Fred's Boys : Memories of King's Canterbury - 1935-62
Excerpts
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01
Richard Murphy-1941-2
My letters home say nothing about the ordeal of getting to know the boys in my dormitory, house and class; fagging for an ungrateful senior; obeying idiotic rules that were sacred customs; being ‘properly dressed’ on a Sunday, wearing a starched wing-collar that made my chin sore and a black coat with pinstriped trousers and a straw boater; putting on a gas-mask during fire drill with alarms ringing in the middle of the night; guarding myself from kicks and indecent grabs during a power cut in the blackout.
02
Peter Gordon 1954-59
Did we really have the problem of deciding whether to follow morning service in the Cathedral with a visit to Slatters for coffee or to the Nunnery Fields Tavern overlooking the railway line for an illegal pint?
Did we really risk our lives taking on the local farmers’ shotguns for a few strawberries or cherries?
Was the School actually court-martialled because a First World War rifle had been lost on a Field Day?
03
04
Peter Beale - 1936-40
Security was a word very rarely used or practised in the Precincts, and the guardians of the Cathedral seemed not to worry if doors were not locked and ladders were left unguarded. To the team of Cathedral cat-climbers that I belonged to there were two main methods of entry. One was the door behind the organ in the Huguenot Chapel which led to the stairs up the Norman tower beside the south transept. The door at the top led into a vertiginous gutter, but at that time heights were no problem.
Keith Perks 1940-45
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In 1944 the Yanks came and there was a Nissen hut about every 10 yards: every field, every road with D-Day supplies. Grenades were soon found by boys and used for fishing.
50 DUKWs were on the beach and boys often took one for a ride. (The DUKW, colloquially known as the Duck, was a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck used by the U.S. military in World War II. The DUKW was used for the transportation of goods and troops over land and water. Excelling at approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious warfare attacks, it was very important in the D-day landings in Normandy in June 1944.) One day one boy who wanted to skip Maths lessons took one for a ride in Carlyon Bay and a .50 machine gun opened up across his bows because all DUKWs were grounded that day for servicing so he whipped it back and ran across Spit beach. He was not caught and next morning Fred asked after prayers “who pinched the DUKW yesterday?”
05
Ian MacPherson 1946-51
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The entry dormitory (‘Grace Dormitory’) had a great medieval fireplace in it with a chimney going who-knows-where. It was the custom of that time for bottles of milk and bread buns to be given out at 9, before bed. The milk was usually gratefully received, but the buns, of some suspect antiquity, were not greeted with the same enthusiasm. The inhabitants of Grace Dormitory develop the tradition of taking the buns and, standing in the fireplace, throwing these buns as far up the chimney as far as they could. The buns disappeared. No one knew exactly where they went to, but gravity did not bring them back. Until one night! The final bun; the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was a rumbling noise and 500 years of buns, pigeon droppings and soot collapsed down the chimney and swept across Grace Dormitory. It is rumoured that the tradition of ‘throwing the bun’ ceased from that point onwards.
06
Francis Hussey 1954-58
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We were taken down to Dover to board a minesweeper which was the latest thing in naval wizardry – constructed completely from aluminium and with no stabilisers – and there was a force 6 gale running. On top of that problem – being tossed about by huge waves like the proverbial cork on this lightweight vessel – we found some sufferers very early who retreated below decks to throw up in ‘the heads’. The Royal Navy had thoughtfully laid on ‘lunch’ for us young sea cadets. It turned out to be a huge vat of tomato soup which was a vivid orange and tasted absolutely vile as well – the smell alone was enough to send all those who had been seasick back to the bogs and those who had survived without any trouble previously were soon joining them.
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