Vivian Blake-Dyke (SH 43-47) writes:

"When I arrived at School House in September 1943, the housemaster, having seen the war coming, had purchased a ton of plum jam, and so everybody was able to have a double ration of jam for as long as it lasted.

The Headmaster, John Boulter, was a famously tough man, at any rate as far as rugger was concerned. One very wet afternoon in the spring term when there was a junior house match being fought out, a boy named Hoyle, who was well known for being very plucky, was kicked on the knee soon after half time.

After limping up and down the touchline for a few minutes, he started to walk off the field. Boulter shouted out: 'Broken anything, Hoyle?' 'No, sir', came the reply. 'Then get back on', said Boulter, and the unfortunate Hoyle had to limp up and down the touchline in the rain for the rest of the game.

On a more serious note, when working in the chapel one day, I noticed that the names on the memorial to the old boys killed in the war were slightly greater than the numbers in the school in the nineteen forties!

At the beginning of the summer term, all the boarders on School House had to submit their bicycles to a brake test so that they would be roadworthy for the two Three Quarter Days. The test consisted of starting at the top of School House lane, pedalling like mad and then braking hard so as to stop before hitting the wall of the gym at the bottom of the lane. One term, my own bike having failed at home, I took back to school my grandfather's Elswick. With its double frame and great weight it was a cause of much merriment to the other boys. I pedalled as fast as I dared down the lane, slammed on the brakes, which were unequal to the task, and was only saved from colliding with the wall of the gym by two prefects, who lifted me from the saddle just before the great machine hit the wall. Remarkably, it was none the worse for the experience, and took me on many long pleasurable journeys round the Lake District on Three Quarter Days.

In early 1947, with its exceptional snowfall, the then Headmaster, Henry Reekie, told the sixth form that we were running low on food and if the early morning train from the south did not get through the next day, we should have to trudge through the snow to Egremont to get supplies. I was looking forward to it, but for once, as a confirmed railway enthusiast, I was sorry to hear, whilst lying in bed the next morning, the sound of the train whistle and we were saved.

I thoroughly enjoyed my days at St. Bees and remember them with great affection.”