A Blast From the Past

I was at Spyway from 1970 - 75. You are right, right, right. What memories have flooded back: you could traverse the entire school in the roof space (the warning about falling through was Apocryphal); Ciel really did smell; having dry clothes thrown into the Drove (borrowed from a mate, now in peril that he might be caught dressed for bed late on a Sunday afternoon) so that you could report back to Mr Geoffery after a Sunday walk without revealing that you had been caught at Seacombe by a wave. 

Oh, and it started '55BC Julius Caesar invaded Britain' - at least I think it did. The matron was Rosemary Maloney (owner of Romulus the golden retriever), summers were never longer, blackouts and powercuts were the norm in winter, the cooks were Spanish and pudding always seemed to be semolina with just one teaspoon of runny raspberry jam. If you were lucky enough to find a seed it was reputed to be a wood chip especially made by the father of one of the Vischer boys.

Random Memories - Late 50s

In no particular order...

Watching The Beatles playing 'She Loves You' and later 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' on Matron's ('Miss' Thomas's) television. I think we had about 15 of us crammed into her room. 
Same Frances Thomas over-using the terms "Swinging" and "Dodgy" with appropriate thumb gestures.

Virol or Malt... I always preferred virol. My first introduction to vitamin supplements?

Stewed Figs. Almost put me off that delicious fruit for life - and those baskets of rather sour bread that I am sure were very healthy!

Getting a hat-trick - sadly not for the first XI - on the pitch below the golf course. Can three-in-a-row be a fluke?

Dunking for Apples after chewing sticky buns off a string and scoffing a digestive biscuit out of a plate of flour (all with no hands) at Halloween.

The General Knowledge Quiz at the end of term.

Passing logs along the chain of 50 or so boys to fill all the baskets around the school.

'Go-Kart' racing (made from old roller skates) - (one boy-power) around the shed.

'Sly Games' in the Grove - why was Hugh(?) Mansel always thought to be sly?

George Elles throwing a dart across the dormitory which embedded itself to the hilt into Charlie (now Brocket) Nall-Cain's foot.

Talking after lights out - in particular the aformentioned CN-C telling us the facts of life which rather mysteriously he had learned at the time of his father's funeral. Of course we all said he was talking rubbish - surely THAT wasn't POSSIBLY true!

Very cold dormitories in winter.

Collecting chestnuts on one of those very long Sunday walks.

Geoffrey and Bev's rather smelly Old English Sheepdog - 'Ciel'.

Half an orange at half time during rugger matches.

Running down the hill to Dancing Ledge with a towel as an air brake.
.
Parental visits to Bovington Tank Museum and Lunch at the Square & Compass. 

Some boy's (was he called Miles... or Myers?) Dad visiting in a small helicopter (a Hiller?). I wonder if these last two tipped me towards joining first the Cavalry and then later the Army Air Corps.

I did say they were random...

Christopher Hudson
Aberdeenshire. '59(ish) to '64.

Not Cricket

For many years at Spyway, it was traditional for a cricket match to be played each year between those boys going on to Eton (Spyway seen by some as Eton's junior school) and the boys going on to 'other' schools. The future Etonians always won.
However, in the late 1950s the annual match ended rather suddenly and unexpectedly.
The Future Etonians were bowled out for a miserable 57.
Eric & Geoffrey deemed the possibility of defeat for the FEs unacceptable and the game was immediately abandoned!

Squatters' Rights

In the dormitory on a winter's night the door opens, the lights come on, adults come in led by Geoffrey.
I do not know how many are in the party, because we are all mesmerised by Geoffrey's guest - think Raquel Welch in her prime.
We might have guessed that this was a prospective parent; we also knew that she was, objectively speaking, beautiful.
What confirms these judgements is Geoffrey's body language and demeanour, presumably the combined result of lust and pecuniary interest, neither ofwhich we would have understood at the time.
The lady was indeed a famous beauty, formerly the sort-of Grand Marshall of the League of Health and Beauty (very popular fitness programme for women before the war) and now the widow of a gallant aristocrat.
Happily her son soon arrived: he was popular and something of a leader, but he disconcerted us hugely when we found that he preferred to squat with his feet on the lavatory bowl where the rest of us would conventionally sit.

Skinny Dip

All fifty of us on Dancing Ledge, naked sprites, trying not to make anything of the fact that the pitted and barnacled volcanic rock was in itself very, very uncomfortable and that the swimming in prospect was terrifying.
If you were a beginner, you had to stay afloat in the pool which E & G were thought themselves to have blasted out of the surface of the Ledge (paddling desperately, absolutely certain there was a Conger Eel in the murky depths waiting patiently until now for YOU to present yourself). If you graduated to the actual Atlantic Ocean, and did not drown at once, you were sure to be hideously cut as you tried to time the wave that put you back onto the Ledge.

Multum in Parvo

Mr Gray the Latin master, bald and erect, sitting at his desk with a salad bowl full of Fox's Glacier Mints (for when we got things right) and next to it the salad spoon (for when we did not).

One Man Went to Mow

Geoffrey with his pipe on a summer's day in the Jeep (faded blue-grey, just a hint of its previous career in the US Navy), driving steadily up and down the playing fields, us tumbling in and out of the rear seats, all parties being entirely unconcerned about the whirling blades of the Ransome's Triple Gang Mower which the Jeep is towing

Shedload

I remember being part of the vortex of roller-skaters crashing around the big wooden barn - possibly all fifty of us.

All Weather Walks

I remember being one of a stream of little Tardises, gumbooted and encased in yellow sou'westers and oilskins, stumbling through the winter's rain on the routine Sunday walk - chilblains humming all the while and bound to get worse when we got into the warm.

Wide Delivery

I remember the whole cricket team bowling along to an away match in one of the Lagondas, sticking out in all directions like the Keystone Cops.

By Gum

In our day, when going up to Twickers was a very rare treat, we would huddle around Eric to listen to the radio commentary. We conformed to the general presumption of good behaviour of course, but there was one occasion when some chewing gum (which I am sure was never permitted to anybody in the school) was dropped irretrievably in Eric's grey hair. We were all confused and appalled, so the question of actual punishment never seemed to arise.

Fly in the Sky

In my time the attic playroom (with the dormer window which looked South) had very many copies of the Aircraft Recognition magazine.
Several of us made ourselves World Experts on aircraft recognition by working through these. Any speck on the horizon would be crisply identified, usually in a chorus of agreement. This probably started me on my career in the RAF.

Lessons for Life

Three things leant for life - how to sharpen a pencil, how to make a fire and how to use a saw! Best memory was watching Bev have a bath through a hole in the bathroom wall - worst memory being beaten for flicking a rubber band at another boy and hitting him in the eye. Most amusing was having a fight and hitting the fire alarm (as I was not caught) - least amusing was trying to sing (I have never mastered this skill). All-in-all a prety good start to life - it certainly made you stand up for yourself and taught you that you either sank or swam (at Dancing Ledge this was literally true).

Daddy Long Legs

The postman used to drop elastic bands, which we used to link together and shoot the Daddy Long Legs down from the ceilings in the corridors and classroooms!

Cricket Shame

I remember having to walk back to Spyway, having been beaten at cricket by Hill Crest, what a place, cold as well!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Spyway! ('47 to '53)

What memories ! All conquering rugger side under (Sir) Alan Outram - Tea with (Lord) David Sainsbury - being stabbed by the (Earl) Charlie Shelburne (heck we were posh)- filching a whole packet of tobacco from Geoffrey's stache and smoking myself sick up a tree in the Drove - cricket team scoring 12 all out against Forres (Geoffrey drove us behind Nine Barrow Down and made us walk home then proceeded to mow the grass with the Jeep all night long in the ugliest rage I ever saw) - Eric's hairbrush......the most painful instrument of torture ever devised - dreaded Dancing Ledge before I could swim then absolutely loved it when I learnt - the rest after lunch in summer lying on my tartan rug between the upper and lower pitches reading Biggles. Lobster at the Trocadero when mum and dad came down to take me out. Pedalos at Studland. The smell of Hadrel and linseed oil in the carpentry shop. The walk to Tom's Pole on a blowy winter's day. The smell of cricket balls in the porch. That spine tingling thrill when Eric came in to morning prayers with a list of pupils to ask us how we were going home and how our luggage was going. Then the sweets and the taxis and the little train from Swanage and with one bound we were FREEEEEEEEE!

Cold Baths

Will never forget the initial shock of cold baths as soon as you woke up in the morning - usually in the summer months - when a prefect would push you upto your neck and hold you down. Then a long walk which seemed miles for a 6 year old down to the gates at the end of the drive and back (strictly NO running) and finally 12 breathing exercises which could not be rushed. All this BEFORE breakfast - I don't believe human rights existed in those days!

Ecce Homo

Brin Sheridan, who taught Classics, was very clever - a Double First - but one January, he drove his battered car back up to Spyway Farm where he lived only to be confronted by the cattle lying on the track thus avoiding the Purbeck mud. Brin didn’t want to disturb them, so he tried driving around them via the field. Not surprisingly he didn’t get far and got towed out next day!

Reward

Having beaten OMH by ten wickets at OMH, the team and scorer were given a special swim at Dancing Ledge on their return so avoiding Latin sentences on a Wednesday evening. Having scored 99 for 0, the openers Tony McCallum and Alistair Ross (I think) were given either balls or bats as a reward!

Dog Gone

The event that summed up Spyway and its ethos has to be in its final term - that hot summer of ’76. Beverley’s dachshund went missing on a Friday, so on Saturday, as there were no matches, everyone was sent out to scour the countryside for the missing animal. No sign. So on Sunday a similar expedition was planned instead of the Sunday walk. Geoffrey issued instructions that no-one was to go to Swanage- but of course three 9-year-olds did; they went straight to the police station. The loss of a ‘sausage’ was reported (the policeman teasing). Having written down the particulars, the said PC put the boys in a police car and returned them to school. Geoffrey ushered the policeman in for tea and while the PC was being entertained, Geoffrey scolded the boys severely for doing exactly doing what he told them NOT to do and sent them to bed (3.30pm). Having seen the PC off about 4.30, Geoffrey entered the dormitory and summoned the boys, their bottoms tingling in anticipation ! Into his house they went to be confronted by a special tea. Geoffrey and Bev had failed to go to the police themselves; so the boys having been punished for flagrantly disobeying orders were then rewarded for showing initiative! For that I will always personally thank Spyway and that incident has always stuck in my mind so clearly ever since. You can’t beat initiative!

Fire Practice

(1950s)
An occasional treat enjoyed by several would be on a Sunday afternoon, provided we had walked fast and were well ahead of Geoffrey, and Eric was still at golf! This was an early “scientific experiment” on balances and mass and the use of the Davy fire escape. The highest would “abseil” down to the ground, then the second lightest would come down on the second loop with the lightest going up again - and so on. The heaviest present was the only unlucky one to get a one way ticket! It reminds me of the Hoffnung story and the barrel of bricks.

The late 1950s

Best memories: being 'dropped' by parents after longish drive from North Devon. Bev Lawson's stockings. Trips to Twickenham for the Varsity match in Geoffrey's drophead Lagonda and 'away' rugby matches. Meeting RFU president at Sherborne Prep and smacking their over age winger, Christopherson, first in the teeth then in what was left of his remaining credentials. Eric's 'O' gauge model railway and his drophead Bentley. Swimming to the Flat Rock and becoming a 'B' swimmer. Becoming a longstanding joint admirer of Miss Cotter and eventually Francis Thomas. Shared number 42 with William Edge. Walks to Poole (first one aged 8 and 8 miles), then Corfe and Creech. (Shame we never made Worbarrow).........
Remembered contempories: Colin Cresswell (Head Boy), Mike Portman, Piers Inskip, Tim Guinness, Alastair (Black) Ross, Richard Bonsor, Tom Butler, William Outram, Nick Chadwyk-Healey, Martin Hudson, Malcolm Warner, Richard Pleydell-Bouverie, Robert Gosling, Robert Seward, Anthony Digby-Bell, Edward Lyttleton, Edward Hoare, Charlie Baxter, Anthony McCallum, Peter Facey, Will Best, Peter Kane, Michael Rule, Nicholas Warner, David Dean and Johnny Rodgers.

Bye for now, Nick Forman: Spyway May 1956 - July 1960

(nickinthedriversseat@hotmail.co.uk).

Ghost

The new boys in the first week or two of 1946 were reliably informed by their dormitory captain that there was a Spyway Ghost. So on a suitable moonlit night the boys were told it was a likely 'ghostly' time. They were keeping watch down the garden and sure enough a white spectre came eerily up the garden path and disappeared into the basement of the school.
(It was of course the dormitory captain under a white sheet, who was out the room answering a “call of nature”!)

Roof Space 2

My time was 1948-53. The roof space that I remember was the eaves space that connected Geoffrey's day room and the room where they (mostly Eric) had their model railway layout. I can remember using it to get to the cupboard where the stationery was kept. What I found particularly Valuable and Attractive were the maths square-ruled exercise books. I honestly cannot remember if I had any partners in crime, probably because even now I have a strong sense both that the taking of these books was morally wrong and that the intrusion into the railway room was somehow sacrilegious. So I would have been quite keen for noone to know my secret. As it happens I somehow made myself into a banker for the Dinky Club, using the ruled paper to make currency, so it was important that noone else had a source of the paper. Before the scam petered out I certainly made some real money from the fellow pupils who had more of that than sense.As to the railway room (a) I continue to believe that the LMS was superior to any other railway company anywhere ever and (b) as long as steam was there to be smelled, at Euston or wherever, I was always disappointed that in real life it failed to smell of Three Nuns.

Spyway Datecard

This post and comments were published in 2008. Since then, the original datecard has surfaced and can be seen in a post of March 2013 (well above this one). But here are some earlier efforts:

55 BC The Romans invaded Britain
410 AD The Romans left Britain
597 St Augustine’s Mission
1066 The Norman Conquest
1170 Murder of Thomas a Becket
1189 The Third Crusade
1215 Magna Carta
1265 Simon de Montfort’s Parliament
1295 The Model Parliament
1314 Battle of Bannockburn
1346 Battle of Cressy
1348 The Black Death
1381 Peasants’ Revolt
1415 Battle of Agincourt
1431 Joan of Arc burned
1455 Wars of the Roses
1485 Battle of Bosworth Field
1492 Christopher Columbus discovers America
1558 Loss of Calais
1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada
1605 Gunpowder Plot
1620 Pilgrim Fathers set sail for America
1640 The Long Parliament
1645 New Model Army
1666 Great Fire of London
1715 First Jacobite Uprising
1745 Second Jacobite Uprising
1756 Black Hole of Calcutta
1776 American Declaration of Independence
1789 French Revolution
1805 Battle of Trafalgar
1815 Battle of Waterloo
1832 Great Reform Bill
1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws
1857 Indian Mutiny
1870-71 Franco-Prussian War
1899-1901 The Boer War
1919 Treaty of Versailles
1928 Universal Suffrage

The Old Enemy

One Sunday while on Nine Barrow Down we were met by some panicky OMH boys who had just had one of their number captured by some local lads. Being a runner, I was sent back to Spyway to alert Geoffrey, who set out in his Landrover only to be met by the Spyway boys returning off the hill with their trophy – a recaptured OMH boy!

Double Numbers

Eric and Geoffrey had a vision that Spyway should always be a small school and that the number of boys should never exceed 50. On arrival, each pupil was given a number to identify his shoes, boots etc.
One autumn term, at its peak, Spyway suddenly found itself with 51 boys. Rather than simply give the new boy the number 51, Eric and Geoffrey insisted the orginal ethos of no more than 50 pupils should live on, and instead made the boy share the same number as his older brother, thus leading to much confusion in the laundry and the bootroom!

Fighter Pilot

During the Second World War, the brothers gave a tea to a British fighter pilot who had crash-landed nearby and were informed by the lucky pilot that it was the third plane he’d lost (and survived).

Weekly Tears

Every Friday morning there was an event known as 'Weekly Tears'. This was when boys who had not yet learned the basics of arithmetic were made to stand on a chair in front of the class and declaim their times tables. When a parent asked why the lessons were so quaintly named 'Weekly Tears', she was told it was because when a child failed to remember his times tables properly, he often burst into tears and this served as a warning to other boys!

Home and Away

An amusing occasion was when the Spyway and Old Malthouse UXI cricket teams met on The Drove near the Scout Hut. Each thought they had the away fixture that day, so a coin was tossed between Geoffrey and Peter Mattinson. It was such a strange event I can’t even remember where we did play the game.

Roof Space 1

Exploring the cupboards in the roof spaces was great fun as well as illegal. It got so much fun , we ran a treasure hunt during the winter months for some time, until Alistair Foreman managed to put his foot through the ceiling of the playroom. Of course he had to own up - sensibly to Eric- who questioned him as to an how long this nonsense had been going on. “About three years, Sir”. “Good heavens, really? Very good-but NO MORE!” (so the story goes) and the Foremans paid for the damage.

Television

TV of course was persona non grata, with one exception (apart from the Varsity match for those not lucky enough to go). The programme we were able to watch with Miss Thomas was that 50s sensation Quatermass and The Pit. What a programme, made even better by being the only TV we could watch.

Spyway School - SHARE YOUR MEMORIES!

Please write about your time at Spyway School (1935-1976) on this blog. To submit a story or photograph, email your memories to Edward Gormon ('The Ghost of Old Tom Pellatt') at eye2eye222@aol.com and he will post it for you.

A bar of chocolate will be awarded for the best entry and a double-page essay for the worst.