Memories from Chris Gibbs
Here are some more memories for you for The Mitre. I have just had my memory jogged by a Heacham tea towel as I do the drying-up! (Nice pictures of the church and the green opposite. Also Princess Pocahontas and Caley Mill etc).
Old Michaelian's were usually fairly tidy folk, but you know how it is with over 100 pupils in a small building. Clothing, particularly games clothing, gets left lying about.
The headmaster had been going on about this previously and had obviously had enough. “Right, I am going to go through the school (this was at Ingoldisthorpe) and I am going to cane every boy who has an item of clothing lying around!” Well he went through all the cloakrooms outside - “please Sir I did put my heavy mac- “Don't call it a “heavy mac” boy” SLAP-BANG- OOOW! Through the changing rooms and passageways upstairs. Well, I should think that half the school went “UPSTAIRS” to receive one stroke for each item. Even the head boy at the time, Yens Andersen was not immune! It did become a bit of a joke amongst us in the end as some seemed to go round two or three times!
In similar vein, it was fairly common for an entire dormitory to be canned because some were caught talking after lights-out but wouldn't own up. In my early days, (1964), I would dread it when Enrico Valvoni and Joseph Habermass, two colourful characters from London, would start fighting after lights-out.
Sometime around late 1968 when the school had moved back to Ingoldisthorpe there was a certain lady teacher of the juniors whose daughter was also at the school. This daughter was very attractive, and popular with the boys. It would appear that she was out of class with a boyfriend somewhere, engaging in what the HM usually referred to as “farmyard behaviour”, when he discovered them! He marched them off to her mother's class and remonstrated with them in front of the class. Not the best thing to do really. Anyway, the incident blew over and they became heroes for a while. I believe that boy's father even took him down the pub for a congratulatory drink!
On one of the choir outings to London we stayed at a YMCA hostel. I don't remember anything else about this trip but there is one vision I have never forgotten. The following morning still half asleep and emerging from the bathroom I was suddenly face to face with the HM clad only in pyjama bottoms and slippers. (He didn't have his dog collar on!) Probably the most frightening experience of ones young life even for a (by now) seasoned Michaelian!
Picture if you will choir practice in Heacham church on a Wednesday evening. Remember that the choir was augmented by both ladies and gentlemen from the village. Date, oh sometime in the late sixties. All normal, then during a break in the singing this little squeaky African voice pipes up “Please sir, G....... H......'s s*** his pants sir!” (I will let you edit this as you see fit, because unless you were there and heard it, you would not believe it!!) Gasps followed by stunned silence and faces beginning to turn red, especially the ladies! Everyone was looking toward the HM awaiting an explosion. “What was that you said?” said the HM in a sombre voice. As if once wasn't enough he repeated it, despite frantic attempts by those near to explain that one didn't say that sort of thing anywhere, never mind in church! By now behind the sniggers of others the HM was beginning to see the funny side of it and let the matter pass. What else could he do? It was said with so much young innocence.
Mr. White's Cars.
In the latter days of the school there was a master, one Christopher White. He taught French and English Literature and produced/directed many excellent school plays. He was also well known partly for his volatile nature, but otherwise for his collection of cars. These were usually big old Jags. (All Jags are big!)
However, his best was the hearse! Yes, he had a beautiful old hearse. I don't remember what the original chassis was, but it had ornate carved glass in the sides and was very upright and square. No coffins, but it was filled with little Michaelian's and used to roar (or rather purr?) around the villages at great speed to the utter astonishment of the locals! I believe he inherited his family's hereditary peerage on the death of his father. Is this why he often called us (and others) “the peasantry”?
Another tale involving CW and one of the double-deckers. Just outside the school at Ingoldisthorpe by a road junction the trees would overhang and bash the bus each time it passed. Drivers avoided this by keeping to the offside of the road. One day, and not for the first time, a car was coming from the other direction and CW gestured, pointing to the overhanging trees as being the reason for being on the wrong side of the road. However, either this driver didn't understand or misinterpreted the gesture (!) or was not going give way, and CW was not going to drive through the trees. Anyway we sat motionless for a while then the order was given “everybody out and walk!” This we did, and CW left the bus where it was in the middle of the road and walked off with us, laughing his head off. There was nothing the car driver could do but eat humble pie and drive round the now deserted bus!
Now, how's this for a thought. What would St. M's be like in the computer age? “Right, will you listen please... It has been alleged, I say, “alleged,” because I don't know, that somebody has been hacking into the staff database on the schools' computer”. (or something like that!) “I'm not going to have play stations in my school!” “Somebody has sent a virus to Mr Taylor's computer. I want that boy to own up!” “ NO!! You cannot have a Web-cam at Fridham!!” (Now THERE'S a thought!!) How about a competition in The Mitre for the most apt phrase or story based on St. M's in 2000? (Well why not? A prize for the best)
That's all for now. I'm sure I will think of some more.
Chris Gibbs.
