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AOSA ANNUAL
REPORT 2001 - NEWS OF OLD SCHOLARS |
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[Page two] (1920s - continued) |
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In early May, 2000, I received a lovely letter from ELEANOR HONE (JACKSON 1927-35), she and her husband had just returned from visiting their youngest son in Australia and Eleanor had found the Annual Report awaiting her on the doormat. She was somewhat surprised to learn that her first Ayton classroom (in Rawdon House) was being used by Wimpeys as an office. She also remembered, as I did, the little room at the bottom of the stairs, adjacent to the Boys' schoolroom, in her day it was an office for the masters, "It was," she said "always thick with smoke." (How times have changed!) She went on to say... "I was once summoned there by Mr. Dobbing for a severe reprimand. I had written something very cheeky in my French prep about a member of staff, when we had been asked to write pen portraits of people. Monsieur Vidal, our student teacher, thought it an hilarious idea and asked me to do one about Miss Cadzo , the cook, who was his bête noir, he thought the food was awful!" Eleanor remembers witnessing the presentation of the Ruth Arundel Memorial Prize for music and she had, for years, pictured Ruth as a ‘rather elderly and bad tempered music teacher' only to discover that she died so young. She wonders which of the little girls in the boat on the cover of our magazine for 1999, Ruth was. Does anyone know? By the way, Eleanor, it was Colin McLaurin Jones who identified our boating family as the Arundels. From Arthur Grainge in Area 13. Ah, good news from the 20s. I mean good news because it's from the 20s decade. Whenever I receive a letter from ERIC CHART (1922-26) I always have to go back and read his earlier news in the AOSA reports. It seems as if the older some of our old scholars get the more I enjoy their attitudes toward life. Eric will be 89 now and he cracks the joke about still being on Terra Firma, and referring to his legs, "where the terror is increasing and I'm becoming less firmer.” However, he gets around now with the aid of a walker and does all the cooking for himself and his wife Ella. Ella is now sadly completely blind and she was a talented artist, having sold several hundred of her paintings. Eric was glad to be able to read that several of his contemporaries at Ayton were still providing news. Eric wondered if the Dick Dennis mentioned in the magazine 'is the son of "Wobbly" Dick who used to be the team wicket keeper and 1st XI goalkeeper?” (We'll let Dick answer that. AG) (Yes he is, Dick ‘ Senior’?, was called ‘wobbly’ because he had polio as a child and wore a leg iron. –Ed) Eric then gets into some rather wonderful recollection which had me chuckling and he just reels the names off. He was Richardson House goalkeeper in his final year at Ayton and continues "'Shrimp' SHRIMPTON was the skipper and 'Skinny' WRIGHT was the right winger. At that time ANGUS BLACK (1922-25) was a dark blue (?) so also was 'Big Nick'. Angus took up rugby after he left Ayton and Big Nick was a champion swimmer. He and his brother Eric came from South Africa. Another one I remember was SHORGE OHASHI (1925-26) who came from Japan and MICHAEL ABAKANOVITCH (19 24-29) who came from Russia, also a brother and sister who came from the West Indies and I think their name was JOHNSON, JOHN 'Punch' DOUGLASS and his sister JUDITH were in the same class as I was, also a DYSON, MARIE MOFFAT, WINNIE HODGSON (1925-27) & MARY FISHBURN (BRADLEY 1923-28) and VERA SOMETHING." (That's how Eric sent us the news and with a bit of research we've come up with some information on these names, but not all of them have shown up in the records. We may need help from readers to identify them fully and perhaps send us more news. AG & Ed.) The JOHNSONS appear to be HAZEL (1922-23) and ERNEST JOHNSTONE (1922-23). "Skinny" Wright is probably FREDERICK JOHN WRIGHT (1919-23) "Big Nick" may be either ERIC or H. W. NICHOLSON (both 1923-23) We can't find a DYSON of the same vintage in the records. MARIE MOFFAT would be MARIE ANDERSON (MOFFATT 1925-26) VERA would probably be VERA WOOD (MAYES 1922-28). Eric then gets down to business with a report of his keen gardening and at the time of writing he had a great show of tulips, daffodils and sweet peas, with a few rows of broad beans and tomatoes. He was wondering what instrument I played in my band because it didn't seem to get a mention and he offers "I used to play violin until a smashed elbow put paid to that.” Eric, I play tenor banjo and tenor guitar, both 4-stringed instruments. A short but welcome note at Christmas from KATHLEEN WOODROW (WARD 1929-33) to say that she was well and to hope that I was too. She said she did not know how I fitted everything in to my timetable, but I tend to believe that her other comment "it seems the older we get the quicker time flies,” explains my apparent busyness. |
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Go to: Late Teens - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s |
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