Dover College: a Wartime in Exeter

By an Old Dovorian

My first School was The City of London School which was evacuated to Marlborough during the war, but returned to London after the Blitz ended (an unfortunate decision by them as they returned just in time for the Doodlebugs.).  So I had to find to a new school.

Possibly because he was born in Dover, my father then  put me to school me at Dover College which was evacuated to Poltimore, near Exeter; well away from frontline Kent.   The school occupied Poltimore House near Pinhoe, onetime home of  Lord Poltimore whose family name was Bampfylde.

There were very few boys at the school during this wartime period and  numbers went as low as 86 at one point.   Poltimore House was a rambling old building with bare, uncarpeted dusty timber floors and staircases and few comforts.   Our Prep Room was cold and comfortless and heated by a single fireplace, where we would toast slices of bread on the end of a fork and get chilblains as a result.   I fagged for Derek Crawshaw in my first year, for which I was paid sixpence a week which I am sure Derek could ill afford (his mother was a widow, his father having been killed in the war), but he insisted I took it.   My own pocket money was a shilling – 5p a week in today’s money.

The dormitories were up in the attic where I suppose the servants used to live.   We shared the sports field with a herd of cows but the cricket pitch was protected by an electrified fence to keep the animals off the sacred turf.   The whole place was set in a large and graceful park and behind the house there were three avenues in a plantation of trees and rhododendrons.   After the war, Poltimore House became a Nursing Home for a while but when I saw it last it was empty and dilapidated, and there had been a fire which destroyed part of the roof.

Exeter was three miles away and I often took the bus into town, which had been devastated by a German ‘Baedeker’ raid. I also had a bicycle and on Sundays would ride to Littleham Cross (Exmouth) where Aunt Dorothy lived.   Here I was given a warm welcome and a good meal.   At Poltimore, the school was very compact and  we were all together in one building.   The housemasters and many of the other masters, matrons etc.  lived in and we were far better looked after than at Marlborough, where we were billeted on the town, completely unsupervised and often at a loose end.   Poltimore House had it’s own chapel and the choir was well run – we sang Handel’s Messiah in Exeter Cathedral and went carol singing in the neighbourhood at Christmas.   Our music master and choirmaster was a strict and meticulous man who taught German as a subject, and due to his style of playing at the piano was nicknamed “Bong” by the choir.   I still remember some of the anthems he taught us “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring”, “Sheep may safely graze”.

We were called on occasionally to help the farmers lift their crops because of the shortage of labour on the land.   Picking up potatoes all day was a backbreaking job, but we earned a few pennies.  I also remember stooking flax and my clothes smelling for days afterwards of linseed oil.   At the end of summer term, 1944 with members of the Scout Troop I stayed back for a week or ten days and camped on a farm at Cullompton.  Older members of the school would go off on Farm Camp at end or term while I was camping with the Scouts.  At the end of my last term at  Poltimore, I was one of the Corps recruits that went for a week to train with the Navy at HMS Raleigh, the Navy’s basic training establishment in Cornwall, near Plymouth. As with all Naval recruits, we could not walk in camp but had to run everywhere at the double.  The outstanding memory was when we were taken into a gun turret and a naval gun was fired.  It was a fearsome experience, in the dark, unprepared for the explosion, and my ears did not stop ringing for ages.  No ear or flash protectors, and I am sure it was one of the factors that gave me tinnitis in later life – the other being  an Army firing range in Hongkong.

Allon Ewart was our Housemaster – Major Ewart – nicknamed “The Mon” because of the monocle he wore.   His injured eye was not a wound from the First World War but an error in the Chemistry Lab. when he dropped water into sulphuric acid instead of sulphuric acid into water.   One lesson well learnt at school!   He also had a habit of calling everybody “Mon” in the Scottish fashion, although it was centuries since he was last in Scotland, I am sure!   As a veteran of WW I he was in charge of the Corps, and in the times and circumstances, we were all motivated to be good soldiers so that we could fight the Hun!   Our military training was realistic and thorough, if outdated, and later when I was called up for National Service I found that my Cert A Parts I and II and the the Marksman Badge I had earned were qualifications that saw me easily through basic training at Catterick and soon got me the opportunity of a WOSB  (War Office Selection Board), and thus entry to Eaton Hall OCTU  (Officer Cadet Training Unit).   Corps exercises in Devon were exciting and realistic with blank rounds and thunderflashes and supervised by Umpires lent from the Army.    “You’re dead”, they said.   “No I’m not” was the usual reply, followed by heated argument!

I was at Poltimore on the 6^th June, 1944, D-Day – the day of the Normandy landings.   We woke up to news of the invasion on the radio and then noticed that nearby Exeter airport was suddenly bereft of the huge assembly of aircraft and gliders that had been there the previous day.  It became almost impossible to get a glimpse of the daily newspaper that St. Martins House subscribed to.

Poltimore Reunion 2003

In 2003, with another Old Dovorian from the Poltimore era, Patrick “Froggy” Vanson and a slightly younger OD, Peter Flick, we organised a get-together at Poltimore of OD’s who were at Poltimore.  The Old Dovorian Club database identified 112 OD’s still going strong and some 32 plus responded and assembled at Poltimore House in the afternoon of the 23^rd July, 2003.

The house is now owned by The Poltimore Trust, a band of enthusiasts whose object is to restore the building.  We found the place absolutely and frighteningly derelict, and were only given limited access and were required to wear hard hats.  Only the outer walls and part of the ground floor were intact.  A fire had destroyed part of the roof beneath which everything was ruined and decaying.  Squatters and burglars have stripped the place, with the magnificent staircase destroyed, fireplaces ripped out and floor timbers gone used for firewood.  Much of the extensive grounds have been sold, and the marvellous avenues at the rear of the building were overgrown with brambles and other growth and desolate.  The Trust needs to find £12 million for restoration, and we all reckoned that chances were slim indeed for the future of the building.

After visiting Poltimore House, most of the OD’s spent the night at the Gipsy Hill Hotel, Exeter and we held a Dinner, attended by the 32 OD’s plus wives and guests – 55 all told .

Poltimore House featured in a BBC series “Restoration” in recent years and won in the SouthWest category, but the eventuak recipient of the cash prize was a swimming pool in Manchester.  Those wishing to follow the work of the Potlimore House Trust and their restoration work can check the link below.

http://www.poltimore.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=30