Windlesham House 1

The rather impressive front entrance of Windlesham

 

After finishing my PGCE course at La Sainte College, I arrived at Windlesham House School in September, 1987. 

A “windle” is an old English word, probably Saxon in origin, that means a basket, maybe woven out of twigs. A “sham”, of course, is something that is fake, not real, a pretence. At Windlesham House School, however, there were some real little baskets, children who displayed an appalling mixture of laziness, rudeness and entitlement. Yes, there were (thank goodness) some lovely, sweet and polite children as well, but unfortunately it is the junior scumbags at WHS that stick in my memory.

In particular, Master Mark Coutts stands out, as he came up with the most offensive and obscene sentence I have ever heard: “F*** your dead mother’s a***!” For a ten-year-old, I think that deserves the gold medal in the Profanity Olympics, for squeezing so much verbal foulness into only five words.

Mr Charles

 The principals of Windlesham House School were Mr Charles Malden and his wife, Mrs Elizabeth-Ann Malden, otherwise known as “Mr and Mrs Charles”. They were very tall and glamorous, looked as though they had just walked off a film set, and were very good at persuading a lot of moneyed, London-based parents to part with a big pile of cash for the school fees.

Elizabeth-Ann and Mr Peter Cronin

 Mrs Charles, usually referred to by the teaching staff as “E.A.” when she was not around, would not allow the children to wear blue jeans. (Maybe E.A. just hated that old Neil Diamond song, Forever in Blue Jeans.) Denim was even permitted, as long as it was not blue, and blue trousers were allowed, as long as they were not denim. Well, that is all very clear and logical, isn’t it?

I remember that the topic of skateboarding came up in one staff meeting. The children were skateboarding around the front of the school, where cars were reversing and being parked. There was a real danger that a child on a skateboard would be knocked down, even killed. Various suggestions were put forward, but no decision was made and then Elizabeth-Ann blithely said, "Well, now we need to move on to something else." To his eternal credit, Mr Peter Cronin replied, "No, Elizabeth-Ann, we should not move on to something else. This is a serious issue and it needs to be resolved." E.A. did not say anything, but it was clear that she was very, very angry. 

When I first arrived at WHS, I was told by Leonard Robinson, “Discipline is a word that Charles does not like to use.” In addition to the word not being used much, the reality behind the word was missing as well. Yes, individual teachers did manage to impose some sort of order in their classes, by dint of their own efforts and personality, but discipline, as a whole school policy and one that was supported by the heads, did not really exist at Windlesham.

In my first year at WHS, in my “Ones” class, there was a sweet and hard-working young lady. Let’s call her “Sarah”, as I have no wish to embarrass her. In my class there was also a boy called Barnaby who was appallingly lazy, idle and showing almost no mental effort at all. Both Sarah and Barnaby took the entrance exams for Bedales, a well-known public school. Sarah was rejected and Barnaby was given a place at the school. As you can probably imagine, Sarah was very, very upset, as were her parents. About a year later, I was talking to a member of the Bedales staff and he casually said, “Well, we have too many girls applying and not enough boys.” More than thirty years later, this still makes me angry.  

A senior member of the teaching staff was in the habit of visiting the girls’ dormitories while the older girls were having their showers. A rather buxom young lady, dripping wet from her shower, removed her towel and asked, “Is this what you are looking for, Mr ******?” The aforeasterisked teacher never went into the girls’ dormitories again.

Mr Peter Hallam, Mr Hyla Holden and Mr Michael Green

Then there was Michael Green, “old Greenie” as he was sometimes called by the staff. The teachers thought that he was a bit of an oddball, a harmless joker and a bit of a character. In the evenings, after a long school day, my colleagues and I would have supper in the staff dining room and often Greenie would be there, laughing or telling an anecdote. He had an over-done, almost grovelling respect for the Maldens and that should have rung a few alarm bells, but it didn’t. The parents also liked Greenie and I know that on several occasions he was invited to dinner by grateful parents whose children he had coached for one or two sports.

Michael Green sexually abused some of the young boys at Windlesham House and it was only many years later that he was arrested and sent to prison for his crimes.

Why was Michael Green able to get away with his perversions for so long? I have often pondered this question and I have not been able to find the right answer. Yes, he was very devious, ingratiating and manipulative. He fooled a lot of people – me included – into thinking that he was harmless, the sort of eccentric character who is drawn to a private school like iron filings to a magnet.

Well, yes, that is the simple and obvious answer, but perhaps the reality is a bit deeper and more unpleasant. There was something wrong in the school’s ethos and values (or rather the lack of them) and this made it all too easy for Michael Green to do what he did and get away with it for so long.

There were certainly some things that made me hate my time at Windlesham House School. At first, I could not wait to leave it. In fact, I applied for another teaching job at a different school in my first year! My final year at WHS was a lot better, especially my delightful Threes class, the adorable Flumps, and Jill Sturdee’s lovely Twos class.

The adorable Flumps

In many ways, Windlesham was everything that Perrott Hill was not. I know which one I preferred. Yes, it is true that Windlesham was posher and had more snob value. Yes, I had better accommodation and a bigger salary. WHS was (and still is) a large, successful, well-known and prestigious school, but I cannot think of a better advertisement for Labour’s policy towards private education. 

Flumps again, in my classroom