In the
year 1877 ... when boys were still alive ...
...
before that though the 1876 calendar had to write itself to a close into this
little narrative, so onward we go ....
 |
Ford Maddox Brown's Navvy (USA)
depicted "The Work" 1865 |
Ø September
15th and 16th dawned – the school returned filling old
quarters and several additional houses.
The medical officer and the
ready pickaxe of “Sanitary Tom” (as
the boys called the navvy who was his stout ally), had been at work on
sanitation arrangements.
(At Uppingham the same work
started on September 14th – the sanitation had finally been called
out as the fever’s incubator).
Ø The
term opened smilingly .... just five weeks later – a case of scarlet fever
occurred, followed by half-a-dozen more, ... their prosperity staggered under
the ‘what next’ syndrome ...
-
Would it spread to the village, across the school
- could they stay - and many other challenging thoughts ... and what of other
infections?
-
They had good scientific advice on the spot,
from the medical officer – who was advised out of Oxford, so no time was lost
in stamping out the plague ... by ... page 28 describes the plan:
-
War is
not made with rose-water, and fever germs can be exterminated, it seems, by
nothing less exasperatingly unsavoury than carbolic acid, an agency which was
laid on without any ruth.
 |
"A Girl with a Watering Can" -
Pierre-August Renoir 1876 |
Grumblers
were offered the alternative of being smoked with sulphur. Some complained of sore throats, contracted,
they said, from the fumes of the disinfectant, and declared that the remedy,
like the vaccination, was only a mitigated form of the disorder.
The
landlords of our studies looked on with irresolute wonder, when some of us
sprinkled their floors with a potent decoction poured from watering-pots.
Most of
them regarded it as a kind of magical rite into which it would not be seemly to
inquire.
Probably
the best disinfectant applied was the clear strong wind, which ten days after
the first case succeeded the previous relaxing weather.
 |
| Pebbly Beach at Eastbourne |
All
windows and doors were ordered wide open for the free passage of the blast; and
the boys were directed to bring down their rugs, great-coats, and
dressing-gowns, and anything of the kind which might be supposed to harbour
mischief, and spread them for purification on the pebbles of the beach.
It was thought the germ was
probably caught in the railway – so excursions were discontinued for a time.
Worse would have occurred had
not the villagers been ready to assist with the isolation and other necessary
matters to curtail this outbreak.
Page 29
discusses the possibility of bullying due to confinement in the winter months
... however the advantage of
self-governance prevailed ... old rules had to be relaxed – in general the
result was all went well; of course wrong things were done at Borth as
elsewhere, but their insignificance for the most part would provoke a smile.
As the
term progressed, November set in with its early dark evenings – the school curriculum was rearranged –
afternoon school began at sunset, the Debating and other societies met on
half-holiday evenings, so the dark hours did not hang heavily, and the expected
tedium of an Arctic winter was not experienced.
 |
| Aberystwyth |
The
term closed with a concert given in the Assembly Room at Aberystwith, repeated
the next night in the Temperance Hall at popular prices.
The Old
Boys returned to play the customary football match against the present school
... and were beaten 2-1; prizes, class-lists, and the Headmaster’s speech closed
the day.
No
mention was made for their return to Middle England or to the coast of Wales in
the year 1877.
“Sit down, and hear the last of our
sea-sorrow”
from “The Tempest”
Ø 22nd
December, after inspection ... and in the face of Dr Acland’s (an Oxford
consultant) report, the Trustees “deeply
regret they cannot at present recall the school to Uppingham.” So they went back to the sea.
The
boys with sticks in 1876, were watched by boys named Bevan, in the year 1877
... ("ab-Evan" meaning son of Evan - Welsh origin)
The
school returned in January ... for what would become the Farewell Term ...
Fewer
masters’ families had remained ‘in camp’ ... some had gone to winter quarters
at Aberystwith; some had already resettled at Uppingham.
 |
| A not so niggardly vegetable plot |
Connection
with home began to be retightened also by parochial and other common
transactions, in which we took our share from a distance ...
... the
deserted gardens at Uppingham did not waste their sweetness on the air ... a
thin intermittent stream of their products found its way along the nine hours
of railway through most of the year: flowers, fruit and vegetables ... were
welcome by all, including dwellers in this somewhat austere tract where they
did not grow or grew very niggardly.
Further details of “contraband” drew the
attention of the London and North-Western Railway Company, whose officials
called to account one of our servants for travelling with an excess of personal
luggage ... the artless contrabandist, besides his own modest pack, had
fourteen several hampers and boxes under his charge! This was checked.
But
there was a Post Office miscreant, who
systematically staved in and pounded into such odd shapes the little tin boxes
in which our rose-fanciers had their choice blooms sent them by post? The Post Office disacknowledged, the school
remonstrated – the criminal was stopped.
Business
matters from home needed to be dealt with ... as parishioners and
ratepayers. Someone who, even bought a
freehold of land, had clearly not despaired of their Rutlandshire.
This
term’s life, with exceptions, continued much as before ... the round of work
and play was much the same; the harriers were out again, football went on as
before, till superseded by the “athletics,” ...
Ø On 7th
March an athletics match against Shrewsbury School on their ground was held ...
a battle drawn.
The
difficulties encountered this term were the elements...
 |
| Harpies |
First
off two new boys rambled forth and were missing by tea-time .. search parties
were organised north and south ... they were found perched upon a rock up the
cliff to escape the rising tide telling stories – unaware in the darkness the
tide had ebbed, or to minimise their fears by staying put, thankfully blessed
with a mild January night.
This
was the sportive prelude of more serious
troubles ...
Ø Monday
29th January – a servant was conveying the dinner of his master’s
family from the hotel kitchen to Cambrian Terrace.
As he crossed the gusty street
between them, the harpies of the storm swept the dinner from the dish, and
rolled a prime joint over and over in the dust; a leg of mutton was following,
but he caught it dexterously by the knuckle-end as it fell, and rescued so much
from the wreck.
 |
| Borth - the storm did blow |
Did the wind not blow? For three days the sou’-wester had been
heaping up the sea-water against the shores of Cardigan Bay.
People remembered with
misgivings that an expected high tide coincided in time with the gale, and
shook their heads significantly as they went to bed on that eve.
A storm wave is part of a
system of aggression which the sea carries upon these coasts ...
Ø 30th
January’s half light gloomed eerily ... the
classes emerging from morning prayers, found the street between them and the
Terrace threaded by a stream of salt water, which was pouring over the
sea-wall ...
Before
morning school was over the stream had become a river ...
... those who were well placed saw a memorable sight that morn, as the
terrible white rollers came remorselessly in, sheeting the black cliff sides in
the distance with columns of spouted foam ...
... then thundering on the low-sea wall, licking up or battening down the
stakes of the palisades, and scattering apart and volleying before it the
pebbles built in between them, the village street was heaped with the ruins of
the barrier over which the waters swept victoriously into the level plain beyond:
The feet
had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.
Those who were looking inland saw how
...
Along
the river’s bed
A
mighty eygre reared its head
And
up the Lery raging sped.
... at Borth they escaped lightly, at
Ynyslas the tenants fled to their
upper storey as the tidal race plunged
them into twelve feet of
water;
... how it breached the railway beyond, sapping four miles of
embankment, and sweeping the bodies of
a drowned flock of sheep
far inland to the very foot of the
hills;
Yet they saw enough to make them
recall the grim memories of
Taleisen’s shore ... and wonder if
circumstance would be added to
the legend of the Lost Lowland
Hundred.
Pages 33 and 34 describe the
ensuing horrors and reparations made by gangs of boys with masters leading,
looking like scurrying ants ...
... their rudimentary defences
were fortunately not tested, as the wind veered, allowing the water of the bay
to return to a degree of normality.
 |
"The Bed" Toulouse Lautrec 1893 -
looks too comfortable for me! |
For their exertions they
rewarded themselves with a lie-a-bed the next morning in place of early school!
Borth was not too bad, Ynyslas
suffered severely, the surrounding countryside too – the school could and did
help with a subscription to replace the cottagers’ losses.
They also put their backs into
helping with the clear-up – for what had
started out as “something not altogether unpleasing to us in the calamaties of
our neighbours,” but the “humorous ruth” with which we contemplated the comical
incidents of the disaster was exchanged in good time for practical pity.
 |
| Railway crossing the Dovey |
It was
a fortnight before the next train ran, but in the meantime the service was
bridged by coach and horses.
There
was another privation! – you would only know the football field at Ynyslas was
there – from the goal posts rising mournfully through the floods, were a
landmark which the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned
and deformed landscape.
Within
three weeks the elements caused us alarm.
A heavy gale got up in the evening of February 19th, and
roared all night upon the roof of the hotel, tearing up the fluttering tiles in
patches, and sending them adrift through the air ...
... yet
it was dry ... exceeding cold – but the schoolboy is hungry at all times; what
must he be at night when dragged from bed to save his life, and forced to sit
up, rather chilled and very empty, for several hours before daybreak?
... the
Headmaster appeared with “a Midnight Feast” .. at least biscuits, and what
supplies could be requisitioned at the moment, to provision the watch.
Thereafter
the weeks rolled smoothly on, unmarked by moving incident, till they gladdened
us with the growing light of spring, and brought us within near sight of our
home.
Must
the truth be told? We are all of us
loyal sons of Uppingham, but not all of us were glad to find our return to the
mother-country was at last arriving.
However,
alike for those who were impatient and those who were reluctant to attain it,
the equal-handed hours brought the end of our exile.
 |
| Title page of the first quarto, 1600 |
On one
of last evenings, April 6th, a reading was given in the school-room,
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with Mendelssohn’s music; no unfit close, we said,
to our annus mirabilis.
For,
indeed, its incidents had been “such
stuff as dreams are made of,” as whimsical if not quite harmless, as if
their plot had been directed by the blithe goblin of Shakespeare’s fantasy.
The
encore of a second recital was offered to the good people of Borth ... they
enjoyed it hugely.
But a
more solemn farewell was taken on the morrow full details on page 37, but the
whole village came down to the school doors, with banners, choirs singing ...
when the cheers for “Uppingham” and our answering cheers for “Borth” had rung
out across the sands to seaward ....
... the
valediction was heard thus ...:
“We,
the inhabitants of Borth, beg to tender our most sincere thanks to Dr Thring,
and all the masters and scholars of the celebrated Uppingham School, for the
very many generous acts, and kindly feeling exhibited to us during their
sojourn here.”
... it
was added ... he commented on the discipline which (from the evidence of their
conduct when at large) seemed to rule the school; naively but pointed he noted
that ...
ü No
offence had ever been given;
ü No boy
had laughed at the villagers, if they were old and queer-looking or queerly
dressed;
ü There
had been no disorder, no shabby act, nothing “un-decent” (so he put it in his
unpractised English) during the whole twelve months we had spent among them.”
 |
| Welsh cottage |
Clearly,
as on that evening, we shall always see, distinct in the quiet light of the
afterglow, the ranks of serious faces, touched and stilled by the surprise of a
contagious sympathy, as English boys and Welsh cottagers looked each other in
the face, ...
... and
felt, if for the space of a few heartbeats only, an outflash of that ancient
kinship which binds man and man together more than race and circumstance
divide.
Take once
again our thanks, kind people of Borth, if our thanks are worth your
taking. You showed us no little kindness
in a strange land, and the day is far off when we shall forget the friendly,
gentle people whose name is the memorial of a great ill escaped, of much good
enjoyed, in the days that are over, and the landmark of who knows what greater
good in the days that are to be.
All is over now; April was just a
twelfth-night old when the school departed.
Do not let us forget Old “Borth”, the
colley dog ... whose attachment to the school and boys is described on page 38
... he poked his nose into the carriage to take his leave ... a sad and wet
farewell for so beloved a school adoption.
 |
| The Dovey Estuary |
The porpoise is once again close inshore –
wallowing like the jolly sea-pig that he is – the wild creatures seem to have
grown tamer since there are no stroller to keep them aloof.
Yes, the silence has come down again ...
but it is a silence full of voices ... men hear most audibly the tumult of
their own brains, so is it with us now.
Action is ended, and memory begins to work.
 |
| Borth early 1900s |
The little fishing town has returned to its
“old solitary nothingness” ... a sleepy sadness descends ... we go our separate
ways ... sea-shore returns to Borth village, transposed school returns to
Middle England where it rightfully belongs.
Thirteen centuries ago the hero became the
guardian of the shore; but the story which ends to-day is, perhaps, as worthy
note as any he watched from his hill-side.
The local paper, The Cambrian News, carried
the farewell report (see pages 40 and 41) together with the story of the rumour that came to Borth some twelve
months ago respecting the advent of Uppingham school ...
... a
few old women and nervous people, in the innocence of their hearts, were afraid
they would be swamped by an inundation of Goths and Vandals.
Thus the Final Act has come about ... of
this small narrative – one final post will reveal the source and highlight some
of the changes that have occurred within the intervening 135 years ...
PS I have a funeral to go to in Cornwall - so I'll be back Wednesday. Someone who lived a long, happy and productive life dying peacefully in her sleep aged 95 - it will be a celebration of a life well-lived.
Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories
Another
cracked title – but the book has the same name – while the words certainly
entrap you ... a very typical British romantic comedy-drama built around a very
odd premise ... bringing fly fishing to the Yemen.
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