The London Water Closet

Just in case you did not know, I went to a slightly posh public (i.e. private) school called Lord Wandsworth College.

 

  
Little Lord Wandsworth 

Had a college in Hants.

He had silken trousers

And marble pants.

  

Although the front gates look absurdly pretentious, the reality is that going to LWC in the 1970s was a pretty horrible experience. The food was awful, as school food usually is, I hated competitive sport (and there was plenty of that) and the college was way out in the countryside, miles from anywhere. My mother could never have afforded the outrageous school fees, but my father (a headmaster) had died when I was about four years old and so I was given a free place. I suppose that I ought to feel grateful for this wonderful opportunity, except that it was not so wonderful. It was a lonely, boring and unhappy experience and I was glad when it was over. First, there were two awful years at Junior House, aka Colditz. I am going to write about J.H. in a separate post.

 

Like POW camps, boarding schools also tend to produce a dreadful, black humour. When Benjie, the headmaster's dog, was run over by a delivery lorry, on the same day a strange kind of beef burger appeared in the school cafeteria and this new meaty treat was nicknamed "the Benjie burger".

 

 

My brother Andrew has insisted that Benjie was the canine companion of a strangely-named French teacher, Mr. Dalzell-Payne, but I had been in the Music School at the time, with the rest of my class, and we saw the whole encounter with the delivery truck and the dead dog being put into the sack. In any case, the Frog teacher's dog was called "Spencer". 

  

Do I have any other memories of LWC? Alas, I have hardly any photos of my years there.

 

In the "cubes"

 

What a dreadful photo of me with my mouth open! This was taken in the Lower Sixth "cubes" at Sutton House. These were the cubicles or the "study bedrooms" that were little more than prefab sheds. In my memory, the long years at LWC mostly consisted of boredom, with plenty of grey, cold and rather wet afternoons when I was waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did. I suppose that I must have done quite a lot of studying, although really it was because there was nothing else to do. Weekends were particularly long and dreary. It was almost a pleasure when Monday morning came round. 

 

 

I hated going to the chapel services on Sunday mornings in the ugly and angular Gavin Hall, as the services were always long, dull and (of course) compulsory. I thought at the time, and I still think now, that there is no quicker way to discourage any teenager from taking an interest in the Christian faith than to make attendance at church services compulsory.

   

It's a radiogram, not a coffin

   
After my two years at Junior House, which in many ways was a bit like a prep school, I went with my fellow-sufferers to the main school, where my boarding house was Sutton. At Sutton House, we quite literally lived in a barn, as part of the complex of buildings was an old tithe barn, complete with the most impressive wooden beams that probably dated back to the Middle Ages. The central heating system for Sutton House also seemed to date from the Medieval period. The splendid high roof of the barn was particularly good at letting out all of the heat in the coldest months of the year. 

  

So if I hated the place so much, why am I writing about LWC, aka the London Water Closet? Why was I so pleased to join the WhatsApp group for the LWC class of '77? (Yes, 1977. That is when I finally left the august portal of Lord W.) 

    

The Lower and Upper Sixth were not quite so dreadful, I suppose, and at last I could indulge my mental curiosity with the academic subjects that I found interesting: History and Latin. Unfortunately, I also had to do a third subject and chose English Literature, when I think that I ought to have done French "A" level instead. Yes, it was quite interesting to get WhatsApp messages from people I have not seen or spoken to for so long, my contemporaries and fellow-sufferers. Yes, I am planning to go to the 50th anniversary reunion next year.

    

While we are on the subject of schools, I must tell you this good joke about Putin. It is the kind of dark, black humour that is common in Eastern Europe, as well as in boarding schools. (My dear wife was NOT happy when I told her this joke.)

   

Putin visits a Russian school and he says to the children, “Do you have any questions?”

A little girl puts up her hand.

Putin says, “What is your name?”

The girl says, “My name is Maria and I want to ask why Russia started a war with Ukraine. I also want to know why this war has gone on for five years.”

At that moment, the lunch bell rings, so Putin does not answer.

After lunch, Putin says to the children, “Now I must go back to Moscow, but maybe someone would like to ask a question.”

A little boy puts up his hand.

Putin says, “And what is your question?”

The little boy says, “Why did Russia invade Ukraine? And why has this war gone on for five years? Why did the lunch bell ring twenty minutes earlier than usual? And where is Maria?”