Recollections of an Old (but young at heart) Oswestrian, circa 1952 - EPISODE 34, A WANDER AROUND SCHOOL HOUSE (1950'S STYLE), A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Entered via the stone arched doorway leading from the grassy quadrangle, the long corridor was central to daily activity in School House, and from the first bell at 7.30am until the last ring of the day at 6pm, this busy thoroughfare was often full of noisy hustle and bustle as pupils went about their schooling schedules. Running was not allowed in this fairly constricted area, and by and large the rule was strictly adhered to, closely monitored by prefects and Masters alike.

The bare dinginess of the corridor and the surrounding area during my time was starkly different from how it looks today, and it was patently obvious that Mr Williamson was having to run things on a shoe-string, money for the fabric of the school being in short supply following the end of the war.

I will try to paint a picture, sprinkled with anecdotes, of the general layout of the ground floor as I remember it, with the help of a few photographs and a rough sketch drawn from memory.

Who tolled the bell?

Rough sketch of the ground floor

Looking down towards the far end of the corridor from the aspect of the back door, which was adjacent to the boot room, memories come flooding back as I see the bell pull. In my day it was a rope, and entrance to what was the tuck room, the domain of the tuck box thieves and vagabonds, and I wish I had a pound for every time I passed through that door during 8 years at Oswestry. I remember being slightly embarrassed because my tuck box was a small silver tin box which stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all the traditional wooden boxes, and the jackbooted tuck room cowboys took delight in using it as a football. Big 'Holly' Halton was a brute of a boy who was as strong as an ox and ate like a horse, and we constantly ribbed him about the frequency of his food parcels, which made his tuck box a prime target.

Apple pie bed

For some reason, although he could look after himself, this likeable character was the butt of our humour, and we were always making apple pie beds for him. 

Inevitably, one night he snapped and, boiling with anger, proceeded to hoist his bed up to the struts close to the ceiling out of reach of us all shouting angrily, "Go on. See if you can make a pie with that!"

Holly's bed was on the right, immediately below one of the roof struts

Andrew Legg

Andrew Legg, who was in our dormitory, remembered the occasion well and he corrected my memory of the shenanigans that went on following kangaroo courts which were sometimes held after lights out, by adding that cricket bats and boots were also often brought into play to supplement the tamer weapons of torment. 

This was corroborated by my brother Bernard, who also asked why I had not included the late night stoning that took place from time to time at the far end of the dorm, where boys were lined up and pelted with rock hard, sharp edged blocks of green carbolic soap which were readily available from the washbasins in the middle of the room.

Perhaps we both escaped this kind of treatment by virtue of knowing the family of one of the chief bullies with whom we travelled to and from school. Rose tinted spectacles spring to mind, maybe, about a time and place where the acceptable norm was very different from today.

Green carbolic soap, as used
by Senior Dorm bullies

One day, late in the afternoon, I heard a ruckus as I was passing Form 1VA's empty classroom and, peeping in to see what it was all about, spotted 'Holly' Halton on top of Bernard knocking three bells out of him. Jumping on the big guy's back I tried to drag him off, and my grateful brother, having extricated himself from underneath Holly, just tuckered off and left me to it.

When I took him to task about it later he just looked at me with that mischievous grin and said, "Well, I could see you had everything under control."  

The tuck/music room also served as the dining room for day boys, who must have felt like the poor relations as they ate their lunch on makeshift trestle tables which were hastily assembled amongst the tuck boxes after morning lessons. Oddly enough, I recall that sometimes a door perched precariously on trestles was used as a table top, and John Tilley marshalled lunch time activities for day boys.

View from the playground

After tea Mr Calvert, our snuff-taking organist and music teacher, held evening piano lessons in the tuck room whilst boarders were doing homework in classroom 1VB, usually under the supervision of a duty prefect, and loud groans of protest would erupt around the prep room as the nightly, laboured version of 'chopsticks' percolated out of the music room along the corridor and into1VB, disrupting our pearls of wisdom.

Moving along the corridor from the bell rope towards the back door we would pass, on our left, Forms II, III, 1VA, the library (which also housed the Sixth Form), and finally the boot room, which became the hub of gossip and intrigue on Sunday mornings as we all congregated there to clean our footwear and listen to the only radio in the school.

Classes 1VB, V, and the annex (as seen from the lower paddock)

Turning away from School House corridor opposite 1VA it was just a few strides past the Masters' common room and notice board to a short flight of steps which led down into class 1VB and on into the Fifth Form. The lower common room annex, accessed via Form Five, was the main exit point for unscheduled moonlit sorties into the grounds and beyond the camp perimeter. It was just a simple matter of unscrewing the bars on the window overlooking the bike shed, and several boys, who were unhappy with life as a boarder, made home runs, fleeing the building by this route. Sadly, they were invariably returned to school the following day before they had time to send us a postcard saying Wish you were here, and I am amazed that this exit point was never discovered by the guards.

It is time to bring this guided tour to a close, and I hope you enjoy this bird's eye view of the building that was my home for much of the 1950's.