CHARNEY HALL The Ruminations of an Old Man

 The Ruminations of an Old Man

‘Give me a child until he is 13 years old and I will show you the man!’. Aristotle will not be pleased with my schoolboy howler! However I cannot help but suspect that the period between years 8 to 13 of a child’s life is potentially a very impressionable and formative time. Phrases such as ‘empty vessel’ come to mind. There are many, diverse influences that crowd into the immature brain of an impressionable child of that age. Perhaps the cloistered, orchestrated environment of an independent school like Charney Hall is the one aspect of boarding school education that has the potential to make the most difference?

It goes without saying that all aspects of life in varying degrees are common to all young children before the pressure of a more intensive ‘education’ in the very broadest sense begins : ‘Early Years’ and pre-school - a home environment with parent(s) and access to their parental skills, support and commitment on tap but which may vary considerably in quality and quantity. In addition, access to mutually chosen friends as and when required, further mental stimulation including a surfeit of tv and nowadays access by tablet or mobile to the internet 24/7. And last but by no means least, the chaotic effect of dna/genetics and the haphazard nature of the straws of life that we all draw. 

Preparatory school education begins at a critical time. Being taken away from parents at 8 years old cannot be considered normal and it is a far cry from the idyll of a stable family life. For some sensitive children it could be a destabilising experience. However if done well and with care, a structured education, away from distracting external influences, has the potential of providing balanced comprehensive learning, probably the very best option for the right child. For the wrong child there is a chance that it could spell disaster.

At the age of 13, at the beginning of the Autumn term I was put on an express steam train at Preston mainline station having waved goodbye to my parents. I travelled alone at speed to London Euston (the train was never more than half an hour ‘en retard’) and crossed that alien city - I had never experienced the hustle and bustle of any city before. I walked through an area full of signs, lights and stair flights leading down into basements called Soho, and on to Liverpool Street station. From there I caught the school train for the first time to Felsted School located in the ‘sticks’ of Essex.

I very much doubt that I could have done that without experiencing the time I had at Charney Hall… 

In the following months I was ‘persuaded’ (perhaps forced is a better word) to have a cold shower every morning (central heating was minimal if not non-existent in the school dormitories and the large windows had to be left open whatever the time of year or the weather conditions. I was caned (6 of the best - and it hurt badly) by house prefects for talking in dormitory after lights out. New boys had to fag for the house prefects, polish and clean their corridor on Sunday mornings in best school Sunday suit. They had to learn by heart the school Blue Book containing the names, initials and nicknames of all the masters and school/house prefects, in addition learn the names and designs of all the school ties and who in my house had been awarded which colours for what sport - all under duress. 

I still could not swim more than a few strokes since leaving Charney Hall so I was singled out to practice my swimming every day without fail, at lunch break, until I could complete a full length without assistance**. In the meantime the school’s Sergeant Major, who it turned out, had psychopathic traits, threatened to push his silver tipped baton up my nose during Corps drill practice. Fortunately I managed to avoid the punishment of running several times around the perimeter of the large cricket field shod with oversized army boots and a Bren gun over my shoulder! This on account of trumped-up insubordination.

I began to notice that certain masters had developed their own particular mode of  punishment which was meted out to those boys who in their eyes had failed the test for home work done the previous evening. This took the form of an enthusiastic rap over the open hand with a wooden ruler (and it stung) or a twisting of the hair above the ears (which was excruciating) or to serve as an abrupt wake-up call, the occasional projectile which took on the form of a wooden-backed blackboard duster.

I very much doubt that I could have withstood such degrading and harsh treatment 200 miles from home, without experiencing the time I had at Charney Hall…

And there are many other occasions in the past when I have been aware of the same vote of thanks reoccuring. The memories of Charney Hall have in truth never left me and that alone is proof to me that there was something very special about that place. Perhaps I have been left with an assortment of a myriad of small but positive, unconnected events, like the digital thumbnail photos in my iPad’s Gallery or a series of recorded millisecond clips in time saved to hard drive which, without prior notice or for any specific reason, have the habit of suddenley popping up from time to time? Or is that a sign of PTSD…?

I can name a few images that feature in this recurring, fragmented vintage feature film (in no particular preference or order) : 

The many strikingly individual and unique characters (masters, matron(s), boys, slaves and wives who were referred to as ‘unpaid staff’ in the England Censuses - this I’m sure was purely for legitimate tax reasons), the red capped crocodile of boys negotiating old ladies on the pavements in Grange town, the town’s magnificent duck pond which hasn’t changed to this day***  the impeccable school grounds, the fathers’ cricket match, the white poplar trees where the Poplar Hawk moths laid their eggs and the caterpillars lived, the unattainable choir girls from St Paul’s, the opening up of the moth trap at sunrise by Maxwell Duncan, rolling the cricket pitch with the ‘gang roller’, cricket net practice, the fear of fast bowlers and my two black eyes, the flag pole and CH flag, the old carpenter’s shop and its smell of wood chippings, Mr Airey, the first joiner who instilled in me the value and practice of craftsmanship, the gym - roller skating at speed and its equipment (ropes, horse, box, bar, wall bars and springboard), shooting with .22 rifles, the close grouping of shots on the target and the exotic smell of nitrocellulose, the dining room with its panoramic view of Morecambe Bay, its silver cups and its necklace of former boys’ photographs arranged around the dado rail - the distribution of a dose of malt extract in the mornings after breakfast and glorious sunsets in the evenings, the profile of Barbara Duncan’s nose, the headmaster’s study in the week before leaving - a short course into the world of the ‘birds and the bees’ and some surprising warnings regarding adolescence, the pee-pot in the middle of the dormitory, weekly baths and the consistency of the rendered soap shampoo, the changing room’s communal ‘Roman’ bath and the colour of the water after a football match, the smell of dubbin and football boots, leather studs and linseed oil and cricket bats - breaking them in, away matches by coach, away matches by Invicta car (a real treat), the sick feeling of anticipation of school sports week, picking gooseberries and red currants in the kitchen garden on a sunny day to be served later that day with white blancmange*****, a celebratory pupil’s scholarship ‘swim’ in Tarn Howes and walking on the ice to the very centre of TH at half-term - a daunting experience, walks up the Lake District mountains, scree surfing, an unfortunate walk down Piers Gill, a walk on Hampsfell up to the Hospice, the Hampsfell race, limestone pavements clints and grikes, bracken, Yewbarrow woods, the ‘Face’ and the ‘Tanks’, a walk on the promenade, the tidal bore and those mysterious unending sands, Grange Lido and Cedric Robinson, the arrow marks on Cartmel Priory’s north door, classic black&white films (the wonder of Hollywood and the English film industry and the clicking of the projector, The beauty and extent of Mr Podmore’s moth collection and its smell, ‘chopsticks’ on the piano in the Memorial Hall, table tennis and the ‘ping-pong’ of bat and ball, seven Sunday sweets, Kendal Mint Cake at half-term, Mr Hirst’s general knowledge test, Common Entrance exams - the entry test into public schools, statutory vaccinations with blunt needles, the multi-pronged TB test, a visit to the doctor in Cartmel for my first painful stitch, toothpaste parties on the final night of term, the service in the Memorial Hall at the end of term accompanied by Mr Hirst or Mr Fairclough playing the piano, catching the steam train home, leaning out of the carriage door window to experience the speed and power of steam….on my final day at Charney Hall….

Fortunately, for my wellbeing, any bad experiences have now taken a back seat and are for the most part resolved or have been consigned to the Bin. The brain is an amazing thing!

** Many will recall that I failed to swim at CH which caused me some acute embarrassment. In the post ‘Charney Hall Cedric Robinson - Queen’s Guide to the Sands’ I had to admit that it was not Cedric that was the problem but my physical build which was ‘slight’ and therefore did not have the required buoyancy to keep me afloat - well that was my feeble excuse…

*** It is regrettable that the local wildfowlers’ association no longer maintains the bird population in the pond and so predictably the great variety of duck and geese once on display have reduced considerably by natural selection.

**** Cedric Robinson died in November 2021. See posts ‘CH Cedric Robinson - Queen's Guide to the Sands’ and ‘CH Cedric Robinson RIP’.

***** Little did I know at the time about the long history of this dish….however, severely modified by Ruth, the school’s cook, most probably for reasons of economy, it contained no almonds, cream or Irish moss or other delicacies, but was certainly aptly referred to in the recipe books as a ‘dish for the sick’. Topped with a compôte of red currants freshly picked that day, with a  tang of ‘sweet and sour’ , some found it delicious.

https://britishfoodhistory.com/2019/06/15/blancmange/