Memories - Ken Adderley

Thank you to Ken Adderley (Five Ways pupil 1943-1950) for sending these great memories of his time with the school at Monmouth. Ken recently talked at a school assembly about his experiences and his presentation made a good impression, Ken told me:

 

 

 "I have been pleased to revise my rough notes of the speech I gave to school on their "evacuation day memoirs" which went down remarkably well. I am afraid it is rather short but my time was limited.

 Hope you enjoy reading it. It wold  be good to get some contribution from boys who joined the scout troupe, or enjoyed water sports. We were able to use Monmouth School's open air baths, where one of the prefects taught me how to swim! 

A FEW OF MY MEMORIES AS A FIRST YEAR STUDENT IN 1943

 

Arrival

 

By 1943 bombing by Germany to towns North of London had almost ceased.   So, some families considered it safe for their boys to leave Monmouth, preferring to be schooled back at Five ways.  So, by 1943 the school had become split between 2 sites: First year classes 1a and 1b were taught in Monmouth whilst classes 1x and 1y used the old school building in Birmingham.

 

In August 1943, the School kindly offered new boys a 4-week trial in Monmouth with the option of staying on when term started.   I was 11, the offer of a month’s holiday seemed quite attractive.   There was no grand procession along Broad Street as in 1939, but a motley group of new boys gathered at Snow Hill Station to take the 3 trains to Monmouth changing at Hereford and Ross-on-Wye.

 

Accommodation

 

No hotels were offered to the new boys but by 1943 accommodation comprised some home stays and seven hostels: three clustered in the town centre and four scattered in the surrounding countryside.   I was billeted at Inglewood along with 30 scholars of various ages, being looked after by Mr Holloway, the Head of English, and his wife.  Inglewood was one mile out of town along the Wye valley; a nice rural location adjacent to the school farm which had a small paddock offering plenty of scope for games especially the opportunity to learn touch rugby.

 

After Christmas I was offered a place at Summerville, a house run by 2 ladies – Mrs Bromilow and Mrs Bailey who each had a son in the upper school – one a sub-prefect and the other a house prefect. The latter only had authority at Sommerville.  We all had domestic chores to do.   I remember that in my patch of garden I was to grow garden peas.

 

Unusual features of School routine

 

Lessons were scheduled for 5 & half-days a week, but when weather permitted, the Head, Mr Dobinson, announced a half days holiday sometime during the week,  encouraging us to enjoy local attractions on our bikes - such the caves at Symonds Yat or Raglan Castle.  If the half day came on a Saturday, we enjoyed a whole day’s excursion.   I well remember one occasion when we boys from Somerville decided to explore the caves at Symonds Yat with a 3rd year boy taking charge.   Inevitably we got lost in these primitive caves and could not find a way out.  The other first year, Mickey Hurle began to cry. A second-year boy, John Charlton, put his arm around Mickey, and reassured him that we would find a way out. We did, and I live to tell the tale!  Charlton later became head prefect.

 

School Routine

 

As Monmouth School’s daily routine differed to ours, we dovetailed conveniently into available premises.  Typically, in the mornings our lessons were taken in church halls or community halls. Whilst Monmouth School used the school buildings on weekdays  from 8am until 1 pm, our school day was from 9am to 12 noon and from 2pm to 5pm. Lunch was taken back at the hostel, a cycle ride or 1-mile walk each way to Inglewood, wet or fine!  After lunch most of us used the classrooms and laboratories in Monmouth School. We had the main school hall for school assembly on Saturday mornings.    For half a day each week the timetable included an outward-bound activity: either working on the School farm or scavenging the Forest of Dean for dead wood, which eventually found its way to the school farm.

 

Some of us did stand on the touch-line to cheer on our first rugby team which steadily increased in stature over the war years, eventually beating Monmouth School in 1944 by 3-0.   After the war the School maintained annual fixtures against Monmouth School and Newport High School.    In 1949 and 1950 [when I was awarded my School Colours playing wing forward or hooker for the first team] these matches were memorable occasions, fixtures being either at home [at Portland Road] or away.   Despite the horrors of war, and occasional news of old boys being killed, the evacuation experience brought a new and wholesome dimension to one’s school-days.

Memories - Peter Hoff

I started at school in 1937. We must go back to Dobinson becoming head master in about 1933 and as a young man to be head master in those days at a school like ours. And he started Evenlode which is the school farm. It does come into it because that was the original place we were going to go. We went to the school farm actually for a couple of weeks, in the summer and each form or year had a fortnight there and then some other year went and we each had a chance of going there where we dug. Why I say it has some bearing, we were already into 'not being at home', like the kids are today. We went for a fortnight and nobody got on the mobile phone or anything to find out if we were alright and we were of that mentality when it came to 1938.

In 1938 we had this practice run where we thought we were going to get evacuated and at the last minute when we all assembled at Five Ways, they decided there wasn't going to be a war and we could all go home. Why I'm saying that is you've got to understand the mentality that happened a year later when we did it all again. And we hardly took any notice, "ah go on the farm, go somewhere away", we didn't know where we were going. However, they got us at school and we marched, as you've heard down Broad Street singing songs from respectable or not so respectable songs depending on what age you were, down to the railway station.

Now you've got to imagine there were 320 of us to start with and we'd got gas mask cases and we'd got a haversack and a luggage label with our name on it and that was all we'd got in the world. And we eventually got on a train, we didn't know where we were going, we didn't know anything but it wasn't so matter of life and death where you were going. You were going with the school, they'll be alright sort of thing. However we got on the train and eventually we arrived at this station.

Snow Hill Station

We were Birmingham boys and the little station looked as if it was behind the wood yard and it looked like it was something you played with in the spare room. It was all miniature! However, they marched us to the Rolls Hall where, you can understand how disorganised they all were because they were expecting a girl's school. They weren't expecting boys and the mentality those days was that boys were different from girls, "I don't mind a couple of girls but I ain't having a couple of boys".

However, we gradually went. You stood in Rolls Hall and they gave you a cup of something and you waited your turn. And you stood in your alphabetical order. My brother was a year younger and there was no thought in those days of putting brothers together, they just went Homer, Hollingsworth, Hoff. So Hemmings is next to me, standing there so they said "you two" and a lady appears and she was ancient to us, she must have been all of 25 or 26 and she was an unmarried lady and she lived with her father and she took us round to this cottage.

Now, I didn't realise what a life I'd led until I walked into this cottage and one of the first things she said to me, she wanted to show me, she was not an educated person but she'd got a certain amount of family knowledge she wanted to impart. So she said "Peter will you pass me that little box in that drawer there". And I reached into this drawer and I got this little box and she said "that's the thing for the gas mantle" and I put my hand in it. I'd never even heard of a gas mantle and of course the whole thing crumbled to pieces and they were like four punce each. "Oh!" so I said "I'm terribly sorry".

So we sat down and it is no problem for me to remember, we were in a house with gas, the tap was in the yard, the toilet we shared with 2 or 3 other cottages was a hole in a wooden thing, outside and a cold water tap. There was no lighting. Now I hadn't realised I'd lived in the lap of luxury for the first 12, 14 years of my life and I then got introduced to cottage rudimentary, absolutely the basics.             

1930's postcard of the Wye Bridge, Monmouth

And I was with this other gentleman, Hemming, who now lives in America and we're still in touch with each other, when you say this had a lasting effect, I'm in touch with him because we were billeted together. So Monmouth was a total shock. My mother and father somehow got the petrol to come down and see us and my mother said "well pack your stuff, you're not stopping here are you?"

So I said "yeah well we're all together and my friends are here".

"Oh!"she said "I can't believe it".

We must have been terrible kids because we expected electricity, we expected machinery, not what they've got now but similar and this went on until 1941 and I came home, back to Birmingham because I'd heard a rumour that the school was opening again in Five Ways, which had been a place where they issued ration cards up till then. But they were going to open the school so we came home and what accelerated our movement was that Birmingham had not been bombed. 

The first bomb we came in contact with, landed at the back entrance of Monmouth school on the road, it landed there before Birmingham. So we'd moved to a place where apparently they went down the river, the German bombers, because apparently they came up the Wye, or down the Wye, whichever way they came and went because that was their guidance and when they wanted to accelerate their departure they dropped the spare bombs and that's why there was one at the back of the school. So I pleaded the case with my mother and father that we'd been bombed and they weren't so terribly worried about us coming home. 

I came home early and went in the army, pretty well straight from school so I really didn't have the extensive history of what went on in Monmouth. But the school basically remained there until the end of the war and not many schools did, they mostly dribbled back to Birmingham or London or wherever they went. We were one of the only schools ever to live out the time.

We became friendly with the locals. I believe one of our lads married the girl from the garage, Hunt, and we were very friendly with the dairy product people, Walters, who were the milkmen and we integrated in a short period time. Of course I shouldn't imagine there were more than 5000 people living in Monmouth and the area and a couple or three hundred of us made quite an impact. 

When we got there, the first time we played Monmouth School at rugger, we got beaten 56-nil, then they beat us 36-nil the next year and still ran us ragged, 6-3 the year after that. Because they were good and there was one fellow who later captained Wales, John Gwillam, who had hands bigger than me. But I found out when I came out of the army that the last time we played them in 1945, we won, so at least if it didn't save our lives it increased our knowledge of rugby football.