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BLUE COAT TALES

RIPPING YARNS OF DAYS GONE BY (2)

UPDATED: 17 JAN 2007

This page features true stories of Blue Coat life in days gone by. If you were there, and would like to recount one of your tales on this page, please contact me.

The following stories are told in my book "Return to the Blue Coat". They both happened in 1974, when I was in Form 3P, with Mr Caulfield as Form Master.

THE BOARD ROOM DOOR

One Friday afternoon George Mason was first to enter the form room for registration. Mr Caulfield was waiting and greeted him with “The ‘eadmaster wants ter see yer straight away, Mason lad!” Terrified that he might be in trouble, and racking his brains to try and remember what crime he may have committed, George headed slowly upstairs, only to find that the whole form were following him.

Thirty of us stood in a large semi-circle facing the headmaster. Apparently, the previous afternoon someone had scratched an obscenity into the paint on the Board Room door. As we had been in Room 44 that afternoon, our form were prime suspects. Mr Arnold-Craft told us in his refined tones what the obscenity was. “Fack orf!” he exclaimed. A stifled titter ran through the form. As he repeated it several times boys were shaking in silent mirth. Tears ran down a few cheeks and the odd suppressed choke or gasp was heard as some boys pretended to blow their noses. The tension was almost unbearable.

Finally he finished his speech and told us to go to our lessons. There was a stampede for the door, then thirty boys collapsed in hysterical laughter on the corridor outside!

DON'T MENTION THE WAR!

Towards the end of summer term 1974, when I was in Form 3P, I noticed a dip in the ground on the West Front. The lawn mower had revealed a piece of brick poking through the surface. I was aware that air raid shelters from World War 2 were under the West Front, and guessed that the brick may be part of a ventilation shaft. Lying on my stomach, surrounded by a curious group of boys, I started attempting to dig the brick out with a knife and fork "borrowed" from the Dining Hall. So intent was I on my work, and my commentary to the crowd, that I failed to notice they had all fled as a prefect approached. I was ordered to write the customary two-page essay about "The Inside of a Ping-Pong Ball."

Passing the headmaster, Mr Arnold-Craft, in the Shirley Hall corridor the

following week, he stopped me and asked, "What do you know about

shelters, Salmon?" Puzzled for a moment, I asked him if he meant bus

shelters! He exploded, demanding to know if I had pinched the cutlery

specially for my archaeological expedition. I replied that finding the

cutlery near the West Front had been my inspiration to dig. A look of

despair invaded his stern features and he said, "Go away, boy - you're

obviously mad!"

Thirty-one years later, in 2005, I attended the School Summer Fair and

attempted to re-create the scene of my dig, while George Mason took

a photograph (right). Unfortunately, the present headmaster, "Sandy"

Tittershill, spotted me and demanded to know what I was doing.

("Sorry, Sir! It won't happen again!")

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Tony Salmon 2008