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Reminiscences - Roger de Carteret

It is said that in the evening of life it is the memories of the earlier years which come back most vividly, so it rather looks as if I am only halfway through the afternoon. Certainly the details of my school life are jumbled together in my memory, and need some work to disentangle them.
 
I went to Prep in 1953, Coronation Year, in Miss Aubrey's form, and was sometimes taught by Miss Casmir, who I found rather strict. The Headmaster was Mr Thorne, Mr Tostevin joining the school only in my last year or so.
Mr Marks - father of Dr Michael Marks -was deputy head, and I also remember Major Hayward, Mr Phelps, A.B. Jolley and a Mr Renouf who came to school in a Rolls Royce. This was not long after the Second World War, and the houses were named after war leaders - to my shame I cannot remember which one I was in.
 
The building was, of course, the old Mount Pleasant House. PT was, I think, in the College gym, and even further up the hill the College Scout hut was used as two classrooms for the older boys After I left the new building was constructed on what had been the junior playground. By chance I went to an open day recently as my son starts there in September.
 
Again my memories of College are a jumble, of people and faces and events and of successes and failures. I was present on one of the famous occasions when Reg Nicolle flung a table across the long diagonal of the gym at a boy who had annoyed him. That would create a stir nowdays. He used to roar out - I'm sure we sometimes heard him down at the Prep - "You may have medals across your chest, and GCE certificates as long as your arm, but its no bloody use if you can't hang on" .
 
I remember Gloop - M.C.Green - whose dog in my day was called Butch. He didn't get much maths into my thick skull, but he did fire my interest in Jersey history and in the features and beauties of this island, and for that I have always been grateful. I went to his funeral at St John's Church, and was pleased to see others there who like me had been inspired by him.
 
"Dixie" Landick tried to teach me French, and led what I think was the first College ski trip - we went to Konigsee in Bavaria under the eye of Hitler's Eagle's nest. A.B. Harris was my geography teacher, and for a while my housemaster (Sartorious), and he brought his subject vividly to life not least with the colour slides of his own travels. He became a friend later in life, and only died two or three years ago. There was Captain "Paddy" Blomfield, who had two canes (the "Persuader" and the "Convincer"), and who long after schoolmastering married Matron, Miss Trachy.
 
All of my generation will remember Colonel Finch, (Fash) whose military career ( it was said in school that at one time he had been the youngest colonel in the British Army) had left him somewhat battered and bombastic, and whose proud boast it was that he at least "unlike you lot" had a certificate to say he wasn't mad. I have seen him in anger taking a boy to the Head by the ear, toes only sometimes touching the ground. Don't know if the boy came to any harm - Steve Regal is now a prominent businessman and head of the Jewish Congregation in Jersey. Much later I found that, if you needed advice or help, behind the bombast those qualities were available in good measure. Fash's time in the CCF (Combined Cadet Force) was brief and over long before I joined, and it was always said that was because there had been some unhappiness because he had used Western Desert tactics in one of Colonel Eden's set-piece Field Day battles!
 
Lt Colonel Eden (vice-principal and head of physics) was commanding officer whilst I was in the unit, and Captain Hamon was second in command. The RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major) was Mr Frank Mustow, a retired Royal Marine who had served on Artic convoys in the War. The Shooting Team, under Col Eden and Mr Mustow, was particularly strong in my day, and mention must also be made of Neville Barker, a retired architect who spent much of his time coaching the teams and tuning the rifles.
 
The Chaplain was the Reverend Basil Ford, two of whose sons were in the school. I believe he went to New Zealand. Later we had the Reverend Mr Thacker, a former Rector of St Peter. A mild and almost timid man, until the leathers and the crash hat went on and he left on his BMW. Remember that this was at a time when the BMW was a connisseurs rather than a poseurs machine.

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