3. Senior Study: Mr. Christie, Joe Marshall and Jean Mackenzie
The next group up was the Senior Study. I would have been nine or ten – this was the final stage before taking the 11 plus and “going out” to school. It also marked the point where we divided into genders. The Senior Study boys’ playroom was at the end of the corridor leading left from the bottom of the great stairs, while the girls had the room immediately in front of the stairs. For presumably logistical reasons, the boys’ dormitory was rather far away, at the top of the West Wing. The girls’ dormitory was upstairs in the main house.
For at least my first term in the Senior Study, we were under the charge of Mr. Christie. He was young, tall and rather handsome, with a figure vaguely like Cary Grant. He was firm but friendly, very ready to encourage you when you did something right and did not put you in his “black books” for ever after when you did something wrong. Unfortunately, he was soon transferred to West Wing duties as Miss Travers’s assistant, and left not long after. Miss Travers told me he went to the Continent, an excellent move for him, in her opinion. “Room to swing his car”, she said. I am not sure what was behind that.
I was never much of a cyclist, but Mr. Christie did teach me the basics. On a battered old thing rather too large for me, we trundled up and down the path between the first and second lawns, with Mr. Christie firmly holding the back of the saddle. “You’ll have to go by yourself sooner or later”, he insisted. “I can’t!” I cried out in terrified tones. “What do you think you’re doing?” called a voice far behind me. I promptly fell off, but the point had been made.
Things took a downward turn with the arrival of Mr. Marshall. He was short and fat and had curly hair – he went by the nickname “Curly”. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course. He started by explaining his system of stars. I remember only “One black star equals one penalty run”. He did not call his discussions “meetings”, preferring the term “pow-wow”. Whatever he called them, they went on for ever and never resolved anything. Sometimes, he told us, he would be smoking his pipe when he called a “pow-wow”. This meant he wanted to make peace with someone. I do not remember him ever smoking the pipe, but I do not remember him making peace with anyone either. I believe he was a well-meaning man and kindly at heart but somehow he brought out the worst in me. I baited him as far as I dared. I once wrote a poem for the Caldecott’s magazine “Herald” that began:
We have a man that snarls and grunts,
He thinks a pow-wow’s simply great …
I forget how it continued but it was published and, to do him credit, Mr. Marshall thought it was hilarious and often quoted those opening lines. He could, I admit, be convivially funny and sometimes laughed where the higher command thought otherwise. On one occasion, I returned from the Deer Park with a large jar of blackberries and resolved to make them into jam. I had no notion of how jam was made, but the water from the hot tap came out scalding, so I settled down for the afternoon holding the jar under the running hot water. As time passed, the blackberries looked no more like jam than they did at the beginning, but I persevered until the water ceased to come out hot. The Hatch had a massive water tank heated by a large boiler (under the care of Mr. Dryland and later Mr. Stockbridge). It coped with multiple baths and manual dishwashing (an electric dishwasher was a later luxury), but amateur jam-making defeated it. Mr. Marshall saw the funny side, others did not. Miss Travers said indignantly, “Thanks to you, we’ve got a cold, greasy supper”, though I never saw why. You can no more cook supper with hot water than you can make jam. Miss Dave announced at supper that “We’ve had a disaster this afternoon”. This was one of those things that were “no laughing matter” for her, but the whole room was convulsed before she got to the end. The “jam” was so horrible I had to throw it away.
Another incident did not regard me directly, but I record it because Mr. Marshall thought it so funny that he wrote it up for the Caldecott “Herald”. It was on a half-term outing in Folkestone, accompanied by Mr. Marshall, and the group had stopped in a café for lunch. Among the diners were a young man and girl. Any serious eating was done by the young man. The girl had been shopping on a large scale and could not wait to try on her purchases. She trooped in and out of the washroom, emerging each time with a change of clothes. People were very polite in those days and the performance drew no more than raised eyebrows until she emerged for the umpteenth time with an outfit that was, for the 1960s, distinctly risqué. The youngest in our party, Eustace Hevers, piped up with a penetrating voice, “She’ll be wearing a pink spotted handkerchief next”. The whole room, waiters included, choked back its laughter. Miss Travers (or even Betty Rayment) would have lectured Eustace sternly on what you should and should not say in public, however much the girl deserved it. Instead, the “pink spotted handkerchief” joined the “man who growls and grunts” as part of the Marshall folklore.
The trouble with Mr. Marshall was that you never knew which way he was going to react. It almost seemed that big misdemeanours amused him while trifling matters would find him morose or sarcastic. As for punishments, I am not sure if I ever got a penalty run, but he once washed my mouth out with White Windsor and a scrubbing brush.
The Senior Study boys’ dormitory was at that time under the charge of Miss Jean Mackenzie, a young Scot. Scarcely more than a girl herself, on her first evening she joined the boys in a pillow fight till Miss Travers came up to investigate and had one of her famous words in her ear. After that, saner counsels prevailed. She was very proud of her Scots identity and the two Scottish twins in our group were her clear favourites. But she detested the one other Scotswoman at Caldecott, Miss Mima. “For heaven’s sake don’t compare me with Miss Mima”, she said once. No reason was given. Different tartans, I suppose.
One early morning, before it was even time to get up, Miss Jean came into our dormitory crying. President Kennedy had been assassinated. How the world has changed since then! I suppose we should not wish violent death upon even the most obnoxious of Presidents or Prime Ministers, but would anyone cry like that today even over one of the better ones?
Miss Jean did not stay long. She married a tea planter and went to live in what was still called East Pakistan. In view of the events that led to the birth of Bangladesh, I hope she did not stay there long either.
The Senior Study marked a natural climax to our first stages through Caldecott. The following year we would be going out to school in Ashford (a few to Folkestone). Up to that time, we had been taught in Caldecott’s own primary school located in the former stables, a short walk from the main house. This is the one area of Mersham le Hatch still open to the public under the bizarre name of the “Secret Garden”. Unfortunately, the secret is not the garden but the Hatch, which has been cordoned off with an ungainly wall and dire warnings about guard dogs. Before proceeding to the next stage, I will briefly recall the staff who had charge of the girls and describe the primary education we received.