Uppingham-by-the-Sea ... the narrative draws to a conclusion ...

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 15^th and 16^th 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 14^th – 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 22^nd 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 7^th 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 29^th 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 30^th 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 19^th, 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 6^th, 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

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