Bill Checkley from Australia. 10/9/2003.
Memories of Happy Hawkley
I suppose it would be correct to say that I became a student of the Battersea Central School by default, rather than by any academic achievement on my part, because at some time in 1940, I sat for the ‘eleven plus’ exam at Petersfield, but never was told how I had fared in that harrowing experience. A pass obtained entry into a Central School, something that I fear was not even a remote possibility for me; Since in my tenth year, my education was much interrupted by the outbreak of war in September 1939. That interruption however I believe was to prove a great blessing for me.
On the 1st of September I was introduced to Battersea Central School. at Surrey Lane, where my big brother Jim (age 12) was a 2nd year student. Along with all those others, whose parents concurred with the Government that their children should be removed from London to protect them from the possible horrors of aerial bombardment, we were evacuated. Younger siblings, where possible, would be evacuated with their older brothers. Such was my lot!
I’m sure our parents wept as we parted company from them in Surrey Lane, not so Jim, and I because it was the beginning of an exciting and most unusual adventure.
My memories of that day though hazy are punctuated by certain events; the march up the Latchmere Road, down Lavender Hill and into the station approach at Clapham Junction. (Did a helpful senior carry my small case?). The long wait in Petersfield church, where we ate our ‘iron’ rations. The coach journey, through spectacular countryside to Hawkley.
The village institute, with its peculiar smells, (stale tobacco, tea, and beer?). Kindly people ushered us about and fed us. It was a long, but memorable day that culminated at ‘Avoca’, a wooden bungalow in Snailing Lane, which was to be my home for the next 6 years.
Here we were warmly welcomed by two of the dearest people I ever knew.
Mr and Mrs Waghorn, with open arms, took us in and became our foster parents in every sense of the word. Auntie Ette and Uncle Len, as we soon knew them, looked after us as their own sons. Middle aged and childless, perhaps we filled a gap in their lives? Their only child had died as a baby! Jim and I were children of warm and loving parents and these two dear people went out of their way to make sure we continued in such an environment.
Jim and I knew little of what real Countryside was all about, living as we did in noisy, busy, grimy, Battersea. It’s Park and Clapham Common was as close as we came to ‘field and forest’ apart from the odd day trip to Box Hill or Oxshott Common. Only 5 minutes from home, Battersea Park was where we played ‘Cowboys and Indians'; amongst the trees and shrubs that we called ‘the bushes’ and out of which angry Park Keepers chased us. But then in Hampshire’s beautiful rural environment, we had mile upon mile of fields and forests and ponds, where we could play to our hearts content, provided we shut the gate and didn’t damage the hedgerows and fall in the ponds.
We soon learned country manners from our kindly hosts and those splendid men and their wives, who were our dedicated teachers. My memories of that amazing September are of balmy summer days, rambling the Countryside with those teachers and their wives, picking blackberries, that were made into jam, collecting rose hips, that would provide vitamins for mothers and babies, and acorns that the farmers would feed to their pigs.
We were pleased that these activities would in some way help the war effort. Then there were hop-picking excursions to productively while away some hours.
It seemed a long time before we got down to the serious business of our education, but the time came when the Hawkley Village School building was taken over by the Battersea Central School. and an additional wooden classroom built, by the churchyard, known as the ‘hut’.
If this caused pain to the villagers, we boys were not aware of it. But it became our school and embodied through the Staff, all the proud traditions of the school back there in Surrey Lane. We were organised into our respective ‘houses’ that bore the names of famous men who had strong connections with Battersea, I believe. Their names were, Thornton, Bolingbroke, Lubbock and Wilberforce. We were assigned ‘house’ colours, red, blue, green and yellow and were identified, A, B, C, and D.
Mine was ‘B’ house, and in my senior years I was house captain. At this point I want to lay claim to the belief and privilege of being the only boy who remained with the school and lived in the same billet for the whole 6 years duration at Hawkley. Also I was its last School Captain.
When we returned to the new school in Culvert Road, after the summer holidays, I was a prefect there until I left at the end of 1945, to start work in my father's shop.
At the closing stage of our sojourn at Hawkley, during those final weeks it was a rush to complete the publication of ‘Hawkley Past and Present’, so that copies could be presented to local dignitary’s and friends of the school at a public gathering in the Assembly Hall before our final departure. As school captain I had to make a thanks and farewell speech at which Uncle Len, my beloved host was present.
During my last few weeks of art class periods I spent on location outside the Church and the ‘Queens Arms’ making sketches for the final linocut, then some anxious hours trying to master them. I still have an original copy of our book signed by three of our masters, D George Lewis, R R Baker, and E C King 13.7.45. My copy is imperfect due to some of its pages being upside down, but of course the best were presented to those honoured recipients who were our hosts and benefactors. I’m grateful that Mr. King put the date below his signature, because it reminds me of the approximate date that we left Hawkley. I’m grateful too for the tireless efforts of Mr. King, that excellent man of many talents, who had pioneered and pursued this enterprise to final publication.
The ‘Editor’s Note’ gives the credit to the boys but the greater credit must go to him for his dedication and what he taught by example. [It would be interesting to find out how many of the boys involved in the printing actually entered the printing trade?]
That publication always highlights for me what an exceptional man he was, an excellent teacher, versatile in academic subjects, who was gifted in so many practical ways. He took us for art, woodwork, gardening, music, sport, gym, was our cadet C/O. not only that, he was also the schools medical officer (having served in the RAMC in the 1914/18 war). I remember how I once grazed my knee to the bone when I fell from a go-cart and was off school for quite a time. Mr. King came regularly to my billet to tend and dress my injury. He was a lovely man, who we irreverently called "Checker", presumable because of his baldhead, but whom we respected as a man of integrity who was kind and caring.
My scholastic career at Hawkley was punctuated by two canings, both on account of my poor grasp of spelling. The first was from Mr. Alway, who from the outset, was our French teacher, and a very strict disciplinarian. My first caning came when I was only 10. I was sitting in a desk at the front of the class with my friend Jimmy Hind who was about the same age and like me, came with his big brother. Maybe we were not paying attention to the lesson, which concerned the French verb ‘ferme’ to close. When Mr. Alway asked me to come out and write the word on the blackboard, in fear and trembling I hadn’t a clue. He then asked Jimmy, who likewise failed. For that crime we were given ‘two of the best’, one on each hand. I remember that the end of the cane was broken off in the process. I also remember distinctly, the girls who were sitting behind us, gasped in horror at Mr. Always’ harsh treatment.
The girls, by the way, were Margaret Duffy, Cathleen Crofts, and the Jelly twins. Their presence had turned our boy’s school, co-ed! Cath was the last to leave and was for quite a time our only girl and remained always a popular addition to class. Her brother, Peter, remained for the rest of his life in the district .There is a Memorial Bowl, donated by his wife Jean and presented each year at The Petersfield Allotments Association, so his name is still remembered in Petersfield. He was as you are no doubt aware a keen gardener. He was on the Hawkley Church Council for some years and when he was voted in, the man he displaced, was Clive Davies. Jean said there were no hard feelings and T.C. offered his congratulations with a handshake.
My second canning came from Dr Raine, who was trying unsuccessfully, to teach me to spell, ‘eligible and illegible’. I just couldn’t grasp the difference and made an awful hash of them. Had he given me a hundred lines, I would surely have grasped their difference, but no, for some strange reason he thought I needed a stronger lesson. For that I got two whacks on the backside! Maybe I was giving him dirty looks after that, but at the end of the lesson he made some remark that implied, were we still friends? So I guess I forgave him! As a teacher not enamoured with corporate punishment, he was having a bad day perhaps?
Dr. Raine was a fine teacher whom I remembered as a generally firm, but good-natured man who was not afraid to make a fool of himself when joining in with school boy games. One winter we had a glassy frozen snow slide across the playground on which we were having a great time. We were delighted when the good Doc’ joined in the fun giving us an undignified display as he slid over on his rear end.
Mrs. Raine was a very sweet Cornish lady; her Cornish Pasties were legend as was her graciousness as hostess, when seniors were invited to tea at the ‘Parsons Piece’.
I remember wondering how the Doc’ who was a very tall man, coped with the tiny front door of that charming cottage. There must be a story to tell about how the school dinners came into being, and I believe Mrs. Raine was perhaps in charge of the enterprise, which was run by a team of village ladies and maybe other masters wives. The dinning room was set up in an extensive loft above what must have been an old bake house that we entered from an outside staircase at the back of the building. A number of ladies served us from a bench table in the centre of the loft that was serviced by a ‘dumb waiter’ from the kitchen below. Considering the wartime food rationing and the restriction that were imposed, we fared very well. Vegetables presumably came from our own school allotment and the local farmers, so we were well supplied with all the vitamins we needed.
Before going to Hawkley, as far as food was concerned I was a finicky child and was I’m sure a trial to my mother. Auntie Ette was an excellent country cook and between her and the school canteen, I thrived and lost all my fussy food fads. I remember that some of the boy’s moaned about school dinners, but we were conditioned to clean up our plates and never waste food in these harsh war times. I think the teachers and we boys were grateful to those ladies who served us so well.
When Dr. Raine left for another posting, Mr. Lewis took over as head. He, I remember as a passionate Welshman who inspired in us a love of singing, especially well known hymns that we sang with such gusto at morning assembly. Unlike Mr. King, Mr. Lewis had an almost thunderous approach to piano playing that we put down to the fact that he preferred the church organ. He was billeted just down the road from me and sometimes gave me a lift in his car when the weather was wet. Most days I would pass him on my ‘county’ bike, striding out, as was his preference when the weather was fine.
Like Doc’ Raine he continued to foster in us a pride in our school and a pride in the young men who had left to take their place in society. I remember there were sad moments in assembly when he told us that one of our old boys had been killed in the war. There was plenty of happy moments when with much pride and pleasure Mr. Lewis would sing the praises of the students who had done well in their exams. One such occasion was when Arthur Govus, who was my best friend, and Tom Cowell received their School Certificates.
In the height of winter it was not uncommon for Mr. Lewis to stand luxuriating as he taught, with his back to the pot – belly stove that was in the centre of the hall and where the crates of milk would be thawing out beside its rosy roaring glow. One such morning there was an almighty bang like a gunshot as the asbestos flu pipe burst in to fragments, to our absolute joy and Lew’s absolute horror. His face was a picture and thankfully only his pride was hurt.
As you have read elsewhere, Tom Cowell stayed with the Potters next door to us, so we travelled the same road to school. Tom had his own ‘racer’ bike, unlike our ‘county’ ones and was much faster than us. On Tiddlers Hill it was impossible to ride up and forbidden to ride down because it was very steep and unsealed. That rule Tom chose to flaunt and got away with until the fateful day when he failed to negotiate the bend at the bottom near ‘Slip Cottage’. Tom was found unconscious in the hedgerow where he had gone over the handlebars. Being quite seriously concussed as a result, and in hospital for some time, as I remember. It was after that, I believe, that Tom was transferred to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Clive Davis at Hawkley Hurst.
That Arthur Govus was my best friend, he also became the means of my greatest blessing, when in 1951, his sister Joan and I were married. Arthur first arrived at our school late in 1939 and as I remember, it was the welcome that Jimmy Hind and I gave him on the day of his arrival that cemented our friendship. For a while we saw ourselves as a trio not unlike the three musketeers and before the school dinners came into being we swapped boring sandwiches. My peanut for his beetroot! Arthur was first billeted at Uplands Farm along with Harry Withers, but latter lived with Mr. and Mrs. Bone at Lythanger in Empshott. Because he was closer to Tom Cowell and Charlie Sammonds and travelled the same route to school, they became his good friends also. Some of our evening leisure time we spent together in the ‘Hut’ at Empshott, which was also used as a classroom during the day and as our recreation hall in the evenings.
Sometimes on a Sunday morning I would go with Arthur to worship at the Empshott church and where he used to pump the bellows of the organ. He told me that to maintain the rhythm he would irreverently chant, "Mickey Mouse is dead, a candle lights his head" as he pumped the lever up and down. Other times he would read a comic between pumping sessions. At one time he became so engrossed that he failed to notice the decline in the bellows gauge; which resulted in the organ running out of puff much to the annoyance of the organist and amusement of the congregation.
Arthur was a good friend who, after holidays spent back in London, would share with me his delight in the progress of the baby brothers in his family. He had six younger brothers and sisters. He was a gifted storyteller and would relate to me every detail of the films he had seen during the holidays and each scene would be punctuated with the words, "All in glorious Technicolor". His gift for story telling relates to the fact that he was an avid reader and was very good at English, a subject at which I was hopeless.
I remember one occasion when Mr. Lewis set us a homework essay on the subject "Music hath charm". I hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about this and appealed to Arthur to help. With his usual skill he dictated for me a whole essay, which I with relief wrote down. When we had done, I asked him, "what about you, will you say something quite different?" He assured me that he would. But no, came the day when we each had to read out our essays, to my shame, mine was identical to Arthur’s. However Mr. Lewis appeared not to notice, so no harm was done. The opening line of that essay began;
‘Ever since primeval days, man has had some form of music to soothe his troubled breast’.
After we had left school Arthur and I lost touch until after we had finished our National Service, when once more our paths crossed and I was introduced to the warmth of the Govus household. Tom and Charlie came under its spell, but none more so than I.
Before I close my memories of Hawkley, there are two instances that I want to relate in the schooling of the late and revered Michael Bryant. The first of which relates to the fact that his renowned stage career could well be said to have had its beginnings at BATTERSEA CENTRAL SCHOOL Hawkley.
Mike’s was at our school for three of the war years, and would have been 16 when he went to Battersea Grammar School in Petersfield. In that time he left an indelible mark on the Hawkley narrative. There were two outstanding incidents that deserve mention in addition to the one brother Jim has already related concerning Mike’s care of me when I broke my wrist.
Again under the direction of Mr. King over the years, the school had put on a number of plays at the Empshott hut and the school. The most memorable and ambitious was the presentation of "The Bishops Candlesticks" based on Victor Hugo’s novel "Les Miserables". Play readings and rehearsals took place during English Literature lessons and were most enjoyable. A fairly elaborate set was built on a rickety stage that backed on to the three windows on street side of the school. There were four main characters in the play; the bishop, I can’t remember who played that part, the convict by Mike Bryant, the bishop’s sister Persome`, by Cathleen Crofts, and the maid by one of the Jelly sisters (Cecelia or Liz?). The whole thing was very well done and they all played their parts well.
Mike threw himself into his part with great gusto and conviction (no pun intended), and during the course of taking a meal at the bishop’s table he was supposed to throw an empty wine bottle into the hearth that was behind him. Throwing the bottle over his shoulder it missed the fireplace and sailed through the paper backdrop and smashed one of the windows behind. This was quite a serious production and never was intended for mirth, but Mike’s poor aim gave us a good laugh at this point. That production is a vivid memory and I still have a copy of the textbook first published in 1926 entitled ‘ Nine Modern Plays’ issued through the LCC (London County Council) on 25th Oct 1935. When I read through it, as I have often done, it is Mike’s impassioned voice that I hear! I would be pleased to know who it was that played the part of the bishop?
The second incident concerning Mike arose out a nasty prank that the mixed age's class played on Mr. Walker who taught us French. For this subject we assembled in the 'Hut', which had one classroom, a reception/come science equipment storeroom and a narrow room that housed all the printing gear. Now the classroom for some strange reason had a trapdoor (manhole) in the centre of the ceiling controlled by a cord and pulley system between the windows on the right hand side of the room, allowing the trap to be opened downward.
Mr. Walker kept a pile of ‘French’ textbooks on his desk ready to be handed out at the start of the lesson. As we waited for Mr. Walker to arrive someone devised a scheme whereby the pile of small books was tossed en masse into the trapdoor opening whilst someone else closed the trap on the ascending books. In gleeful anticipation we all waited for our poor teacher to discover his books were missing. The moment came as he looked about his desk and in rising frustration, demanded their whereabouts. As he looked about he strode down the centre isle right under the trap door; it was released and all the books descended on him! The whole class howled and hooted in fiendish delight and the poor man was tried to the limit of his patience.
Strangely he pounced on the boy nearest to him who happened to be the smallest boy in the room named I think, ‘Piffa’ Lewis and may have been about to cuff him on the ear. It was at this point that Mike; a strapping senior, intervened in defence of the little junior and there arose a violent confrontation, which somehow ended with Mike having Mr. Walker by the throat across a desk. What happened after that I can’t remember, but I believe it wasn’t long before Mike left for Battersea Grammar School? For an assault on a teacher Mike could have been expelled, and I can only think that the kindly Mr. Walker was very forgiving or was so embarrassed by the whole thing, that our disgraceful behaviour went unreported. Does anyone remember the outcome?
In closing one could ask; did the Governments evacuation policy give us the protection it hoped from the London air raids? The answer to that must be a resounding yes, for we Hawkley Ite’s anyway! But, there were moments when aerial warfare came close and at the early part of the war we had bombs only half a mile from our house when a raider dropped his load along the hillside hanger that flanked Snailing lane. Some bombs penetrated the field just below Tiddlers Hill at Scotland farm but did not detonate and which did the Bomb Disposal Squad later deal with.
I have good reason to remember that; when some weeks after that raid, as I was returning home from school through Scotland farm, I was all but blasted from my bike when without warning, the BDS after shoring up big holes around them, detonated those bombs. Apart from the bombs, the Raider also dropped incendiaries around Uplands farm where some of our boys were billeted. Stan Creed lived nearby I believe, and assisted in extinguishing some of them. The story went about that the valiant (or foolhardy) Stan, upturned a bucket of sand, and promptly sat on it. Had it exploded, Stan wouldn’t be with us today!
That air raid threw Auntie Ette into a panic and she was on the phone to our Dad thinking that we might be safer back home in Battersea. His assurance that things were soon to change for the worse in London was based on some intelligence that came true quite soon enough! We lived not far from the Longmore Army camp and I remember distinctly we listened to ‘Lord Haw Haw’ on the radio, and on one occasion heard him say that Longmore would become a target.
Sure enough that was the raid we experienced on that night. Some bombs had struck close to the camp and one soldier was killed as I remember it. His ‘lordship’ had also said what they would do to London. So Auntie was persuaded to hang on to us for the duration!
Incidentally, we quite often went to Longmore Camp to the army cinema there!
One night we were all awakened by a huge explosion, which was followed by a commotion, up and down the lane. The crew of a Lancaster bomber who had bailed out of their stricken aircraft caused the commotion. It had just started its mission and had a full bomb load when it developed major engine problems. The brave Pilot stayed at the controls and steered his plane away from Liss Forest so that it went down on the moors clear of habitation. His crew our neighbours took in that night and they were most concerned about the fate of their brave skipper. The next day we boys rode on our bikes to see the huge crater where little remained of the aircraft. Dave Potter who lived next door had the most unpleasant experience of finding a hand from the poor Pilot. The local villagers have reason to be grateful for the sacrifice of that young man!
There I will end in the hope that my meandering memories will add something of worth to the whole and growing narrative of a place and a time that as I have said was for me and many like me, life changing. It is said that school days are the happiest days, and in a sense it is a true statement, for indeed the Hawkley experience was foundational in my life, in that my schooling was based on sound Christian principles promoted by those fine men who were our dedicated teachers. Finally I thank my Lord for the two dear people who opened their home and their hearts and taught me what real love is all about. When we came to Australia in 1964 we continued to keep in touch with Auntie and Uncle at Christmas times, but they were very old and their cards stopped coming. Soon after our daughter was newly married, we took our three sons on a trip to the home country of their birth in 1975.
When we took them to Hawkley and Snailing Lane, ‘Avoca’ was no longer there. Mrs. Madely who still lived in the beautiful 16th century cottage (complete with priest hole) by the river Rother, kindly gave us tea a told us the sad tale of the passing of Auntie and Uncle. Uncle Len needed to go into care and was taken away by the health authorities leaving Auntie who had grown perhaps stubborn and unyielding to offered help, perished in the fire that destroyed my wartime home. A sad end to my story, yes; but for their long and productive life I have reason to be grateful, that when the need arose they were there for me (and my brother) in our time at happy Hawkley.
