THE SLOW train to the north could not begin without a long flight to the west. In between, the trip went below the earth - where the loudspeakers on Victoria Underground Station in London vibrated with accents from Barbados and Uttar Pradesh.
A perilously thin busker squeaks out a reedy tune on his flute that echoes along the toilet-tiled corridors. He's so pale he's almost transparent. I can imagine the scene at a hospital. "He doesn't need an x-ray doctor, just hold him up to the light."
There's an air of menace on the crowded tube, and those who failed to get a seat, stand on the feet of those who did. Emerging from the Dickensian tunnels, another train rattles and rolls me towards Scotland. I walk to the refreshment bar and notice that a youth with Rastafarian hair has plonked his monster ghetto blaster on the table in front of two aged pensioners who are visibly withering under the sound.
At a brief station stop in Lancashire, I glance out of the window to see a dog peeing on the back wheel of a new car in a sale yard. On the windscreen the sign says, "Only 4,250. Won't last!" the dog was just confirming it.
I had come in search of a past that might give me a glimpse of the present - and, perhaps, the future. My old school. I am not one for sentiment, or even nostalgia come to think of it, but as I was visiting my ninety-year-old grandmother who lived close by - and who still drives faster than her age - I thought I'd go and have a peek.
Except it wasn't there. The boarding school's once elegant Victorian buildings and green playing fields had been replaced by ugly bungalows. I was at first mortified, then horrified; my past had been reduced to a housing estate.
When I had first arrived at this boarding school - which held to the "profound belief in the health-giving properties of sea air and mountain walks" - my parents were fussed over by the headmaster and his wife. I was seven years old and told to make myself "useful" in the library. But it had no science-fiction section and the dictionaries were too old to have any swear words. So, I spent the rest of the morning torturing woodlice in the arboretum with a magnifying glass. It was brilliant. After lunch, I was taken to see the animals on the school farm. Nothing died or got dangerous so it was boring. I clearly remember the first night. I was going to stay awake to see the school ghost, but a senior boy said it was a girl - so I didn't bother.
There will always be misconceptions about private boarding schools in England. Most boys who were sent away at an early age to these establishments during the fifties and sixties, were primarily from middle-class nuclear families. And, like most things nuclear, they had a tendency to blow apart. Either through death, divorce, or debt. There were nine boys in my class, and none of them had fathers. These preparatory schools - which took boys from aged six to 13 - were to prepare them for public schools, which were, in fact, private. But that's another story.
But were we lashed into Latin and thrashed into breakfast?
No. But we were certainly pushed.
We were spotty kids learning dead languages, and what we ate often seemed far older. I will always remember the food simply because it was so unforgettable. For seven years it was basically thick splidge with added splat. The salads were always known as "Apartheid" - because there were several oddly-coloured ingredients living separate lives on the same plate.
We thought our headmaster was so old he ran on magic. But he was a handsome and dignified man who taught us arithmetic, algebra, and geometry - three subjects that I hated, was dismally bad at, and had entirely forgotten by the age of 14.
He once asked us in class, "Is man a risen ape of a fallen angel?" There was a deathly silence.
Then a tiny voice piped up from the back of the class: "A fallen ape."
Which sent us sniggering and pointing, and at which the headmaster yelled at us for both crimes. That brave but squeaky voice belonged to a boy called Carter, who went on to play professional rugby league in Australia, which is, without doubt, the toughest contact sport on the planet. Even at 11, he knew exactly what the state of man was.
Yet the headmaster's intentions were of the highest order, and by the year I joined the school, he had begun to rely on his humanity rather than his position to get the best out of us - and the knowledge out of him.
Not surprisingly my first report read: "It's not that he can't, it's just that he won't." The school was established in the late 1800s, and down in the local library I discovered some old records:
January 1872: "B. Smith well caned for carelessness, idleness, and general inattention."
December 1911: "Coughs etc and worse. School sounds like a dog kennel on moonlit night. Choir practice totally out of the question."
August 1957: Report: Morgan r. E. "He spends his life finding new ways to avoid success by setting himself low personal standards and then failing to achieve them."
In 1910, there were 60 boys registered at the school. By 1915, 26 had been killed in the First World war, their names carved into the stone walls of the exquisite church we trooped down to every Sunday in the town. School caps on, and hands out of pockets, we were the epitome of manners and discipline. The little old ladies in the seaside town always smiled with approval and referred to us as "those nice young men from Charney Hall."
So, not being able to find the school, I entered this spiritual nursery to hear the echoes of hymns sung long ago.
Our chaplain, who was so pious and thin we nicknamed him the "Skinned Guinea Pig," strongly believed in salvation, and was forever saying, "If ever you need me, just ring the chapel bell." So we did. Frequently. Usually at about 3.30am.
I reflected on the scant news of my old school mates. The sensible had married the daughters of rich farmers from the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District - God's own country. One became a Professor of Metaphysics at Oxford University, and another was part of the 1982 Mt. Everest expedition. One had half his face blosen off on Tumbledown Mountain in the Falkland Islands. Two fell to the dangerous spike of heroin - one got up, the other didn't. One went into a sodden and unforgiving jungle to look for diamonds, and ten years later I got a smudged card from Jeaneau in Alaska - where he was now looking for gold - which said, "It's as cold as a nun's bum up here." Well, he was in the school choir.
I actually met up with two old boys when I was 18. One went off to a Jimi Hendrix concert to "get experienced" and never came back. Another went off to Japan to "get perfect" and did. And you know what? He was perfect; horrifically, annoyingly perfect.So we beat him up and told him to go and look for the guy who went to the concert. Now they are both missing.
And the lessons I learnt from those now dead masters?
Hold fast to what is good and true, guard what is beautiful, defend what is precious, master your craft, be loyal to your friends, guide and cherish the young, forget yourself and remember others. All noble values, but what I really remember is the day the headmaster told us he'd been to a land called Siam and had seen a ghost dissolve before his eyes.
Well, Sir, I'm still here, and still waiting for one to turn up - let alone disappear.
By Roger Beaumont

Features January 2002 73rd Issue

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