{A visit to [school]}[18th June 1972]

[Redbook1:254-257][19720618:1943]{A visit to [school]}[18th June 1972]

Sunday 197206181943

            For some time I have been thinking of committing memories of [my old school] to paper.  [TE]’s visit showed me how much I have forgotten (until reminded), as did the [House Centenary] weekend. 

            Will I be able to use it?  I am too bound up with it at the moment to know; but I think I may.

            I shall at least start to record these memories.

            The weekend was a failure in the sense that due mostly to a breakdown we arrived too late, and so missed what might for me have been the most interesting part -- the party in which the whole House took part.  We arrived late due to a combination of things -- including the [Darwin College] May Ball (which I had not wanted to go to but to which I was persuaded to take [my cousin] [R].  My car went wrong on Wednesday so that instead of sleeping I got up after three hours on Saturday to check it *was going to be done (and so that [?—sic] I had extra luggage to fit in) .  [My cousin] [C] was an hour and a half late packing and I was another hour late due to a last-minute hitch at the garage where the car was repaired.  Even so we would have got to [the school] soon after the beginning of the party -- but I was feeling sleepy so we had to take [D’s] Daimler (the only car D can drive single-handed) and push it at 70mph -- and at [...] New Town, thirteen miles from [the] House, we broke down.  Then the taxi could not find the [...] pub.  In the end we arrived just as they were clearing up, I think at about a quarter to midnight.

            I still feel surprisingly bitter and hurt about the combination of events that led up to our not getting there in time.  I feel that if I had refused to take R (I did [at] first -- and I had no particular wish on my own account to go) and gone on my own without D**, I would have got there in time and had a better time in other ways.

            But the car breakdown was bad luck (or mismanagement?), and I enjoyed going there with him.

            Also I had a tremendous time while I was there.  Those old boys and girls (‘old things’?)  who turned up -- not many, but enough – and whom I saw, I enjoyed seeing; and many of the boys I met still in
                                 the House {what was I going to say? Damn! ‘I enjoyed seeing’/’were in good form’?}

            I had some left-overs then: and to bed about 1.30 a.m. in the tent: after talking to some present inhabitants and the other ‘old [House]ians’ I went to bed in the marquee and passed a windy (and, later, cold) night in (considering the circumstances) reasonable comfort.

            Woken up finally by [the Housemaster] moving around c.9a.m., I found some breakfast in [the] kitchen with the others, looked at the exhibition, read the papers, talked to [SB] and [BQ], walked to the [...] Meadows, on to [the History VIth Classroom] (Dr. B not there) and back in time for the drinks party just after 11.45, where I met D.  That was a very good party from my point of view -- for once I was on good form, and made people laugh.  Afterwards we lunched on Saturday’s leftovers with the [Housemaster and his wife] and QM, and left by taxi to [the station] and train.

            Some things stand clear still.  (I hope to remember and record some of the rest over the next few days.)

            [CO], as politely abrupt as ever.  [EQ] looking a little miserable because none of his ‘generation’ except [JD] had turned up -- and even J was more of my ‘generation’, having arrived a term for me.  A good man, E -- surprising that when T[E] mentioned him earlier, I could not remember him -- and when I saw him (admittedly after dark) I did not recognise him.

            [EG] -- although I don't know how he felt -- looked miserable.  This may be just EG’s look -- but if not, there is an ironical story for me here.

            When I first returned to [the House] -- at least a year after leaving -- I was a little depressed by the (not unexpected) unconscious lack of hospitality by such as DN.  EG, however was sympathetic and invited me to come often again.

            Unfortunately when I next did see him he was just off to some function [...] but I got the impression he did not have much time for my sort.  I do remember with rueful amusement that he dismissed what I wrote in the House Book (admittedly blush-making) as largely truism!

            Today he seemed depressed.  Perhaps he wasn't; but I'm afraid my (by now cheerful) memories led me to tease him a little, saying: ‘Glad it's all over?’  I'm not sure he saw the point, depressed or not; but I was in a mean little way delighted to see him apparently feeling as I did.

           

            It is tough for some, of course: perhaps too tough now.

*(but that was also the heat)

**[who had also been a pupil at the House]

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