Surgeon Captain Peter Beck (retd) Royal Navy

I went to Durlston in the autumn term immediately after the start of the war and finally spent two terms at Furzie Close, leaving as head boy at the end of the term before the fire in 1946.

I have few memories of Swanage but many of Earnshill. Inevitably they are more about life and the ambience of the  school rather than the acceptable image that would have been reported in the Durlstonian  At Swanage most of us were terrified by the night bombing but only too keen to go outside to watch the occasional dogfight and collect the empty shellcases as souvenirs. The German aircraft were making for Portsmouth or Poole  The latter was the main base for our Motor Torpedo Boats and for the training of Commandos. The radar station at Worth came much later . The development of radar was a well guarded secret which raises the question how Cockeye knew at that stage that it was to be a radar station?!

I remember little about the building at Swanage or the building of outdoor shelters but I vividly recall watching the older boys playing a very vigorous form of hockey on roller skates on the circular playground. Roller skating at Earnshill was largely confined to an oversize chicken shed. In our day Cockeye’s interpretation of Erectus non Elatus had progressed from’Chests not Stomachs’ to’Upright not Cocky.

Earnshill was an inspired choice for evacuation and was a naturalists paradise. In those days butterflies and moths were prolific and many boys became knowledgable lepidopterists.  Several had large collections of specimens and a number of us kept caterpillars, fed them and saw them through their development to imagines. Many boys had butterfly nets and killing jars. The best equipped had cyanide as the killing agent but crushed laurel leaves was an acceptable alternative.  Once dead the specimen was impaled with a pin through the thorax and carefully set out on a mounting board. This was a length of paper covered cork about 4 in. wide and 10 inches long with a groove down the centre. With the body in the groove the wings of the butterfly or moth were then pinned out with ultra-fine pins to display both pairs of wings. When dried out and fixed the specimen was transferred to a display tray. Apart from butterflies and moths there was also the pond with tadpoles, dragonfly and caddis fly larvae etc. Birds egg collecting was not as popular but Murray Hudson caught, reared and trained a jackdaw called Herbert. He took him home for the holidays but unfortunately Herebert flew into the side of a building and was killed.

Looking from the front at Earnshill House, Durlston occupied the centre and right wings. The owner Mrs Coombe retained and lived the left wing. Next to the right wing was a large wood crisscrossed with paths and with a rookery. Behind the house was a semicircular lawn bounded by an haha. Beyond the haha the field stretched down to the river Isle and to the area of the river used for swimming. The field was used for grazing cattle. The dormitories on the outside of the house at the rear overlooked the lawn and it was a simple matter to climb out of and back into the dormitories from the lawn. I forget whether it was 1943 or 1944 that we had a gloriously hot summer but we used to sneak out at night and go down to the river for midnight skinny dipping. Inevitably we were eventually caught and received a whacking from Cockeye. The staff had got wind of what we were up to, formed a possee armed with torches and revealed us in the water before giving chase. The memory of naked boys running back to the house with pyjamas under their arms must have been a talking point in the staff common room for many weeks.  We were never quite sure how the staff found out what we were doing. It may have been that one of them did rounds and found an empty dormitory. We credited it to the finding of traces of cowpat on someones slippers. Each morning we had to make our beds. They were done very neatly with hospital corners and with ones chair and slippers on the top so that anyone inspecting the beds would be able to notice soiled slippers.

One of the highlights in our day was listening to the American Forces Network on the radio. We listened as soon as we were free at the end of the mid-morning break. The programme we listened to was of swing and jazz records. The DJ was a Corporal Monaghan  (later Sgt.) of the US Army and our particular favourites were Glen Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and the other big bands of the day. As far as I remember the catalyst  for this interest in the pop music of the day was Roger T.Hancock. I always imagined that he was Tony Hancock’s brother. If so they had a lot in common. Roger was a fiendish fast bowler,was very handy with the bat too and was captain of cricket. He was also a very good soccer player and was most effective on the wing.

As befits boys there was quite a lot of fighting at school. The woods provided an ideal scenario for a form of mechanised warfare on bicycles. I think the objective was to cause ones opponent to dismount or fall off. The sides were quite evenly balanced and were selected, not on ones school team but upon whether one was a Roundhead or a Cavalier. This had nothing to do with whether one was a Royalist or Cavalier by political inclination but whether one was circumcised (Royalist) or not (Cavalier)!

Cockeye used to give us a daily briefing on the progress of the war. The preparations for D-Day were plain for all to see and we used to cycle out to the air strip at West Zoyland at the weekends to watch Dakotas fly over and pick up gliders from the ground. D-Day itself was memorable as throughout the day the sky was black with wave after wave of aircraft making their way south, many towing gliders.

I have many more memories but hope to unlock even more doors on OD day.


Addenda
One late spring when the rooks were nesting and there were many young rooks finding their wings, Mrs Coombe got her handyman to shoot as many as possible and also to shoot the nests to destroy any remaining eggs.  A couple or so days layer Miss Bater (or was it Baker) the domestic science qualified head cook and housekeeper produced game pie for the staff evening meal. We boys eat supper earlier than the staff who dined on their own for dinner. It seems that the staff enjoyed the pie. One or two of them realised that at that time of the year no game were in season for shooting other than rabbits and that it was certainly not rabbit pie. When pressed for the main ingredients, Miss B finally admitted that it was rook pie. Reputedly a number of the staff immediately went a whiter shade of pale and hurriedly left the room! The next morning all were present and correct.

Cockeye used to like to help out the farmer near the entrance to the drive to Earnshill and each summer we used to help out with the haymaking. On one such occasion Eric Warlow, a young master waiting for call-up into the services, dislocated his big toe when a cart ran over his foot.  On another occasion the farmer (Mr Forward?) asked for help when one of his cows had an obstructed labour. Cockeye assembled a tug-of-war team of older boys who went up to the farm to pull on a rope passed around the calf. The calf was delivered successfully, much to the relief of all concerned and especially the cow.

Nesta Howard, a Dawn French prototype, was a plump young graduate mistress who taught Latin and Greek. I think it was on Sundays after lunch, she used to read to us Agatha Christie books. The sessions were entirely voluntary but were well supported and much enjoyed.