Wider Horizons: Two Weeks in July
How the School Year Ended in 1963
Peter Douglas writes:
That part of final term at Trinity High School after surviving
the exams and before the end of the school year was a strange time
for everyone. We didn’t really have anything to do, but we had to be
there.
 We spent a lot of time in the Prefects’ Room, playing chess and
cards, drinking tea, and listening to music on the radio, as well as
the second Test Match from Lord’s against the West Indies in late
June. A lot of us were cricket fans, and we listened intently as
Freddie Truman socked them with his fast balls and Ken Barrington
was bowled out for 80 by
 Frank Worrell. There was cricket for us
too, practice and the cricket club, and even tennis on one occasion.
This was played on the courts up by the Tech College, with Val
Rhoades, Pip Thomas, and John Wright also participating. On July 10
we went in two coaches to Stratford to see “Julius Caesar.” Other
theatrical entertainment involved taking the afternoon off with
Peter Drinkwater and Bob Lacey for a visit to the Savoy to see
Vincent Price in Poe’s “Tales of Terror,” and Ray Milland in “Panic
in the Year Zero.” Another day, John Wright and I skived off to the
Plaza to see “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”
 On July 11 there took place the cricket match against the staff.
Our team included Nick Thomas, Alan Pooley, John Wright, Bob Lacey,
Colin Skears, Williamson, Trev England, Higginbottom, and Bob Jones.
The staff team included Mr. Rayton (I got him out LBW), Mr. Jones,
Mr. Baker, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Grimshaw, Mr. Strickland, Mr. Evans, Mr.
Fellowes, Mr. Holland, and Mr. Baxter. The next day brought the
Inter-House Cricket Finals, where Kelvin beat Blakeman.
And so our final THS summer passed, easily and lazily. For a
while, anyhow. Even with the dwindling days and weeks crammed with
such casual activities, someone in the school administration
evidently thought that we were having a problem filling our time, or
at least filling it wisely, hence the “Wider Horizons” programme was
conceived.
I strongly suspect that Gunner Wright was very much behind this,
for it certainly had his stamp on it, and when it was over it was he
who conducted the Inquisition. On July 2,
 Gunner gave us his
introductory talk to what we discovered was to be a lecture series
for our edification, and attendance was delicately but firmly
described as “not voluntary.” The idea, boiled down from Gunner’s
more positive explication and translated into our point of view, was
merely to occupy our time and keep us from hideous idleness and the
tendency towards mischief in that vacant and otherwise useless space
between exams and leaving school. Clearly chess, brag, and slipping
off to the pictures wasn’t doing it for Gunner, and we needed to be
kept busy.
The official purpose of this bright idea was to provide us with
some life-fundamentals that would help to prepare us for our
emergence into the world beyond the school gates, that awful terra
incognita where things like mortgages, insurance policies, and the
need to be fiscally responsible would soon bedevil us. Even those of
us who were putting off work a bit longer by going to university
would, they presumably reasoned, still need to know all about things
like bank accounts as we handled our grants.
To accomplish this miracle, representatives of various
professions and interests were invited to speak to us about the
world in which they worked or otherwise had knowledge of. Unlike
most of what had been recently stuffed into our heads, from Caesar’s
Gallic Wars to quadratic equations to Milton’s Samson Agonistes,
these were to be practical and useful matters.
Theoretically valuable and constructive, and occasionally
comical, much of the “Wider Horizons” programme was far from
inspiring. The basic problem was that we found it too depressing,
rushing us prematurely towards the climax of our insular school days
by emphasizing our imminent collision with the cold workaday world.
It was a dismal prospect. We had appreciated if not enjoyed the cosy
cushion of the scholarly life jammed between infancy and reality,
and, moreover, most of us were destined for a cushy three-year
academic interlude at university. For those of us who had expected
days of quiet and unstructured idleness before the end of term, the
prospect of more classroom stuff, especially those tedious adult
matters, was appalling.
 It soon became clear that the presenters would be both teachers
and visitors, all supposedly experts in various useful areas of life
and society. Despite sinking hearts, in fact some of the compulsory
lectures turned out to be quite entertaining if not exactly
practical. The subjects of the teachers’ talks formed an odd
mixture, and the undeniable impression we had was that they were
guided by what they knew rather than what was actually useful.
Anyway, it was a neat insight into some private corners of our
teachers’ pastimes and interests. For instance, on July 8 Taffy
Newell spoke to us on Shakespeare and the Welsh in “Henry V.” Who
knew that our physics teacher knew so much about Fluellen? But Taffy
was always very good with the comic relief!
On the same day, Ian (Jock) Meldrum spoke on Voluntary Service
Overseas, and Dr. Chater showed us how to play contract bridge.
Teaching us new card games? Perhaps this was going to be better than
we thought, we thought! Mr. Adams spoke about art, Mr. Hill gave a
talk on George Orwell, and Mr. Baker told us about Gilbert and
Sullivan. On another day, Mr. Waller spoke on furniture, and Jack
Linnell gave us some Do-It-Yourself hints, showing us how to cut
glass and tile, and how to take care of paint brushes, to the great
amusement of the many “botchers” in the audience who hated the
woodwork and metalwork classes, producing rickety tea trays and bent
pokers.
 The
most hilarious staff session was when Messrs Clements, Grimshaw,
Hasdell, and Adams showed us how to play golf. This was, I suppose,
a more enlightened idea of what skills would be necessary on the
outside! They showed us a film about the South African golfer Bobby
Locke, and we went out to the playing fields where the teachers
demonstrated some strokes, and we had the chance to practice with
Spike’s clubs. There were no serious injuries, and I for one found
golf on the playing fields preferable to rugger, being allowed to
remain upright and bruise-free. It was somewhat farcical afternoon,
and we all had a good laugh and enjoyed a more familiar and relaxing
time in the company of our teachers than we were accustomed to.
Talks by people from the outside included something about how the
court system works, presented by a Mr. J. Brook-Taylor, a
magistrate’s clerk, and some financial hints by the Borough
Treasurer, Mr. Salt, along with a Mr. Ramsey from Lloyd’s Bank.
Information on trades unions was presented by Mr. P.E. Tompkins, and
Mr. Peter Haddon spoke on choosing and buying a house. There was
also something about the oil industry by a Mr. Crofts.
 One of the
most interesting talks, to me at least, was on the production of a
newspaper, given by Gerald Freeman, the father of Trinity pupil and
my friend Jeremy Freeman (who died from a heart condition at a young
age in the 1950s) and editor of the Chronicle and Echo. (In 1953,
Mr. Freeman used to take Jeremy and me to Cedar Road School in his
black Austin 7.) There was also something about insurance that was
as dull as it sounds, but such dry times were enlivened later by the
visit of a couple of vicars, who prompted lively debates and
arguments about religion.
Without doubt the most memorable and notorious of these talks was
when we trooped to the Civil Defence HQ on Cromwell Street for a
couple of sessions led by a Mr. Martin about nuclear war and how to
live through its horrors. We were shown a film on fallout, blast,
heat, and radiation. We were told what to do to survive an atomic
war and the various preparations that far-sighted local authorities
had made for such a disaster.
This was, of course, 1963, two years after the founding of
“Private Eye,” and a year that saw the blossoming of new and
necessary satirical attitudes towards authority and its pompous
representatives who were armoured by certainties that youth had to
question. It was the height of the Cold War, and the threat of
nuclear attack was perceived as serious. It was also the time of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other organizations that were
protesting the arms race in which the USA, the USSR, and Britain
were the chief participants. Naturally, being bolshy and
independent-thinking teenagers and rebellious CND types, we gave the
poor fellow a hard time. Mr. Martin neither anticipated nor
understood the strength of feeling in his audience on this matter.
His bland assumptions about what he thought would be our wide-eyed
support and polite acceptance of his and the country’s policies were
soon shattered by our noisy objections to his insipid and deluded
optimism concerning something so horrible and unthinkable.
This lecture session lasted two days, and on both occasions there
was a question time, which basically turned into an argument time.
We ended up in quite a confrontational situation as we greeted what
we considered his dangerous and simplistic ideas with amusement and
disgust. He offered what seemed to us to be a facile interpretation
of the nuclear situation, where, apparently, with adequate education
and preparation on the part
 of the general public, a nuclear
exchange was survivable (with some inevitable casualties, of
course). By minimizing the horrors, this sorry government stooge
seemed to be doing his best to make it all happen! His naïve ideas
and ridiculous assurances had hit a raw nerve in us, and we didn’t
accept at all that we should just go along with this. Making such a
war acceptable was next to making it inevitable! This wasn’t the
final session in our “Wider Horizons” series, but it fell close to
the end, and provided a stirring injection of new interest and
intensity into our flagging and cynical attitudes.
At the conclusion of these talks, on July 16 there was a “Forum,”
presided over by Mr. E.G. Bennett. This was an evaluation of the
“Wider Horizons” concept and the specific talks that we had endured
over the preceding fortnight. Mr. Bennett encouraged us to be
honest, and we were, and the truth of our feelings was not hidden by
tact!
Two days later Gunner gathered us all in the library for a forum
of his own. He had received our frank comments and criticism, and
knew how we felt about this lecture series. As I recall it, it was a
typical Gunner performance, his ostensible wish to be fair and treat
us like the adults we were soon to be was belied by his customary
cold, blue stare that deterred the very honesty he seemed to be
demanding. Our impoliteness to the Civil Defence man was not well
received, and Gunner had a few choice words to say about that. I
believe we tried to make the point about the value of independent
thought and personal beliefs, but it was still just bad manners to
Gunner. Evidently this sort of freethinking was one part of the
adult world that they were not preparing us for.
The next day, July 19, we left school forever, and entered wider
horizons of our own.
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