MEMORIES OF MERCERS’ (part one)
the interview
I was just ten years old when my godfather took me to the Mercers’ School. He was deputising for my father who had other commitments. In the headmaster’s study I met Mr R W Jepson, MA. Perhaps the quintessential headmaster with a pair of pince nez.
I remember little of the interview apart from the comprehension test. Mr Jepson handed me a couple of paragraphs to read and then went on talking to my godfather. I quickly read through the text then looked up. Mr Jepson asked me one or two questions then turned to the mule at the heart of the passage. What did I know about the characteristics of a mule? I remembered something I’d heard on Children’s Hour. “It kicks in all directions.” The two men roared with laughter. I was in.
1938 & 1939
So, in January 1938, I presented myself in Form IIA. That first morning was occupied with the varia of a new term. Did we all have our health certificates? What arrangements were we making about midday meals? Were we going to pay for school dinners? or did we propose to bring sandwiches?
One by one, we were questioned. I was the last on the list. The 16th boy in a class designated for a maximum of 15. I replied in the demotic of my London home. “I’m gunner ‘ave me dinner in school.” Mr R W H D Murray gave forth a stream of withering invective. How contemptible, how utterly contemptible it was to mutilate the King’s English. From that moment on, so it appeared to me, I could do nothing right in Mr Murray’s eyes. I was made to feel unwanted. Outside the Pale. A boy whose fees were being paid by a friend of the family. A boy whose idiolect deformed the purity of the English tongue.
I knew no algebra. Mr Tabbard (sp?) invited me to join his after school class for boys who needed additional tuition. Many years later, as an Old Boy, I was able to thank him in person for his encouragement.
When the next term began I was in Form IIB with Mr K B Rowsell. An ideal teacher. I became accepted. In the class Orders I usually had top marks. My speech patterns changed into such conformity I was voted to represent the class in an elocution competition. (‘Many a time and oft. In the Rialto you have rated me. About my moneys and my usances. .. ..’)
Towards the end of that Summer Term, we were called to an assembly in the school hall. Should there be a State of Emergency, we would be evacuated from London. We should take refreshments for the journey. Dried fruit and currants were good. Chocolate was bad. It made you thirsty.
It was the year of Mr Chamberlain getting out of that little aeroplane and waving a sheet of paper above his head. It was the year of the Munich Agreement.
My transition to the 3rd form was smooth. Now I sang in the school choir and played violin in the orchestra.
A few weeks before the end of the Summer Term of 1939, we bought and sold our textbooks, as was the custom, and moved up to the Lower IVth. I elected to drop Latin and begin German with ‘Pussy’ Moss. I still remember those first few pages of Deutsches Leben Erste Teil. It was the only actual tuition in German I ever received.
ethos
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
that is forever England.
The Great War was still with us. We lived in its shadow. The terrible losses of 1914 - 1918 still permeated. Whenever the family gathered, the old men would talk of Gallipoli and the Somme. dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The insidious lines from Horace lurked in every churchyard. But they never taught us of Wilfred Owen and ‘The old Lie’. Our ethos was still of preRaphaelite medieval knights in shining armour riding to defend All that was great and good. We should treasure our heritage as English Gentlemen. And the natives in the far flung corners of our Great and Glorious Empire would forever be grateful for our presence. That, and the command to Conform, is my memory of Mercers’ before that September when the curtain went up on Act Two of War with Germany.
© francis cameron, oxford, 28 february 2013
Thursday 28 February 2013
memories 1938 & 1939
Friday 8 February 2013
all the world's a stage
I am fascinated by the proposition that in reality we are living in a showbiz world. ‘World’ may be a planet too far if we take the word literally, though it’s fair to say each of us has our own hedged-about universe of daily existence. And some are even able to step outside and take in the big picture.
And big picture it is. Most of us are once more living in local theatres where the moving image is more immediate than the written word. A professor introduces us to quantum theory. He is surrounded by an audience of showbiz ‘personalities’ while we sit on our sofas and watch the acts on individual small screens. Like cabinets of curiosities. The Punch and Judy booth morphs into PMQs. And in another part of town there is cage fighting. For real.
What shall we do about it?
Sit back and enjoy it, of course.
francis cameron, oxford, 08 february 2013
Wednesday 6 February 2013
nunc et in hora mortis examine
I’m preparing for my death. Not that I’m escaping just yet. Just that there are certain things I need to take care of. Like making a Will. So there’s a little less mess for my children to take care of when I’m gone.
I haven’t felt like this since I was 39. Then every newspaper, every magazine I picked up, seemed to tell me ’40 is the end of the road.’ 40 is as far as you’re going to get. Don’t delude yourself you’re going to get any further.
But then I did.
Before I was 41 I was on my way to Australia and new horizons. Far wider than I’d ever imagined.
Today it’s different. Je ne regrette rien. (Can’t you just hear her voice! Perhaps I should have it played at my wake.) And, on balance, life has been pretty good. But there are ends I need to tie up. Like updating the Will I made before I sailed South. Then it was simple. Now it is different. I bought a house when we came to Oxford in 1980. There are organisations I’ve joined since then. And the various ‘gov’ .orgs who need to be informed. When (the saints come marching in)
Now I’ve written that, I feel better. There IS a future. How long, I don’t know. But there IS a future.
Think ‘win8’. ‘Office 365’. The three books I ought to write. Enough to keep me out of mischief? LOL
francis cameron, oxford, 06 february 2013
