Mash

Why do we give nicknames to people and to things? Is it because we have affection for them, we love them, or is it because we do not like them and maybe we are even afraid of them? Is a nickname a way to make something smaller, less frightening? During the Second World War, Londoners called the V1s “buzz bombs”, while Americans have “Old Sparky”, aka the electric chair. At the London Water Closet, we had “Mash”.

Why was the headmaster, C.A.N. Henderson, nicknamed “Mash”? I never found out during my seven-years-and-a-term at LWC. Something to do with potatoes? Or an American TV comedy series about an Army medical unit? Or silly pop song about Dracula and various monsters? 

As I have mentioned before, schoolboys have a cruel sense of humour. A colleague once told me that one of his teachers had been called "Notch", as he had been involved in a tragic accident. A pram had come speeding down a hill, right in front of his car, so his students joked that he had carved a notch on the steering wheel. 

In his piece about Mash in The Sower, Malcolm Reynes does not give us the origin of the head’s nickname. On the other hand, Malcolm does not give us very much – hardly anything, in fact – because The Sower was (and probably still is) the school’s official magazine, propaganda, so do not expect any deep questions or honest criticism.

I don’t agree with private education. Yes, when I was a teacher, I spent about forty years in private schools around the world, so I can understand why you might think me the biggest of hypocrites.Yes, I do agree with the importance of education, but if private education is any good, then the benefits should be available to all children. Whether or not their parents can afford the eye-watering school fees should not be part of the discussion.

Many doctors work in private hospitals. Why? Because they want medical attention to be denied to sick patients who do not have any money? No, because they want the best for their patients and it is better that some patients receive good treatment than none at all. Half a loaf is better than no bread, whether the slices are medical or educational. 

But is the education on offer in private schools always (or very often) better than what is available at state-funded schools? I do not know, but it certainly was different. Whether "different" always means "better" is a moot point, I would say.

Anyway, let’s get back to Mash and Malcolm Reynes’s write-up. Malcolm mentions two causes or philosophies that C.A.N.H. held dear, the first being “muscular Christianity”. Well, if that means lots of team sports and a compulsory church service for the boarders (but, of course, not for the day boys), then I think I am an agnostic or even an atheist.

Another facet of “muscular Christianity” might have been “Pot”, aka C.F.C., the Combined Cadet Force. We only had the Army and RAF sections. Well, in the Gospels, I do not recall Jesus saying much about shooting people or dropping bombs on them.

As for my Christian education, I could not have told you, by the time I left LWC, who were the authors of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in case you were wondering) and I knew almost nothing about Paul’s letters or the Old Testament. Week after week, we had R.E. lessons and Sunday after Sunday, we had to go to the service in the Gavin Hall, but I learned little or nothing. I think that the same applies for my contemporaries at the London Water Closet. Yes, there is more to the Christian faith than just reading the Bible, but maybe knowing a bit about this book might be a good place to start.

Sometimes the school chaplain would invite an abbot or monk to waffle on to us in an R.E. lesson or on a Sunday morning. What a lot of garbage! A middle-aged man wearing a silly robe and a big cross, living spartan life in a monastic community that was far away from women or anything vaguely modern, was perhaps not the ideal person to talk to teenage boys at a boarding school.   

I remember one occasion when Mash was taking the class and I put my hand up. He had made some comment about the Roman Empire and, as budding Classicist, I was damned if I would let him get away with what he was saying. “Yes, sir, but doesn’t Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, say that Christianity was in fact one of the reasons for the Empire’s collapse?”

In his reply, Mash asserted that the Roman Empire was so morally bankrupt that it could not have been salvaged, so Christianity was not responsible for its collapse. I thought at the time (and I still think so now) that this was a feeble, non-answer.

Mash should have come clean. Mithraism was a religion, an ideology, that supported and justified the mission of the Roman Army. That is why Mithraic temples were found on Hadrian’s Wall, in Germany and all over the frontier provinces of the Roman Empire. Mithraism was a soldier's religion. It gave the legions something to fight for, without any of that Christian nonsense about "turning the other cheek" and forgiving your enemies. The Sermon on the Mount is not going to help you when the Picts attack your milecastle on the Wall or the German tribes threaten to cross the Rhine.

On the other hand, Mash could also have pointed out that Christian churches and monasteries were the only major institutions that helped the refugees from the barbarian attacks in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries. If you needed medical help, a Christian church would be your first port of call. Last, but by no means least, cathedral and monastic libraries have preserved much of the literature of Ancient Rome. Would we even know about Julius Caesar or Cicero, if it were not for the Christian Church? 

Malcolm also mentions “liberal intellectualism”. So was C.A.N.H. a life-long member of the Liberal Party? Or was he “liberal” in a more general sense, as he was always giving liberally to charities? Maybe. I do not know. Or does “liberal intellectualism” mean that you think and believe that young people should have an education in the Liberal Arts, such as Music, Drama, Art and Poetry? Well, yes, but most secondary schools in the UK are supposed to include these elements in the curriculums.

And what about the "intellectualism" bit? Yes, a certain amount of academic work did go on at LWC (not much, in my brother Andrew's case), but prowess on the sports field and on the stage, in school productions, seemed to be of equal or greater importance. That is why The Sower, the school magazine, invariably had pages and pages of sports' reports and a review of the school play. 

So was Malcolm Reynes actually saying anything meaningful about Mash in his piece for The Sower? No, I do not think so.

According to RTD, Mash’s wife had an affair with an Income Tax inspector and his second marriage, to his secretary, also broke down. He finished his days selling ladies’ underwear in a department store. How the mighty are fallen!