From The Victorian 1974, an account of what it was like to be a boarder at Victoria College. I remember boarders from this period, although by my time, most boys were day students. College House was also used for school dinners, and I had a year of those. You would assemble outside the entrance door at lunchtime, file in, and sit at tables. Food would be some kind of meat (I could never really identify it), vegetables and potatoes, followed by a desert - the only one I recall was prunes (which you did Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Richman, Poorman... with the stones, and usually covered in custard, a thick, glutinous mass ladled onto the plate.
As soon as I could persuade my parents, I moved to packed lunches where you could sit outside in the College grounds.
At the school lunches, however, a master would usually be on one table, and I invariably ended up on that table. I remember Colonel Finch (mentioned below), who had a great bald dome of a head which would go red when he was angry, usually when boys misbehaved, but I always found him interesting to talk to - he was keen to know about how well I was doing in mathematics, and when I came 2nd in the whole year's exams, just missing a prize, he gave me an old fashioned, beatifully crafted, geometry set in a case. A kind man.
NEW BOY AT COLLEGE HOUSE by M.S.C.S.
During the Christmas term my parents left the island for some weeks and I became a new boy at College House at the age of eighteen. The oaken main-doors swung open to reveal hallowed flag- stones . . . or does that sound too much like Frank Richards ?
In fact any preconceived misconceptions I may have nurtured of a Greyfriars-like community isolated from the nineteen seventies by a haze of fagging and midnight feasting were indeed pre-conceived misconceptions. The true picture which emerged was one of a moderately progressive and very sound home from home for about forty boys.
The day at College House starts at 7.30 with a morning call by some sadistic first-former armed with a hand bell. This leaves one ample time to wash, dress and tidy up the dormitory before breakfast at eight o’clock. In practice I, together with the rest of my dormitory, perfected the ability to rise at 7.56 and still arrive in the dining room in a punctual if dishevelled manner.
Breakfast, like other meal-times at the House strikes a curious balance between formality and the feeding of a shoal of piranha fish. My awesome prefectorial status was never more tested than when it came to acrimonious disputes about the distribution of cornflakes. In fairness I must say that politeness usually overcame young appetites. Lunch was also an amusing interlude, as the various religious taboos of the Commonwealth boarders strained the most efficient meal plans.
I should add, just in case anybody is taking this article seriously, that the cooking and other service facilities at College House are of the highest possible standard. Furthermore, the guidances of the Finch and Buckland families and of Mrs. Causton, the Matron, were always most efficient and sympathetic. This is a very important factor when one considers that many of the junior boys are children away from their parents for the first time.
In the evening after tea the juniors attend a supervised prep. period whilst the College House prefects—in effect the sixth formers—disappear to their clandestine holes to study. The homework of these senior boys is not rigidly supervised but by this stage in one’s school career one allegedly has a certain self-discipline anyway. Thus despite sharing a study with an insane Welshman cum hi-fi unit I found myself working far better than I do at home. This, together perhaps with the feudal seating arrangements of the T.V. room, highlights the greatest gift that College House gives to its inmates. The system of respect and mutual dependence generate a spirit of independence and strength in the boys.
M.S.C.S.
NEW BOY AT COLLEGE HOUSE by M.S.C.S.
During the Christmas term my parents left the island for some weeks and I became a new boy at College House at the age of eighteen. The oaken main-doors swung open to reveal hallowed flag- stones . . . or does that sound too much like Frank Richards ?
In fact any preconceived misconceptions I may have nurtured of a Greyfriars-like community isolated from the nineteen seventies by a haze of fagging and midnight feasting were indeed pre-conceived misconceptions. The true picture which emerged was one of a moderately progressive and very sound home from home for about forty boys.
The day at College House starts at 7.30 with a morning call by some sadistic first-former armed with a hand bell. This leaves one ample time to wash, dress and tidy up the dormitory before breakfast at eight o’clock. In practice I, together with the rest of my dormitory, perfected the ability to rise at 7.56 and still arrive in the dining room in a punctual if dishevelled manner.
Breakfast, like other meal-times at the House strikes a curious balance between formality and the feeding of a shoal of piranha fish. My awesome prefectorial status was never more tested than when it came to acrimonious disputes about the distribution of cornflakes. In fairness I must say that politeness usually overcame young appetites. Lunch was also an amusing interlude, as the various religious taboos of the Commonwealth boarders strained the most efficient meal plans.
I should add, just in case anybody is taking this article seriously, that the cooking and other service facilities at College House are of the highest possible standard. Furthermore, the guidances of the Finch and Buckland families and of Mrs. Causton, the Matron, were always most efficient and sympathetic. This is a very important factor when one considers that many of the junior boys are children away from their parents for the first time.
In the evening after tea the juniors attend a supervised prep. period whilst the College House prefects—in effect the sixth formers—disappear to their clandestine holes to study. The homework of these senior boys is not rigidly supervised but by this stage in one’s school career one allegedly has a certain self-discipline anyway. Thus despite sharing a study with an insane Welshman cum hi-fi unit I found myself working far better than I do at home. This, together perhaps with the feudal seating arrangements of the T.V. room, highlights the greatest gift that College House gives to its inmates. The system of respect and mutual dependence generate a spirit of independence and strength in the boys.
M.S.C.S.
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