Something that came back to me
A snapshot from the past.
Yesterday, as I was walking into town to do some shopping, for no reason at all I remembered a scene from my past that made me smile.
Eons ago – well, it must have been about 1966 because I was fourteen at the time – I was living away in the countryside at a boarding school at which fagging and corporal punishment, both by masters and (in some circumstances) by prefects, was potentially part of everyday life.
The list of offences and their attendant punishments great and small was long but universally known because of the ‘fag’s exam’ which took place approximately three weeks after each new boy joined the school.
Upon arrival each new boy was assigned a ‘fag master’ – a boy about a year older – whose job it was to prepare him for said test.
The process was a source of considerable joint effort and team bonding for the pair involved, attributes that were highly-prized at the school, not least because – if the fag failed the exam – not the new boy but his fag-master received a three-stroke beating from a prefect.
To be fair, it might be argued that the primary purpose of some of the decidedly arcane school rules – which ranged from what in other circumstances might be regarded as obvious or serious to really quite petty – was to promote blanket adherence to the rule of law.
To demonstrate what I mean I shall provide two examples.
It was an offence potentially punishable by a beating to be caught eating or drinking anything anywhere in the school save inside a building.
Another was the requirement to ‘tick’ a master every time you came across one. If one day whilst out and about you found yourself walking towards a master named Mr Chips, as you passed him, you were required to look him in the eye, raise your index finger and say “Good morning, Mr Chips” and, if he knew you by name (which he most probably did), he would reply, in my case: “Good morning, Ingolby”.
Straightforward, you might think.
As everyone knew the rules, in black and white terms, you did have a certain freedom of choice.
You could choose eat a biscuit or beefburger, or chew gum, other than inside a building – or indeed not bother to tick a master – if you wished, but if you did so it was at the risk that – if spotted or caught – you might be subjected to a beating.
When I arrived for my first day at the school, the first fellow new boy I met was a chap named Sam.
We were both fairly large and robust sports-loving boys with a similar sense of humour and we soon became great buddies.
I subsequently served as Best Man at his wedding and we are still in touch today.
Every time we speak or meet, two things happen – we simply ‘carry on from where we left off before’ and (probably) instantly revert to being two 16 year old schoolboys – at the oldest – as well.
Ironically, ‘back in the day’ we once both got beaten for the same offence on the same day – and the example illustrates how things used to work.
One morning, after attending a chemistry lesson in the science labs, we were walking to our next lesson which was to take place in the main school area some 300-odd yards away.
As we did so, quite by chance, we came across a stricken pigeon sitting on a grass verge.
Even today I cannot identify what its exact problem was, but to all intents and purposes it seemed to have a broken or useless wing. We caught it and together cradled it in our hands. Without quite yet knowing what we were going to do with it, we resumed walking towards the main school buildings.
At this point we noticed coming towards us from the opposite direction a diminutive physics master named Mr Wallis.
As we came within talking distance of him, by way of explanation, one of us said something like “Hello Sir, we’ve just found this pigeon – it seems to have a broken wing – and we’re taking it to find someone who can help …”
The next morning we were summoned to see our housemaster, informed by him that Mr Wallis has reported us for not ‘ticking’ him the day before … and duly both received ‘three of the best’.
That example brings me to my tale for today.
Some time later Sam and I were on duty fagging in our house.
Being a habitual ‘early riser’ I had been assigned to being the ‘time fag’, charged with ringing a bell on every floor of the bedrooms (effectively stall partitions, or ‘tishes’ as they were know in the school slang) at 0710 hours every morning, 20 minutes being deemed time enough for every boy to do his morning ablutions, dress and get his backside down to the dining hall for communal breakfast by 0730 hours.
Sam, meanwhile, had been assigned the job of ‘toast fag’ – getting up early enough (0700 hours) to make a dozen slices of buttered toast in the kitchen area on the first floor for distribution to the prefects as the 0710 hours bell went.
At some point one morning I had nipped off to do something while Sam was making his toast.
I returned to discover that something had gone awry and effectively the kitchen area was aflame.
I think a piece of toast had caught fire and set alight the frying pan fat in which Sam had been making himself a bacon sandwich.
But, never mind the cause, the flames had spread from the pan to the wall behind it and were now licking towards the ceiling.
Beside the kitchen area was an annexe in which about ten of the most privileged senior boys in the house, supervised a single senior prefect named Andrew Pritchard, had their tishes.
Pritchard, it should here be recorded, was something of an eccentric with a whacky sense of humour.
At Tuesday evening prayers in the house (attended by all 48 boys and the junior housemaster, who was a bit wet) it was traditional for one of the prefects to read a verse or two from the Bible.
On one occasion when the task fell to Pritchard, without any advance warning, he solemnly and deliberately spent the best part of fifteen minutes reading an entire 48 verse chapter from an obscure book in the Old Testament to a growing accompaniment of frantic efforts to avoid hysterical giggling by everyone present except the junior housemaster.
Anyway.
As Sam and I tried to throw water on the flames and suppress the above-mentioned conflagration, I thought I also ought to raise the alarm in the senior annexe.
I therefore opened its door and shouted at the top of my voice “Fire! Fire! Everyone get out – there’s a fire in the house!”
Amidst the general resulting mayhem and confusion as the occupants of the annexe roused themselves and took this news on board, came the following memorable exchange:
Pritchard (from inside his tish, sleepily):
Who’s making that bloody noise? Shut up, will you!
Ingolby:
Pritchard, it’s me – quickly, there’s a fire in the kitchen area! We’ve got to get out!
Pritchard (clearly annoyed):
Ingolby, do shut up! It is coming anywhere near me?!
Ingolby:
[After a pause]. Well, not exactly, Pritchard – not at the moment …
Pritchard:
Well bugger off then and leave me alone!
