Prose

‘MY AMPLEFORTH YEARS 2: Four Years and one Term’

It was the beginning of the summer term, 1952. Bruno was now thirteen and a half years old, and was going up to A. College, Yorkshire, to try for a scholarship there. He was still at his Prep School in Oxford, where he lived, and had never yet in his life stayed in a school as a boarder. It had always been his ambition to escape from home and its unnecessary chores, and this was his chance. He was determined to do his best, and he hoped.

The journey up to the school was a long one. The train part of it alone took some six hours or more, and had it not been that his father was coming with him, so as to see what the school was like, he would have been thoroughly dispirited long before his arrival. Towards four o’clock in the afternoon they reached York, where they were dexterously met at the station by one of the Brothers from the school. He took them to Terry’s, where they all had tea, before catching the Reliance bus to the school. During tea, as during the journey by bus to the school, Bruno delved as deeply as he could into the school statistics: how many candidates were usually expected, how many awards there were, and whether, as not having passed through the school’s own prep-department, he stood much of a chance. To all these questions the Brother answered as well as he could, without either revealing too much or too little: he was helpful, and extremely friendly, giving Bruno, and his father too, a sound boost in morale. Thanks to his statistics, however, Bruno was already feeling just that little bit unsure of himself, just that little bit more uncertain than ever that he would gain an award.

When they arrived at the school, Bruno’s father went on to the village, about half a mile further, where he was staying for the night, while Bruno, escorted and guarded by good Brother D., was shown to the Headmaster’s room. He was introduced, and left with the headmaster for a few minutes. Bruno’s first impression of the Head, who was to be his ruler for only two years of his school career – when he died of a heart attack – was that of awe, unfeigned. The noble monk soon comforted him, however, in his famous and charming way, giving Bruno back his lost confidence and welcoming him to the school. He was perhaps the greatest headmaster the school had ever had; he came of a very old family, he stood some six and a half foot high, with thin and straggling, but fine, silvery hair. His face was deeply furrowed with the years, his voice was strong and powerful, yet still retaining a certain softness, in harmony with his austere but all-friendly mien. After a few brief words of encouragement, Bruno was told where he would be staying while trying for an award; he then left the room, again under the guiding influence of Brother D.. He was taken to the school Infirmary, where several other possible candidates for the forthcoming exams were already assembled. There he was to pass the night, and for his meals he was to go up to one of the outer houses, St. Edward’s.

Bruno was considerably bewildered for a while, especially by the alien influence of the other boys staying in the same, large-sized ward. They spent their whole time talking shop – which considerably distressed him. They kept on mentioning names he had never heard of, talking of different systems of essay writing he had never heard of either, and then going into minute details over some quaint mathematical theorems which, similarly, he did not so much as know existed.

Later that evening there was an interview for everyone, and Bruno had to submit to the ordeal. This meant waiting for about half an hour in front of the headmaster’s room, while everyone else had his turn: Bruno, owing to an alphabetical system that does not need further going into, came at the end of the list … and so he had to wait until last. Eventually his turn came. He went in, and was told to take a pew by the Headmaster himself. On either side of the Headmaster sat several other masters, but as yet they kept quiet: the Headmaster was the first to start interrogating him. The questions were simple enough, at first: how long had he been learning this? how long had he been learning that? was he any good at this? – for a hint had been dropped somewhere that he was not (this must have been mathematics). Then he was shown a sheet of paper, covered over in neat handwriting: did he think it was good or bad? and why did he think so? Bruno thought it was beautiful writing, and gave his reasons – it was all sloping the same way, it was well spaced, and so on. The Headmaster asked him several times if he was certain it was good. Bruno insisted it was. About a term later, when he was in the school, he discovered that the sheet he had been shown was a model done by the master in charge of handwriting in the school – and was therefore meant to be perfect, flawless. More questions were put, and then by the other masters present. He claimed to be able to speak tolerable French, and so had to answer questions and converse in French for about five minutes: what French books, if any, had he read? when was Notre Dame built? and to this question Bruno answered quite wildly – for he frankly did not know: he supposed it must have been built well over a hundred years now, perhaps a bit before Napoleon’s time? Everyone laughed hilariously, except Bruno, who was somewhat mystified. Eventually the ordeal was over, and he bolted off to bed.

He had his first written papers on the following morning … and they did not seem unnecessarily impossible, except for the maths paper, which he could hardly do more than look at, and put his name at the top afterwards! They sat the exams in the school gymnasium, which was large and airy, and struck Bruno then as incredibly well-equipped: the whole place was littered with metal cross-struts, with wooden beams, vaulting horses, and innumerable piles of horse-hair mats; and, of course, at every step one’s head caught on a hanging rope and sharp hooks.

What struck Bruno most in the school was its size, the cleaness, the height of the boys, their what seemed to be good manners, and the apparently marvellous meals.

The school was certainly fairly large. There were some four hundred and eighty boys, divided up into eight houses, four of them being embodied within the actual main school buildings, and the other four being separate, or ‘outer’ houses. In each house there were about a dozen monitors, or prefects, and they seemed to be able to do practically anything with their juniors … which, however, they always appeared to do in a most gentlemanly way. Speaking of size, the school buildings themselves seemed interminable. There was a theatre, alone as big as Bruno’s own Prep School in Oxford, a gymnasium of about the same size, countless still inexplicable outer buildings … such as garages, refectories, laboratories and store rooms. Then, a big surprise, there was an outdoor bathing pool, about three hundred yards away from the main buildings, down in the valley. Here Bruno swam in the sultry afternoon, and enjoyed himself: he also caught a wonderful cold, though it only revealed itself when Bruno arrived home again, after the exams were over. The school straggled untidily along the side of a steep hill, and he was told that it was miles from one end to the other: in fact it was half a mile. Everywhere there were hills: behind the school, on the left of the school, and on the other side of the valley, opposite the school: only on the right were there no immediate hills, which was a slight relief. So much for the school: it was indisputably vast, far larger than Bruno had ever dreamt a school could be; it was atrociously planned, and every separate piece of building was of a totally different style – as far as he could see, ranging from two outer houses, like a soap factory in shape and colour, to a neo-gothic, or pseudo-gothic church. Some buildings were elegant, others propped up on every side: some were pale yellow, others almost black: they seemed to present an unanswerable charivaria of loosely-knit boxes and lumps, with innumerable tall chimneys, from which unseemly wreaths of dense black smoke were for ever emerging.

Inside the school there was an exquisite, but too highbrow-looking, library, and everywhere the floors were of brilliantly-polished wooden blocks, over which it called for the greatest effort to walk in anything approaching safety. Besides the immaculate floors, and what struck Bruno just as delightfully, were wooden lockers, wooden desks and tables, all of some quaint, rustic design, all in oak, solid and massive, with a touch of local beauty and age. This woodwork, which could be found all over the school – and especially in the school library – was made by a local craftsman, from the village of Kilburn. Bruno later discovered that he was called Thompson, and ran under the symbol of a wooden mouse: he also discovered that some of England’s greatest cathedrals were furnished in part with this particular type of work, which had earned their designer great fame. Thompson of Kilburn was to die four years later, towards the end of Bruno’s career at A. College, at a time when his woodwork was so well-known that it was proving impossible for the school to continue buying it, so high had the price soared since Thompson had started out as an unknown village artisan.

Another, more frightening aspect of the school was the boys who inhabited it: most of them seemed to be outsized giants, hairy, powerfully built, towering away into the heights above. Most of them also appeared to have the best of manners: whenever they happened to knock someone smaller than themselves flying, at one of the many sharp and unexpected corners in which the school abounded, they would offer at least a passing word of apology, which struck Bruno as very much the thing.

Finally, whenever he had his meals, he took them up at St. Edward’s, one of the outer houses – linked with St. Wilfrid’s – and it was this joint that provided the soapbox effect. The house refectory was panelled on three sides, the other side looking out over the valley, and consisting of plain glass. It, too, was a highly polished room, gleaming all over, spotless, and smelless. The meals were, if not over-abundant, at least of good quality; when Bruno later joined the school, he went to St. Oswald’s where, on the contrary, the food was abundant but the quality questionable. Here there seemed to be lettuce with every meal, ham, and many tomatoes: maybe this could be accounted for as it was then the summer term, when the school menus always suffered a slight alteration – the only one in the year.

Bruno sat his exams, and then went home again, pondering over his many probable mistakes, and over the terrible maths paper. He had enjoyed his visit to such a vast and preposessing establishment, where central-heating and gleaming vistas of untarnished woodwork graced the bare and austere surroundings of bleak moors and grey morning mists: he had seen a little more of the unknown world; he had discovered the existence of unheard of giants, of a courteous and vigilant discipine.

Four years and one term: the diary