The COVID-19 pandemic had led to the lockdown of March 2020 with all the Class of 55 old enough to be in the high risk category and confined to barracks. The restrictions were gradually lifted during the summer holiday breaks and other ravel continued to be restricted. Clearly this has led to some of us getting back into the nostalgia business with the added “never had it so good” theme to the fore notwithstanding the restrictions, shortages, unemployment, global recession and incompetent world leaders reigning in the current era. Martin Farrell set it off with an innocent nostalgia thread to recall the 60 years since the “O” level leavers moved on from the college. In what followed, we were soon into dress sense issues, medical conditions, cross country running, local pubs, and a slight undercurrents of non-PC bias.

The thread runs like this

Sixty years’ ago, give or take a week, some twenty or so of Wimbledon College’s Class of ’55 crew abandoned ship, or were set adrift, and set off into uncharted waters to seek new adventures.  They left behind Saturday morning school, ferulas, homework, examinations, uniforms and compulsory sport.  What they also left behind were the long holidays; two weeks’ annual leave being the norm in the early 60’s.

Of course what they didn’t realise was that, for many jobs, evening classes/correspondence courses and examinations were still required.  What’s more, most employers had dress codes.  As an aside, part of the induction course at one of my employers was the requirement to read an ancient lever arch file entitled “Instructions for Procedure”.  Many of the pages were stamped “Canceled” but those for the dress code still applied.  This included the need to wear jackets if braces were worn, that linen jackets were permissible if one was working overtime on a Saturday morning and that  ties were to be worn at all times except at the discretion of the manager in hot weather.  One of my managers took the attitude that, until he felt the need to remove his tie, the staff would wear theirs.  On one really hot day, despite our pleas, he refused to let us take off our ties.  As a result, when he was at lunch, we closed the door to his office and put on some electric heaters.  When he returned, he realised that something was afoot but refused to surrender and sat there all afternoon with sweat running down his face.  Female staff were not subject to quite the same sort of restrictions and the dress code finally died the death when hotpants were the rage for the young ladies in the office.  However, not working on a Saturday and having to do sport that you didn’t want to do was a bonus – did anyone really enjoy running around Wimbledon Common in vest and shorts in freezing fog?

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be!

I hope that you are all keeping well in these strange times.

Martin Farrell 25 July 2020

I hated sport then, all my life and still do now.

After I left the college I went to a school in India and the sport fixation was even worse there!

Dress code is a form of imperialism!…remember….Black Ties Matter!

Bernie Edwards 25 July 2020

all very SW19  –  just think, if we’d gone to Stoneyhurst or some other northern beat-the-boys establishment instead of Wimbledon, our memoirs would be more like the attachment  –  or link as here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k if the attachment’s too big.  Of course, we were lucky!

I think that the “lucky” few who had to endure a further 2 or more Jaystalking years probably did have it easier when we eventually emerged into the unreal world of work, largely because the Beatles had rocketed us out of those grey postwar 50s into  swinging Inga-land (I always assumed they had met Inga whilst rocking around Hamburg’s red-light district, and thought her a very good idea indeed to import into Liverpool).

Hotpants in the office!  Hrrhmph!  I do remember though that Carnaby Street’s and King’s Road’s finest, though cool by definition, didn’t always lead to cooler (temperature) office wear, tight flares could become very uncomfortable, and my flared, loud-checked, double-breasted 100% wool 3-piece suits worn with raised sole high-heeled knee-length leather boots didn’t need any radiator support to have me sweating all day.

As for cross-country, my breath always came in short pants anyway  –  but I think the freezing fog was a bonus, because Fr Bermingham always disappeared to the nearest pub, probably the King of Denmark, and we could equally disappear into the fog and return with all sorts of excuses for not completing the full course.

Keep well, everyone, especially those benefiting from whatever constitutional Amendment allows you to have tattoos, kneel on (diverse) necks and attend triumphalist rallies at will, in the Land of the Me First.

Black Wives Natter

Gavin Taylor 25 July 2020

Dear Everyone,   And the Four Yorkshire men thought that they had it hard! 

Peter Ashby 26 July 2020

I have to say that the mental picture that you conjured up with your description of your flared trousers etc. quite put me off my breakfast!

Martin Farrell 27 July 2020

,Martin’s fascinating clothes story, and the sweating consequences, reminded me of my own story as I burst out of Wimbledon College into the wider world needing some more clothes before beginning Uni at Sussex. In a side street around the Wimbledon shopping area, I found a promising mens’ clothes store. They had, shining from the rack, a thick, black plastic crocodile shirt. It looked so great and wild! Just the thing for Uni! And a nostalgic connection with my African past and the crocodiles in the Hunyani River–the boundary of my uncle and aunt’s property in Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia.

When I tried on the crocodile shirt, it looked fabulous. The greatest thing of all–it crinkled as you walked. So it had pride of place, the very top of my suitcase, when I travelled to Brighton to begin Uni. In Orientation week there was a Ball in the University Hall. So the black, crocodile shirt was quickly put on. It was a great esteem-builder for ten minutes. Then, being thick plastic and not breathing, the sweat poured from me.

There was nothing for it but to excuse myself from the lady I was with every ten minutes or so to hurry to the toilet to take off the terrible shirt and throw water over my sweating body. I left the Ball, it was impossible to stay.

What a disaster! Crocodile shirts are out forevermore! But still, the story brings annoying joy to a good friend as he reminds of it frequently, to gales of his laughter.

Shaun Lennon 28 July 2020

Foots-achey, man! as I am sure you used to say phonetically, (very relevant to me right now, as I have Plantar Fasciitis), my 3rd grand-daughter has just graduated from Sussex, I’ll have to check to see if your crocodile shirt is still a legend there, or maybe a grim warning!

Gavin Taylor 28 July 2020

Are those of you who left in 1960 aware that that summer a new Head, Gus Manners, took over from Iggy, and at Christmas that year scrapped Saturday morning school? I for one was delighted – but then in all my time at the College I was exempt from all PE, games and sport because of my eye problems, so I had always had the luxury of going home after lunch on Wednesdays and Saturdays. But don’t be jealous – all of that probably accounts for my general lack of physical fitness ever since.

Greg Brooks 3 Aug 2020

I was aware that Saturday morning school was abolished at some time after I left but not that it was so shortly after.  I knew too that, at some time later, ferulas were also abolished.  Maybe if the College had dome both a lot earlier, I might not have been quite so happy to leave.  However, the memories of both still give me a reason to grumble about how the youth of today don’t realise how lucky thy are.

Martin Farrell 3 Aug 2020

This is the general picture about the abolition of corporal punishment in schools inthe UK (from Wikipedia):

In state-run schools, and in private schools where at least part of the funding came from government, corporal punishment was outlawed by the British Parliament in 1986, following a 1982 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that such punishment could not be administered without parental consent, and that a child’s “right to education” could not be infringed by suspending children who, with parental approval, refused to submit to corporal punishment. In other private schools, it was banned in 1998 (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland) and 2003 (Northern Ireland). 

When my older son entered Reading School in 1984 Iwrote to the school forbidding them to administer any corporal punishment to him. By the time my younger son entered in 1986 this was no longer necessary. According to the 2nd edition of the Wimbledon College history (p.224), the ferula was abolished during Michael Smith’s headship (1985-95). Given the date of the general change in the law, he must have done this as soon as he got the job. You’d have had a long wait …

Greg Brooks 4 Aug 2020

Whilst reminiscing about the fact that I left the College some 60 years’ ago, it brought back memories of what happened in the following months.

I had always thought that a career in chemistry would be an interesting one and, turning down the Careers Master’s (Fr. Hamer?) suggestion that I went to work for Boots in Nottingham as I had never lived away from home before and Nottingham was terra incognita as far as I was concerned, I ended up as a laboratory assistant at the Merton Board Mills in Colliers Wood.  As a trainee, I was encouraged to study for an ONC in Chemistry with the subsidiary subjects of physics and mathematics.  The courses were held at Ewell Technical College and the courses were held on two evenings a week plus a whole day on the Wednesday.  At my first evening class and at the following day’s classes, when the lecturer entered the room, I stood up, the only student to do so, which puzzled me until I realised that the normal thing to do was to ignore the arrival of the lecturer until he asked for our attention.  Similarly, when I received back my first homework submission on which I had written A.M.D.G. at the start and L.D.S. at the end, there were red rings around both with a comment along the lines of “what the **** is this?”.  In fact, it was some time before the automatic impulse to stand up when the lecturer entered the room finally disappeared.

P.S. I only lasted 6 months before I realised that a career in chemistry, at least that one, was not for me.  However, it did give me a fund of anecdotes for my later years.

Martin Farrell 7 Aug 2020

This prompted advice from our in-house medic

I’ve been trying it and she’s right about the mornings after a busy night`s testing! Hope you and yours are all well.

Peter Ashby 29 October 2020