A vivid personal account of boarding at Berkhamsted School in the 1950s by Stuart B. Hill

With his permission, I am sharing a personal account of Stuart Hill's reflections about his boarding school experience from his autobiography.


Stuart B. Hill

Walking a Different Path: My Unconventional Journey from a Trout Stream in England to Teaching Social Ecology in Australia

Berkhamsted School (section extracted from my autobiography - 2024)

In England, at age 11, you took what was called the eleven-plus exam. If you passed you could go to a grammar school, and if you failed you went to a secondary modern. I did fail the eleven-plus exam so I couldn’t get into Watford Grammar School. Given there had been nine pregnancies at the local secondary modern the previous year my parents decided I couldn’t go there either. Instead, they sent me to what in the UK is a called a public school.

There are three classes of schools: government schools, private schools, and public schools. Public schools were the premium schools in England. The two public schools nearest to us were Merchant Taylors (in Moor Park, 7 miles away) and Harrow (12 miles away), which I could have travelled to daily on the train. The other possibility, Berkhamsted (with no direct public transport; 14 miles by car), was the one they settled on, and the only option was for me to go there as a boarder.

So, in 1954 I enrolled as a boarder at Berkhamsted School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkhamsted_School), and the transition was rather a shock. The ‘house’ I went into was called Overton, and I slept in a room with three or four other boys, on uncomfortable metal beds. We had to wear regulation clothing purchased at a local shop: a suit, shirts with detached starched collars, and black shoes. I had never previously worn a suit, and the jacket was made from material you could almost sandpaper wood with — an extremely uncomfortable Scottish tweed.

Every day you had to wear your regulation jacket, trousers, and a school tie. In the basement of the school’s residence was a wall with little slots for your shoes. A man came in daily to polish all the shoes, so when you got up in the morning you retrieved your polished shoes. It was very upper crust.

My senior schoolhouse was called Incents, named after a former headmaster It was in a very old building with four or five stories. Each age group had certain duties. When the sheets were washed, they were piled in enormous wicker baskets, and they had to be carried down the stairs. One of the boys called Ford (we were all only referred to by our last names), hated this particular task. One day he waited at the top of the stairs until the housemaster’s wife was walking across the corridor, let go of the laundry basket and floored her. Interestingly he was made head prefect several years later by the woman’s husband.

Our housemaster’s name was Montague Percival Fry. He was a descendent of one of the previous headmasters who was a famous British educator. He was a little shorter than me and his wife was about a foot taller. She had come from a very prestigious family, even more prestigious than his, to the extent that when their daughter came of age, they held a debutante ball in her honour. The daughter ended up marrying one of the boys in the school.

Our headmaster, Basil Garnons-Willliams was a classics scholar. In 1980 he wrote a book about the history of the school (1541–1972). I remember him reading Bible passages in our chapel from a Greek translation.

A lot of the very upper crust students had double barrelled names. When the school staff saw my middle name was Baxter, they said they’d like to call me ‘Baxter-Hill’. But my response was, “No, I don’t want to be called Baxter-Hill.” I insisted on being called just “Hill”.

The father of author Graham Greene was one of the previous headmasters at Berkhamsted. Graham Greene hated school and his hatred of public schools was evident in some of his writings.

Fagging system

‘Fagging’, a traditional practice in British public schools, was part of each schoolboy’s experience during the first year of upper school. Fagging involved being assigned to an older student (a prefect); you had to clean their shoes, make their tea, do their shopping, things like that. The head prefect in each school ‘house’ was even permitted to cane the younger boys. Some people chose to do that, but in my school, Incents, I don’t remember any of the head prefects caning anybody, although the teachers did lots of caning.

The guy I did fagging for was called Nuttall. I had to clean his shoes and make him coffee. Prefects had their own study room, so it was pretty prestigious. He had this little room at the top of the stairs, so I had to climb all the way to the top floor and find him, and do what he wanted. I don’t think he was completely comfortable with the whole concept either. He was more like, “If it’s convenient for you at the moment, I’d quite like you to make a cup of tea if that’s alright with you”. I heard that Nuttall made his career in the civil service, something like finance.

Parents were discouraged from coming to visit their sons too often. I think I was allowed to travel home only once each term. Excursions to town were permitted on Saturday afternoons. You had to get a chit, signed by a master, to allow you to go into town. I give permission for Hill to go to town between such and such a time. With our pocket money we’d do some shopping and I remember buying my first vinyl records in Berkhamsted, EPs by Buddy Holly and Tommy Steele.

On Sunday afternoons we were required to go on a two- or three-hour walk, in pairs. I usually went with my friend Peter Hodge. (Incidentally my wife Judy and I visited Peter in 2019, before he died.) I remember, on a couple of occasions, on a Sunday walk, picking up a girlie magazine, from a newsagent, and putting the money for it through their mailbox.

I had fishing tackle hidden in some bushes on one side of the canal where I fished for gudgeon. So, Peter and I would fish and look at the magazines.

Going to town was also an opportunity to look at local girls. In turn, the local girls would be keeping an eye on these wealthy schoolboys. Sometimes we ended up going on walks together on Sundays. I remember meeting a lovely girl called Patricia who lived in the Council Housing Estate. Her younger sister always came with us on our outings which was a bit of a pain. I especially remember having a picnic together at Berkhamsted Castle. It was built in the 11th century, during the Norman Conquest, by Robert of Mortain, William the Conqueror’s half-brother. I also remember sending Patricia a Valentine card. Fluorescent socks were a big thing with that group of girls, and I bought a pair of fluorescent socks, put them in the Valentine’s card, snuck out and delivered the card on the quiet.

Schoolboys used to dare each other to take some kind of risk. For example, you would be dared to go to collect something from somewhere to prove you had been at that location. If I wasn’t caught, but my co-conspirator was caught, he might dob me in. “Did you go on your own?” “No, I went with Hill.” “Hill, did you go?” “Yes I did.” So, we both got caned. These beatings were classic — right out of Tom Brown’s School Days, and we were punished for very minor things.

I remember the master of the lower house, Mr. Gulland, asking, “Do you want to have six with your trousers up or four with your trousers down?” I responded, “Six.” After he gave me six, I was still defiant, and said, “Thank you so much.” And he gave me another two. The next day you could see wide ridges across my bottom, welts from being caned.

I got up to all sorts of things, and I didn’t get caught for most of them. I remember an employee at the school who worked in the kitchen, a stunning woman who looked a bit like Sophia Loren, with an enormous bust. In the lineup, when she was serving food, I was mostly looking at her bust and trying to keep my plate from falling over. She stayed in a room in the school residence. Each room had a trapdoor in the ceiling. Peter Hodge and

I reckoned if we got into the attic we could find her room, lift the trapdoor, and be able to watch her undressing. We climbed into the attic and found all sorts of things, but not the trapdoor to her room. Nobody had been in the attic for years and it was so dusty that when we climbed back down our clothes were completely covered in black dust. To hide the dust, we put our pyjamas on inside out so the dust was on the inside, and nobody would see it. We didn’t get caught for that which was amazing, but we also didn’t get to see her bust.

At Berkhamsted we had a choice of joining either the Combined Cadet Force or the Scouts. There was a bit of ridiculing people who went into the Scouts, so nearly everybody joined the Combined Cadet Force, as I did. In fact, I rose through the ranks to become a sergeant. The order of command goes: cadet, private, lance corporal, corporal, and sergeant. You had a badge you wore on your lapel. We were required to spit and polish our army boots, polish our brass buckles, and brush our canvas belts with a substance called ‘blanco’. It seemed strange that some very upper crust kids were required to take on such menial tasks as polishing their boots.

We conducted war exercises on Berkhamsted Common, shooting at each other with blanks in our guns. I actually became quite a good marksman. Once a week, we had to march around. Our trainer who had been a sergeant major in the army, also ran the tuck shop where we bought buns and drinks on our breaks. I remember him shouting at some boys who were misbehaving, “From now on boys the only place you’ll have balls is on your feet.” To do an about-turn you pivoted on the ball of your foot. First you created a ’T’, then an ‘L’, then a ‘V’, and ‘off ’.

We also learned to do the leopard crawl, staying flat on the ground to prevent being shot. I remember the trainer telling us that the instructions in the army would be much clearer than anything we’d learn in the school classroom, and it was true. I still know the order in which you take a machine gun apart: piston, barrel, butt, body, bipod — that is sealed into my brain. And it was the same with much of the cadet training.

 As part of the training, we were taken off one evening into the forest somewhere and had to make our way back to the school, using a compass and a map, creeping along hedgerows, and sleeping outdoors.

 Long-distance runs were also a regular part of our public-school experience. Because of the bad English weather this usually meant sloshing through water with special cross-country running shoes that could handle the mud. I remember one of the boys who was a particularly good runner, Knox-Johnston. He eventually became the first person to sail singlehandedly around the world. He’s now a ‘Sir’. He was no bigger than me but with 100% determination he won a lot of the cross-country races, and I admired his grit and guts.

All the British public schools had a Combined Cadet Force and many of the boys who attained higher ranks went on to Sandhurst where they were trained to be officers in the British military. Sandhurst was like the Oxford of the military, a very prestigious sort of place to go to.

There was an incredible emphasis on fitness at the school. Instead of taking classes in the afternoons we played rugby or cricket. In addition to that, every day we went for a run and quite often had swimming in the evening. We usually swam naked. You could wear swimming costumes, but you were considered a sissy if you did.

I began a daily practice of exercise, starting with 20 push ups. Then I would do five single-leg squats, going down on one leg and balancing. I developed phenomenal thighs which enabled me to become a good runner. I was shorter than some of the guys but because of my strong thighs I was able to shoot out of the starting block with a force that propelled me in front of everybody. I remember when running the 100 yards I would be ahead of everybody for two thirds the way down the track, but somebody would usually get in front of me in the last few yards because they had longer strides. I was so fit at that time. In later years I didn’t keep up the exercise, but I maintained my fitness over the years. Now at 80, I can still do the splits because my training in the hurdles, and I can still do full days in the garden.

There were a few accomplished teachers at Berkhamsted. The head of athletics and sport, while I was there, was a guy named Poole who had been on the British cricket team. He helped me become proficient with the hurdles.

I attended Berkhamsted’s junior school for two years at ages 11 and 12, and the upper school from ages 13 to 15. If I had continued my schooling there I would have gone into the sixth form.

During my last year at Berkhamsted there was a fire in my dormitory. The headline in the local newspaper read: 44 boys slept as fire raged, matron’s 2 AM sick call led to alarm. The article went on to say: The fire might not have been discovered in time had she not made a 2 AM visit to a sick child.

Accompanying the article was a photo of my father and I, and some other boys in our dormitory room, with a fireman supervising. My father had come to help get my trunk out of the room. I believe an electrical fault led to this fire and there’s no question the whole boarding school disciplinary process and precautionary measures saved our lives. I remember being woken up to fire drills and endless practising of procedures, so we knew exactly what to do, and how to get to a safe space. The whole school didn’t burn; it was just our house, and only the top floor which was the area where we slept. It was a pretty memorable event, and one of many experiences in my life where I might have died.

Following the fire, we were put up in a very high-class hotel in Berkhamsted where we were served a scrumptious breakfast, including the best toast and marmalade I’d ever tasted in my life. The toast, presented in a toast holder, was thin and crisp. The homemade marmalade was delicious. Tea was served in dainty cups, and the places were set with silver cutlery.

Before long we were moved to another building and I remember sharing a room with my friend Peter Hodge and also a guy named Harrison who, interestingly, was the son of an Olympic Australian swimmer. I remember this Harrison boy being very obsessed with fitness.