So I never left school

Presidents Piece

My old school held an open day and exhibition in honour of one of its old boys, Albert Ball, who won a posthumous VC in the first world war and for being the face of a 70p stamp that honoured the highest medal for valour that the country has. Albert Ball is not really my kind of hero but he was the only one the school had for a long time until they taught Prince Obelensky to play rugby and he then performed for England.
In my day, the school was not really a fount of academic excellence - anyone who gained more than three ‘O’ levels were garlanded with the metaphorical laurel. We were certainly short of heroes but the grounds were beautiful and we played games every afternoon. We had no alternative to the monastic way of life of a boys boarding school but we all seemed to survive it and could honestly say that what life offered afterwards - even in the army - was not as demanding as it had been there.
Going back there after nearly fifty years, was quite an experience. Now it is a good school catering for boys and girls and only a few of them board. Most start their schooling there in the Nursery which takes children from the age of three - no more Common Entrance exam at thirteen! There are new buildings everywhere and it is more like a University campus than a school. Notice boards are digital flat screen monitors posted all around the buildings. ‘ McNeile report to the Head’ would be a very public written request and not a sniggering message from a fag.
The grounds are still there - all forty acres of them with cricket fields and arboreta that haven’t changed a dot since I was last bowled out for a duck and lost the match for the school. The splendid fascia of the main building at the end of the long drive hasn’t changed either though inside it is full of fire doors
I suppose that is what keeps me so attached to the old place. It hasn’t changed and yet it has. The school is modern and successful and it has moved with the times and improved as it went along - and yet for me it was almost the same with all the old memories and the corridors filled with the ghosts of familiar friends and times. I used to look back at those days with a healthy contempt but I realise now how important they were to me - and if I had looked at my books instead of out of the window, who knows?
I realise too that the school was more than a physical place in the days of my childhood - I have carried it and its value patterns with me ever since. It has made me a survivor in one way or another.
Maybe I developed there a spiritual independence too. Sometimes it takes a long time to realise these things but then it is never too late.

best wishes
tony mcneile