ANOTHER ENGAGING MEMORY

I was at Spyway from mid-1956 to mid-1961. It was at the end of my last term that the engagement was announced between 56-year-old Geoffrey and the 19-year-old under-matron Beverley. A few days earlier they had set off up the front lawn in full view of the prep room, bathers under their arms, for the Ledge. We all gaped in amazement while brother Eric maintained perfect composure.

The next day the prefects were watching telly with Matron and there was a commercial for luncheon meat showing a happy family at table. Matron, with her usual ascerbic wit, called out across to Beverley - "Well Miss Lawson, you'll be serving that to Mr Geoffrey soon, won't you?" She blushed the colour of a beetroot. 

My grandfather and his two brothers went to Durnford from Moray, Scotland. My father, his brother and several cousins also went to Durnford. My brother and three first cousins went to Spyway after me. My father, and some of his friends from Durnford helped to build the lower playing field. I continued to see Mr Eric in Mull after I left and we maintained a friendship more or less until his death.

For me, Geoffrey Warner was a brilliant groundsman and extraordinarily talented man. I also loved Moonfleet and his reading. Eric was essentially a kind man and ran the school ably. I loved the trains and even managed to become one of his favourites.

Spyway was, I am sure a unique school. It had many good qualities. However the darker side has to be included, such as the spankings, beatings, group shaming, humiliation and mocking of individuals at Double. Perhaps worst of all the favouritism, particularly from Geoffrey, who was so biased towards athleticism and winning at sport - defeating the old enemy - "the Squeezerboxeraay" - which ironically closed only in 2007. 

For me, the only really sane person at Spyway was Matron. God bless her, wherever she is.

THE LATE 1950s AND AN EXPLOSIVE EXPERIMENT

I have only just noticed this excellent blog. I have pleasant memories of Spyway between 1955 and 1961. My memories are very similar to others: 

• the Warners lighting pipes and sharpening pencils with pen knifes; 
• their Cona coffee machines 
• Mr G mowing the playing fields with a Land Rover (or Jeep as someone else said); Mr E doing likewise with a little grey tractor
• their beautiful open-top motor cars 
• being frightened of ‘oiks’ in the Drove 
• horrid lumpy porridge
• delicious white glutinous spotted dick with hot syrup (the like never to be found in later life) 
• playing games with dates or capitals of the world at meal times 
• water wings in the pool at Dancing Ledge and later, a perilous swim off the ledge to prove I could
• the sting of Mr. Gray’s wooden spoon on my flat palm (I was no good at Latin but always thought it was the wrong way to administer corporal punishment)
• summer days lying on the upper playing field and playing the ‘Owzat’ cricket game and becoming a world expert on cricket (I was no good at the real game)

 

I was deemed to be a bit of a weakling and Matron was therefore required to feed me a large tablespoon of molasses daily. As a result I became Matron’s pet and was allowed to watch black and white TV with her in the evenings. I can’t remember her name.

 

The Warners were confirmed bachelors but while I was there, Mr Geoffrey quite out of the blue got married to the assistant matron who was much younger than him. This caused a lot of tittering, and must have come as a shock to Mr Eric.

 

Mr Eric was a kindly soul who cultivated my interest in science and allowed me to ‘repair’ his Bassett-Lowke O-gauge locos, working at the tiny table at the near right corner as you went into the model railway room. It was a wonderful layout with three control stations: Middle, Hill and Top. The controllers were these:

I think the complete layout looked like this:

Anyone know better?

I used to control from Middle. I remember once the boys controlling Top conceived a plan to retain trains in Top until they had a fair number and then to send them all back down the hill to me in a rush, hoping to cause a crash. Fortunately I had seen what they were up to and managed to handle the rush by judicious use of the sidings.

 

Mr Bailey was a very good science teacher who devised interesting experiments. I remember one where he poured a small amount of boiling water into a milk bottle and then sealed it with a shelled hard-boiled egg. As the interior cooled, the egg was sucked into the bottle. Boyle’s Law.

 

I and another boy (can’t remember who) once decided to make a rocket out of those aluminium tubes they sold cigars in. Over a period of time we stole a large number of the Warners' Swan Vesta matches, scraped the red stuff off them and packed the powder into the tube. We let it off in the middle of the night out of a dormitory window. It went quite well. Inevitably the Warners got to hear about it. Typically, there was no punishment. Mr. Eric simply asked me to demonstrate it again from the concrete bunker where they kept the mowers (before the proper shed for them was built). He gave me the number of matches I had told him we had stolen. Unfortunately I had lied about the quantity, so the demo was a bit of a damp squib.