William Ellis School’s insignia is an oak tree, under which is the scrolled motto ‘Rather Use Than Fame’. We took great trouble to change it at every opportunity to ‘Rather Uxx Than xxme’ with the quick touch of a marker pen. There were houses to which we were all assigned, but this side of school life never took hold of me, and the loyalties to the house, which I’m sure assume importance at boarding school, never materialized.
One thing we did have an abundance of was teacher personalities. Our headmaster, Mr Baxter, was an affable, good-natured man who was more inclined to think well of someone than not. He lived locally, walked to school, and must have slept soundly most nights, happy in the knowledge that he nurtured a healthy atmosphere at school in which the majority of pupils obtained the best results from their work under his well-oiled academic umbrella. In fact, in my final year over 90% of the students secured places at universities.
Mr Armit (nicknamed Armpit) was the vice principal and our imaginations ran riot over which vices he was principal of. His subject was mathematics and he ruled with an iron will, which actually led to a surprising respect being generated amongst his classes. Of all the teachers, I think he had the balance of authority, discipline and kid gloves just about right.
Mr Wren was a Divinity teacher and had an extremely absent upper lip, which gave him the appearance of constantly whispering to himself. In fact, several of my class mates had great difficulty deciphering what he was saying, and looks of bewilderment would spread around the class as he opened his Bible at a designated place and expected us to follow suit. He had an obsession with fresh air and would have Ackerman, a lazy pupil, opening and closing a window for several minutes until he was satisfied at the angle of aperture through which the wonderful air of Hampstead Heath could enter and waft into our lungs.
Mr Marsh taught French and had a good sense of humour, so I enjoyed French lessons and looked forward to them. He would set translations to be done during class, which he would supervise with his glasses perched well down on his nose, so that he could keep a beady eye on us all while he marked papers. Marsh stopped me in the corridor after my ‘A’ levels had started, to tell me how disappointed he was not to find me in his French class.
Mr Browne taught English and I have the feeling that he and Marsh were friends, as they were similar souls. Browne also expressed dismay to me on learning that I was not to be one of his ‘A’ level students. Under pressure from parents and other teachers, I had been streamed into Science rather than the Arts, and I hadn’t thought to object. This streaming took place after ‘O’ levels at the age of sixteen, and unless you had a strong desire to pursue a particular career path, you could easily be directed by your elders.
Mr Smith hailed from Scotland and took over Mr Browne’s English class. He was very entertaining and would take great pleasure in awarding lines instead of detentions, which he would deliver in the following manner: ‘I must endeavour to remember not to show disrespect to dear, kind, exceedingly fair Mr Smith during his English classes, which I have the honour of attending, and, in my ignorance, I probably do not appreciate … fully.’
The rest of the class would groan and applaud during this recitation, which some poor unfortunate would have to copy down and then repeat back to make sure it had all been correctly recorded. It was normally Ackerman who hadn’t taken it down correctly, which would lead to the whole sketch being repeated and the number of lines doubled.
Doctor Prinz was an Austrian music teacher who was genuinely intimidating and could be quite frightening. Everyone dreaded his music classes except those who showed talent for an instrument. These fortunate few were favoured by Herr Doctor and sat permanently self-satisfied at the front, as Prinz meted out his terror on the rest of us, generally with a ruler in his hands, which he would alternately use as a baton and/or a palm slapper. The music classes were held in a newly-constructed annexe to the main school building, nicknamed Colditz, which added to our anxieties as we filed into his room’s chilly atmosphere. It is surprising that, given such an introduction to music, I should find myself occupied with it for so much of my life. I remember one Prinz class in which we were cross-examined by him as to why we weren’t learning an instrument. My parents had expressed to him an interest in my taking up the clarinet and Prinz interrogated me.
‘Vy do you not vant to learn ze clarinet? Mark my vords, in your future lives, you vill all regret not taking more interest in my classes.’
Aggie Clough was the Botany mistress and took great interest in me due to my ability to accurately draw most things that were put in front of me. This led to some teachers sitting for me for sketches to appear in our school newspaper, which I remember as a strange experience. It was as if there had been a weird reversal of roles, as I was the one with the power, asking them to sit still or turn in a certain way. Aggie Clough retired whilst I was still at William Ellis, and I was sad to see her go, as she really encouraged my interest in Botany. This was rewarded with an A grade both at ‘A’ and ‘S’ levels. She then tried very hard to get me to apply to study mycology (mushrooms and toadstools) at Wye College, Kent, which would have led, no doubt, to a completely different life to the one I’m writing about now.
Mr Pond taught Zoology and would pontificate on the subject, rather as if he were lecturing a group of army cadets. On the subject of sex he was particularly po-faced:
‘Just remember to get as much practice in as you can before you get around to procreating.’
Mr Barker’s subject was Latin and Mrs Malaprop would have been proud of him. He roared in and out of school on his motorbike and taught like an angry lion. Our Latin class was usually the last of the day, and after putting the fear of God into us for forty minutes, we would wait and watch by the windows until we could hear him roar off, signalling that it was safe enough for us to leave the building ourselves. Barker was a crack shot with the blackboard duster and we were surprised at Ackerman’s ability to survive so many direct hits. That said, we were in awe of Barker. We secretly admired him and the power he had over the whole school.
Mr Harris was the youngest of my teachers and I’m indebted to him, not for his expertise in teaching Chemistry, but for his awakening in me a love of cinema. All boys studying for their ‘O’ levels had to attend General Studies classes in an attempt to widen their knowledge and appreciation of culture. Amongst the choices on offer, Harris took one on contemporary cinema. At the end of the first class, he recommended Viridiana by Luis Buñuel, which was being shown at the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead. Curious, I went along to see it and was won over immediately. In fact, I cried with rage at the end of the film, which portrays a beautiful young nun providing refuge to beggars and cripples, only to be horribly raped by them at the end of a drunken dinner she treats them to. Harris was surprised that someone had bothered to go see the film, and we developed a rapport that I was sad to leave behind when he, and then I, left the school.
Harris was extremely easy to bait. Once in the hot summer weather, he berated us for our lack of respect towards the school uniform when we turned up for class without ties. Our response was for each of us to attend his next class wearing a different but gaudy tie. He was put out by this, but was also unable to keep a straight face. He would leave us busy building a chemical garden and return to find frothing vats close to explosion after inappropriate cocktails of chemicals had been mixed in his absence. Later, he won respect from us all when it became school gossip that he was having a thing with the very attractive young French language assistant, Mademoiselle Roux, whom the whole school was in love with, including me.
So, alphabetically by subject, here’s my report:
Biology – Pond: top value entertainment. Each class was approached like an army exercise, complete with Sergeant Major voice. Definitely took the piss out of himself;
Botany – Clough: very sweet lady, good at nurturing talent, despite an annoying accent from the Black Country, which made double periods very hard going;