Amongst the reminiscing articles, blogs or chapters included in this compendium is a piece on my time as a boy at Winchester College, focussing particularly on the staff and their largely beneficent influence on my development. Without them there would certainly have been an ongoing deluge of monumental proportions. To underline the need for salvation I now add some thoughts on the idiosyncratic specialities of that school, which will regrettably mean but little to the uninitiated, as well as a story about a memorial dedicated to a former member of staff. 'And some there be', we are told in the 44th chapter of Ecclesiasticus 'which have no memorial '. Well; a leading science teacher of the early twentieth century does have a memorial but it was brutaly, if unintentionally, disfigured many years ago.
His bollard without cerebrum;
They smote off his head
And left him for dead;
No repair for aeons to come.
There's always something more to be said about Winchester College notions. In the older generation agony and ecstasy appear in equal measure at the very mention of the term. So this is important business. I quote from The Trusty Servant of May 2022: ' The term Winchester Football is used universally to offend neither those who use the term Winkies nor those who would prefer to have a return to Win Co Fo '. Well, speaking as one who entered the School in 1960 when the term ' Our game ' was passing gently out of fashion, ceding dominance to Win Coll Football , I could persuade myself of a testing day that any of the three terms employed by the editor are, to the mildest degree, offensive.
The debate over whether notions have been, and are, in permanent decline is as perennial as the stream running through the Warden's Garden and a good deal less pure. We happy but declining few who participated in or attended ' Wiccamica The Masque ', presented as the highlight of New Hall's initiation ceremony in the final week of June 1961, may remember four ' small new men' ( we'll come back to 'men' later ) singing about notions:
We're baffled by these awful monosyllables -- like Firk,
And Spree, and Tug, and Brew, and Mug, and Brum, and Thick, and Shirk;
And Cad, And Cud, and Hot, and Jig, and Sweat, and Toys and Slabs;
If this is what we're in for -- then we might as well Toll Abs,
Though we haven't got a notion what it means.
As we wonder how many of these terms might be recognised by the Wykehamist of 2022, possibly muttering 'O tempora, O mores', pointedly and with a hint of resigned regret as they are the last generation who, with an obligatory study of Latin, will be necessarily able to translate such things, we correct ourselves sharply, remembering that schools have to develop and change does not inevitable presage decay. If you're old and grey how do you know that there is not lurking in that simultaneously ethereal and ephemeral world of social media, a whole catalogue of Wiccamical notions expressed in memes and hashtags? Take nothing for granted but hope that someone somewhere is recording such niceties of communication for this world too will pass eventually.
I promised a footnote on the word 'man' for in the 1960s all members of the School were 'men' and the term 'boys' quietly hovered between the unfashionable and the verboten. In those days all men in their first year were kettled into Chantry each morning for morning service or assembly and in Short Half 1960 Hubert Doggart appeared to give a talk on notions and other things that mattered in life. He commanded, rather than informed, us in his famously stentorian tones not only were we, without exception, men but that all members of the human race should be thus described. As an example he told of an encounter with the wife of a colleague in Kingsgate Street. This lady was pushing a pram (non-notional words can pass out of usage too) with her delightfully spirited female baby mewling within. ' How clever you are to have produced such a good man ' GHGD had observed, or probably boomed.
There are schools and institutions throughout the realm that are trying to achieve gender blindness and if at this particular time Win Coll was to dispense with the terms 'boys' and 'girls' and refer to all students as 'men', it could be the first school nationally to achieve this characterless state of questionable desirability at a stroke.
This, however, is not quite the whole story. I recently asked three of the most senior authorities at Winchester College if the term 'notion' was still used to denote a custom or common practice rather than part of an alternative language. In days of yore it was the accepted notion that a commoner, on entering War Cloister, would out of respect touch the rim of his strat. It was a three year notion to walk down the centre of Flint Court or cut the corners across it; a two year notion to have the middle button of your jacket undone; and in Kenny's for example a similar length of time had to elapse before you could read the newspapers at a particular table in Hall.
Having enjoyed rather too many years in the British education system that may have been good for me, it was no surprise when my three luminaries replied swiftly and firmly with mildly defensive alacrity that of course anything that smacked of privilege or entitlement had long since passed into the realms of legends and fables. Just to be sure they kindly offered to go to the grassroots, to members of the student population, to see if there were any remnants of twentieth century flies in the ointment of modernism.
One positive response came back. There is a house currently where 'Sixth Formers' ( did that include Sen Part as well as VIth book, I wondered and indeed does Senior Part still exist at all?) are allowed to attend breakfast in their pyjamas. Make of that what you will but I thought it was interesting as I wondered what might happen one day if this house were to become a co-educational establishment. Of course it wouldn't matter if all members of the house were 'men'.
Perhaps if we move into the gloriously esoteric realm of place names, we may be on safer ground although their legitimacy as notions may be questioned by some. It is sadly now difficult to locate Gunner's Hole but Bull's Drove, Frazer Tent, Moab and Non-Licet Gate are all still there, as is Paradise; this last being specially included for the cognoscenti who will know there are two separate areas thus named in Winchetster's 1200 acres. Perhaps there is a case for a modern map showing these idiosyncratic places of interest before they too bite the historic dust. In any case such a chart would undoubtedly include Michla Passage, a twitten not without aesthetic merit between St Michael's Church and the lofty, rather handsome red brick wall that faces it.
Passing through the passage, as we did several times every day, we never saw the church door open but we did notice the evergreen, potted shrubs nestling beside the buttresses and enhancing the general scene. They were named Mathew, Mark, Luke and Fred; this last taking its title from our esteemed Housedon, John Manisty, top mathematician, former hut commander at Bletchley Park and part-time ticket collector on the Festiniog Railway. Looking down on the bushes from their perch on the gutter, we were obliged to learn for our notions exam, were two constipated sparrows, named Footner and Merriman, two illustrious members of our boarding house from the early 1950s.
In any case there were -- we must be honest -- some young miscreants abroad in the Wykehamist student community at the time (it was the 1960s after all) and one of this number, returning probably not from a strenuous hour in the Fives court but having enjoyed a hefty block of raspberry ripple ice cream provided by the endlessly harassed Mr Nicholas in School Shop (now Cornflowers) thought that some pyrotechnics might brighten the afternoon and, with matches and paper bags, proceeded to set one of the shrubs alight. Perhaps he optimistically presumed that a conflagration of the bush might result in his developing Moses like qualities of wisdom, wealth and world domination. But this was not to be. A most excellent don, Jacques Whittaker, viewed the whole incident from the first floor of his house, now the Headmaster's residence, and soon after the young man returned to Kenny's, retribution involving a whippy, whistling wooden instrument of correction was swift and unforgiving.
It was shortly after this incident that one even more regrettable occurred. At the western end of the passage were two bollards, erected probably in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, successfully preventing vehicular access for a century or more. To us they were known as Humby (on the left as you travelled up to books) and Goddard. The Science School at Winchester, Stinks Block to some and dating from 1904, a far sighted educational development and a building of some architectural merit although sundry extensions on the Kingsgate Road sign have never been in danger of winning the Pritzker Prize. Freddy Goddard and Spencer Humby were the modest yet huge talented doyens of Win Coll Science teaching in the early to mid-20th century, working together for a notable thirty two years. Not in any way overlooking the strengths of Goddard who was Head of Department for eighteen of those years, we need to concentrate on Humby and his valedictory notice in The Wykehamist of 1959; ' Here he stands like a rock, stubbornly courageous, steadfast in his deep religious faith, infinitely kind to others and regardless of himself. '
It was doubtless encouraging to the spirits of Humby and Goddard that they should receive no less an accolade than having the white Michla Passage bollards named after them, this to be reinforced by frequent friendly pats on their pates administered by respectful Wykehamists of subsequent generations. However, all such reverence involves risk and on a sharp May morning in 1962 a somewhat uncouth Kennyite gave dear Humby an unreasonably energetic blip on his smooth and innocent dome with disastrous consequences. His neck creaked and cracked; his head was crudely severed from his torso; an unintended but calamitous decapitation had occurred. Humby's head had to spend a quiet morning up to books; he had to lie low and could not be paraded in the style of John the Baptist, Holofernes or King Charles the Martyr. Late in the day he was consigned to the sliding panel which existed at seat level in Kenny's toys. He moved house with his keeper at the end of the academic year and some time in 1963 the weighty skull of Humby disappeared, not to be seen again.
There the story might end but, for reasons passing the bounds of human understanding, Henry's torso has remained in that ugly headless state for sixty two years. Perhaps he is regarded as a priceless statue from the world of antiquity while Goddard in a state of full and original health stands proudly beside him and doubtless provides encouragement with long ago tales of scientific derring-do. Other houses, attempting to gloss over the tragedy, have changed their names to Adam and Eve, while others still have daubed them with red or brown paint on significant Win Coll Football (NB) days. They have now been painted a deathly black, appropriately mournful in the circumstances with a touch of the graveyard about them.
Michla now belongs to Win Coll; the Passage is as busy yet tranquil as ever it was; the Headmaster (perhaps the title Informator would cover a multitude of difficulties with co-education fully established from Autumn 2023) is close at hand to serve as Keeper of its permanent inmates. Humby might now appreciate a facelift or indeed having a face at all, while Goddard might be happy to enjoy his colleague's company in genuinely renovated splendour. I am told with a reasonable degree of reliability that the wayward Kennyite of 1962, now clambering into his slippered pantaloon, would like to make amends by providing the necessary for a full restoration.
And thus indeed, some time later, it came to pass. In December 2021 I visited Tim Hands, Headmaster of Winchester College and one of the most talented, far-sighted, accomplished educational leaders of his generation. We had served together on the board of Bedales so I knew he was also blessed with a generously sophisticated sense of humour. I duly made my confession and Tim, apparently taken by the unconventional nature of the occasion, undertook to stir the pot and boldly bring the contents to the boil.
During 2022 things moved at a somewhat leisurely pace but in the right direction and I knew that due attention was being paid when I received the Headmaster's Christmas card containing not only a photograph taken a hundred years earlier by Spencer Humby but a note about him and an account of my exploits on the back cover. However, I knew that Tim would retire in six months' time and when, after a visit to Winchester in March 2023, no news was forthcoming, I wrote suggesting that the matter, doubtless insignificant in his universal perspective but of life enhancing importance to me on my island of idle myopia, might be left to his successor.
Suddenly there was a whirr of activity. A dark but multi-skilled bursarial horse named Simeon was on the case, I was assured, of having a new bollard constructed in the college workshops [ two bollards in fact as it was rightly felt that Goddard could not be ignored in a state of shadowy decay ]. A ceremony of unveiling was to be held on Wykeham Day in mid-June; the Warden [ Chair of Governors ] would be present as would Mr Rob Humby, a member of the Hampshire County Council and believed to be a distant relative of the original scientist. Now things were really moving on apace -- or at pace to use the post-Covid vernacular.
Even at an early 6am on Saturday 17 June the perspiration of warmth and nervousness was gathering on my brow as I passed the trim sun-parched lawns of polite Winchester as I made my way from the Royal Hotel to St Michael's Passage for a quiet, solo dress-rehearsal. I was clutching my carefully prepared script and, despite the onward march of the years, I was comfortable with the public speaking aspect but I had rashly suggested we spoke in Latin, in imitation of an ancient Wiccamical ceremony to honour eminent guests and the bollard of Spencer Humby certainly fitted that description. I was determined not to let down my old friend Stephen Kirkwood, for thirty years -- and still counting -- responsible for the teaching of Classics at Gordonstoun, who had kindly translated my script.
The venue, however, was not a picture of summer solitude as a steady trail of young, eager -- but I'm trying not to be -- Wykehamists in quasi-military garb passed through the Passage en route to a rehearsal of the -- slightly questionable to my mind -- Gun Run, much favoured by school CCFs in the modern age and to be a centre piece of the day later on. Give me a fire appliance or two any day but mine was not to reason why, just to concentrate on the restored Humby who was now in position [ as was Goddard ] with a look of graceful if slightly disdainful elegance but in any case not drawing whelps of delight from dozy teenagers passing so soon after sunrise.
Private rehearsal completed and the glories of the Itchen as it passes St Catherine's Hill duly appreciated, we assembled at the Headmaster's House at 9.20am. But where was the piper, a young member of the Hamilton clan, who was to lead the procession the short distance to the bollards? He was said to be locked in the adjacent Armoury building and had perhaps incarcerated himself there, shy at the last minute to be playing a part in an event of such importance. Perhaps he had been searching for his shoes for, once liberated from the storage centre of weapons of individual destruction, below the rest of his splendid Scottish attire was a pair of the scruffiest of trainers which might have seen service at Waterloo. However, young Hamilton could certainly play the pipes we discovered as he led us down with three smartly attired proud cadets in attendance and the rest of us in a procession of serious orderliness behind.
A small crowd of spectators had assembled including, to my great delight and surprise, son Robin who, as he approaches the upper echelons of the slippery pole of authority in independent schools, may have wondered if this was all another essential duty previously unanticipated. The Warden welcomed us all in his smooth Latin brogue and I followed with an apologetic eulogy to the man or bollard of the moment, undergoing resurrection after seventy years. Tim Hands then, with characteristically delightful wit, welcomed the present day Mr Humby in the English tongue, while the latter apologised for ' welling up ' with emotion as he realised that subsequently he would enjoy a new life as the chief bollard unveiler in the county, having now received such exalted training. He then untied a handsome red ribbon and whisked off a black veil to display the new Humby in all his glory.
More piping followed as did coffee and chat in St Michael's Church cum meeting place; a piece of frivolous entertainment had been enjoyed by a few; Humby and Goddard, their hefty contribution to Science at Winchester once again recognised, basked in their unexpected renaissance.
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