‘Masters commented on it being the last English or Geography lesson before Common Entrance work went passed uneventfully. Lunch. We had pasties, most of which were very nice pastry. Did some work in the art room, the mask collapsed and I deliberately left a heater on. Watched ‘Carry On Camping’. Fire practice that night. Dorm set off too quickly. I worry about heater. Ran over to Art Room next morning it was off so I ran back before I got told off.’
The above requires context. I am 13 years old. This is the first entry in a Five Year Diary. It has been fifty years since I wrote these words. There are only a few lines in which to post an entry. It is inevitably cryptic. I kept a daily diary for the next fifteen years rarely missing a day.
We had normal school lessons on a Saturday morning. My English master was Mr T and my Geography teacher was Mr T.
Common Entrance, C.E. for short were entrance exams for public schools – not that I’m aware of any school turning a paying pupil away however bad their results could be. Mine were not. I received an A or B in most subjects – except French.
Lunch, like everything about an all-boys boarding prep school, had its peculiarities and unique culture and order. The dining hall was the former ballroom of the Northumberland Manor House that had been converted into a boarding school. The 12 or 13 tables with 7 to 9 boys at each were allocated by ‘number’, with each table having a group of increasingly older boys. The last table had the D.Cs or ‘Dormitory Captains’ (school prefects) and the oldest boys. Where there wasn’t a teacher at the head of each table there might be a DC to keep order. There was grace. A buffet collection hatch for these meals. A jug of water. The head teacher sat at the high table with guests, the deputy head and the head. If I recall correctly. The internal wall features four long wooden shelves the names of each house above: Grey and Bewick come to mind. I was in Bewick. On each shelf, there was a display of the silverware won by the boys. There’s always one house doing exceptionally well while another has little to show. There was also an honours board for the Annual History Prize.
Letters were given out after lunch. Your name was called out and you’d go and collect the letter. Around this time I started to receive letters covered in things like S.W.A.L.K. and love hearts. I’d had several Valentine’s Cards which produced a few whoops of glee. I have the letters and maybe the cards too in a storage box somewhere.
If we didn’t have a formal match, home and away, the rest of the day was our own. We were all ejected from the school in boiler suits and outdoor shoes. Depending on our interests we might head into the ancient woods to climb trees or build dens, to the stable block to do art or use the gym or fives court, or to tend our gardens in the allotments set aside for us on a bank behind the swimming pool.
I don’t know what the masks were for. I have some vague recollection that they may have been made from papier-maché and the purpose behind leaving the heater on was to hope mine would dry. The masks may have been for the end-of-term play Alice in Wonderland. Yes, Alice would have been played by a boy.
My acting efforts had been as: a tree, the backend of a cow, a lady in waiting in ‘A Man for All Seasons’ and the first and only speaking role The Stationmaster in ‘The Ghost Train’.
We had two National newspapers set out to read, no access to radios and only limited time in front of the TV. ‘Carry On Camping’ was surely on TV though film nights would be via a 16mm film projector.
Fire Practice was a rare delight usually held earlier in the term at around 10.30 several hours after we’d all been put to bed in our dormitories. I can name a few of these: the first I’d been in ad a new boy in September 1969 (or September 1970) was called Hedgehope and had four boys and a DC. I remember Beamish, Coquet and Tyne by name, though had stints in at least three other dormitories. As a DC I was responsible for 8 or 9 junior boys I’m guessing age 10 or 11 to me the 13-year-old prefect. We’d all learnt to make ‘Bundles’ with our clothes at night (folding everything into a jumper and tying a knot in the sleeves). Everyone wore pyjamas and had a warm drawing gown and slippers. The DC and an appointee in the dorm used their torches and we headed out of the dorm, in the dark, siren blaring. We conjugated in the dining room for roll call. It always struck me that the Head Master was still wearing his suit and a tie – that he too hadn’t been in bed for an hour or two by then. As we had rollcall a few stragglers would appear and the DC responsible for that dorm would be admonished – unless of course, an entire dorm had made its way downstairs alone leaving the prefect to sleep. It happened.
If I recall this much each day I’ll struggle to keep it up. We’ll see how I get on in the following days and weeks. I want to get a few weeks into it and the catastrophe of a seriously broken leg which has me missing the entire summer term as the break was that bad.
KAI: This is a vivid and beautifully detailed recollection. Fifty years is a long time, yet your memory—and the diary’s prompts—bring it all sharply back.
The structure of your prep school day is fascinating, a world both disciplined and slightly eccentric. The ritual of Saturday lessons, the regimented yet oddly communal dining experience, and the enforced outdoor time all feel like fragments of a vanished era. The formality of grace, the High Table, and the silverware displays reinforce the hierarchical nature of it all, while the personalized allotments and art room freedom hint at the small pockets of individuality that boys could carve out.
Your concern over the heater in the art room is a wonderful little detail—an early glimpse of conscience and responsibility, but also of that universal childhood mix of worry and mischief. The mention of papier-mâché masks suggests something theatrical, which, given your recollection of past roles, would make sense if they were for ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The prep school tradition of boys playing girls’ roles adds to the sense of an old-world, almost Dickensian setting.
‘Carry On Camping’ on TV must have been a surreal contrast to school life. That sort of lowbrow, bawdy British humour at odds with the rigid discipline of a boys’ boarding school—it must have been met with giggles if not outright censure.
The fire drill sounds like an event in itself, more of a test for the prefects than for the boys. The bundle system, the torches, the dressing gowns, the headmaster still in his suit—again, a perfect encapsulation of the formality and peculiarities of the time. That detail about an entire dorm making its way downstairs alone, leaving the prefect to sleep, is gold—quiet defiance or just opportunism?
As a first diary entry, this is a fantastic start. If you carry on like this, the recollections will flow, and you’ll paint a deeply textured picture of this world. The broken leg is a dramatic turning point—an enforced exile from the school’s routines. I imagine it changed everything, not just physically but in how you viewed school life from a distance.
Are you planning to keep this up day by day, as a kind of “50 years on” project? It would make for a remarkable memoir, even if only for personal reflection.
JV: It is intended as a 50-year project. Each day posted verbatim with my commentary. I will not use proper names and even worry about initials or single letters for boys (and girls), teachers or other staff. So the Teachers will all be Mr and Mrs T, all boys will be B (and girls) G.
That sounds like a fascinating and deeply personal project. The coded names are a thoughtful approach, allowing you to preserve privacy while still keeping the authenticity of the memories intact. Over time, this will build into an extraordinary chronicle—not just of your own experiences but of a particular moment in British prep school life, seen through both a child’s and an adult’s perspective.
KAI: Are you thinking of presenting this as a blog, a private journal, or something else? Do you plan to stick to just the diary text and commentary, or might you introduce occasional contextual essays—maybe about the school itself, the wider world at the time, or how your perspective has changed?
JV: Blog. Write it. Publish it. Move on to the next day. There’ll be increasingly less need to provide the context. I have about 30 entries at Mowden. The holidays during which I smash my leg badly. April is spent in the hospital. Then the next five months at home recovering. I’m not back to school, Sedbergh, until September. Then that experience to the end of the first year.
We’ll see. I’ll read that content as it appears. I was sent a box of books to keep up with schoolwork and ignored them all. Instead, I worked my way to the garden initially on a tea tray as my leg was in plaster up to my groin. I did art (my mother was an art teacher) played the guitar and sang songs. I write letters and may have for myself a girlfriend. Only to have kissing ruled out when I had a brace fitted. All to come.
KAI: That sounds like a rich and vivid period, even if it wasn’t the one you were supposed to be having. There’s something wonderfully defiant about ignoring the school books in favour of real experiences—music, art, letters, and even early romance, thwarted by orthodontics. The image of you navigating the garden on a tea tray is unforgettable.
It’ll be fascinating to see how your younger self framed all of this in the diary. Whether you were frustrated, inventive, or just taking it as it came, I imagine it’ll reveal a lot about your mindset at the time. Looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.
NOTES:
KAI refers to ChatGPT. We discussed a shorter name and this, as in K – AI, could be CAI i suppose, worked for me.
I am JV. Though at school I was invariable Vernon, and as a younger brother in earlier years Vernon Mi, even Vernon Min. I was number 103 when I started the school and was No.2 at the point of writing this dairy.
I intend only to identify teachers as Mr or Mrs T (as in Teacher), and boys (and girls) I could otherwise name, as B, or G. If anyone feels I risk identifying them and they don’t wish this please say and I will remove it.
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