FIRST TERM
StR,—I don't think Shrewsbury was quite so awful as Brian Inglis makes it appear, nor were the boy- imposed taboos and tyrannies quite so rigidly main- tained. There was generally a way round. for any- one prepared to use a minimum of ruse. During my first term I was going through the usual Hardy phase of adolescence; it would, of course, have been more than my life was worth to have been seen reading Hardy, but it was easy enough to cover up Tess or Jude with the yellow bindings of the Crime Club, and there were similar devices for defeating most of the stupider Not-Dones. Fourth league football was compulsory; one had to go to the ground, but it was impossible to ensure that the fourth leaguers actually played; in fact, most of our time on the ground was taken up with reading or discussion, once we had suitably mud- died our boots. The OTC was no doubt 'volun- tarily compulsory': but by persistently losing equipment and by breaking a Lewis gun, it was possible, with diligence, to be thfown out of it. It was possible, too, not to pass Certificate A, by do- ing as one of my friends did and reply to every question with the answer, 'Dig a latrine.' for which he was beaten by the headmaster (he was later killed in the war). Indeed, the very existence of these taboos and obligations ('Everyone will watch the House match') and their infringement greatly reduced the boredom of life.
When one reached a certain level of privilege, without attaining the grade of monitor, one was almost completely unpunishable; and from this ex- alted and happy position, it was possible to do enormous damage to the whole complicated struc- ture of 'service and responsibility.' However awful the house, and mine was certainly the most awful, the school did produce a remarkable number of complete rebels, individualists who are unlikely ever to lie down under any form of organised institution, for the rest of their lives, and this surely is a justifica- tion—if rather a backhanded one—Of the 'system.'
As a result, a number of Salopians became con- scientious objectors, others retired to Dublin for the duration, and, for every one Richard Hillary, there were several eminent members of the British Communist Party.
Shrewsbury, for all its boy-imposed barbarisms, ' bullyings and tyrannies, certainly did produce then some remarkable personalities; and many may at present be found among novelists, journalists and Members of Parliament. Two of my own house mates are, I believe, still serving very long, sentences in HM prisons, for embezzlement.
I think it should be -added,- too,- that -most of the bad old ways--`colour' exams and the collective moral torture of 'new scum'--are 'now things of the past; it is now quite possible to listen to music without being persecuted. My own house is a quite unrecognisable haven of liberalism and happiness. an woos coon The University of Leeds, Leeds, 2
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