It may have been the day I met Marlis, a German girl from West Berlin who came over for the summer. Friends and family were fascinated at this instant liaison. Our subsequent dates away from prying eyes too place on a country footpath near Battle, and in a local cinema. I don’t remember any more dates but she was constantly on my mind: I felt that if I were bold enough she would have much to teach me; or perhaps she was as innocent as I. Before she went back, we exchanged gifts. Afterwards we corresponded for a while.
My relationship with pen pals always fizzled out in the end because I asked too many searching questions. With Marlis it was about East & West Berlin—this was before the Wall had been built. It was clear she didn’t want to discuss that side of things. Soon after, back at school, I acquired another pen-pal, a girl from Saigon. It was encouraged as part of my preparation for the A-level French exam. We wrote in French, in recognition of the lingering influence of French Indo-China. I asked how her life was affected by the communist insurgency from the North, though I would not have known how to express myself in such words then. Her situation seemed to resemble that of Marlis in Berlin: living in the shadow of a communist threat. Both girls were uncomfortable with this kind of talk. I was disappointed, wanted to know what girls were like and how to talk to them, having never met any socially apart from Stella & Henrietta, both daughters of my mother’s school-friends, who seemed too much like cousins & therefore subject to the incest taboo. I’d spent my childhood in boys’ boarding schools, while my mother (who’d left my first stepfather) never stayed long enough in one place for me to meet anyone at all of my age during the school holidays.
* Nora Brummell-Hicks. I boarded at Merrion House School, Sedlescombe, Sussex from September 1948 to March 1954
a wayfarer’s notes 
If that's from left to right, that rightmost one does strike me as having a military look –
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Yes, he had been in the Indian Army before independence I believe.
Such was the Headmaster's obsession with the military, which he saw as in some way Crusaders for Christ and the values of the English gentlemen, or perhaps King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, that any master who had remotely been involved was referred to by their rank, viz: he himself was Major, though he had only been in the Territorials (a part-time reserve). Then there was Captain Bradley who ran the cadets. He was only a cadet captain having never served in the real army so far as I know. Then there was Flight Lieutenant Bradly (no relation) who ran the Air Force section of the cadets as well as the boy scouts; Colonel Ilton, a real ex-soldier; later in the boarding part of the school there were Major Firth (I don't know his background) Major Cook – a real soldier who had fought the Communist insurgents in the Malayan jungles.
On Speech Day the Best Cadet had to march down the red carpet of the local cinema (which we hired for the prizegiving and speeches) to receive the Sword of Honour and a Bible. He came back with sword in one hand and Bible in the other, a symbolism which I found the height of hypocrisy. It was things like that which made me mock the headmaster.
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Funny, I, too, thought that the man on the right in the front row had looked militaristic! (Is “militaristic” the right word? I wanted to use it to mean that he had a military look.)
Vincent, you were absolutely adorable. 🙂
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Well, you look very studious, even more, you look very ably-studious, I'd say penetratively-seeing, seeing quite deeper than the others here.
And the fellow due west from you, and the one northeast from you, plus you, (and moreso you Vincent), appear like the most vociferious and ready to lay down the truth to any who might need to hear it.
The leaders seem a good set of chaps, unencumbered by too much hidden troubles I'd say. Yet rough and ready enough to handle you kids.
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I never knew Col Ilton as militaristic. That is to say he had nothing to do with our parades and cadet activities. I think to him military service was the romance of the Indian Army, with its polo and vacations in hill-stations like Srinagar and Poona.
He was a trifle belligerent, though. In fact retired Indian Army officers (they must be all dead by now) had a reputation for being peppery, and sometimes apoplectic. On that spectrum of curry flavours, his would be very mild.
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Jim, I suppose that was right. I was more widely-read than any of the boys, & knew more Latin. I might have seen more deeply but as you know that may not count for anything in the rough-and tumble of school life, where the main thing is to survive: not bullying in my case but teasing and belittling.
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Thanks Sophia! I never had any feedback as to being adorable though, and became less so as the years progressed.
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