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THE SCHOOL AT WAR – June 2008
Current Year 6 pupils were fortunate to be given a talk by O.R. Brian Angel who was at the school during World War II.
TITANIC SURVIVOR
BARBARA JOYCE DAINTON (nee WEST)
One of Only Two Living “Titanic” Survivors
We sadly record the death of Barbara Dainton, (nee West) aged 96. Her funeral was held in Truro Cathedral in November 2007, commemorating a life of great humour, scholarship, reading, travel and adventure. Her School years were 1918 to 1927 where she gained a Distinction in Geography and won the Victrix Ludorum in her leaving year. She enjoyed a lively involvement in Old Russellian activities and well into the 1960’s would return to Russell Hill to play hockey against the School. The O.R teams included her elder sister, Constance Miriam West (School years 1914 to 1924) who later became a teacher, housemistress and Leader of the Girl Guides at Russell Hill. Constance died of cancer in 1963 in Penzance, Cornwall.
Barbara lived on to become the last but one survivor of the “Titanic” disaster. A babe in arms at just 10 months and 18 days old, she was one of the youngest to come through the sinking alive. Her 33-year old mother who was pregnant at the time and her elder sister, Constance Miriam, were rescued but her father, Edwy Arthur West, drowned along with 1,520 other passengers and crew. The “unsinkable” White Star liner RMS Titanic, bound for New York on her maiden voyage, had struck an iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14 1912 and sank in just four hours. The exceptional horror of that tragic night in history still has resonance today, nearly one hundred years later.
Born on 24 May 1911, Barbara was the second daughter of Edwy, popularly known as Arthur, and Ada Mary West, both originally of Truro. After their first child Constance was born on 13 August 1907 they moved to Bournemouth where Arthur then worked for the department store of J.J.Allen as a shopfloor walker. But he was seeking a better life for his family and he opted to emigrate to Florida, attracted at the time by fruit culture companies in Gainesville offering good wages ... and a sunshine lifestyle for his growing family.
Travelling 2nd class on family ticket number 34651 at a cost of £27.15s (about £950 in present-day values), the Wests boarded the Titanic at Southampton mid-morning on Wednesday10 April 1912. They embarked aft of C deck, joining 274 other second class passengers, through their main entrance by the red-carpeted stairway bordered by light oak railings on this vast, new and exciting liner, one-sixth of a mile in length.
The following Sunday at 11.40pm, the liner was some 280 miles south of Newfoundland on a bitterly cold, clear night on a calm moonlit sea. Mrs West : “We were all asleep but just gently jolted. My husband and the children didn’t even wake up.” Meanwhile the card games continued in the second class saloon, one player jested among laughter , “Chance now of extra ice in our Whiskey!”, a steward assured one inquisitive lady “God himself could not sink this ship”, the Bridge acknowledged disinterestedly a crew member’s report of an iceberg collision … and the band played on. Just along from the Wests’ cabin was a young science master from Dulwich College, Lawrence Beesley, who felt what he thought was just a roll of the ship, twice. Then possibly a slight tilting. Curious, he opened the door and saw chief steward John Hardy running down the corridor, “Everybody on deck! Lifebelts on, at once!” Mrs West by now had roused the others and quickly heeded the steward’s warning to take plenty of warm things. “Arthur tied the lifebelts on Barbara and Constance and carried them to Boat Deck and I followed carrying my handbag. Arthur then rushed back for some hot milk for Barbara, returning to our Lifeboat Ten which was already lowered. Using the rope, he gave the thermos flask to me.” At this point some of the crew were rigorously enforcing the rescue discipline of “women and children first” and, believing Arthur was attempting to join his family, they held him back at pistolpoint. (“You go, I’ll stay awhile.”). It was later learned that all children in second class survived but only eight per cent of second class male passengers.
Because of Arthur West’s earlier employment in the textile trades both Constance and Barbara qualified as necessitous. Mrs West had no means to support the children, apart from a small sum from the Titanic Relief Fund and they were later admitted to the Warehousemen, Clerks & Drapers’School at Russell Hill, Purley.
On leaving in 1927 Barbara went on to Truro Girls’ High School and St. Luke’s College , Exeter, where sghe took a teacher training course in physical education and geography. She then became a governess to a Cornish family and moved with them to Spain until the outbreak of the Spanish civil war in 1936. She returned to England and to a teaching post at Guildford High School, Surrey. She was remembered as a madcap, always game for an adventure,, cycling once from Guildford to Plymouth. She met in 1938 and married Stanley Winder, a rugby-playing Mancunian, a marriage lasting 13 years before Stan died from a heart attack, but his love of rugby remained with Barbara. She and her second husband William, known to all as Dee, were regular visitors to Twickenham.
Returning to Cornwall in the early 1950’s, Barbara taught at her old school in Truro, later becoming deputy head of PE at Plymstock school for 20 years. A dedicated and kind schoolmistress, with a liking for bright ;lipstick, she encouraged an interest in grooming among her pupils. Her hockey team traveled to local tournaments in an assortment of cars, including the vintage Rovers known as “Stella” and “Vanessa”, the pride and joy of Barbara and Dee.
After retirement from Plymstock in 1972, Barbara moved back to Truro. Dee died in 1990. She regularly attended morning prayers at the Cathedral, where her father had once been a chorister, and she also acted as a guide. Her love of the English language remained to the end. She was delightfully intolerant of sloppy speech, spelling or grammar, and remained a feisty and spirited interlocutor well into her 90’s. By 2005, with her sight failing, Barbara finally retired to a nursing home.
Barbara West, winner of the Victrix Ludorum Glanfield Shield in 1927
Through the Old Russellians, General Sir Michael Jackson has presented the School’s CCF with a copy of his best-selling book “Soldier”. A keen supporter of Cadet Corps and with a son in the CCF at Eton College, he has inscribed the book : “Best wishes to all CCF members at Royal Russell. Michael Jackson”
I left RHS in 1961 and I kept in contact was Jean Manley a fellow classmate. I have also stayed in touch with Miss Brown.
At Ballards in 2001, I was happily reunited with the Frood family of whom Irene was a classmate.
She and her sisters Margaret and Nan, and twin brothers Hugh and James, had made the journey from Scotland and it was great to catch up on their news.
In 2004 I was delighted to attend a reunion at Purley and meet up with Ann Jones and her sister Sally and heard lots of news of fellow OR’s.
As I was now living in Somerset I was curious to see if Lavinia Booth still lived in the South West I tried contacting her old postal address without success, so I resorted to putting a message in The Local Times. To my delight a friend of Lavinia’s saw my message and she and I spoke and arranged to meet.
This was the first time we had seen each other since July 1961, it took a moment to recognise her but as soon as she said “Hello” the 30 odd years just evaporated!
Jean now lives in the West Country as does Ann so all four of us have got together for lunches and have really enjoyed reminiscing about “old times”.
The first opera of any kind in the history of Royal Russell was “HMS Pinafore”, performed here in March 1939, almost seventy years ago. I was seven and too young to join the excited groups from the Middle School and Senior Girls’ School who were bussed over from Russell Hill Purley for the two performances.
The looming war with Germany was just six months away and led the “Croydon Advertiser” critic – in a fit of surging patriotism - to report : “Gilbert and Sullivan in Russell School’s curriculum needs little justification. It embodies a peculiarly English humour with equally native sincerity in tuneful music. How badly a sense of humour is needed in this world. Just look across the Rhine at a nation to whom Providence has denied such gifts. And Heaven knows we need the virile strains of melody.”
Maybe Bach, Beethoven and Handel would not like being termed ‘tuneful’ anyway, but the ‘Advertiser’ was joined in the audience’s enthusiasm by a celebrated D’Oyly Carte professional, a ‘Miss Shedden’ . They went on to applaud our production in which (I quote) “The whole cast, unbelievably, from chorus to leading lady, was made up of forty-four boys and only one had reached sixteen … the sailors’ choruses revealing quite a creditable body of tone. Treble youngster Roger Billington as Josephine was not altogether at home in his clothes but gave Gilbert’s wit added vivacity with recitation-to- music good. David Evans, displaying the greatest histrionic gifts as Sir Joseph Porter, modelled his style cleverly with rhythm good and footwork neat, having learned the difficult art of keeping still on stage. George Gray’s solos and singing gifts as Captain Corcoran needed a little more confidence, whilst Little Buttercup played by William Organ sang her songs well in a charmingly demure and most pleasing performance.
“Mr Howard Cundell as producer, Mr Leslie Smith as musical director, Mr Crispin Smith as stage manager, Mr Wright and Miss Cundell on make-up all deserve one’s praise. One went home with the glow of Gilbert and Sullivan’s fun rekindled in one’s heart. It was a grand choice of play. The Head Master in particular whose guiding hand was behind the whole production deserves our warmest congratulations.”
(Progamme Note by Old Russellian Brian Angel)
The whole cast of HMS Pinafore in 1939
1939 Programme
Roger Billington (Josephine, the Captain’s daughter) George Gray (Captain Corcoran, Commanding HMS Pinafore) David Evans (The Rt.Hon. Sir Joseph Porter KCB, First Lord of the Admiralty) William Organ (Mrs Cripps, Little Buttercup, a Portsmouth Bumboat Woman)
RUSSELL SCHOOL IN THE1950’S
SLIDE SHOW & DIGITAL ARCHIVE ON DVD
Have you any photographs taken at Russell School in the 1950's?
Bill Forster needs to borrow more photographs of life at the school in the fifties for scanning and adding to the slide show to be published on DVD this year, 50 years after he left Russell School in 1958.
The DVD will combine a digital archive of all the photographs (with captions and credits) plus a slide show of the more interesting photographs.
Photographs can be transferred from the archive onto a computer for printing and e-mailing and the DVD can be played as a slide show on a computer or television.
Bill would like to thank the following contributors: Barry Robinson, Brian Fraser, Bernard Spolsky, Bll Forster, Colin Barrable , Keith Angel, Chris Gough, David Wilkinson, Franciis MacMahon, Michael Ryan, Patrick Bygate, Richard Dadson, Richard Payne, Roger Ballaster, Roger Simmonds, Steve Woods, Stuart Adams, Tony Dear, Tony Ford, Andrew Foot and Royal Russell School.
Good morning. My name is Brian Angel and I entered the kindergarten of this school as a boarder seventy years ago. For part of my schooling during the war years I was adopted by a journal called The Draper who paid £1 a week towards my education and clothing – a lot of money in those days. (Friends tell me if they’d paid more, I’d be a bit brighter)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This Chapel, this School, this whole estate are themselves a war memorial. They commemorate the dead of the Textile Trades from the First World War. Since 1853 at the original school at Russell Hill, Purley, these trades of Warehousemen, Clerks and Drapers had boarded and schooled at their expense many hundreds of the orphans and necessitous children of their employees.
The first Earl Russell, twice Prime Minister and the great reformer of the Victorian age, soon spotted this and enthused over prosperous Commerce providing for its own industries’ poor and underprivileged. As indeed did Charles Dickens when speaking at an early Appeal reception in the City of London to raise funds.
Brian Angel (1938-1947)
Earl Russell then gave his name to the school and remained its president for the rest of his life until he died 25 years later in 1878.
Not only that … it was he who persuaded the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward the Seventh, to become Patron of the School, an honour bestowed by each successive monarch to this day, as we enjoy currently the patronage of Queen Elizabeth the Second.
Thus ‘Russell’, hence ‘Royal’.
Long after our foundation, as World War One finally ended in 1918, Russell Hill School was threatened with serious overcrowding through the needs of over 300 new Textile Trade children made orphans by the war. Suddenly a second school was needed. The response of the merchant princes was immediate and astounding. Howard Hollingsworth, a major West End retailer, donated 120 acres of land at Ballards near the Shirley Hills, Croydon. The President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Sir Aston Webb, who had designed Admiralty Arch and the Buckingham Palace terraces, was commissioned for the new school buildings and landscaping. Inscriptions and lettering came from Eric Gill, the country’s leading artist/craftsman. The list of donors began to read like a Who’s Who of the Trades : ICI, Courtaulds, Great Universal, Debenham, Selfridges, Harrods, even Marks & Spencer. And, amazingly, in just 5 years the new school was opened here by Edward, Prince of Wales on 23rd July 1924 when he also laid the foundation stone of the new school Chapel. Then over the following months, in order to reduce the risk of overcrowding at Purley, some 120 senior boys arrived here.
And so it was that many of the new generations at this school, this War Memorial, were about to become themselves the subject of war, sacrifice … and remembrance.
Every name you hear read out at our Remembrance services is of someone who, over the years, remains part of the school’s history – and of a heritage for each one of us. Boys and girls of our Russellian family who learned and laughed, grew up, played sport, passed exams (or didn’t), sang here, many of them, and made friendships over the years which so often survived after the days of leaving school.
But for them life was to be cruelly cut short, very short, frequently in the most horrifying circumstances. With no chance of living a full life as we know it, they are now commemorated in our new Book of Remembrance. The illustrated stories are theirs … related now for each of us. And among the pages you will find one which has been the focus of our thoughts this year. I talk of Gerald Hood.
Arrived at School aged 7. Academically just fair, conduct very good, quite-type, thinker, fun to have around, helped anyone in trouble, staff liked him. He liked singing loudly in Chapel – nobody liked that – as he sat over there, second pew near the door. First eleven hockey, second eleven football and cricket. Swapped cigarette cards of soccer teams. Charlton Athletic fanatic. Known to disappear for half days when they played at home. Colleagues told staff he was having an extended illness again in the lavatory. Later he was ill indeed with Typhoid in the 1937 Croydon outbreak which caused the deaths of 43 in the borough, including two boys at our School. Gerald Hood was among 15 infected who survived. Then after leaving School he joined Pyne Brothers, a drapery store quite near Charlton FC, an area he surprisingly knew very well.
Hood the boy. Hood the man.
At 23, Royal Air Force Flying Officer Gerald Hood survived the crash of his Lancaster aircraft, shot down over the German/Dutch border at 1.30 in the morning of 13th August 1944. With his left leg badly burned, he was first given shelter and civilian clothes by a Dutch farmer who then alerted the Resistance. In dark of night, he was taken to a ‘safe house’ belonging to a widowed mother, Mrs van der Wal, her son Bote, also 23, and her 19-year old daughter Grietje (“Greet”) who was, they say, ‘the prettiest girl in the village’. After just one week and fearing Hood was about to be betrayed, partisans moved him to another safe house owned by the Ter Avest family, a mile away outside Rijssen.
While there, another Lancaster crashed nearby and the explosion tore tiles from the roof of his hide-out. Disguised in farmer’s clothes, he set about repairs, precariously straddling the rooftop when, to his horror, a German police motorcade appeared on the road going to investigate the crash scene. Gerald froze stock still, then decided to wave. They laughed, waved back at the farmer on the shaky roof, and called out “Seien Sie vorsichtig! Sie konnten in Gefahr sein!” (“Be careful. You could be in danger!”) Meanwhile the Van der Wal family, not least the son and daughter, were missing Gerald. They wanted him back and the partisans finally agreed, allowing him to rejoin them on New Year’s Day 1945.
A little while ago I traced the daughter Grietje, now a distinguished lady in her eighties, a local heroine, widowed and living alone. “No day goes by“ she told me “without my remembering Gerald and all that happened.” And it was wonderful, she added, that someone from his old school had come such a long way to see her. She recalled the night he first arrived. “He was confused and still in shock. We dressed his burn wounds as best we could. At this period it was the bitter ‘Hungerwinter’ and we had very little food. Mother offered him an egg, the only one we had, but he found eating difficult. In a while he relaxed and started slowly to chat. In baling out from the intense heat and flames, he said, the sudden rush of cold air had made him believe he was entering Heaven! Mother cried on hearing this, but we just laughed … and so then did Gerald.
In the week which followed and later when he stayed in the house a second time, Hood was hidden upstairs in the attic behind a very clever false wall. This was where student brother Bote was already hiding. The Nazis and police were hunting down students who had refused to pledge allegiance to the occupiers or to join the Germans’ labour programmes. After curfew when there were fewer police or Germans around, the boys would come downstairs and we’d play Bridge which Gerald insisted on teaching me. Two other boys from neighbours’ homes would often join us. Although life was very difficult and we did live in fear, Gerald helped us to laugh a lot. We had become a really close family. We’d listen to the BBC from London – very risky - but wonderful for Gerald to hear, and he and I would slip into the garden and stroll around chatting in whispers. The war, he said, would not last much longer and then he wanted to go to Switzerland for advanced navigator training. He’d be taking me with him … and we could get married.
Just two weeks before Liberation of our area, on 14th of March, we’d all gone to bed after a happy party for Bote’s birthday, leaving the washing up on the table. Suddenly at around half-past-one the silence was shattered. Police – there must have been eight or ten of them - with barking dogs and blinding torches had surrounded the house and burst through the door shouting for my brother Bote. Mother was shaking terribly. With the giveaway tabletop evidence of the party, our denying any knowledge of Bote’s whereabouts got us nowhere. They searched for nearly two hours. And then, fearing for the safety of his mother and sister, Bote slowly descended the stairs, arms raised, closely followed by Gerald.
He had put back on his identity dog tags as this would protect him as a Prisoner of War under the Geneva Convention, which all countries were bound to observe. For the Police this was a tremendous catch. They whooped with delight. Not just a student but surprise, surprise, an Officer of the British Air Force! Ridiculously, the two were then made to ride by bike, along with other captured students in torch-lit procession, the whole 14 kilometres to Almelo prison.
In jail, Hood insisted he had been shot down only in very recent days and that he had been in trauma, causing him to lose his memory … of time, places and people. By saying this he was of course protecting the identities of all his Dutch helpers. But the interrogators checked records and learned there had been no recent plane crashes in the area. Time and again they demanded names but Hood would not change his story. Late on the seventh day and after an evening of drinking and dining, three SS and SD men drove their captive in a black 4-door saloon staff car 3 km away to a small wood in Zenderen. They told him to walk forward, then shot him at one metre range with a powerful 9mm pistol and roughly buried him, but not before stealing his navigator’s watch. Just two days later, Hood’s student friend and hiding companion, Bote van der Wal was also bundled away, shot and buried at the same spot.
Less than a fortnight later, advancing Canadian troops of their First Division were holding hundreds of German troops for questioning. Two captured in Rotterdam and The Hague had recently fled from Almelo and one was wearing an RAF navigator’s watch. His story then led their captors to the woodland killing spot. The two bodies were exhumed and four days later at his reburial Gerald Hood was accorded full military honours. Six Canadian officers acted as his pallbearers to Almelo and then on to the War Graves Commission cemetery in Hardenburg where his body was finally laid to rest.
Bote van der Wal lies alongside his other murdered student friends and Resistance workers in a quiet parkland cemetery close by his – and Gerald’s – home in Nijverdal.
At a United Nations War Crimes Commission trial, German Police Driver Ludwig Schweinberger and Kommando Georg Otto Sandrock were found guilty of the two murders and later hanged at Hamelin jail by executioner Albert Pierrepoint.
So what of war at School itself?
First excitement in 1938, as the country prepared, was Oxford housemaster Mr Crispin Smith collecting all our gas masks from the Town Hall for Gas Raid practices every Monday morning. Just before war was actually declared in September 1939, the Government called for all children throughout the London area to be evacuated. Temporarily we were scattered across the country to relatives, new guardians or collective homes for children. Preparing for our return in 1940, the floor of the Dining Hall here was hurriedly strengthened and each basement room became an air raid shelter where we were to sleep each night. Bunk beds were built in, girls getting the first, boys making do with the floor to start with – or a garden bench if you were lucky. Actually it all seemed a lot of fun.
The Schools now swopped locations. With Russell Hill Purley being so close to Croydon airport – a likely bombing target - it was felt that the 120 senior boys currently at Ballards (the present School site) would be better able to cope than Purley’s existing Middle mixed School for 6-10 year olds and the senior girl 11-16 year olds. In fact, both Schools were hit in more than one air raid.
There were hundreds of air raid alerts. At Ballards the former St. Andrew’s House was badly damaged by clusters of incendiary bombs which caused lots of bracken fires as well, lighting up the night sky. At Purley bombs put some classrooms out of action for a year. Fear? I don’t think any of us was ever afraid …a tribute to the wisdom of the staff in controlling what little we knew of the war outside. On one Sports Day as many as six Nazi V1 pilotless bombers went over the top field, never interrupting the programme of races. After all, Government posters were proclaiming “Keep Calm! Carry On!”, the second sentiment being included in our own School song :”Carry on, Russellians, carry on!” Russell Hill’s concrete bunker was our home each night. The Head Master, always last to enter after roll-call, was once blown by bombblast into the shelter entrance itself. This desperate act by Hitler was bound to be punished by final defeat, an O.R. said later. You just don’t do that to Head Masters!
Answering a Government call, we grew lots of our own food, many of us having vegetable allotments where flowers and hedges once flourished. “Dig for Victory!” the posters proclaimed. At Ballards rows of magnificent landscaped larch and pine trees were cut down and taken away for fuel. Iron gates and railings also went to make guns. Teaching was hampered as staff joined the armed forces and local temps came and went to fill their places. Former strict Head Master G.A. Roberts was called out of retirement to teach French … and terrified a new generation. For security reasons, the teaching of German was forbidden. There was no TV of course and only some teachers had radios. As kids we knew very little of what was happening in the outside world, for good reason, except when there was the odd Allied forces triumph to celebrate, such as the legendary sinking of Nazi battleships Bismarck and Scharnhorst. OR’s on leave from the forces could depend on crowds of us listening to their stories – at least to the point where’d they say rather importantly “But I’m not allowed to tell you anymore!”
At this point mention should be made of the extraordinary record of honours among Old Russellians. One OBE, 3 DSO’s, 22 DFC’s, 7 DFM’s, 16 MC’s, 2 Military Medals. Gerald Hood was awarded posthumously for his bravery : ‘Mentioned in Dispatches by Order of the King’, the highest grade of this honour. At the spot in the killing wood where he died, the Dutch Liberation Committee erected a bronze statue of him and his student friend Bote van der Wal. Each year on the 4th of May, the eve of their Liberation Day, some 200 villagers gather there to remember, the town band plays Elgar, the Last Post is sounded, wreaths are laid and children place flowers. In 2007 Royal Russell’s CCF were there to add their own tribute and two weeks later the local Dutch Liberation Committee came to Royal Russell . A sapling from the Vloedbeld killing wood in Zenderen was dedicated and the Royal Air Force’s 100 Squadron, Hood’s own, commemorated with three flypasts.
Angus McGill MBE, an Old Russellian and awarded ‘Journalist of the Year’, was also a contemporary of Gerald Hood. He has written these words for us :
A CLEARING IN THE WOODS
Keep to the woodland path, it takes you to a clearing
And to three life-size bronze figures, famous here.
People pay them visits, children bring them flowers.
A band plays solemn music to them once a year.
These figures speak of terrible events.
The weeping woman holds two dying men.
One is her gentle son, the other
An English airman who longs for home,
But how? And when?
The woman had been hiding them for months
And freedom was just days away when they were found
And brought here in the dead of night. And shot
And tumbled into soggy quick-dug ground
And left to rot.
The men who murdered them were killed in turn.
Their names are known of course, but never mentioned
Not here. Not here.
So take the path. The figures will be waiting.
The monument’s for loving, not for hating.
Jo (known at school as Joffrine) Reade (née Fretwell) and Pat Johnson (née Wigley) have kindly sent us these photos with the following article about their time at Russell Hill
Jo and Pat reunited in December 2007 when they visited Rosslyn Chapel
This photo was taken of Kindergarten 1, Hope Morley House, around 1953-4.
We cannot identify a lot of these people, can you?
Middle row, L-R: 1st Joffrine Fretwell, 2nd Margaret Frood, 3rd Hazel ??, 4th Vivian Brand, 5th Mary Tindall?, 6th Pat Wigley
Front row, L-R: 1st James Brown, 2nd Norma Harrison, 3rd John Bartlett
Pat Johnson (nee Wigley) and Jo Reade (nee Fretwell) met on their first day at Russell Hill School, both aged 5. That was more than 55 years ago and they are still the best of friends. Over the years they have lived in a variety of places in Britain and overseas, but no matter where they were, they always kept in touch. When they both found themselves in Scotland – albeit one at the top and the other at the bottom – they met for the first time since leaving school. That was 19 years ago. Now Jo has just celebrated her 60th birthday and Pat’s is fast approaching, so they decided it was time to meet up again. It was a real trip down memory lane with a lot of: ………….. but do you remember when …………. and …. you know the time that we …………….! Here are just some of their memories:
Most of our school days were spent at Russell Hill. What we remember is an imposing and beautiful building with a magnificent beech tree lined driveway up a steep terraced hill. The overall impression inside was of a honey golden glow coming from the polished wooden floors, panels and tables, and when the sun was shining, the different colours from the stained glass windows.
We met in Hope Morley House in 1953 when we were under the supervision of Miss Fraser and Miss Carter. Others who started at about the same time were Norma Harrison, Leonard Cook, Alan Rushton and Michael Mulvey. Our teachers were Miss Leicester and Miss Russell. The rules were strict as to what we could and could not do. On special occasions we were allowed to play on the grass next to the playground and the call “We may go on the grass” would be sung as someone ran around to tell everyone the good news! We were in the Hope Morley House for 2 years then went up to the Juniors, although at first, we slept in the Howe Wing which was next to the San. During this time we were under the care of Miss Saywood.
Then it was up to the main school and all that this entailed. At first it did seem rather daunting, but in time we settled in to the routine that was to become just part of our lives. Initially we had school mothers whose job it was to ensure among other things, that we were clean and tidy for mealtimes.
The Hope Morley House had been a contained unit and we had never had the chance to explore outside. However, once we went up into the main school and became more confident (and inquisitive), it was as if a whole new world opened up – and how! There were areas that were out of bounds (but were obviously much more interesting) and to be caught there usually earned a detention. We had various dens in the grounds although the best one by far was an old air raid shelter near the back gate. We furnished it with various items we managed to acquire and spent many happy hours there.
Other memories include watching Princess Margaret’s wedding on a TV that had been hired for the day (we didn’t have regular access to a TV until we moved to Ballards), and the huge bonfire we always had on November 5th each year with all the fireworks and all the songs we sang as we danced around the fire. We had a party towards the end of the Christmas term which was a real highlight. There would be a Christmas dinner in the dining hall and then dancing in the J R Roberts Hall – or the Great Hall as we called it. We were allowed to wear our own clothes which had either been sent from home or delivered on Visiting Day. Each year the Great Hall was decorated by the 3rd Form pupils.
At the top of the school was ‘The Tower’ which, as the school was built right on the top of the hill, could be seen for miles around. When approaching the school by train, the tower could be seen from Purley Oakes station. It reminded Daniel (Jo’s brother) of Colditz! Of course the tower was out of bounds, but it acted as a magnet and was visited many times – but we were never caught! To actually reach the tower, we had to climb various flights of stairs – all out of bounds, and past rooms some of which were unlocked and housed costumes and cosmetics that were used for school plays. If we had time, we’d try on some of the costumes!
There was also an underground swimming pool; well, we believed that was what it was. There was a door towards the back of the main entrance hall that led to a flight of stone stairs going down to a small hallway, where there were 2 more doors. One led into what was probably some sort of store room. In one of the cupboards we found a collection of the most beautiful shells, set out in trays. We obviously had no idea why they were there or who they belonged to, they were unlike any we had seen before. The other door led to a room with a wooden floor. Part of this floor was broken and the hole was big enough for us to have a good look at what was underneath. There was a cavity where the walls and floor were lined with the same sort of mosaic tiles that lined the swimming pool in the grounds. We were always careful not to go right to the edge of the hole, after all, if one of us had fallen in, how would we have talked our way out of that one? Care was also needed coming out into the hall again, but we were never caught, although sometimes it was a pretty close thing!
There used to be a huge kitchen garden, but after a while part of it was grassed over and we were allowed to play there. This gave us access to the rhubarb patch which ran along the bottom by the fence. Needless to say we used to eat the rhubarb, but we must have had iron constitutions as we can’t remember ever being ill because of it! It also gave us access to the orchard, which was quite extensive. We found that if a group of us went ‘scrumping’ and were spotted, it was impossible for all of us to be caught if we all ran in different directions! The gardener’s hut was a popular hiding place, where several of us experienced our first cigarette – coughing and spluttering but determined not to be beaten!
The midnight feasts started in a small way. We acquired the food in various ways – sometimes it was sent from home! At first the feasts were held in the dormitory, then we became more adventurous. It became a tradition to have one on the last night of term. The best one of all was in the Headmaster’s study!
Some of the above may seem pretty tame to today’s pupils, but at the time we knew that if we were caught we faced detention at the very least. However, we must have considered that it was worth it. You could say that we were doing our bit to beat the system and in our own special way we succeeded – we certainly enjoyed it!
We didn’t spend all our schooldays going out of bounds, and all the other pastimes that it was considered warranted detention. We also did what we were there for, but that isn’t nearly so memorable!
A mysterious photograph album in the School Archive contains the photographs of nearly 400 boys (and some girls) who left Russell School between approximately 1950 and 1965.
The names of those included is given below. If your name is on the list and you would like to receive a print quality jpeg of your photograph e-mail Bill Forster at: bill@fischer-balcke.de giving your date of birth as proof of your identity.
Bill has scanned the album page by page and Keith Angel has linked the file reference to the pupils entry in the OR database which has been used to create the name index.
Do you recognise these ORs?
Not all the pupils whose photographs appear in the album are named and Bill would appreciate your help in identifying them.
If you recognise any of them please let Bill know so that their names can be added to the index (which will then be updated and posted on the web).
Why is my photograph not included? The pupils were probably photographed in their final term at school by a professional photographer but the precise years covered are not given and not all school leavers are included (for example, members of the VI Form who left school at the end of the Summer term in 1958 are all missing) whilst some boys who stayed on into the VI were photographed twice, perhaps at age sixteen and again at eighteen.
If you know the whereabouts of these missing pages or know exactly why these pictures were taken please contact Bill Forster by phone (01727-838595) or e-mail: bill@fischer-balcke.de
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