Winters At St. Michael's.

The Shooting Lodge had very little heating as far as I can remember, a coal fire in the top Dining Room and one in the Lounge! With the always difficult problem of getting the coal.

The dormitories in the New building were completely unheated as were the two small ones upstairs at the Shooting Lodge and windows were always supposed to be open. Thus any warmth generated was quickly lost.

Ingoldisthorpe was heated by the dreaded water filled oil radiators and God help the boy who let it smoke. As these monsters were the only heat at the school before its role was changed, it was in ones own interest to try and get the things as hot as possible, but there was a very fine line between maximum heat and clouds of black smoke. One was quickly trained on how to deal with and maintain these machines by the boys who was happily relinquishing the task. But never the less they were quite a problem to get to run in a stable manner, and even at the best of times they never really heated a classroom. I think that some of these machines went to The Shooting Lodge in the New Building at some stage. I do remember that some how water got into the paraffin tank in the yard at Ingoldisthorpe. This did cause quite a problem in getting the radiators to light, but it took some while to find the problem and drain off the water in the tank. I don’t think it was ever discovered how several gallons of water got into this tank or who may have been responsible.

On one occasion in the top dormitory at Gresham House some one opened the window rather wider than necessary for the time of year and I found my bed well dusted with snow in the morning and due to the cold this had not melted and was able to be swept off. It is quite amazing that the large water tank in that top dormitory never to my knowledge froze and flooded the house. Many’s the time we have had to get off the bus and push it up Ingoldisthorpe hill in icy weather, and more boys would have to get off to lighten the load and help push if the first attempt failed.

During one bad spell, although I cannot remember which year heavy overnight snow blocked the road between Heacham and Snettisham so it was not possible to get to the school at Ingoldisthorpe. The power was also down and the Range in the kitchen at The Shooting Lodge had to be lit for the first time in years to help with the preparation of meals. Milk was fetched by sledge from the farm near Wadsworth’s shop, but the milk could not be bottled due to now power, so I think it came up pulled by several boys in a small churn.

The power was off for about 2 or 3 days which made school work very difficult and home work at night almost impossible. I seem to remember lots of walks and helping people in the village dig out drives and paths and also help push local motorists out of ditches as the roads were almost untreated for a time.

The winter of 62/63 was the worst as the sea formed pack ice which froze over several days round the pier legs and cross members so that as the tide came in the whole end section of the pier was dragged out of the ground and collapsed in a tangled heap as the tide when out. It was never to be the same again but is was quite a difficult job climbing over the pack ice which was 4 to 6 feet high in places at the high tide mark to actually see the power of the tide and ice and the damage done.

I remember the water mains in the villages were frozen in a lot of cases because of the weeks of very heavy penetrating frosts, and I think that we only played games once or twice in the whole term. This was almost unheard of.

For some reason I had to drive on of the cooks to Ingoldisthorpe before breakfast presumably the bad weather and I know that at the time there were dormitories upstairs, but I am not sure which meal the cook was going to prepare. However I happened to go into the scullery where the coke boiler was busily heating water for showers and washing etc. and used the hot tap. To my horror I got a jet of steam and no water. I shut down the boiler and told one of staff to try and reduce the heat but not to turn on the taps. I rushed upstairs grabbed a boy out of bed and told him no one was to go into the shower room under any circumstances. It was then necessary to go up the step into the roof and find the tank and as I had suspected the ball cock had frozen shut and the tank was extremely low in water. With some difficulty I managed to get the thing unfrozen nearly suffering frost-bitten hands in the process and get the water to run. It was then a tricky operation to get some water back into the system without causing the boiler to explode, as I had to run between the roof and the scullery to check on the heat of the boiler and slowly reduce the pressure in the hot water taps. Having got the system safe the poor boys was still on duty outside the shower room with not the slightest idea of what was wrong. Had anyone turned on a shower they would have been very severely scalded by the pressure of steam that had built up.

Geoff Kimberley