items in New Milton. Balsa wood planes were very popular, especially the rubber-band powered Keil Kraft models of World War II fighters. More affluent boys owned miniature diesel engines, and build line-controlled planes. I seem to remember many more crashes than successfully executed circuits!

Sometimes large-scale games were organised on free afternoons, often involving most of the boys. In fair weather it was ‘Fieldcraft’ between two rival ‘armies’, and in bad weather ‘Insects’ in the gym. The best thing to happen in the gym was the evening cinema show. This was provided several times a term by a Mr. Scutt. A cartoon short was followed by a feature film, the end of which was never seen by junior boys who had to go to bed at a reel-change. The tarmac playground outside was popular for roller-skating and the racing of ‘chariots’ – for the construction of which you had to acquire some old pram wheels and axles and pieces of timber.

Other outside activities included gardening – an area was set aside for small individual plots between the chapel and the cricket field – and the nearby sandpit, which was contained within a concrete wall and in which elaborate sand structures were built to provide a race track for Dinky Toy replica racing cars.

At the far end of the school grounds in an area known as the Pine Walk boys would create huts using fallen timber and pine needles. Many of these structures involved creating space by digging and tunnelling – fortunately there were no accidents with collapses of the sandy soil. This area also included a hay meadow. One year this was cut during term-time exposing large numbers of field mice many of which were captured and kept in makeshift cages. Needless to say, the school authorities swiftly stepped in and the mice that had not already escaped were ejected to the outdoors.

School plays were major events and great fun for the participants. These were of two kinds. There was a full-scale production every autumn term in the gym. The actors were always boys, but the staff and spouses were heavily involved in the sets, lighting, costumes and make-up. Pat Cox himself (who was involved in the local dramatic club) was the producer/director. In the summer term the Upper VI boys put on "Scenes from Shakespeare" in the headmaster’s private garden, the script being heavily edited to manageable proportions by Mr. Nelson-Wright.

One of the unpredictable but inevitable events that occurred from time to time was an outbreak of infectious disease that disrupted classes and required the cancellation of sporting fixtures. In November 1957 a particularly bad ‘flu outbreak affected 60 boys and a number of staff, and normal school life came to a standstill. I remember it because it took place towards the end of the term and boys were allowed home as soon as they were on the mend. Unfortunately my recovery was slower than most and I remember the anguish I felt as the beds emptied around me.

That term apart, end of term was always exciting. On the last night before break-up there was a film show, a Feast in the dining room and a sing-song led by Pat Cox – a sort of Durlston "Last Night of the Proms". The programme included a lengthy song called "Vive la Compagnie" written by Pat Cox and Miss Dawson and consisting of a line about every boy in the school and a rousing chorus after every few lines. And the next day, luggage already sent off PLA (i.e. Passenger’s Luggage in Advance), it was off to New Milton station and home. Wonderful!

Hamish Johnston
(1953 – 1958)

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