蜜芽传媒

My return to Monmouth after the Christmas break was less fortunate, for during that brief period the powers that be had decided that the lesser dwellings in Cinderhill Street were not suitable accommodation for 鈥榶oung gentlemen from the city鈥� (someone actually used those words!) and I and a few others in a similar situation were moved forthwith to better housing, occupied by people who clearly had only agreed under considerable pressure to take in an evacuee. My new home was a large three-storey house in the centre of the town, convenient to Major Reid鈥檚 School, but with little else to recommend it, from my point of view. I cannot describe it fully as I was confined to the dining-room for meals and my bedroom on the top floor at all other times, from which I could watch the soldiers in the grounds of a nearby house which had been requisitioned by the military. Even that could become very boring eventually! I discovered that I was not the only one unhappy in his new abode and after some discussion and much huffing and puffing a number of us, including me, went back to our former 鈥榝oster-parents鈥�. I was so glad to be back with Mr and Mrs Williams, where I stayed until the summer of 1941 and with whom I stayed in touch for another twenty years or so. I must have been over thirty when, returning from a business trip to Cardiff one Friday afternoon, I stopped in Monmouth on my way home to see Mrs Williams. Friday was her 鈥榮hopping鈥� afternoon, so I was not surprised that she was not in her (new) house in Goldwire Lane. I headed straight for Bowen鈥檚, the town鈥檚 grocers and stood in the doorway, looking in to see if I could spot her. Behind the counter stood ex-Mayor, Mr Bowen, remarkably unchanged as it seemed to me. Seeing me looking, he said 鈥淐an I help you?鈥� I explained that I was just looking for someone, whereupon he looked at me keenly, pointed a finger and said 鈥淢rs Williams overmonnow. She鈥檚 been in. I expect she鈥檚 in the baker鈥檚 now.鈥� I suddenly felt about eleven years old again - oh, and he was right, she was in the baker鈥檚. I was not the only one to keep in touch with the town. For many years after the war the school Old Boys rugby team based its Easter tour on Monmouth, a number of friendships formed during the war blossomed into marriages and one former evacuee became Mayor many years later. Above all, the evacuation, with its ups and its downs, was an experience none of us ever forgot.

WWII
-5-

By the middle of 1941 the decision had been taken to re-open the school in Birmingham and whilst many pupils stayed in Monmouth, a number of them, including myself, returned to the old school (minus the chemistry laboratory, which had been commandeered for use by Docker鈥檚 Paints - of Lady Docker and gold Rolls Royce fame - but plus a huge circular emergency water-tank in the middle of the playground). The decision for me to return was taken by my parents and owed much to the fact that my father, who was an industrial chemist working for the city鈥檚 Gas Department, was frequently called out at odd times in addition to his normal working hours plus his duties as an air-raid warden, leaving my mother often on her own. Whilst being a lovely practical and cheerful woman, she was basically of a nervous disposition and had begun to feel very isolated, hence the decision for me to return to Birmingham. This did me no favours with the Headmaster of the school who, whilst excellent in every other way, never seemed to realise that most such decisions were almost always made by parents rather than pupils, and who tended to seem to look upon the boys at the Birmingham end of the school as 鈥榮econd-class citizens鈥� compared with the Monmouth contingent.

Those teaching us at Birmingham comprised some of the elder members of the pre-war staff, together with a most interesting and often rapidly-changing number who were clearly refugees from the horrors of mainland Europe. These were people of high intelligence, clearly in some cases wildly over-qualified for such work, but lacking in teaching experience at such a level and in one or two cases even unable to make themselves understood in English. We also had an art master who in his spare time undertook emergency fire-watching duties. We knew when he had been on duty the previous night because the cord of his pyjama trousers could be seen peeping above his hastily pulled on normal trousers. No wonder he tended to be short-tempered! There was also the introduction of women teachers, for the most part excellent at their job. At Five Ways we had blackboards fixed to the wall behind the teacher and running the whole width of the room. One maths teacher had a 鈥榩arty trick鈥� which consisted of standing at the centre of the board, starting to write with her left hand, then changing over at the centre point to her right hand. She was a brilliant teacher, dominated the class from the moment she entered the room and never had any disciplinary problems. Another was equally good at teaching French and gave me a love of that language which has lasted throughout my life and was one of the bases of my business career. Chemistry had long had to be abandoned as a subject in favour of biology, the chemistry lab being unavailable to the school, but this was handed back at the end of the fourth year. Unfortunately this event coincided with the departure of the excellent biology mistress who had been teaching us and for whom no substitute could be found. This problem was solved by the recruitment - at last - of a chemistry master, to whom fell the dubious distinction of teaching a class of 37 pupils the whole five-year syllabus for chemistry in just three terms. It says much for his skill, enthusiasm and 鈥榗unning plan鈥� that my memory is that more than 30 in the class passed in the subject at one level or another (though that may not be good news to those believing in the importance of the exam system!).

WWII
-6-

The approach of the end of the war saw the re-uniting of both elements of the school on its old site in Birmingham, with a more settled - and in some cases quite exceptional - staff. Perhaps the most exceptional of all was Doctor Ettlinger, one of many who had fled from Nazism and had seen his father鈥檚 fine library burnt in the street in the traditional way. He had a tremendous intellect and was capable of teaching a wide variety of subjects with great skill and enthusiasm. He was obviously totally over-qualified for teaching at school level and indeed later moved to a post at the Slade in London and from there to become Professor of Fine Arts at Berkeley University in the USA, where he saw out his career. He was however more than an excellent teacher. In some way he discovered that there were some German prisoners of war in a camp on Cannock Chase who had a basketball team but who, not surprisingly, were finding it difficult to find opponents. He asked the better basketball players in the school if they would be prepared to play against them and having got their agreement arranged for the match to take place quietly one evening in the school gym. They duly arrived, complete with their guards, and we played against them鈥︹��..but I have no recollection of who won. It was just such a remarkable thing for 鈥橠oc鈥� to do, given his (and his family鈥檚) traumatic pre-war experiences in mainland Europe and it gave many of us quite a lot of food for thought. One problem which arose following the re-uniting of the school鈥檚 two elements was that there were more pupils than could be fitted into desks and classrooms. To solve this problem the Upper Sixth Biology and Arts groups were housed on the first and second floor respectively of a couple of run-down and woodworm ridden flats in Hagley Road, adjacent to the school and over a derelict shop and the school canteen. Whilst this was not an ideal environment for learning all went well until the day when our strongly-built French mistress became very angry with one of our number, totally lost her temper and stamped violently on the floor. At this point the woodworm came into play, our floorboards and the ceiling of the Biology Sixth below us gave way and the mistress was left with her ankle and lower leg protruding into the room below. As quick as a flash we heard the voice of the Biology master from the floor below - 鈥淣o, no, Miss xxxxxxx, we鈥檙e not doing practical today鈥�. Fortunately she suffered no ill affects.

The saddest memory from school life had to be the days when the Headmaster had the unenviable task of announcing during morning assembly the names of former pupils or staff who had been killed in action. In many cases they were those who only recently had been our seniors at school, just a few years or even months ago our sporting heroes, now gone for ever. I particularly remember one Tony Yates, a boy a couple of years older than me and who lived near me in Quinton. We were the only two pupils of similar age who travelled all the way to the terminus of the No. 9 bus route and so became regular travelling companions. Having left school Tony joined the army as a volunteer at the age of 17, did his basic training and was then shipped out to Italy. Not long afterwards his was the name to be announced in school as another to be added to the Roll of Honour. It was a very sad bus journey home that afternoon.

WWII
-7-

Outside school life much of my leisure time was taken up by my membership of the local scouts, the 1st Quinton - 169th Birmingham - troop, where I went through the grades of Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, 1st Class and finally (and proudly) King鈥檚 Scout. The troop was based in a large tin hut, long since replaced as the Parish Hall by a new brick building, but many activities took place out of doors. In this we were fortunate in being right on the edge of open country and in having a trek cart to carry any necessary equipment. A trek cart was about 2 metres (6鈥�- 6鈥�) long and about 1.25 metres (4鈥�- 0鈥�) wide, boxed in on three sides to a height of 0.5 metres (1鈥�- 8鈥�), with a matching tailgate at the rear. It had a long T-shaped handle at the front and ran on two full sized cart-wheels. It was pulled along by a team of willing (or not!) fit young scouts, which meant that we were able to camp regularly at various local sites. We camped at Woodcote Farm, near Chaddesley Corbett, where I recall there were Italian prisoners of war working at a farm across the road. I have a memory of them wearing dark brown battle-dress with a red circle on their backs. POWs worked also at the farm at Romsley belonging to the prison in Winson Green. At another site near Hunnington we were encouraged to fell trees in order to help the war effort, under conditions which today would no doubt cause the Health and Safety Executive to have hysterics, but no one got hurt. Near this site was an isolated cottage which I recognised from a photograph which we had at home, showing my grandfather standing in front of it. A bit of investigation revealed that this was indeed the cottage at which he convalesced after returning from the Boer War. How strange that two different wars should bring together on the same spot two different generations of the same family. Our long summer camps were spent at Bridge Sollers near Hereford, on the banks of the Wye, so renewing my connections with that river. There it was solid hard work, mainly potato-picking or apple-picking 鈥� and you may guess which was the more popular!

Other things we did as scouts to play our part in the war effort included occasionally cleaning and scrubbing the seemingly endless corridors of the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, a job presumably done on a rota basis with other scout troops. The thing of which the Quinton troop was most proud however and in which we were, I think, unique, was to use our trek cart at week-ends in the centre of Birmingham to transport servicemens鈥� kit bags from Queen鈥檚 Drive in New Street station to Snow Hill station in Colmore Row and vice versa, a service which always seemed truly appreciated and which certainly kept us very fit. As at school, we had our sad moments in the scouts, especially when two of our ex-members were killed in action within a month, but for the most part scouting was a huge learning curve which taught us so many skills. Even today, when someone says 鈥淗ow do you know that?鈥� or 鈥淲here did you learn that?鈥� the answer is often 鈥淚n the scouts鈥�.

One last memory 鈥� a radio programme called (I think!) 鈥業nto battle鈥�, which followed the 9 p.m. news, to the tune of 鈥楲illibulero鈥�. It was always someone relating some personal thing or incident relating to the war. Often it could make you burst with pride, sometimes it could reduce you to tears. Whichever one it did, it always strengthened that strange community feeling which, as it sadly seems, only war or disaster can produce.

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