Vigeon Post

by Owen George Vigeon
 

1.

I suppose we have to begin with my names which are nothing if not idiosyncratic. The Owen betrays a certain Welshness. I was named after my uncle Goronwy Owen Roberts who shared my birth day and was killed in action while serving as a wireless operator in the Royal Navy in 1917. His sister, my mother, was Dilys Elspeth Dryhurst Roberts and like all the family a woman of staunch Welshness even after living the last sixty five years of her life in the north of England. Her family were Calvinistic Methodists; and her father knew Lloyd George, who was a visitor to the school house in Pont Robert where she grew up. The George suggests an intrinsic Englishness. All male Vigeons have been given a George since George Vigeon, my great-grandfather, died preaching the gospel to the poor of the inner city of London in 1873. He was a devout Methodist who managed the office of a cement company in the City and spent all his off duty time organising his non-denominational Mission to the Costers (street sellers) dwelling in the area now dominated by the Barbican Centre. He was typical of many Christians of his day who were committed to inner city mission. He was a contemporary of Dr Barnado (pioneer of children’s homes) and General William Booth (founder of the Salvatioin Army) - both of whom attended his funeral.

"Vigeon" is one of the rarer English surnames - even though it looks rather French and indeed is a not uncommon surname in France. The etymologists reckon it is a corruption of Vivian ( a popular mediaeval saint). There are now more Vigeons in Toronto/Texas/California than in England. As far as we can tell there is only one other family called Vigeon in the country and that belongs to my third cousin Norman who lives in Sittingbourne, Kent.

In fact, we originate in that county, and the old family homestead in the village of East Farleigh near Maidstone still stands. In the early 19th Century my ancestors worked at Chatham Royal dockyard constructing battleships for Nelson’s navy. My father was a Londoner by birth; but his mother died when he was an infant and his father married a girl from Newlyn in Cornwall. This was at a time when you might have begun to think of a mobile society. Dad was apprenticed to a Dentist at the age of fourteen [as you were in those days]; and that became his profession. He married my mother in 1921 and after one or two appointments, they settled in Carlisle where Dad set up his own practice. Anyone who has read the novel "The Edwardians" by Sackville West will know that there is a character there called "Vigeon the butler"; and that is about as famous as we ever get ! The author came from Sevenoaks and would have been aware of this Kentish name.

My sister Evelyn who is the serious historian in the family has a wealth of information about us which is not appropriate here. But to me, as I glance down the family tree she has unearthed, the interesting thing is that over a period of several hundred years my family seems to have occupied a place in society of consistent usefulness without being either quite working class or quite gentry. In other words we are yeoman stock, which is no bad thing. In sociological grades I suppose that as a Canon of the Church of England I rate as high as we have ever got - as if that matters one jot..

Infancy

I grew up then in that northern fastness of historical England called Carlisle - a city which these days advertises itself as the only sizeable place in England which preserves a Celtic name. You could not live there without being aware of its long history as a bastion against the Scots. It used to be well known as a railway town - its Citadel station was a perpetual source of free entertainment for a boy. The world knew it as the home of "Carrs of Carlisle" the biscuit manufacturers; Cowan Sheldons were an engineering firm who designed

and exported cranes world wide, Ferguson’s Fabrics was the home of the only factory which took in raw cotton at one end and produced finished cloth at the other..Morton Sundour produced fabrics with excellent patterns. There were several other well known firms most if not all of which have now succumbed to the global market. It was an interesting place to grow up in - a smallish provincial capital over sixty miles from the nearest large city (Newcastle) and about a hundred from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Preston. So it preserved the amenities usually associated with larger cities. The mediaeval castle with its sturdy keep kept watch over the fortified city as it still does today; and a few hundred yards away stood the Cathedral with its glorious east window and its nave foreshortened by the pillaging of the Cromwellian army during the Civil War. A third relic from the Middle Ages was Carlisle Grammar School which claims its foundation to be the school established by the St Cuthbert on his mission wanderings across the north of England in the seventh century. Of that more later.

When I was born in 1928, the family lived in a newish housing estate called St Ann’s Hill - an outer suburb on the north side of the River Eden. I understand that my birth was long drawn out and difficult and that when I eventually appeared I was reluctant to start breathing and my poor mother glimpsed the attending doctor swinging me round and round by my feet in an effort to make me cry. Perhaps a psychologist would read something about me as I came to be out of that. My father was overjoyed at the birth of his first-born and is said to have walked all round the town calling on his friends and drinking his son’s toast on too many occasions. Two years later I was joined by my sister, Evelyn and we became the atypical 2+2 family unit at a time when in an age of economic uncertainty small families were becoming the norm. Just down the road was Kingmoor - the great shunting yards and locomotive depot - and there was a convenient afternoon walk for a mother and pram of about a mile which we called "The Circle". This necessitated going over two railway bridges. No wonder steam railways are still part of my psyche.

I remember nothing directly about my earliest years of course; but one is fed by fond parents of stories of those infant days which must contain a modicum of truth. My mother used to tell how we were going out to some social occasion and she had dressed me up in my new outfit and made me look very presentable. She had to go upstairs for a minute before our departure and returned to find that I had decided to explore the chimney and was covered in soot. Our emotional life centred around our mother; for Dad worked long hours at his profession and in any case was a quiet man not given to chattering and communicating. Mother used to say how shocked she was one day when my father came home from the surgery only to be greeted by an irate little boy exclaiming "Why did you have to come ? Mummy and I were enjoying ourselves and you have spoilt our fun !" (or similar sentiment). Little wonder, perhaps, that I have had an ambivalent relationship with God ever since.

I think my earliest genuine memory is that of the day in about 1934 when we moved house to number five Strand Road. I have a distinct snapshot in my head of the excitement of the ride with my father in the removal van as we bumped over a not well made up road.

One of my fondest memories is that of afternoon teatime, when my mother would switch on the radio at 4.30 and we would listen to the last half hour of dance music - these were the days of Ambrose, Lew Stone, Henry Hall, Carol Gibbons et al. The we would listen to Children's Hour from Manchester led by Aunty Doris and Aunty Muriel and Uncle Eric - Eric Fogg a brilliant personality and musician who tragically committed suicide in later years. We loved listening to "Romany" i.e. Bramwell Evans the Methodist minister and country lover who would take Doris and Muriel over imaginary but, as it seemed, realistic walks through the countryside and so educated us in the most easy going way. Later we got to like the weekly newsletter by the legendary "Commander Stephen King Hall" who always ended by enjoining us to be good - but not so very good that our father would ask what mischief we had been getting up to. Then there was our music education - the gentle talks about good music by Walford Davies (he of the Solemn Melody and RAF Marchpast). When he introduced Handel’s Water Music he would remember that Handel was a sort of economic migrant and that when the Hanoverians came to the throne he was not sure of his good standing. So perhaps the lovely slow melody conveyed the words "Please be kind to me".

We also had a wind up gramaphone. Father had a quality one for his expensive 78’s of Beethoven String Quartets etc. He was known in the local music shop as the gentleman with the expensive taste in records. We had a portable in the nursery and would play little seven inch discs from Woolworths with the pop music of the day. It always seemed to be played by a band called "Troise and his mandoliers". I think our favourite was "Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf ?" It is surprising how little details linger on in the back of one’s head. In the days of ‘tin pan alley’ popular music had words you could remember even if they were supremely unmemorable..

"Hush be quiet

Don’t you cause a riot

Now that he is fast asleep

You can take a little peep

At his majesty, the baby"

And at the time of the Presidential election of 1937, we were treated to

"How can he be a dud

or a stick in the mud

when he’s Franklin D Roosevelt Jones ?"

Dad was serious about his music. His grandmother had been a pianist of concert standard and we presume was responsible for making her semi-orphaned grandson into a very competent pianist.. His idea of play time was to play a scherzo from a Beethoven String Quartet for me to dance to ! I remember a few years later how Evelyn and I would enjoy his piano playing and perform a sort of music and movement activity punctuated by cries of "Play something loud Daddy !" Many years later when I was a teenager, a friend lent me his copy of the latest dance record from Geraldo and his Orchestra. It was quite innocuous really. But when I took it home and played it, an irate parent put his face through the door and told me in no uncertain manner to take that rubbish of his gramophone and never let him hear it again. To this day the ‘pop’ world is a closed book to me and I resent the word ‘music’ being applied to it !

All four of our grandparents died long before we were born; so the nearest we came to one was my father’s Aunt Edith (Haynes) who we called Nana. Nana would come from time to time to lend a hand . Mother used to talk with amusement of how when Nana came to help out when Evelyn was about to be born in 1930, she found, as a deep dyed Cockney, that it was often difficult to communicate. On Saturday mornings the milkman would call to settle accounts. He was of north Cumberland farming stock and spoke in that dialect. There was mutual incomprehension typified by Nana’s comment "I don’t know why ‘e can’t understand me. Oi speak the Kings English don’t oi ? During the war, Nana and her daughter Grace evacuated themselves from London and stayed with us for much of the blitz. Evelyn and I still muse on our lack of grandparents. An important dimension to our lives was missing.

Echoes of those pre-school years still surface. In those days, ‘dancing class’ was regarded as part of the scene in middle class society, I still remember the beautiful Miss Marshall who drilled us; and vaguely remember that one year I and the other young boys were in a tableau entitled "The fairies discover the cobbler elves". My sister was a Fairy and I an Elf. We still have the programme and the photograph. I think we boys did it under protest - it was all a bit "sissy" to use the adjective of the day - but we would do anything at the behest of our glamorous teacher who was as a goddess to us. There are names on the programme that still ring a bell. Keith Finley who became a lifetime friend, Derek Messenger and Pat Streitfield . I remember that Mother used to go to a weekly meeting of the "League of Health and Beauty" - an organisation which I have a feeling still exists. In those days it was the equivalent of today’s aerobic classes.

I was probably a rather precocious child. The following incidents related by my mother will illustrate this. When we were quite young, the family went on holiday to London to visit Dad’s relations and show off his family. At one point I rebelled at the hard London pavements and sat down on the kerb with my feet in the gutter and refused to move further. We visited an aunt of my father’s in Margate. I remember being fascinated by the pet monkey she kept in a cage. I am told that she greeted me with

"Oh what a darling little boy ! have you got a nice kiss for your aunty ?"

"No I haven’t" was my ungracious reply.

"O you are a contrary little boy aren’t you."

"No I’m not !"

That contrariness has not quite left me yet after all these years !

Before I could read, I liked to pretend I could. Mother tells of one day when I sat in my chair holding the Manchester Guardian upside down and saying to her.

"There’s a good programme on the wireless today mummy"

"What’s that dear ?"

"God’s taking the service and Jesus is preaching".

Considering that religion was always the background rather in the foreground of our family life, that seems a rather strange venture of faith. My theology was fairly orthodox even then; and I have always been at home in ‘God talk’. Although you have to go back a long while to find other parsons in the family tree - my father had a great uncle who was an Anglican priest - the Christian faith was strongly held on both sides of the family. Interestingly both parents had a mixed Church/Chapel background and there was a touch of radicalism behind the respectable facade of our home. Father told of how his father would instruct him "When you are out walking and you pass one of the ‘gentry’ you are not to raise your cap to him. You are as good as he is". Mother remembered how her father was typically at odds with the Rector of their Welsh parish. On one occasion , the school governors asked him to speak out against the Liberal legislation which would affect the privileges of church schools, and he refused. He was consequently asked to find another post. When I ponder such things I realise why I have never been completely at home as an establishment person. I am glad that my Methodist childhood means that I have always known that faith begins in the heart rather than the head,

One final moment of revelation comes back to me. It was when I discovered the magic of words. When I was about four, we went to visit Uncle Hugh and Aunty Winnie in Birmingham. I must have told my father that Birmingham seemed a funny kind of name. Dad responded by saying you could remember it easily if I thought of

"BIR - Bir MING Ming and HAM -Ham. Birmingham".

So I drove everyone mad by repeating the formula ad infinitum. The moment seems to be associated with the thrill of travelling by express train and my father walking me up and down the corridors to give my mother and sister some peace.

Lastly I must remember my companions in my infancy. Evelyn, my sister , was born two years after me; and as siblings should we grew up best friends and conspirators. Quite recently we were reminiscing of our childhood and seemed to agree that while we could enjoy life and have a sense of humour we found it difficult to have "fun" in the accepted meaning of the term. Neither of us particularly enjoyed going to birthday parties for that reason. In those days parities were highly organised with such traditional games as "Here we go round the mulberry bush"; "Oranges and Lemons" and "Passing the parcel". When I got a little older I contracted out by offering to play the piano for such games and got quite expert at playing jigs for "Strip the Willow". We mutually came to the conclusion that as our parents were in their late thirties when we were born, they were themselves past the days of giddy youth and had become more staid in their habits. What you do not experience in childhood you find difficult to capture at a later date. But of course we knew that we were loved and that was far more important. However, an unfunny temperament can lead to misunderstanding at a later stage especially when one becomes an ordained minister. Many folk suppose that we clergy are naturals at jollying people up and making them happy. But there are many of us who would prefer to sit at home with a good book of theology rather than attend a parish party. It is good for our souls that we are not allowed to get away with this.

I cannot finish this chapter without referring to Gyp. My mother had a distrust even a fear of dogs. My father had had a dog as a boy; and as the years of marriage went on without a child, he lobbied regularly for a family pet. Mother resisted. But one day Dad came home with a puppy a few weeks old and Mother said to herself "How silly to be afraid of a thing like that". So Gyp became part of the family and I followed on the next year. Gyp was a pedigree fox terrier and a great character. I think on reflection that Dad gave him the name because he had done his war service in Egypt and had grown very fond of that country. In the army slang of the day, the inhabitants were called "Gyppos", and I reckon that explains the choice.

We children treated him abominably at times, dressing him up or trying to harness him to a pram and other pranks. But I seem to remember that he treated it all with good humour. He was a sort of elder brother to me I suppose. I know that he lived long; and, when at the age of fifteen and was developing cankers the vet came to take him away, I was devastated. Nana who was with us at the time, tried to comfort me. "Don’t be upset, Owen" she said "After all he was only a dog"

And my eyes filled with tears and I shouted "Yes but you didn’t love him like I did !"

I would be fourteen or so at the time and emotions are very fragile at that age.

And so to my school days.

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At five years old, I attended Grosvenor College, a private day school a few hundred yards from our home in Strand Road. It was a three class school - the oldest boys were taught by Mr Harrison the owner/headmaster; the junior age group endured Mrs Harrison who was universally recognised as a ‘dragon’ ; while the youngest boys were in the Kindergarten and taught by Miss Grant, a Froebel trained teacher. So I suppose the school was more ‘modern’ than many of that day. It was a small class of about a dozen boys, some of whose names still echo at the back of my mind. Freddy Jeffries was for some reason protected due to an injured leg. We had gym lessons given by an ex-army martinet and I distinctly remember that Freddy was excused the high jump. Lessons were organised in a manner which persisted in primary education till quite recently. The serious work was done in the morning . very much a Three R’s curriculum. We learned to write by the use of ‘copy books’ in which you literally copied the beautiful italic script of one line onto the line beneath. At least we were taught how to use a pen or pencil - it horrifies me sometimes to see children trying to write well with the pen held in an inappropriate style. There would be daily arithmetic exercises. We learned to do ‘mental arithmetic’ [which is still a useful skill seventy years later !] and we learned our tables. I remember how by the age of seven I could recite my 16 times table. But then there were no computers in that age and you had to train your brain to become one.

I must have been a slow learner; and I always struggled with figures. The trouble was that you had to finish your quota of hard work before you could go on to something more enjoyable. My enduring image is of me, well into the afternoon session, still trying to finish my maths quota while the rest of the class were playing games and having fun.

School always began with a formal act of worship. It was at this age that I came across the Book of Common Prayer. Mr Harrison ended every assembly with the third collect from Morning Prayer, the one in which we pray that this day we ‘may fall into no sin or run into any kind of danger’. It became embedded in my consciousness together with the inevitable images in my mind of my falling into a manure heap and being run over by a bus.

I think Miss Grant protected us from the fiercer manifestation of Mrs Harrison’s discipline; but I still remember the trauma of being sent to Mr and Mrs Harrison for the grievous sin of chewing the end of my pencil. I was interviewed in the Headmaster’s study and warned never to do it again for if I did then the next time would end up very painfully.

One thing puzzles me. That is the memory that I was not popular with the other boys. Why this was so I have no idea. I think it was just a boy thing. I wanted to be part of the gang but they would not let me . On coming out of school, I would try to walk with the other boys but on more than one occasion they pelted me with stones and would not let me near. I think I have always been unsure if my company is acceptable ever since. I am envious of those people who are quite sure that everyone wants to enjoy their company ! Psychologists have pointed out that priests often have a background of being seen as "different" when young.

A year or two after I was ordained - about 1956 I think - I was invited back to give the prizes at Grosvenor College which had now moved away from its corner house to a mansion in the suburbs and was larger and certainly more civilised than I remembered it. It was lovely to see Miss Grant again, and she was not all that old for it was only twenty years since I left in 1935.She claimed to remember me which was nice.

At five I also began to attend Sunday School at the Central Hall Methodist Church where my father was a Trustee and in which my parents enjoyed their social life. The Central Hall was an interesting building because it was purpose built in the inter-war years with lots of modern ideas which are still notable today. The seating was like that of a theatre or cinema with tip-up seats. And there was a microphone which allowed the hard of hearing to use ear pieces.

Sunday School was not something I particularly approved of. This had its origin in my earliest experiences in the kindergarten. The first Sunday I attended the time was taken with noting down all our names. It was the first example of a lifetime’s struggle to convey my rare surname correctly. On this occasion my nice teacher insisted that it was spelt VIDGEON and even in my tender years I had learned that it is VIGEON. She insisted she was right so I have always had a problem in believing everything I have been told in church ! The other memory of that ilk is of having a strong lesson on the evils of Sunday trading. As the awfulness of this terrible activity dawned on my infant consciousness I became more and more uneasy. So I put up my hand and confessed our family sin. "Please miss, my daddy buys a newspaper on Sundays". I still remember the blush in the good lady’s cheek [for no doubt she also read the Sunday Express or something] as she murmured that that was all right because it was ‘in case of an emergency’. And I thought to myself "that’s a pretty weak excuse !" Mother’s cousins, Ethel and Dora who lived in Denbigh, once told me how when their mother paid them a visit on a Sunday afternoon they had to remember to hide the Sunday papers under the cushions or face maternal wrath.

Perhaps I can take this through to the time when I left Sunday School for ever [or at least to when I found myself ‘taking’ Sunday School many years later]. The chief benefit to my soul was. I think, learning the gospel hymns. "There is a happy land", "Tell me the stories of Jesus, " "Tell me the old old story", "There’s a friend for little children above the bright blue sky". and all the others of that ilk. At least I remember being introduced to the idea that you don’t have to believe all that the church saddles you with. One of our teachers confided one afternoon that he did not believe in the "happy land far far away". I believe [ he said] that it should be "not far away". Thst taught me something which I suppose has remained with me all my life - the belief that there is more than one way of "doing the Jesus thing".

One of the essentials at Sunday School was that all scholars had to sign the Temperance Pledge. I never felt bound by something I signed in infancy - it seems an inappropriate thing to ask of a seven year old - especially when you know that your father likes the occasional beer; and a bottle of whisky appears at the festive season.

We had our attendance cards stamped and this was the passport to receiving a prize at the annual festival. I still have my copy of "Toad of Toad’s Hall" which I requested one year .

Two moments stand out . One was in the Junior boys class where we had a lovely lady teacher who was very devout. One day we had a lesson about the Bible. She invited us to make our own comments about this wonderful book. I commented "I think the epistles are a bit dull". In horror she exclaimed "O but Owen ! the epistles have some of the most wonderful words in the bible !" She was of course correct but not in the mind of a small boy. The other moment marks my finishing with Sunday School. Our teacher for older boys (9 - 11) was a young man who rejoiced in the nickname of "Bonzo". Bonzo was a Lay Preacher and a man of very simple faith. I came home one Sunday afternoon and announced to my parents that I was not going to Sunday School any more. My mother mildly enquired why. I responded

"It’s Bonzo - he’s daft ! Today he asked us why January is the most beautiful month of the year. And we couldn’t find the right answer. So we said "Tell us Bonzo!" and he said "Because it begins with J like Jesus. So I said to him what about June and July ?" At which my mother said "In that case you certainly need not go any more".

I spent only a couple of years at Grosvenor College and then I was moved to the Prep Department of Carlisle Grammar School which was only a couple of hundred yards down the road from home.

Carlisle Grammar School [Prep Dept]

I well remember my first day at my new school . I was only seven at the time and the average age of my class was eight. So I was young for my year right down to my years in the VI Form. My parents had done something to prepare me - one instruction was to be sure to call my teacher "Sir". I was somewhat perplexed then to find that my teacher was Miss Gamble. Not only that but we started the school year by being marched across town to the Cathedral for a service.

The school was [is] an ancient foundation [qv} with a sense of history; and at that time it was a Church school with an intake of fee paying and ‘scholarship’ boys. Boys in the ‘prep’ of course were all fee payers, and the classes were small. So small that I remember that in the course of a measles epidemic we were reduced to about three or four. In those days you had to bring a certificate to school at the beginning of every term giving information about any contagious disease which had been caught. It was called a "dog licence" and woe to you if you forgot to bring it. The only vaccinations most of us received were for small pox in infancy and then later for diphtheria, which was a killer disease in those days. For the latter you made a private appointment at the hospital and I have a vivid memory of being dealt with by a kindly doctor who showed me all the guinea pigs and rabbits which were used for experimental purposes. I guess they made their own vaccines locally in those far off days.

Again I have a clear snapshot of my first day at my new school. For the first thing that had to be done was to make a roll of our names and some basic information about our families. Boys can of course be very cruel to each other - it is due to a determination that nobody should act in a ‘superior’ manner. This of course goes through to the sort of initiation ceremonies which armies seem to like to inflict on their recruits. One of the boys was called Harry Simpson and his father was the owner of a classy gentlemen’s outfitters in the town. When he was asked what his father did, he replied "Please miss, he’s a sooter". At which we all burst into much laughter. I think we understood that his father was some kind of chimney sweep. But he was of course a tailor who made nice suits.

At that time the prep department was housed in the main school building which meant that in the playground were boys from seven to eighteen. The ‘new boys’ like me had to undergo a reasonably gentle initiation ceremony. You would be collared by two or three ‘big boys’ (prbalby about eleven years old] and asked "Do you believe in Father Christmas ?" Whatever you answered [I tried to be clever and show off my knowledge of St Nicholas which didn’t go down well) you would be propelled forcibly down the yard towards the edge of a wall with a drop of two or three feet onto a grass plot and you were made to jump off the edge. No great problem really; but it made sure that you knew you were the lowest of the low.

I spent three years in the prep department; and I think they laid a good foundation for my subsequent life. Miss Gamble was a firm but gentle teacher who initiated us into the mysteries of such things as ‘long division’ and used a series of ‘readers’ called "Reading and Thinking" which helped us to develoe language skills. I remember how I came home one day and complaining to my mother that I had to write a ‘composition’ about "An adventure I have had". "But I haven’t had an adventure !" I complained. Mother in her usual practical way suggested that it did not necessarily mean the sort of adventure we saw on a cowboy film; but perhaps I could write about shrimping on the rocks at the Solway seaside. This I did ; but of course my friend Ian McIvor who had a brilliant imagination produced a masterpiece of fictional suspense - complete with being kidnapped; and rescued by the United States Cavalry. This seemed to put my pale effort into the shade. We were encouraged to try our hand at verse writing and I can still recollect my first attempt.

When I went walking one fine day

the soil was damp aloft

and by and by I found some hay

that was both hard and soft.

Nothing I have written ever since has been quite so oddly nonsensical - pity really !

My unfavourite lesson was "Art" - a weekly session conducted by a lady of Victorian aspect by the name of Miss Slee. She wore a full length bombazine dress and while no doubt was very well qualified, she spent our time in drawing basic shapes - cones/sections/rhomboids etc - which we had to copy off a chart she hung up before us. It was totally dull and is largely responsible for my subsequent inability to draw anything at all ! "Art" remained my poorest subject all the way up school until I could drop it at the age of 15.

We were a small class of perhaps about a dozen boys - many of whose names I can still remember. We were, I suppose, the privileged elite of the professioinal world in our city. Some of them disappeared in a year or two when they went away to a boarding prep-school; others stayed on until old enough to go to a Public School - usually St Bees.

My particular friend was David Johnston, son of a local architect whose parents actually ran a rather nice Rover [when Rovers really were Rovers] One evening Mrs Johnston was dropping me off at home and as she came up the road slowed down. I thought she was stopping to let me out and opened the door. But she wasn’t stopping and I fell into the road. There was much squealing of brakes and a very irate Mrs J gave me a real going over. The poor woman must have been scared by the thought of what might have been. But I was OK. School played Rugby football but as today there was always a presumption in favour of Soccer. A group of us used to meet on a Saturday morning on the school playing field; put down some coats for goal posts and have a kick about. There was a variant of the game called "Workington" whose mysteries I cannot now command. It was at this stage that I realised that I would never be a sporting hero . At every meeting we would elect two captains who would make their choice alternately. It was very disheartening to find that I was always the last choice who nobody really wanted. My friend David was very solicitous. "It doesn’t matter if you’re not very good Owen", he told me, "the thing is that you keep going and that’s what’s important".

One of the boys was Derek Heaton who was a good athlete and eventually was a centre three-quarter back of county standard. One day after our kick about, we ended up throwing stones at a dilapidated notice board that told us to "Keep out" . Unfortunately Derek threw a mean stone from the opposite side to me which missed the board and hit me over the eye. He lived nearby and I was rushed to his house where his mother fussed and phone my mother. I still have the faint remnant of the scar on my forehead. My principal memory was bendiing over a basin with blood pouring off my scalp and wailing "I expect I will DIE and then you’ll be sorry."

My feeliing of being an odd one out was revealed in another strange way. My mother did not believe in corporal punishment. She had suffered herself as a child and did not believe it did any good. So when I was naughty, which was not infrequently, I would be shown the errors of my ways at some length and made to understand how silly it was to behave in an unsociable manner. This had two results. One was that I have carried the verdict of being "silly" in my consciousness ever since; which means that - as a candid friend told me many years later - I seemed to lack the courage of my own convictions. The other thing was more immediate. On once occasion I got fed up with this psychological approach to my sins and I burst out " Why do you have to go on and on about it ? Why can’t you beat me like the other boys’ mothers do. David Johnston’s mother takes the back of a hair brush to him". I obviously felt I was suffering from a real deprivation. I still think that boys [at any rate] would rather have a "whack" than be reasoned with. But that is now very politically incorrect. In a way I am glad that I was not so ‘good’ that I went through school without being caned. It was only twice but it meant that I was quite relieved to be a sinner rather than a saint - [the saints were really rather awful].

It was at the age of about ten that I entered the criminal part of my life’s history. "Boys will be boys" is probably one of the truer verdicts on human nature. In the 1930’s Woolworths built a large state of the art store in the city centre. In those days their sales gimmick was "Nothing over sixpence". This wasn’t quite true because there were some items which broke down into components which individually cost sixpence. But it was cheap. It was also vulnerable. A gang of us would go into "Woolies" after school and try our hands at shop lifting. Then we would gather at one of our homes and see what we had stolen. I became quite expert - at least I was never apprehended; but there was a regular crime wave of that kind for a few weeks. Then one day, my mother found some of the stolen treasures that I had stashed away and wanted to know where I had got it. So it all came out and I was of course in deep disgrace. It was a good example of the maxim that the best way to control behaviour is for wrongdoers to be found out.

At weekends we would "play out". There was an assorted gang of kids on our road, the oldest and ring leader being a girl with read hair whose surname was Rowntree. Cowyboys and Indians were of course the staple diet. I always had a toy revolver in stock; and much pocket money went on buying percussion caps in the local toy stall. Those who know me now would, I think agree that I am a peaceable sort of guy. I believe that the desire of some parents to prohibit their children to have anything to do with warlike implements is misguided. We all hanker after what we are not allowed. Given time you grow out of gun habits.

In the summer holidays we sometimes had a week with the wider family. The Roberts clan would descend on Rhyl or Aberystwyth and it was nice to have other children to play with. Not that there were many; I had two girl cousins, Wendy and Jennifer, by my uncle Gray, and one, Enfys, by my uncle Hugh. It would have beengood to have had another boy in the family ! Aberystwyth as I remember it was [as now] a very Welsh town and my principal memory is of the promenade being littered with welsh harpists in national costume regaling us with their penillions. Oh yes ! and I was stung by a wasp which brought the entertainment to an early close one afternoon. One year we stayed with Uncle Gray at his home in Aberdare where he was manager of the Cooperative Insurance Company. It was not a happy experience because I was taken to have my hair cut while we were there and when we got home it was found that my hair was ‘infested’. The sight of those horrible creatures that live on your scalp can be quite traumatic.

In 1937, we had a brief visit from my father’s second cousin "Uncle Harry" who was a ships engineer on a River Nile steam boat in the Sudan. He had just married Nora and they paid us a call when on their honeymoon. Harry was a handsome man, and seemed to me at the age of nine to be a very romantic kind of person. It was not for about another fifty five years or so that I ever met Nora again; by which time she was a very old lady and widowed. She remembered the visit quite clearly.

In 1938, my father decided to move his surgery from the first floor office above a city centre shop and so he put our house on the market and we moved to a rented house on Warwick Road . It was a large town house with room for a waiting room, surgery, and workshop as well as the domestic quarters. It was in an area and on a block where many of the town’s doctors and dentists plied their trade, as is (or was) the case in many provicial towns. In retrospect I remembered being puzzled why my school friends never called to ask me out to play. Later I realised that no healthy school boy was going to ring the door of a dental surgery of his own accord ! So for the next ten years or so, I lived with the family "over the shop". It was not always a comfortable experience. I might come home full of excitement about something; and be told to "keep your voice down; Daddy’s got a gas case". At other times one had to put up with the yells and screams of patients for whom local anaesthetics were not as efficient as they are today. Indeed some patients refused to have an injection - and the loud sound-effects were quite horrific. My father was essentially a gentle soul. He was really quite unsuited to the profession for which he had been trained; even though he was highly competent. He was more of an artist and his real delight was in providing his patients with really well made dentures. Of course in those days there was no health service; and in any case my father’s practice was never over prosperous. In those days of private practice you had to socialise in the right places to get known and attract trade. That was not my father’s way. On the other hand he looked after the teeth of a number of farmers with whom he became friends. He would take me out for country walks and call on one of his patients. In war time we would often return home with something furred or feathered. Dad worried continually about money; though in the end we were all right and after the war the National Health Service revolutionised matters,

Some working men had insurance but most people had to pay. Of course in those more genteel days, it was not done to be asked to pay (as today) on completion of treatment. You were sent a bill; and bad debts were consequently the order of the day. You did not make much money from extractions at 2/6d [old coinage] a time; and even fillings were only 5/- each. To cover your expenses you needed to have a couple of dentures commissioned every week at £5.00 a time. Dad’s favourite story was of a patient for whom he had made his first full set of dentures. They were of course not completely bedded in at first. This man worked at the municipal sewerage works; and the first day he wore his dentures he had an almight sneeze and the false teeth sailed into the sewage and lost irretrievably.. The insurance people were not pleased..

The week we all dreaded each year was the one when my father’s accountant descended on us to "do the books". Mr Scales could almost have come from one of those Ealing comedies which always seemed to have a rather slimy and officious official. He was more than fussy about detail and even my mother, who was a more than competent book-keeper seemed to be driven to extraction. So we all went into purdah for days on end - or so it seemed.

At the age of seven [I think] the matter of learning to play the piano arose. My parents were not in favour of competitive musicianship based on the number of ‘grades’ you achieved. So I went to be taught by Cynthia Farndell who was an excellent pianist who had trained in Vienna. Her vocation was to make music making enjoyable. And she did - at the cost perhaps of not pushing me hard enough. I took to piano like a duck to water. There were Music Festivals to take part in - I think the highest I got was to be first equal in the Under 14’s piano duet class. But if I had really worked I could have been much more proficient. I would often not practice much; and then do a hurried run through of my weekly schedule for half an hour before my lesson. And of course my teacher would say "Well done - you have worked hard this week". I knew I hadn’t; and later in life I regretted my indolence. There comes a time when you no longer are stimulated by the music you can play and have not got the technique to play what attracts you. Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher once remarked about another matter "In the course of a long life, I have never found anything that was really worth doing that did not involve a certain element of boredom." He was of course quite correct. Those who achieve are those who practice and apply themselves. But it doesn’t make much sense to a healthy ten year old boy !

My father enjoyed watching cricket; and he was kind enough to encourage me. When I was about ten, I was presented with my very own cricket bat for my birthday. One of the family’s favourite pictures is a photographic portrait by Octavius Wilmot, the doyen of Carlisle photographers at the time, of me at ten years old, in my whites and holding my precious bat. It still hangs on my wall and Rachel my eldest daughter has a copy in California. I look like a seasoned performer; but in truth I was a complete duffer at cricket like most games. When,many years later, I did get an award of college ‘colours’ it was for the doubtful activity skill of playing in goal at field hockey - something no sane person would choose to do ! Carlisle has a lovely cricket ground; the field is basically a water meadow by the River Eden, and it is flanked by a hillside which makes a natural amphitheatre from which to watch the game. For a very small fee - I think it was 5 shillings - you could be a junior member and attend coaching classes. Dad paid for me to do this one year; but it produced no results to speak of. Some time later someone remarked to me that he should have realised that you were expected to tip the ‘pro’ as well as pay the subscription if you wanted personal attention. Gerneally speaking I find that sports coaches [including schoolteachers] are good at training those with natural talent which they can bring on. They are not very supportive to a number of boys like me who wanted to be able to play properly even if with limited talent. So at school we played cricket one afternoon a week. I would be fielded on the boundary, would bat number ten and never get a bowl. This has not stopped me being a lifelong enthusiast; and I can still remember being glued to the radio in 1938 during the Australian tour of that year. In those days the main commentator was Howard Marshall who had a typically supercilious upper class accent. The golden moment was when Len Hutton scored a record [was it 365 ?] runs thus beating Don Bradman’s previous best. The impression on the commentary was that Bradman had to be pressed to come forward and shake hands with his rival; I am sure it was not really like that. There was also a schoolboy game of what would be called today ‘virtual cricket’ which we would engage in during more uninteresting lessons.

Many little details of life at that time just before ‘the war’ remain in my memory. Across the road from our house there was a second hand car showroom, the contents of which I regularly inspected. In those days the cheapest car on the market new was a Ford 8 for £100. Used versions were available for £5 ! Just before the war, the council installed new state of the art street lighting to replace the gas lamps which were still being lit by hand at that time. Even with the new equipment the individual lights were still switched on by a man who rode his bike up and down Warwick Road which by that time was the main road to Newcastle on Tyne and the East coast.

As a boy one took iinterest in things like bus numbers. Carlisle bus routes were shared mainly between United - based at Darlington - and Ribble - based at Preston. Ribble had a C number for each route. C2 ands C5 went from Kingstown to Harraby.C3 and C4 went from St Anne’s hill to Longsowerby. C6 to Cummersdale. C15 to Raffles. C14 to Upperby and so on. United had simple numbers, based I imagine on their whole large scale operation in the North-east. Even in those days you could catch a bus outside my door every hour to go to Newcastle.The 22 was also hourly to Halbankgate [where ? you may well ask !] The 30 ran from Houghton and Brampton Road to Botcherby and the 25 to Wetheral. I could catch a bus outside our house and get into town for a half-penny - though it was cheating really because it was only a few hundred yards away.

United buses had a category letter and number on each vehicle which with boyhood zeal I kept a track of. Another innocent hobby was collecting car numbers, in a day when they were simpler and cars were not so frequent. You had a race with a friend to start at a car number 1 and see who could get to 25 most quickly.

Of course in those days life was far freer for children than it is today. I remember on one occasion that my mother, seeing I was going out, remarked that I should be careful because there some ‘dirty old men’ in the public park down the road. So I should never speak to them. I fear some perfectly good men felt rather snubbed as a result ! But we felt perfectly safe; and at quite an early age I would go out for bike rides with friends and we would explore the countryside around our city - sometimes getting up early on a summer morning and spending an hour like this before going to school. At a later age we would go further afield; and our teens would think nothing of cycling to Keswick to stay in a Youth Hostel and spend a weekend fell walking in the Lake District unchaperoned or the victims of today’s ‘blame culture’.

Father enjoyed his Sunday outings in the Summer. These were compulsory but we put up with them because we loved him. He had a selection of venues accessible by the local bus service where you might spend a summer afternoon walking gently through beautiful countryside. Gelt Woods, Talkin tarn, Wreay Woods, Cummersdale, and even as far afield as Armathwaite with its famous "Nunnery Walks" with their alleged ghost. We got used to Dad’s encouraging "just around the corner" when we felt we had walked far enough. It held about as much authority as the dental injunction "this won’t hurt".

The big expedition from time to time was a day at the seaside. In the summer holidays we often went to Silloth on Thursday afternoons [Dad’s half day - and those are thing of the past now !] We would pack a thermos of tea, and some sandwiches and set off at one o’clock to take the train. Dad was a great worrier. Etched on my mind is the picture of us setting off and walking to the end of the block. Then he said "I don’t think I shut the front door properly". To which we would reply "Of course you did Daddy!" but it alwasy ended with me running back to double check that all was locked and safe. Going on the train seemed a big adventure; and over the years one became very knowledgeable about the Carlisle - Silloth railway. Silloth is a small seaside town on the Cumbria coast about twenty miles from Carlisle. It was developed by the railway company [I think the London Northeastern] to be a west coast freight connection to Newcastle. The dock was always interesting; espeically when the Isle of Man boat "S S Assaro" came in with a cargo of cattle who were unloaded. Carr’s had a big flour mill at the dockside too. Pre-war it was a bustling little port but it never developed. The interesting thing about the train ride was that the first half of the journey ran along the bed of the redundant Carlisle Ship Canal. This venture which was designed to make Carlisle an inland port had been instigated when sea travel was the best way of doing distances in the days of bad roads and stage coaches. But it had only a short life before the coming of the railways made the idea redundant. You can still see sometimes a rare print of Caldewgate with an assortment of masts poking out from where Cars Biscuits came to be.. The canal bed provided a ready made track for a railway, so for mile after mile the train ran between the walls of the canal and only when you reached a station could you see very much !

At Drumburgh the canal turned right to "Port Carlisle" which is still a fasciinating piece of industrial archaeology with faint traces of the lock basin from which sea going shipping transferred to the canal.

Silloth station always had a slightly strange smell about it which I would still recognise today if it could be found - and it possessed a plentiful supply of chocolate machines and penny in the slot games. There was a putting course; and when I was old enough I was given a small rather inefficient toy golf club. Dad would bring his driver and a couple of balls and we would hit shots down the long beaches. Seventy years later I still flatter myself if I say I ‘play off 28’ ! There were seaside shops full of the sort of items which were quite useless but fascinating to children and I think we usually came home with some sort of memento - even if it was only a stick of sweet "Silloth rock."

Dad’s other favourite outing by train was to the Scottish town of Langholm. You travelled in a strange machine which was something like a present day single diesel unit only with a small steam engine for power. It looked like one of the more unlikely characters from one of W H Audry’s railway stories The route began by running over hte "Waverley line" which was the old North British route to Edinburgh via the towns of the Tweed valley before branching off to Langholm.

Once in a while I would be allowed to stay up late and Dad would take me to Carlisle Citadel Station to watch the Royal Mail train come in from Glasgow at nine’o clock at night. This was the famous train featured by Louis McNiece in the classic railway documentary film with music by Benjamin Britain. To add to the reality we would bring a letter or two which Dad wanted to get to London quickly and post it in the letter box on the train.

But interests were not all mechanical. I can still remember at about the age of 10, my mother coming upstairs and finding me still awake at about nine o’clock, getting my dressing gown and bringing me downstairs to listen to the great pianist Solomon playing Beethoven sonatas on the wireless. Some years later I remember a similar occasion when Yehudi Menuhin was giving the first broadcast perfromance of a Bartok violin concerto.

I mentioned earlier my father’s tastes in records. To him I owe my knowledge of the classical repertoire. For from about the age of ten, whenever I was ill and bedfast, I would be allowed to play Dad’s records on the portable gramaphone. So though I was fourteen by the time I heard a symphony orchestra in the flesh, I already knew many of the standard classics played on recordings made in the early years of electrical recording. These were the days of 789’s of course and one came to know instinctively when it was time to turn the record over. There are still times when, for instance, hearing Debussy’s "L’apres mide d’un faune" my ear’s mind stops at a precise point ! There was a rather worn copy of the Halleluyah Chorus sung by the Sheffield Choral Society if my memory serves me right. I didn’t of course know the libretto and so the words "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" sounded to me like "We want Peace and no more War !" which I still reckon would make an interesting version !

Two memories of these years remain in my memory as reminders of what it means to be an unredeemed human being. On Thursday afternoons, my Father would go to his allotment and there emjkoy growing fresh vegetables for the family larder. During the holidays he would always ask me to go with him. This is why I recognise the validity of the parable Jesus told of the two sons. One was asked to go work the vineyard and said ‘yes’ but didn’t go. The other said "no" but in the end changed his mind and went. I was one of the latter. I always replied "Do I have to ?" but usually changed my mind at the last minute and went with a pretty bad grace. But what horrifies me on looking back is the memory of how my favourite activity in the garden was making a bonfire of the rubbish; well, that’s all right. What was not all right was the pleasure I took in picking up earthworms from the latest digging and then burning them in the fire and enjoy them wriggling in agony. We do well to remember these facets of living at a stage when, as a headmaster of a primary school once said to me "children of this age are simply healthy young animals". We should remember them because though we no longer behave like that because of moral education and the development of a more mature conscience, we can never assume a stance of moral superiority when faced with some example of human depravity. The Christian teaching that we are all on the same side in the sight of God is often forgotten these days when the tabloid press encourages us to demonise perpetrators of nasty crimes and to think that we are superior beings. The temptation to exercise power and often cruelty to things or humans who are helpless in our hands is always there. The other matter on my conscience from those days refers to the approaching birthday of my sister when I was about ten years old. The convention was that I bought her something out of my own pocket money. Now there was a model and toy shop just across the road from my father’s surgery which I was always gazing at. There was a Dinky Toy model aircraft which I rather fancied. But I couldn’t afford to buy it and buy Evelyn a presnent too. Then I hit on a solution. I would buy the model and give it to my sister as a present knowing that she would be supremely uninterested in such a thing. That I did, and got a good telling off from my parents as a result. It is good to be reminded how mean we can be when self interest conflicts with "loving our neighbour".

At school, as we neared the end of the third year in ‘prep’ we all sat what was called the "Minor Scholarship" examination. Later it would become better known as the 11+. I was only 10 years old at the time and so was able to take tbe exam twice. The first time I was unplaced; the second time I improved a little but not enough to qualify for a free place at the Grammar School. I always reckoned the exam was unfair because the Arithmetic paper was such that if you were good at computation you could get 100% in theory. Whereas if you were good at English there was no way you would ever get 100 % for an essay. So I was fortunate that my father was able to find the fees - I remember they were at that time £10 per term - an unbelievable sum these days when one is talking in terms of thousands of pounds. Much later I found it not unhelpful to point out to demoralised boys who failed their 11+ that I had failed it too . It did not stop me going to Cambridge later ! Basically we were not trained for that kind of examination whereas in many County schools the top class got high pressure experience in mental arithmetic and problem solving. Our way was much more gentle; but over the next five years we caught up !

So I was just ten and a bit when I entered the senior part of Carlisle Grammar School.; that was a year younger than the average age of my class, and there were plenty of boys who were nearer twelve . Not that this was a great problem; but I struggled somewhat in my early years. In those days of course, boys wore short trousers until they had grown somewhat; and eventually I was the last boy to convert to longs when I was in the fourth year.

The school was a typical north of England grammar school. Its staff were mostly (though far from all) Oxbridge men and in the grammar school tradition, it was up to the pupil to make the best he could of the education provided. Looking back, one realises what a bastion of civilisation it was in that small provincial city. Until the evacuation of the big cities at wartime mea nt that a wealth of talented people migrated to safe areas like ours, it was the school that produced an annual Shakespeare play; or provided an orchestral concert. Not to any great heights by modern standards; but the culture was there.

It was proud of its history and tradition in a rather jingoistic fashion - certainly by modern standards it could be far from politically correct. Consider the "School Song" which our Headmast,Victor Dunstan, strove to abolish but did not succeed in the eleven years I was at the school. The first verse went (as I remember)

We sang it with gusto even though we knew the words were historical rubbish; the more the Head wanted to abolish it [being a civilised and peaceful man; a classical scholar of Oxford and a Lay Reader of the Church of England] the louder we sang it.

We had rituals. We used the Public School Hymn Book; and term always began with the singing of "Lord behold us with thy blessing Once again assembled here"

Then on the final morning we sang

O'er the harvest reaped or lost,
Falls the eve; our tasks are over.
Purpose crowned or purpose crossed,
None may mar and none recover.
Now, O Merciful and Just,
Trembling lay we down our trust:
Slender fruit of thriftless day,
Father, at Thy feet we lay.

We were not, it seemed, to allowed to believe we were any good in the eyes of God - which was probably true .

It was, as I have already said, a Christian foundation. Something which only really surfaced at Speech Day when the Dean of Carlisle functioned as ex officio Chairman of Governors. We went to the Cathedral at the beginning of the school year and on Ascension Day - which was of course until recently a religious holiday in church schools. "Hail the day that sees him rise" is engraved on my memory. Pasted on the inside cover of our hymn books were the General Thanksgiving and the Prayer for all sorts and conditions of men. These and Psalm 46 (God is our hope and strength) were the limits of our liturgical anthology. I remember a classmate of mine getting a pencil and scrubbing out the clause in which we thanked God for the "Holy Catholic Church" and wrote in "Holy Protestant Church".

Many years later I found myself professionally involved in Church Schools. I came to the conclusion that probably the best of them were those who were unselfconsciously Christian. Nobody would doubt the nature of their foundation; but they were not aggresively Anglican. This reflects the historical fact that the Church of England set up its schools in the first place to educate the English people not to be a missionary venture. Education and Evangelism are two very different activities, though they are obviously related in somne sense. This ethos was always somewhat different from the foundation of Roman Catholic Schools whose purpose was to provide a positive Catholic education for its own flocks. A good Church of England school will accept those of all faiths and none. They have nothing to be afraid of. The Headmaster of a Church High School in Lancashire was broached by an aggressive rationalist father who wanted to be assure his son would not be brain washed into religion. He just laughed : "O but Mr Smith, the whole operation if far more sophisticated than that !"

Early on, I discovered that in my youthful naivety I could get the reputation for being cheeky. C.S. Lewis in his Autobiography "Surprised by Joy" relates how he was always being told by his teachers to "take that look off your face". He like me didn’t really know what the problem was. In the first year we had lessons in General Science which were taken by Mr Currie, who seemed to us to be a typically dour Scotsman. But you never really know what a good teacher is really like as a human being ! One week I wrote up an experiment in a way that was not enthusiastically received. I ruled it off half way down the page. Currie wrote beneath "Room for improvement". When I asked him what he wanted me to put in the room for improvement he thought I was being cheeky and I went away with a flea in my ear. I had thought that he wanted me to fill the blank remaining piece of page with some improved work of some kind !

The school was organised in three streams. Alpha, A and Beta. Technically this meant that the top stream learned Latin, French, German or Clkassical Greek, and Triginometry because they were expected to go onto higher education. The A stream leanred French and Latin so that staying on past 16 was not beyond the realms of possibility; you could "Matriculate" on that basis. The Beta stream learned French but none of other subjects above as they were expected to leave school at the end of the fifth year and take a job in town - local bureaucrats perhaps or policemen or some occupation for intelligent but non-academic lads. I found myself in the A stream; and that seems to have suiteed me quite well. I survived and gradually improved my class position over the years. Maths and Physics were the two subjects I had great problems with. A change of teacher in the fourth year began to make some sense out of Maths just in time for me to gain the necessary grade in what was then called the School Certificate.[later called "O levels" or GCSE]

Because of my age, I was always the smalled boy in the class; and this obviously affected my proficiency at games more than anything else. I was not fast or strong enough to be any kind of back at Rugby football; and certainly not heavy enough to play as a forward. The consequence was that at the age of eighteen, I became Head Boy; but had to suffer the indignity that I could never be considered good enough to play for any school team.

I started at the Grammar in September 1938. It was suggested that I joined the school Scout Troop; and I had to wait till my eleventh birthday in June the following year before I could join as a Tenderfoot. This was when I first came in contact with a character who would later be very influential in my life. Charles Colgrave Scott was the senior master [number 3 in the hierarchy after the Head and Deptuy Head) He was head of History, head of the VI Form Arts department, Group scoutmaster of the 13th Carlisle Troop and rejoiced in the nickname of "Buff". Nobody really knew why - possibly it was because he had served briefly as a second lieutenant in the East Kent Regiment [known as the Buffs] in 1919. Those readers who remember "Dad’s Army" and therefore have a picture of Captain Mainwaring hardly need to adjust their memories to get a picture of Buff. Like Captain M he had been called up into the Army at the end of World war I and awarded a commission. But by that time the war was over so he never saw active service. I knew him vaguely as he was a patient of my father’s; and also a member of TocH the ex-sevicements organisation of which they were both members.

Buff was short and stout; sported a militaristic moustache and was the pre-eminent misogynist. He could be insufferably rude to women to whom he took a dislike. His classic advice to his older pupils was "Never run after a woman or a bus ; another will always come along." Once he did admit to have fallen in love - with a barmaid on Preston railway station. "What did you say to her, Sir ? " asked his devoted pupils. "A pint of beer please !" was the answer. Fortunately he took ‘a shine’ to my mother. No doubt that was b ecause she was highly intelligent, spoke a lot of sense and could hold her own in any company. So he would call and take us all out for a run in his car. One of his side jobs was to be Chairman of the Lake District area of the Youth Hostels Association. So he was always going off to the Lakes at weekends, and calling without notice at any Hostel which took his fance to ensure that everything was in apple pie order. The car he ran was an ancient Morris Cowley open tourer. In the front there was a bench seat on which mother and Evelyn were ensconced while father and I were relegated to the open air on a strange double seat which unfolded at the rear of the car. I thin k it was called a "Dicky". Mother would provide a picnic and they were enjoyable days out when the Lake District was popular for discriminating people but not over crowded as it has become. Occasionally the car would revolt at having to carry five people up Kirkstone Pass and we would have to get out and walk the final steep few hundred yards. The story was that one of his colleagues noticed that one of the rear wheels looked decidedly loose and commented on it. "I know," said "Buff" I have been meaning to have something done about it one day".

Just before the war broke out he purchased a large Sunbeam tourer also with a Dicky. It had a twenty four horsepower engiine, and an old fashioned gear box which was situated on the outside of the driver’s seat. Double de-clutching was de rigeur - not that many people today would know what that means ! "The Chariot" as it was called by his pupils was of great use for the annual camp holidays. We would smile when we sang the Lent hymn "Forty days and forty nights" with its verse "Sunbeams scorching all the day". But for daily runabouts, Buff had a Ford Eight; which was the car on which his Assistant Scoutmasters were taught to drive. Because of his work with the YHA he got extra petrol allowance during the war so he was never off the road. In 1945, you could drive a car with a temporary licence and there were no tests. Buff had to go to Cambridge for a meetiing. He took me and another lad for the ride. A few miles outside Carlisle he pulled up. "Change over", he said. So I got in the driver’s seat. "Thats the brake. Thats the gearbox. Thats the clutch. Get used to the feel of them for a minute. ......now drive". And off we went. By the end of a day’s driving I was already semi-proficent. The roads were of course in those days almost deserted.

But back now to 1938.

This was a time, of course, when shadows were falling over Europe; a time when people started tuning into the BBC news broadcasts with increasing frequency and regularity. "Wireless sets" were delicate and sensitive instruments. It was important to have an efficient outside aerial. And most of them included a Short Waveband and there were plenty of English speaking broadcasts from all over the world which an inquisitive boy could tune into. As 1939 drew on, things became more ominous.

The 13th Carlisle Scouts were a biggish organisation and consisted of two troops of six patrols each, which made about seventy boys in total. One troop met on Wednesdays and the other on Friday nights. I found myself in the latter and appointed to the Raven Patrol. On joining almost the first thing to decide was whether I would be going on the annual camp which would begin a couple of days after the end of term. Buff had a horror of parents visiting his camps and perhaps finding out just how spartan the conditions were ! So he always made a point of holding them a good way off, With Carlisle at the centre of the national railway system this provided a wide choice. In 1939, we were to camp at Corpach, a village just a few miles outside the town of Fort William in the north west of Scotland and in the shadow of Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain. So I found myself on the railway station very early one morning, with my parents trying not to seem to anxious about my fate, and waiting for a train to Glasgow. And we waited. It then transpired that there had been some sort of hold up further south and the train was held up for some time. Do not believe the stories that before the war the ‘private’ railway companies were far more efficient than what we have known since ! In the end we had to take a train to Edinburgh, change stations, travel to Glasgow, change stations again and then get the original train through the Highlands to Corpach. As each change of train necessitated the transport of about eighty kit bags and about fourteen bell tents plus assorted camping equipment, it was heavy work for the ‘big boys’. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived - several hours later than planned - and we had to pitch camp, get a fire going and produce a meal before bed time. Somehow everything came to pass. But immediately we found there was a problem. Midges.

There is a mild joke to thte effect that wherever you go in the Highlands, however pleasant the houses are you never see a patio . The reason is that nobody in their senses ventures outdoors in the evening. Clouds of these tiny insects arise and take a delight in feeding on human flesh. Within twenty four hours we were all sporting very itchy bumps. We soon found out that the best place to be was downwind of the campfire when the smoke kept the midges away from us.

Somehow as a small and innocent just turned eleven year old, I survived and quite enjoyed that fortnight - the first time I had been away from home on my own. We all had a Railrover ticket which allowed us to use about a hundred miles of track as much as we liked. So many a day a group of us would set off to visit some new venue. Most popular was the journey to Mallaig, fishing port on the west coast opposite the Isle of Skye [where the ‘bonny boat’ of the popular song was going to). That rail journey is still active as a tourist attraction as it includes some of the very best railway scenery in the British Isles and the trains are steam hauled.

Those who imagine pop music began with the rock groups of the 1950’s should know that we picked up songs from radio and record even in the 1930’s. By the time we arrived at our destination after that very long train journey, I ahd already been initiated into some of the popular songs of the day. "South of the border, down Mexico way"; "I can’t give you anything but love,baby, Diamond bracelets Woolworths wouldn’t sell, baby" "Amapola my pretty litlle darling",and above all one of those silly tin pan alley nonsense songs about the family of little fishes.

"swim said the mamy fish swim if you can and they all swam swam right over the dam.
deep deep didn waller splosh ! deep deep didn didn waller splosh

and they swam and the swam right over the dam." or somesuch nonsense.

At least in those days you knew the words and the tunes were singable. I had by this time acquired a four stringed ukelele on which I could play four basic chords. Optimistically I had thought we would be having songs round the campfire. But such things were anathema to Buff and when he saw my instrument poking out of my rucksack he said "Do not let me hear that thing at any time when we are here or I will remove it from you." So that was that. Not for nothing was the received wisdom of the Carlisle Scouting fraternity that "there are two kinds of Boy Scouts, Baden powel Scouts and the 13th Carlisle Scouts".

Our days began with prayers before breakfast. We stood shivering in the cold light of day in patrol lines, holding our tin plates and mugs and impatient for our porridge. On occasion the prayers took an unexpected turn such as the time when Buff started to read a prayer "O Lord and Heavenly Father [brief pause and then very loudly ] will you keep those plates quiet ! In cold print it makes a strange prayer

I still have a slightly plaintive post card I sent to my parents saying "I think I was a little homesick today" And then "Do you think you could send me a postal order for 2/6d ?"

Each day, two patrols were on duty. One was the cooking detail, the other did the hewing of wood and drawing of water not to mention the washing up of the cooking utensils. It could be quite hard work for small people to have to carry two full buckets of water some considerable distance from the nearest tap.This slave labour was all part of the way many if not all men’s organisations get their new members brain-washed and obedient. As ever the carrot that was dangled was that next year you could do the same to the next bunch of recruits. If you showed signs of independence, or being a bit "superior" then you were taken down a peg - usually by the popular activity of "de-bagging" when some wretched small boy would have his trousers removed to much cheering.

Those who think that Boy Scouts are all "good little boys" are, in my experience, mistaken. They are just normal lads who like to let off steam in rather uncivilised ways. The enjoyment outweighed the rough patches. On looking back I sometimes wonder if I was temperamentally right to make Scouting my main recreational activity. I might have perhaps otherwise joined a church or even cathedral choir and thus developed my musicality to a rather higher level.

I particularly enjoved the annual "Gang Shows" which were always a sell out - a sort of boy’s "music hall" entertainment . It gave many opportunities to make jokes at the expense of the school establishent; and the climax of every show was when Buff was persuaded to come on stage and sing his party piece "Blaydon Races". He was of course a Geordie and was known when he saw a car with a Newcastle number plate approaching to lean out of his car window and shout "Haway! Newcastle !" Later, near to top of the school,I found myself writing the ‘pantomime’ with which the shows always ended. Usually this meant a complete and libellous re-write of the school’s Dramatic production for the year and as a result I got used to writing whole scenes in rhyming couplets.But the item I best remember from these productions were words produced by a friend and his father. Carlisle was planning to provide its own Crematorium. At the same time there was a scandal in the press about the officials at the Crematorium at Durham who, it was claimed, had made a "bit on the side" by dismantling coffins when the congregation had departed and selling them back to the funeral directors for a consideration. This was in the immediate post-war period when there was a considerable shortage of most raw materials and wood for coffins could be hard to find. So we got Buff and Willy Spiers [his assistant] to sing a duet; some of the words were as follows

"We’re co-curators of the Carlisle Crematorium

We’re the cheapest grilling business in the town

Yes for half a crown a time [half of which is mine]

You can have your mother in law done nicely brown.

Half a crown half a crown half a crown

We’re the cheapest grilling business in the town

For when the bodies we have nicely grilled

We take the lids away

And to make the business pay

We return the empties to be filled

O you cannot do worse

Than to step into a hearse

Please patronise the Carlisle Crematorium."

Then we are told that ‘black humour’ is a recent phenomenon. If we had sung that today we would probably be put under arrest for political correctness. Most young men were no more starry eyed idealists then than they are now; and we were far from innocent . And can you imagine senior members of staff singing that in public today ?