Socially, I just began to find my feet at Eton during my second half at the school. And this was partly because Iain Graham-Wigan then came to join me at Jaques' from Ludgrove - having passed in at Remove incidentally. So he was senior to me in our school studies right from the start, since I had graduated merely from Middle Fourth to Upper Fourth, despite an effort by M'tutor to acquire for me a double remove after my excellent performance in trials at the end of the first half. He informed me that the plea had failed in that my standard in Mathematics had been lower than my standard in Classics. But in any case it was delightful for me now to have someone in the same house as myself, with whom I'd shared the experience of being at Ludgrove; and perhaps more importantly to myself, who had been aware of my own ultimate prestige within that preparatory school.

In any case, it was a matter of mutual feeling that I should change my messing arrangements that second half, and in addition to G-Wigan, there was another new boy who came in with us. This was John Ganzoni, whose father had been created Lord Belstead for his prolonged service in arranging the menus and eating arrangements in Parliament for his fellow MP's. Ganzoni had taken Middle Fourth, and was notable chiefly for his garrulity, which furnished a never ending verbal flow. But the switch around in messing partners somehow shifted the balance of power up on the top passage - to my advantage. For I now found myself more in the role of organiser to all the mobbing, or riotous play in which we indulged, instead of continuing in my former role as rejected spectator. There may even have been too much of an authoritarian streak within my conduct, in that G-Wigan was quick to dub me the generalissimo of the top passage - which wasn't meant kindly, I might add.

There was a third new boy in the person of Milo Devereaux, a benign, but intellectually slow individual, who was the butt of much kindly teasing. He survived the end of half trials for less than a year, but I have vivid recollections of him set up by the rest of us to suppose that I was suffering from nervous strain, to an extent that I was always liable to become temporarily insane. The scene would be arranged something like this.

The others would have a chat with him expressing their concern about my deteriorating mental health, and would bring him to peer in at me through my door which had been left ajar. It could then be seen by him that I was evidently undergoing the initial stages of a fit, jerking my head around and letting my eyes roll wildly. Timidly they would suggest that they ought to do something about it: measures just short of going to fetch M'dame of course. And they would encourage Devereaux to advise them, and to take the lead in attempting to humour me. But each such attempt resulted in an immediate deterioration of my condition, with an apparent danger that I might throw myself out from my third floor window - or worse. Devereaux invariably offered them the advice that they must keep cool, calm and collected. (No doubt a piece of advice that was constantly being levelled at himself when at home.) And the game would continue until it became too repetitive, whereupon I would be miraculously restored to my full senses, with an appearance of total amnesia concerning recent events.

It might be said that the sport has backfired on me somewhat in later life in that Devereaux attended many of the same debutante dances as myself. So I've often wondered if the notoriety which I managed to acquire around that time - of being slightly mad - might not have originated in tales from his lips. But I have no real proof that there is a connection.

With the increased level of mobbing, which was after all some measure of insubordination against the authority of the self-elected assortment of senior boys, who constituted the Library at Jaques', there came the inevitable retribution. And this took the form of getting beaten up, with strokes of the cane on my buttocks, by the Captain of m'tutor's - or by anyone else in the Library that he might see as fit to perform such a task. During the two years whilst I was still a Lower boy, I was subjected to this discipline on six different occasions, receiving from four to seven strokes each time. I wrote home with a full account of the first such beating up, so I shall take the opportunity to quote from that letter, in some indication of how such matters were then viewed at Eton.

The following event took place on 2nd February 1946, and I open the letter in verse.

It then seems to have struck me that this subject was unsuitable for verse, as I revert to a prose rendering of the rest of the story.

My description of the actual beating is scanty and, at this distance in time from the event, I think I can now do better. Most of the agony was in waiting for the hour of punishment to arrive. I knew only too well that this would be my fate, and that it was going to hurt a lot. The important thing was to appear calm throughout and, above all, not to resort to tears. It wasn't just the group in the Library that one had to impress. All members of Debate would be gathered at the house notice board as one retired to one's room upstairs, and they would be taking good note of one's demeanour. And finally there would be the friends who came round to offer their condolences, and to hear one's personal account of the ordeal. It was they in particular, to whom an impression must be given that one could suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous discipline in a spirit of sangfroid, or even of mirth.

The dread period of waiting finally reached its climax at about 20.45 hrs, (a quarter of an hour before evening prayers,) when an eternally prolonged shout of "BOYYYYYYYY" would echo up the stairwell and along each corridor, summoning all Lower boys to queue outside the Library. Normally one had to run fast so as not to be the last in this queue, for the last arrival was the one who was traditionally sent upon whatever fag errand that was required by the Library. At this particular hour however, it was seldom for an errand, but for the punishment of some offender who had been trembling in anticipation of the call. And thus it was in my own case.

Within a tradition for such gentlemanly conduct, I had volunteered to assume all responsibility for the mobbing activities. Henry Pickthorne was then Captain of the House, and was somewhat disliked by the Lower boys for his aloof disinterest and curt sarcasm. It was assumed correctly that he would not have obtained Jaques' permission to beat up any of the new boys. It was those marginally older that I had vouched to extricate from the anticipated retribution. But when Pickthorne had all members of the top passage lined up before him in the Library, I made the mistake of opening my mouth before I had been spoken to, blurting out that I alone was responsible for the row that had been made. Pickthorne turned his cold eye on me and said: "Will you kindly shut up?" That effectively put an end to any effort on my side to speak out of turn. In my letter home, I continue with the account thus.

Well by prior agreement, this left me on my own to face the music. Pickthorne told me acidly that I had been warned by the Captain of m'tutor's the previous half that I had been getting above myself. "And as far as I can see, you don't seem to have made much improvement." He then ordered me to bend over a wooden chair which had already been placed at the appropriate spot, flicked the tails of my morning coat up on top of my back and delivered seven strokes of the cane upon my buttocks - with each one seeming more painful than the last. Other members of the Library would be feigning interest in their own particular concerns - like reading a newspaper; but their eyes would be taking in a vivid memory of all that passed. It was important not to give them the satisfaction of seeing me blub, which I never did on any of these occasions at Eton. But it was only on subsequent occasions that I managed to wish them the calm "good-night" such as tradition permitted; and I don't think I ever actually delivered them with the sometimes tolerated cheek of saying "thank you".

Huddled on a chair, staring at an unseen
clean sheet of paper for work undone,
I sponge the runnels of sheer trickling fear
from a brow weary of waiting for the hour of torture.
Scoring each excruciating spate
of pain, from four to eight, and twisting my bum
to front the burn - as if on a spit - I groan,
growing fearful that the tears may even flow.
No! So as not to show the measure of the torment,
nor the raw wales veiled in my pants,
I stand erect with an unfelt smile
and file quickly past all the gloating faces.
But now the grim initiation's done,
I've joined the club and with the rest, I'm one!

The beatings up on subsequent occasions were for even more trivial reasons. Ill-performed fagging duties, complaints from the boy's maid that I was uncooperative, socking in training (which was a matter of eating outside the regular meal times,) or making a false entry upon the list of `times' when training was claimed to have been performed. But more frequently than any other misdemeanour, it was a question of being caught mobbing. And like everyone else then at Eton, I accepted the discipline as being part of the natural order. Nor did I resent that I was being subjected to it.

Getting beaten up was all part of the anticipated ritual of becoming a true Etonian, and it was often held against those who had never been thus humiliated that they were too goody-goody: too much subservient to authority. I felt more at ease in the company of my peer group once it had happened to me. But there were other ways in which the indications remained how I was still identifying myself as a successful Old Ludgrovian, rather than turning my back upon the past so as to embrace the present.

There were at least three occasions that I travelled back to visit my old preparatory school during my first year at Eton. The initial visit might be excused on the grounds that I still had intimate friends there - like G- Wigan for example. Yet subsequently, and despite the fact of me having two younger brothers and two cousins (Wilson and Vivian) to visit, it was probably more a question of reimmersing myself in an atmosphere where I had done well, so as to soften the savour of inadequacy that I was experiencing within the new environment.

There was one factor which enabled my feeling of identity with Eton to take stronger root, and this was in my removal from the top passage, which was strictly intended as an appropriate atmosphere for those newly arrived: a kind of nursery, in a manner of speaking. But after a couple of halves up in that area of the house, I was given a room on the floor below, where a quieter atmosphere prevailed, and which was more conducive to seeking out the individual nature of one's own inner personality. I loved the solitude of that room, and it did much to enable me to discover what kind of Etonian I was.

From a crow's nest on an eagle's crag, I struggle
to know the slow techniques to consolidate
this bold base, my bastion of a private room,
and groom me with my own hands into pleasing shape.
Draping roots from holes and crevices, I clutch
at sliced rivulets of rain, to swell the bulbous
embryonic fruit, juicing fulsome
within my floral - if nebulous - smattering of mind.
Behind net curtains for one-way vision
I fret decision-making to a fine art,
starting to brood each evening, unshackled
by the clock, an extracted elixir from my solitude.
And what I shape within such fantasy
is individualistically, what's 'Me'.

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