 | Rutlish 1957 - the 50 Year Reunion |
| Rutlish 1957 - the 50 Year Reunion |
Chris O'Hanlon
Notes by Chris O'HanlonThe following was put on Friends Reunited by Chris O'Hanlon in 2005:My first school was St Nicholas C of E primary school, Shepperton from 1954 to 58. I then moved to Dundonald Road primary in Wimbledon. I was at Rutlish from 1957 to 1964, when they told me that I was wasting my time and would never get anywhere. I left Rutlish and got 2½ "A" levels at Croydon Tech in 1966. I then went to Woolwich Poly to do a degree, but left without completing the course. I worked briefly for Crawley UDC, then 6 years at Esher UDC. While I was there, I gained an HNC in Civil Engineering. I then moved briefly to Essex County Highways before joining London Transport in 1974 as an engineering assistant planning new lines. I became an engineering manager. In 1994, the department moved to Canary Wharf where I worked in major projects and finally as an infrastructure protection engineer.
I married in 1987 and in October 2001 I took early retirement and moved to Finland with my wife to take over her father's farm house. In the last year, the temperature has varied from plus 31 to minus 32. Minus 32 is not what you expect it to be and it is well worth it - the view of the country from the window in summer or winter beats the roof tops of east London!
Memories by Chris O'HanlonThe following memories were put on Friends Reunited by Chris O'Hanlon:SlippersSlippers (or house shoes) were compulsory in the new building. They had leather soles to prevent them marking the floors, with elastic webbing gusset strips on the side instead of laces. There was one occasion when the prefects did a spot check and everyone not wearing their house shoes (a majority of the school!) was kept in detention one Saturday morning.Form Captains/BullyingRobert Webb's 1969 miscellania reminds me of the form captain (FC) system. Each class had to choose an FC who held power for 2 weeks - or was it 4? after which another incumbent was chosen. The FC was the class’s representative if a class wanted to report something, (such as poor heating) or was asked by the teachers for the pupils' opinion. As in any democracy, it was very rare that anything ever came of our complaints, but in theory, we had a democratic system. A particular duty of the FC was preventing the class from making too much noise, or wrecking the joint when a teacher didn’t surface on time. The FC could write the name of any miscreant on the board, could ask the person concerned to stand facing the board at the front of the class, or to stand outside the class in the corridor. A central rule of the FC system was that failure to obey the FC for whatever reason was a corporal punishment offence. No questions were asked of the victim, no excuses were accepted. The form captain system was supposed to teach leadership and the values of democracy, and as such was good in principal. In practice however, giving absolute power to second formers was comparable to putting the Taliban in charge of women’s rights. The FC was often selected because he was one of the class bullies, or perversely because he was the class mouse! Voting was by show of hands, so anyone voting against the bullies' nomination was putting themselves out on a limb. Either way the bullies were in charge. When a teacher was late, they could pick on anyone they didn’t like in the knowledge that their victim would get it from the teachers simply for having been identified for punishment. If you refused to comply with the FC's instructions, you were punished. If you obeyed the FC's instructions, you were punished. If you were made to stand outside the class, you were excluded from whatever was going on inside and lost touch with classroom politics. On a more serious level, when I was in the second and third forms in 1957-59, there appeared to be a slight shortage of teachers, so if a teacher was absent for some reason, there was often no one to take his class. Any teachers with spare teaching periods were deployed to take the exam year classes, leaving the entry classes to catch up later when there were sufficient teachers. If a teacher was unable to take a class, he often sent a messenger (usually a sub prefect), with an exercise for the class, which anyone excluded by the FC could not do. They were then doubly punished, for "misbehaving"; in the first place, and then for not doing the exercise. When a “mouse” was in charge, the bullies would take no notice of him, and anarchy reigned. The mouse then got it in the neck from the teachers in adjoining classrooms, and if he dared to tell who was responsible for the disruption, he got well and truly done over. What a wonderful system! The abolition of corporal punishment might have had some impact on the FC system, but have increasing teacher shortages had a negative impact, or has the FC system been overhauled or abolished? Can any recent internees from camp Rutlish advise?CCFIn the 1960s, the Army section commanded by Major Butch Preuveneers, assisted by Major Edwards had a 25 pounder gun with wooden charges and shells. (It went click when you fired it!) - don't know how old it was. They also had an army truck which they used to crash into the CCF building from time to time. The RAF section Commanded by Squadron Leader (RAFVR) Sam King, assisted by Ft Lt Tat Gardiner, had a Slingsby "Dagling" Glider, (even a brick had a better glide angle!), which was kept in a garage behind the John Innes Buildings. We would rig it and catapult it up and down the playing field. The navy section commanded by Mr (Sam?) Peckham had a whaler on blocks behind the canteen block. We never saw what they got up to, but I believe that they used to practice rowing without the water to make it easier - not so tiring. Sometimes they had an evening out and went rowing to Raven's Ait on the Thames near Hanpton Court. 40 years on, does the CCF still exist and if so what do they all do now? I can't believe that they STILL have the glider, but then maybe they do?The GliderApart from Sam King crashing the thing, and Igo Lemanski getting it airborne with the spoilers on, (What eventually happened to him?) were there any other howlers? Does anyone remember the time they tried to launch it with a car. The bungey rope was attached to the back of a car and stretched. However, for reasons I don't recall, they used the aerotow launch hook at the front and when the bungey was tight, the cadet pulled the wrong release. The rope released from the glider and with nothing to catapult, shot off towards the car with the rope and launch rings on the end reaching a terminal velocity approaching 100mph. The whole lot hit the boot leaving a big dent. They never tried that trick again! It didn't put me off gliding though. I took it up seriously with the Kent Gliding Club and managed several hundred solo flights before giving it up in the early 1980s.Teacher: Mr PreuveneersI remember a phrase Preuveneers used when he accidentally loosed off a double entendre and the class dissolved into hysterics. "You lot have got minds like sewers, open ones at that".... Actually a good teacher, well liked and respected.Teacher: Harry HathwayOut of school, Harry Hathway was chief timekeeper of the Amateur Athletic Association. Sometime around 1963, some sixth formers contacted the Wimbledon Borough News and told them that Harry had died. They expected a single paragraph obituary. However, the News contacted the AAA and the following week they carried a whole page obituary about his work with the AAA. It was the only time we ever saw him smile.Contact DetailsChris O'HanlonHakunintie 31 12100 Oitti Finland Tel: +358 (0) 40 542 5211 |
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