| A.O.S.A. 2007 ANNUAL REPORT |
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Hans REICHENFELD has recently published an account of his life, from late childhood until he settled with his family in Canada . He spent a year at Ayton before the Second World War. Not long after he left school he was interned along with his father on the Isle of Man , but was later released and served in the RAF. After the war he took up medicine. He recently wrote to me asking if I would be interested in including the chapter about his time at Ayton. Chapter 3 I arrived in London in the early morning. Captain Frey had given advance warning to his fellow officers in the Salvation Army that I would need somewhere to stay. They were expecting me at their hostel in the East End, where they offered me a tiny room with a wash basin but no running water. The Salvation Army hostel was no four-star hotel. The sheet of my predecessor was still on the bed and the basin had not yet been emptied and cleaned. I could not face staying there, not even for one night. There must be other places. My mother, who thought of everything, had given me Risa's telephone number before I left home. Risa had been a maid of ours in Vienna a few years ago, and now had a similar job in West Ealing, a residential suburb of London . I called her, and explained my situation. Risa talked to her neighbours. Yes, they could let me have their spare bedroom for a couple of nights. I noted in my diary that it was a beautiful room and even cheaper than the Salvation Army hostel. There was no time for sightseeing above ground, but I became an expert in the use of the tube, the London Underground train system. I had to call on different offices for reasons connected with my status as a refugee and my imminent arrival at a Quaker boarding school. Then it was time to get on the train again. I went to King's Cross station. I did not see any parents with boys or girls who looked as if they were going back to school after the summer holidays. Nor was there a sign that said: Friends School Great Ayton. But I had come halfway across Europe on my own, so I thought I should be able to find my way. There were few other people in my compartment to distract me as the train pulled out. After we passed the dreary surroundings of the station we sped through the English countryside. I noticed fields of pasture with cows and sheep, towns with small houses and red tiled roofs, the odd mansion in the distance. I found it charming, but uninteresting - there were no mountains!
There was only one other passenger on the bus by the time it got to Great Ayton, a tall young-looking man with glasses. He was wearing grey flannel trousers and a sports jacket, and had a raincoat slung over his right shoulder. He got off just as I did, and started to walk across the green towards the school, carrying a small suitcase. I thought he was another student and started to talk to him, but he turned out to be a teacher, Mr. Irvine. Mr. Irvine took me to the dormitory where I was going to sleep and helped me settle in. The dormitory was a large room with some thirty to forty beds, and windows on three sides. Next to it was a smaller private room for a junior teacher who was in charge of maintaining order among the boys. In the dormitory there were rows of beds. A chair separated each of the beds from its neighbour, and there were cupboards for our belongings. I had arrived a day before the other students, so I could choose any bed. I took one in what seemed a good spot at the far end. I dumped everything on it. Mr. Irvine then took me to the headmaster's residence next door. Mrs. Dennis, the wife of the headmaster, was presiding over a formal tea party to receive the new teachers. She had laid out cucumber sandwiches, biscuits and fruitcake. Mr. Irvine was right behind me in the reception line. Before he was able to introduce me, Mrs. Dennis put out her gloved hand, shook mine and greeted me: “How do you do, Mr. Reader.” I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears. She had mistaken me for a new teacher whom she had not met before. Mr. Reader was just behind Mr. Irvine, a serious looking young man in a smart tweed suit. He became headmaster at Ayton School many years later, so it was a good start to my English education to be mistaken for him. The next day the other students arrived. Most of the students were boarders but there were also a few day students who lived within easy commuting distance of Great Ayton. There were both girls and boys, because the school was co-educational. We ate our meals together in the dining room, where boys and girls sat next to each other on long refectory tables. We also shared our classrooms. Otherwise the boys were separated from the girls. The girls had their own playground; it was blocked off from the boys' playground by a walkway that was lined with horse chestnut trees and reserved for the teachers. From the far end of the walkway a footbridge led across the Beck, the local river which flowed through the grounds. A footpath led to a small lake at the other side of the bridge. The footpath around the lake was also reserved for the teachers. The older boys started the day with exercises and a swim in the school's outdoor pool. The pool was surrounded by a high wall. We swam in the nude. Boys were supposed to be tough, no matter how cold the water. And it was cold, the water came straight out of the Beck. After getting dressed, we joined the younger boys at twenty past seven in the large school room with our Bibles. A reference was written up in chalk on the blackboard. We had to find it, sit in silence for five minutes and read it. Thus physically and spiritually fortified we marched in line to the dining room for breakfast at seven thirty. In true Quaker tradition we had to sit in silence for a further few minutes before we could dig into the food. At the end of the meal Mr. Dennis gave a short reading, again from the Bible Classes started at eight-thirty. They were held in a two-story building facing the boys' playground. |
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A.O.S.A. 2007 ANNUAL REPORT |
At ten o'clock there was a break. We rushed out into the playground and lined up for a slice of bread and butter. Two of the boys had fetched a tray from the kitchen for our midmorning snack. Sometimes there would be a piece of the previous day's suet pudding as a special treat! It was also during breaktime that the boys could check whether they had received any mail. The letters received by the school were arranged on the window sill of the fifth form classroom, facing the playground. If you noticed one that was addressed to you, you could ask for it - politely - from the senior boy who was in charge of distributing the mail.