Boy: Tales of Childhood: Part 3

At Prep School in those days, a parcel of tuck was sent once a week by anxious mothers to their ravenous little sons, and an average tuck-box would probably contain, at almost any time, half a home-made currant cake, a packet of squashed-fly biscuits, a couple of oranges, an apple, a banana, a pot of strawberry jam or Marmite, a bar of chocolate, a bag of Liquorice Allsorts and a tin of Bassett’s lemonade powder.

It suited him, therefore, to give the boys as little food as possible himself and to encourage the parents in various cunning ways to feed their offspring by parcel-post from home.

I liked that part of it, but I began to grow apprehensive as I disembarked on to the pier at Weston-super-Mare and watched my trunk and tuck-box being loaded into an English taxi which would drive us to St Peter’s.

Once you had climbed to the top of the stairs and set foot on the dormitory floor, you were in the Matron’s power, and the source of this power was the unseen but frightening figure of the Headmaster lurking down in the depths of his study below.

After ‘lights out’ the Matron would prowl the corridor like a panther trying to catch the sound of a whisper behind a dormitory door, and we soon learnt that her powers of hearing were so phenomenal that it was safer to keep quiet.

The Matron, with steam coming out of her nostrils, cried out to him for help, and now the whole school was herded into the long corridor, where we stood freezing in our pyjamas and bare feet while the culprit or culprits were ordered to step forward.

And all parcels coming from home will be confiscated from now on!

Although he himself was famished, he refused to let his frog go hungry.

There was, I believe, a lavatory somewhere along the corridor, but only an attack of acute diarrhoea would be accepted as an excuse for visiting it.

My own bed was close to the door, and I remember looking up at her from my pillow and seeing her standing there silhouetted against the light from the corridor and thinking how truly frightening she looked.

The bubbles grew and grew until in the end his whole face seemed to be smothered in a bubbly foaming white soapy froth.

I was so devastatingly homesick during my first two weeks that I set about devising a stunt for getting myself sent back home, even if it were only a few days.

In those days it was fairly common practice for a doctor to arrive at your own house with a bag of instruments, then drape a sterile sheet over the most convenient table and get on with it.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ the Matron shouted, and the sheer force of her voice caused that massive bosom to quiver like a gigantic blancmange.

If you had had an inflammation down there, the stomach would have been hard and rigid.

I could hardly believe that I didn’t have to wash in cold water in the mornings or keep silent in the corridors, or say ‘Sir’ to every grown-up man I met, or use a chamber-pot in the bedroom, or get flicked with wet towels while naked in the changing-room, or eat porridge for breakfast that seemed to be full of little round lumpy grey sheep’s-droppings, or walk all day long in perpetual fear of the long yellow cane that lay on top of the corner-cupboard in the Headmaster’s study.

She had received two full half-hour lessons in driving from the man who delivered the car, and in that enlightened year of 1925 this was considered quite sufficient.

You were your own judge of competence, and as soon as you felt you were ready to go, off you jolly well went.

Spurred on by our shouts and taunts, the ancient sister began to increase the speed.

The harassed driver depressed the clutch-pedal and the gears meshed and one second later the great black beast leapt backwards out of the hedge and careered across the road into the hedge on the other side.

The ancient sister managed to straighten the vehicle and get it pointed in the right direction, and then at last the once magnificent automobile tottered down the highway and headed for Dr Dunbar’s surgery in Cathedral Road, Cardiff.

Once again I smelled the sickly stench of chloroform and ether, and a voice was saying, ‘Breathe deeply.'

It was a brilliant dark vermilion, like a ripe orange, and it was plastered back with immense quantities of brilliantine in the same fashion as the Headmaster’s.

The only other way he could have achieved this curling effect, we boys decided, was by prolonged upward brushing with a hard toothbrush in front of the looking-glass every morning.

Behind the moustache there lived an inflamed and savage face with a deeply corrugated brow that indicated a very limited intelligence.

What are you smirking at?’ or most insulting of all, ‘You, what’s-your-name, get on with your work!’

The master on duty for the week would be in charge of Prep, which meant that he sat high up on a dais at the top end of the Hall and kept order.

All I see is that you are making an infernal noise and disturbing everybody in the room.

The pens we used had detachable nibs and it was necessary to dip your nib into the ink-well every six or seven seconds when you were writing.

The nibs we used were very fragile and most boys kept a supply of new ones in a small box in their trouser pockets.

The assistant masters were sitting on very upright chairs on either side of the Headmaster, and I caught a glimpse of Captain Hardcastle, arms folded across his chest, head twitching, the milky-blue eyes watching me intently, the look of triumph still glimmering on his face.

Five minutes later, walking on my toes and trembling terribly, I passed through the green baize door and entered the sacred precincts where the Headmaster lived.

Then suddenly came the frightful searing agonizing unbearable burning across the buttocks, and as it reached its highest and most excruciating point, the second crack came down.

They were all in there now waiting to spread out to their respective classrooms, but what I couldn’t help noticing, even in my agony, was that this door was open.

I can see him now struggling to get the towel off his head, and when he emerged the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his huge brown eyes were staring at the doctor with a look of utter and total outrage.

We were inclined to blame the male lover for disrupting the calm of our family life, and it was inevitable that he would have to suffer for it sooner or later.

We even began to wonder whether he removed it when he was kissing his betrothed.

Back came the manly lover, dripping wet from the sea, chest out, strong and virile, healthy and sunburnt.

We were trembling with anticipation, and a good deal of the suspense was caused by the fact that none of us knew just what was going to happen.

All tobaccos are different to the discriminating pipe-smoker.