Old West Downs Society – Memories of the Tindall Era, 1922-1954

From R.H. King, 1947-50

Things I can remember as topics which were not on the list in Nick’s letter include: “the slipper,” which seems anachronistic today; our money books in which we had to record our 3d per week pocket money (later 6d); Founder’s Day, when we could eat as many strawberries as we wanted (have I got this right?); “taking a number!”; taking a “nuisance” and being expelled from your Patrol if you got more than 20 of them in a term (I once got 18 or 19); the garden plots (Bill Macadam, whom I saw in New York earlier this year, and I, won the garden competition one year); having baths only twice a week, and not after games (Australia is very different about washing); the dormitory “Fives;” chivvy; making model aeroplanes in Shakespeare; book binding; compulsory writing home on Sundays; being weighed at the beginning and end of term; Sister Guy; the Peacock Competition; firelighting by cutting bark from silver birches in Melbury (unthinkable today).

Richard King