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It is striking how many successful authors started off by writing school stories: P G Wodehouse, The Pothunters; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, though it is set at university.
I want to tell you about another school book, Mr Tibbit’s Catholic School, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham. This is an account of a real prep school in Kensington, founded in 1934 by the eponymous Mr Tibbit. Its official name was St. Philip Neri’s, but it was known as Tibbit’s after its first headmaster. Her history of the school, derived from interviewing a wide selection of old boys, is an affectionate and hugely entertaining account of an eccentric establishment. All seven Roberts boys were sent there. One of them, Fabian, hunted with the Ooty (see, Tally Ho!). At least one other old boy is a household name. I am sure you would enjoy it. It’s the sort of book that my grandmother would have described as “killing, simply killing”.
My memories of Castle Park, Dalkey, Co. Dublin are not so happy. The headmaster was small of stature and socially insecure. This was exacerbated by my sister mistaking him for the school gardener and tipping him when he helped lift my trunk into the car. At that age I could not cope with sarcasm, although he gave me plenty of opportunity to learn. I found him most intimidating.
The rest of the staff, however, were rather good and usually easy to get on with. The classrooms were in a prefabricated pavilion built for the Irish International Exhibition held in Dublin in 1907. There were folding doors that could be opened for assemblies and school plays. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement but it was still there in the 1960s. Not many boys went to English public schools. St. Colomba’s was their usual destination, not a school for the faint-hearted in those days, in the Wicklow Mountains.
Our “sister” school was Hillcourt. An annual humiliation was a hockey match against them. They were beef to the heels like a Mullingar heifer, older and earlier developers. After our shins had been hacked mercilessly our captain had to present their Amazonian leader with a box of chocolates. An early introduction to the unfairness one encounters in this world.
The grounds and playing fields were extensive although they probably seemed bigger to a child. The view across Dublin Bay to Malahide remains with me, perhaps because of the glimpse of unattainable freedom it offered. Now the school is co-ed and doesn’t take boarders and much of the land has been sold to developers for housing. The school motto is mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a healthy body). I’m surprised Evelyn Waugh didn’t think of that for Llanabba Castle school.
I have fond memories of Brackenber, my prep school in Belfast now, alas, swept away for housing.
Mr Craig, our headmaster, was Brackenber personified; he even lived on the top storey.
I was fond of Mr Sheehan, a rather vulnerable gentleman: tall, very lean, and of a nervous disposition.
The boys took advantage of him mercilessly, occasionally. For instance, a Parker pen was once secreted inside his jacket pocket; the owner exclaimed that his pen was missing; then asked Mr Sheehan if it was on his person.
Of course this caused much mirth to us, and embarrassment to him.
Our uniform was scarlet in colour, from the little peaked caps to the grey and scarlet socks. We must have stuck out like sore thumbs in Belfast during the height of The Troubles.
Thank you for the book recommendation: it sounds marvellous and I shall certainly seek out a copy…