SCHOOL HOUSE REVISITED
BUT THE MELODY LINGERS ON . . .
I lean back against the deck-rail of the Ostend-Dover packetboat, watch the harbour slowly diminish in the lazy February sunshine and wonder. How much would everything have changed? Could I still enjoy the reminiscence without destroying the illusion?
School House
A whole decade had passed since the last time I had pulled out of Dover Priory Station and joined the rat-race of the individual. The big world beyond the Close. It had been fun in those intervening years to glimpse the Castle behind Gert Frobe in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, and the nestling docks far below the Spitfires and Messerschmidts in The Battle of Britain. But now it would be for real. Retracing old steps. Recalling past faces.
As we reverse into the Western Dock I search the landscape for familiar landmarks. The Whalers gently riding their moorings. The Dover Stage, towering over the promenade. This time it all seems smaller. Slower. They’ve filled in the rails that used to run along the front. Loreleis for our bicycle tyres. New flats have sprawled their concrete limbs across the wasteland behind the East Kent Coach terminus. Under the East Cliff I hunt in vain for a dingy café known as Smokey Joe’s, where we first heard Cliff Richard sing Livin’ Doll on the juke box and studied the pleasures of nicotine. On up King Street. I recognise little more than the bus shelters. Oases in the desert. Ray Warner has moved on to pastures new. Eddie Crush has crossed the road. Once upon a time there were four cinemas in the Town, and a week of heavy rain in the summer could mean a plethora of celluloid fantasies for less than a pound. Now, everywhere is Chinese restaurants and Package Holidays. What is the “Top Hat”? I remember that used to be called Pelosi’s, refugee from the sudden Mediterranean influx, and strictly out-of-bounds. And round the corner from the A.B.C., didn’t we used to have cream teas for half-a-crown served by the original bearded lady?
I turn into Saxon Street, once the red light district for the chaps in Blue and Khaki, and very occasionally for those in Grey Herring-Bone as well. Somehow, I still feel a stranger in the land. A tourist off the beaten track.
And then, like the best traditional Pantomime, the Chapel clock strikes twelve and reality begins to focus. The notes seem to hang in the air. Quick. Clear. Perhaps a semi-tone higher than l remember. Time can play a trick or two like that. The Close is quiet. Sunny and peaceful with the distant sound of a mowing machine somewhere near the boat-sheds. Was I really here? Aeons of happy days telescoped into a few seconds. Close to the tuck-shop I find a phone box. Something we never had. Instant contact with the outside world at the press of a button. That’s progress. I wander in and out of the surrounding buildings. Am I looking for a clue? The click of the heavy Chapel door. The curved treads of the Library steps. The jagged shadows thrown by the Refectory ruins. Memories, are made of this. Suddenly a bell rings and the area is alive. Boys clutching books and turning hither and thither. Trousers a little more flared. Hair slightly nearer the shoulder. Otherwise exactly the same. I must have rung that bell myself in the past but I cannot remember where. Or how. Or when. I sense l am being stared at. An alien from another planet.
Later on l see some of the same faces across the lunch table. The best of hospitality. I wonder if the Headmaster still sees me as a spotted youth struggling with “A”_Levels and trying to funk the steeplechase. l look around the dining-room. The silver cups glint quietly on the sideboard. More names have been added to the list of honoured.
Many more names will be added in the future. Far away in a prefect’s study I can hear the latest on Radio One. We used to play Chris Barber in Berlin or My Fair Lady, and thought we were bloody marvellous!
Forgive me, old chap, for not recognising you straight away. Silly of me, because I knew you very well really and you’ve hardly changed at all. You must have known thousands of us; even tens of thousands perhaps. And yet you still welcome us back with warmth and affection. I think maybe you’ve lost a little colour. Put on a bit of weight. But you certainly haven’t aged.
Congratulations, old chap, and here’s to the next century.
ROBIN R. TAYLOR (S ’6l)
