125 Years of Meadhurst

A postcard of Meadhurst from 1900

This year should have seen a celebration for Meadhurst OUs at an event marking the long history of the House, which was planned to take place in June – another casualty of 2020. Instead we celebrate the 125th anniversary by sharing some stories through the decades, which we hope will bring back memories from your time at the School.

MEADHURST IN THE 1940s

By Basil Frost (M 45)

I arrived by train into Uppingham Station as a new boy in September 1945 feeling very apprehensive. My Housemaster was Tony Gilkes, an artistic classicist, and very good fives player. He left after my first year, going on to be High Master at St Paul’s and was followed by Denis Oswald, a gentle, kindly man, England hockey trialist and very good cricketer. He was in the Intelligence Corps during the War which disappointed boys in the House. We wanted someone a bit more ‘sharp end’ like Michael Pitt, a House Tutor who had been in the Parachute Regiment. Only in 2017 was Denis’s wartime secret revealed that he had been at Bletchley Park as one of Alan Turing’s top codebreakers!

Mrs Oswald, Dorothy, was an important person in our lives. In those days, the Housemaster’s wife was responsible entirely for the domestic running of the house, including feeding us – not easy as wartime rationing was still functioning. She was a cheerful soul and fed us all extremely well.

We slept in dormitories divided into ‘tishes’ (partitions). 1947 had one of the severest winters ever recorded, snow was on the ground for about 12 weeks and so deep in places that even telephone wires in a dip on the Oakham Road were completely

Uppingham Station, 1947 Meadhurst, winter 1947 Breathers

The choir and orchestra in the School Hall, 1945

buried, in fact boys from the School were sent to dig them out. The temperature barely rose above freezing and post-war conditions still existed. The country was financially broke, labour relations were in turmoil, strikes were commonplace and there was a desperate shortage of fuel. We had to choose whether we wanted heating on in the studies downstairs or in our dormitories. We chose the former and went to bed in rugby stockings, woolly sweaters and even balaclavas, as the rules dictated ‘windows in dormitories should be open at all times’. Mugs with bedside water would often shatter overnight, frozen with ice.

No games were played during this cold spell. We used to play ice hockey on the town swimming pool (now the Willow Close housing development). Boys had great fun sledging down the long hill on Braunston Road, beyond Ayston. If the council spread salt and sand on the road to clear it, we piled snow over it again so we could carry on sledging – we weren’t popular.

At times we were called to go ‘tattyscratting’ or potato picking. The local farmers were desperately short of labour and it was vital that the potato harvest was brought in.

In my time at Uppingham, every boy ‘fagged’ for his first year in the School. The system varied from House to House and in Meadhurst there was no personal fagging. Fags were used for incidental jobs, such as rolling the House field and running messages for the Pollies to other Houses. If a fag or fags were needed, a Polly standing by ‘The Slab’ (still in use today) would shout loudly “Fag!”. The last to arrive was usually given the job.

Discipline was much stricter than nowadays and carried out by the Pollies rather than Masters. Offences considered to be serious included poor punctuality; bad manners; being ‘sassy’ or rude and eating in the street was considered to be vulgar. There was a strict dress code too; trouser pockets were sewn up; jackets buttoned up and belts were not allowed, only braces. Senior boys were allowed a white handkerchief in their breast pocket and School Pollies wore tailcoats on Sundays; they were always required to wear their School Polly boaters. When playing sports, stockings were worn pulled up to the knee with garters. Any deviation from the rule book was punished. There was also an accepted etiquette when walking around School grounds; Masters were always saluted if met in the street, merely by touching one’s forehead briefly. Pollies doffed their boaters. Music played a prominent part in School life, just as it does now. The wonderful Douglas Guest was Director of Music, who later went on to Westminster Abbey. He brought in the redoubtable John Allen, a cavalry band master, to broaden the teaching staff and start a military band. It was said he could play every instrument in the orchestra, except the piano. The Special Choir, of about 20 boys, was of a very high standard, with Brian Kemp (M 45) one of the leading lights. The Concert Choir, with around 100 boys, and the School Orchestra, with boys and staff, used to give enjoyable concerts two or three times every year. The staff always gave Gilbert and Sullivan shows at the end of the Winter Term, which were tremendous fun.

Games was also a really important part of school life. Everyone played rugby in the Winter Term and it was compulsory for the whole School to watch inter-school rugby matches. Boys could choose between hockey, fives or cross country running in the Easter Term and every boy played cricket in the summer – The Middle was a spectacular sight on games days. Tennis and golf were not allowed. No ball games of any sort were permitted on Sundays, when we went to Chapel twice, or three times if attending Communion.

Exercises in the form of ‘Breathers’ were carried out by the whole School every morning in the Quads at break time. These were gentle exercises designed so everyone had some fresh air mid-morning. They were taken by the School Pollies, and supervised by the School PT instructor, the infamous Sergeant-Major Backovitch (known as Backo). Boxing, which we all had to do as well, was closely supervised by Backo in the gym, which has since become the theatre.

Of course, there weren’t any girls at Uppingham in my time. It was thought that, in the whole of the town, only one girl wore lipstick – a very pretty salesgirl who worked in Boots. We would visit on a mission to buy razor blades, one at a time, and as often as we could get away with!

We only saw our parents once or twice a year when they came for a weekend. Pocket money was around £3 to £4 per term but due to rationing, which went on for years after the War, sweets hardly existed and there wasn’t a great deal to spend money on. We went to the cinema a couple of times a year – although I remember one film was nearly banned as Rita Hayworth was wearing a bikini!

I left Uppingham in July 1950 and by September I was in the army starting my two years’ National Service, which everyone had to do in those days. Most people knew what they intended to do as a career on leaving, not so common these days. I will always remember my time at Uppingham fondly and had five enjoyable years at the School. I left with only one regret, I should have worked harder!

THE 1960s

By Julian Tubbs (M 64)

I came to Meadhurst in the summer of 1964, when Brian Ware was Housemaster. I was a fairly prolific photographer at Uppingham and found a few pictures which date from around 1966, including one of the lawn treated to a selective attack of weed killer and resulting in the slogan ‘UDI for Rutland’!

I also owned a typewriter and was recruited to type the stories for the ‘U newsletter’ onto duplicator stencils. I was later involved on the editorial team too. Brian Stokes disapproved of the amount of time I spent at the Uppingham School Press; at one point I was even socially distanced to the San in the hope that I might study hard enough to gain entrance to Cambridge, but it was not to be.

It is probably safe to say that we were not all ideal students, we had a pretty good idea of the pubs to frequent without being discovered! The licensees at The Wheatsheaf were very accommodating, allowing us to use their private parlour.

I met Brian Stokes in more recent years, and he recounted a story of going to the pub in Lyddington with his wife Pam. They noticed

Andrew Chklar (M 64) with a poster for the U newsletter

two boys making a hasty retreat behind the furniture. He said nothing and kept them sweating until he left. I think he was reminding me that he had a fairly good idea what we had all been up to, despite never being caught red-handed. We had to roll the lawn a few times for being out of bounds.

The 60s was an era of very rapid change in the outside world and there is no doubt that the atmosphere in Meadhurst changed quite dramatically when Brian Stokes arrived. I am astonished to think that almost half of the life of the House has happened since I first went there!

The Chapel lawn displaying the slogan ‘Unilateral declaration of independence for Rutland’, 1966

THE 1980s

By Simon Smith (M 87)

My mother told me on numerous occasions that one of Uppingham’s key selling points was its homely environment and during the 80s and 90s Meadhurst certainly embodied that. For me, the House had five appealing characteristics; its location, sports facilities, the Housemaster, the Matron and the people, which all made for a prosperous House to grow up in.

Ideally located away from the hubbub of the main school, Meadhurst was only a five-minute brisk walk away to arrive on time to Chapel or Assembly, although our tardiness was still reprimanded by the then Housemaster, Mr Rudman.

We were kept entertained with a state-ofthe-art games room comprising a full-size snooker table, table football, table tennis table, TV room full of bean bags, plus an outdoor football pitch, croquet lawn and two grass tennis courts in the summer. All that was needed was a swimming pool to make for the ideal holiday camp!

Jerry Rudman was keen for the House and individuals to excel wherever possible and the ‘Unders and Overs House Sports’ were taken very seriously, possibly even more than School matches! With commitment and determination, many competitions were won during this period. We had some seriously talented individual musicians in the House too, but sadly the House Shout competition was not our forte and rarely featured.

Jerry and his wife, Vannessa, ran a tight ship, but, behind the scenes, there was one unsung hero who was instrumental in the day-today running of the House. The magnificent matron, Muriel Horspool, affectionately known as ‘Matey’. A strong northern lady, but with a soft nature, she was constantly looking out for ‘her boys’ – a modern-day Mary Poppins-type character in disguise.

There were endless times of laughter, fun, mischief and a bit of work thrown in for good measure, to make for a happy place. But it was and is the people that really makes Uppingham, Uppingham.

Since leaving the School I have played regularly for the old boys’ cricket team – The Uppingham Rovers, and, based on the intake of new Rovers each year, the School continually produces respectful, unassuming, fun, full of life, well rounded characters; identical to the numerous friends I have made from my era. I am eternally grateful for those long-lasting relationships the School has given me.

Sam Dewhurst, current Housemaster of Meadhurst from 2006

A HOUSEMASTER’S PERSPECTIVE

By Sam Dewhurst

It has been a pleasure to serve as Meadhurst’s 10th Housemaster and I look forward, with a degree of trepidation, to life outside the House when I reach the end of my tenure in the summer of 2021; I’ve seen many changes over the years, and yet the essence of the House remains fundamentally ‘Meadhurst’; a welcoming, happy place and, most certainly, homely.

It is the small things that seem to have the greatest impact on the boys; one can reconfigure and update studies and dorms, create a games room out of under-used fives courts, put in new boilers to ensure proper, regular hot water, and extend the dining room in response to the thrice daily re-enactment of the Black Hole of Calcutta and nothing is said – but if one dares to change the colour of the cushions on ‘The Slab’ the repercussions are enormous!

Meadhurst, of course, is not just the building – well, it is, but somehow it is not; when OUs return they may fleetingly glance around and comment on some structural change, but what really brings them alive is the people they were here with. It is those greenpanelled noticeboards with names from their own time here, it is the photographs up on the wall, and in many cases, it is the old friends whose children are now at the School alongside their own. We are still a House with a strong Northern contingent – the current roll of 50 boys includes 14 from Yorkshire and beyond – though that is increasingly leavened by boys from all over the UK, as well as a strong international cohort from Europe and further afield, reflecting Uppingham’s global reach. House spirit remains very much a ‘thing’, and the boys of recent years have made me especially proud with their efforts in this field; we have won two of the three most recent Celebration of Sport events (and came second in the other), and have put on two excellent House plays – Habeas Corpus in 2017 and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 2019 – with The Comedy of Errors scheduled for February 2021. We have also acquitted ourselves well in inter-House sport and the House Unison Singing Competition (better known of course as ‘House Shout’). With the Captains of Rugby and Cricket and some highly competitive cross-country runners currently in the House, I have every hope that we’ll be bringing home more trophies this year!

And what does the future hold? Well, of course, nobody can say, but I am confident that with the boys we have in the House and a new Housemaster at the helm, the coming years look very promising, whatever the world may throw at them. You have as much reason to be proud of your old House now as you ever did, and when the present pandemic has died down and we are able to welcome you back to Uppingham, I do hope you will take the time to come and have a look round.