A story and a question from A.R.W. Turner (G 52-57):                     

“My father, who attended St Bees between 1913 and 1918, told me this story of the French master, Monsieur Le Gros, who one day was chipping an agate from a boulder near the low water mark on St Bees Head. As barefooted he pecked away at the agate, a large wave crashed in, the boulder trembled, and he felt an agonizing pain, as the boulder settled down onto the toes of his left foot.

He was unable to extricate his crushed big toe, and as another wave surged up around his knees, he realized that within the hour, he would be underwater! Searching his pockets, his felt his pocket knife, and it dawned on him that the only way of saving himself from a miserable death, might be to sever his trapped toe!

Despite the pain the brave teacher did manage to cut off his toe, before crawling back to the beach, where a local farmer took him back to Eaglesfield. My father said that Professeur Le Gros was back in the classroom in two days, and within a month he was again refereeing rugby matches!

Monsieur Le Gros was apparently very popular and a cabal of seniors decided to recover his toe. Making their way along the base of St Bees Head, with a sledge hammer and steel wedges they soon located the dismembered toe. Wedges were placed under the boulder, and driven in with the hammer. When the boulder started to move, the crushed toe was finally pulled from the boulder’s grip.

The next day, the toe was pickled in formalin, and wrapped in a shroud of white linen. The miniature corpse was tied with a ‘tricolour’ ribbon, and placed in an old cigar box. As the Last Post was sounded on a bugle, the master’s toe was buried in the House grounds, with a small headstone and the Epitaph:
“Here Lies the Toe, of Monsieur Le Gros: RIP 1915 AD.”

A Footnote! After finally returning for the first time in 56 years, on Old Boys’ Day 2013, I found myself wondering if the headstone had survived. On Sunday I drove down and stopped outside Eaglesfield House. The old building was now scaffolded, and the grounds landscaped with new walls constructed from the old red sandstone masonry. Despite searching for any small headstones, I found no confirmation of my father’s tale of the brave French teacher.
I fear the late lamented toe may be lost forever beneath some stony St Beghian field. But perhaps some future Cumbrian Carter, will unearth the tomb of the mummified toe, perhaps to speculate on its origin: the site of an ancient battle, or a sacrificial offering to pacify the ancient gods of Mammon and Fertility?

PS: Tony Reeve has kindly researched this tale within the school archives, but has found no record of a teacher called Le Gros, and neither has an earlier Eaglesfield housemaster any recollection of the incident, or a headstone. Indeed the tale may have just been my father’s attempt to entertain his son and introduce me to the limits of human endeavour. However, I believe that an early Baron of Egremont and Skipton was named Le Gros, and the name does surface regularly in Cumbria. One might speculate that the teacher was perhaps a part-time French teacher, an older Frenchman brought in to cover the requirements of the curriculum during the Great War, while working similarly at other schools, or on other work.

So if any Old St Beghian can shed any light on this tale, I would be very pleased to hear from them!”

 

Home

The St Beghian Society,    St Bees School,    St Bees,    Cumbria,    CA27 0DS.
         Tel: (01946) 828093      Email: osb@st-bees-school.co.uk      
Web: www.st-beghian-society.co.uk