From the Vigornian Vaults

For our first glimpse into the Vigornian Vaults, we’ll look at how the festive season was celebrated at the School in years gone by. It goes without saying that the Cathedral has always played a central role, not just in the day-to-day life of the School, but specifically in its celebration of all major and religious holidays.

None of these is more important at King’s than Christmas, which sees pupils of all ages participating in a range of events from classroom activities to music performances. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the latter, to see how music has been used at King’s to celebrate Christmas for centuries.

Where better to look through King’s history than in The Vigornian? As one of our most treasured collections in the Archives, the editions of The Vigornian offer wonderful snapshots of life at King’s, as staff, pupils and alumni all contribute to share academic and extra-curricular news. Many earlier editions, for example, featured ‘letters’ from major universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and London, providing updates on alumni studying there.

Our particular interest this month is, however, Christmas. In the December 1880 edition of The Vigornian, we see a detailed account of the first ever School Concert. This piece is particularly significant in King’s history, since it marks the beginning of a long line of School Concerts showcasing pupil talent at King’s.

The article, entitled The Concert, explains that the first School Concert took place at Christmas 1879 and featured not only pupils but staff and alumni (“old boys”) too. Most of the text details the programme of music, split into Part I, containing carols, and Part II, with other music. This featured Mozart, Rossini and others, before ending with God Save the Queen, conducted by Reverend Hall.

The piece includes praise of several performers and even comments about which pieces were the audience’s favourites, such as The Banks of Allan Water, which received an encore. The author’s personal comments, such as, “a severe cold prevented Jordan’s excellent bass voice from telling to advantage”, make us wonder who the writer might be. There are, however, no clues in this Vigornian as to the identity of the mysterious figure of “The Editor”, mentioned on the first page. Instead, their voice echoes through the different articles, which do not include the names of their authors. It’s interesting that the early editions seem to want to speak with one voice, rather than the collaborative approach which we see in recent Vigornians. These list all authors – pupils, staff, and alumni alike – to strengthen the sense of the King’s community in the publication.

Another unanswered question is the location of the concert, not mentioned in the article. Given the Christmas music, which King’s pupils enjoy every Christmas at services in the Cathedral, might we assume the concert took place there too? The theme of the preceding piece, Notes on the Architecture of Worcester Cathedral, might lead us to think so. Or, as there’s no mention, is it more likely that the location was College Hall, the present setting of our School Concerts? We do know that College Hall was used in the 1870s as a teaching space for the 200 pupils at the School. In archival studies, sometimes the gaps in our knowledge are just as intriguing as the facts we do know. Maybe, with further research into King’s history, we will find some answers to these questions.

Over the coming months, we’ll be making all editions of The Vigornian available on the Vigornian Hub, so you can trace the history of King’s and your time here. If you need help accessing the Hub, please contact the Alumni Office via alumni@ksw.org.uk.

Back in December 2023 we celebrated a fantastic King’s victory in the 2023 Modus Cup. The final score was a decisive 34-8, but King’s maintained strength throughout, as we held a 22-3 lead by half-time. You can read the full report covering the win in our News pages.

Since the win, we’ve been compiling photos and stories from the Archives of some of the most interesting games over the years between the two schools.

King’s and RGS were holding annual rugby games long before the Modus Challenge Cup. The game has been played at Sixways Stadium and colloquially called “Modus” since 2006, when the graphic design agency Modus began to sponsor the Cup. Since then, brightly coloured posters and flyers have advertised the game to pupils, staff, and the public, for what always proves to be an exciting evening. Here’s the poster Modus produced for the 13th year of the Cup in 2019:

This game, in 2019, was particularly successful for King’s, as we won 22-7 against RGS in front of a crowd of 3,200. King’s led the game 0-15 until the sixty-fifth minute, but RGS demonstrated perseverance in then executing a quick conversion, following a cover-tackle from King’s. In the end, the King’s team ensured victory when Willem H carried out an arcing run which led to a wonderful try converted by Ollie B. Worcester Warriors described the King’s side as “having a ferocious defence, which proved decisive in a fast and furious affair.”

We’re lucky to hold records of many different kinds in the Archives. Our rugby collection contains not only photos and newspaper reports, but also includes this wonderful record: a pupil’s diary of match reports across his time at King’s. The notebook, which belonged to D. W. Jelinek, was donated to King’s by Jelinek’s widow, Thalia Constantinidou. A professional copy has been made to preserve the book as well as possible, which contains wonderfully detailed entries. Records like this one are particularly valuable to us as they show us a pupil’s perspective on school events. Whilst it is useful to have the official reports and publications, pupils’ own words add life and colour to our collections.

Jelinek explains that King’s beat RGS 10-9 in the 1978-79 season. He describes the game as the best he had played in the First XV, writing that “it was great to beat the Grammar at home in front of our own crowd”. Here is the page from Jelinek’s diary about the game:

One of the strengths of our rugby archives collection is the vast number of records. We’re proud of all our pupils’ sporting endeavours and aim to maintain all sports teams’ photos. We have a vast wealth of rugby team photos, spanning decades at King’s. One of our current archival projects is digitising all of these so they can then be made available to OVs on the Vigornian Hub. Here are some highlights from the general rugby collections of the Archives:

King’s twins: We found a fascinating story from 2004, when the King’s first XV played Old Swinford. Although we lost the game, this event is particularly interesting, since the King’s team included three sets of twins! This unique situation was featured in the 2004 edition of the Vigornian. The photo below, featuring the Potters, Cullens and Fellows, has been taken from the Vigornian:

‘King’s win the school showdown’: newspaper cutting
A 1984 cutting from the Worcester Source reveals that King’s had “maintained their record breaking [sic] unbeaten season” after beating RGS 17-4 at the annual rugby game between the two schools. King’s had won 17 games and drawn one in the season, and were reliably strong in the RGS game. A particularly tense part of the game for King’s came early on, when Gareth Wilding kicked ahead following a mid-field breakdown but was obstructed. The captain, Robert Preston, then took the resulting penalty and achieved a nail-biting “successful kick that shaved the crossbar”. Here are the First XV from the season:

Oldest team photo: After looking back even further in the King’s Archives, we found our oldest photos of rugby at the School. These are from before any records we have of King’s v RGS games and show our First XV in a variety of settings, but remarkably familiar kit. Although the photos are in black and white, it looks like the King’s team are sporting the same white and blue stripes they play in today. You can see this in the oldest rugby photo in our Archives, of the First XV from 1929:

Action shot: Finally, here is the oldest photo we have of King’s rugby in action. This is the First XV playing the Dean Close School in the 1957-58 season, with a final score of 0-0:

We look forward to including more photos of current sports events into the Archives to increase our collections. As we grow the Vigornian Hub, we hope to upload sports team photos so you’ll be able to track your time on King’s sports teams over the years. If you need help accessing the Hub, please contact the Alumni Office via alumni@ksw.org.uk.

This month we’re looking back at the last decade of productions at King’s, which showcase the wide variety of pupil talent both on and off the stage. We’ll focus on ten plays which together feature pupils from across all years at King’s. The photos, publications and stories we have in the Archives are particularly useful for tracing the history of Drama at the School, since we have plenty of play reviews by the performers themselves! These often feature in The Vigornian, where pupils reflect on their favourite experiences during rehearsals and productions. See if you can spot yourself in any of the productions from your time at King’s:

2023 – Senior Production: The Madness of King George III

Our Senior Production last year, The Madness of King George III, required detailed costumes, wigs, and makeup. OV George Capell (Br 16-23) said he “felt very fancy” in his role as George III, as the wardrobe was “spectacular”. OV Sophie Pitts (S 16-23), who played Queen Charlotte, explained that it was a “brilliant journey” to look back on her progress alongside George, from members of the chorus in their Lower Years to the principal roles in the Senior Production. You can watch the full video of George and Sophie discussing their roles here.

2022 – Fourth Forms: Mary Poppins JR

Our Fourth Form pupils excelled in both acting and technical support in their production of Mary Poppins JR, a musical based on the famously endearing nanny. Flo S, who played the title character, explains, “I will remember Mary Poppins as a magical experience that brought so much joy into my life […] performing in front of the audience was ‘practically perfect in every way’… literally!”

2021 – Learning to adapt during a pandemic

The Summer Term of 2021 brought eased COVID restrictions after many months of the “rule of six” and limited household mixing. June saw the return of audiences to the John Moore Theatre after 15 months as our Removes performed Burning Bird, an intense play set during the 2011 London Riots. It was fitting that our pupils explored the themes of freedom and obedience to authority after such unusual circumstances, and many commented on how happy they were to resume developing their acting and speaking skills.

2020 – When the show can’t go on…

March 2020 brought a sharp stop to any dramatic performances at King’s, alongside so many aspects of normal school life. We did, however, virtually host OV Bella Merlin (Co 81-83), who is Professor of Acting and Directing at University of California, Riverside. Bella was kind enough to talk with our Drama pupils on Teams, despite having to get up horribly early due to the time difference!

2019 – Senior Production: The 39 Steps

In 2019, the Senior Production was the stage adaptation of The 39 Steps, although the stage version, being a comedy, is a far removed from its source material. OV Charlie Mackintosh (Cr 13-20), who played the leading role of Richard Hannay, commented in The Vigornian that the show was ambitious in the required rehearsal time, starting at: “twice a week for two hours […] the number of rehearsals increased quite rapidly.” The pupils’ hard work clearly paid off, however, as Charlie writes that over 500 people came to watch The 39 Steps, and “the hilarity of the show was the talk of the School.”

2018 – Senior Production: South Pacific

The previous year saw an equally impressive Senior Production, a musical based on James A. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific. OVs Dani Brennan (Br 12-19) and Henry James (W 11-18) gave especially convincing performances as Ensign Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque, which is unsurprising as Dani went on to begin a dazzling acting career by studying Drama at Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

2017 – Fourth Forms: Shakespeare Fest

This year, the Fourth Forms took on a new challenge: presenting a variety of Shakespeare plays in one evening. Each Form put on an abridged version of a play, ranging from Hamlet to A Comedy of Errors. Whilst the performers excelled across the board, credit must also go to OVs Louise Turner (Br 11-18) and Isobel Unwin (K 16-18), who organised the Shakespeare Fest for their Gold Arts Award during their time in Lower Sixth. The idea brought “overwhelming” positive feedback from parents, as the pupils greatly enjoyed themselves as they found ways of creatively adapting Shakespeare’s plays.

2016 – Senior Production: The Sound of Music

The Fifth and Sixth Forms worked together to put on a stunning performance of the classic musical, with sensitive coverage of its themes of family, young love and political turmoil. The audiences were captivated by the voices of OVs Penny Ashmore (Cl 14-16) (Maria), and Isabelle Palmer (Cr 14-16) (the Mother Abbess), who also sang as Head Chorister at Worcester Cathedral. Our 2016 edition of The Vigornian even describes how Isabelle “almost stopped the show with her thrilling version of Climb Every Mountain.”

2015 – Fourth Forms: Animal Farm

Previous Fourth Formers from 2015 might remember their production of a stage version of George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm as one of the more hectic plays to stage. It required a tremendous effort from 45 pupils and involved lots of last-minute work: the eerie animal masks were still being painted the night before the play!

2014 – Removes: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In 2014, our Removes pupils participated in the national Shakespeare Schools Festival, which brought over 750 schools together. After having performed Macbeth the previous year, we opted for the more light-hearted A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the performance in the Artrix in Bromsgrove, we chose an abridged version of the comedy, which we set in the 1920s. It even featured “fairy flappers”!

The King’s Archives contain not only written records and photographs but artefacts too, and one collection which stands out when you enter The Archives is our display of school uniforms from various periods. In 2021, The King’s Foundation updated our uniform and sports kit, which have seen many variations over the years. In fact, aspects of uniform and sports team kits are very useful for dating photos and identifying individuals in The Archives. Let’s look at how the school dress code has changed over the last century:

In 2021, after lots of planning and positive feedback to pupil consultation, the uniform across the King’s Foundation was changed, alongside the various sports kits. The current uniform features a checked skirt or grey trousers, paired with a navy jumper and blazer with red trim. The change also saw the introduction of multiple coat options to suit pupil preferences whilst remaining smart. These include a navy overcoat, quilted jacket or fleece-lined jacket. The sports kit reflects the uniform’s focus on navy, red and white across the items used for different types of sport.

One aspect of the uniform at King’s which OVs might remember for the tradition it brings to school life in the summer is Shirt Sleeve Order. This practice is derived from the military and still in use today at King’s. It states that the Headmaster will decide when to announce the first day on which pupils are not required to wear their blazers: a decision always greeted with enthusiasm! The page above, which comes from a 2003 uniform guide, sets out the expectations for other parts of the uniform following the announcement of Shirt Sleeve Order.

This set of girls’ school uniform is on display in The Archives. It includes a white shirt, a straight grey skirt, a navy and white striped neckerchief, to be tied in a bow, and a thick navy jumper.

As you can see, the jumper has not only the School Crest but also the words “College House” embroidered on it, which tells us that pupils could be identified by their jumpers: this would certainly make dealing with lost property easier! This jumper dates from before 2000, as College House was closed in that year.

This is one of many beautiful old school records in The Archives. It’s an account of a pupil’s termly expenses from 1948, covering any costs which may arise from boarding and learning at the School. As you can see, this pupil may not have incurred any costs with the tailor and outfitter this term, but was charged quite a lot for other expenses, including 12 shillings and sixpence (around £22 today) for a breakage curiously listed as “Hamlet”, perhaps for damaging an edition of the play?

The pupil expenses sheet also shows that a large sum of nine pounds, seven shillings and five pence (equivalent to around £330 now) was spent in the School Shop. This would cover the costs of uniform and any additional clothing required for sports or to mark pupil positions of responsibility. You can see from the 1948 School Shop account sheet below that a pupil needed a rowing blazer, costing five pounds (around £170 in today’s money); see what else you can work out. Deciphering difficult handwriting is a challenge not only in the classroom but in archives too!

The Archives have many caps of different colours from across the 20th century, and the ones in the photo above are just a selection. The one on the left bears the initials W.C.K.S, which stand for Worcester Cathedral King’s School, as the School used to be known. The cream cap on the right clearly formed part of a rowing uniform, to be worn to outings and events. Behind the caps, you can see some of our school plaques in The Archives. The one on the left is for Hostel, a former House at King’s established in 1902, which makes it one of the oldest. These days The Hostel houses the offices of the King’s Foundation Support Staff.

To continue the rowing theme, this blazer, like the one mentioned above, may have been worn alongside the rowing cap. They share the same colour and a similar crest design, with navy crossed oars above the school crest.

This straw “boater” is interwoven with the navy colour of the School and bears the King’s crest on the front. It probably belonged to a rower in the 1960s, as eleven regatta tickets have been pushed all along the inside of the ribbon.

These showcase participation of King’s rowers at various regattas in the late 60s, such as Hereford, Marlow and Monmouth. It is likely that these tickets all belonged to the same boy, and they show us a dedication to rowing across his time at the School. We’re proud that our pupils’ commitment to the sport has only grown since then, with King’s recently being named a Top Eight School for rowing in the UK in this article from the Good Schools Guide. Here are some of the tickets tucked inside the hat:

3 am Tuesday 23rd March 1982; I nervously wait in the dark outside the Giffard Hotel (now the Cathedral Plaza) ready for a 3.30am coach departure to Heathrow. Never the best at languages, I was being sent, as a fifteen year old, on the School Exchange visit to Vichy in central France to be immersed in the language. I had been to France before on family holidays, but this was a trip into the unknown – living for three weeks with an unfamiliar French family.

After a tour of Paris we headed by train to Vichy to meet our host families.
I was paired with Stephane, a friendly lad a few months younger than me, and stayed with his parents, his nine year old sister and three year old brother in a house in a small village a few miles west of the famous spa town. From the first day I was welcomed into the family. I was a little on edge on the first day at the French school but was reassured as Stephane’s English was better than my French. After school we would go to his grandparents’ house nearby and have a cup of tea at 5pm (I was never sure if that timing was for my English benefit, being 4pm at home) and Grand’Mere would encourage me to “mange, mange” from the various cakes laid out for us.

Stephane’s father, was a photographer with a shop in Bellerive-sur-Allier, a smaller town across the river from Vichy (akin to St John’s compared to Worcester). He lent me one of the, then brand new, disc cameras for the period of my visit (technology that never really took off) which perhaps led to my future interest in photography.

On an occasional meeting with another King’s lad, I was astonished to be told, “We are at war”. This was testament to my immersion in French life, a family that watched less TV than mine and Nic Woodward’s superior French! I had never even heard of the Falkland Islands.

On the return visit in July, I took Stephane to watch, perhaps more cricket at New Road than he was interested in, alongside family trips about the county.

My parents decided that, whilst it might reduce my revision time for my other O Levels, I needed further immersion and, as we had got on so well, a return visit was agreed for the following year.

In the summer of 1983, Stephane again demonstrated his linguistic skill by showing good appreciation of the humour in the new TV series, Blackadder.

Following this and with a, perhaps unexpected B in O Level French behind me, we continued to correspond occasionally, primarily by way of Christmas cards. Without such modern luxuries as email, mobile phones and social media, Stephane and I drifted from each other’s consciousness until the subject of exchange visits for my own children (which sadly never materialised) led to a nostalgic thought or two and a google search for my old friend. I did not know whether his name was a common one in France or where in the country (if at all) he might live. Claude’s shop had clearly now closed (at least under his name).

So, forty years after we last met, I now was waiting to board the Euortunnel train at Folkestone en route again to Vichy. We managed to avoid too much traffic heading for the 2023 Rugby World Cup Final in Paris that day on our way south to stay overnight in Nevers. The next morning came the sad news that Stephane’s mother had Covid so our plan to meet his parents later that day was stalled. We headed on to Stephane’s current home town of Riom where we finally met up after all those years. Stephane’s career as an English teacher made conversation easier but he forced my wife and I to use as much French as we could, and the conversation flowed. After a couple of days showing us around Riom nearby Clermont and the magnificent Puy de Dome, we headed towards Vichy. We managed a brief masked up visit to his parents, still living in the same house before saying “au revoir” to Stephane with a resolution to meet up again and not leave it so long next time. After an overnight stay in a magnificent chateau in Bellerive we found Claude’s old shop, still a photography shop but now trading under a different name, before exploring Vichy, with me appreciating the imposing architecture more than as a teenager. After stocking up on a good supply of Vichy mints we headed home via a day in Paris and vowed to return as soon as we could.

The exchange visits definitely took my French to a ‘passable’ conversational level, which has helped in travels over the years in France and elsewhere, and I am pleased to have rekindled a friendship all courtesy of the link between King’s School and a small comprehensive school in the middle of France.

An inveterate hoarder, I still have ephemera from my time at the King’s School between 1964 and 1969. Leafing through calendars, fixture cards, play programmes and House photos, I came across the service sheet for a Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving 23 May 1969, and I was reminded of just how special an occasion it was. Not many schools in the country could have boasted such quality, in such a grand, impressive setting as that of Worcester Cathedral.

I had kept it partly as a matter of historical record but also for sentimental reasons for, being then in the Upper Sixth, it was to be my last Speech Day, and the end of the term would mark the end of an era. The first thing that struck me on reading through this programme of events was, naturally enough, the music. Even back then I could recognise that King’s was exceptional musically;  the late Sir Stephen Cleobury (Ch 58-67 and Old St Alban’s), who left two years, earlier had blazed a trail to St John’s Cambridge and would go on to be a legendary figure for more than thirty years at King’s Cambridge. I remember vividly one Sunday in Lent 1966 hearing him playing Wachet Auf on the cathedral organ and understanding how extraordinarily gifted and proficient he was as a seventeen-year-old schoolboy. He would be followed by his brother Nicholas (Ch 58-68 and Old St Alban’s), the conductor, by Roger Parkes (Cl 59-68), and by the three King’s organists in this service sheet: Stephen Darlington (Cl 60-70 and Old St Alban’s) who would become Professor of Music at Oxford and a distinguished Director of Music at Christ Church, Oxford, Andrew Millington (Cr 68-70) who would be Director of Music at Guildford and Exeter Cathedrals, and Christopher Tolley (S 61-69) who would direct the Quiristers at Winchester College for decades. I knew how good they were for they had performed the piano accompaniments for our School productions of The Pirates of Penzance (1967) and of The Yeoman of the Guard (1969); they did wonders to steer, and cover for, on-stage principals like me, and they were in truth the real stars of the shows.

They had two tutors and mentors: one is credited at the end of this programme, Christopher Robinson. He had forged for the Worcester Cathedral choir a national reputation and would go on to direct music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor and St John’s Cambridge. Those who sang for him recall his insistence on the highest standards, his uncanny ability to locate the source of vocal imperfection and the basilisk stare for the transgressor; demanding the highest standards produced a golden generation of King’s musicians. Yet just as important was Harry Bramma (Hon OV) – uncredited here, but an inspirational Director of Music at the school, and a lovable figure to boot. He regenerated the choral society at King’s and got the School choir singing “good stuff”, as he put it: none better than the anthem in this service. I can still clearly recall how exciting, exhilarating and spine-tingling it was then to sing Finzi’s wonderful God Has Gone Up with its trumpet sounds, joined by the Cathedral choristers. It has remained a favourite anthem of mine fifty-five years on.

If the musicianship was special that day, so was the sermon; I wasn’t to know that Rev’d Robert Runcie would go on to be elevated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, but I do remember that he was livelier, more relevant, more interesting than the overwhelming majority of preachers we had endured every Sunday for five years as King’s boarders.

Historians love the exercise of comparing and contrasting, and this service sheet prompts me to reflect that much was different over half a century ago. This was a Speech Day, in May, not a King’s Day at the very end of term in July. We were a single-sex boys’ school half the size of today’s King’s. There was not then today’s theatricality and razzmatazz with extensive prize-giving (ours was short and sweet in the afternoon of Speech Day, reflecting the low-key and undemonstrative character of our Eeyorish headmaster David Annett) and with leavers applauded out of the Cathedral, all with the excitable feeling of a modern day ‘prom’; this was partly because there wasn’t the heightened emotion of an imminent ending to schooldays. Our A-levels were just about to get underway; not until the end of the first week in July would we finish. Term fizzled out with Athletics Sports, and boys who weren’t involved quietly disappeared. I remember July 1969 particularly well. On the last afternoon of term, I was sitting ‘S’ Level History in College Hall, and as Captain of Athletics I was keen to be involved in Sports Day and run in my specialist event, the 400 metres, programmed for mid-afternoon. Tim Hickson (Hon OV), that inspirational and kindly Master i/c Athletics, re-scheduled my event to allow me to race hotfoot down to New Road, once I had finished with the exam; whence, mentally spent, to my chagrin I was promptly beaten by my old friend Kit Ross (W 67-69). A bathetic end to my King’s athletic career.

Unlike this contemporary Upper Sixth at King’s Day, our last Speech Day didn’t necessarily signify our imminent translation to OV status; for fifteen or more of us the seventh, or Oxbridge, term (September 1969) in the Sixth Form had yet to be negotiated. Looking back now I realise I was part of an exceptional vintage, as the Honours Boards in College Hall attest. Seven of us would win Oxbridge awards that December; we would be followed on those Honours Boards by the self-same Stephen Darlington and Andrew Millington from this service sheet. But what is equally satisfying is this, that fifty-five years on in a pub in Oxford on a miserable February day, human relicts from 1969 re-gathered as one of a pattern of regular warm, collegial OV lunches: master-minded by Barney Burnham (Ch 59-69) (bass in the Bramma choir singing Finzi), there were also Nick Millard (Ch 64-69) (tenor that day), Peter Hewitt (Ch 64-69) (another bass), Andrew Millington and Stephen Darlington, our two organist stars from the service’s prelude, Stephen Tomlinson (H 63-70) with whom I would sit Oxbridge History papers and who was in the congregation, and Nicholas Cleobury, our revered senior. I would be lying if I claimed that we reminisced about this particular Commemoration Service, but it is fair to say that the King’s experience made its fondly remembered mark on all of us.

Andrew Reekes
(Ch 64-69)

Tragically, in the collective opinion of King’s pupils, in July 2000, the Tuck Shop in Edgar Street closed, after some thirty years of official school provision of carbohydrate and comfort, and in latter years completely clogging the pavement and corner into Severn Street at break times and after school. However, for many more years before that a bakery had catered for schoolboy appetites. Kelly’s directories in the Worcester Public Record Office indicated that one was on the site right back into the 19th century, and perhaps even before that.

Part of the development campaign of the 1960s, was to provide a tuck shop with a caretaker’s flat in Castle Place, but the building was found to be unsound and was demolished in 1963. The bottom of the Winslow Block, now an IT classroom, was then used, but before the area was properly enclosed so that the walls of the ‘shop’ did not reach the ceiling and cars could still drive behind to the garages beyond. Number 2, Edgar Street, was leased in 1963 from the City Council. The ground floor was used by the Science Club and the first floor occupied by staff, including the late Mr Keith Bridges (Staff 1964-2004) and his wife Jane, in 1964. By 1967, Ron Tomes, the first of the School Sergeants and also a CCF instructor, and his wife Sylvia, move into the new Tuck Shop to be followed by Len Moller, ex RAF Warrant Officer and his wife. Then came Dennis Grafton, Clerk of Works, and his wife, Laura, were followed by Tom Lloyd in 1977, School Sergeant, ex-Navy, ex-policeman and a force to be reckoned with on the school premises, while Mabel ran the tuck shop. Finally, from 1990, under Jean Rawling’s tender care, increasingly the tiny shop and tiny television room came to be seen as a refuge outside the reach of staff, a place the school thought of as their own.

And, of course, memories abound. Michael Craze (H 19-25) remembered Ma Lane’s, later to become Ma Bishop’s, where a pennyworth of broken biscuits could be bought for the same price as a fresh hen’s egg, much frequented by the boys, while the Fishermen’s Cottages at the end of Severn Street where food was cheaper were strictly out of bounds. Basil Eckersley (H 30-37) also remembered “the tiny shop where Ma Bishop and her daughter administered to the needs of youthful thirst and appetite. The cost of fresh white bread roll with a whole bar of chocolate inserted in it sideways was an old penny.”

Boarding boys depended on extra rations at all times, but perhaps more so during the rationing of the forties and into the fifties. Noel Richardson (S 34-41) began at King’s in the Third Form, conveniently sited in the Edgar Tower, which meant “us little boys could get to the shop before the big ones.” Although the sweets were not very inspiring, there was “the excitement of sniffing sherbet up liquorice straws to induce sneezing fits.” Andrew Hambling (S 38-48) also remembers war time with sticky buns and “the occasional stampede when sweets were rumoured to be in stock.” While Richard Griffiths (S 41-53) writing of the Choir School, when aged seven, mentions “a very friendly and motherly woman” in the bakery and the “delicious small crusty loaves of bread, still warm, and without marg or jam, the best bread tasted before or since.”

Mike Wall (Cl 43-52) remembers Mrs Tipping and buns, “a splendid affair with dusting on the top which was split for cream to be inserted and pop, at 2d or 3d a glass.” He describes the tiny interior with the counter to the right and hard wooden chairs at marble topped, round, cast iron tables, which scaped the floor noisily. “It was a haven of peace, even if there many of us in there at one time. The appearance of Mary Tippings was also very welcome to jaded boys” escaping the rigours of 1940s school discipline.

David Canin (H 48-83) writes, “Bread was rationed at one time and we used to go into Mrs Tipping and buy a penny hunk of bread and take it back to the boarding house, to spread with Marmite” and Graham Hardman (Ch 52-59) echoes the sentiment that the Tuck Shop was “essential to boarders with continued existence as school meals were microscopic to the point of being life-threatening” with its loaves and Chelsea buns “the smell wafting outside when the pangs were strongest” and the anticipatory exchange of coupons for Mars Bars and Rowntrees Fruit Gums, despite the competition from old Ma Mason who had cut rates in Corona Dandelion and Burdock sweet laden drinks. Her business was bought by a Mrs. Seager who developed a roaring trade in delicious sandwiches. Menus began to change with the times as A.G. Williams (Ca 55–60) testifies with the appearance of “delicious hot dogs, an English banger in a squashy roll, with fried onions”.

In the 1990s, Mrs Jean Rawlings introduced more hot food at morning break. She enjoyed the feelings of well-being and camaraderie amongst pupils, in particular, the fun during world cup rugby and football. Tizzi the dog, sadly passing on earlier this year, also became very much part of the scene and then there was the memorable time an RGS boy turned the ‘T’ into an ‘F’. Volunteers from the Lower Sixth helped out behind the counter when it was very busy. Jean was very touched by the enormous support from pupils and parents and their protests and banners at the news of the closure.

Into the second millennium, the pupils saw the Tuck Shop as a source of total sustenance, not just the food, but also warmth and shelter if waiting to be picked up by parents, a cosy social centre for the Lower Sixth, in particular, to watch television together. It was also seen as good value for money vis a vis the vending machines in the Dining Hall and the most popular items were the penny sweets. However, conditions were not perfect; the older and heavier pupils got to the front of the queue and controlled the TV channels. It ‘was necessary for the smaller ones to hang on the counter physically to avoid being elbowed aside’, but most thought it was worth
it. Jean’s final comment was, “The ten years that I worked there were probably the best of my life. I met so many interesting and very likeable pupils and their parents”.

However, the writing was on the wall. With changes to the catering system in the Dining Hall, combined with more ever stringent Health and Safety edicts, the Tuck Shop was sold as private house. Consequently the whole snack industry moved to the Dining Hall where approximately 300 pupils crowd in to buy chips, pizzas and chocolate cookies at morning break each day while vending machines deal with the sweets and drinks and Mrs. Heather Witherick oversees the whole slick military operation, while three staff and three monitors linger on duty. A far cry from
Ma Lane’s some ninety years earlier.

By Caroline Roslington (Teacher of History and School Archivist, 1986-2011) with help from OVs James McCreath (W 94–04) and Lorna Shaddick (Ch 99–04) and then current Lower Sixth Leanne Sheen (W 99-06) and Alice Kirrage (K 99-06).

Addendum: Currently, food needs are catered for in the school dining hall, with snacks available to purchase at Morning Break and after school, along with breakfast on offer before Morning Registration with anything from a bowl of cereal to a “Full English”! The vending machines are no more!

I rowed at King’s from approximately Spring 1975 to the end of the 1978/79 season.

These were the days when it was compulsory for team members to play Rugby until halfway through the Spring Term, when the Sevens competitions began. As a member of the front row, my presence was no longer required by half-term, so we were finally allowed to go down to the river. My late start also means that, as I recall, I missed much of the “tubbing” carried out by Mr Thompson (Hon OV) in my first year.

The inability to train properly throughout the year inevitably meant that the KSWBC crews of my day were never really that competent technically, nor sufficient fit, to take on the ‘serious players’ in the world of schoolboy rowing. The main regattas were Birmingham, Hereford Schools’, Tewkesbury, Worcester, and a curious event known as the Vigoe Regatta that was hosted by KSWBC. In addition, we attended the annual trouncing at National Schools’ Regatta at Nottingham. King’s had won the Childe Beale Trophy at National Schools’ a few years earlier, but my perspective of our rowing is that our preparations were typical of the days of ‘gentlemen’s public-school rowing’, in an era when the rest of the sport was starting to become much more professional. I think we were aware of this at the time: we had a crew member join us as a J15 who had previously won the National Schools’ as a J14 with KCS Wimbledon and he could not comprehend how far we were behind in terms of the distances we rowed in training and the overall approach to racing.

We did have our share of successes: winning at Tewkesbury, Birmingham, Hereford and Burton upon Trent on a number of occasions – some of which are actually captured on a Super-8 cinefilm for posterity!

Equipment for the J14 beginners came in the form of a couple of “clinker VIIIs” and some very old needle blades. The blades would be quite a curiosity these days as they were made before the development of hollow looms and so were cut out on each side to reduce weight. The clinker VIIIs did have sliding seats, although there were one or two fixed seat sculls still in operation at the time. The top crew at J14 quickly progressed to a fine shell that was, I believe, named “Fred Gegg” after an ancient retainer who had his workshop in the urinals at the school end of the boat house. Fred the man was not around for long after my arrival in the club (the two circumstances not being connected in any way) and Fred the boat was also long past its sell-by date. It was one of those boats in which it was possible to be down on stroke-side in the stern and bow-side in the bows – but we loved it and were so proud to be out of the clinkers.

In those days, it was also possible to get into the clubhouse with the judicious use of a spoon, which was permanently stored just inside what was known then as the ‘graveyard’ immediately beyond the boathouse back door in Severn Street.

The J14 year also brought our first win in J14 VIIIs at Birmingham Regatta. In those days this was a four lane event and with only three crews in the event the organisers had put on a repêchage so that the slowest two boats could race each other again for a place in the final against the fastest. We progressed in this manner to the final against Bedford Modern School who had beaten us previously by about a length. In the final, one of their crew members obligingly left his seat and spent the rest of the race on his rear in the bottom of the boat. Needless to say, we clung onto a small lead to scrabble over the line as winners. This event was to be of particular interest to me in the future as my first teaching and coaching position was at BMS and I became friends with the coach of the crew who had considerately let us win!

Tim Lucas with his J14 Crew

My J15 and J16 years seem to have passed in a blur of mediocrity, racing VIIIs and picking up a couple of pots each season. I do remember one particular event, either Avon County Schools’ or Tewkesbury, where our cox, Ian McCarthy (S 72-79), managed to knock the stake-boat boy into the water before the start of a race and then proceeded to collide with a boat positioned to separate the racing lanes some way down the course. We managed to win the race despite being weak with laughter. On another occasion, we took home the J16 pennant from Avon County Head because our only serious opposition had lost their rudder, and their cox was steering with his arm. We ambled down the course in our usual fashion only to find ourselves the very dubious victors. Our boat at the time was a wooden shell called, for reasons unknown to us, “Ladykiller”.

I was a boarder in School house and remember well some of the activities we got up to that would never be permitted these days. On a Sunday, we were allowed to take a single scull upriver unsupervised, and this we did on many occasions, combining the trip with a swim – sometimes planned, sometimes otherwise. On one occasion a very good friend of mine fell in near what was then called “the slip”, an area of riverbank where the cattle came to drink. This is well upstream of the Waterworks. On that particular day, the river was running very fast and he was forced to abandon his boat and run along the bank in pursuit. I sculled alongside his boat until a combination of stream and nudges from my scull brought it to the bank on the big bend near the top of the regatta course. At this point he was able to get back into the boat and return to school. Swimming from a coxed four near Camp Lock, whilst not a common occurrence, was certainly not unknown.

In the L6 we were allowed to race in a coxed Four, which was quite revolutionary at the time because the accepted wisdom was that it was more prestigious to represent the school in an Eight than in a smaller boat. We could never understand the why it was better to get soundly beaten in an Eight, than to have a fighting chance in a Four. It was also customary to stop rowing activity during the external exams, so we had to plead with our coaches to take us to events at this time.

My best memories of racing were all in coxed Fours. Winning what was then called Senior C at Birmingham in a four lane race, against Loughborough University, Hereford Rowing Club and Burton Leander was, by the standards of the time, a reasonable achievement. This also holds true for beating Shawnigan Lake School of Canada in the final at Burton Regatta. The boat we used was a “Spartan”, newly acquired by the School. It had the distinction of sporting saxboards with metal rims. This meant that the least instability (of which there was always plenty) was rewarded by repeated cut to the hands. Luckily, we had never heard of Weil’s Disease at the time.

I write about the KSWBC with great affection. We were not much good but my experience of rowing at King’s encouraged what has become a lifelong love of the sport. My coaches, Mr Thompson (Hon OV), the late Richard Gabriel (Hon OV), Tim Watson (Hon OV) and Alex Hirst (Hon OV), were the most idiosyncratic group you could ever care to meet but I certainly owe a debt of gratitude to them.

J14 Crew reuniting in May 2019 OVs Ian McCarthy (S 72-79), Philip Wells (Ch 74-79), Nick Holmes (Ch 74-79), Romano Subiotto (Ca 74-79), Tim Lucas (S 72-79), James Davies (S 74-79), and Mike Perkins (S 74-79) 

That first day at King’s in September 1964 is indelibly etched in the memory, and is recorded in one of my diaries which – along with my letters home thoughtfully curated by my mother – span my King’s School years and form a useful aide memoire. Images include: the car boots gaping round College Green, depositing new trunks and freshly scrubbed boys into the four boarding houses; the chaos of Donald Leonard’s School Shop in the Edgar Tower where, surrounded by piles of boxes (occupying what are now classrooms), he hastily measured us up by eye from his eyrie at the top of a long ladder, before unceremoniously throwing each of us in turn outsize blue tweed jackets and equally outlandish games kit. They conclude that day with the bravely borne withdrawal of the parents to leave us to a new life and new routine. But part of that immediate impression of King’s was the towering might of one of England’s greatest Gothic cathedrals. It loomed magnificently over us for every school day of five years Kings’ education; it rose majestically across our sports fields. Its bells relentlessly marked every quarter. And every afternoon even the most insensible of Vigornians could scarcely remain immune to achingly beautiful, exceptionally sung, English anthems, Magnificats and Nunc Dimmitis floating across the Green from the Choir or the Chapter House. You sensed early on that music was something King’s and Worcester Cathedral did well, and later association with the Cleoburys, with the Darlingtons, Tolley and Millington only confirmed the impression, as do the honours boards lining College Hall.

College Green was equally characterful, melding Georgian, Victorian and late nineteenth century houses which were home to nearly half King’s School boys. There was a sense in all this – pre-Reformation Cathedral and College Hall, and the nineteenth century buildings of a larger school – of timelessness. And, indeed, we had joined a school still channelling the spirit of the past and especially post-War austerity Britain. In 1964 veterans of that War held senior positions in the King’s School staffroom, some of them veritable war heroes (the unassuming Arthur Aldridge, Dan McTurk, Harry Ferrar, ‘Basher’ Bailey, Bobby Cash and Stuart Sheppard), and their having experienced much danger and deprivation, we must have seemed to them at times callow, ungrateful or simply thoughtless.

School discipline similarly reflected that past and replicated Victorian attitudes. A nineteenth century Vigornian transported to 1964 would have readily recognised our regime. Punishment books from these years record canings administered freely for offences ranging from: ‘failing to wear his school cap when in town’ (6 strokes); ‘late for orderly duty’ (a relatively mild 2); ‘talking in dormitory after lights out’ (4); ‘late for roll call’ (6); and ‘riding a bicycle down Castle Place’ (2). Housemasters administered condign punishment; but so, until 1967, did the occasional vindictive head of house. What would now constitute child abuse was a regular event; for some boys it was simply part of the warp and weft of an at times brutish schooling to be quickly forgotten, but for a few it was a humiliating and shaming ritual which scarred, physically and mentally.

The range of misdemeanours reflect the stringent limits within which boarders lived and worked: visits into town were tightly rationed until boys reached the 6th Form; uniform rules were firmly enforced; house routines were inflexible. That explains the frequent plaintive entries in my diaries: ‘No letters today!!’ The link with another life of home and holidays was cherishable, and checking the Post table in the centre of the house bearing the day’s letters was an important daily ritual. For the truth was that except on Sundays – after compulsory Matins in which a Cathedral canon would sermonise for anything up to half an hour on intricate theological niceties, enlivened only by the exciting prospect of catching the eye of an Alice Ottley girl – boarding lives were highly structured. So, it was an irony that when that structure of lessons/games/Prep etc was absent – on those long Sundays – boarding life on College Green suddenly had its longueurs. Boarders with generous and sympathetic friends and families who lived close by were fortunate to have a Sunday gorging on good food and slumping on a comfortable sofa; otherwise, self-generated games of football or walks on Pitchcroft (or even climbing the Cathedral Tower) alleviated the tedium. For a chosen few among boarders, however, there was a playreading, hosted by Romey Annett in the Headmaster’s House. These occasions were enjoyable, even if our rendering of the parts was sometimes execrable; the compensation was Romey’s cake, a far cry from boarding Sunday tea, and her indiscreet reports of College Green gossip. How I wish I had been at one such playreading tea a few years later when a daring participant introduced enough cannabis leaves to the Annett teapot to have markedly affected the normally reverential tenor of the event. Giggling and near hysteria were reported afterwards.

It would be misleading to suggest that life was simply monochrome. Several sides of school life were deeply engaging and the most important of these was Sport. We lived for it, endlessly analysed recent matches, discussed positional play, speculated on who might be awarded his colours. Lower Removes idolised the Ist XV and sought to emulate them even when – I now realise – they were not very good…. When not involved in organised practices we did circuit sessions in the gym, arranged our own 5-a-side football, or trained on the pitches at New Road. The sad truth was that for much of those mid -1960s the King’s School did not win many matches; with notable exceptions (Tim Hickson in Athletics and Peter Curle in Tennis) we were poorly coached. Until my last year or so, when Ian Brown wrought a transformation and introduced new training, a new philosophy and new attitudes; and combined with Nigel Chinneck’s gifted 1969-year group, he magicked an outstandingly successful season, when nearly all 18 matches were won. But generally sketchy coaching did not dim the enthusiasm, and Sports mattered hugely to us; be it our own sporting performances, or the snatched glimpse of Five Nations Rugby games, dimly perceived in wavery black and white on a housemaster’s TV set, or the 1968 Mexico Olympics followed on a Science department TV before breakfast. We were grateful for whatever snippets we could pick up.

The other shaft of colour in our boarding lives came from dramatic and musical productions. When we were in the Lower Removes scores of us represented the besieged French in Martin Fagg’s epic interpretation of Shakespeare’s King John, wherein the College Hall gallery served as fortified township; the play was boisterous and bloody and especially welcome as we avoided Prep and got to be noisy – officially. Later in our King’s careers we participated enthusiastically in the Bramma/Fagg production of the Pirates of Penzance. With so much musical talent – accompanying on the pianos, singing on stage – it did achieve a high standard. More important to us was the opportunity to patrol College Green in our policemen’s uniforms (pouncing on unsuspecting parents pre-performance), or to pair off with girls from the Alice Ottley. Two years later the same impresarios even more boldly determined to produce The Yeoman of the Guard; musically it was very good even if the absence of one half of the production team (Martin Fagg, perennially susceptible to bronchitis…) meant that the acting and absence of movement on stage would not pass critical muster nowadays. Still, it was another opportunity – for yeomen to intercept unwary drivers on College Green and for principals once again to pair off with AO girls in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.

Harry Bramma was a force as our Director of Music; he had succeeded Reggie (aka Pongo) West in 1964. Pongo still ‘taught’ some music lessons in the school. To experience this after one of his liquid lunches was to be familiar with a scratched and imperfect recording of a Beethoven symphony accompanied by the gentle sussuration of Pongo’s regular snoring. I thought for a good year that that was what music lessons and Beethoven symphonies were always like, but Harry was altogether more serious about our musical education; he was good at building and enthusing a choir, which sang school evensongs and Carol services more than passably well. One strategy was to put on big annual summer concerts and my diary faithfully records how much I enjoyed rehearsing for, and finally performing in, works by Handel and Mozart; part of the joy was centred on Harry’s post-performance parties in College precincts where cider flowed freely courtesy of the most generous of hosts.

When we weren’t playing/thinking about Sport or singing and performing there was much more time simply to read. After all we did not have social media to distract us; so, we were left to our own devices and I recall that, when in the Lower Sixth, I managed to read the whole canon of Thomas Hardy novels across Spring term Sundays. My English and History teachers all expected us to read widely, and they aimed high for us, and my friends were similarly stretched and encouraged academically in the Sciences, Maths and the Languages. We had some outstanding teachers, and they compensated for the constraints of boarding existence. Martin Fagg was nationally famous as a parodist, and his breadth of interest and encyclopaedic knowledge was stimulating – when he wrote of himself: ‘His mind was wry ironic, scyptic, sceptic brittle, He knew about a lot of things, but only a very little,’ he was being overly-modest. Richard Gabriel and Alan Stacey taught us History enthrallingly; Richard Knight was at the forefront of the New Maths and my friends tell me that they arrived in Cambridge much more mathematically advanced than their peers.

Prep was all done in the boarding houses; and by the time we progressed to Sixth Form my housemaster Peter Curle had determined that we should all fill in worksheets, on which we would record each day the hours we spent working outside lessons. It became competitive; could one hit 30 hours for the week? (Sundays allowed one to ‘do’ 6 hours straight…). In the end he resorted to turfing us out of our studies long after bedtime and he may have wearied of encouraging our diligence. Still the point is that he presided over an atmosphere of a strong work ethic. These evenings after Supper in the boarding houses were also memorable for the diurnal soup, brought over to the house from the kitchens in great vats by the ‘fags’ for post-Prep sustenance, much of it swilled down the drains with fearful consequences for the plumbers; I can still call to mind a lingering smell of rehydrated mushroom sixty years later. More than the soup I remember that from my first night boarding in Choir House to the last, music flooded the studies and corridors. To an extent unimaginable nowadays, in the absence of social media, YouTube, and TV, and with tape recorders only fitfully available, popular music largely played on record players mattered to us. We had our favourite artists, we collected the latest 45s, we debated our musical taste endlessly; and the tracks of those years encompassed the arrival of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Beach Boys and – for the more alternative of our contemporaries – John Mayall and the Blues Breakers and Jimi Hendrix. On one occasion we collectively touched the hem of greatness. News travelled round boarders’ supper that a pop hero had arrived on College Green. Hordes descended on Canon Eliot’s house – now the History Department close to the Water Gate. My diary entry for October 15 1965 pithily recorded the event but also betrayed my own sense of priorities: ‘Paul McCartney on College Green; but no Jane Asher!!’. In sum it was a golden age of pop culture which our children and grandchildren recognise even now and after which everything afterwards seems but a pale shadow.

For that music charted the social changes happening beyond the little world of College Green. We joined King’s in the wake of the Cuban Missile crisis (I had been sent home from Prep School on October 25 1962 to prepare for annihilation in the bosom of my family, a traumatising moment), and of the Profumo Affair, which marked the beginning of the end of the deferent society. Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times they are a Changing’ – in the charts in September 1964 on our first day at King’s – distilled a new rebelliousness and sense of possibilities which surely affected us; while Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction,’ about impending nuclear armaggedon was deeply unsettling, as was Dr Strangelove. We lived our ‘60s lives at King’s under its threat. Just as much we were influenced by the satirical revolution – Beyond the Fringe and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and Private Eye were part of a less respectful, less reverential generation whose lampooning of their elders and betters unquestionably influenced us and would be felt even in the backwaters of provincial Worcestershire. Our pitiful sketches, at those excruciating House Suppers our poor housemasters had to endure, painfully recycled the rather funnier oeuvre of Pete and Dud. But the aftershocks of the revolutions in both Europe in 1968 – the student rebels in Paris who would hasten the end of President De Gaulle, the brutally suppressed Czech uprising (the Prague Spring) and the violence of anti-Vietnam protests in America accompanying the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King – impacted on us at a rather more serious level.

It seems trite to suggest that these events influenced the King’s School and all other boarding schools; but it is unquestionably true. Head teachers as much as university vice-chancellors found themselves having to justify the way they ran their institutions in the face of a universal youth protest movement. Years later, when I was myself a schoolmaster, Heads of this 60s vintage would confess to me how difficult a time this was; ‘the storm beat down and broke over us,’ one said rather dramatically. It is no coincidence that as a result boys were permitted to wear hair longer after 1968 (look at the school photos to track the changes over time); opportunities to meet girls in film clubs, folk clubs, joint productions, were increased. Caning became a very rare event, and my generation of school monitors hastened to abjure the right to beat. The whole place loosened up and much more frequently boys would be addressed by their Christian names rather than the imperative brusqueness of the surname. These were the smallest signs of an imperceptible loss of confidence among the country’s authority figures. Governments had glimpsed chaos and anarchy in Paris and Prague and by extension heads were increasingly prepared to listen to the views of their students and accommodate to them. As I was leaving King’s in December 1969 a Sixth Form bar was being mooted in the Undercroft, a belated recognition that a good half of sixth form boarders patronised the Farriers and dens of iniquity down Greyfriars, and that it might be better to entertain them closer to the school where drinking might be controlled. And soon after, a School Council was established, a fig-leaf of democracy which allowed the School to say that it was listening and open to suggestions.

My generation of OVs, those who lived with me through boarding at King’s in the 1960s, is now well into its 70s. I see between 20 and 25 of them still. They have close friendships with each other; the boarding experience often builds such life-long relationships. When we all meet up, memories of eccentric schoolmasters, or of nefarious acts unpunished, or simply of shared acquaintances, dominate conversation. Yet while some may recognise the quality of their teaching; some may understand the inestimable value of the Direct Grant which enabled them to access an excellent academic grounding; many of that generation left the school with barely a backward glance and have gone into the world putting away memories of those King’s years. It may be that this is inevitable for a particular cohort of boys who experienced first a highly disciplined schooling and then were brought by a global cultural revolution after 1968 to realise that this world should be challenged and questioned or simply left behind; unsurprisingly rather too many boarders did not look back on their schooldays with affection.

There were about 12 of us plus Mr H A Natan and two of his friends, Swiss medical students and expert hill walkers with detailed knowledge of their country, which added much to the tour. We mostly stayed in budget accommodation in order to make our money go further, and therefore names of hotels are misleading as we had cheap rooms, often in annexes.

This account is largely derived from the marked map we were given at the start, with the route shown and overnight stays underlined. I cannot pretend to remember all the places and details but have included some that stick in my memory. The walking stages averaged 20-25Km on the map, regardless of the terrain, so some were harder than others.

We travelled to Paris by train and channel ferry and stayed two or three days at a small hotel in the Rue de la Madelaine, 5th floor, no lift, stone staircase. We made educational visits to the Folies Bergère, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe.

Train to Basle, Hotel Royal by the station. I had a disturbed night due to a gadget on the overhead tram cables outside my window, which changed the points with a flash and a bang every few minutes.

Train to Berne, and a look around the sights. Train to Thun.

To Kandersteg. This must have been by Post Bus as I remember a visit to the Blausee and seeing St Bernard dogs harnessed in small carts for local transport. At Kandersteg, we learnt that our planned route over the mountains into Italy à la “Sound of Music” was off as it would not be via an approved border crossing point. Here we started hiking, on foot via the Gemmi Pass 2319m. This was a pack-horse path, which zig-zagged down a cliff-like mountainside. The surface was loose, and so steep that it was difficult to keep one’s footing, with an unguarded drop into eternity on the outside.

We reached the station at Leukerbad, the train came in, one powercar very fully loaded, towing several wagons loaded with huge slabs of slate. Where to put a group of some 15 fellows with large rucksacks? With typical Swiss efficiency, we were quickly loaded on top of the slate, and off we went at speed down the valley; tunnels, overhead power lines, and all, to Leuk.

We then tramped to Brig, and to Fiesch, and to Ulrichen. These last three stages were along the Rhone Valley and generally following the route of the Furka Oberalp Railway. Here we had to change to an amended route as previously explained, and walked over The Gries Pass 2443m to Airolo.

Main line train to Bellinzona.
On foot to Locarno, where we had a week’s break and rest from Wed 13th August 1947 to Wed 20th August at Post Hotel Monti. All this confirmed by a postcard to my parents. We also visited nearby Ascona. Locarno is on Lake Maggiore and almost a seaside resort.

Then back to footslogging, lakeside to Luino and Lugano. On foot lakeside (Lugano) to Porlezza and over the border, officially, to Menaggio, Lake Como, Italy.

Lakeside to Chiavenna, a very long stage to have been on foot, perhaps by bus.
On foot to Maloggia still in Italy.
On foot to Andeer, back in Switzerland, via Juf, said to be the highest year-round inhabited village in Europe. The height escapes my memory. At Andeer, we stayed at the Hotel Fravi, and I had another disturbed night, being very close to the church tower, where the clock chimed and struck twice over every quarter through the night.

To Thusis.
Train on the famous Furka Oberalp railway to Disstenis 1133m. On foot to the Santa Maria Hospiz at 3200m and down to Airolo (again). On foot over the St Gotthard pass 2172m and down to Andermatt. Train to Altdorf, via the Wassen spirals.
Lake steamer from Fluelen to Brunnen, hotel Weisses Rossli, calling at Rutli, the founding point of the Swiss Confederation, and where William Tell famously shot the apple.

Again lake steamer to Lucerne. These lake steamers were the local bus service, and goods carriers, calling at a succession of village piers on either side of the lake.

Train to Zurich and to Basle (again).

Then, regrettably train to Paris and to London, and home.

We had nearly five weeks of a wonderful tour of largely uncommercialised real Switzerland, just not possible for an ordinary tourist. I have been back several times since, but never to many of the places so far off the beaten track.

Letter from the late OV Maurice J Halliday (Cr 46-49) to Caroline Roslington (Hon OV) in April 2007 for the King’s Archives.