CLUB NEWS & VIEWS Leonard Morton

Dad joined Mill Hill just at the start of the war, so actually only attended Mill Hill when it was at St Bees, and he spent the war up there. During his time there he witnessed a flying bomb landing smoothly on the playing field and then exploding when it hit a goalpost. His Brother was at Belmont at the same time in Cockermouth.

He was known to his family as John, but on his first day he met Ant Vint (they later discovered the same birthdate and became great friends) who asked him his name and said “I can’t shorten that, have you another name”, so he became Len throughout his school and OM life. Very confusing for my Mother when she was ultimately introduced to his family as they didn’t know who Len was and she didn’t know who John was!

He left school to go straight into the Navy as a rating, before being ‘encouraged’ to join the family mail-order business ‘Mortons of Highbury’. He was a keen sailor, one of the founding members of the OMs yacht club with Charlie Lamplugh. He was captain of the OMs ‘A’ XV for a few years.

This would have been just after they left school. Dad is second row from the rear, 3rd from the right. Ant is 2nd row from the front, 4th from the right.

Leonard Morton’s response from the Old Milllhillians Club to his membership application letter in 1944.