Fragment 9: The Life & Times of a Social Experiment

A completely unanticipated event leads to yet another upheaval.

Image: De Havilland Chipmunk - Shutterstock

It must have been early in 1959 that George dropped the bombshell. He, Nellie and I were seated at the tea table and, as I recall, he was happy. He had, he said, good news, exciting news. I waited to hear.

“I’ve got a new job” George announced.
“But you’ve got a job.”
“This one is better.”
“Oh ...”

I think Nellie interjected: “You’d better tell him what it involves.”
George was clearly excited. “I’ve got a job as caretaker of a chapel.”

I don’t recall what I felt about that. Nothing, I suspect. Caretaker of a chapel? What was I supposed to think? Then came the explosion: “The best part is that it comes with a house. We won’t have to live here anymore.”

Whoa! Red alert! Our tiny house may not have amounted to much, but at least it was familiar. Where was this new house?

“It’s in Market Harborough.” Nellie explained that Market Harborough was a town some miles away.

One thing bothered me above all others: “How will I get to school?”
“You’ll go to a new school,” said George.
Meltdown! Summoning up the worst thing I could call George, “You rat!”, I ran from the room.
I heard George ask Nellie, “Why is he so upset?”
“He loves that school.”

I was distraught. It was the end of the world, the end of my new world. I created such disruption that, eventually, they told me that I could continue at Wyggy. This was to be achieved by my travelling to and from school by train. Uncle Rupert helped with the financial burden of this and so it was that, for the first two terms of the third year, I commuted back and forth.

Our home in Market Harborough, a terraced house just a short walk from the Congregational chapel where George was now caretaker, was on Bowden Lane. It presented several advantages over the old house in Leicester; for example, the electricity supply was not subject to the tyranny of the shilling-in-the-slot guillotine.

Every weekday morning, I walked across town to the railway station, travelled the fifteen miles to Leicester and walked from Leicester station to school. At the end of each school day I retraced the journey.

The problems with this arrangement soon became apparent. The need to catch the train at the end of the school day meant that I missed out on much of the extra-curricular activity that I had come so much to enjoy. I quickly learned, back in those days of nationalized British Rail, that train times were far from reliable. It meant that my amateur dramatic efforts went on hold and I found myself trapped between two worlds.

When exactly did we actually move to Harborough? I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that we were there by the summer of 1959 because I had joined the local 1084 Squadron of the Air Training Corps (ATC) in time to attend the annual summer camp (18-25 July 1959 to be precise) at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire.

The ATC summer camps became a fixture. Family holidays were always severely financially constrained: maybe a visit to one or other of Nellie’s sisters; my favourite jaunt was to visit Aunties Dorothy and Hilda at their home named ‘Hildor’ (geddit?) in the Dartmoor village of Horrabridge. Also, we occasionally stayed at Rupert’s religious retreat in Sussex. But the ATC summer camps provided a welcome getaway – and they were FREE!

They were exciting, too, because they always included a trip – half an hour or so – in an aeroplane, usually the two-seat De Havilland Chipmunk trainer. The two seats were in-line rather than side-by-side. The thing to watch out for was not to follow some chap who had vomited. Some of the pilots found it amusing to do aerobatics with a view to making the passenger air sick. A favourite trick was to get a cadet to vomit when the aeroplane was inverted. That way, the contents of his stomach ended up in the inverted Perspex canopy and then, when the plane re-oriented, splattered down on to the poor unfortunate’s head. Fortunately, I didn’t get airsick and just loved the whole thing.

At these camps we were accommodated in barracks: from memory, about 20 of us to a dormitory. Every morning, we each had to make our beds, folding the bedding (this is before the introduction of the duvet to the UK so we’re talking sheets and blankets) to specific dimensions and stacking everything neatly at the foot of the bed.

Toward the end of our week’s stay, there was a dormitory inspection. Uniforms spotless. Shoes spit-and-polished. Floors buffered to a shine. Beds geometrically aligned. Bedding precisely ordered. And we enjoyed it! Proof, to my mind anyway, that today’s advice from Dr. Jordan Peterson to ‘clean your room’ really is a sound foundation.

For several years, for me, these camps were a hugely anticipated annual event. In addition to the 1959 jaunt to RAF Binbrook, there was: RAF Watton (1961) by which time I was a sergeant, no less; RAF Manby (1962); RAF Leeming (1963); and RAF Church Fenton (1964) as a flight sergeant.

But back in those first days in Market Harborough my only other contacts were through the Congregational Church where George was now caretaker. I was still, at this stage, required to accompany George and Nellie to church and there met several kids of my own age. In due course, I joined the church youth club which met once a week. Perhaps more about this later.

Anyway, I soon realized that I was trapped between two worlds. The back and forth between Harborough and Leicester was far from ideal.

Plus, I had learned that although Market Harborough Grammar School (MHGS), just a short walk from our new home, may not have had the reputation or scale of Wyggy, it did have another overwhelming advantage. It was co-ed: a post-pubescent teen’s dream!

So it was that one Monday morning in March 1960, I took my first walk up the hill to MHGS.

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Well, I think we’ve reached a point in this saga where it is appropriate for me to pause and provide some additional information about my origins - information that only became available to me when I was in my 60s. So, that’s where the next fragment will take us.