CHAPTER V
ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS
Fire practices were generally held at the Community about once or twice a term; officially, that is, unofficially there were more.
Fire bells were placed in strategic positions and sometimes senior Fire-officers would come up and look at the various precautions against fire. These entailed numerous doors, some very inconveniently placed, as upstairs in a girls' dormitory where a kind of "hatch" had been put in the wall, thus making an extra exit from the room, not only in case of fire, but it also made easy communication between the inmates of the dormitories.
On hearing the alarm bell everyone who was actually in the house at the time was supposed to go at once to the main front hall where a roll call was taken.
At night, if held late, it took some time to get the younger children downstairs. I had a room close to the little boys' dormitory, where slept nine eight year-olds: they were all supposed to put on dressing-gowns and slippers but although these were generally put out, they were seldom worn. I went quickly from bed to bed but as soon as the first child was woken and got out of bed, drunk with sleep, he simply got back again as soon as possible. In time they were lined up and taken down to the hall, accompanied by my dog, and once we took the budgerigar in its cage. Miss Leila, if she had previous knowledge of the Practice, was already there: she always said the little boys had been much too slow, which was true: she, of course, had not ever actually had to get them up and suitably dressed in the few minutes technically allowed by the Fire Service.
Unofficial practices generally took place earlier in the evening: the alarm bell upstairs could be rung easily by any girl wanting attention in a somewhat dramatic manner or simply in a fit of temper.
One morning though, the bell rang promptly at a quarter past seven.
A motley collection of girls assembled in the hall, some fully dressed in school uniform, others in dressing gowns obviously not dressed at all, some in rather startling night-wear; black lace and bright orange "shortie" pyjamas were to be seen under very skimpy dressing-gowns.
The younger children all appeared, correct in every detail: the little boys' matron had been early that morning and anyway the boys were always awake long before a quarter past seven.
Miss Dave, in a most fetching long pink dressing-gown, suddenly appeared, flitted quickly through the hall, disappeared into the "yellow-office" and was not seen again. The bell went on inexorably ringing but finally stopped as I got the Fire Registers from the Library. I knew Miss Leila would not come down: the senior boys stayed in the West Wing and were dealt with there.
The Roll call was taken: one or two people looked into the hall to see what was going on, saw what was, and with a superb nonchalance went away. One girl only was missing: where was she, I inquired. "Upstairs", said everyone.
"She must come down, at once", I said.
"I'll fetch her", said a damsel in a sprigged cotton dressing-gown. She tripped away. On returning she informed us that G. was not coming, she happened to be in a bath and wasn't getting out; she would, she said, rather be burnt to death than come downstairs at that particular moment, and anyway, she had added, it was a false alarm because she knew who had rung the bell.
Miss Leila and the girls' matron remained upstairs together with the dog and the bird.
A deafening noise was now coming from the "yellow-office"; this was from the Electric Polisher. Miss H. was polishing the floor. At a quarter past seven every morning she did the floor and on this particular morning saw no reason to stop doing it so, apparently indifferent to any possible fire, went on polishing: it was necessary in the hall to speak very loudly indeed as a Floor Polisher makes a lot of noise.
At half past seven those who were not dressed straggled upstairs: the breakfast bell for the seniors rang immediately: it always did go at that hour so why not on that particular morning?
A few boys appeared and went into the dining-room and a voice from within was heard asking for a blessing on the food: there were not many there to eat it though.
It is doubtful if the Fire Authorities would have approved of any of it but it just rather indicated and suited the sometimes totally individualistic outlook of members of the Community and, as someone afterwards remarked, it was quite obvious it wasn't a proper practice as we never had them in the morning: the fact that it might have been a real fire simply never occurred to anyone.
The only "real" fire we ever had was in a small room used to keep clothes in at the top of the boys' wing. A small boy who was very delinquent at times went up there with a box of matches he had got hold of, and lit either some paper or clothing.
I happened to go out on the front lawn and saw columns of smoke pouring out of that attic window. Two of the male staff rushed up but were unable to get in for smoke.
The Fire Brigade appeared in a short time with three fire-engines, two fire cars and escape-apparatus. The news was spreading rapidly and by now there was quite a crowd on the front lawns. A fire-car from Aldington then drove up at great speed and out stepped a single fireman with a small brilliant pink suitcase labelled "breathing apparatus"; he stumped away upstairs.
Excitement was naturally mounting now; the hall seemed a seething mass of men, women and children. The tea-bell then rang: it always went at four o'clock and it was by then, four o'clock. Then out from the library, with a tutor from Cardiff University who was there for the day seeing one of her students, came Miss Leila.
"What is going on here?" she said.
The Junior School was then let out of school and came as fast as it was humanly possible to come: the seniors were seen coming along the drive from the bus-stop.
A kind of tea-soiree was then held on the front steps: it was a chilly murky November evening and a steady drizzle had started but people stood about with pieces of bread-and-butter and cups of tea.
The fire seemed to be under control and had not spread. I took the Junior Study group into tea and at five o'clock went out again to find the girls at the back-door giving cups of tea to the firemen.
Later a girl fell downstairs and was thought to have broken her elbow: she had been in such a hurry to see what was happening, that she tripped; fortunately the elbow was only bruised.
At six o'clock the firemen were given a large sit-down tea in the hall with numerous girls and boys of all ages coming in and out to take a look at them. The firemen looked as if they were enjoying it all very much indeed: what the tutor from Cardiff thought was never known.
After this episode a highly organised fire practice took place.
Two officers from the Fire Brigade came up at half past ten one night and all the occupants of the main building filed downstairs; the children having been got out of bed and the girls, who were not supposed to know anything about it, but probably did as they were all awake, put on their scanty dressing gowns and out on to the front lawn where we all stood in neat orderly rows on the very wet grass. A benign looking Fire Officer told the assembled company that they must always do exactly what they were told, wherever they were, at all times: there can have been no adult present who did not fervently subscribe to the optimistic command.
The following night at half past ten the Fire bell rang again, up from their beds rose everyone again; I was about to lead the small boys down when a voice said, "John's got nothing on." He was standing by his bed quite naked, having thought in his dazed state that it was time to get up and he was to dress: he was got back into pyjamas and away we went.
Out on the damp lawn we stood again, patiently waiting.
There was no sign of any Fire Officer, let alone flames or smoke. In the silent swishing mists of the night we waited - and waited. Someone went to the 'phone: it had all been a mistake, they would come another night said the Fire Brigade.
No doubt the practice was a good thing and as one boy remarked, it was good, "because" he said, "it's my birthday."
One night of that same November we had another "alarm" but of a different nature. The member of staff who was in charge of the eleven to fourteen year old boys slept in a room in their wing which looked across to the front door and garden: below the window was an area stone passage; the boiler room was down here together with numerous sheds and outhouses; in one of these were kept several large dustbins.
Miss T. was woken up in the early hours of one morning by a great clashing and rattling outside of what sounded like all the dustbin-lids: thinking it was some of the boys out on some escapade she went to investigate. She opened the back door to be confronted by two unknown men: both parties must have had a considerable shock, she on seeing them, and they on seeing a large woman in a bright red dressing gown.
On asking what they were doing there, they said "looking for food"; they then turned and ran down the passage.
The police were informed and came up at once with a police dog who sniffed about a great deal and led them as far as a pond near the bus-stop, known always as the "stinky" pond; it did not actually ever smell but looked as if it ought to have done. A boy's sock was found but there was no trace of the two men and nothing more was ever heard of them. The event caused considerable excitement but like everything else in the Community it was a nine-days' wonder and then something else took its place.
Early one morning I was woken up by the tramping of feet outside my room: it was still dark, it was six o'clock; then I heard men's voices and the well-known treble of a nine year old girl who twittered her way through life like a small bird: wondering what on earth was happening I went to find out. At the door I ran slap into a burly policeman who said, with immense aplomb, "Good morning madam; we have two little girls here that we picked up on the main road: I think they are yours."
"Ah, yes"; I said, "where are they?"
In their playroom I found S. and T. sitting on chairs looking quite happy and relaxed: fully dressed and each clutching a bag from which protruded knitting needles.
They had woken early, got up, collected their knitting and some sweets and gone off on an early-morning jaunt and fortunately been picked up on the main road by a policeman.
The two policemen had been wandering around the house wondering which door to knock on to arouse someone. I thanked them warmly and they left.
We never really discovered why the two children had gone except that the nine year old, who was the older of the two, was an inveterate wanderer. The fact that intrigued me though, was why the knitting?
This too was a nine days' wonder among the younger children: their seniors thought it highly amusing but some of the younger ones, who were probably envious, just said it was "silly".
There were of course all the usual alarms of children failing out of trees, falling into the lake - and once a breathless messenger arrived when we were having tea to say that R. had fallen off a bicycle on the main road and the handle-bar had gone right through her knee. This was fortunately not so but she was rushed to hospital with a bad cut and returned later in an ambulance.
Summers at Mersham-le-Hatch were always very full of incidents, sometimes desirable, sometimes not. The gardens and grounds were lovely, croquet, cricket, tennis of a kind and rounders were all played at week-ends and during the long light evenings.
There were visits to the sea: the Juniors had a day out at Dymchurch leaving early in the morning and returning in the evening. They also camped for several days in nearby fields.
The annual Gymkhana took place in June. The Community owned a number of ponies and two donkeys and a great deal of riding took place in the summer.
The Gymkhana, was, I think a popular event. It was run by two members of the Staff with the help of boys and girls who had been "grooms" for the year. These "grooms" looked after the ponies and were very faithful in their duties. The public were admitted to the Gymkhana but only those under eighteen could compete. It was a social occasion too as a good many parents and friends came and much business was transacted by Miss Leila and Miss Dave sitting in deckchairs at the ring-side of the large field in which it was always held. The only draw-back to this event was its length: it began at half past one and seldom finished before eight o'clock.
Other expeditions were connected with the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. I do not think this Scheme was a particular favourite of the girls: much of what they were asked to do seemed so repetitive as in many cases they were already doing the same sort of thing at school.
Both boys and girls went on various expeditions: boys would camp out for the night, often in appalling weather, but the girls returned in the evening having slogged along endless country roads in teeming rain, cooking meals, miraculously I thought, on fires that stayed alight. I must say I did sympathise with a girl who just said as she dumped her soaking clothes on the floor "Dunno what we have to do this for."
The Outward Bound Courses, to which many of the boys went and a good many girls, were on the other hand a great success.
There were also half terms. These began when we first went to Mersham in a very modest way: the boys often cycled and stayed at youth-hostels for a night or two but the girls never went further south than Rye or further north than Canterbury: but half-terms given by the schools in those days were much shorter than they became later.
Excursions to anywhere entailed a great deal of organisation certainly as far as transport was concerned. The Community had a twelve seater Dormobile which we more or less took it in turns to use although the boys' needs often seemed to the female population to be much greater than theirs. When I was able to have it I put as many as possible in and once, in desperation, took eighteen: some of them were small children though who sat on their elders' laps. I was, anyway, quite confident that I could drive them safely to Canterbury and back, which I did despite a blizzard which came on just as we started.
A Saturday in Canterbury with the girls involved Woolworths, Lyons, the Cathedral and the cinema - in that order.
My first stay in a Youth Hostel in England was in the nineteen-fifties. I went with another member of staff and we took about a dozen girls. We walked a very great many miles in dark overcast cool weather: it was probably one of the wettest Summers on record.
We arrived at Sittingbourne: there was little to do there and having spent as long as possible at the swimming baths trudged off again through indifferent country under lowering skies. We had one very "disturbed" girl who had to be cajoled, coaxed and wheedled along mile after mile: another wanted a drink every fifty yards.
On reaching the Youth Hostel we found it shut; we could not go in till five o'clock: we just sat down outside and waited.
The stay of two nights would probably have been quite pleasant if the weather had been better but the cold was great, the hot water system appeared to have failed and the cooking facilities were in a poor state.
I slept in a small room in a small bunk bed and with one other occupant, a stout young woman who came from the north; she snored all night except for brief intervals when she coughed and cleared her throat: as dawn broke she offered me toffees.
We left two days later and walked and walked until we reached the main Ashford road: we ate a sort of picnic on a village-green and someone saw a bus in the distance. We had had enough and on the bus we got and gazed through the rain-lashed windows as we were borne safely back to Mersham-le-Hatch: it was after this that I decided that I was never under any circumstances going to stay in another Youth Hostel.
With the passing of time our bounds were extended and one summer half-term I went with about a dozen girls to Pevensey, near Eastbourne: there went too the same member of staff with whom I had stayed at the Youth Hostel.
We went to a "Holiday House", it was really intended for parties of children from the poorer districts of London but was loaned to us one Whitsun.
A heat-wave was at its height on the Saturday morning when eight of the girls set off on bicycles. I followed in my car with four girls, my mate and colleague, and twelve sleeping bags packed with enough for at least a month's stay; we were actually having three nights there.
The house, we understood, was furnished and there would be a "lady" there who would order all the food and cook it. It sounded ideal and the weather looked set fair for a fortnight.
The house was called "Four Winds", aptly as it turned out. It comprised two disused coast-guard cottages. An unmade road led up to it which reminded me at once of the Hyde House drive with its cavernous pot-holes: there was a large caravan-site not far away. The beach, though close, was stony and littered with scrap-iron, there were also the remains of derelict beach-huts.
It was only possible to reach the house by a level crossing on the Eastbourne branch-line; the gates were opened by a ticket-collector when he had time.
We reached the house at tea-time slightly discouraged by its access. On going in the first thing that really caught the eye was a large sheet of paper pinned to the wall: it did not say "Welcome!" or "Peace to all who come here" or some such agreeable notice, it just said "Mind your head if you don't want to hit it going upstairs". The ceiling over the stairs was indeed so low that everyone went up and down on all fours, like animals.
There were no "mod-cons" and the only water came from a tap over the kitchen sink. A pipe was connected to a tank outside which had to be constantly filled with water in jugs and buckets from another tap along the unmade road.
Upstairs there were two largish rooms with bunk beds one on top of the other and two small rooms meant presumably for adults: there were iron beds and a chair in each of these; by the side of each bed was a terrible looking mat that might, we thought, have come from some old animal.
We removed the mats and put newspaper down on the floor near the beds. We looked at the mattresses and went down to see the lady in the kitchen. She looked completely bewildered and said she hadn't expected so many. We mentioned the mattresses.
"Well, yes" she said,"you see the children who come here, do sometimes...." her voice trailed away.
"Yes, yes", we said, "we entirely understand but have you some more newspaper?"
She cooked a meal of sorts that evening but it was clear that it would probably be the last she would do.
The following day the weather was fine and warm: my colleague produced a mid-day meal as our suppositions about the lady in the kitchen had been correct and she did not turn up again.
We had tea on the beach and it was fairly obvious then that the weather was breaking: for ominous clouds were drifting in from the west and there was a kind of chill in the air.
We were much troubled by the local youths that evening and until a late hour they stood outside whistling and cat-calling; they seemed to have appeared from nowhere like wasps who scent plums.
On Monday, which was Bank-holiday, we had planned to picnic on Beachy Head and bathe at Eastbourne. At half-past-eight it was drizzling, at nine o'clock just raining hard and when we left at ten o'clock there was a cloud-burst. It drummed down on the roof of the car and the wheels sank into the huge yellow puddles as we waited to get over the level crossing.
We got a train to Eastbourne; there, no cafe or snack-bar would take us in, so terrible we must have looked after walking into the town from the station through the cloud-burst which still continued. A picnic anywhere outside was obviously impossible.
We decided that the station might be the driest place and hot drinks could be got at the buffet; back to the station we tramped to find all the waiting-rooms packed with drenched holiday-makers and it was impossible to get anywhere near the buffet and the word went round anyway that no more hot drinks were available.
One of the girls then disappeared into one of the station toilets; on emerging she was seen to be dressed only in a black bathing-dress and a pair of white gym-shoes; over her arm were the dripping plastic mackintosh, a pair of leather shoes slung by the laces and a plastic bag with her clothes. It was an amazing sight in the middle of a railway station: she might have been an advertisement for "Come to the Sunny South".
She was remonstrated with but as she said with complete logic everything she had on was soaked, but there was the dry bathing-dress, so why not wear it.
No one took the slightest notice of her: they were all far too absorbed in trying to get dry.
We ate a lunch of cold mutton sandwiches standing in a corner of the station; there was nowhere to sit down.
Then, out again we went, girl still in the bathing wear but with the plastic mac draped round her shoulders.
We found a cinema which had seats left and we sank thankfully down in a warm gloriously stuffy dry cinema. The crunching of pop-corns from their crackling paper bags was very great and the smell of drying plastic, wool and cotton was also great and the steam almost obscured the screen but no one cared, we were in the dry.
It did not stop raining until the next morning when we packed up and left. Perhaps the girls really did enjoy it: they were very loyal, my mate and I thought, on returning to the Community, and said it had all been "Smashing" and "Fabulous".