Runs and Showers
Miss Leila was a friend of Kurt Hahn, the founder of Gordonstoun, and a great admirer of his regime at Gordonstoun, which placed great emphasis inter alia on physical fitness. Among elements of the Gordonstoun regime that she adopted were runs and showers and an assault course [later given the more pacifist name of obstacle course].
The senior boys were woken at 7.00 a.m. every day from Monday to Friday by Miss Travers calling “Time – Runs and Showers”. There followed a run of approximately half a mile along part of the track which traversed the back of the house. The ‘run-track’ led westward to the start of the nearby hornbeam wood, where runners would turn round and head for home. The run was followed by a cold shower, in theory of 10 seconds.
Runs and showers were of course supervised, usually by Miss Travers, Simon Rodway or a PPU. The last few yards of the track were hidden by a tree, and it was not unknown for boys to turn round once they were out of sight, and reappear a minute or so later to make the return run. If spotted, they would be sent back to run half the course again.
We had to stand under the cold shower while the person supervising counted to ten. The speed of the count could depend on their mood, and anyone getting out from under the shower before the call of ‘out’ would be recalled.
On Saturdays there was a shower but no run. This was in fact worse, as the body heat built up from the run to some extent mitigated the cold of the shower. It became worse in the depths of winter; on the [mercifully rare] occasions that the pipes to the showers froze we had to have a cold bath instead. The rule was that you lay down in the bath and turn over three times, which in my case was longer than the shower.
I suppose the justification for cold showers was that they encouraged us to acquire a self-discipline that would stand us in good stead in later life. In my own case I am sure that I have the morning runs to thank for the fact that I am reasonably fit, as I was not inclined towards physical exercise or sports.
As I grew older, I found myself supervising runs and showers, which involved getting up earlier to have my own [unsupervised] run and shower. By this time I quite enjoyed the morning run, and only rarely gave in to the temptation to skip it.
From time to time, Miss Leila chose a boy from Caldecott to continue his education at Gordonstoun. One of these was my contemporary Matthew Potts, who went there at about the age of fourteen.
Before she announced that he would be going, Miss Leila asked me what I would say if she were to invite me to go to Gordonstoun. I was disinclined to any physical activity, and would have been a quite unsuitable candidate for Gordonstoun, and I do not suppose that she had any intention of offering me a place there. I believe that she just wanted to see my reaction, and she was probably not at all surprised that I was horrified at the prospect.
Photograph Above: The run track