My apologies for the gap in posts! I have been taking a break from raster to vector conversion.
I took a vacation in Ilfracombe – a small seaside town in the south west of England. Although Ilfracombe was a major tourist destination in the late 1800s, cheap flights to warmer climes have stolen most of its business and these days it is a bit run down. Nonetheless, it has its charm and the surrounding countryside is beautiful, with spectacular clifftop walks, babbling streams, and a long sandy beach at nearby Woolacombe.
Ilfracombe holds particular interest for me because my father was evacuated there during the Second World War. During the war, many London schools moved their students to the countryside so they would not be killed by the falling bombs. The school my father was at – Rutlish – evacuated its boys to Ilfracombe.
At the end of last year, my father wrote some reminiscences of his time in Ilfracombe:
I was one of the evacuees from the Rutlish School, Merton. Only about thirty boys left London during this second school evacuation. For the first, in September 1939 there were many more, when we went the short distance to Woking in Surrey. All of us had returned from Woking to London by New Year 1940.We left London for Ilfracombe in mid-June and had one master with us, Mr Holmes, who taught geography. I was billeted on Mrs Hurst at 30 St Brannocks Road, together with three other Rutlish boys, two girls, two very young boys and Mr Holmes himself. An enormous invasion for a lady who made her living from tourists. The girls and Mr Holmes did not stay long but we stayed for some time. We four Rutlish boys, Prior, Burgess, Howie and me, slept in one room. We younger ones learned the Facts of Life from Howie, who at fourteen was an Authority – I was twelve.
Some time later I remember there was a blockage of a sewage pipe under the front basement room and some nasties floated there in consequence. I tried on my gas mask – and found that it did work!
Mr Holmes (Clo or Cloey was his nickname – I never discovered why) was very good to us, settling us in. He took parties of us for walks, paid for (iced) drinks on the way, and treated us to the pictures to see Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase.
One of our first periods in school was a ‘prep’ run by Miss Pelling, the girls’ gym mistress, who was quite severe. It was in the chemistry lab and in those days each place had a double shelf of about 20 bottles of chemicals. The first three of these were concentrated sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric acids, then came three bottles of these acids diluted. Then ammonium sulphide solution (said to be very smelly and ideal for making stink bombs (though found disappointing in these respects)), ammonium hydroxide and a row of other chemical solutions. My neighbour (named Jones, I believe) poured a little of one of these into the adjoining sink, having carefully and quietly lifted the cover, and probably intended to add another to see what would happen, when dense fumes arose. He replaced the cover, but the fumes found their way out through the finger-holes in the cover. They were noticed by Miss Pelling, who very nearly sent him to Sam Tatton [the headmaster] for caning on his first day in school.
Caning was the order of the day. I quote from a later letter home that “two boys got the cane today 5 strokes (behind) 1 stroke (on each hand)”. My friend Harlow was caned for moving over a table rather than round it – his shoes marked the surface of the table which was new. One morning Mr Evans (woodwork) came into his workshop a little late, having left his newspaper on his desk. Whilst we were waiting Ian Milton had spotted the paper and started to read it, standing leaning on Mr Evans’ desk with his legs crossed in a thoroughly relaxed manner. Such was judged Impertinent by Mr Evans and Milton was walloped on his seat with a piece of wood.
During the summer of 1940 a German invasion was possible and some of us were taken on an open lorry to a field just before Mullacott Cross to dig anti-invasion trenches. These were perhaps ten feet long and three feet wide and the spoil was thrown between one trench and the next to provide a barrier against aeroplanes landing there. We were provided with picks and shovels. For about a foot down the digging was easy, but then was a bed of shale the removal of which was very hard work.
Later on (1941) 722 squadron of the Air Training Corps was formed at the School and on Sunday mornings Mr Stroud [chemistry master], resplendent in his Pilot Officers’ Uniform, taught us Navigation. I recently came across a booklet on Elementary Navigation for ‘Air Training Corps, Seamen and others’ which must have come from those days.
Drill and route marches were also arranged, the former by a sergeant, possibly from the Pay Corps, whose name was something like Gatterer – I only heard it ever spoken. One day he showed us a ’sticky bomb’ – a grenade covered with strong adhesive and mounted on a handle. He especially stressed that on no account should the thrower bring it over his back such as to stick on to the back of the head or shoulder. Something I have never forgotten! Sgt ‘Gatterer’ had a very fine moustache.
Dicky Britton lived at Loxhore. He always came to school in his motor car, passing us in Highfield Road in a somewhat battered ancient tourer, open in most weathers, and I suppose this explains how he got the petrol – he would have had no other means of getting to school. Dicky Britton taught French, but in the ‘prep’ periods which he took he often used to give the class a little mathematical puzzle to solve – how much water could flow in how long from a pipe of such and such a diameter….
One sight always worth seeing was the cooling of coke at the gasworks. There was a low wall between the Hele Road and the gasworks giving a good view into the works and at certain times red-hot coke would be transferred from the retorts to a large iron basket mounted on wheels. This handcart was wheeled out and positioned under a row of water pipes. When these were turned on a dense white cloud formed and arose above the surrounding land.
The harbour too was always of interest. At low tide the way down was by rickety and corroded iron ladders. In places the corrosion was such as to leave a thin connection between base and ladder which when broken appeared as two sharp spikes. In a letter home I drew the propeller of a ship with several holes in the bottom which was beached in the inner harbour in 1940 – it was minus one blade and with other blades badly chipped.
I never remember being oppressed by homework at School – perhaps one hour maximum. School was what one did during the day, one’s normal occupation and was usually interesting. I never thought of the future, or jobs – my horizon was the ending of the war, which of course we should win, and return to London, which I did at Christmas 1943. Life was lived for the present. There was the countryside to explore, the Ilfracombe Field Club (Mr Stroud once talking to a Club meeting on “Temperature”), books to read from the town library, and the Museum. I was interested in the natural world and although boys did not do biology, Ian Milton and myself used to help in the Museum. Mervyn Palmer, the Curator and Librarian encouraged us and we restored the aquarium, refilling the tanks with sea creatures (sea-pools being only 100 yards away) and reviving the ancient aeration system. In summer we found wild flowers and set them out with their names for visitors in a miscellany of pots and vases.
I never liked sport. Somehow my name did not get on to the list of those who should appear on the rugby field (Killacleave). There was some distance between the school and Killacleave and I took care never to reach it on the appropriate afternoons. In consequence I played neither rugby or cricket on Killacleave in all my 3½ years at the School. I never regretted it.
Henry Tribe, 28th December 2008
