The School Day, circa 1970’ – “Middle aged memories”
by Justin Morley, DC, peg 18.
I remember being woken up by the school bell at 7.00 or 7.30 every morning when I was at DC as a boarder in the mid 1970’s. Bunty Mills (the matron with glasses) would fly in the dorm and fling open the windows telling us all to get up in a shrill voice “wake up boys” . I would get out of bed, put on my standard issue M&S slippers and cord dressing gown, grab my wash bag and make my way down the corridor to the cold washroom to wash my face and clean my teeth. We would make our beds making sure we had “hospital corners”. Once a month or so we would put “top sheet to the bottom, bottom sheet to the wash” This was our bed change training installed into us by the matrons and had to be followed, our beds would then get checked for quality. I still remember how to make hospital corners.
Once dressed, we would all then queue on the stairs before breakfast, waiting to be told by the headmaster Mr. Ian Onslow or Major Elevery to go into the dining room. We would get for breakfast a kipper full of bones or a greasy bit of old bacon full of gristle; we would drink stewed tea from a giant metal tea pot. I remember the giant tea bag, I’m not sure if it was tea but tasted of floor sweepings from carpentry classes.
On some days at lunch time, a boy or two would be fed to the Onslow head table near the window and have the feared task of sitting at their table for lunch, where one would make polite small talk through gritted, shaking teeth. PY would say grace before each meal, although it seemed like a prayer to survive it. I think after breakfast we had chapel, but they may have been only on Sundays, I’m now 43 and time plays tricks on you! The morning would consist of various classes, most of which I was day dreaming in plotting my DC escape, We had classes such as Latin, French, English, RE (Religious Education) , geography, science etc. Art classes were the best, with Mrs. Keys who was a wonderful artist and a motherly figure to us all. Lunch would be an ordeal of lumpy warm potato and liver or an ancient lamb chop from a lamb that really was a teenager, washed down with plastic tasting water from a plastic water jug. Food plays a big part of my 1970 DC School memories.
In the afternoon, we would play games, (subject to the season) such as rugby , cricket, football or hockey. I was not a sportsman, so I found this to be an ordeal of endurance. To make matters worse, in the winter we had to wear shorts without any underpants on underneath, why? I don’t really know why. I remember standing freezing (dressed in my black shorts with white match stick legs) on a hard frosty rugby pitch with major Elevery screaming at me, “wake up Morley run with the ball”. I remember before games, having to walk through the “boot locker room” that stank of mud and smelly feet . Our “spikes” as they were called, were kept there in wooden boxes along the walls with our name tag number on them. Of course, you could never find your boots because other boys would throw them about on the floor or swap them for a laugh; this resulted in you arriving late for the game where you would then get a clip round the ear or a detention. I remember spending hours in detention writing 100 times “I must not be late”.
Tea or “supper” was a similar affair to all the other meals. On some afternoons or evenings we had clubs such as stamp collecting, train railways (tiny trains on little tracks) run by Mr Onslow, fly tying also run by Mr Onslow as he liked fly fishing . After tea, we would roam the grounds in our standard issue grey shorts making camps or climbing trees. Bed time was prompt at 8.00 or 9.00. Weekends were long and boring, although I remember on some Saturdays, being allowed to watch “The Professionals” or “The Guns of Navarone”. On Sundays, the food standard went up one notch and we sometimes got a kind of stringy roast beef. We could wear casual clothing on Sundays; this was called “Muffty” why I don’t know. It consisted of light blue dungarees and “gum boots” . It was important to only have one button done up on the strap of the dungarees or you were called a girl.
On Sundays, we would also have letter writing, where we would write home using our standard issue writing sets that consisted of leather (fake leather W.H Smith issue) bound zip up case. On side was a pad with an underline guide that you used to write in a straight line, on the other side envelopes and in the middle a fountain pen. I was always given one each Christmas much to my horror as I knew it was for school. Letters were then checked for content and given to the “Master or Sir” for sending once he had edited them. Stamps had to be positioned nicely in the right hand corner of the envelope.
In the summer, days were long and hot, in the winter, days were short, cold and dark. We would often stand against the old radiators in the classrooms to get warm legs. School days were strictly run by the bell. The bell was on the wall outside the “Headmaster's Study”. It was a brass bell that would be pushed for about 10 seconds and was very loud; you could hear it up a tree in the school grounds. The headmaster or one of his teachers would press it at set times to follow the old school clock that was on the wall above the headmasters door. If you were late you got a pulled ear or a beating. We had music lessons on some days, taught by a teacher who wore very thick glasses and had a passion for music. He would play classical music and we would then chat about it although I had no idea what he was talking about. His room was in the roof of the school on got very hot in the summer. On Saturdays PY (the School Chaplain) would give us peanuts and a fizzy drinks and we would roam around the school grounds looking for illegal activities, such as climbing trees or making underground camps.
I have very vivid memories of my days there. The school was glued together by strict discipline, custom and routine and I don’t think it did me any harm but helped to shape me into the fine upstanding man I am today. At the time, I did not enjoy it so much, but it was a school set in a different time and followed a society that is totally unrecognizable by today’s standards. We should have schools like that again; I think it would solve many youth problems that the UK now faces.
