ESW and FGW

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1940 aerial (from the east)

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NOW CLICK ON 'OLDER POSTS' (bottom right) FOR MORE

Daily timetable

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Godfrey Winn article, 1936

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Wartime memories

Sleeping in the boot room cellars as an air raid measure; occasional use of the shelter on the playing fields.

We nearly all studied aircraft recognition and passed various grading tests up to Master Observer.

Davy Escape practice became more frequent as war began but dropped off when dormitories moved downstairs.

A stream of Whitley bombers progressing overhead to the first raid on Italy.

Bombed twice at night: first time, a group of us were in the top south east corner attic room, floor jumped twice, dust everywhere, we belted madly downstairs to the boot room.  The brothers went out with torches, initial thoughts the tennis court, next morning two craters in the field to the south east.

Second time, I was in the dormitory on the south west ground floor corner: windows blown far away. Stray bombers discarding load or maybe an attempt on Leeson. We were frightened.

Individual butter dishes (and jam jars) for rationing.

The cold winter of 1940 when the walls outside the bathroom were coated with icicles and there was no morning dip for a while.

The death of Christopher Kent from suspected meningitis.

Tom Haddrell forever extracting stone from what became the lower cricket ground. Earth heaped along the south side of the top field. We built a Maginot line out of it with trenches and dugouts and fought the Germans.

Away cricket match at Hillcrest dismissing them for 4 (including 2 extras).

1955

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1958

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Photos

Click on any photo to enlarge:
(and if you recognise anybody, please add a comment).

1939

                                                 

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Bottom row, centre: Ronald Macmillan

1940

                                               

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1940 (Gas masks)

                                                       

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1941

                                                           

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1943

Sleeping Beauty:

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Top pic (l to r): Jeremy Sturges, David Gullett/Gullick, Ian Kerr, David Gough, Peter Sturges.

Lower pic: Witch: Jeremy Shaw, Cradle: 'Happy', Queen: Jeremy Sturges, Prince: Peter Sturges, Good Fairy: Tom Barnard.

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.

A Medley of Memories

Batting practice for ten minutes each morning during the summer term on the bootroom lawn.

Playing rugger and cricket before a late lunch.

Swims at Dancing Ledge - also in the morning.

Frequently being called a "silly arse" by Geoffrey.

Athletics being classed as a "game for girls" and not for Spyway boys.

Being made to walk back to school fom Forres after being beaten at rugger.

The dreaded Datecard and Tables Test at the end of term.

Being made to sit in the dining room all afternoon until I had finished up the congealed white fat from the beef at lunch.

Taking the odd chocolate bar from Eric's store of school sweets.

Consuming, like most boys, the entire week's ration of two sweets a day on the Sunday afternoon walk.

On Fridays, the wonderful fish pie flavoured with garlic (from the Drove).

Being repeatedly reminded that to be a Spyway boy: "It's what you do that matters, not whether you get caught".

Shades of Gray

Audley Gray taught Classics in the library and I remember the bowl of Fox's Glacier Mints and the wooden spoon he kept on his desk – one as an incentive, the other as a punishment. I received neither!

Gray was kind and gentle but rather like Brougham (see blog entry below), he had a real temper.

He lived at ‘Gypshayes’ in the Drove and was a typical old-fashioned bachelor schoolmaster.

Mrs Cockle's Muscle

Mrs Dora Cockle of Langton was a big and formidable lady and I think the housekeeper. She certainly worked on the cleaning of the school and may have organised the food in conjunction with the cook (Don Summers).

One day we were playing cricket on the lower field and Geoffrey was umpiring, when suddenly an angry Mrs Cockle approached in her large apron. She started shouting at Geoffrey and delivered a "roasting" he probably never forgot: low wages, hours worked and staffing problems came into the tirade. She then stormed off and Geoffrey calmly said "Play on".

M.C. Bailey MC

The master who taught in the "Eyrie" classroom was M.C. Bailey MC. He seemed much younger than the other masters and was a good teacher. We often asked him about the war and his Military Cross but I can't remember what brave act he carried out to win such a prestigious medal.

Bailey had been a tank commander in Italy during WWII and I seem to remember the story of how a German soldier jumped onto his tank and attacked him with a knife. Maybe this is how he got the scar on his nose.

After leaving Spyway, he taught at Clayesmore prep school before retiring to Swanage, where he lived in the old water tower in Taunton Road.

Teacher with an Austin 7 - Mr Brougham Brougham

The masters during the 50s were Bailey, Gray and Brougham (pronounced Broom). Eric and Geoffrey always referred to and called them by their surnames. This seemed strange to me and made the assistant masters sound rather inferior.

Mr Brougham was the Maths master and taught in the main room where "Double” was held. He was a very fat man and wore dark horn-rimmed glasses. He lived in the Drove and came to school each day in his ancient Austin 7 with a soft top. 

The little car used to bounce along over the rough Drove track and park at the back of the school. No masters were allowed to use the main driveway at the front.

During meals, Mr Brougham sat at the end of the middle table near the door and at breakfast he kindly gave one piece from his rack of toast to the person sitting on his left (we used to move places every day). 

We copied his habit of slitting the toast open with a knife and filling the centre with lots of butter and marmalade. He seemed a very gentle and kind man but was grossly overweight and the blue veins on his face were very noticeable when he lost his temper.

I think he died soon after I left.

The Final Whistle

Reg Saville had been teaching piano lessons at Spyway since 1962 and in November 1975 'The Old Man', as Eric was known in the Common Room, told him to take ten of the senior boys to Bournemouth for their piano exams.

RS asked 'The Old Man' for the official Royal School of Music form so that he would know the precise time and location but Eric gave him a chit instead with the details on: the time of the exam, the chit said, was 10am.

RS and the boys arrived in plenty of time in Bournemouth, found out where the venue was and, with time to spare, went for breakfast in Forte's. The boys were glad to be treated to a decent fry-up after the frugal school fare but when they all returned to the exam venue shortly before 10, the lady on reception said : 'Oh, we've been worried about you - you were supposed to be here an hour ago - you've missed the exams".

RS was shown the official documentation which had been sent to Eric, confirming the exam time as indeed 9am. The secretary, however, was very helpful and told RS she could re-arrange the piano exams for that very lunchtime.

This agreed, the boys and RS returned to Forte's for an early lunch, much to the pupils' added delight. The examinations successfully completed, RS and party returned to Langton in the late afternoon, to find Spyway very quiet, unusually quiet.

RS went to the Common Room to investigate, only to be greeted by an angry Geoffrey who said: "Eric's dead - and it's your fault".

Spyway had always been fiercely competitive at sport but it turned out that afternoon the delayed piano exams had meant the school's first choice of team couldn't be fielded against its greatest rivals. At short notice, Eric and Geoffrey were forced to play junior members of the school as substitutes.

The Spyway team was of course roundly trounced; Eric was very disappointed and the day's fateful events took their course, with Eric dying of a heart attack in his study shortly after the final whistle.

Another Ghost Story

I too have heard of Spyway being haunted.

When the building was owned by International House as a language school, I was practising the organ in Langton church one evening when I sensed I was not alone. I stopped playing and turned around to find an Arab youth behind me.

He said he had never been in a Christian church before, nor had he heard an organ. He was an Assad from Syria. He then asked if I would play something very softly, which I did.

He sat down and became very thoughtful. When he stood up, he thanked me and then added: “Did you know that Spyway House is haunted?”. He said he had twice seen a girl on the landing of the back stairs, but when he approached her and said “You know, you should not be in here”, she disappeared through the wall.

I said: “How interesting” and left it at that. That is as much as I know about the Spyway ghost.

A History Essay (Dark Blue Exercise Book)

A former Eton schoolmaster called Thomas Pellatt, who had married an heiress named Ellinor Thomas, bought the “Little Manor” called Durnford from the impoverished Rogers family in 1893.

Pellatt eventually went on to build Spyway for one of his daughters to run.“T.P” as he was known, converted the outbuildings of Durnford House into a preparatory school which became very famous.

T.P, along with his wife and two daughters, lived at Durnford Manor House. The school prepared exclusively for Eton, and was in its day seen as “progressive”. Many of the British aristocracy sent their sons to Durnford where they either adored or hated T.P.

He was a violent bully and could not abide sensitive boys or those who were homesick or did not excel at sport. Sons of German Counts and Barons appeared at Durnford in the years prior to World War I, and between the wars several members of foreign royalty, such as the King of Siam and the Hashemite princes.

The estate of Durnford stretched from a little settlement calledMount Pleasant, immediately north of the kitchen gardens of the school, to the cliffs at Dancing Ledge to the south.

The long straight bounds of this manor can still be seen at the east boundary of Spyway's grounds and the wall on the west side of Durnford Drove.

In 1910 Tom Pellatt got a quarryman to blast a swimming pool out of the rock at Dancing Ledge, near the water line, so that it could be filled up by the sea. He fixed a huge iron grille over the top, which was locked when the boys of the school were not actually using the bath; but the first storm took it away, and from then on it has been open to public use.

The boys (who included Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, and his brother) had to bathe in the nude. The Pellatts practised nudity in their garden, much to the amusement of the villagers.

So the grounds of Spyway were in the Durnford Estate and rented out to the farmer at Spyway Barn. Of the Pellatts’ two daughters one was beautiful, like Ellinor , and the other was not. The latter adored her father and wanted to run a school herself, but this was forbidden in those days by unwritten laws of what daughters of the upper class might do.

But when she married one of her father’s ex-pupils - one of whom Pellatt had been especially fond - she asked her father to build her a boys boarding school. Her husband, Nigel Chapman, would be the titular head, but she would actually run it.

TP built her Spyway house, putting in the diagonal glazing bars for which Durnford House and school were well known. The building was according to Mrs Hester Chapman’s specification: the school was to be small and intimate and totally dependent upon her. Hence its rather strange lay-out.

The marriage was more or less doomed to failure from the start, and Nigel began to look elsewhere for affection, and scandal and divorce followed at a time when divorce was something quite extraordinary.

Mrs Chapman left to live in London, becoming the world famous author of historical fiction under her own name Hester Chapman. All members of this remarkable family are now dead except for John Durnford Clayton, the son of the younger (beautiful) daughter of T.P, who died of an overdose of barbiturates. He sometimes visits the village.

Spyway School also used the Dancing Ledge swimming pool. Its uniform was grey flannel shorts, navy blue blazers and jersey and pale blue ties and caps. Durnford School wore grey with scarlet caps, ties and garters (as worn by Cub Scouts). Durnford School was founded in 1893, Spyway School in 1927.

When the Chapmans left in 1935, their school was sold to two brothers named Warner (Eric and Geoffrey), both of whom had been up to that time assistant masters at Durnford School. Under the Warners, the school took on a very Spartan regime: cold water, no soap, one blanket, no curtains.

In 1975, Eric died after becoming over excited on the touch line at a rugby match against another school and the death duties were so enormous that Geoffrey was forced to sell up in 1976 and retire to France.

The school premises were then sold to International House, and an international school was run there for some time in the late 1970s with boys from Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

The worsening political situation in the Middle East left the international school high and dry, so it was sold to AMI as a psychiatric unit for young people. The psychiatric unit changed the name to Langton House, dropping the old name of Spyway, which people in the village tend to prefer and use without thinking.

The name Spyway is derived from Spy Hill to the south. Durnford Drove, which is of course the ancient track way from the Cowleaze to the farm of Durnford which used to be in the centre of the village, leads to Spy Hill, and was therefore known in its southerly reaches as Spy Way.

Spy Hill gets its name from the smuggling activities in the little manor of Durnford during the period 1780-1870. The smugglers’ look-out was posted on this hill, which commands a good view of the surrounding countryside, and especially the cliff path from St Aldhelm’s Head to the lighthouse near Swanage.

This is the 'history' of Spyway, as available in the reception area at what is now known as Langton House.

Lest We Forget

Who remembers PLA labels? Imagine trying to get Virgin trains to do that.

The pile of rotting half orange skins from breaks - it put me off oranges and I still cannot face one today.

Trying, and eventually succeeding, to become scorer for the cricket team - for "away" teas and a trip in the Lagonda. Lack of skill and sheer cowardice meant no prospect of getting into the team itself.

60 mph in the Lagonda - a mile a minute as Geoffrey kept telling you - it seemed so fast then.

TV may have been banned but I do remember the whole school watching Sir Winston Churchill's funeral - or were we listening?

Was Spyway the first to think of competitive gardening?

How about forced letter writing: “Dear Mummy and Daddy, I hope you are well, I am. We played Old Malthouse on Wednesday. We lost.”

Organised primrose picking at Easter - not quite sure what that was about.

The desire to have a really battered and taped cricket bat - or was I alone? It certainly made me think my batting was better than it was.

Throwing cricket balls from the top pitch to the bottom pitch - mine barely reached the lower level - total humiliation.

Golden Squares- the only edible food, golden syrup on fried bread I think.
Spoonfuls of molasses- Uggh!

Gentian Violet - Aaaagah!

Using the Wisden annuals as forts for Airfix soldiers etc. Airfix probably went out of business because the dodge in our day was to write to Airfix saying there was a piece missing and receiving a free model in return. They were too good to us.

Tackling practice on a sack suspended from a tree, the ground usually frozen solid.

Who did NOT make a pair of book-ends in carpentry?

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.