Mr Eric and Mr Geoffrey

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Dancing Ledge

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May an OMH old boy intrude?

I came across this wonderful blog after googling Spyway School. Why? I was at your old enemy The Old Malthouse (1959-1963) and thought I'd google other local Purbeck schools. It seems that Spyway is no longer a prep school just like OMH - what a shame. My only memory of your place was that it seemed much more spartan than OMH, the boys were tougher and (for some extraordinary reason) thinner than us, particularly during cold, wet and windswept 1st XV rugger matches which we invariably lost. I never realised that you had access to Dancing Ledge as well - I thought that that was ours and ours alone. We also had to swim naked which, I'm now convinced, somewhat excited the OMH headmaster. However, I think we usually beat you at cricket.
Thanks for all your memories which, but for names and places, so closely resemble mine.
James Osmond

The Railway Children

I was at Spyway from winter 1973 until it closed, after Mr Eric's death, in 1976.
I won't forget the roller skate mayhem in the barn, the "yobbos" firing air gun pellets at us from 'The Drove', the threat of going to join the school at the end of the road (the Old Malthouse), where I would have to wear a green cap with a little gold star. 
I shall also never forget the food: I shall never eat porridge again.  
Sunday afternoon tea, after roaming as far as Corfe Castle, seems unimanaginable in today's "'elf and safety" society. And what about the Friday evening treat of the model railway room at the top of the stairs on the right? 
(Rupert M-T)

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The Blues

As for uniform, we all wore tabbed garters, in dark blue. In my time we had no blazers or caps I think. If I am right here, that might have been a hangover from wartime rationing. I do however remember, rationing or no, the very handsome Billings and Edmonds overcoat in a brown-and-fawn herring bone tweed with a dark chocolate collar. I can only remember wearing this sumptuous garment once at the beginning of each term, as we gathered at Waterloo to board our reserved coach of the all-Pullman Bournemouth Belle.

Cold baths

I shall 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 in up to your neck and hold you down. 

Then a long walk, which seemed miles for a six 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!

I remember

Suddenly being faced with your memories of your prep school is quite unnerving and uplifting at the same time.

Memories. I have a few.

I remember that we used to heat the classrooms with log fires and that one November around Guy Fawkes night I put a firework onto one of the fires in Sheridan's classroom. It blew out and burned my corduroys badly and Geoffrey Warner punished me by making me wear shorts for the rest of term.

I remember Halloween and how we used to bob for apples.

I remember Dancing Ledge and how we would go and swim there. A few years ago I took my children there to show them on one of the hottest days (31C) and we had a great swim.

I remember walking to the end of the drive and back again and doing twelve breathers outside Eric's room.

I remember fire escape practice on these funny things which would lower you from the upstairs windows.

I remember driving to cricket fixtures in Eric's Lagonda.

I remember Geoffrey sharpening his pencils.

I remember all the Enid Blyton books in the library.

I remember secretly fancying Henrietta Warner.

I remember playing a game of rugby and we came off the pitch to be told Eric had died.

I remember Anthony Daly, who was killed in the Hyde Park Bomb. I worked in the Hard Rock Cafe Piccadilly at the time. I was walking to work and was outside the Hyde Park Hotel at the time it went off. I jumped a mile and was so shaken that I was let off work for the day.

I remember Jan Kent being killed in a motorcycle accident.

  

I remember watching the "Rumble in the Jungle" Boxing match with Ed Benthall in the cook Marisole's room late at night.

I remember going for walks up on Nine Barrow Down and playing British Bulldog along the cliffs.