The Seniors

The house at Mersham-le-Hatch was in three parts, a large central ‘main house’ and two smaller wings, East and West, each connected to the main house by a narrower structure. The Senior and Junior Studies and the Senior Girls all lived and slept in the main house, while the accommodation for the Senior Boys, apart from a playroom in the main house, was entirely in the West Wing.

 

northam5

Mersham-le-Hatch [front]

We slept in dormitories, usually with about five beds to a dormitory . We showered [both hot and cold, about which more later] in the West Wing, and spent most of our leisure time in the adjoining playroom, but visited the main house for meals and certain activities.

The most significant change was that we were now of secondary school age, and went out of the community for our education, to Grammar and Secondary Modern Schools in Ashford.

Although at this time we continued to live and play together, the Seniors were divided between those of 11 to 13 years on the one hand and those of 14 years or more on the other. The latter were known as “Uniforms” because during evenings and weekends they wore a uniform consisting of light blue Aertex shirts, grey flannel short trousers and long grey socks held up with garters [the girls wore blouses and skirts of the same colours]. The uniform trousers were not popular among boys who, at the age of 14, were provided with their first long trousers to wear to school but found that they were expected to revert to short trousers in the evening.

[Long trousers were of course a rite of passage. I remember that one boy, Maurice Ottaway, was so anxious not to crease his new trousers that he would stand on a locker about two feet above the floor to put them on].

Most of us left Caldecott at about 15 or 16, but Barry Callaghan and I stayed on until we reached 18, and even then the uniform still included short trousers.

Throughout my time at Caldecott Miss Travers [nicknamed ‘Aggie’] was in charge of the senior boys, assisted by one or more male member of staff. For most of this time that was Simon Rodway, but there were a number of others, mostly temporary. Some of these were students on what we would now call work experience. I remember in particular a German named Peter Schussler, who was very pleasant. Sadly, he died in a road accident after returning to Germany.

After a few years news of my Mulberry Bush nickname leaked out, and it was revived [ I think I have Douglas Rankin to thank for this]. Soon afterwards it was shortened to ‘prof’.

Boys and girls over fourteen who showed a degree of responsibility were rewarded by being created “Privileged Uniforms”, a status akin to that of school prefects. As the name suggests, this status carried certain privileges [e.g. a later bedtime]. They were distinguished from other Uniforms by wearing dark blue Aertex shirts – otherwise the uniform was the same.

This status was at first temporary, but could, when sufficient responsibility was shown, be made permanent [we became Permanently Privileged Uniforms, or ‘PPUs’]. Older Caldecott people will probably remember an earlier incarnation known as Pathfinders.

At about the time that I was sixteen, the Colt House arrived in the Brewery Yard. Named after the Colt company that built it, it was a wooden structure consisting of a large room used as a playroom, and two smaller rooms. From then on, boys of fourteen years and older occupied the Colt House under the supervision of Simon Rodway, leaving the West Wing playroom to the younger boys and Miss Travers, although all the boys continued to sleep in the West Wing. One of the smaller rooms became Simon’s bedroom, and the other was for the use of PPUs.

   
 

northam6

Mersham-le-Hatch [rear]

northam8Pathfinders

 

northam7

Me at Hatch, aged about 11