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My time at Masonic. 1939-1947

I have been asked to permit the part of my unfinished Memoirs on the School web site and am happy to do so. Readers should bear in mind that this is not intended to be a history of the school. It is part of what I have written for the information of my children and grandchildren.

The story begins when I have been living with my grandmother in Cardiff for a year, eighteen month's after my father's suicide in Belfast due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from World War 1 and five years after my mother's death.

One cold winter evening in November 1938 Uncle Evan called at the house and took me for a walk during which he explained to me that I would be going, in January of the New Year (1939), to boarding school in Dublin. The school concerned was, of course, what was then known as the Masonic Orphan Boy’s School. The School was for the sons of deceased Irish Masons. My father had been from 1922 a member of Dublin Lodge 227 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland (the Geraldine Lodge, after which my sister may have been named); Uncle Victor was a member of the same Lodge.

My uncles Claude and Evan in Wales were English Freemasons; I believe Claude had been a District Grand Master.1 Thus began my own lifetime association with Freemasonry. At that time the Grand Lodge of Ireland ran two orphanages in Dublin for the children of deceased Irish freemasons, one each for boys and girls. My sister Joan told me many years later that there was consideration within the family of sending her to the Girls’ school, but she did not want to go and the idea was not taken further. In my own case Evan’s news led to some weeks of great activity. There was a long list of clothes to be bought, nightshirts (which I had never worn), and stiff starched white Eton collars for Sunday wear with what were then known as “collar-detached shirts”, a suit of serge navy with two sets of long trousers. (I have a photo of myself at this time in my first long trousers.) We did not wear vests as I recall and I don’t think we wore underpants! Uncle Victor, Auntie Daisy and Joan arrived from Ireland for Christmas and to take me back to Ireland. Christmas dinner was a huge gathering of Fieldings seated round an enormous rectangular table in the “breakfast room”. I remember being given an enormous box of chocolate shapes and bars, and for years afterwards I regretted that I left the box behind half -full intending to enjoy the rest when I came “home” for the holidays. It was not to be. As far as I can remember I never saw Gran again or the inside of the Claude Road house. 2

1 When I visited Dublin in June 2000 Arthur White, who started at Masonic on the same day as I did and is a couple of weeks older than me, gave me a copy of the voting paper distributed among Governors of the School, “Five boys to be elected”. It includes a column headed “Means of Subsistence etc. and Educational Standard” and in my case it reads None, supported by an uncle. Candidate is attending Marlborough Road Boys’ School, Cardiff, in Standard 2. The daughters were born 1923-27. Mother is also deceased.

My friend Arthur was the only other candidate with a None for Means of Support.

Arthur also confirmed that we did not wear underpants!

2 I believe that, soon after I left, the house was sold and Gran went to live with her eldest daughter, Sissy. Perhaps intended sale of the house was one of the reasons it was imperative to make a permanent arrangement to take care of me by sending me to the Masonic School. She may have been ill though she lived on until November 1942.

My life had taken a right angle turn.

Early Days at the Masonic Orphan Boys’ School

1939-1940

Arriving in Dublin Joan, Uncle Victor, Auntie Daisy and I stayed for a few days at the Caledonian Hotel in George St. where my uncle, and presumably in the past my father also, normally stayed when in town on commercial traveling business. They were well known to the lady who owned and operated it. By this time uncle’s home was in Bangor, near Belfast in Northern Ireland. I, of course, had never been to Dublin before. I well remember being taken by my uncle in a taxi to the school3 in Clonskeagh, in suburban Dublin, which was to be my life for the next eight and a half years. I was about to be left in a strange place with people whom I did not know and with my nearest family members a hundred miles away in Northern Ireland. I was terrified but as I remember it, I did not cry then though there were many tears later. I was received at the school by “Gem” Moore, by that time a kindly old widower in his seventies who had been Headmaster for 42 years, since 1897. He occupied an old and beautiful eighteenth century Georgian house “Richview” which had been the original residence on what had at that time been a country estate of several acres. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century school dormitory buildings had been built joining on to the old house. This complex formed one side of a large, partly asphalted, rectangle.The other sides of the rectangle were made up of separate buildings, the oldest aNineteenth century brick almost Gothic “schoolroom” with several classrooms built around a large central hall with a large circular window over a platform at one end, a gymnasium built in the 1920s as a memorial to those Past Pupils who fell in the First World War, and, across an open garden, a more recently built single story “sanatorium”. Further afield were a large walled garden and a complex of tumbledown buildings4 adjoining a reasonably modern science laboratory, and a “playing field” large enough eventually for three rugby pitches and - hallowed and sacred ground- the cricket pitch. I, of course, knew none of this, as I was handed over and taken to the small dormitory (Dorm A) that I was to share for the next six months with five other “new boys” including Arthur White. In the corner was a small area, walled off by partitions, where a junior master5 slept. I was now entirely alone in a situation where I had to find new friends and make a life of my own. The other five “new boys” were in much the same situation but we varied in age from nine years old, as I was, to twelve. The three nine year olds, Arthur, Jimmy Johnson and I, naturally clung together. We youngsters were helped, in those cold January days, by the elderly Headmaster who encouraged us to come to his study to sit in front of the fine Georgian marble fireplace and keep warm while he dosed in his favourite armchair. If we played about, as kids do, we were sent away.

In my early days there the school was old-fashioned, almost Dickensian. Power among the boys was exercised by the biggest and strongest who automatically were entitled to a share of anything such as sweets or cakes sent to any of the younger boys, those with Dublin parents being the most fortunate in this regard. Members of the Firsts rugby team, or cricket team, depending on the season, were entitled to demand services such as having their beds made or their shoes cleaned by other boys, usually of course the more junior ones. It was a sort of fagging system similar to the practice in English private schools. During the cricket season, for instance, a member of the First Eleven could send another boy to recruit anyone he could find to field while he practiced his batting or bowling (a practice which disturbed my peaceful reading on many occasions). Insofar as there was a prefect system it consisted of “the Committee”, the five who made up the selection committee for the rugby or cricket team. The whole school elected the five with those gaining the most votes being Captain and Vice-captain.

The days had a regular pattern. From Monday to Friday one got up in summer with the bell at 7 AM. There was private study from 7.30 to 8.30 AM followed by breakfast to 9 AM. Until 9.30 AM one made beds, swept rooms and carried out general housekeeping. There was school from 9.30 to 1.30 PM and again from 4.30 to 6 PM. Sport was played on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons and there was “gym” for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was private study again from 7.00 PM to 9.00 PM. We then had an hour to play cricket – usually dormitory matches – until 10.PM. Lights out at 10 PM and silence at 10.30 PM. In winter the bell went at 8 AM and the evening study period went from 7.30 PM to 9.45 PM. Saturdays followed the same pattern until lunch, after which rugby or cricket was played against other schools. On Sundays three groups were formed, for Church of Ireland, Presbyterians and Methodists, and each group walked in double file for a round trip of about three miles to their separate churches. This happened morning and evening. The only previous experience of church that I can remember is attending a Methodist Sunday school in Cardiff and going, on a couple of occasions, to an Anglican church with Gran Fielding. The school must have been told I was Church of Ireland so I joined the regular cavalcade to Taney Church of Ireland. It was quickly discovered that I had quite a good voice and singing ability. I sang in the choir throughout my school days, solos at Christmas; the lady organist even took me to sing at some private house concerts.

The only holiday, apart from Easter, Summer and Christmas, was Board Day when the School Governors met once a month for breakfast in our large dining room. Prior to the meeting we cleaned the whole school especially vigorously to make a good impression in case the Governors wanted to inspect some of it. Cleaning up after the Board breakfast was a keenly sought privilege (among the senior boys) as there was often (cold) bacon and eggs left over and toast and marmalade. Senior boys were then allowed to go out for the rest of day; more junior ones could go if they had friends or family to go to. I, of course, like several other youngsters, had nowhere to go.6 Fortunately I was a keen reader and the school had a surprisingly good library, mainly of fiction, and reading occupied me if I was not recruited to field for a member of the Firsts cricket team. We were of course free to play games and, in the cricket season, there were plenty of cracked or wounded bats available.

3 Among my books there is a history of the school Shop Window to the World by J.F.Burns.

4 These buildings still stand, preserved in the agreement that saw the site sold in the late 1970s to University College, Dublin, and now part of a large modern university campus. The holy soil of the cricket pitch has, alas, disappeared under a university building.

5 There were three junior masters who were students at Trinity College but lived at the school in return for general supervisory and some teaching responsibilities.

6On Sundays boys with local parents or family friends could visit or be visited by them. Uncle Victor would occasionally come and take me out for an afternoon when he was in Dublin on business.

There were three meals each day. At that time breakfast consisted of salted (no sugar) porridge which had been dished out anything up to half an hour before, and three half slices (“cuts) of bread and butter from a large square loaf, with tea from large copper urns with a distinctive copper taste. Dinner was in the middle of the day and usually one queued for roast meat along with potatoes boiled in their (poorly cleaned) jackets and a mush of cabbage, turnips or swedes; there was rice pudding or apple or rhubarb in season, two or three times a week. If there was pudding there was soup but no main course. The evening meal consisted of another four cuts of bread and butter with tea. If one was lucky enough to have family who sent jam or other spreads - I was not- one might share, although sharing with members of the Firsts was not voluntary. 7

An elderly lady, Miss Annie Magrane, conducted the entry class, Elementary Grade, in which I now found myself. “Bunty”, as she was called by the boys was a figure straight out of the pages of Dickens, perhaps Mrs. Gamp. She was a small wizened elderly lady usually as I remember, dressed in Victorian black or gray, who had been teaching the same class since 1895, 45 years before my arrival. Attending a Dame’s school in Victorian times must have been a similar experience - chanting addition and multiplication tables, learning the parts of speech and to parse sentences, carefully imitating proverbs in writing books. Most of what she taught was well within my experience from my previous schooling but in a class where ages varied from nine to twelve, there were several boys from country backgrounds with much poorer educational backgrounds.8 No doubt what she taught ensured that my own grasp of spelling, grammar and arithmetic has seldom let me down in later life.

Life was not all hard slog. I can remember being selected for release from afternoon class to pick gooseberries in the large walled garden that provided what variety there was in our dinner menu. There were only two sports played at the school, cricket in the summer and rugby (union, of course) in the winter. The only other facility was a handball court among the ruined buildings that attracted a few self-motivated enthusiasts. The sports master, George Coghlan, was only interested in cricket for which he was a brilliant coach. The tiny school (105 pupils, all boarders) won championship after cricket championship and swept the board - Under 14, Junior and Senior in 1943 and 1944. I was not much of a cricketer, although I tried and had occasional good periods. But in eight and a half years I was only once picked to play cricket for the school - in the second eleven - in a school where a third to a half of all boys were picked every week.9

I began school in January, the rugby season. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I found myself among the rest left over from the 60 engaged in organised games. We leftovers played in the unmown and unmarked part of the sports field with probably one of the older boys as referee. There was no instruction or coaching for rugby and we new boys picked up the game as we went along. I had some aptitude, it was hardly talent, as a rugby forward. I can remember being thrilled some years later on being picked for my first Under 13 game against another school -Aravon College - in the village made famous decades later in the TV show Ballykissangel.

About a month before the summer holidays we were all measured for new suits by a local clothing firm, McBirneys. Every boy was provided with a new navy heavy serge suit with two pairs of trousers that, at that time, we wore all through the year. Those finishing school had a wider choice of material. The school provided10 all the basic clothing, suits, and shirts, at that time with separate collars, socks, shoes, nightshirts but not underpants – we didn’t wear any! Ties, sports gear, except rugby jerseys, and jumpers were family responsibilities though there were probably a lot of hand-downs but I cannot remember this. I wince when I think of the early years when I played rugby with no support other than football shorts. It is a wonder that I ever achieved fatherhood! There was a large wicker basket on the end of each bed where clean shirts etc were distributed twice each week. The number of one’s bed was one's personal identifying code whenever it was needed, not just for clothes. I can remember lots of tears in that first term. I was lost and lonely in spite of the kindliness of the Headmaster and clinging together with other nine year olds who shared my plight. It was a great relief when Uncle Victor arrived to take me to Bangor by car for the Easter holidays. My sister Joan had been living with Victor and Daisy since our father’s death, as she continued to do until shortly before Victor died in 194411. I got to know Bangor well because, apart from the summer holidays of 1939, it was where I spent all my holidays until Grannie Harvey in Sheffield took responsibility for me, I think in 1942. Until then Victor was my “guardian” - I have no idea what the legal situation was. He provided the small amount of pocket money that was doled out at school and full support during the holidays. By this time the economy was recovering and presumably his business as a commercial traveler had improved. But to take responsibility for two of his brother’s children with generosity and warmth says a lot about him and about Daisy12 who mothered us devotedly. In Bangor I was issued, like the rest of the population, with a gas mask in a square carrying case, for the expected gas attacks in the war that was now apparently inevitable. There were tests of air raid sirens and public air raid shelters were being constructed. Like everyone else in the United Kingdom I was issued with an Identity Card to show that I was not a “Fifth Columnist” (German spy) about which there was much paranoia at the time, encouraged by the government. My own legal status was that, although I went to school in neutral Eire, I was a citizen of the United Kingdom with my home in Northern Ireland. I then returned to Masonic. I was not to leave Ireland again until 1942.

Back at school I was no longer a “new boy”. There were twelve fresh new boys. Among them were Jack Kyle and David Ellis, who became my lifelong friends13. I now knew all of the boys and had several friends. I was familiar with the routine. I was more independent though I was a stubborn kid, even then unwilling to submit to what I regarded as injustice and occasionally on the losing end of a physical confrontation with those older and stronger. A few days after my return to school I can remember hearing that war had been declared between Britain and its allies and Germany in response to Germany’s invasion of Poland.

It was September 3rd 1939, a Sunday as I recall. The Irish Free State, as it was then called, was not involved in the war and remained neutral. As a consequence my own direct experience of the war was limited to air raids when I was on “holiday” in Bangor and later in Sheffield. Of course most of the male and some of the female members of my extended family, both the Fieldings and the Harveys, were directly involved and all their lives dramatically changed. Most of the men were called up for war service, the older ones for part time Home Guard or Air Raid Warden service.

7 In later years the diet, like the school, changed remarkably for the better, in spite of the outbreak of war. Ireland was, of course, neutral during the war but the bread became coarser and imported foods were in short supply. Homegrown foods, such as dairy products and meat, remained plentiful.

8 I remember one new boy of 12 or 13 who did not know his alphabet

9 Even then the game was rained off and I neither batted nor bowled; I had been picked as a bowler! I think this was in 1946.

10 The Grand Lodge of Ireland met all school costs including food.. There were no school fees

11 She then went to join Geraldine, living with Claude and Louie until her marriage to Glynne Heard in 1948.

12Daisy is an intriguing memory. She was so Latin American, dark, petite, lively, quick-tempered, high spirited, so different from Grannie and Grandpa Peters. .

13I have remained in contact with him ever since and have visited his home in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, on several occasions.

In Northern Ireland I believe such service was voluntary. I don’t remember Uncle Victor having any involvement but then he had not been medically fit to serve in World War One and whatever the problem was may have been equally relevant in World War Two. Food rationing, when it came, was also less severe in Northern Ireland, possibly because some food came, legitimately or more probably illegitimately, across the border from neutral Eire.

At school I moved up a grade, out of Bunty’s Dame School environment. Although the school was old fashioned, it had a number of excellent teachers. We did not have a form teacher, as I remember. Each teacher had a specialist subject and in some cases responsibility for other subjects. Pupils had no subject choice. Everyone did Mathematics, English, Geography, History, French, Latin, Irish and Science. In these early years a brilliant young history teacher, Louis Lord, who had only just graduated from Trinity (TCD), held me spellbound and planted that love of history which, years later made Modern History and Political Science my area of study at TCD.14 Other teachers I remember as particularly able were “Deish” Meredith who had taught French very effectively since 1907 and “Barney” Henry, who had been science master since 1920. With George Coghlan, sports master and Irish teacher, I had an ambivalent relationship over several years in which I was sometimes favoured by special assignments such as out of school errands using his bicycle - a welcome break from routine- and sometimes victimised. The only female teacher, other than Bunty, was “Polly” McCullagh, a rather severe very Presbyterian lady from Northern Ireland who taught English and Geography. She lived at the school but did not have the general supervisory duties out of class that fell to the “master on duty” for a week at a time. Here I should digress to mention a group of young women from whom, in that first year or two, I and other young boys received a lot of kindness. These were the maids who had kitchen duties and cleaned the staff areas. There were probably four or five at a time, young women with little education and no doubt on very low wages, who lived in special quarters. They probably came from large families with younger brothers and sisters and were willing to break the rules by taking small boys into the forbidden kitchen area where it was warm and some illicit food was available.

There is one incident I recall now with particular warmth. At that time the Irish economy was heavily protected and one paid tax (“duty”) on many imported items. A box of chocolates arrived in the mail for me from some member of the family in England and as it so happened I was by the door to the Headmaster’s house when it was delivered by the postman to one of the maids. There was duty to be paid and I, of course, had no money. The maid, bless her, paid it for me from what must have been the most meager of wages. In those days the use of corporal punishment was not questioned by society. At Masonic it was not uncommon. One could be caned for such offences as not knowing one’s “homework”, talking in class, persistently having dirty shoes at the parade before school. Punishment for such offences was relatively mild, one or two “cuts” of the cane on the hand unless the master was particularly incensed15. More reprehensible crimes, such as stealing - which I seldom remember happening - attracted more severe retribution. It was not only masters who could inflict corporal punishment. Members of The Committee (Prefects) also had such authority though it was seldom used. The most extreme punishment among the boys themselves was the Black Arch, incurred only for the most heinous breaches of our own schoolboy code. It only happened once or twice in my eight and a half years at Masonic and took place in the dormitory, -a population of 25, - with the boys in two facing lines and the miscreant crawling between the lines being thumped on the rear with hands, sticks etc.

Fortunately I was academically able enough and sufficiently well behaved16 seldom to incur corporal punishment. The unfortunates who suffered most were those who lacked the ability or the application to learn. Punishment for mistakes or inattention in class was by far the most frequent reason for being caned.17 The veteran Headmaster, “Gem” Moore died in May 1940. The school attended his funeral en masse. It was the first funeral I ever attended. The Dickensian Orphan Boys School was about to meet the twentieth century with the arrival of a new headmaster.

14Lord moved on in about 1942 to a successful career in Northern Ireland where he eventually became Headmaster at one of the best private schools.

15I can remember one incident during evening study, which was done in the schoolroom great hall, when the master in charge was the Latin Master “Joe” Burrows. A senior boy was punished for some offence and proceeded to bait Joe sotto voce - Joe had a speech impediment, probably a hair lip. What ensued was an all-out fight with no Queensbury rules between the master and pupil in full view of the rest of us.

16I never liked cigarettes, - smoking was one of the caning offences.

17 I have often, in later years, wondered how many of the poor learners in fact suffered from dyslexia, ADD, poor eyesight or other learning handicaps. They suffered for it.

Masonic Boys’ School and Bangor

1939-1943

Back at school in Dublin much was changing with the arrival after the summer holidays of a new headmaster, John (in my memory “Jack”) Stretton. The new headmaster faced a difficult ask in modernizing the school in a time of wartime shortages and restrictions. Within these limits the diet improved and the clothing became less Victorian. There were also teaching innovations. I was going through a difficult period academically. I was the youngest in my year and may have lacked motivation or concentration. Alternatively it is possible that the first couple of years of Masonic School education were set at a level for those boys less educationally advanced on arrival than I had been and I was now being asked to make more effort. Whatever the cause I fell foul of the new education regime and was put on a strict reporting regime to encourage improvement. It must have worked as, in my later years, I was consistently in the top academic achievers and won many prizes.

I also took piano lessons, with the church organist Miss Archer, as teacher, for whom I had sung solo. Unfortunately I was not sufficiently dexterous and have always regretted that there was no opportunity to learn some other instrument. The new headmaster instituted dancing classes. These cost money that I did not have and I contented myself with looking after the record player. Jack Stretton helped to nurture my lifelong interest in music. He was a Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiast and on rainy Sundays, when it was not reasonable for us to walk to church, he would get out his gramophone and play us his Gilbert and Sullivan records. He also made it possible for those of us who were interested, to go to the annual performance of three Gilbert and Sullivan operas at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre by the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society. I was enchanted.

Another new Headmaster

1944-1947

My situation as a kid attending school in neutral Dublin but spending holidays in Britain was made complicated by the war. By 1942 travel between Britain and neutral Ireland for civilians had almost ceased although the mailboat still ran daily between Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire. Four or five Masonic boys were often the only passengers. In June 1944 a change occurred which was to have a huge impact on my life. A new headmaster, Dr. Jack Storey, was appointed. He became one of two mentors18 in my life. Storey was a great leader and a superb teacher who, even though the war and its shortages had another year to run, set about modernising the school in all respects – organisation, education, diet, clothing- nothing escaped his discerning eye. What had, in reality, remained a Victorian orphanage until the 1940's became over the next couple of years, a contemporary school. The ending of the Second World War of course helped the process. Shortages of goods, especially food, vanished in the Irish Republic much more quickly than in the United Kingdom where food rationing still existed when Audrey and I were married in 1953. By this time I had overcome the poor class performance that had brought special attention from the previous headmaster. Because I was in a class a year ahead of my age group I spent two years in the class that took the state Intermediate Certificate exam I was winning school education prizes and passed the Intermediate Exam with Honours in several subjects19. Intermediate was the point where many boys, principally those with lower educational achievement, left Masonic School. The Masons took considerable trouble to find them employment. The rest of us normally spent two years working for the Leaving certificate. For some reason I had become interested in being an officer in the (British) Royal Navy. I think perhaps I was influenced by my fascination with trigonometry and this gave me the idea that I would like to work in navigation. Some one, presumably Jack Storey, interested me in taking the entrance exam to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. This meant that I had a different curriculum from the rest of the class and Storey found time to coach me personally. I sat the exam in 1946 and qualified by coming 39th out of 220 candidates. For the exam itself I had to go to Northern Ireland where, typically, I was temporarily housed with the local Provincial Grand Master and warmly welcomed. I was summoned for interview in London where my cousin Neil Turner20, who after being demobbed from the army, where he had been a Major, began studying Law, presumably at the University of London21, met me. I can remember that he took me to a pub in London after arrival but I don't remember where I stayed, At the interview next day there was also a health examination which revealed that I was short-sighted, which had not been detected before, and I have worn glasses ever since22. This meant that the Royal Navy would only offer me a desk job and that did not appeal to me, so I decided not to accept the scholarship.

I returned to the school, since the term had not finished. Consultations about what I would do next must have taken place but I do not remember being involved in them. I suspect that again the main mover was the Headmaster, Jack Storey, and I think he could not have come up with the proposed solution without discussing it with senior officers at Grand Lodge. The proposal put to me was that I should study for a Sizarship in History at Trinity College Dublin University. Winning a Sizarship would pay my fees and Grand Lodge would meet my living expenses. As I was still young enough to spend another year at school, Storey could continue to coach me. So for the next year I found myself a very senior boy, doing some work in the top class but also following a separate syllabus mainly, as I remember, in History. I was for a second year a member of the senior rugby team, playing hooker or prop, and a member of “The Committee” - like being a senior prefect, but only for the football season. I had little ability at cricket so I lost my “prefect” status then and just became a normal, if very senior and rather privileged, school member. I spent a lot of time studying on my own in the school library while others were in class. Since the age of thirteen or fourteen I had played in the school chess team. We played against other schools. Once a year we were invited by some kindly gentlemen to the Gentleman's Club, in a fine old terrace house on Stephen's Green where we were given dinner and played against some of the members. Within the school I was a member of a small group who played Bridge together when the opportunity arose. I was also entrusted occasionally with tasks like taking Jack Storey's young son John to school, with him riding pillion on the headmaster's bicycle. Towards the end of the school year, probably June 1947 I was called to talk to the Headmaster. It was a Saturday morning and I had just been upset by a vigorous argument with the School captain . I don't now remember what it was about. Storey told me that there had just been a considerable increase in fees for the following year at Trinity (TCD) and that if I did not win a Sizarship, the Masonic authorities would have to pay the higher fees. I was given the option of not sitting the exam; whatever happened they would still support me at Trinity.

I took a decision not to sit the exam, one that has troubled me from time to time. Was it just taking the easy way out, and thus revealing something about my personality? Was it because I was already upset by my argument with the school captain and not very rational? What would have been my chances, taking into account the fact that in my second and third years at TCD I sat for a Foundation Scholarship in History, coming third to the two successful candidates the first time around and coming top the second time but not doing well enough to win. Or was I just a rather lost and moody kid without the courage to believe that I would definitely succeed? I took another decision at the time that was along the same lines. Although we received no coaching at all in athletics, the School Year ended with the School Sports and Prize giving Day that was a show day when many visitors – local mothers and family, school governors- came to the school. It was generally expected that each boy would enroll for several events of his own choosing and I had done this in previous years, without great success. Along with one other senior boy, Jack Kyle I think, I decided not to take part, a decision that I can remember grieved Jack Storey. It was a decision that I should not have made. At the end of June 1947 my eight and a half years at Masonic came to an end. I look back on those days with happy memories and I still, in 2007, retain some of the friendships that I made at school. We were well educated and looked after. The Irish freemasons did a great job, not only in educating, feeding and clothing us but in ensuring that when boys left school they were found good jobs or given financial support for further education. During my Trinity days I was welcomed back at the school on many occasions and on one or two occasions, when I was unwell, housed in the school sanatorium, fed there and given medical care.

18 The other, many years later, was my boss at the University of Western Australia library, Leonard Jolley.

19 Lost somewhere in my files are some school examination results.

20 Neil had been the only cousin to write to me when he was on war service in the Middle East and Italy. He was one of many Harvey cousins whom I remember with great affection.

21 He gave up after a couple of years and went into the Turner family business, AMWV Turner, mill suppliers. His brother Peter, the black sheep of the family, who had been thrown out of home by his father Alf just before the war and had spent the war working on aircraft in Birmingham, also returned to the family firm for a few years but in 1952 left for Canada with his wife, Natalie, where his son Ian and daughter Tamara (Googie) still live in Toronto. I have visited them many times. Peter died of a heart attack in 1978. Neil was too gentle to be a successful businessman and the firm drifted until taken over by Neil's second son Malcolm who made a fortune and visited us in Brisbane in 2004.

22 Remarkably when I had cataract operations sixty years later, in my seventies, they gave me excellent sight except for reading. (I no longer had to wear glasses for driving.) Since I was accustomed to wearing glasses I continued to do so rather than carry a separate pair of reading glasses.

A whole new world, Summer 1947

Having grown up in a purely male school environment I had virtually no experience of friendships with girls my own age. At Masonic we had trooped the two miles or so to the Masonic Girls School to a dance, each carrying our slippers so that we would not scratch the parquet dance floor of their hall. It was virtually impossible to form a friendship on this basis.