My Last Day at School

Written on 19 July 1963
By Peter A. Douglas
Pupil at Trinity High School, 1956-1963

It dawned grey.  Today I knew that everything that I did, everything that was usual, would be for the last time.  It would be the last time that I would straighten my school tie or put on my green blazer.  At school, too, there would be the same accumulation of superlatives: the last assembly, the last duty, the last time.  After the final assembly several of us retired to the Prefects' Room to collect all our kit from the shelves in the Senior room.  I put away my plimsolls, worn for the last time last night at Cricket Club. 

I cleaned up some old exercise books, every page a memory.  Also old exam papers and text books which I presently gave to Mr. Meldrum.  I did not feel like playing chess, so I watched Robert Lacey playing with Colin Skears, Hugh Thomson, and several others. 

We were still in there when the bell for break rang at 10:45.  Roderick Farey was sitting by me.  As the minutes of break ticked away, the vociferous cries of the school could be heard from the playground.  The rumour over the last few days had been that Farey, next year’s Deputy Head Boy, and not a very popular prefect throughout this year, was going to be thrown into the fishpond.  The cries that we could hear evidently summoned Farey's presence in the playground.  Naturally he was reluctant and declined, despite Ian McIlravie's efforts to pull him out.

It was then that I left the Prefects' Room in order to see the disturbances I went into the Library where I had a perfect view of the green turmoil which jostled and shouted as it moved from the playground, below the cloakrooms, into the grass quadrangle.  Then, to my right, through the window I saw Farey appear, with several prefects about him, on the top steps leading from the Music Room.  Amid the cries of the tumult beneath, two or three fifth year boys went up towards him.  He was grinning nervously.  They seized him and dragged him down the steps and across the grass towards the fishpond, which was murky and weedy.  He now began to struggle and fight, and his expression was now one of incredulous fear and vain terror.

At this I opened the window, stepped out on to the ledge outside, and jumped to the ground.  I began to make my way towards the writhing mass of bodies that surrounded the victim.  There was a muffled splash, but the crowd hid the incident from me.  The deed accomplished, the crowd quickly dispersed and there emerged from its centre the sorry and bedraggled figure of Farey.  Behind him I saw Adrian Hoffman swinging punches at the fifth formers about him.  Farey, though the centre of attraction still, was now a solitary figure, accompanied only by the amused gazes of the retreated mob.  I was standing with a fifth former, and Farey walked towards us.  We were discussing the fact that we did not think that they would really do it – but they did!  He walked sloshingly and clumsily in our direction with an expression of amazed disgust on his face.  His twisted clothes were highlit by their wetness.  He turned and went up the steps towards the Library entrance, and his sloshing footmarks went up the steps and then right towards the Science Block, this side of the lavatories.  It seemed that his quick yet undecided walking were preventing him from losing his temper.  That was the last I saw of him for a while.  There were several prefects on top of the steps in the playground, and I joined in their discussion.  We then let the school in after the break was over.  First and second formers were peering from the rooms in the Tower Block.
 

After break I went down to the Prefects' Room again.  We discussed the Farey incident and Pooley went to his house to fetch some dry clothes for him.  Farey showed himself after break, changed and almost proud now, as if some kind of hero, worthy of praise and honour for undergoing what he had.  Pip Thomas, Nick Thomas, Lacey, Mac, Eyton-Jones, John Tero, and John Courtney had taken off their school blazers and ties and put on their "civvies" to go out for a drink.  Then Mr. (Gunner) Wright was seen to come past the window, as if coming down here about Farey.  Quickly they ripped off their jackets and put their blazers back on.  I've never seen anyone move so fast!  But he did not come down, so they changed back and disappeared to the White Lion and were not seen until about two o'clock.  I watched Bernard Brown, Valerie Humber, Bob Jones, Ian Calder, and Robertson playing brag for about an hour.  At lunch time I went down to the shop for a fruit pie, some crisps, and chocolate.  Later on Dave Betts played Roger Barnes at chess.

Just before two o'clock I was waiting by the Library for Mr. (Spike) Clements. By the Staff Room I handed him several history books and then he chatted with me at some length.  We walked up to Room 3 and then to the Library and he talked about university, but I eventually got away from him and went out to help with entrance.  I then returned to the Prefects' Room.  By this time, Paddy Davies etc. and his boozing companions had come back.  We sat about the room for about half an hour before the end-of-term service.  Nick Thomas' and M. Eyton-Jones' breath stank of beer, as, I suppose, did the others', and they were deliberating jokingly on the consequences of bidding the Head Master, Mr. Howard (Buzzer), farewell in that condition.

After the inevitable couple of hymns and prayers, the school was dismissed, beginning with the first years.  The staff had gravitated to the rear of the Hall and we were dismissed at the end and we shook hands with them: Mr. Harris, Mr. E.G. Bennett, Mr. R. Bennett, Mr. Meldrum, Mr. Hartwell, Mr. Timms, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Hill.  Peter Drinkwater praised Mr. Baker for his impression on the school, and Mr. Hartwell then took a photograph outside of Lacey, Jackie Ambler, Drinkwater, and myself.

We then returned to the Prefects' Room and made a final gathering together of our effects.  MacIlravie had brought a gun, which he let off with a loud report – it was only a starter's pistol!  We bade each other our final farewells to seven and three years of friends.  Val Rhodes had her autograph book.

As I went out of those gates with Bob Lacey on our mopeds I left behind me seven years of my life.  I did not exactly feel sad, but rather sentimental.  We delivered John Wright's report book and school magazine, and went home by way of Boughton Green Road and Moulton. It was a sunny, warm day now.  On my arrival home I found some correspondence from my Leeds University; half an hour ago I had just left one life behind, to be greeted bluntly by another life to come.

Since leaving Trinity Peter went to the University of Leeds and got a degree in English. In 1967 he worked in the Abington Street library for a while and later got library qualifications in Liverpool.  He worked in public libraries in London (Brent) 1969-1974.  He married an American in 1971 and in 1974 went to the USA.  He has been living in upstate New York ever since -- Albany, the state capital.  Peter is now Senior Librarian in the Talking Book & Braille Library at the New York State Library.  This is associated with a Library of Congress programme that since the 1930s has been providing Braille and recorded public library books and magazines to people who can't read or hold a book because of a visual or other physical disability.  While the national programme (Library of Congress) has been around since the 1930s, the New York State Library for the Blind (as it was called) has been around since 1896.

Peter recently retired.