Wimbledon College – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (29: Early Interviews)

In the summer of 1952, I spent a considerable amount of time in the public swimming baths at Latimer Road in Wimbledon. It was there that I taught myself to swim. I needed to do this in order to pass the scholarship. This was a name applied to the eleven plus exam which would take us to grammar school. I had no idea what it was, but I wondered how I would be able to pass it if I couldn’t swim. With that daft conception in my head it is a wonder I did pass it. Without getting wet.

Speaking recently with my sister Elizabeth, we realised that a visit by our great aunts Mabel and Evelyn to our home in Raynes Park, followed by individual invitations to tea, was probably a series of interviews resulting in Dad’s inheritance of Mabel’s house in Wimbledon.

In 1953 I was to experience another life-changing interview. Having passed the eleven plus examination I was entitled to attend a grammar school. Admission to the Catholic Wimbledon College, pictured above during my time there, required getting through another test. This was an interview with Fr Wetz, one of the three Jesuit priests from the school whose obituaries I was later to read in The Times. The only exchange I actually remember is the sporting one. I, who had never played any formally organised game in my short life, was asked which sports I liked best. Knowing the school’s bent, I replied “rugby”. “Oh”, was the response. “Where have you played that?”. “With my brother and sister”. I lied lamely. I must have been marked up for quick thinking.

On 22nd January 1965, the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was to appoint Anthony Crosland Secretary of State for Education and Science. In her biography published in 1982, Susan Crosland wrote that her husband had told her “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales, and Northern Ireland”. I will be ever grateful that I finished my period of education long enough before he succeeded. My schooling ended earlier in 1960, when the result of the trial of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ meant that it would be possible for the Crosland quotation to be printed in full. I have no doubt that copies would have been widely circulated by those boys attending later that year.

The book, by D.H. Lawrence, was published by Penguin Books who were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959. The verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was “not guilty” and resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it was the kind of book “you would wish your wife or servants to read”.

Someone nicked my copy, so I took this image from the many on the internet.

Catching Up On ‘A Knight’s Tale’

Today, another warm, overcast, and dull one, I made considerable headway on ‘A Knight’s Tale’, which had somewhat staggered to a halt.

In doing so, I plundered text and illustrations from posts ‘Wimbledon College As I Knew It’; ‘Did You Mean The Off Break?’; ‘Latin Gave Me Up’; ‘Get Two’; and ‘No-one Forgets A Good Teacher’.

This evening we dined on a second sitting of Hordle Chinese Take Away fare with which I drank Chateau de Malle red Graves 2013. Jackie had drunk her Hoegaarden on the new arbour bench a little earlier.

Now is perhaps the time to mention chopsticks. The Culinary Queen finds it quite a painful experience to watch my prowess with these implements. She thinks I am a bit slow. I think I am rather skilled. She beat me to laying the table today, so I didn’t get any.

School Photos

The potentilla in the front garden is fully in bloom, as are the pansies in Jackie’s window boxes on the wall.

This morning a woodpecker took advantage of its long, sharp, beak to penetrate the suet balls suspended from the crab apple tree.

I took a walk as far as Roger’s field footpath and photographed oak apples nestling in the hedgerow. I had noticed these on a day too dull to produce a picture. It took me some time to find them again.

A.P. Maintenance completed their work on the back drive when Aaron and Robin concreted the entrance.

Today I began replacing the photographic prints Elizabeth had returned to me yesterday. The first album starts in about 1923 and runs to 1978. Before I set them back in their vacant pages I scanned them and put them into iPhoto. One theme running through was that of school photographs. The style and quality of these has changed over the years, but all bear one general characteristic. That is that if they reach home uncreased they are bound to eventually become rather gunged, and many are so badly treated that they never reach adulthood.

My paternal grandparents’ ‘Norwood School for the Sons of Gentlemen’ was small enough not to suffer the fate of other, earlier panned shots of the entire staff and pupils, where some clown would always start out on one edge of the group, and dash round the back to plant him or her self on the other side before the lens reached them, thus appearing twice for posterity.

When I was at school, the photos we proudly carried home were still group images, but now in individual classes or forms as we called them. They were still in black and white.

The form master in the first of these, taken, I think, in 1956, was Richard Milward, who features in ‘No-one Forgets A Good Teacher’; the second, in 1957, Fr Hamer S.J., on whom I focus in ‘Look At That Book’.

That 1957 class can’t be the only bunch of boys who thought it would be cool (‘though we didn’t have that use of the word then) to sign the back of the photo.

These pics, despite having spent most of their life in an album, are somewhat wrinkled.

By 1974, school photograph production was rather more sophisticated. They were now portraits in colour and came in a variety of sizes according to the parental purse. Those of Matthew and Becky have clearly been cut from sheets, probably of four copies which would be distributed among Mums and Dads and grandparents. These bear the stains of an early life partly spent clutched by sticky fingers; partly subjected to spillages one can only speculate at; and possibly twelve months beneath a fridge magnet. I took out as much muck as I could in iPhoto, but cropping was all I could do to rescue this one of Matthew, taken at Holly Mount school in Raynes Park:

Attending that same school was Becky, photographed in 1974 and 1976, when she, too, signed the back of the copy she brought to me.

Michael is also pictured in 1974, wearing the uniform of his Raynes Park school of The Sacred Heart,

and in 1977 at Islington Green school, where uniform was not required.

This evening Jackie drove us to Lymington, where we dined at Lal Quilla. We both drank Kingfisher, and shared an egg paratha. My main course was King prawn Ceylon with special fried rice. Jackie’s was an interesting new chicken dish with pilau rice.

P.S. Here is a Facebook observation from Jackie:

‘What do you mean the school pictures stay under magnets on the fridge for 12 months ?! I still have my school photo’s of Mat and Becky on the fridge here! They have travelled with me for over 30 years! Love ’em.’

and a very acute one from Becky: ‘Interesting that Paul George John Murphy has signed his name in a ring(o).’

Mnemonics

As I walked down Downton Lane on my usual Hordle Cliff walk this morning the fog alert signalled that there would be nothing to see across The Solent through the grey skies and driving rain. Bubbles forming and floating on the roadside pools slowly burst and created concentric circles on the surface which was thrown up by passing cars.
A speckled snail hauled its humbug home up a soggy stem.
Reminding me of Renoir’s famous painting ‘Les Parapluies’, an optimistic family sheltered under umbrellas as they made their way to the beach from Shorefield. The children needed a walk. The straggler was quite interested in being photographed.
Today’s Royal Mail post brought an invitation from BT to discuss cheaper options for our contract. Naturally I phoned them. A delightful young woman soon came on the line and renegotiated our account. We will now have a slightly smaller bill for faster Broadband and unlimited weekend calls. The contract has been transferred to my name, which rather pleased Jackie. We will need a new home hub which I am assured I will be able to install.
Sixteen young commissioners, aged 10 to 19, from the Children’s Commission on Poverty have recently produced research findings suggesting that the need for parents to provide certain extras, like computers, are pricing some families out of educational opportunities.
At Wimbledon College in the 1950s there were no PCs to be acquired. Most of the extras in those days were for additional activities such as the Boxing Club. The school was not really geared for art, so it was an unusual, if not the first, request for me to sit the ‘O’ Level examination in 1958, and no books were available. Although I don’t remember, Matthew Hutchinson, who would have walked it, must have sat it too.
The examination was largely an assessment of your artwork, but there was one set book, ‘The Parish Churches of England’, by John Charles Cox and Charles Bradley Ford. The school failed to supply this essential volume, and my parents could not afford it. Mum ordered it from Wimbledon Library. As the weeks rolled by, we waited with bated breath for its arrival. It was in our hands after school the day before the exam. Using a twenty four hour clock this would have been the sixteenth hour, but it certainly felt like the eleventh.
Having the advantage of reducing the text a little, this small format architectural history of our traditional places of worship was lavishly illustrated with black and white photographs. It had to be read in order to answer exam questions that would face me the next day. There would be possibly four illustrations from the book which I would need to identify and to comment upon.
I skim-read the pages of the book. I stared at what seems like hundreds of pictures. I couldn’t memorise them all. I selected some I thought most likely examples of various periods or styles of architecture.
It was rather late by then. I was pretty tired from the reading, and Mum had completed her normal heavy duty day of caring for the family. Our adrenalin, however, kicked in.
Mnemonics!
That was the answer. A mnemonic is a device dreamed up to aid memory retention. There are various types of these, one of which is rhymes, an example of which is ‘Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November………’, enabling us to remember how many days there are in each month.
Fixing my eyes in turn on each of the images I thought most likely to turn up on my desk the next day, I recited an invented nonsense rhyme until it was burned in my brain. Mum then took the book in hand, and, opening the tagged pages at random, asked a question about the photos thereon. By running the relevant rhyme through my head I came up with an answer. At first these were not always correct. A certain amount of repetition, late into the night, was required.
Finally, reasonably satisfied, we repaired to our respective beds. I had chosen well. I recognised each of the illustrations in the exam and answered the questions to the satisfaction of the examiners. Phew!
For this evening’s dinner Jackie produced a tender beef and mushroom casserole with Boiled potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Profiteroles were to follow. I drank Castillo san Lorenzo reserva rioja 2009, and Jackie didn’t.

Latin Gave Me Up

Although not having got round its baffle, the crow is back trampling the petunias on the chimney pot. The squirrel, on the other hand, earned a meal this morning. It made a successful launch from the eucalyptus, crash landed on top of the corvine baffle, slipped underneath it, and scoffed away. Given that the rodent has now rivalled Eddie the Eagle, Jackie moved the feeder further from the tree. The next lift-off point will doubtless be the new arch. Google can supply further information both on our aforementioned Olympic skier and yesterday’s Greg Rutherford reference.
We returned, briefly, to Castle Malwood Lodge this morning to retrieve two garden recliners we had left behind; and for a chat with Mo. Jackie then drove us to Ringwood where I deposited two pairs of shoes for repair; back home for lunch; then on to New Milton for me to catch the London train to visit Carol.
The corner around our old flat is well stocked with self-seeded blooms from Jackie’s temporary garden; and

the little meadow alongside New Milton station has an abundance of wild flowers.

Today I finished reading Cicero’s ‘Pro Roscio Amerino’ (For Roscius of Ameria). This is an eloquent and subtle defence of a man facing a trumped-up charge of parricide, and is significant for its being the young advocate’s first speech in a criminal court, and for his courage in taking on powerful political elements. No doubt aided by D.H.Berry’s able translation, the writing flows, and is very readable and entertaining.
It is to be inferred from my last sentence that I did not read this in the original, which would have been far beyond me. I am no Latin scholar, as was proven by my first three years at Wimbledon College. My Grammar school was then notable for its emphasis on the classics. Keen to obtain as many OxBridge university places as possible, Latin and Greek were the school’s most valued subjects, for in those 1950s days, a Latin qualification was a requirement for entry into our two leading centres of learning.
I was never subjected to Greek, and my Latin was so abysmal that, long before the O level stage, I was transferred to Geography, not then considered of prime importance.
Being top of the class in French, it was always a mystery to me that I could not grasp Latin. At school, I thought maybe it was because it seemed to be all about wars that didn’t particularly interest me. Not very many years ago, I twigged the reason for the imbalance. It was partially about word order, but more significantly about ignorance of grammatical terms. Without understanding these, I could manage the modern language, not that dissimilar in construction to our own. Meeting concepts like ‘subjunctive’ which were not considered needing explanation for passers of the eleven plus exam, I didn’t just swim, I sank.
Latin gave me up. And Geography teaching was hit and miss, so I failed that too.
So. In English. I went on to read ‘In Verrem 1’ (Against Verres). This was a necessarily short piece used as a device to circumvent the delaying tactics of the defence of a patently guilty man. It was so successful that Verres withdrew and further prepared speeches were not required.
Each of the Orations in my Folio Society edition is preceded by a helpful introduction by the translator. I began Berry’s piece on ‘The Catilinarian Conspiracy’.

From Waterloo I walked across Westminster Bridge to Carol’s in Rochester Row. I have seen this route even more crowded than today, but it was still a struggle to reach and walk across the bridge and past the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

At the junction of Great Smith Street and Victoria Street a woman struggled with a chain of keys that would have done credit to Dickens’s Jacob Marley from ‘A Christmas Carol’, to free her bicycle from its fixture on a set of railings. Having succeeded, she dropped the cluster on the pavement and loaded her steed. Given her apparel and the content of her baskets, I wondered how she would manage to ride off. She didn’t. She donned her furry hat over the straw one, pushed the bike across the road, and continued down the street.
I took the 507 bus from Carol’s back to Waterloo and boarded the train to New Milton where my chauffeuse was waiting to drive me home; show me her planting and tidying of the garden; and feed me on fresh vegetables with beef casserole, the method of cooking of which is given in yesterday’s post. She drank Hoegaarden, and I abstained.

‘Look At That Book’

Jackie spent most of the day cleaning and renovating the rancid master bathroom.

This floor, unevenly tiled in some kind of rubbery squares, gives an example of what she was dealing with. The difference she has made is evident in this photograph taken as she began. When I returned from my walk the whole surface was the colour of the clean ones you see.

From Downton Lane I took the path through the fields and alongside the bluebell wood, into which I deviated.

The tractor ploughing against the backdrop of the Isle of Wight on the horizon attracted its usual entourage of gulls and rooks. When I reached the road I turned left and continued on past the bottom of our lane to Milford on Sea.

Cattle alongside this route seemed oblivious of the then distant ploughman.

As I marvelled at the weeds and grasses forcing their way through the tarmacked surface of the narrow path to Milford, I thought fondly of Dickie Hamer. Father Hamer, S.J. was the gentle, well-loved, Jesuit priest at Wimbledon College who guided us towards O Level French. I don’t remember why we called him Dickie. Perhaps his first name was Richard. It was he who had first told us of the power of something as slender as a blade of grass to battle its way into the sunlight in search of the energy for photosynthesis. One day, as he took a tour round the classroom, he admired the drawings Matthew Hutchinson had made in the margins of his exercise book. ‘I’ll have some of that’, I imagined. So, on another occasion, I started embellishing my pages. When Dickie reached my desk, instead of the hoped for praise, I received disappointed admonishment. ‘Look at that book’ exclaimed the schoolmaster. I hear his voice, see his face, and feel the shame to this day. The experience was worsened because I knew I could never match Matthew’s art.

A game of catch cricket was in progress on the Hordle Cliff top. When the ball was hit in my direction and I failed to grasp it, all round hilarity ensued. My unspoken excuse is that a cricketer accustomed to pouching a hard leather bound ball cannot catch a bouncy one designed for tennis. And anyway my effort was one-handed with the camera hanging from my wrist. Moreover, one bout of shame is enough for any one day.

I returned by the Shorefield route at the beginning of which is a house that in dry weather has baskets of books outside for sale in aid of children’s charities. A couple had parked their car and stopped to make a selection of purchases.
This afternoon I made a start on the garden. In the immortal words of Captain Lawrence Oates, ‘I may be some time’.
For one of my birthdays in the early Newark years, Jessica gave me a cast iron replica of the Nottingham Castle benches. This has accompanied me on most of my moves since, and brought to Downton from storage by the splendid Globe Removals team. There are twelve hardwood slats linking, by bolts, the very heavy metal sides. Whilst at Sutherland Place I replaced some of the deteriorated wooden sections with iroko I had cobbled from a picnic bench. The bench has been dismantled for transit. I decided to put it together again.
The cast iron pieces lay beneath the heaviest skip pile consisting largely of IKEA contiboard. I shifted all that and dragged the iron out. Then I couldn’t find the nuts that held the bolts in place.

So I had to do something else, and made a start on weeding the paths. I didn’t get very far before diverting myself by looking up at the shattered tree. The main trunk of this as yet unidentified plant had obviously suffered in the winter gales. I had to cut the top off. There was no time like the present. I sawed off the damaged section, lopped up the branches just coming into leaf, and carried them to the far end of the garden where there has obviously been a bonfire at some time.
All this time Jackie continued to work like Helen, or maybe another Trojan, upstairs, apart from a small break when she pruned a climbing rose in an effort to preserve my scalp when walking underneath it.
I suppose every garden has its pernicious weed that defies all efforts to eradicate it.

Ours I recognise, but cannot name, from the garden at Lindum House. It is a long trailing and climbing creature with velcro epidermis that clings to anything. The creeper emanates from a buried, elongated lichee like object burrowing underground. All I will have time for this year will be to pull the greenery up by the handful before its little white flowers appear.

Extracting one such cluster revealed this fascinating little plant:

Each set of petals is about the size of a daisy. I don’t know what it is.

This evening we dined at The Jarna restaurant, the decor of which was described two days ago, when I vowed to return with my camera:

Sam was doing deliveries himself tonight. At one point he went out into a heavy shower of rain. He placed his container beside his car whilst he opened up the boot.

This could be seen through the tiger left in the window glass otherwise covered by a laminate.

Ceiling lights of different hues imparted their glow to the diners, to their napkins, and to Sam’s head as he took the orders. Ours was green.

The food was good too.

P.S. Jackie put this comment on Facebook: Just done some research, seems that Ladies bedstraw is slightly different, it is Gallium verum , the weed in our garden is Gallium aparine , AKA- catchweed, everlasting friendship, Robin-run-the-hedge, even sticky Jack, and my favourite, Sticky Willy!!

‘Get Two’

This morning I began reading Voltaire’s tale, ‘Le Taureau Blanc’, which translates as ‘The White Bull’. I doubt whether anyone of my generation can see such a title without thinking of Tommy Steele’s famous 1959 hit song ‘Lttle White Bull’ from the film ‘Tommy the Toreador’. Rather as with Adam Faith’s ‘What do you want?’, I have been known to burst into a vernacular rendition of it. Both these period masterpieces can be heard on Youtube.
The year after Tommy burst on the scene was my last one at Wimbledon College. In ‘No-one Forgets A Good Teacher’, I signposted the possibility of featuring Bryan Snalune.

I believe I stumbled upon a print containing his image today. He is probably on the viewer’s far right nearest the volleyball net. I think I am at the back of this court in jumper and tie. I’m amazed that so many in the picture wore ties. Bryan introduced the sport to the school, and brought in, I think Canadian, Air Force players to teach us the game. If they were American, I do apologise. He arranged a few fixtures for us. I have no idea how we fared.
This gentle giant, not much older than us, had that magic quality that demands respect whilst conveying equality as a human being. He was a lot of fun without losing his authority. I see his toothy smile and shock of fairish hair now. His subject was French, through which he guided me to A Level GCSE.
The smile mentioned above is probably indirectly responsible for my being awarded a punishment of two strokes of the ferula.

The ferula was the Jesuit version of the cane. A small, flat, slipper-like object consisting of leather with whalebone inside it, this was wielded by a punishment master not connected with whatever offence of which you had been guilty. ‘Two’ – one on each hand – was what was dished out to the little boys. If you were a recidivist and rather older you could progress to ‘Twice Nine’. But you wouldn’t want to.
Bryan Snalune was a keen amateur actor. During my group’s last weeks at school he performed in a play where his character was called Goofy. Clearly the casting director had also noticed the teeth. I cannot remember why, but I was not present at the performance, yet my classmates came back with this priceless information for a budding cartoonist. It felt natural to draw Walt Disney’s Goofy on the blackboard just before the French lesson.
Unfortunately our friendly teacher was not the next one to enter the room. Instead, Fr Strachan, S.J., the deputy headmaster found some reason to make a brief visit. Glancing at the familiar character depicted on the board, he said: ‘Who did that, Knight?’. Maybe he recognised my style. Although a decent enough man, Fr Strachan was not known for his sense of humour. On that day he displayed a rather quirky one. ‘Get two’. He proclaimed.
I don’t remember the name of the executioner, but I can see him now, a little round chap in holy orders whose beady eyes glinted behind his spectacle lenses. He was a little surprised at his prescribed task when I knocked on his door and extended my arms. My outstretched palms were at a level which put my fingers in danger of picking his nose. He, and I, were both even more surprised when, at each stroke, a wailing chorus set up an anguished howl in the corridor outside. Although my hands stung rather more than somewhat, I was able to open the door to encounter the whole of my class doubled up with laughter.

The year before this, when Tommy reigned in the cinemas, Bryan had managed the second XI cricket team of which he had appointed me captain. Roger Layet stands second from the left. In the teacher post highlighted above, I told how Moses came to know my name. It was for this team that the performance that brought me to his recognition was played. Bryan Snalune was the umpire. When five wickets had fallen, all to me for not many runs, ‘Take yourself off now’, he suggested sotto voce. He was the boss, so I did. Mind you, I doubt that his intervention as a supposedly neutral officiator was legitimate. When only two more had gone down and the game was, I thought, in need of my more direct involvement, I came back on and polished off the last three. Could that have been the day I would have taken all ten? I guess we’ll never know.
When you have determined on chilli con carne for dinner and you have run out of red kidney beans and live in the heart of the New Forest, you cannot nip round the corner for a tin. This means a drive out to stock up. And whilst you are there you might as well buy a few more things, which is what Jackie and I did. New Milton’s Lidl was the fortunate beneficiary of our custom this afternoon. En route through Downton we were not surprised to see that the The Royal Oak is closed and the business is To Let.

The above-mentioned chilli con carne was as delicious and appetising as usual. It came alongside savoury wild rice with sweetcorn and peas. Creme brûlée was to follow. Mine was accompanied by Llidl’s excellent value Bordeaux superieur 2012.
Now. In grave danger of yielding my laurels to my lady, I am honour bound to satisfy the desire of a valued reader. There are a number of fans who find the culinary codas to these posts of prime interest. I will therefore detail the method of preparation of tonight’s repast.
Like all creative cooks it is useless to ask Jackie for a recipe. Each meal is a work of art in progress, planned and often prepared in advance with the variable brushstrokes applied as she goes along. However, here goes:
For enough chilli for eight servings take:
4 medium onions, 4 bird eye chillis complete with seeds, 4 large or 6 medium cloves of garlic. All finely chopped, fry in a little oil and set aside;
Simmer 1 lb of lean minced beef with a Knorr beef cube (Oxo too salty) until tender;
Combine everything with a small packet of passata, a small tin of tomato puree and 2 tins of drained red kidney beans. Adding water if needed, simmer until all flavours combine in a nice, thick, sauce.
This comes with a warning. We like it hot. Some don’t. Adjust chilli content accordingly.
This particular rice is boiled.
8-10 oz of basmati with added wild rice (can be bought mixed in supermarkets). When half-cooked add the contents of a small tin of sweeetcorn, a handful of frozen peas and 4 good shakes of Maggi liquid seasoning.
Bon appétit.

In The Brearley Mould

As planned, yesterday lunchtime Jackie drove Flo, me and Scooby to Shelly and Ron’s for a most convivial lunch and afternoon which stretched into the early evening. A storm raged throughout the journey, the Modus wheels sending up high waves on either side as it disturbed the numerous pools across the country roads. Despite still recovering from a cold Shelly produced an excellent turkey and sweet leek pie inspired by Jamie Oliver. I was particularly impressed my the lightness of the pastry, which I gather is quite difficult to attain. Ron and I drank Malbec. I’m not sure what those with a preference for white wine enjoyed. An excellent apricot flan with ice cream and/or cream was to follow. Port, Madiera, coffee, and mints brought up the rear. Later came Christmas cake.
I had been misinformed about the likelihood of being prevailed upon to play Trivial Pursuit. Instead we played an hilarious game of Who?, What?, Where?. For those who, like me, haven’t come across this before, the idea is that each participant wears a cardboard hat into which is slipped a ticket with a person, object, or place inscribed thereon. The wearers, in order to establish their unseen identity, ask questions of the other players who may answer simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If the answer is in the affirmative the victim may ask another question; if in the negative, the next person in a clockwise direction has their turn. I was no better at this than I am at charades. It would have helped if I hadn’t assumed that the hats bore some relevance to what was written on the tickets. This, given that my hat was a deerstalker, caused me to waste two questions on Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. I managed to establish that I was a person no longer alive, then forgot that I was defunct.
All in all, mine was not a great performance. That of Helen and Bill’s son John on the CD ‘John Eales Sings Christmas’, with which we were afterwards entertained, was somewhat better.
Fortunately Flo opted to spend another night with her grandparents, so we arrived home earlier than expected. It wasn’t until rather later that we managed a little cheese and biscuits, after which I read Giles Foden’s introduction to Benjamin Cowburn’s ‘No Cloak, No Dagger’.
Rob, the ‘general handyman’ engaged by Penyards, who is extremely reliable, effective, and efficient, visited this dry morning, and confirmed our diagnosis that the leak from above was a matter for estate management, who are contracted by all the residents and landlords to look after the property as a whole. Nevertheless, having been unable to gain access to the flat upstairs because no-one was in, Rob and his colleague obtained a ladder, mounted the balcony from the outside, and cleared a blocked gully. Once the fuses were replaced the underfloor heating could be turned on to no ill effect.
In ‘Did You Mean The Off Break?’, I wrote of my initiation into Wimbledon College Under 14s cricket team. The team photograph taken in 1956 at a time when, at the end of the season, we had all reached fourteen, is number 40 in the ‘through the ages’ series. Give the Persil-washed condition of our whites, I imagine it must have been before the start of a game. Just in case anyone has trouble picking me out, I am third from the left of the viewer’s perspective in the back row. I believe fourteen was the age at which I became a permanent fixture of that particular row in group photographs. Next but one along stands Roger Layet, who I was, a year or so later, very pleased to persuade to play for Trinity Cricket Club. A correct, if somewhat painstaking batsman, Roger was an asset to any side.
Iain Taylor, as captain, sits in the centre of the front row. As a captain and a cricketer, he was in the Mike Brearley mould. Both intuitive and insightful characters who could make friends easily, they managed their players extremely well, yet neither was particularly outstanding as a player. You may think I have a bit of a nerve to describe a man who could captain England (Brearley, not Taylor) in such a way. Brearley was, however, probably the most outstanding captain this country ever had. He could manage Ian Botham, for goodness sake. It was in the Brearley years that our greatest all-rounder – famously aided and abetted by Bob Willis, particularly at Headingley in 1981 – performed his most miraculous feats. Mike Brearley, indeed, a psychotherapist, was described by Australian opponent Rodney Hogg as having ‘a degree in people’. And Iain could manage us. He did, of course, recruit me, so his judgement must be sound.
On Ian’s right (from his perspective) sits Mike Miliffe. Mike was the batsman who succumbed to my bowling as described in the above-mentioned post. I was to learn, playing alongside him, how fortunate I had been to succeed against him in the nets.
Our skipper is flanked on his left by Bob Hessey. Bob was an outstanding fast bowler. His speed and accuracy was aided by an easy, athletic, run to the wicket and flowing action. I could have done with that.
Flo is still with us, as is my friend Tony who arrived this evening. He, Jackie and I dined at The Foresters Arms in Frogham. In the dark and rain, stepping out of the car and walking to the pub gate, we found ourselves treading on what seemed like hard round balls. On closer inspection they turned out to be Brussels sprouts, no doubt scattered for hungry ponies. Unusually for a Thursday evening, we were the only diners. This was no doubt because most people were partied out after the last few days. We received our usual warm and friendly welcome. Jackie and I enjoyed battered haddock and chips, whilst Tony chose sausages and mash. He abstained from dessert whilst Jackie and I partook of sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. I had a couple of glasses of Malbec; Tony drank Wadsworth’s 6X; and Jackie drank lager.

‘Did You Mean The Off Break?’

Today’s advent picture is again of the Regent Street Lights from December 1963, showing yet another differently coloured central star. I think there were none exactly the same.

The early picture of me that I worked on this morning is not a ‘through the ages’ one. I was actually looking in my old print file for one of those, but Elizabeth still has the originals from which she produced an album for Mum and the later digital set for me. She’s only had them for twenty years, so I must be patient.

The forgotten treasure I did find is a Wimbledon College school photograph from about 1956. It has enabled me to illustrate posts featuring Richard Millward, in the centre of the picture’s front row, and Tom McGuinness, fourth from the right in the rear tier from the viewer’s perspective. I stand on the far left of the middle row, with an expression that I clearly didn’t think too flattering at the time my sister raided my album for Mum’s 70th birthday set. I have retained the creases across the image, because they add some authenticity to the period. The print probably came home stuffed into a satchel.

Certain further memories came to mind when perusing this image. Iain Taylor, standing on the far left of the bench supporting the back row, was the captain of the Under Fourteens cricket team who secured me my first matches. Being a friend of mine he asked the headmaster, who rejoiced in the wonderfully appropriate name of Father Ignatius St Lawrence, S.J., to give me a trial for the team. I had never played before, but Iain got me to bowl a few balls in the nets and seems to have been impressed. With ‘Iggy’, as the head was predictably known to the boys, standing as umpire I was instructed to send my nervously delivered missives down to the team’s best batsman. I bowled him four times before Iggy had seen enough. One of these dismissals was with a deliberate slower ball that turned sharply from the off, that is opposite the batsman’s legs, side of the pitch and hit the middle stump. The deviation was probably caused by the ball striking an extraneous object when it landed. Turning to me at the end of my spell, Iggy asked: ‘Did you mean the off-break?’. ‘Yes, father’, was my coolly delivered reply. All priests were of course our fathers. I was in. Later, out of earshot of anyone else, I asked Iain: ‘What’s an off break?’.

Fifth from the viewer’s left at the back of the picture, stands a lad I cannot feel so smug about. This is Vaughan, whose first name escapes me. He was my partner in my first year at the College. Partner was a definite euphemism for what I now consider to have been a rather cruel incentive scheme. Boys were sat in pairs throughout the year. At the end of each term our marks for work were totted up and set against each other. The winners went on an outing called the ‘Victory Walk’. The losers stayed behind and wrote essays or something similar. I never went on a victory walk, and considering how hard I tried, with or without an incentive, that seemed decidedly vicious to me.

Not a very gifted academic, Matthew Hutchinson, the fifth boy from the left of the middle row, was the first person of whom I was truly envious. I can draw a bit, but Matthew was the most talented natural artist I had ever met. What I would have given for his free-flowing skill. I do hope he made something of it.

Now we come to the brains of the class. No-one could emulate the two who flanked Richard Millward, which is probably why they did. Gordon and Rogati came top in everything and I swear they didn’t even break into a sweat. Given their names I think my readers will have no difficulty in determining which is which.

With minimal help from me, work continued apace on Christmas decorations.

Once the stepladder had been put away, we dined on Jackie’s chicken jafrezi and pilau rice which greatly enhanced the bottle of Isla Negra cabernet sauvignon reserva 2013 which I opened and from which I drank a couple of glasses.

Tom

Since Tom has been on my mind since yesterday’s rugby story, I walked down to Hartfield Crescent (see 17th July). On Maycross Avenue, from the shelter of a fir tree above, some birds had produced an action painting. I wondered what would happen if I were to dig it up and put it on the art market. You never know, Mr. Saatchi may be tempted. More likely, I would face a criminal damage charge, so I thought better of it.

In Mostyn Road a tree surgeon proffered his card. I said I didn’t have a garden. As he looked rather disappointed, I said ‘Unless you want to come to Southampton where I tend my sister’s garden’. When he brightened at this, looked thoughful, and informed me he used to live in Portsmouth, I realised my quip had backfired. I told him she already had a tree surgeon and we went our separate ways.

I was unable to pass the secondhand bookshop next to the Mica cafe around the corner from my goal. Inside, on the top of a pile of books, I found a 1946 edition of Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. This could not be resisted. Into the shop came a young woman with two small boys. She wondered if they would like a donation of three black bin bags of books. Of course they would. One of her sons gleefully spotted a Harry Potter book. I told him he was like my son who hardly ever left the municipal dump with less than he brought there. I didn’t mention that Elizabeth was the same.

Firm friends at St. Mary’s, Russell Road primary school, Tom and I went up to Wimbledon College together and gradually drifted apart because our interests were so different. We spent many happy hours in each other’s homes, often swapping gruesome American horror comics. We made forbidden trips such as the one described on 10th. July. We swam in the public swimming baths mentioned in passing on 3rd. July. In many ways we were inseparable.

On my birthday last year a small party gathered for a meal at the home of Andy and Keith at Saint Aubin de Cadaleche, not far from Sigoules. I think they knew I could not manage 69 on my own. We had a spontaneous U tube game. Each, in turn would choose a song or piece of music. Keith would then bring it up on U tube and we would all listen or sing along. One of my selections was a Manfred Mann number. Up it came, and there he was, Tom in all his ’60s black and white glory, complete with Hank Marvin specs. This reminded me of my discovery that my old friend, so soon after leaving school, had become a pop star. Turning on the television one day in 1964, that very same number was playing. Tom McGuinness was a member of the group. His own website and that of The Blues Band can tell you far more about him than I can. I will confine myself to my own memories.

It was thirty year before we were, thanks to Jessica, to meet again. He was now playing in The Blues Band. This was a group got together by Paul Jones for a one-off blues gig. At least thirty years on, they are still going strong. On stage Paul and Tom look as youthful as they ever did. This group made an annual trip to the Newark Palace Theatre. Jessica got in touch with their agent, told him I lived in Newark, and Tom came up early and spent the day with us, providing tickets for the show. As Paul thought Tom rather skittish during the performance, he told the audience that they would have to excuse him because he had just met up with an old friend after many years. On another occasion, reminiscing on stage about his time at Wimbledon College, looking straight up at me in Malcolm Anderton’s box, Tom said: ‘Where else can you get an A level in guilt?’.

A talented guitarist, lyricist, and composer, Tom is also the author of a book, still regarded as essential reading for would-be popular musicians, entitled: ‘So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star’, a copy of which he gave me.

This evening Jackie and I dined with Becky and Ian at the Wimbledon Tandoori in Ridgway, Wimbledon Village. Although we had frequented this restaurant during the year we lived in Ridgway, before moving to Links Avenue in April last year, we had not been there since. This was why we were most impressed that they remembered us, where we lived, what I ate, and what we drank. None of the staff here today would, of course, have remembered our last period of visiting there. They were not even born when Jackie and I were first married, and she would save ten shillings (50p) from the housekeeping to take us out for a curry. If she had done really well we could have a bottle of wine for nine shillings. This vast sum took some time to amass, so our visits were special events. I really can’t remember enough to rate their meals in the old days, but they are top notch now.