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Memories of Chichester House 1949 - 1955
(Summer 2001 - re-edited published, 1st August 2005)
Thursday 22nd September 1949 was the start of my not very glorious career in Chichester House. 8 new boys* assembled in the Prep Room, each with brand new tuck box and cabin trunk containing the official school clothes from Gorringes (striped flannelette shirts, Van Heusen No.11 detached collars, herringbone tweed jackets with matching trousers for Sundays and grey flannels for weekdays). Uniform discipline was strict - suits on Sundays, jacket or blazer and flannels weekdays, straw boater worn or carried outside the College except when it was raining when they became very soggy!
Each of us was allocated to a fag of one year’s experience, who would be our shepherd for the first two weeks. During that time we, the sheep, had to learn the School Rules and everything worth knowing about the College. What and where were the Burlingtons, the Octags, who was Head of School, what was Bill Stewart’s nickname, a written test at the end of the fortnight, followed by THE INITIATION - cold shower in the early Sunday morning, running the gauntlet and singing a song while being lashed with knotted towels in the dormitory in the evening, incarceration in the sock basket if we offended the Seniors!
If we passed the Initiation, the shepherd was released from his fagging and we were then elevated to Fagdom for a year, either as a lowly study fag (clean prefects’ study, clear ashes from grate, wash up crockery and cutlery from previous night’s study feast, make and light fire in evening) or as a personal fag (wake up prefect, make toast, make bed), answering the prefects’ calls of “BOY”, last to arrive at the prefect’s door did the task. We dreaded calls from Peter (R H P) Miller, Head of House, Captain of the 1st XV and, in our eyes, one rank below GOD! Failure to carry out the task to the Prefect’s satisfaction usually resulted in holding cast-iron dumb-bells at arms’ length, or lines, or a Late (2 Lates = 1 House Drill, house drill meant no town leave and working on some menial work about the house, 2 house drills = work + beating from Head of House). Another routine task was to fetch the Staff Suppers from the School kitchens - I can still hear the clatter of the aluminium trays and lids as we wheeled them on the trolley across the front quad. Bill Stewart was our much-respected Housemaster and he was GOD; when he subsequently became Headmaster, following the death of A C Stuart-Clark, Bill Lloyd took over the House.
Saturday afternoons were usually spent watching the Match on the Home Ground - Rugger in Winter and, of course, cricket in Summer. Each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon was sports afternoon - Rugger (no soccer in those days!) or Cricket according to Season. In the Spring term we had Standards - a series of athletic events in which we had to exceed the set standards. Runs to the New Ground, St. Dunstans, Roedean Gates or around the racecourse, coupled with daily PT periods under Sarge Beckett, ensured our physical fitness. House Prayers each evening and Chapel each morning, and twice on Sundays, ensured our Spiritual fitness. Roll calls before breakfast, lunch, supper and bed ensured our attendance and punctuality. Weekly Corps parades, under the command of Lt.Col. V. G. Smyth, DSO, OBE, resplendent in Sam Brown, breeches and highly-polished riding boots, ensured our readiness to overcome anyone foolish enough to invade, and RSM Leslie George Upson was our shooting coach and Guardian of the Armoury.
1949 was only 4 years after the end of the war and food rationing was still in force. Once each week we had to put out our jam jar tops (each bearing a strip of Elastoplast carrying our name) for our weekly rations - about ¼ lb. of butter, ½ lb. of margarine, ½ lb. of sugar and some jam. Woe betide you if you forgot your jam jar tops - no rations for you that week! Sweets too were rationed and coupons had to be surrendered in the Tuck Shop. Pocket money was carefully guarded by the Assistant House Master and doled out each week before town leave - any more than the regular sum (I think 2/6d or maybe 5/-) had to be sanctioned in writing by one’s parents.
We had an unofficial School Song, (sung to the tune of “Green grow the rushes-O” on almost every team coach trip), which included references, often scandalous, to most members of the Staff:
“Smart, Smart, the 'Allo Boy, Clothed all in Green-ho-ho
Hun is Hun and all alone
And ever more shall be so”
Tom Smart was the school porter, Toller of the School Bell and Guardian of the stationery store. Assistant Porter when my father was in Wilson’s in 1920, he was still there 40 years later, still clad in his green uniform. Bill Stewart was the Hun, a nickname of his own origination, because he said that he came down from the North, like the Huns.
Lawns in the front quad were sacrosanct. The House lawn could only be trodden on by House and School Prefects. The main lawn in the front quad was the preserve of School Prefects and Masters ONLY - heaven help you if you so much as touched one hallowed blade of grass. Trouser pockets were also taboo - you could only put your hands into your trouser pockets when you were promoted to prefectdom; on reaching that elevated status, your first action was to stride across the front lawn with both hands thrust deep into trouser pockets - what a status symbol! Jackets had to be buttoned unless you were wearing a pullover!
Heating in the house was rudimentary. Each study and common room had a coal fire, but the only heating in the dormitory was a one kilowatt electric fire which was only allowed when the snow was deep on the ground. We slept with windows open summer and winter and it could be bitterly cold! The house boasted an enormous boiler down in its bowels which struggled vainly to heat the water for washing and our once-weekly baths and showers. Struggled, that is, until the arrival on the scene of a very large ex-Naval stoker whose motto was “6 inches of fire” - obviously a good motto for we enjoyed copious volumes of scalding hot water during his tenure of office!
Christmas term was the time of the School Play, under the very able direction of Peter Gough, with wife Daphne in charge of costumes (Rowntrees Fruit Gums made very convincing jewels on Shakespearean costumes!). The last performance of the Play was preceded by the OB Rugger match and was succeeded the following day by the Carol Concert in Chapel. The Reverend Bill Peters was our much-loved Padre.
Every Saturday in each term was Film Society night in the Music Room (now the Michael Hordern Room). Films were hired from Kings in Hove - if the ordered film was not available, we were usually sent “Man of Aran” or a western called “Arizona”. We only had one 16mm projector, so there was an inevitable hiatus while reels were changed, to the accompaniment of gramophone records (“Onions” by Humphrey Littleton was in our Top Ten then); delays in changing reels resulted in much foot stamping. One summer term an educational film conference was held in the College. To show their appreciation, the organisers presented the College with a 16mm cine camera, which was used to film all aspects of College life, the finished films being shown to parents on Speech Day. I wonder what happened to those films - I was Chief Cameraman!
Television was very much in its infancy then and Bill Lloyd, who was Housemaster of Chichester and a scientist, constructed his own television set – a remarkable collection of valves and heaven knows what else on the floor of his sitting room, which projected a rather hazy trapezoidal picture onto the wall – as a special privilege we were allowed to watch Yaroslav Drobny playing in the Wimbledon finals!
The Original Pelican was hatched, I think, by Tim Bavin, Michael Rees and Michael Cardew in the early ‘50’s in an attempt to provide news more up-to-date than that in The Brightonian. I tried to squeeze all the text into the available space on a rather rickety portable typewriter. Originally printed in purple using a spirit duplicator which reeked of methylated spirits, we graduated to the college Gestetner stencil duplicator – black ink covered fingers replaced purple!
And then, suddenly, it was all over. ‘A’ levels had been sat, followed by a few very empty weeks until the end of term, occupied by visits to, among others, the Kemptown Brewery which involved a certain amount of sampling and several rather inebriated bodies at lunch that day. VALETE!
It’s rather horrifying to think that the Boer War was then ancient history, having been fought half a century before we arrived at Brighton. Our departure from Brighton is now half century ago, which makes me feel very ancient indeed!
*Those who arrived in Chichester House on that day were Roger Adams, Tim Bavin, Michael Cardew, Peter Dowding, Paul Frances, Pat Lyford, Tim McCabe and Michael Rees
P S Lyford (C. 1949-55)
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