A PERSONAL JUBILEE by John Page (Master, 1954-85)
“Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year.” (Lev. XXV; 10)
posted - 3rd December 2004

While attending this year’s Remembrance Service, I realised it was more than fifty years since my first in 1954. It is now a much more stirring ceremony and must be more meaningful for the present pupils who are fully involved, whereas previously only the Head of School had a role in reading a lesson.

The current generation are more aware than their predecessors of the realities of the First World War because of their visits to the battlefields – the Headmaster has been more than forty times – and the service always includes extracts from their subsequent writings and poems. Music and readings are skilfully selected by Simon Smith with an appropriate preface and combined with a sequence of symbolic acts carried out by the boys and girls. Each year he manages to vary the contents of the service while maintaining an impressively high standard of performance, and the atmosphere in the Chapel testifies to his success in evoking a poignant sense of loss.

Afterwards a lunch for Old Retainers, organised by Tony Whitestone, is another of Dr Seldon’s welcome innovations, when reminiscence takes over from quiet reflection. Hence these remarks and the first difference to record is the contrast between family spirit now engendered and the snobbish era of the 50s when William Stewart rebuked CSM Wilkinson for entering College precincts by the front arch instead of the back gate. Wilkie deserved better treatment for his long loyal service and many of us are grateful for his patience and skill in giving evening lessons to our young. They learnt how to enjoy swimming and develop a smooth style. At least the Queen showed her appreciation of his durability when she commented during her visit of June 1962 on PTIs being India rubber men.

Among the guests at the lunch in 2004 were Reg Spicer (Head Porter 1989-97) and Yvonne Langridge celebrating her birthday, having looked after the Headmaster’s house for thirty years. We were also able to thank in person James Byrne and his catering staff for their roast beef and apple pie when they were brought into the dining room.

Any visitor from the lean post-war period when neither fabric nor furnishings had received much attention for years would be struck on returning for the first time today by the affluent ambience of the Front Quad with its smart well-presented flower-beds, planted tubs and new signs. Another contrast would be the number of parked vehicles, as when I joined the Common Room only a few members owned cars, including Alf Lester with his stately Armstrong-Siddley and Tom Davidson who had to drive in daily from Hickstead. For a time he appeared in an old Rolls Royce in which he used to convey spare vegetables for sale to his colleagues. When he disposed of the family estate I remember his incredulity at the purchaser’s mad scheme to build a jumping course in such an isolated place.

The Davidsons were most hospitable and new staff were still invited out to their new house that had to be specially designed to accommodate the ancestral portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence. His wife Julia was a Wilberforce and so on both sides there were distinguished Victorian forbears. Not many housemasters now have tenant farmers who can be persuaded to employ wayward pupils in the holidays far from the coffee bars and other louche attractions of Brighton.

Although at the end of my eighth decade my memories tend to be benign, the elderly should be deterred from inflicting their stories on any available audience. Yet Michael Holroyd in the talk he gave at the College expressed his regret at never extracting biographical details from his own father and the Imperial War Museum has just issued Forgotten Voices, in which WW1 survivors recorded their grim narratives before it was too late. So I might be indulged perhaps if in the future instalment I mention other contrasts between part and present and recall some of the other notable College characters who left a lasting impression.

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