Page 1 of 2

Fives versus Squash

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2016 8:36 pm
by rockfreak
One afternoon in the late 50s, a friend and I decided to play squash. We knocked on the door of Col B junior housemaster Bob Rae to ask for the squash balls. Rae eyed us darkly and wanted to know why we were not going to play fives. I was a rather shy and deferential youth back then so I failed to say: "Because we happen to want to play squash, you steaming great ****. Why do you think we're carrying squash rackets?" Rae reluctantly gave us the squash balls but gave us to understand that next time he would expect us to be playing fives. To this day I've pondered as to why bashing a ball around a court with a padded glove was somehow superior to bashing it with a racket. One of the strange quirks of CH at that time. Can anyone shed light? Perhaps Dr Scuffil can do the pedagogic shuffle and come up with a suitably rational and academic theory.
I think I've inadvertently put this on the Board Index site instead of CH Stuff. The moderators are much better equipped than I to move it. My relation to computers is still rather like that of Catweazle who was always surprised by "electrickery".

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:31 am
by michael scuffil
Dr Scuffil has no rational explanation. But maybe asking Rae for squash balls was rather like asking Fryer for soccer balls. Rae did actually play fives himself, and probably looked down on effete squash players who didn't have to bend down so far to hit the ball. Rationally, I suppose, he could have adduced the argument that playing squash in a fives court (there were no squash courts) constituted court abuse. But I think it was just: squash is more fun, therefore less character-building.

This attitude extended even to 'football' (i.e. rugger). On the one occasion that I remember when someone kicked a drop goal, he was damned with faint praise by John Page: 'Okay, but let's have tries next time.'

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 2:41 pm
by J.R.
I enjoyed playing both fives and squash.

And as to saying the word 'football' in front of NTF. That would produce a Welsh glare.

Even worse - the word 'soccer' was likely to evoke something akin to a death sentence.

And on the subject of sport and Coleridge B, am I not right in thinking that junior housemaster R.A. (Okay ?) Hewitt played rugby for Harlequins ??

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 3:06 pm
by LongGone
Padded glove! What's wrong with your hand?

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 5:28 pm
by michael scuffil
J.R. wrote:I enjoyed playing both fives and squash.

And as to saying the word 'football' in front of NTF. That would produce a Welsh glare.

Even worse - the word 'soccer' was likely to evoke something akin to a death sentence.

And on the subject of sport and Coleridge B, am I not right in thinking that junior housemaster R.A. (Okay ?) Hewitt played rugby for Harlequins ??
You could say 'football' to him -- as long as you meant 'rugby'. He used to put up notices headed 'Football'. I don't suppose he objected to the WORD 'soccer' -- only to the game.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:58 pm
by sejintenej
J.R. wrote: And on the subject of sport and Coleridge B, am I not right in thinking that junior housemaster R.A. (Okay ?) Hewitt played rugby for Harlequins ??
Kit Aitken played for them prior to WWII

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:25 pm
by rockfreak
RA (Alright! OK!) Hewitt certainly played club rugby for someone, quite possibly Harlequins, because on one occasion he got a less than favourable mention in a report in one of the national papers and protested that it was grossly unfair. Rather predictably, we were all massively amused. The other time one of our housemasters got into the papers was when AH Buck got nicked in London for being what I think would then have been called drunk in charge, in other words, rat-arsed while driving around Soho in his old jalopy. It might not have been Soho - I might be jumping to conclusions there.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:56 pm
by postwarblue
Squash, I have read, was born in the Fives courts at Harrow in the 1860s. Colonel Rookes Evelyne Bell Crompton RE was at Harrow 1858-60 and was later a leading light in Squash and worked on standardising its rules. Before Bob Rae, AH Buck (to whom Bob Rae came as junior housemaster ca. 1953) was a keen Fives player. Drawing a pair of Fives gloves, I discovered, could provide a restful afternoon skiving in an unfrequented Fives court, and delivered a useful contribution to my exercise avoidance drive. I have never discovered why chasing balls about in the afternoon seemed so important to so many. Looking at later photographs of Rae it is not clear that Fives was a useful aid to the maintenance of a slim figure.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 7:35 pm
by rockfreak
You're more up to date on Bob Rae than I am Robert. Certainly he was quite slim, and young looking, when I was in Col B. I guess there are two ways of looking at physical exercise. Some pursue it into later life. Then there is the Evelyn Waugh opinion: "After a while the poisons in the body have about come to terms with each other and shouldn't be shaken violently."

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 10:01 am
by michael scuffil
rockfreak wrote:RA (Alright! OK!) Hewitt certainly played club rugby for someone, quite possibly Harlequins, because on one occasion he got a less than favourable mention in a report in one of the national papers and protested that it was grossly unfair. Rather predictably, we were all massively amused. The other time one of our housemasters got into the papers was when AH Buck got nicked in London for being what I think would then have been called drunk in charge, in other words, rat-arsed while driving around Soho in his old jalopy. It might not have been Soho - I might be jumping to conclusions there.
WPC ('Phil') Davies (junior housemaster, ThB) got into the papers when he lost his shorts playing for England (or the British Lions). John Page, the senior housemaster, cut the picture out and put it in the house record book.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 11:27 am
by JohnAL
If I remember correctly AH Buck (Buckie) was driving back to CH from London, under the influence and probably slowly and deliberately. He decided to go straight across a roundabout (rather than follow the more conventional route round its periphery). A constable saw him do this and so after a court appearance the exploit ended up in a newspaper report.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:50 pm
by Kit Bartlett
The A.H.Buck incident happened in Streatham High Road on his way back from an Amicables Dinner in London. and is mentioned in the book "More than a brother" which was a collection of correspondence between AHB and Edmund Blunden. He had crashed into a central road barrier.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 5:15 pm
by michael scuffil
It happened just a few weeks before his resignation (aka dismissal), and was thus quite useful in that the school could (and did) imply that his drink was the problem, rather than the other. In fact, in the above-mentioned book, the editors, in an end-note, say the 'over-familiarity' occurred 'after some heavy drinking'.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 8:00 pm
by rockfreak
I don't wish to go into details since John Rutley has already closed down the AH Buck thread after my intervention some time ago, but the "Exonerate AH Buck" campaign seems to have done a very good job in "massaging" this whole affair, with a long dead poet having unwittingly played his part. And indeed Buck's view of it has been immortalised in print. Ah, the power of the printed word! As a retired journo I can attest to that. Since I seem to be the only person posting who was actually in Col B at the time of Buck's dismissal, can I assure Michael that it was indeed dismissal rather than resignation and that no-one in the house then was remotely surprised when Seaman came in early in the summer term of 1956 to announce it.
My own view on this is "good riddance" since, although Buck was a dedicated teacher and indeed had his good points personally, he presided over a house where bullying and nastiness were endemic, monitors were free to throw their weight about, and his own personal failings were a kind of invitation for the older boys to take liberties. Robert Griffiths has made similar points elsewhere. I suppose that back then all this would have been considered "character building" and, indeed, something of a lark. Well, I think we've all been on the proverbial learning curve since those days and the evening TV news regularly throws up instances of abuse, lives ruined and the authorities closing ranks. They tell me boarding schools have changed. I would like to think so but I didn't take the risk by trying to send my kids.

Re: Fives versus Squash

Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 12:23 pm
by Kit Bartlett
No one would want to open a can of worms on this subject but the arrival of C.M.E. Seaman led to other masters' services being terminated, a polite way of saying dismissed. I know of two such cases who went in 1955 and 1957. I did see a reference in The Blue much later, it may well have been when
he retired in 1970 on the successful task he had made of "cleansing the Augean Stables" .
Norman Longmate in "The Shaping Season " refers to a junior House master who suddenly disappeared at the end of one term. The reason was generally known but not discussed much at the time apparently.