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AT break time one morning, we were summoned to go into the hall urgently for an announcement by the headmaster, and I remember the feeling that something was seriously wrong. A silent gathering in a hall advised us of the death of King George VI. I remember a personal sense almost of relief, as I had feared a drama closer to home. Like the death of Kennedy in later years, it was one of those things that happen when we all remember exactly what we were doing when we learned that the King had died. The same with less trauma was hearing of the death of Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator.
In 1950 I arrived at College as a boarder at College House. There were about 12 of us in the 1st year junior dormitory, mostly 12 and 13-year-olds, lost in the new environment. At some stage in that first term some middle dormitory of 14 and 15-year-olds took us juniors into their confidence and said that we were sworn to secrecy but from the middle landing we could crawl out over a lower roof, and when we got to the end of that lower roof we would be able to look straight into the maids’ bathroom in the parallel wing. Feeling immensely privileged that these ‘senior boys’ were sharing their secret with us, a number of the juniors, with the hall light switched off, assembled on the landing to crawl out over the lower roof. All after lights out, all in pyjamas, only some with dressing gowns, crawled out, lying on the roof with their elbows hitched went over the top, when suddenly there was a bang and the landing window was closed and locked. Immediately all the lights that had been switched off in College House came on again to show loads of seniors hanging out of various windows offering unhelpful advice to the stranded juniors. Of course one could hardly wait to pull the same trick on the next generation of first year juniors.