THE NAUTICAL COLLEGE IN THE 1930s

 by KEITH EVANS (33-37)

 
My first contact with Pangbourne College was in early 1933. Having been accepted for entry as a Cadet Royal Naval Reserve from my preparatory school in Kent, I was visited at home in Bournemouth by a Mr. Kingston from Gieves in London to measure me for my uniform.

At some stage after that I sat for the scholarship examination. There was an infectious disease at the College at the time and the five of us involved took the exam at the St. Ives hotel close to what is now the College boathouse by the Thames (where later I received a Bronze medallion for collecting a brick from the bottom of the river!). I think it was John Murray (33-36) who was awarded the scholarship; I got an exhibition worth £35 a year.

Forty of us joined the College on September 18, 1933. Seven were to be killed in action in the Second World War and few of the remainder are alive today. My two best friends turned out to be John Groom (33-37), who went on to become Chief of the College before joining the Royal Navy, and Robin Angel (34-36) who also served in the RN as a pusser like me. Both are dead now.

I have to say, looking back after all these years, that my eleven terms at the Nautical College were not particularly eventful. As Lionel Stephens, in his history of the College, puts it: “There were no startling developments at Pangbourne in the 1930s.” Yet, with the advantage of hindsight, our three to four years at Pangbourne were the making of many of us, in particular inculcating a sense of discipline, comradeship, good manners and a sense of fun. The wearing of the King’s uniform helped to instil a lasting sense of pride.

At this remove in time, though, my main personal memory of the College is that for more than half a year it was a very cold place indeed with little or no central heating. White’s Field was freezing in winter and early morning Ackers in PT gear (gloves were banned) caused painful chilblains in my case. The bunk beds were uncomfortable while the ash bogs in Crystal Palace, and two new toilets installed at Croft House which lacked doors on the grounds of expense, stick in my mind’s eye because of their lack of comfort and privacy.

In those days Harbinger and Macquarie were in Devitt House, Hesperus at Bowden Green and Port Jackson in Croft House. There were rows of huts alongside the parade ground where the Instructors resided. Sick Bay was close by as were the Bursar’s office, Stitch and the dreaded room where Charles Sewell awaited defaulting cadets and a possible beating. Last, but not least, there was constant marching everywhere.

I was probably about ‘average’ or maybe just below. I arrived at the College as a timid little boy of just 14 years old. My father, a businessman in Liverpool, had taken his own life in 1921 at the age of 63 when I was two. My mother (36 years younger than her husband) never remarried and rather spoilt me, her only child. My years at Pangbourne changed me, however, and I left the place a somewhat conceited, yet more confident, young man.

I can’t claim to have shone at games except perhaps at Squash and Fives. Boxing was compulsory which I hated. Founder’s Day was in the middle of the summer term and we cadets mounted various displays on Big Side. One summer I took an exhausting cycling holiday in northern France with AVG Walker (33-37).  In the Easter holidays of 1936 I went to Paris with other public schoolboys, stayed with a French family, attended totally incomprehensible lectures at the Sorbonne each forenoon, went sightseeing in the afternoons and visited naughty establishments in the evening.

Another time I was one of 24 cadets, accompanied by the Executive Officer and four parents including my mother, who sailed on a two-week cruise around the Mediterranean on the P&O liner Strathaird. Among our party were RA Shuttleworth (34-38), who was killed in action in 1941, and four other OPs fated to die in the war – LV Newall (33-35), RJD Law (32-36), RVN Levinge (33-36) and MGL Hornby (31-35).

In 1935 I was one of a party of cadets who took part in the cruiser Effingham in the Silver Jubilee Review at Spithead. The following year King George V, the sailor king, died in January. Shortly after a detachment of Pangbourne cadets including myself were positioned near Marble Arch along the funeral route from Paddington to Westminster Hall. The day was January 23^rd, a very cold damp day, and we stood from 0730 to 1400 hours. None of us fainted although several cadets from Dartmouth did. At the end of that year I listened to King Edward V111’s abdication speech on the radio in Croft House.

Day to day, the College was more or less run by the Executive Officer, Commander Jackie Blair. Unfortunately he did not get on with the Captain Superintendent, Captain Tracey, and was not invited to take refreshment in the upmarket establishment of Devitt House, instead favouring a local hostelry in the village. In 1935 there was a bit of a bust up and Cdr. Tracey did not reappear, being replaced by Captain Greig. We were never told why.

Many of the masters had no teaching experience or degrees although several had served in the Great War of 1914-18 which appealed to us boys. ‘Flatty’ House was ex-Navy and taught Geography while Cdr. MacIlwaine taught Navigation. Mr. Robinson (Robo) taught Maths and told me I was useless. An OP called Crozier (GAL Crozier 18-20), who was badly crippled by polio, taught French. Others on the staff included Cdr. Windebank (rather an ancient creature) and the two Daveys, Rat and PJ (the Somerset cricketer). The Director of Studies was Stanley Cook who came from Leeds Grammar School and was the laughing stock of the cadets. He lasted two years.

And, of course, there was Harry Sykes who was to spend 37 years at the College teaching Maths and for many years acted as Hon. Sec. of the OP Society. Harry died in 1967 and a Thanksgiving Service was held that October in the College chapel. I was serving in Malta as Base Supply Officer at the time and arranged for a commemoration to be held in St. Michael’s church in HMS St. Angelo. Nine OPs attended including Capt. WJ Woolley (35-39), head of the British Naval Mission in Tripoli in Libya, CRE Compton (33-36) who was running a sailing school on Malta, WStG Anderson (33-36), formerly a district commissioner in the Solomon Islands but by that time Master of a private motor yacht and Captain Charles Blandy (52-56) who was serving on the island in the Royal Artillery.

I still have my school reports. These suggest that I was barely average academically but developed well when given some authority as a Cadet Leader and Cadet Captain. I began keeping a diary in my last term in 1937. By then I was a Cadet Captain for the starboard watch of Port Jackson division where new cadets spent their first two terms. The entries record the rhythm of my life that term: Work – Hockey – Squash – Ackers – rehearsal for Harbinger play ‘Trial by Jury’ in which I was the judge – Medical examination at the Admiralty February 8 – Written exam at the Civil Service Commission in London March 2-6 – Exam results (passed) April 3 – Left NCP April 7.

Looking back, it was the Instructors – namely Bill Stamper (Gnarly Bill), Charlie Sewell, Poppa Henning and Stoker Martin, all ex-armed forces – who were invaluable in helping us all to develop. In their own individual, lower deck ways they had an enormous influence over impressionable, wet-behind-the-ears teenagers.

Still, the poor education standards at the College in the 1930s did not prevent Pangbourne producing some outstanding individuals. Several contemporaries or near-contemporaries spring to mind. Ian McGeoch (28-31) became a Vice Admiral, was knighted and won the DSO and DSC in the Second World War. I got to know him quite well in his later years. Peter Hellings (30-34) was Chief of the College in my second term. He became Commandant General of the Royal Marines and had the unique distinction of being awarded both the DSC and MC during the war. George Crowley (30-33) was my captain in HMS Raleigh in 1961-62 and became a good friend. He retired as a Rear Admiral with a CB and DSC. I should also mention Marcus Graham (31-35), a survivor of the HMS Prince of Wales sinking in 1941. Later he became chairman of the Board of Governors at Pangbourne and helped to transform the NCP into the fine school it is today.

After the NCP I joined the cruiser HMS Frobisher to begin a truly exciting, hardworking and mostly enjoyable 35-year career in the Royal Navy. During the Second World War, which broke out a couple of years after I left Pangbourne, I was very fortunate that four ships in which I had served, including the battle cruiser HMS Hood, were sunk by enemy action only after I had left them. Later I was to spend 18 months on loan to the Royal New Zealand Navy in HMNZS Royalist on the Far East Station in 1957-58 before retiring from the Navy in 1972.

Every generation of Pangbourne cadets and pupils remembers, and appreciates best, the College marching bands of their own era.  This is just as it ought to be. And to every Drum Major, ‘his’ Band was always ‘the’ best, although  I can’t let that one slip through to the keeper without adding what a pleasure it now is to include ‘her’ Band in this context.

During my time at the NCP, different Bands performed under a succession of Drum Majors and, with great respect to all those who succeeded him, I should pay particular homage to Ian McVittie (53-58).  Ian was Drum Major in my first term when a lot of things “English” were still new and often bemusingly eccentric to a boy from County Down who had never before set foot on the ‘mainland’. But I had, of course, grown up with the fifes and drums of “King Billy” back home forever. God knows – they’d been a thorn in the side of long-term peace in Northern Ireland for decades!

Irish politics aside, McVittie’s Band included a bugler named Taite. RG Taite (56-59) was, I think, the finest exponent of the instrument I have ever heard - and who of us present on the day can ever forget his astonishing solo fanfare at my first Beating Retreat in 1958?  No doubt played on one of the College’s tone-perfect ‘silvers,’ it was so simple, building with perfectly controlled vibrato through an ascending series of repeated phrases to end on a piercing high note that left his audience speechless. 

As an important aside, might I also mention that Taite and his fellow bugler Bill Image (55-59) had ‘knarled their lids’ to a state of near-architectural perfection that rendered my new ‘duck’s arse’ from Gieves insanely stupid and in need of urgent re-design.

So if you’re reading this, Taite, you have my belated thanks for so subliminally steering the writer into a College career behind the mouth-piece! Today, my own old B&H ‘copper’ (along with its bullet graze from the Boer War) is carefully preserved as an over-size paperweight and, after a few jars ‘of an evening’, is even played occasionally. Annoyingly, however, my neighbours seem to have little appreciation of such erstwhile virtuosity – even with a hanky stuck up the end.

Making my job a lot easier when I became Drum Major in ’61, the Band was already damned good and its members – young and old – soon became ‘family’ over time.  In no order of anything, I will mention as many names as I can muster after all this time. And to those of you I have either left out entirely or only mentioned by surname, I apologise profusely. From old photos, I know your faces and can still hear your voices, so please...no malice of forethought intended.

Robert Swann, Bill Bailey, Richard Givan, Peter Griffiths, Andrew Scott-Priestley, Tim Le Couteur, Andrew Herbert, Tim Dow, RDM Newman, Roger Lane-Nott, Peter Harris,  Andrews (or was it Andrewes?), Askwith, Jeremy Rind, Andrew Ogilvie, Brian Panisset, one of the Dicks, Childs, Cumming, Rhodes, Robertson, Vetch and…and… please help me! Might there also have been a Burgess, Godfrey, Owen, Plummer, Reynell and Tibbits in the ranks?  Just don’t tell me you were in the “Guard” after all this time!

Remember the marches?  Aldershot, Burma, Anvil, Shotley, Grenadier-de-Corpus, Gurkha, Hookie, Rochester, Birdlington, King’s Own, Mechanised Infantry, Eastney, Waltzing Bugle Boy (did we?) and Dobbs..etc.  Don’t worry…I’m reading off an old crib sheet but reckon I could still play at least three of them…or, on second thoughts, maybe only Eastney.

As a bugler, my memory of fife tunes is a little less clear, yet I do remember introducing a new one to the repertoire, namely “Polly and Oliver” – the signature tune to a 1950s BBC Northern Ireland children’s radio serial.  It was a catchy tune well suited to a 120-pace which, somewhat to my surprise, proved a serious hit with our Founder’s Day instructor, Corporal (later Sergeant) Tony Ormond-Dobbin, RM.  He even took it back to his barracks in Deal where, I have no doubt, it is still played incessantly by the greatest military band(s) in the world.  Dream on, Sam.

This very tune was most famously played during our march off the Parade Ground after my last Beat Retreat in 1962 when (thanks-be-to-Him-upstairs) I somehow managed to catch the mace after spiralling it, with considerable effort, over the high power lines to the recently built Mess Hall. In fact, while the wooden-headed practice one received a good hammering, I don’t remember once denting the sacred real one in all my time at the helm.

I have tried since to emulate that ‘throw’ with sundry stakes and broom handles in the back garden many times, but nothing seems to work – except for the high-suction tail piece of my vacuum cleaner which, with concerted effort, can painfully render a passable ‘Sunset’ after a Chardy or two.

Not everything, though, went entirely to plan for the Band of ’61-’62.  Indeed, when it came to the NCP’s turn to lead the Seafarers’ Parade through London to St. Paul’s cathedral ahead of the Conway and Worcester contingents in 1962, I boldly led the whole procession across Blackfriar’s Bridge instead of ‘chucking a lefty’ (as they say Down Under) not far before it.

As an Ulster boy, I might as well have been in downtown Manila for all I knew of the City of London.  But help was to hand and, at once alerted to my error by a panic-stricken constabulary, “Flush” Rimmer raced (in as much as he was able) to the rescue and commanded a prompt stop of all oncoming traffic and a just as prompt counter-march by the whole parade.  Typically, the manoeuvre was carried out with detached aplomb by the Band of ’61-’62 and undoubtedly added a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings.

In my last term we received an invitation to perform publicly at the prestigious annual Military Tattoo in Bracknell. When the day came, it had rained heavily for quite a while and the nice-looking grassy arena disguised something akin to a Donegal bog. This, however, had no apparent effect on the musical gymnastics of the UK’s resident US Air Force Band under the direction of one Staff Sergeant Edwards.  Indeed, it gave an amazing performance of precision and timing that left us all breathless…and wondering what on earth we could do to compete as the next ‘act’ on the card. 

We had, of course, rehearsed our routine ad nauseam, and it all went pretty well until – in a pathetic attempt to restore the honour of Great Britain – I risked a triple throw to impress the crowd.  Great idea – but as the mace soared ever higher towards an over-flying 707 out of Heathrow, it also migrated 20 feet in front of the Band with no apparent hope of respectable retrieval. 

Behind me, First Drum Robby Swann shouted “Just let it land, Sam!” So I did and, on re-entry, the mace made a text book landing, point-first into the mud five paces ahead of me. There, it sort of quivered like a well-aimed spear until, on a perfectly-timed upswing of my right arm, it was slickly sucked from the dirt as if nothing untoward had happened.  As I hoped it might, the crowd went totally insane and Sergeant Edwards, who had been watching us, later asked me how the hell I’d done it.  I think I just said ‘it’ll cost you’.

Finally, I can’t end this trip down memory lane without reference to a poignant moment that has stayed with me all these years. It was just after Sunday Divisions early in my last term when, half out of sight under an oversize ‘lid’, the smallest Port Jackson first-termer I had ever seen came up to Robby Swann and me outside the Band Room and saluted smartly.  “Please, Sir, I’m… (no names, no pack-drill)…and I want to play the drum.”

Robby and I just looked at each other, longing to laugh. But we didn’t and, in his inimitably friendly way, Swann went back into the Band Room to get his drum. The leather shoulder harness and under-hanging tassels were still attached and, carefully, we draped it over the small boy’s shoulders. All too predictably, even the drum dragged on the ground, not to mention the tassels.

“Damn!” squeaked our young visitor loudly before bursting into tears – and instantly earning the unquestioned respect of one Drum Major and one First Drum.  (RIP, Robby…you were indeed a good man – not least of all with drumsticks in hand.)[1]

So…many fondly-remembered days, and my thanks, 50 years on, to all of you who contributed to making the Band of  ’61-’62* the best ever. You know who you are! 

richard.strachan@bigpond.com

* photos in the Gallery