out of me (to my regret, with hindsight) so my schoolboy nickname now remains the only personal acknowledgement I have of my Irish blood and upbringing.
Farrar’s was a pretty rough-and-tumble, physical place in my time, and I soon learned to be very self-sufficient, a habit which, together with a dislike of clubbishness, has remained with me all my life. The discipline was strict, the corporal punishment frequent and the play rough. Most of my contemporaries had been together in the Inky for four years previously, so I was something of a stranger intruding into already established relationships and found my first months there, parted from my parents and in a totally alien environment, very painful. It was not long, however, before I realised that if I wanted respect, I would have to fight for it. I became rather good at fighting in the rough-and-tumbles that were encouraged in the evenings. No damage beyond an occasional bloody nose was ever done, so far as I remember, and genuine anger in fights was something of a rarity. Indeed, the one golden rule of these scrimmages was never to lose your temper (I have a fiery Irish one, which I have always had difficulty controlling). We were more like young animals testing their strength through rough-and-tumble than genuine combatants. But it was a tough school of knocks nevertheless, and I soon found that I was bullied and teased less because I could both take it and give it on the rough-house floor. All in all it did me little harm, for I was a physical boy. But I cannot say I think it was a good way to bring up all boys, and there must have been many who found it deeply unpleasant and even permanently scarring.
My prowess on the rough-house floor and on the sports field was, once again, not matched in the classroom. I found study irksome, and my early reports were not good ones – to my father’s chagrin. My Form Master’s General Report for the Easter Term, when I would have turned twelve (signed off by my father in his neat hand on 27 April 1953), is pretty typical and reads:
A disappointing term; I am sure he could have done better. His effort is much too variable and his concentration poor. There is no doubt he means well, but it is a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh weak. There has also been very little attempt to improve his handwriting.
A little over a year later, in the summer of 1954, I caught double pneumonia. The school authorities were sufficiently worried about my condition to send for my mother, who came over from Ireland and helped nurse me back to health. I have hazy memories of being delirious during this period and of nightmarish dreams in and out of which swam my mother’s face and interminable wheeling columns of marching ginger biscuits (which seemed to be my staple diet when I was ill, and which I have hated ever since). It was also about this time that I started to get migraines, to start with as often as once a week. They were crippling, involving first blindness and lights and then brain-splitting headaches and nausea. I used to dread them, as they were very unpleasant, and I had to remain in a darkened room for twenty-four hours until the attack passed. They diminished in frequency and severity as I grew older, but have stayed with me, albeit in less severe form, all my life. I fear I hid them from the Admiralty authorities when I joined the Royal Marines and (with the help of friends and service colleagues who would cover for me during an attack) during my subsequent service career, for they would have disqualified me from entry at the start and could have caused me to be invalided out later.
At the age of fourteen, I contrived to break both bones in my lower left leg during an escapade in the Gym that resulted in my falling some fifteen feet onto the wooden floor. They made a bit of a mess of resetting the bones, with the result that I have one leg slightly out of alignment and shorter than the other.
In the autumn of 1954, at
Farrar’s was a pretty rough-and-tumble, physical place in my time, and I soon learned to be very self-sufficient, a habit which, together with a dislike of clubbishness, has remained with me all my life. The discipline was strict, the corporal punishment frequent and the play rough. Most of my contemporaries had been together in the Inky for four years previously, so I was something of a stranger intruding into already established relationships and found my first months there, parted from my parents and in a totally alien environment, very painful. It was not long, however, before I realised that if I wanted respect, I would have to fight for it. I became rather good at fighting in the rough-and-tumbles that were encouraged in the evenings. No damage beyond an occasional bloody nose was ever done, so far as I remember, and genuine anger in fights was something of a rarity. Indeed, the one golden rule of these scrimmages was never to lose your temper (I have a fiery Irish one, which I have always had difficulty controlling). We were more like young animals testing their strength through rough-and-tumble than genuine combatants. But it was a tough school of knocks nevertheless, and I soon found that I was bullied and teased less because I could both take it and give it on the rough-house floor. All in all it did me little harm, for I was a physical boy. But I cannot say I think it was a good way to bring up all boys, and there must have been many who found it deeply unpleasant and even permanently scarring.
My prowess on the rough-house floor and on the sports field was, once again, not matched in the classroom. I found study irksome, and my early reports were not good ones – to my father’s chagrin. My Form Master’s General Report for the Easter Term, when I would have turned twelve (signed off by my father in his neat hand on 27 April 1953), is pretty typical and reads:
A disappointing term; I am sure he could have done better. His effort is much too variable and his concentration poor. There is no doubt he means well, but it is a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh weak. There has also been very little attempt to improve his handwriting.
A little over a year later, in the summer of 1954, I caught double pneumonia. The school authorities were sufficiently worried about my condition to send for my mother, who came over from Ireland and helped nurse me back to health. I have hazy memories of being delirious during this period and of nightmarish dreams in and out of which swam my mother’s face and interminable wheeling columns of marching ginger biscuits (which seemed to be my staple diet when I was ill, and which I have hated ever since). It was also about this time that I started to get migraines, to start with as often as once a week. They were crippling, involving first blindness and lights and then brain-splitting headaches and nausea. I used to dread them, as they were very unpleasant, and I had to remain in a darkened room for twenty-four hours until the attack passed. They diminished in frequency and severity as I grew older, but have stayed with me, albeit in less severe form, all my life. I fear I hid them from the Admiralty authorities when I joined the Royal Marines and (with the help of friends and service colleagues who would cover for me during an attack) during my subsequent service career, for they would have disqualified me from entry at the start and could have caused me to be invalided out later.
At the age of fourteen, I contrived to break both bones in my lower left leg during an escapade in the Gym that resulted in my falling some fifteen feet onto the wooden floor. They made a bit of a mess of resetting the bones, with the result that I have one leg slightly out of alignment and shorter than the other.
In the autumn of 1954, at
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