Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore Page B

Crippled though they were, by God they could march. Somebody shouted in jest: “We must be in a bad way if we’ve come down to that!” Black Sal came suddenly out of the dark entrance and ran into the middle of the street, pirouetted there screeching and fell in behind them, doing a sort of goose-step. Then suddenly the band stopped blazing, the order was given: “March-at-ease!” and the soldiers slinging their rifles broke into song with “Tipperary.”
    â€œGood-bye—
Double Alley!”
    improvised the three old warriors; and Double Alley cheered them as they went off to their last war.

Background to Boyhood
(1919-1924)
    Country Prep School—Entomology and Port—A Liberal Education — The Scholar Fisherman—The Young Alchymist—Anarchic Interlude—The Facts of Life—Business Man
Country Prep School
    Shortly after this I was sent to school, underwent certain metamorphoses, and was transformed from a pampered and coddled brat into an extremely tough little ruffian. This was largely due to the glorious prep school, a gracious Georgian house in its own grounds about ten miles from Elmbury, where I learned to tickle trout and to read Virgil; to swim a length under water and to enjoy English history; all about catapults, and a little about Attic Greek.
    The poaching, the swimming, and the catapult-shooting I acquired partly by the light of nature and partly through the companionship of three other boys, Dick, Donald and Ted, who had the reputation of stopping at nothing short of murder. The Latin and Greek I learned from a man who loved the classics and knew how to teach them. One day, when I had been consistently slow at finding the verb in my Latin unseen, he sent me to the Headmaster with a note. The note was folded but conveniently unsealed. Naturally I wanted to find out what had been written about me and what was my probable fate. I hid in the lavatory and tried to read it. But the sentence was in Latin. For the first time in my life it seemed really important to construe a Latin sentence. My mind worked at three times its usual pace, I found the verb more quickly than I had ever found the verb before, and when I had the hang of the sentence I was encouraged tocontinue on my journey towards the Headmaster’s study; for it said: “Do not beat him with too many stripes.”
    This wise scholar, Mr. Chorlton, had a cottage at Elmbury where he spent the holidays. He was a link with home, and for this reason I never felt exiled. The school was such a civilised place that terms passed quickly; and in the holidays I never wanted to go to the seaside, but always returned to Elmbury, where Dick, Donald and Ted were near neighbours.
    And now with my new-found freedom and my awakened intelligence I began to find out more about Elmbury than I had ever known before. I explored the rivers and the brooks, the field-paths and the woodlands; discovered one by one the villages and hamlets; made friends of poachers and foes of keepers; and enjoyed a kind of Richard Jefferies boyhood in which holidays coincided with seasons and each season had its special delights. Easter holidays were birds’-nesting holidays (curlews and redshanks on the Ham; plovers on the ploughed land; finches in the hedgerows; whitethroats in the nettles; magpies and hawks in the highwood on the hill!) Summer holidays, long and leisurely, were divided between fishing and butterfly-hunting, swimming and “messing about in boats.” At Christmas we followed the hounds on foot, skated on the frozen floods, learned to shoot rabbits (and other game) with .22 rifles, went ferreting with farmers, fished for pike.
    I never minded going back to school; because school, too, was fun. But always, even at school, Elmbury was the background, its rivers, meadows and lanes were unforgotten, and with Dick, Donald and Ted in the dormitory at night I would plan next holiday’s expeditions. We must make