For the Duration - Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine
CHEESECUTS

AS THE RHYTHM of life at Bancroft’s established itself, so Bampton receded into the past, only sometimes remembered. London to Bampton, Bampton to Bancroft’s: the two noteworthy moves of my boyhood. Bampton and Bancroft’s define my war. I was eleven years old when I entered Bancroft’s as a boarder; and not much more worldly-wise than I had been two years before, at the outbreak of the war. From time to time, as with Dunkirk, a name heard would register as being significant to the war’s progress: my understanding of that significance, however, was shadowy.
If I listened to a wireless-set, it was for its songs rather than for its news bulletins. Nowadays, although Stalingrad, Tobruk and Pearl Harbour each conjures up a certain mood of the period, their powers are slight when compared to the intensity of feeling evoked by the chance hearing of songs of the time. Just the opening bars of, for example, I don’t want to set the World on Fire, or South of the Border, can set in motion an instant wave of nostalgia. As for Lili Marlene, or Yours, the resultant surge is well nigh physical — an inner aching.
Life for us boarders at Bancroft’s had been shaped largely by tradition, but wartime had necessarily made adjustments to that mould. By the autumn of 1941, when I arrived, the staff listing read very differently from its pre-war version. As younger men joined up, so the resulting gaps were plugged with older teachers, men who may or may not have been appropriately experienced or proficient. The most senior boys were not quite so mature in years as those before them had been and, on leaving, they were being offered a novel and more adventurous alternative to university — the armed services. Rationing was making the work of Matron and her kitchen staff more trying, and the boys’ physical safety was an even more pointed responsibility than previously, for the school’s administration.
The small group of “new-bugs” (only slightly superior to “day-bugs”, in the eyes of the rest of the boarders), however, was oblivious of these changes. Had we been more aware, we should have thought little of them, anyway, for we had changes enough of our own to adjust to in our new environment — this almost exclusively male, generally impersonal, and often hostile new environment. A bond developed quickly among us as a year-group. We were together in our loneliness and uncertainty. With no family to fall back on, no “Mary” to confide in or gain comfort from, we supported each other when individuals looked as if they would succumb to some unfeeling treatment by a senior student, or some bewildering rule from on high.
School House was ever fiercely united against East and West Houses, the equally prosaically named houses of the day-boys, and the various year-groups which made up the hundred-strong School House were similarly united against the years both senior and junior to them. New-bugs had no juniors, unfortunately for them: and so they longed to become “yearers”, to have — and be able to wield — a little power.
Privilege, too, came slowly. I had not been long at Bancroft’s when a three-yearer impressed upon me forcibly that, only when I became a two-yearer could I, with impunity, walk around with my hands thrust in my trouser pockets.
The names of our year, as read out at innumerable roll-calls, are engraved forever on my memory: Bremner, Cook, Claussen, Forsdike, Goldsack, Gugan, Hart, Johnson, Reed, Robins, Thomas, Williams, Sermon. Someone slipped up in a simple exercise involving alphabetical order, and so Cook usurped Claussen’s order on the roll, and held that position at roll-call for ever after. Sermon arrived a few weeks into the term, and remained last on the boarders’ roll until we became yearers, and the newcomers’ names were tagged onto the end, after his.
Although on first arriving at Bancroft’s we were each allocated a bed in the dormitory, which ran the length of the top storey of the main building, it was some months before we actually slept in these beds. Instead, we used the cellars, in which pairs of bunks were packed tightly together — sufficient for all of the boarders. London was enjoying a lull in its war, there having been no air raids since the Blitz ended in May, but Bancroft’s continued to make use of the arrangements below ground.
A ventilation system had been installed — a maze of tubing across the ceilings — and “temporary” toilets. A couple of trap-doors, down which coal had once tumbled, led up to the drive in front of the school: escape hatches if needed. For some boys, the crowded, closed-in conditions were unpleasantly claustrophobic, but I rather liked the snug togetherness of the set-up — at least during peaceful times.
A group of seven or eight prefects — known as monitors, at Bancroft’s — helped run School House. They carried out various supervisory tasks throughout the day, checking names at roll-calls, and so on, all in all taking a substantial load from the house masters. They took their duties seriously enough, in their different ways, and contributed a great deal towards the smooth running of our day-to-day lives.
Their power over other boarders was considerable, as were their privileges. Junior boys kept out of their way, if possible; to an eleven-year-old new-boy, these monitors were men. And they represented authority. We soon learned important distinctions among the monitors: namely, how they responded to their authority, and to what extent they abused their power.
The “Committee Room” was a hallowed place that School House monitors shared as a study-cum-leisure sanctuary. “I’ll see you in the C.R. after roll-call this afternoon” usually meant one thing — several strokes of a cane, administered by one or other of the monitors. Beatings were always received bending over, shiny trouser-seat taut; they were always humiliating; and always painful.
Junior boys feared beatings, but everyone accepted them, and no one questioned the monitors’ rights, or the morality of their using the cane at whim. These canings were often for trivial “offences”: alleged cheek, being a few seconds late for roll-call, cutting across a corner of the grass in the quadrangle. It was very easy for young boys, fresh from home — where living was far less regimented, and where they had long ago learned how far they could go before a parent would actually punish — to transgress in the eyes of a seventeen-year-old monitor.
One or two rarely caned, if at all, but others regularly exercised their prerogative, and their striking arms, and a few openly gloated, deriving sadistic pleasure from what they possibly saw as a necessary part of their role. One in partcular was renowned for delivering “cheesecuts” to his quivering victims. The cane was brought down vertically, instead of at the usual angle, the intention being to graze a broad area of buttock — like taking a wafer-thin slice of cheese.
One of the first tasks that the monitors took upon themselves after our arrival at Bancroft’s was to select fags from among us new boys. Traditionally, each nominated a fag to do mundane personal chores, in addition to the rostered job that we were given of keeping their Committee Room more-or-less tidy. Our wary group huddled inside the door of the C.R., while the elevated ones made jokes at our general expense, or pointedly drew attention to some physical attribute: the wearing of spectacles, red hair, prominent teeth, tubbiness or whatever.
The head monitor, Wilkinson, chose first, and then I suppose they used a pecking order to select their fags. It was a jovial, boisterous business. I was eventually picked by a languid, easy-going fellow called Jimmy Lyon, to whom I was, in theory, a sort of slave for the year. In practice, Lyon largely ignored me, treating me perfectly reasonably if our paths crossed.
Fagging was part of the school tradition but, by 1941, the important thing for our monitors probably was that they did have fags, for I do not remember anyone being excessively put upon by his “master”. “Clean and dubbin my football boots”, “Go to the shops for me”, or “Find So-and-so and get him to come to the C.R.” — tasks such as these would occasionally come our way. Nothing more, really, than any other more forceful senior boy might persuade any junior to do.
In the adaptable way of youngsters, we were soon used to Bancroft’s approach to discipline, which was much more rigorous than I had previously experienced. As well as the usual classroom conflicts with teachers, the chance of running foul of a house-master or a monitor was ever present — from first stirring in the morning to settling down at night, seven days a week.
Occasionally Mr. Wells, our remote headmaster, administered formal beatings in his study, but masters generally favoured the giving of detention, or “impots”. An imposition involved the tedious writing-out of lines — hundreds and hundreds of them, at times. This repetitious punishment was mind-numbing, but marginally better than detention, which was held on Saturday afternoons for either one or two hours, between two and four o’clock. Our resentment at being cooped up at such a choice time must have been matched by that of the house master who was rostered to run the detention.
A more novel way of atoning for sins was by quad-walking. A visitor to the school would surely have been curious at seeing a silent crocodile of boys trudging round and round the quadrangle. Teachers and monitors dispensed quad-walks, and the dosage could range from ten minutes to an hour in length. In mild weather, and for short spells, I did not mind this punishment. If alone, I never lacked things to think about; and if in company, although the rule was “no talking”, and we were supposed to keep well apart, there was always the challenge of carrying on a conversation undetected.
Rules and restrictions, DOs and DON’Ts, penalties and punishments: did these things loom as large in actuality as they seem to have done in retrospect? Day-to-day doings were regulated and uniformly routine, and it may simply be that crime and punishment are remembered for being ripples that enlivened that routine.

*
In much the same way that, on a sea-voyage, a ship becomes the world for its passengers, a boarding-school insulates its occupants, and life outside can assume a dreamy, unreal quality. In Bampton, the army camp and nearby aerodrome had provided daily evidence of the war, but for my first term or so at Bancroft’s, there was little to remind us of it.
There was the nightly blackout ritual, of course, but after two years of war, that was part of everyone’s lifestyle. Our rostered blackout duty came round every month or so, when the main job was to check that all windows in the living quarters were shut, for they were liberally coated with black paint.
Bancroft’s was set back from the main road and, during the Blitz, a small high explosive had landed on the grass just outside the front railings. Its tiny crater had still not been filled in when the war finally ended! The depression gradually became shallower and more overgrown as time passed, while the school continued to regard it with a friendly, proprietorial air.
When we were free to leave the school grounds, there were strict limits as to how far afield we could roam; that is, unless parents were visiting us. The boundaries set were on the main roads, and we observed these well, on the whole. Epping Forest bordered the school on one side, however, and once in this country we interpreted limits more elastically — if we gave them a thought.
On Saturday or Sunday afternoons, parents were welcome to visit Bancroft’s and take their sons out for a few hours. Lunch was always at one o’clock, and the evening meal at six o’clock, by which time boys had to be returned to school. This was called “Getting a Report”, because of the need to report to the masters’ Common Room to obtain permission. A master on duty had to sight the visitors, whom the boy concerned would lead into the quadrangle, where they could be seen through the Common Room windows. The master would leave the billiards table briefly, to record the details. With no report, the roll-call strategically timed at four o’clock effectively limited our activities beyond the school grounds.
Some parents came virtually every week, some every month or so, and others perhaps once a term. This last was closest to my position, and how I relished those rare visits! I remember with pleasure a picnic tea one wintry afternoon at Connaught Water, a lake not far away in the forest. My parents had come by car, and we overlooked a lively scene, as the lake was frozen hard enough for skating, and crowds were sporting on the ice. A highlight of a report, much looked forward to, might be a visit to Halls, the local restaurant, where a feed of sausages, egg and chips made a tasty change from our usual austere and predictable fare.

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