Oh how we loved Guy Fawkes Night! Preparations started well in advance, parents were persuaded to purchase fire works for us. The fire works were usualy delivered on the Visiting Sunday prior to the event and were put in charge of the dormitory master ( I wonder why? ) . The boys started collecting anything that would burn. A long pole was aquired (from who knows where) and set into a hole in the ground behind the air raid shelters. All the burnable items collected by the boys were continualy being added to the pile around the "King Pole"

At last the big night has arrived , the boys have been given their fire-works and are assembling down the drive. Many of the boys have torches ( not flashlights) that they have made from more scrounged materials ( the NCC staff must have dreaded this night ) and boy were we great scroungers! There were very strict rules that you could not use the bedding off your or someone elses bed for this (as if we would!).

Parrafin at 3d a half jam jar was available to pour on the torches to make them burn well. When the word was given to start the torchlight procession a teacher would walk by with a flame and ignite them. It was a memorable sight to see We marched up the drive, in front of the class rooms, past the wood working shop and past the air raid shelters down to the bonfire.When all of the boys were circled arround the bonfire a signal was given and all the torches were thrown onto the bonfire ( which had been liberaly soaked in parafin by Bert ). With a great roar the bonfire burst into flames.

The only rules that I remember were no shooting rockets horizontaly and no dropping bangers in anyones pocket, there was a special spot set up for the rockets and a master supervising. Some of my favourite fire-works were the squibs, canon crackers,and the one's that jumped all over the place. I think I remember that after the fireworks were over and the bonfire burnt down we went back to the dinning hall for coco.

There is another story that came out of Guy Fawkes night that affected Criss Cundy and myself but I will put that in the Christmas section.

C H R I S T M A S

AT ELMBRIDGE

The build up to Christmas at the school was a time of much enterprise and excitement. It started right after Guy Fawkes night, with many of the boys going into a frenzy of money making ideas. Some of the projects were as follows. Butlering: The boys that did this waited on any boy who would pay them to perform different tasks, such as making of beds, running errands and more. Comic book rental: you could rent a comic book for a set period of time from a boy who had brought his collection of American style comic books to the school for this purpose. Shoe shine: for a price your shoes would be given a high gloss shine. Tea service: You could purchase a cup of tea in the dormitory during the evening .
There were other money making ideas but these are the ones I remember.
I mentioned that Criss Cundy and myself had a project that we started before Guy Fawkes Night. What we did was to roam the school for a few weeks before G/F night and scrounge up all the old rags and blanket material we could lay our hands on. With Bert Blowers permission we kept our supplies in the room at the end of the woodworking shop. The next item on our acquisitions list was poles, these were approximately 1" x 48" long. Bert gave us some chicken wire and staples. Now we were into the torch making business. I think we had enough materials to make about 30 torches, these were kept locked away in the storage room till a few days before G/F night. Well as you might guess torch making materials were in short supply ( due to some people cornering the raw material supplies) and the demand was high. We let it be known that the needed items were available for sixpence each. Business was brisk and all the torches were sold quickly, for an additional thrupence paraffin was available on the big night. The money for this enterprise went into the Christmas Party Fund.
At the beginning of December the dormitories underwent a dramatic change. Boys volunteered to polish the floors to a glorious shine, this was accomplished by pushing all the beds on one side of the room to the other side and sweeping the floor, then great glops of red floor polish were splattered on the floor and smeared around. Now began the fun time, rags were tied to feet and a form of soccer was played the more sliding you could do the better the shine I must admit things did get a bit raucous at times but the end result was a very impressive looking floor. When the beds were placed back they were set up differently, here is a sketch of this.

During art classes the boys were encouraged to draw cartoons for decorating the dining hall, some of the boys were very talented at this, others made paper lanterns and paper chains. One year we had a new art teacher who thought we should draw pictures of fish and make fish mobiles for decorating the dining hall "YUK" the next year he decided on birds. Criss and I bucked up enough courage to see Mr. Day and tell him that the boys wanted the cartoon drawings back, he said that he had been waiting for the boys to ask. The cartoons were back. If memory serves me Fred Merry was an excellent cartoonist.

The excitement continued to build The day of the party the whole school went up to Hascomb hill and was divided into two teams using medicine balls the team at the bottom had to get the balls up to the top, then we changed arround and did it again, this certainly burnt of some excess energy, and developed a raging hunger for the Christmas dinner. If my memory is correct I think we had a christmas carol service in the assembly hall this was I believe preceeded by a candle light proccession around the square. After the service we had a slap up feed in the dining hall.

"The Great "Turkey Debacle"

During the year it was decided that the Young Farmers Club would fatten up turkeys for selling to the boys for Christmas, the parents considered this to be a great idea! What no one had told the boys was that they had to kill their birds themselves!!!! But hold on, Bert to the rescue. The Y.F.C. had purchased a "Humane Killer" tool ?? Let me explain something about myself first,I am the ultimate softie when it comes to animals,I tend to make them into pets. The turkeys were rounded up and we entered the shed where the dastardly deed was to be done. There, fastened to the bench, was this shinning silver instrument the "Humane Killer." How this was supposed to work was as follows. The handle was lifted and the birds neck placed in a slot, the handle was then brought back down and the birds neck was broken!!!

Yeh! sure, that's what was supposed to have happened. What in fact actually occured was that the poor turkey's went through more torture. Some namby pamby boys (myself included) did not bring the handle down firmly enough and only injured the bird. Then with Bert yelling at us to put more effort into it, we overdid it by slamming the handle down and decapitating the poor turkey. You can be sure I never again mentioned at home that there were turkeys for sale at the school. I do not remember if we plucked and cleaned the birds, I don't think so. To this day I do not like to eat turkey (could this be caused by latent guilt?)

All in all Christmas at Elmbridge was a wonderful time for us.

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