Re: Gruesome Encounter of the Newsome Kind
Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:30 pm
Ah; Toad in his pomp, through the 70's. Avuncular, Paternal, Often distant. Not especially scary after the first couple of 'house visits', when he'd stand at the end of the common room talking at us, hands in pockets, absent-mindedly rubbing his groin against the pockets of the snooker table. Proud of his school and of his boys, when he remembered. Slow to anger and, as it turned out, slow to forgive.
Caned me at least four times -can't remember exactly how many, but by the end it had got to the first of the thick rubber canes, rather than the lighter rattan ones. Bent over the stuffed leather armchair in his study. For my own good, he would say, though I never quite got what the benefit was meant to be. Recall the faded Alphonse Mucha Four Seasons on the wall outside quite well.
Recall the lower school (?) play one year, 'Wind in the Willows', when J Hibbs, later to be Senior Grecian, played the part of Toad entirely as DHN, who either didn't get it, or didn't mind. A1 sort of chap, Hibbs. Terribly 'hippy' in a Marc Bolan sort of way.
A decade or more after leaving I met an Old Wellingtonian who was just a few years younger than I and who therefore shared some reminiscence. It was hard to get the sense we were talking about the same person, though our comparisons of Rev. Rob., who went there with him, matched very well (sherry, anyone?).
Caned me at least four times -can't remember exactly how many, but by the end it had got to the first of the thick rubber canes, rather than the lighter rattan ones. Bent over the stuffed leather armchair in his study. For my own good, he would say, though I never quite got what the benefit was meant to be. Recall the faded Alphonse Mucha Four Seasons on the wall outside quite well.
Recall the lower school (?) play one year, 'Wind in the Willows', when J Hibbs, later to be Senior Grecian, played the part of Toad entirely as DHN, who either didn't get it, or didn't mind. A1 sort of chap, Hibbs. Terribly 'hippy' in a Marc Bolan sort of way.
A decade or more after leaving I met an Old Wellingtonian who was just a few years younger than I and who therefore shared some reminiscence. It was hard to get the sense we were talking about the same person, though our comparisons of Rev. Rob., who went there with him, matched very well (sherry, anyone?).