Book of the month: A Century of Summer Fields

 

A Century of Summer Fields, An Anthology 1864-1964, edited by David Usborne, is a collection of tributes, reminiscences and other items by Old Boys, masters, friends and critics of a preparatory school near Oxford which completed its first hundred years in the summer of 1964.

Summer Fields was a school for eight- to 13-year-old boys.

One tradition that lasted for most of the period was corporal punishment and the ‘Black Book’ featured prominently

Sir Kennedy Trevaskis who was at the school for five years from 1923 and went on to become Governor and C-in-C Aden recalls the ritual of the Black Book in his time.

‘On committing an offence, the culprit would be ordered by the master in charge to get the Black Book. This was accommodated in a drawer under the desk of the headmaster and, consequently, to get it the culprit was required to gain admission to the Fifth Form Room and obtain the headmaster’s permission to take it.

‘This was not as simple as it may seem. On arrival at the Fifth Form Room door the culprit had an unobstructed view, through its window-like upper segment, of what was going on inside. The only response his polite tapping on the door would evoke was, first, a glare from Mr Alington, and then a view of his broad black-gowned back, turned in feigned unawareness of the boy’s presence on the other side of the door.

‘There would be nothing for it but to knock more loudly and less politely on the door. The first knock or two would achieve nothing but, at last, Mr Alington, huge, bear-like and bewhiskered, would take a step or two towards the door and admit the culprit with a guileless demand as to the reason for this intrusion, coupled with a peevish wheezing sniff which indicated how unwelcome it was.

‘On being told that the visitor wanted the Black Book, Bear would express indignant surprise, as if that was the last thing in the world he would have expected. Then, blowing out his white moustache, he would accuse the boy of having come on his errand for the sole purpose of distracting the Fifth Form from its work, and sabotaging the scholarship prospects of its members. Having wasted a good deal more of the Fifth’s valuable time in indulgence of such pantomime, Mr Alington would at last thrust the Book pettishly into the culprit’s hand and dismiss him.

‘This was not, of course, the end of the preliminaries. After the master had received the Book and inscribed the offender’s name and misdemeanour in it, it had to be returned to its drawer. This entailed a further visit to the Fifth Form room; further peerings through the glass-partitioned door and further tappings and knockings upon it. It entailed also a further barrage of expostulations and what-is-it-nows, as if Mr Alington had detected something fiendishly mischievous in the errand to return the Book to its drawer.

‘All this was the prelude to the magisterial proceedings which took place at the end of each week, at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. With the accused assembled uncomfortably around him on a row or two of backless benches, Mr Alington would favour them with a look of majestic disapproval and then, while studying the contents of the Black Book lying open before him, would make it plain by a prolonged bout of bubbling sniffs that what he saw in it was very little to his liking.

‘Following this he would remove a cane from his desk and placing it before him, would summon each offender. The procedure adopted had a quasi-judicial flavour. The charge would be read and the accused would be given a brief opportunity to plead and put up a case for defence. Inevitably, however, he would be found guilty and speedily sentenced.

‘The sentence was as inevitable as the conviction. A single entry in the Book was rewarded by an instruction learn a verse or two of poetry by heart. Two entries a more painful sentence: a stinging cut of the cane on each hand, followed by a similar exercise in memorizing poetry. The severest sentence was reserved for those who had three or more entries to their account. In such cases the offender would be required to take a seat at the back of the room and sit there, with no book to read and no task to distract him, until six o’clock. The others were then dismissed for tea, but he would be taken to the headmaster’s study and there given whatever was coming to him on the seat of his trousers or shorts.’

A Century of Summer Fields, An Anthology 1864-1964, Edited by David Usborne (Methuen and Co, 1964.)

 

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