Robert Bodenham (F 40-43) sends his reminiscences of war time at the school. Part 1:

“In 1939 when I was thirteen the second world war started and our poor parents, who had lived through and had fought in the first war, also experienced what German bombers had done to the civilian population in the Spanish civil war which had just ended. They were terrified  that not only might the whole ghastly business of the trenches start up again with its mass slaughter of soldiers, but also, with modern long range bombers plus poison gas, that there would be total destruction of British cities with wholesale wipe-out of the civilian population. As a result of this the authorities arranged mass evacuation of school children to the countryside. My own parents rented a small house, in Anwick, a tiny hamlet above Hexham, in Northumberland, which belonged to one of my father's patients. My mother and my sister and I went there away from the bombing while my father stayed in Newcastle and continued his dental practice and got involved in the ARP etc.

I moved from my prep. school in Newcastle, where I was always second bottom of the class, to become a day boy and then a boarder at Corchester Prep. School in Corbridge. There I began to improve academically. My parents wanted me to go to public school and without visiting or seeing the school or the staff arranged for me to take the Common Entrance to St Bees. With the wartime restrictions on travel and my father's professional commitments, it would have been almost impossible for them to have travelled to St Bees from Newcastle to visit the school and I think they probably had a recommendation from a friend who was an old boy. To my surprise never mind their own I was accepted at St Bees.

St Bees had recently been through a difficult time financially and had been rescued by a committee of old boys. I'm sure that as a result of this they had not perhaps been quite so fussy about whom they accepted and as a result I got in to the school. I think they also tended to accept at the time a certain number of boys who came from rather rougher backgrounds.

Rationing made buying school uniforms and other clothes difficult and there was much buying of second hand garments from older boys’ parents. All our parents used to give up their clothing ration coupons to help buy us school uniforms so I think I got most of what was on the school list. Having bought a tuck box and a trunk, I was all ready to go away from home. At first we couldn't find a tuck box in the shops due to the war and when we did it was too late to have my initials painted on it so my father did the necessary with a red hot iron. I was worried about this because I didn't want to be different. However some months later, another boy quietly told me that he had envied me because I was the only one on Foundation House who had his initials branded on with a red hot iron! My father's car had been put up on bricks for the duration of the war so there was no question of my parents taking me to this strange place St Bees; so having sent the trunk and box on ahead I was put on the train at Newcastle Central Station alone but for an old boy who was also on his way to St Bees. He said he would keep an eye on me and I seem to remember that was the last I saw of him until we arrived at Carlisle where we changed trains. It was a lonely trip. We travelled on a steam, (no electric or diesel) train, which trundled across the country to Carlisle where we changed onto a more local affair which stopped at every station. Workington, Whitehaven, the lot until we arrived out of a tunnel I seem to remember into the valley with the school at the end.

We were met on arrival at the station. My memory is hazy now after about seventy four years but I seem to think that we were met by prefects, who escorted us up to Foundation House. The prefects ran just about everything on the House. I suppose staff were in short supply so the older boys stood in for a lot. Some time that day I found that there was nothing to stop me walking out of the House and up to St Bees post office to send my parents a post card to say I had arrived. I suppose the school would have telephoned my parents had I not arrived but as far as I was concerned they had no contact with me until my card arrived in Newcastle. In this age of instant communication, mobile phones etc it is easy to forget that then phones were quite rare in anything other than comfortably off homes. It never occurred to me or any other boy then that we might ring our parents or anybody else unless we had a serious reason for doing so. Anyway excessive use of the phone and/or travel was discouraged by the authorities in order to keep the lines of communication clear for matters of national importance. I certainly felt a bit abandoned and homesick.

My first night on ‘Baby Dorm’ (I think it was called) was dominated by one or two slightly older and more senior (in time) boys whose only topic of conversation seemed to be sex. I certainly started to grow up fast that evening. ‘Baby Dorm’ was on the floor directly above the original Foundation school, which was then, as now, the dining room. The dormitories all had an older boy or prefect who would come in later to sleep and maintain order. I had to refuse one of these access to my bed in that dorm!

New boys were known as ‘New Ticks’. There was a general culture of bullying and some stealing from new boys by a hard core of slightly older or more senior boys. They were more senior usually because they had been at the school two or three terms longer and this seemed to give them a surprising amount of power. I personally didn't suffer too badly but I had my share, most of which was totally undeserved. Usually one junior boy would be selected to ‘be given hell’. Things which would be laughed off as an older boy seemed grim at the time. I remember I was made to learn the song ‘Your Are My Sunshine’ and to get out of bed after lights out and to sing it to the whole dorm. I was at least allowed to stand on my bed. Another poor boy who was rather underdeveloped was really picked on during his first year and was made, I was told, to climb up into the rafters in Big Dorm to sing his song. His words were made up by his tormentors to humiliate him about his lack of physical development. His life must have been hard for a while and he showed it. He was absolutely subdued all the time I was at St Bees.

Everybody was a fag of some sort during his first year, fagging first as a general fag then personal. The general fags had to be available at any time and do odd jobs for any prefect that needed serving, such as making tea for the prefects in their room, toast-making and general running about. When I first arrived the main Foundation block was still being refurbished after the fire which destroyed the upper floor. Because of this my first dayroom and classroom was what is now the school office just inside the Foundation entrance. The prefects had a room at the top of the stairs there and they would stand at the top and shout ‘Fag’ and we all had to run and the first there would get the job, but the late comers might well be given a worse job for not trying to be first. My first personal fagging was for a charming boy called S.G. Barron from, I think, Carlisle. A big chap, good rugby player and who didn't need to throw his weight around and treated me very decently; he always refused to beat any boy. Beatings were mostly administered by the prefects. I fagged for him for a very short time. I forget why but I think he was called away before the end of the term. He was called away for the last few weeks and I then had to fag for a much less agreeable character who had better be nameless. We had to polish shoes and boots for our personal prefect; polish all his army cadet uniform brass, iron his uniform trousers, Blanco his webbing kit and so on. We had to wash and polish his rugby boots and laces and make the latter as white as possible. The first time I got really shouted at was because I laced his boots with diagonal lacing instead of straight across. We ironed his rugby shirts and any other clothing he thought needed attention. I don't think that the personal service we were expected to give did me any harm at all. The mild humiliation it involved brought a cocky boy down to earth and I think gave us all an idea what it meant to others who had to serve us at times. It was the custom for the older boy to give his fag a little monetary award at the end of term. My prefect did give me something, I remember, but what did impress me was that when the next term started, S.G. Barron, who had returned, came and sought me out and  gave me a half crown for my services the previous term. He didn't need to do that and he has had my blessing ever since. I was told he joined the police in Carlisle but I'm not sure about that.

In those days the school uniform was an unlined navy blue blazer with the school crest, unlined navy blue shorts and pale blue knee length socks. Mostly we wore brown shoes. Under this navy blue outfit we had open necked white cricket shirts. Some boys wore ties but we were not forced to except, I seem to remember, for chapel on Sundays. In very cold weather we might succumb and wear a sleeveless or sleeved navy woollen jersey but on the whole our clothing insulation level was a bit monastic. We did a lot of our own mending. Darning the pale woollen socks which wore out so quickly, being pure wool, was a perpetual job after Prep in the evening. No man-made fibres then, so holes in our socks were an endless problem. I remember one senior boy whose socks had lasted him ages and they were washed to a pale blue, almost white and reached only half way up his calves. We prided ourselves in those days about not wearing too many clothes. We all had overcoats but one hardly ever saw a boy walking about in one. We all came to school equipped with vests and underpants but it was not done amongst the boys to wear them. Early one day we were waiting for a French master to arrive in what is now the school office. One of the dominant boys in the class decided they would check who was wearing ‘Fug Pants’. I was and was promptly debagged and told in no uncertain fashion not to be found wearing them again! We got used to wearing next to nothing and until I got married, when my dear wife told me it was unhygienic, I never wore a vest or underpants. People used to remark on the fact that I never wrapped myself up in the winter in Newcastle as a dental student. We just accommodated to the cold.

At that time in the war Mill Hill School from London was evacuated to St Bees and they occupied Seacote down by the shore. I think they must have had difficult conditions because they always looked scruffy compared to the St Bees’ boys with their pale blue socks and usually shiny shoes. Mill Hill's shoes were always dirty and of course in the cold weather they were always wrapped up to their eyes in long trousers and coats etc. We didn't mix much with them but our teams did play them at games.
One winter we had heavy snow and the top road to Whitehaven behind School House was blocked. All the young fit men were in the forces so we boys were recruited, given man-sized shovels and ordered to clear the road. That was a change from lessons! My mother had knitted me a woollen balaclava helmet which I had put on to go out and clear the snow. When the sergeant major PT instructor saw me he told me not to be a cissy and to take it off! When I got back to the changing room in Foundation I had an ice skull cap which I could move about on my head and it was anchored by my hair!

This Spartan uniform we wore was the reason for an amusing story I heard years later. When I was a dental student in Newcastle a fellow student told the story about when he was evacuated with his school, The Newcastle Royal Grammar School, to Penrith. One day they were brought by train to St Bees to play against our first fifteen I suppose it was .They were confident of playing well and intended to defeat the St Bees team. As usual the weather was foul and cold so they were all wrapped up with scarves overcoats etc in what was probably an unheated train as things tended to be at that time. When the train drew into the station the windows were fogged up and they couldn't see much.  The train stopped and as it did he said the door of their carriage was heaved open and a huge chap with almost nothing on thrust in a great hairy arm and shook their hands with great gusto. He said they were completely demoralised and I cannot remember who won the match but even then years later the RGS boys wondered how we survived.”
(Part 2 - next issue).

 

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