Eric Scott at Elmbridge '45-'50.
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Hi again John, Your web site brought back some wonderful memories. I don't think a lot about school, but I kept in regular touch with Johnny Wiskar until he died. I was probably one of the last people to speak to him, and the nursing sisters only allowed me to speak to him then because I was calling from Australia. When I called back next day he was gone. He was one of the most important people in my life. He was my House Master, my football coach, my English teacher, and mentor. It was only after leaving school that it slowly dawned on me how much he'd done for me.
As a preamble to the memories I have of Elmbridge, I'd like to explain how I got there. There are reasons for everything that happens in our lives, so I think it is of interest to explain how I came to be at Elmbridge. I also need to explain that my memories are not chronological, but plucked from the plaque of a failing memory as they pop into my head. In 1940 I was having a wonderful war. By this time my Mum and me had been bombed out of the East End and had moved in with my Grandparents at Barkingside. I would be put to bed and lie there until I could hear the air raid sirens and then I'd get up and watch at the window as the searchlights flicked up into the sky. Slowly a rosy glow crept over London as the fires grew, and I'd see German planes caught by search lights with puffs of smoke around them as the ack ack batteries opened up. If one battery didn't get him, the next searchlight would pick him up and follow him through his section of night sky. I never thought I was watching a life or death drama being played out. And then, when it was all over, I'd go back to bed.
One night after the show was over, I'd crept into bed and was asleep when the greatest bang and roar imaginable brought the ceiling down on me, blew out the window, and all the slate tiles off the roof. I was pinned to the bed, choking in the talcum powder-like dust. I could hear my Mum screaming at the door but I couldn't answer because of the dust, and she couldn't get in because the lino had blown up preventing the door from opening. It was believed that a lost Jerry had just jettisoned his load. Finally she squeezed through the doorway, and dragged me out from under the rubble, dusted me off to see if I was injured, and then said, "OK my lad it's off to the country for you", and that was when the war took a distinct turn for the worse.
I was billeted with a childless couple in the village of Newport in rural Essex. A man met me at the railway station late at night. With suitcase in hand and a label tied to my lapel, he walked me through the darkened village until we came to a house at one end of the village. He knocked and the door was opened immediately by the lady of the house, who looked down to me and said, "I don't want him. I want a girl." After much whispered discussion I was finally taken in, but in the ensuing four years things didn't improve. The worst aspect of my life was the village school, where I was bullied unmercifully by the local lads. They rarely drew blood, but I was pushed around and generally humiliated every school day. I never understood the reason for this, but it was probably because of my accent, my lack of knowledge in country matters, or some other such nonsense. I never put up any resistance mainly because it was useless. I never met them on a one to one basis. However, at the end of my stay there, during a class break, I was playing by myself out of sight of the rest of the school children, when suddenly the gang leader jumped me. The minute we fell to it I knew I was the stronger, and it was one on one. All the anger from the years of bullying welled up inside me, and I hit him and hit him until he fell to the ground. Then I jumped on him and began to screw his head in the asphalt of the playground. His screams brought people running, and I felt myself being lifted off him, still trying to get a last kick in as I was pulled away.
I was reported for bullying at my house, and got the strap. It was the one time I thought it justified, but it was well worth it. I determined thereafter to always stick up for myself, and it was this decision, I think, that got me to Elmbridge.
Highlands School was one of those monstrously big London schools that was quite overpowering after the one classroom village school I had got used to. I had been put into the dummies class, and I resented that. In fact I resented most everything at that point in my life. During a school break, a torrent of children was clattering down the stairs when I was pushed, and fell against the children in front of me. This happened right in front of the headmaster who was standing on a landing. He plucked me out of the throng, and raising his hand he said, “I'll teach you to push people on the staircase”. I was nine years old, coming up to ten, and knew this was not fair, so I hit him as hard as could in the gooleys. I heard the breath whistle out of him, but he raised his hand again, and I hit him again. He release his grip on me and lowered his hand, "We'll deal with this later" he gasped. I never told my Mum, but a few days later she got a letter from the school, and shortly thereafter she told me that next term I was going to a boarding school. I never connected the two events until one day, well into my life at Elmbridge, Johnny mentioned something quite obliquely concerning himself, me and Mr. Cummings, the headmaster at Highlands School. I came to Elmbridge in September, 1945, and left in July, 1950.
I was placed in Forest House with Johnny Wiskar as the housemaster, and Vera Palmer as house mistress. I still correspond with Vera. I don't remember much about the teaching staff. Nipper Jackson, Votcher Hall, FAF Findlay, Elsie Townrow, Nobby & Aggie Clark loom large, and I think it was Miss Goddard who took art. Somewhere there is a Willis in there and a PE teacher whose name escapes me.
It was a rough and tumble life that I grew to love. Teachers basically taught, but the out of class discipline was largely left to prefects, and it was a system that seemed to work well.
The cane was never used. It was not until Day turned up that the word "cane" entered the School vocabulary. I can tell you, standing in front of Nobby Clark, and looking into those unwavering pale blue eyes was far more disturbing than the thought of the cane. And I know. Shortly after Day turned up, I was standing on the stage ready to read the evening lesson. The staff sat in a line behind me, and the School assembly was called to silence. Then, before I could open my mouth, Day barked out for two boys to come up to the stage. He believed he had seen them talking. They were two very new juniors. He gave them one cut each across the palm of the hand. It was a punishment way out of proportion to the offence, but what I didn't like was the look of enjoyment in his eye. If I give the impression that I did not like the man, you're dead right.
My overwhelming impression of Elmbridge was one of freedom. OK, you had to be there at roll call. You had to be there for classes, and meal times, and being there for organised sport was necessary, but apart from those few nuisances all I remember was the roaming around the beautiful Surrey countryside. Scrumping, bird nesting, swimming holes in season, Nore Hill with the back of a broken chair in season; it was boy heaven.
There was a bend in the River Wey that was great for splashing around in. Clothes were stripped off. It was muddy, and it wasn't really big enough to say you'd had a swim, but it was a lot of fun. I was there one day when Nobby and his bride came strolling by. At the next school assembly Nobby made it clear, the swimming hole was out of bounds, and if any boy were caught in it, the School pool would be emptied. Johnson, a senior prefect who enjoyed the School pool, let it be known that if any boy was responsible for having the School pool emptied then that boy would get a black eye. So, the battle lines were drawn. I don't recall how much time had elapsed, but a couple of mates and I decided that enough time had gone by for anyone to remember the edict, so in we went. And we got caught. Nobby stood there looking down at us, saying not a word, then turned around and walked on. We decided he could never identify us without clothes on, but we were wrong. At the next assembly he lowered the boom. He named us, and blamed us, and emptied the pool. That night, “Scott”, my named rang out, and there was Johnson striding toward me. I was eleven, so resistance was useless. He stood before me and said, “You know what this is for?”, "Yes Johnson", I replied. My teeth were clenched, and I was determined not to cry or evade what was coming. I am very sure Johnson pulled his punch because of my resolution, and comparing my eye with other fellows next day I knew I'd got off lightly.
It was during the same hot summer when water levels were down everywhere, and that included a section of the canal that the local worthies had stocked with game fish. Trout, I think. Boys from the School had been trying to catch said fish, and had got reported. At School assembly an instruction was issued. “Boys are not allowed to harass these fish, because they are the property of the local angling club.” At that time we had a bow and arrow craze going, and it had been discovered that a sturdy piece of rose wood made an excellent bow. I had the brilliant idea that if I tied a suitable piece of twine to an arrow I could shoot a fish which would then allay the hunger pangs that I lived with for all of my Elmbridge years. Yes, I got caught. A villager found me reeling in my arrow, and would not believe that I was after a Pike that was decimating the game fish. He took me firmly by the ear and began to walk me back to school. I was squawking because my ear was causing a lot of pain, which he didn't care about at all. However, our noisy journey led us into the path of three school prefects who wanted to know what was going on. The villager made his explanation holding up my bow and arrow as proof. The prefects said that they would take charge of me from there on, but my captor would have nothing of it. The prefects, who kept a very reasonable tone to their voices, said they would accompany us to the School boundary at which point they would insist on taking me in charge even if it meant releasing me physically. So my ear was released and my captor grumbled off. I started to thank my saviours, but was cut short. "If you think you're off the hook nipper, you'd better think again. You're Scott from Forest aren't you?" I stuck to my tale of being after a Pike, but to no avail. "Your name is going to Nobby Clark, so tell him your story. Now get along with you", and with a swat around my head they sauntered off.
At about this time some carbide pellets had come into my hands. Carbide makes a smell like every rotten egg in the world had just been cracked under your nose. For some reason I had been made ink monitor for the four classrooms that backed onto the asphalt playground, and I thought, “Wouldn't it be fun if I dropped a pellet or two into one of the ink wells just before class.” This had to be done with some precision to gain the best effect. My classroom was the one at the end furthest from the dining room, so if I popped a pellet in the inkwell of the classroom next door we could hear all the commotion at close hand. And that's what I did. I was putting the ink jar away in the storeroom in my classroom when I heard heavy strides approaching along the veranda. Then they stopped. There was a pause, then a rattle of a door handle, and then a gasp and spluttering, and then Johnny hove to and spotted me through the windows, said "What are you doing Scott?", "I'm the ink monitor", I replied. Then the dawning of understanding drew across his face, as he entered the room. "Empty your pockets on this desk", he demanded. I twiddled away pulling out bits of string, an old football boot stud, a filthy handkerchief, a cork that I thought might come in useful for something, all the time assiduously avoiding the pellets that were rolling around at the bottom of a pocket. "Everything" he roared making it clear I was not going to get away with it. "Aha" he said on spying the pellets. He gathered them up in the palm of his hand. "This will be dealt with later, in the meantime go next door and open every window in the room".
With the last meal of the day being over I was vacating the dining room, but Johnny who was on duty stopped me and called me to him. "You have been in serious trouble with the Headmaster." "You are in very serious trouble over the fishery, and now I'm debating what I'm to do with you over the matter this morning". You are the worst boy in the school. Now get along with you." I walked out onto the veranda, and thought about what he had just said. And then it sank in, and I skipped down the veranda, ran down the stairs and round the corner in to a crowd of boys. "I'm the worst boy in the school," I announced. "Yeah, who says," was the response. "Johnny just did, you go and ask him."
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Bird nesting heralded the summer, much to my shame today, but in those days ecology and the guardianship of it was not in vogue. On one occasion I was out roaming the fields with a friend by the name of Blackman. We came upon a lone tree where I noticed a large bird leave a nest that was perched on the furthest part of a branch high up in the tree. I said to Blackman if he could give me a bunk up to the lowest branch I should easily be able to climb out to where that nest was, and I'd share the eggs with him. So, we put this game plan into action. I easily made my way up to where the branch holding the nest grew out from the trunk, and straddling the branch, I inched my way out to the nest. Still some feet from the nest the bough bent down to a point where I felt myself sliding forward. To avoid this I held onto the branch as hard as I could, but realized I was not able to push my way back. I was stuck, and at the same time realized there were no eggs in the nest because I could hear the chirping of chicks. The bough was too thick for me to grasp it safely with my hands if I should decided to allow my body to swing underneath it, to overarm back to the trunk, and the ground was a very long way down. I called down to Blackman that I was stuck and he should go and get help. "Hang on", said my friend and raced away in the direction of the School. I sat there as the sun started to sink into the horizon and I started to feel cold. Stuck in this position my legs started to lose circulation, and all in all, the situation began to get desperate. There was no sign of help, and I decided I must grasp the nettle and help myself. Slowly I allowed my body to slip under the branch, and keeping my ankles locked around the bough, I slowly inched myself back to the trunk. Down I scrambled, and jogged back to the school, where I found everyone at dinner, including Blackman. I went over him and said, "I thought you were getting help". "I was," he replied, "but it was dinner time". At the time I thought this to be a perfectly rational explanation.
In all the time I was at Elmbridge I was never conscious of bullying. The prefect system would probably have taken care of that if it had ever raised its head. However, living cheek by jowl with a lot of boys who were all different, it would be abnormal to be bosom buddies with everybody. One boy I seem never to along with was Wenborn. We used to snip and snarl around each other until he challenged me to a boxing match. I knew he was a member of the School's boxing club, but undeterred, I readily agreed. At the next meeting of the club, which was supervised by one of the staff, I went along in gym shorts, plimsolls, and a singlet eager for the fray. The master tied these socking great gloves on my hands that felt like a pair of wheat bags hanging at my side. He motioned us to the middle of the ring and, knowing it was something of a grudge match, gave us a stern lecture on sportsmanship. "OK, touch gloves and fight", he said. We touched gloves and wham my head filled with coloured lights, and I was sitting on my backside. "Are you alright?" he asked solicitously. "No I'm not alright. I can't see out of my left eye," I said, while the room swirled around me. "OK, that's enough". It must have been the shortest match on record. Wenborn and I seemed to get along a lot better after that, and it gave me another lesson for life. Never let anybody hit me in the eye, and never get into fight without a chair or something else being handy. Years later I met Mrs. Wenborn on Ilford Broadway, and she told me proudly that her son had just won the RAF European middle weight championship.
Ms. Findlay, universally know as FAF, was an awesome Scottish lady who taught Geography. On one occasion she totally lost her temper and let fly with the blackboard rubber, which was a wooden block wrapped around with a bit of cloth material, and it stuck between the two water pipes that fed the hot water to the radiators so hard that neither she nor anyone in the class could unstick it. I remember vividly that the tropics of the world led into the temperate regions, that led into the tundra, which led into the arctic region, so something must be said for her style of teaching.
Cyril Hall was universally known as Votcher, and I was on the spot the day this nickname was coined. A boy by the name of Wakeling was describing how Cyril would come up from behind as you were bent over your work, and if he didn't like what you were doing, then he would deliver an upward glancing blow to the back of the head. Wakeling said that, “This was a votch”. From that time forward Cyril was known by no other name than Votcher, and I often wondered if it made it onto his headstone.
Elsie Townrow taught biology and music. Elsie was universally known as Miss Townrow. I was co-opted into the school choir, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved singing in unison with my fellow choristers, and it took no extra time from other things I would prefer to be doing. However, Miss Townrow decided I should be the soloist, and this did become a bothersome business. We spent hours, days, eternity getting something right, and she wielded a twelve-inch ruler as a baton that had a nasty habit of cracking me across the knuckles. I was at my wits end, and simply could not deceive this birdlike little woman into believing that my voice was not all that it was cracked to be. And then along came my salvation, a new boy who had the voice of an angel. Listening to his crystal clear notes that he could hold forever, and the phrasing that I could never achieve, I knew I had met more than my match, and when Miss Townrow told me that, while I had an extremely good voice, I was no longer the choir soloist. I shuffled my feet, and looked rueful, and fled with joy in my heart.
On the matter of biology Miss Townrow taught me from the very first class, at which time we were introduced to the reproduction of amoeba, right through to my last class at School where she introduced us to the reproduction of birds. Finally, and at last we where going to be introduced to the reproduction of humans. We were all aquiver for this class, and you could have heard a pin drop as she walked into the room. But dear old Elsie had the best of us by stating that every boy in the room knew as much as he needed to know about the reproduction of humans, and zapped us straight back to amoebas.
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Football was my passion. From the time I made it into the 3rd Eleven when I was ten, I lived football, dreamed football, breathed football, played football. Football was my world. And I believe that most of the School had the same fever. I can remember the team running out onto the pitch in those funny rainbow shirts flicking the ball around and doing all those silly tricks we had learned, and you could see the shoulders of the other team sag. We had 'em psyched out before the whistle went. Elmbridge expected to win. I can remember driving home in the coach after an away game that had been drawn, and the atmosphere was positively funereal. Johnny had always played me as inside left despite being naturally right footed, so in training I only used my left foot, in muckabout games I only used my left foot, and in house matches I used my left foot as much as possible, until that left foot was as good as my right. There was a house match that Forest was tipped to lose, and I was absolutely determined that we should not. It came right down to the wire, and in the last moments of the game in a goal-mouth scramble I was able to slip the ball to Ernie Hatt. He had an open goal, but couldn't get the ball under control, and I was screaming to him to shoot, and after what seemed an eternity that's what he did, and we won. The strange thing is, we started School together, finished together, lived in the same house, and that's the only thing I can remember about Ernie, and he can remember absolutely nothing about me. And to cap it all off, we have finished up living in the same city in Australia.
If there are readers who were at the School in the period I'm writing about, again my apologies for the chronology. I remember these incidences, but in what order they happened I'm not entirely sure.
Because I was small by comparison to some of the defenders I played against in School matches I found that, from time to time, I was able to be bundled off the ball by these bigger chaps, and this happened particularly when I needed to take a half pace to collect a ball on the inside of the foot. I worked it out that if I were able to control the ball with the outside of the foot and thus maintain the forward momentum the competing defender would be left that half pace behind, which was all I needed. So, to learn this discipline I co- opted boys to throw the ball so I had to run on to it and collect it on the outside of the foot. Of course my assistants soon got browned off with this, and quickly declined further involvement. That is, except for one boy whose name was Powditch, commonly known as Powder. He was a loner. Never moved with the crowd. Never joined in any extracurricular activity, content to be by himself, but for some reason he was quite happy to spend hours throwing a football at me. I never advertised what I was doing, or even discussed it with anyone. I just knew if I could master this trap it would be to my advantage. I was surprised therefore when, after reading out the teams at Friday dinner time, Johnny made the announcement that "Scott is the only boy in the School who can trap a ball with the outside of his foot". He must have noticed what was going on with Powder. Powditch left School without completing the final year, and sometime after, Johnny received a letter from him which he read to the class. It was all about how he had achieved a licence to become a street vendor, and had his own barrow and his own site, and thus became part of a family tradition. A few minutes later John quietly called me to his desk and showed me a part of the letter he had not read out. Powditch said how he hated school, and that the only friend he'd made was Scott. I felt terrible. I had used this kid unmercifully, and here he was declaring what friends we'd been.
But that's not the whole story. In the late fifties, early sixties the aboriginal rights movement were starting. Australia has had a sad history with its aboriginal population, but now there began a push to amend this, and activists were beginning to be heard from all quarters. One of the things they wanted changed was the White Australia policy. At this time, some Brit landed with his de facto Indian wife and stepdaughter, and for some reason I'm still not clear about, the authorities began proceedings to evict the daughter, who was a very young child named Nancy. This sorry saga became known as the Nancy Prassad Affair. There on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald was this family group, the head of which was my mate Powditch. I tried hard to get in touch with him, but the authorities were very unhelpful. The leading activist at the time was a young aboriginal man named Charlie Perkins, and he kidnapped Nancy as the Immigration officials were escorting her through Sydney airport. Later, Charlie rose to become head of Aboriginal Affairs, a Government Department with an enormous budget. After we had moved to Canberra, Charlie and I became sort of friends, not close, but I went to his place and he came to mine. One evening I mentioned the Prassad Affair and said I went to school with Powditch. Charlie turned around and said, "You know that bloke never ever said thanks", and I said, "Charlie if you knew the bloke, he would have thanked you for leaving things alone".
In a particular school match, nothing was going right for me. Usually if this happened, I would raise my tempo, and make up for whatever it was that I was doing wrong with more energy. So in a goal mouth scramble where normally I would expect to slot the ball home, I lost my footing, and was sat down sharply in the mud. I was livid. This sort of thing did not happen to me. And then, as I sat there absolutely fuming I could hear Johnny's voice ring out, "Come on Scott, get up and get on with it". "You f---- off", I screamed. "Get off the pitch", he roared, "Get off the pitch this minute". And I left. I had a shower, and got into fresh clothes, and went and lay on my bed. I missed dinner, and lay there feeling miserable as the House went about its business of settling down for the night. Because I was a prefect all the business of being marched over to the washroom did not apply to me. Nobody spoke to me, and finally I got up and changed into my pyjamas, and got into bed. I lay for a long time, and then got up, put my dressing gown on and tapped lightly on his door. "Come", came his voice. I pushed open the door, and shut it behind me. He was marking papers, and without getting up, he swivelled around and faced me. "I wish to apologise for this afternoon," I said. He looked at me for a long moment, and then said quietly, "I accept your apology, but you need to know if you had not apologised you would not have represented this School in anything ever again. Now go to bed." And that was the end of it. When I was very much more of a junior, Johnny said to me, "How would you like to raise a clutch of eggs", and explained what would be expected of me. I agreed that I was interested. The temperature of the clutch was paramount, and constant checking of the eggs was necessary, and if the embryo was not developing it was tossed out. The eggs hatched, and the chicks were put into a brooder. The brooder was like a long box that had to be cleaned out daily by way of a sliding roof. Feeding and watering was carried out with the same access. The brooder was lodged outside Forest next to a small garden. One day I was off on the really important business of an eleven or twelve year old when I was stopped by Johnny, who was weeding the garden, and asked if I had done this, that, or the other with the chicks. I said "No", and was instructed to do it immediately. So, in ill humour, I wanged down the sliding roof as Johnny turned around and bent down to pull his weeds. I caught him square across the buttocks, and he went sprawling into the garden. His red face came into view above the brooder, and he said, “Did you do that on purpose?” I literately could not speak. I suppose by my ashen face, and contorted mouth, which was still trying to make some sort of noise, he could see it was a complete accident. So, standing up with mud all over him, he said, 'Please try and be more careful", and stomped off to get cleaned up. This was a man who was scrupulously fair. I was twice paddled by him with the sole of a size twelve plimsoll, where I was ordered to bend down and to pull my pyjama trousers tight across my buttocks. It really stung, but I knew what I was getting it for, and knew I deserved it. My clutch of eggs grew up to be a yardful of White Leghorns who were prolific layers, and added to the coffers of the Young Farmers Club.
At some point in my football career I was put forward as a candidate for Guildford Schools, and after many trials was selected for the team. The schoolboys were anything up eighteen years old, and I had team mates who towered over me, but my strength was I could score goals from anywhere near the penalty area. The coach was a nice man, but I had to tell him that the team was nowhere near as effective as Elmbridge, and I challenge him to put us up against the Elmbridge 1st Eleven. He declined. With Elmbridge it was a total team, we had been playing together for years, and without looking I could slip a ball behind a defender, and know a winger was going to pick it up, while we streamed into penalty area knowing it was going to come back. That rapport never applied to Guildford. They were just eleven good players. I can remember a funny incident at the Guildford home ground when we were playing Reading. A little knot of people always turned up to look at the schoolboys before the main event, and there was this little old man hanging on the fence cheering us on. Reading were big; they had two huge backs who I was sure had been shaving for years. The ball came loose, and one of big fellows and I were racing for it. He was going to get there a fraction before me, and his leg came back for a clearing kick, but Johnny's maxim was, "last one in gets hurt," so I launched myself at the ball with my sole up to block it, just as his foot made contact. The impact caused him to fly over me, with the ball going my way. This happened where “the little old man” had stationed himself by the fence. “Good for you nipper. That'll show 'em. Now go, go, go.” Play went on, but a few seconds later I could hear him calling me, “Hey nipper, nipper; come over here”. So I jogged over, and he said, “Nipper, would you pick up me false teeth. They just dropped out of me mouth.” There they were, grinning up at me from the turf. They were the first false teeth I'd ever seen, and they were disgusting.
In my day, the prefect system really worked well. In my final year John Hancock was the School Head Prefect, and I was his deputy. He was also Captain of the School team, and he conducted himself with a lot of dignity. He treated juniors with care, and on one occasion I heard him pull another prefect into gear without raising has voice. He could quell a rowdy with a look, and many misdemeanours were dealt with without recourse to the teaching staff. I felt lucky to be around at this time.
Now I'm in my seventies, and I look back on my Elmbridge years with a lot of pleasure. It was the making of me. It gave me the intestinal fortitude to strike out for Australia with twenty pounds in my pocket, with no connections, nothing arranged, and forge a life for myself. I'm now a retired old man with a wife, two children, and eight grandchildren. If, in anyway, you've enjoyed these memories, then I hope you will write yours for me to read.
My thanks to Eric for allowing me to put his memories on the site