by Jon Pertwee
And there aren’t many people who have met personally, and actually talked to, such illustrious animals as these!
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My second boarding-school was Wellington House preparatory in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. The Isle of Thanet nearly sank under the Weight of ‘good schools’ in Westgate, Wellington House, Hawtrey’s and Stone House being the top three. There was such a plethora of Marquis’s, Viscounts, Lords, Sirs and Hons at W.H. that without a handle of some sort you really felt out of it. The head was the very reverend Percy Underhill, an ex-rowing blue with crossed oars over his fireplace to prove it. He was a man who demanded strict obedience at all times, and got it, for a quick look at the size and bulk of this monolith was all that was necessary for him to receive instant acquiescence.
The tool of his chastisement trade was a fives bat, a wooden instrument used instead of gloves in the game of fives. Two inches thick and about eighteen inches long it was a frightening deterrent. A blow from the fives bat when wielded by the Rev not only had a paralysing effect on the behind, it also shot the offender forward at such velocity that he was in danger of having his head rammed through the opposite wall. The bruises left by the bat were of a variety of hue that would’ve put Turner to shame, and were the source of endless discussion and debate on the merits or otherwise of corporal punishment, and the visual results of the tools used therein.
But Percy Underhill, although of alarming demeanour, was always a fair man, and I grew to have a great respect and fondness for him. His dear wife was the complete opposite of her husband, a desperately thin, permanently hatted, jaundiced lady both in spirit and in the colour of her skin.
I remember Mrs Underhill mostly for her beautiful flower arrangements in the chapel, and her ‘much-looked-forward-to-invitation-teas’ in her sitting room. There, chosen boys could stuff themselves solid with unlimited sandwiches (cucumber), buns (Chelsea), and cake (Dundee), at the same time as ogling Rosemary, the Underhills’ lovely daughter – the mental image of whose beauteous body would be neatly stored away until bedtime. In the privacy of his cubicle, many a small boy would happily fall asleep with Rosemary as the subject of his erotic dream.
Each cubicle was about eight foot square and sparsely furnished with an iron cot bed, a small mat on the bare floorboards, a washstand with the familiar jug, basin and tooth mug and a small locker for one’s ‘things’. The six foot high walls were wooden so forbidden holes were easily bored to facilitate communication with one’s neighbours, both written and visual. If a rift developed between stable companions, a quickly made spitball of blotting paper would bung-up the orifice, and one’s privacy was once more absolute.
Each night before lights out, ‘Moon’, as the Head was tagged, went on his rounds. Being so tall, he could peer easily over the top of each monklike cell. ‘Goodnight Frederick’ – ‘Goodnight Sir’ – ‘Goodnight Willoughby’ – ‘Goodnight Sir’ – ‘Goodnight Jon, sleep well!’ – ‘Goodnight Sir.’
It was always Christian names for the ‘sleep well’ exhortations, but, amicable as he tried to sound, you could often tell from an inflection in his voice as to whether or not you were likely to be called forth for sentence at ‘Readover’ the next morning. A ‘Goodnight Jon’ guaranteed Jon a bad night, and a bad night guaranteed a bad morning, for ‘Readover’ was like sitting in on judgement Day. All the school gathered in the ‘New Hall’ (built circa 1900) and silently awaited his Lordship and accompanying jury. On the dot of nine, in swept the Reverend Underhill, enveloped in a vast black gown, like the ‘Great Avenger’. Under his arm he carried ‘The Doomsday Book’ which he placed with great veneration on an Eagle lectern before him. The staff similarly gowned and padding along behind him, paled into insignificance with the sheer force of his personality, and seated themselves in a straight line to his right and left.
The trial commenced – and after a prayer, a hymn, some fascinating directives about the care and cleanliness of urinals et al, came the dreaded opening of the ‘Book of Doom’. You could’ve heard half a pin drop as the Reverend, placing his half-moon glasses on the end of his nose, announced, ‘Here is today’s “Readover” list.’
The guiltless, the goody-goodies, the swots, grinned with self-satisfaction, knowing that the only time their names would be mentioned was when paeans of praise would ring out for their excellent marks, or their prowess on the sports field.
It was quite the reverse, however, for the likes of Freddie Gibson, Robin Lucas, Laurence Jolivet and me. We were always on the black list. What did we do? Well, you name it and evidently we did it.
Those fearful quakes would start again, the blood rushing to my feet, and the only thing holding me upright was the close proximity of my adjoining misdemeanants. My friend ‘Jolly’ Jolivet once said that on the frequent occasions when my name was read out, I looked like ‘a dead cat, before rigor mortis had set in’.
‘Pertwee,’ boomed ‘The Moon’, peering over the top of his glasses, ‘will I ever be honoured by someone saying something good and encouraging about you? Today, for tripping up Matron, you have received your third “stripe” in a week, and you know what that means!’ I knew all right! A fives ball was once again to be replaced by my behind. ‘See me in my study after Readover,’ he commanded. The simping eggheads and rugger-buggers hugged themselves in anticipatory glee. ‘Botfield Senior,’ went on the Head, ‘receives two stars for the second time this week. The first for courage on the rugger field and the second for obtaining full marks for his biology exam.’
‘Dirty devil,’ I thought, ‘I know why he’s good at biology!’ – and as for courage in the field, anyone would think he had had a leg amputated without anaesthetic, instead of having a knocked-loose tooth pulled out.
Nevertheless, despite all these rebellious thoughts, as requested, I dutifully reported myself in the Headmaster’s study after Readover, awaiting my punishment.
P.C.U. gazed at me with intense disapproval for what seemed like several minutes, then with the care of a golfer selecting the right club for a particularly tricky shot, he chose a fives bat from the assortment he kept in his umbrella stand.
‘Pertwee,’ he said, testing it for durability by administering a quick whack on the arm of his leather sofa, ‘you are a wretched mumchancer. That is not mere opinion but an indisputable fact. Left to pursue the path of idleness and profligacy upon which you have set your feet, I have no doubt that you would probably end on the gallows as an example to others of your ilk and kidney. Happily, vile Pertwee, I intend to divert you from this unhappy course for, as Carlyle reminds us, it is the indisputable right of the ignorant that they may be guided by the wiser, either gently or forcibly. In your case it will be very forcibly, to impress both upon your person and what for want of a better word I shall call your mind, that ignorance is not necessarily bliss!’
And the extremely one-sided battle commenced!
That is what I shall term the ‘heavier’ side of Wellington House, but it also had its ‘lighter’ sides, and one of these occasions was ‘Parental Visits’. Following these, small boys who went to bed early were allowed a short ‘look-in’ from their loved ones, but I am ashamed to admit that I dreaded the visits from Granny. Being of shortish stature, she could not see over the cubicle walls, so that on one previous occasion she had had to hazard a guess as to which cubicle her ‘Jonny-Boys’ was sleeping in. Inevitably, she chose the wrong ones and several embarrassed small boys were caught knickerless, or ‘pointing at the porcelain’. ‘Whoops,’ she said in feigned horror. ‘I’m so sorry, I must’ve got the wrong room.’ Her plaintive cry of ‘Jonny-Boys, where are you?’ echoed down the dorm – closely followed by an unseen chorus of giggling schoolboys chanting, ‘Jonny-Boys, where are you?’
On another occasion, Granny, anxious to cause me no further embarrassment, carried a chair with her during her search, and when she got to what she firmly believed was the right cubicle, put down the chair, and stood up on it, in order to look over the wall without strai
n. At the third unsuccessful attempt she arrived at the room of a very nervous young man who blinked a lot and suffered badly from ‘incontinence’. Unable to sleep, he was looking up at the ceiling playing ‘changing faces’, when one of the most singular sights he had ever seen appeared over the top of him. It was Granny, wearing the latest creation from Madame Louise, her milliner of long standing – a large black felt with ostrich feathers, and a smidgeon of fruit and veg. This sudden apparition above him proved too much for the poor lad, whose loud screams caused Granny to take fright and fall backwards off her chair, mercifully without harm. I wish the same could be said for the startled youngster, but due to the severe shock he had received he promptly wet his bed. It is surprising, taking everything into consideration, that that’s all the poor little chap did!
An interesting off-shoot of this is that during the war some years later, I was passed in Regent Street by an enormous black-moustachioed Officer-Cadet and was torn off the most terrific salute I’d ever received. A few paces on we both stopped and turned.
‘I know you don’t I?’
‘Yes sir, we were both at the same prep school, I remember you were very kind to me.’ I decided against mentioning the ‘Granny reminiscence’, not only out of deference to his finer feelings but also because he was about six foot four and could’ve killed me with one blow! As an officer he was much decorated for services to his country and is now a titled eccentric of enormous panache and charm.
Now to the staff Mr Kendrick was a dear old buffer who should have retired years before, but he loved the boys and the boys loved him. He was with the school when it started and he intended to stay with it until it finished, or what was more likely, until he was. Mr Kendrick was our father, our mother, our confidant and what was more important, our ‘shopper’. Every week he would make a list of the boys’ requirements and hobble off to the shops to buy them. There were always ‘crazes’ at Wellington House – yo-yos, diabolo, paper gliders, rope-spinning, torches with red, green and white lights for signalling or reading under the sheets, crystal sets, even ants in glass cases. All these and more did Mr Kendrick buy for us and the New Hall would be alive with glider pilots for a week or two, then the Cowboys with their lariats took over, followed by the circus performers, tossing their spinning and humming (6d extra) diabolo cones from one juggler to another. ‘Oriental’ yo-yoers took their yo-yos for ‘Walkies’, they ‘boomeranged’ them, they ‘looped-the-loop’ and occasionally became so over-enthusiastic that they confused their string-hung yo-yos for conkers, resulting in broken bits of them flying dangerously around the room. I was a champion then, for I once owned a ‘twelver’ yo-yo. The ant lovers, however, were, after due consideration, summarily banished to the boot and shoe room.
Captain Thompson, MC, DSO was a tall, thin, ex-military gentleman of fine bearing, who was determined to take over as Headmaster when the ‘Moon’ retired. He regularly regaled us with lurid stories of the 14-18 war in Mesapotamia. ‘Those damned Turks never took prisoners, you know. Before we could get to the battlefield and bring our wounded in, those diabolical Turkish women, looking for all the world like black widow spiders, would creep out with their long knives and hack the poor devils to bits.’ It was Captain Thompson, and his heroic stories of soldiery that in 1939 made me join the Navy.
To be sitting at Captain Thompson’s table was much envied. Every day you were obliged to move up one place to the right, bringing you, eventually, to a position next to the gallant Captain himself. What was so enviable about this position was that at breakfast, the Captain would take two ‘soldiers’ of toast from his own personal supply, spread them liberally with butter (no margarine for him), and then, under the excited gaze of twenty boys, carefully spoon a generous portion of Oxford ‘Olde English’ marmalade upon each slice. These he handed with great ceremony to the boys sitting on his right and left, who, knowing that it would be some considerable time before their turn came round again, took Mr Gladstone’s admirable advice and chewed and savoured every delicious mouthful without haste.
Our French master was a Mr Hubert Riley CRO - what CRO meant was anybody’s guess, and he considered any querying of its origin to be an impertinence. He was, he told us, half French, and stemmed from the Channel Islands, his father being a professor of some import and his brother the famous explorer and writer Quentin Riley. Quentin Riley visited the school regularly and gave us riveting lectures (with the additional showing of slides and props such as snow-shoes, sealskin coats and boots and blubber-lamps) on his adventures in the frozen North. Real Jack London stuff was this.
Hubert Riley was an out-and-out rebel. Small in height, he had the heart and moral courage of a cornered buffalo. In chapel, when the mighty Reverend Underhill rose to lead the choir in prayer, the congregation immediately rose with him. Not so Mr Riley. He stayed firmly seated, engrossed, so he would have you believe, in some fascinating, newly-discovered passages in his Bible. Or he would stare hypnotically at a line on his palm that had apparently appeared overnight. The tension was electric, the ‘Moon’ glaring at the ‘Rebel’, the ‘Rebel’ ignoring the ‘Moon’, until that split second, just prior to the bolt of lightning summoned by the Reverend to strike the impudent sinner down, when Mr Riley would slowly rise up, open his Prayer book at the appropriate page, turn towards the by now apoplectic Headmaster and smile at him benignly as if nothing whatsoever had occurred. Result? Another game, set and match to the Rebel.
In class he was a terror, and with his close-cropped hair looked almost teutonic. He was an excellent teacher, however, despite his tart and bullying manner. ‘Pertwee,’ he commanded one day, ‘stay behind. The rest of you, go.’ The class made a hurried exit, leaving us alone.
‘Yes, sir?’ I said querulously.
‘Why aren’t you afraid of me?’ he asked.
‘Oh, but I am, sir.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re just pretending to be. You’re acting at being afraid, and you’re not doing a bad job of it. You ought to take up the profession when you’re older.’ So spoke my first theatre critic, and for several years I continued to be amused by him. While others quaked, I shook, but with laughter. Not only was he witty, sharp-tongued and a mine of entertaining information, he was also a health nut, and when he, not Captain T., became Headmaster, all knickerbockers (‘Don’t allow a boy’s sex organs to breathe’), Eton collars (‘They garrotte the poor lads’) and boots (‘We’re not living in ancient Peking’) were immediately abandoned in favour of shorts, open-necked shirts, and soft sand-shoes.
H.R. taught me to be aware of and take pleasure in, the many colours that were before me in flowers, trees and leaves, in the sky and the sea. He could hold you spellbound around a rock pool with his infinite knowledge of the minuscule life that lived there, and encouraged us to have aquariums in school and stock them with specimens that we had caught.
Wellington House had a large playing field and all around the perimeter under a low brick wall were the boys’ gardens. Mr Riley was my ‘old Adam’ and under his careful guidance, I had the best garden in the school. I won prizes regularly, and cups, until by now a trifle blasé, I decided on a completely new approach. ‘This year,’ I mused, ‘I will abandon flowers in favour of vegetables’, and so it was done. A line of tall brussels sprouts at the back, clumps of thyme and rosemary, rows of elegant leeks, cheeky radishes and luscious lettuces, it was a sight any greengrocer would have been proud of. Not so the judges, however. They couldn’t see the humour of the situation. The rebellious Mr Riley, sensing that in me he had found a kindred spirit, could, and gave me a star, ‘for using my brain in an original manner’. He became a true friend and I regularly visited him and the school when later in life I was touring theatres in the vicinity.
W.H. holds some vivid memories for me, especially the Saturday afternoon boxing. There in the New Hall grudges were fought out under the strict supervision of a sports master. I remember one battle royal between two giant men, John Profumo, the ex-MP, and Geor
ge Bowring of the shipping family. They fought it out over five two-minute rounds, and it is the most bloody battle in my memory. There just seemed no end to it. Eventually, the two evenly matched and exhausted gladiators were quite correctly given a draw. The two giants, I have just come to realise, were about ten years old and not much over five feet tall! But to a child’s mind – like buildings, like people.
I thought I had a friend in Brother Backslider, John ‘Freddie’ Gibson, but I was mistaken. He was forever challenging me to Saturday jousts and, never taking ‘no’ for an answer, frequently bent and bloodied my already well-pronounced nose.
My forthright views on bullies and bullying, however, received a sudden kick in the teeth when my wife Ingeborg and I were entertaining two of my best school friends Nigel ‘Podge’ Neilson and Laurence ‘Jolly’ Jolivet and their wives to dinner last year. They, if you please, calmly informed the assembled company after some nostalgic reminiscence about bullying, that I, Jon Pertwee, was one of the school’s prime offenders. Such perfidy! And to think that these were supposed to be very ‘good’ friends! I shall take solace in the belief that the whole thing was a pre-arranged jape, but between you and me, I’m not so sure!
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There was also the most beautiful chapel at Wellington House, with very good examples of stained glass, oak pews, marbled floors, and a splendid piped organ, played upon with great relish and panache by a Mr Cameron. Up in the organ loft with him to do the pumping was a small shadow called Gaghan, who worshipped his own god, a ‘graven image’ in the form of Mr Cameron himself. He learned to play the organ like him, to walk like him, with his unseemly gait, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in great lolloping strides, to talk like him in a distinctive twittering ululation, to comb his black frizzy hair to sweep over his head in a frenzied bobbing arc. He even developed his master’s unique style as a ‘googly’ bowler on the cricket field, that could best be described as the careening of a chronic sufferer from St Vitus’s dance. A most excellent example of parrotry, but as Mr Cameron was never a particularly pretty sight, he was a strange choice for a young boy to emulate.