Chapter V: Grammar School
Despite being taught in a one-teacher school, with the teacher having to cope with the teaching of the whole range of pupils from five to fourteen, I must have been well prepared for the examination in July,1918 which, if passed, qualified you for a Free Place or a Fee-paying place in the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Carmarthen. I well remember the fateful day of the examination. At any rate, some details stand out vividly in my memory, while others are only vaguely remembered.
After rising early in the morning, and after breakfast, Mother told me to go and clean my teeth. After this operation I immediately became sick. Whether it was because I cleaned my teeth rather infrequently or it was because of nervous excitement I cannot recollect. Indeed my impression is that I was quite cool, calm and collected. However it was not an auspicious start to the day.
The next set-back was caused by the slowness of our transport. The gambo, rather than the trap, had to be used because a load of feeding stuffs had to be carried back. The progress too was very slow because our Doll was quite advanced in age and could not be cajoled into even a slight increase in pace. After covering a distance of six miles at this slow pace, we arrived at the gate of the drive leading up to the Girls’ County School, where the examination was being held. I was dumped there and then, and had to make my way up this long drive all on my own.
At the door I was met by a plump and jolly-looking girl, who promptly informed me that I was late and that the examination was already started. She led me up a flight of stairs and ushered me into the examination room. The time allotted for the various papers must have been fairly generous, for I cannot remember failing to complete them. My impression is that the papers were much more wide-ranging, and indeed more advanced than the Eleven-Plus Examination which superseded it. As far as I can remember, there were two papers in arithmetic, Ordinary and Mental, there was an English paper, and also an essay paper. I am not sure whether one or two questions in Welsh were included in the English paper. In addition to this there was a short General Knowledge paper, followed by a brief interview.
In spite of such thorough testing, I had no worries of ultimate success or failure. The picture drawn by parents of the children who sat the Eleven plus examination as being nervous and excited, and being unable to do justice to the testing of many years of education, in my opinion, was somewhat overdrawn. The parents were more concerned than the children, because they wanted their offspring to do as well, if not better, than the other children sitting the examination.
I do not remember whether a written notification of the result was sent, but I do remember that the full result was published in the local paper, the Carmarthen Journal, and there for the first time in print appeared my name. I was very pleased to see my name in the third position. It was a surprising result. The top boy , T.D. Lewis, had a total of 310 marks, the next, W.R. Davies, had 236, and the third 232. T.D. Lewis, who was nearly two years older than I must have done really well in Arithmetic for it was in that subject that he excelled in later years, and not in any other subject.
So I was going to be a non-fee-paying pupil of the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School for Boys. Those who gained fee-paying places had to pay a fee of One Pound, Nine Shillings at the beginning of each term. I did not look forward to the prospect for the simple reason that I would be unable to go home from school every evening but I would have to stay in lodgings, even though the school was only six miles distant from Bryngwyn. In those days there was no public transport from Panteg to Carmarthen, not even from the halfway stage where our minor road joined the main road. There was a gradient, quite steep in places, all the way down to Carmarthen.
I wonder whether the fact that I was an only child was the main cause of my unrelieved ‘hiraeth’ (a word that the Welsh maintain cannot be translated adequately into English. But I think that the word ‘homesickness’ conveys its meaning.) I remember the well-known doctor-turned minister of religion, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones, in a Radio talk about his boyhood, saying some such words as these: ‘Never send your child to a Boarding School. When I was sent to the school in Tregaron, I had to stay in lodgings in the town during the week. I suffered such ‘hiraeth’ that I longed for the end of the week so that I could go home to my father and mother.’
That was how I felt, but I was not as fortunate as Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. I could not go home for the weekend, except very infrequently. One reason for that was that we had school on Saturday morning until one o’clock, as we had a free afternoon on the Thursday, in order to play organised games, rugby or cricket. Even when I was able to go home during the weekend, my stay was a very brief one. After leaving school at one o’clock and having lunch in my lodgings, I would go to meet my parents (my mother and my uncle at first, when Father was still working in the Waun). When they had loaded up with some cattle feeds and provisions for the week, we would set out for home about half past two. I have already referred to the fact that our Doll was somewhat advanced in age and refused to be hustled along. Added to this was the fact that the road home was up-hill all the way. So progress was extremely slow, the result being that it was about five o’clock when we arrived in Bryngwyn.
Then on the Sunday morning I had to attend the service in Panteg Chapel, then home for Sunday dinner and immediately afterwards I had to make preparations to return to my lodgings with people who usually came in their trap to their old chapel from Peniel, about half way to Carmarthen. Having arrived at their home near Peniel, I would have to walk to the town, a distance of about two and a half miles. So you can see that all the time I had at home was from five o’clock on Saturday until one o’clock on Sunday, hardly enough time to throw off my ‘hiraeth’. However it must be admitted that with the passage of time I overcame to a large extent this feeling of ‘hiraeth’. I say ‘to a large extent’, because even in my college days I did not succeed in overcoming the feeling completely.
My lodgings were at No 98, Priory Street, and my landlady was Mrs Evans, a large buxom lady in her fifties, who loved mothering me and my fellow-lodgers. My fellow-lodgers, during my stay of four years in No 98, were usually two other Grammar School pupils. The kindly mothering of Mrs Evans and the company of the other two boys helped a great deal in alleviating ‘hiraeth’. Perhaps I have to admit that in spite of my having to be away from home, I had a very happy time in school, if indeed not the happiest time of my life.
I was taken to my lodgings on the afternoon before the opening day of School. My mother made the arrangements for the weekly payment (I am not sure of the precise sum, probably four shillings and a payment for the daily lunch that the landlady provided), and left sufficient food for the week. From then on, a box of provisions was brought from home every Saturday to a public house, the Red Lion, by my Uncle Dafydd, Llainbattis, who, without fail, brought farm produce for a grocer from Gorseinon. After Saturday morning school I would go and collect this box - the equivalent of the hamper excitingly described in Boys’ Own school stories.
After my mother had left and after I had tea, I had to go to a shop in Guildhall Square to buy slippers. That, I believe, was my first experience of buying an article of clothing (if slippers can be called ‘clothing’) on my own. But there is another reason for my having a vivid recollection of the occasion. When I entered the shop I was proudly sporting my new school cap, and so the lady in the shop began asking me questions, whether I was a new boy and so on. My answer each time was ‘Aye’- a sign for her, I suppose that I was a Welsh-speaking rustic. So she said, “You should not say ‘Aye’, you should say ‘Yes’.” I do not think I ever used ‘Aye’ after that.
The first day of school was very exciting, much more so than the day of the examination. It was quite obvious who were the new boys. There they were congregated near the main entrance, looking nervous and apprehensive and there I was not knowing a single one of them. After the bell was rung, we were taken into the Assembly Hall, which, as I found later, was called the Big School. It was a bewildering experience being one of about two hundred and fifty boys, whose ages ranged from eleven to eighteen, or even nineteen. There was quite a lot of talking among the boys, but there was a sudden hush. Steps were heard in the corridor, and in came the Headmaster, an imposing figure in cap and gown. That was what happened every morning after that. There was a long corridor leading to the Big School, and as soon as the Head entered it, his first step could be heard clearly, and that was the signal for all talking to cease.
If I remember rightly, there was no row of members of staff sitting down on the platform behind the Head. There may have been one or two masters in the body of the Hall. The Head conducted the short service all on his own, he even played the piano himself, and woe betide if we did not sing as well as he expected - he would make us repeat the hymn until he was satisfied. When the service was finished he would call the roll, when you had to answer ‘ad sum’. After a year or two, with the numbers of pupils increasing every year, the roll would be called by the Form Masters before filing into Assembly. A list of those not present would be taken round all the forms during the morning by one of the prefects. Everyone who was found to be late was put in detention. The detention was presenting yourself in the Form-room next to the Head’s house by 8.45 and not by 8.55, the usual time for the start of morning school. This you had to do for a whole week.
To come back to the first day. After Assembly the new boys were put in their Forms. All those who had passed the Free Place Examination were put in Form II, but two of us were put in Form I. The reason given for this was that we two were the youngest of those who had passed. The Head must have thought we should take five years before sitting the Senior Certificate of the Central Welsh Board, whereas the normal period was four years. However at the end of the first term we both came out top of the form, and as a result it was decided that we should be moved to Form II.
The first task we had to perform after being registered and after sitting down in our Form was to take down a list of the text-books we should require. Text-books were not provided free in those days, and it was only a minimum of exercise books that were provided by the school. In addition to exercise books we had to have a Homework book. All homework set by the teachers had to be entered in this book, and it had to be signed by a parent or landlord (or landlady) when the homework was thought to have been completed.
There were two ways of obtaining text-books - one by buying second-hand from the boys who had moved up a form, the second by buying or ordering the books in the Old Curiosity bookshop in King Street. Very often the shop had the books already in stock. Probably a list had been given them in good time by the School. If a book was not in stock it had to be ordered and that would mean usually a long wait. Buying second-hand was quite a tricky business, especially for a raw inexperienced new boy. The older boys, quite naturally, would try to get the highest price possible, and the new boy, in his innocence, would often have to buy a much over-priced book.
We did not look forward to the break on the first morning. We had already heard that we would have to endure the proverbial initiation by ducking, carried out by the older boys. But I do not think we all had to endure that treatment. It is more than likely that the new boys who appeared to be the cheeky and over-confident type, we made the target. The staff did not interfere and they must have thought that such treatment given to new boys was quite harmless - probably they themselves remembered having such a ducking when they were new boys.
You will have noticed that I entered the Grammar School in September, 1918, that is almost three months before the Armistice of the First World War on November the Eleventh. So it was not a normal time for the engaging of a school staff. This was bound to have had an effect on the composition of the staff at that time. There were no young men on the staff. I should think that most of them were in the forties and fifties. An unusual phenomenon in Boys’ Schools too was the presence of two or three women on the staff. I was ‘two or three’ because I am not sure whether Miss Davies, Miss Wise and Miss Littledale were on the staff at the same time or whether one of them had replaced the other.
Having had a long teaching career, I am not wholly convinced that young pupils’ assessment of their teachers is a valid one. Different pupils have different reactions and, naturally, their opinions must be immature. There is quite a lot of talk nowadays, especially in the corridors of power, about the sacking of poor teachers and about giving higher pay to those who are considered to be the better teachers. However there is very little agreement on how to make the right assessment. One opinion, seriously expressed by some, is that evaluation by pupils should be taken into account. That, in my opinion, would be quite unsatisfactory. Maybe the opinions of the more mature pupils of form VI could be admitted as one criterion.
I have given this opinion on the assessment of teachers so that my own references to the teachers of Carmarthen Grammar School may be looked upon as the opinion of one who reacted favourably to some teachers and unfavourably to others, reactions very often unjustified.
Unusual additions, but maybe usual in those days, to the staff were part-time teachers. One of the teachers from the Carmarthen Art School gave some lessons to the lower Forms, lessons, I am afraid, that were not taken seriously by the boys - Art was not a subject taken in the C.W.B. examinations! I cannot remember having any Music lessons, although there was a part-time teacher of Music in the neighbouring Girls’ School. There has been remarkable progress these days in the teaching of the various musical instruments. It was only yesterday (March 1985) that I heard in the Great Hall of the College Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, a band from a Secondary School in Wrexham with about sixty players playing all sorts of instruments. No musical instruction of any kind was given in our School. Physical Training lessons were given from 12.30 to 12.55 every morning by a part-time teacher from the Model Primary School. Neither woodwork nor metal work was taught.
There was a minister of religion teaching general subjects in the lower forms. He too may have been a part-time teacher.
I was very proud of being a pupil of the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School for Boys. It was a School that was very proud of the achievements of its former pupils, many famous names being among them. There were several huge Honours boards in the Big School recording the outstanding achievements of former pupils. This, I suppose, was intended to inspire the boys to have their names added to the Roll of Honour. But, looking back and by now having an experienced view of what constitutes good teaching, I realise that there were many deficiencies in the teaching I received. However, in fairness to the school, I was a pupil at the time when the School was being gradually brought back to normality after the disruption of the War years.
The language of the streets and of the shops in Carmarthen was English. You heard Welsh spoken only when the country people came to town for the Cattle Mart on Wednesdays and for the shopping on Saturdays. No Welsh was spoken in the School Form rooms, except in the few Welsh lessons, and even Welsh was taught through the medium of English. You had a choice of Welsh or French in Form four. Welsh was my choice, and I continued to study it up to the Higher Certificate, but I am still not sure whether the Welsh examination at the Higher stage, which I sat, was for Second Language pupils or First Language pupils. At any rate I remember that the questions set on Literature were expected to be answered in English. The only Welsh you had to write was in the translation of Unseens, and in the quotations you used in the Literature answers. I never had a conversation in Welsh with my Welsh Master, even though for one year, in Form VI, I was the only Welsh Higher pupil.
Coming from a Welsh background, with Welsh as my first language, I found it rather difficult to follow some of the masters, who spoke with an unfamiliar English accent. This was especially so in the Mathematics lessons. I remember very well in my second year, after being away from school because of a bout of influenza, I returned to find a completely new topic in Algebra had been taught. The master, realising this, sat by me and explained thoroughly how to answer questions involving simultaneous Equations. After this, when I saw such a question in the algebra paper, I immediately tackled it and was always hundred per cent sure that I had the correct answer. An argument, I suppose, in support of small classes and in support of individual teaching!
Another difference of the teaching in my time from that of today was the emphasis on the teaching of grammar. In English we had lesson after lesson on parsing and analysis into clauses, and even English essays, if marked conscientiously, had every grammatical mistake corrected. The emphasis on grammar was even greater in Latin, French and Welsh. I had my suspicions at times that parsing and analysis were taught so much because the masters realised there was a way, by so doing, to avoid having to mark the work themselves.
This was the method used:- a short passage was dictated, from which certain words were taken to be parsed or the whole passage had to be analysed into what was called ‘clause and kind’. When the work was done we were told to exchange our papers with the one sitting next to you. The master then asked us to correct, at his direction, the paper on your desk. Finally he would ask us to tell him how many correct answers we had, or possibly how many mistakes, and he would jot down on his mark book the appropriate mark. Now and again he would check some of the corrected papers to see if there had been any cheating.
This was, really, an easy way of producing marks for the weekly total, required I suppose by the Head. What were called Good Cards were given to those who had gained most marks during the week. If you had obtained five Good Cards you were given a Pink Card. The Good Cards and the Pink Cards were submitted to your Form Master at the end of term, and as a result bonus marks were added to your totals. Great importance was attached to your having the highest possible position in the Form. This position was recorded in your end-of-term report.
On the last day of term each Form had to assemble in turn in the form-room adjoining the Head’s study. The Head would issue foolscap envelopes to each pupil, who was asked to write down his parents’ name and address. Then you had to insert in your envelope your report, which had been folded so that you would not be able to read it. This was done because the report was considered to be for the consumption of the parents and not of the pupil himself. You were strictly ordered not to open the envelope until it was taken home. The staff, of course, had no possible check whether we had opened the envelope or not. Knowing that, as soon as we were released, we would run round the back of the school and open the envelopes there and then.
The tone and discipline of a school depend to a large extent on the personality and the attitude of the Headmaster. E.S. Allen, M.A., was a Cambridge University graduate, and although I do not know to what kind of school he went, I suspect that it must have been a Public School. His idea of discipline was similar to that which prevailed in the Public Schools of the last century and the beginning of this.
He gave a large amount of authority to his Prefects. They supervised Preparatory periods (Preps) in the lower Forms, and could punish misdemeanours, even talking, by giving ‘lines’. If the lines were not produced, the boy could be sent to the Head and given condign punishment. When I was a Prefect and had to undertake such a duty, I felt that the kind of control I had could not be compared with that exercised by the Rugger and Cricket Captain, who later became my co-digger in College. However, the price he had to pay for the strictness of his discipline was a great deal of unpopularity, although admired as the School Rugger and Cricket Captain.
The Prefects were supposed to report to the Head anyone caught smoking, not only in the School grounds, but even on the streets in the evening. Another offence that had to be reported was not wearing a School cap, again even if the boy was caught in the town in the evening. The prefects, on the whole, carried out their duties conscientiously. The ordinary pupil was considered to be a sneak if he informed against his fellow-pupils, but Prefects were exempt from such opprobrium - they were only carrying out their duty.
A rule that does not need to be imposed nowadays in day-schools was that all those who lodged in the town had to be in their lodgings by not later than seven o’clock in the evening. A check was made now and again by the Master, not by the Prefect, to see whether the rule was being kept. This check, however, round the lodgings was made so infrequently that many boys took the risk of returning late to their lodgings, especially if they wanted to attend a concert or were eager to see a special film in the cinema. I was unfortunate enough to be caught when an unexpected check was made on one of my rare visits to the Lyric Cinema. The punishment, if I remember rightly, was reporting to the Head’s study every morning at 8.30 until further notice.
I have mentioned that Good Cards and Pink Cards were given for good Homework and for good work in Class. Well, a kind of Bad Card was given to you if you had failed to produce your homework or if you had behaved in such a way that immediate punishment was not deserved. This card was called a Satisfecit Card - pronounced not in the correct Classical way but pronounced with a soft ‘c’ (satisfisit). It was a green card on which was a time-table for a whole week, with an empty space for each lesson. At the end of each lesson you had to take the card to the teacher who had been giving the lesson, and he had to enter on the space his initials if your behaviour was satisfactory or with a ‘Non’ if not satisfactory. If you had any ‘Non’s on your card at the end of the week, you were either given what was called a No Miss Card or if the number of ‘Non’s was considered excessive you would be put in detention, or possibly caned by the Head. I must admit that I qualified more than once for a Satisfecit Card, but, as far as I remember, I was extremely careful during the week not to have any ‘Non’s’ on it.
Before I relate an experience of mine, while in detention, I must try to give some idea of the set-up of the school buildings. There were two main buildings, at the side of one another. One was what could be called the Old School, having two separate classrooms and two classrooms, divided by a sliding partition, which formed the Big School. This building had a long corridor from a side door, near the other building, leading to the Big School. The second building situated between the Old School and the Girls’ School was the Head’s house, a very large house, many of whose rooms were at one time used for dormitories for boarders.
By the time I entered the School, it had ceased to be a Boarding School, and the three dormitories, one above the other, had been turned into classrooms. We called them the Bottom Dorm, the Middle Dorm, and the top Dorm. The Bottom Dorm had a door leading to the Head’s study and, as it was he who supervised detention, it was always held in this classroom. It was because of this convenient position that he had probably decided to be himself responsible for the supervision. He would appear in the Bottom Dorm when the detainees had assembled there, check the roll, give impositions, and then would disappear into his own quarters. At the end of half an hour, the usual period of detention, he would dismiss the detainees.
I have given this elaborate, but unclear description of the buildings in order to provide an explanation for the treatment that I suffered once. For some unknown reason, instead of the usual half-hour detention it was a detention of one hour. So when the Head came to dismiss the half-hour boys, I was left all on my own. Soon after the half-hour I saw Mr Allen carrying a garden fork and making his way to his garden nearby. When five o’clock came, I felt sure that he would appear soon in order to dismiss me. Quarter past five came and no sign of Mr Allen, half past five and still no sign, but when it was approaching quarter to six, I saw him coming from his garden, and, realising that he must have forgotten about the sole lonely detainee, I coughed in order to draw his attention. He looked towards the classroom, but showed no surprise to find that I was still there. Then he came to the classroom door, and instead of explaining why he had forgotten me, he just said, in his usual authoritative tone, ‘You may go now!’.
There is a lot said these days about the bad behaviour of children and the lack of discipline in schools. Some people are strong advocates of the return of the type of discipline found in Victorian times and at the beginning of this century. There must be an ideal type of discipline which keeps control of children and class, but also has the respect of the children. I am afraid that I have the prejudices of a child disciplined by his teachers and of a teacher who himself disciplined children. It is difficult to have a consensus of opinion on what is a desirable school discipline. Nevertheless every teacher realises that firm control of a class is absolutely necessary for efficient and successful teaching.
When during the Second World War I was stationed in Reading as an Army Educational Corps Sergeant along with a Lieutenant and a Warrant Officer, the three of us established a course of lectures for potential teachers, who when demobilised could have a crash course in teaching - a course called Emergency Training Course.
One of our lecturers was the Headmaster of Leighton Park Public School near Reading. He expressed the view that the first essential of a good teacher was firm control of his classes. He thought that the mature type of person who had undergone Army discipline and who possibly had experience, as a father, of disciplining his own children, would fill the gaps in the teaching profession at the end of the War more adequately than young students who came straight from college. But he stressed that discipline was a difficult quality to assess. He quoted an example from his own School of a young teacher who had a fine physique and indeed an imposing appearance, failing completely to keep his classes under control. He had recently appeared in his study full of tears, confessing that he was fast becoming a nervous wreck.
There is no doubt that having a strong disciplinarian as Headmaster, such as we had in Carmarthen Grammar School, makes the job of keeping discipline easier for the staff. But even then some of the teachers were thought to be too strict and too harsh, and some to be too lenient. Unfortunately the lenient ones were taken advantage of and unworthy tricks were played on them. In the end it is a moot point which of these two extremes could be considered the better teachers. In the final analysis, there was no really inefficient teacher on the staff, but it must be admitted that one of the teachers had on some occasions rather cruel tricks played on him.
I do not think I was a badly behaved schoolboy but I must confess that I was involved in some unworthy incidents. There is one I remember in particular, - an incident in which I was not honourable enough to confess my misdeed, but took advantage of what I thought was the leniency or even naiveté of one master.
This incident took place in the Middle Dorm on a very windy day - there must have been a gale-force wind blowing. During the dinner hour a boy standing near one of the windows asked me, standing on the other side of the room, to throw a book to him. I threw the book with such force that it struck the window and caused it to have several cracks. I suppose the honourable thing would have been an immediate confession to a Master or possibly a Prefect. But nothing was said! The lenient master, whose name I do not wish to divulge, took the first lesson of the afternoon. The wind was still blowing hard, and suddenly there was a crash - the window falling in and splintering over some desks, fortunately not injuring any one. ‘Now for it!’, I thought, but surprisingly the master’s reaction was such that he said, ‘Well, isn’t it lucky, boys, that I was present when it happened. Who would have thought that the wind could be so strong as to blow in the window. I shall report it myself to the Headmaster.’ And I kept mum!!
In spite of the Headmaster’s very stern discipline there were a few dare-devils who risked detection and the consequent punishment. There were two instances of extreme punishment that, to put it mildly, would not be favoured by today’s parents.
The school caretaker reported a leak in a lead pipe in the toilets - outside toilets, of course, as hardly any school in those days had an inside toilet for the use of the boys. It became obvious that the leak had been caused by a boy using a pen-knife to make a hole in the lead. The Head, in the first instance, asked the culprit to own up and receive the due punishment. But no confession was forthcoming, and so dire threats were made with still no success.
There were a few boys who had a strong suspicion who the culprit was, but following the schoolboy code of honour, they desisted from becoming ‘informers’. The ultimate threat made by the Head was that the whole School would have to turn up for lessons on Saturday morning. It must be explained that by that time Saturday school had been stopped and the normal five-day week had been adopted. This last threat again produced no confession. As it was the policy of the Head to carry out his threats, the whole school was ordered to attend on the Saturday morning, and it was woe betide anyone who failed to turn up. What was the outcome of such an extreme measure I cannot remember.
The other example of an extreme measure of disciplinary practice was the punishment meted out to two boys for an indecent and revolting misdemeanour, a misdemeanour I cannot, in all decency, describe, but that does not mean that the misdeed had any kind of sexual overtone. However, the Head was so disgusted that he washed his hands of the affair, and put the method of punishment in the hands of the Prefects. They decided that the boys should be publicly flogged, and that the flogging should be done by the Head Boy. The Head Boy had a formidable physique and presence - he was well over six feet in height and was captain of the Rugger Team, the obvious choice for inflicting the punishment. And yet it was an unlikely choice, as one of the two boys was his brother and the other was his cousin.
All the boys were assembled in Big School, and the Prefects were lined up on the stage. The two boys were led in, and in turn placed across the table on the stage, and, in awed silence, were flogged without any mercy. Yes, the Head Boy showed no mercy either to his brother or to his cousin. What would present-day advocates of the abolishing of caning in School have to say of such punishment? My memory is rather hazy on one point - did the Head Boy use a cane or did he use the traditional slipper of Schoolboy stories?
Tone and discipline are maintained not only by a regime of punishment but also by rewards. Pride in one’s school is generated both by academic achievements and by, as it were, extra-mural achievements. What were the rewards for school-work and for academic achievement? I have already mentioned the award of Good Cards and Pink Cards for good work during the term.
Prizes were awarded at the end of the year to those who came out top of each Form, or near the top. This is the practice in almost all Secondary Schools today, but I believe Carmarthen Grammar School differed at that time in its method of distributing prizes not only from present-day Schools, but even from the other schools of those days. There was no prize distribution, that is there was no Speech Day with a guest speaker. There was no invitation to parents to attend a ceremony of handing out Examination Certificates and Prize Books. As far as I can understand the system adopted by the Head, prize winners in the Lower Forms were allowed to choose their own books, but he himself chose the prizes for the boys in the Upper Forms, especially the Sixth Form.
The only prize I gained in the Lower Forms was at the end of my first year, a Form II prize. I was told to go to the Old Curiosity Book Shop to choose a book that did not exceed a certain sum. The exact sum I cannot remember, but it must have been only a few shillings. But then a few shillings could buy a book that would cost a few pounds today. You were not allowed to take the chosen book with you but it was to be sent by the bookseller, along with the other chosen prizes, to the School. Then on the last day of the term you were told to go to the Headmaster’s study to collect your prize. The prize was handed to you unceremoniously and without congratulation. I must have disposed of the book which I chose on the occasion of one of my frequent house removals. But I remember well the title: ‘French’s Command’, an apt choice, I suppose, at the end of World War One.
The Head was much more liberal in his expenditure on prizes for the Sixth Form boys. I received several quite expensive books as a Sixth former - among them Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and as one of his Latin students I had two very useful and expensive books, Lewis and Short’s Latin Dictionary and Sandy’s Companion to Latin Studies. I made good use of these two books in my Honours Course in College. Indeed, I made good use of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable too, not for any specific course but for interesting reading and for widening my general knowledge.
Tremendous changes have taken place in schools since our days. There were no School trips, no School performances to which parents might be invited, no Christmas parties, no musical performances when the School orchestra performed (there was no school orchestra!). There may have been a reason for this - we were pupils in a period when the country, and consequently the schools, was very slowly recovering from the shortages brought about by a Four Years War.
As far as my own school life was concerned there was a big change when I became a Sixth Former. Indeed the change had begun when I was in Form V. There was then an influx of young teachers on the staff - young replacements for the women on the staff, and even additions to the staff. All these were conscientious and hard-working teachers, but lacking in experience. Some were popular and some were unpopular. Some took an interest in extraneous duties. I can think of one particular Master who was not only an enthusiastic and efficient teacher, but also joined with the boys in sporting activities, especially in cricket. He would always play with the First XI as wicket-keeper when the team played non-School teams. He would sometimes arrange fixtures with teams that would entertain us quite royally. I remember one such trip with much pleasure.
We had a long bus-trip to the tip of the Gower Peninsula to play against the Port Eynon XI. It was our first experience of playing on matting, and our performance as a result was not an impressive one. But that was soon forgotten. After a sumptuous tea we were driven to Swansea and given a surprise treat. Although I have desisted so far from using names, I must name this one, E.V. Williams, as I shall have to mention his name again and that in complimentary and appreciative terms. He had booked seats for the whole team in the Swansea Empire - a rare treat for a country boy who ha not seen a Musical Comedy before. There was only one draw-back to this memorable trip - we arrived very late in Carmarthen on the Saturday night and a six mile bicycle ride faced me before I could retire to bed.
I am afraid I have mentioned one or two facts that seem to contradict what I have written before. That is the result of making a sudden leap from my first years in School to my final years. I must therefore return to the earlier period and try to maintain some kind of chronological sequence.
One seemingly contradictory fact is the one about my cycling home late on a Saturday night. By the time I had reached Form VI, and indeed a year or two before that, Saturday morning school had been stopped and so I could go home for a weekend quite frequently. To do this I needed a bicycle. That, of course, had to be supplied by my parents.
The effort made by my Father to produce a bicycle for me was one of which I should have been much more appreciative. He was still working in the Waun at the time He had found out that one of his acquaintances had a bicycle to sell, a very special one. It was a racing bicycle with yellow wooden rims to its wheels, and a back-pedalling brake. But what I should have appreciated even more than the actual buying was the fact that he spent weeks learning to ride so that he could ride the bicycle all the way from the Waun to Panteg - a distance of about thirty miles.
After the bicycle arrived, I too had to go through the trying process of learning to ride. One the road outside Bryngwyn there was a slope leading to a wide ditch at the bottom. It was on this slope that I made my first efforts. The ditch at the bottom must have had some uncanny fascination for me, for as soon as I reached the bottom I would somehow or other crash into it. This did no good to the bicycle. The result was that the wooden rim of the front wheel developed a slight buckle. But in spite of that I managed to keep it in use for a while. However, it was realised that it was in rather a dangerous condition, and so a brand new bicycle was ordered from a catalogue - a Coventry Eagle. The fact that I could go home now for weekends more frequently made my lot in School a much happier one.
To continue with my progress from the Lower Forms. Although my performance in the various subjects up to Form Five and in the C.W.B. Senior Certificate examination was by no means brilliant, and indeed not good enough to win any prizes, my progress and my result in the Senior examination must have been good enough to qualify me for further study in preparation for the Higher Certificate, the equivalent of the modern A level.
In Form IV we were given the choice of Welsh or French, a choice strongly condemned by those who believe that education in Secondary Schools in Wales should have a strong Welsh bias, or indeed that teaching in all subjects should be through the medium of Welsh.
So the subjects I sat for the Senior Examinations were English (no separate papers for English Language and English Literature, considered two separate subjects nowadays), Welsh, History, Latin, Mathematics (including Trigonometry), Chemistry and Physics. These days the bright pupils often sit the O level examination in as many as eleven or twelve subjects. But I am tempted to believe that we studied the subjects for the Senior examination to a more advanced level. At any rate, I am certain, after having had thirty eight years of experience of teaching Latin, that I can maintain that the papers set today are not as advanced as the ones I sat.
Now I can explain the remark I made about the lack of experience in teaching shown by the young teachers that had been appointed in 1921. In the Senior examination I passed in five subjects, but failed in two - Chemistry and Physics. We were taught these subjects by a teacher newly appointed straight from College. There is no doubt that he was a very keen and conscientious teacher, but he must have had the wrong approach to the preparation for the examination. Indeed, when I met him in later years, he said that he approached the syllabus in quite the wrong way and that instead of having just one success, he should have had my friend, Bill Elias and me to pass both subjects. What is ironic is that after the first year, he went on from success to success and was considered one of the best teachers on the staff.
The rules for the awarding of certificates at the Senior and Higher levels were very different from those obtaining now at the Ordinary and Advanced levels. In order to be awarded a certificate at Senior level it was necessary to pass with credit in four subjects, each belonging to four different groups; i) English Subjects, ii) Languages, iii) Mathematics and Science, and iv) Other subjects.
You could gain Matriculation to a University by obtaining passes in five subjects, each gain coming from different groups. You were not admitted to Form VI without the full Senior Certificate, and if you contemplated applying for entrance to a University and if you did not have the correct combination of subjects on your Senior Certificate, you had to sit a Supplementary examination in the necessary subject at the end of your first year in the Sixth.
As I had failed Chemistry and Physics, I had to take a Science subject for the examination. Geography was considered to be either an Arts subject or a Science subject. It was reckoned that the course in Senior Geography would be one that could be studied without much tuition by a teacher. Actually, I was given a few lessons in how to draw and interpret contour maps, a compulsory question in the Geography paper. The rest of the syllabus had to be covered by my own reading of text-books chosen for me by the teacher. The result was an unexpected success. I achieved what I had failed to do for the Senior Certificate - I passed with distinction. I must have gained full marks for the Contour question. Another example of the value of individual teaching!
Parents, and pupils themselves, often lay the blame for poor examination results on the teachers. The blame is sometimes justifiable, at other times completely unjustified. My Senior results were not at all impressive, most of the subjects being passed with marks only just above the minimum required. I think I am justified in laying the blame partly for this on the quality of the teaching.
For example, the History teacher hardly ever gave us an oral lesson. Indeed the story about him, passed on from one year to the next, was that the only oral lesson he gave was when inspectors came to hold their periodic but infrequent inspection. The subject was the ‘Indian Mutiny’, a subject that he must have known that he could treat well enough to satisfy the History Inspector.
How did he teach the subject then? He would set a question, or possibly two, at the beginning of the lesson. We were told then to read a chapter in our text-book which contained the necessary information. In the following lesson we had to answer the question in our exercise book. In the next lesson he set another question and collected our exercise books so that he could mark in class while we were reading in preparation for the next question. This went on for the whole year - reading the relevant chapter in one lesson and answering the question in the next. This meant that the teacher did not have to take books home for marking. There was one advantage to such a method - we learned the facts from a thorough reading of the text-book but there was no inspiration, no incentive to acquire an interest in History. The method enabled most fifth form pupils to attain a pass in History but never a distinction.
I cannot remember that I was unduly excited or nervous when sitting these examinations. I could not have been awaiting the result with any great anxiety, for at the time of the release of results, I was on holiday in the Waun, and I did not want to cut my holiday short just to find out what my result was. Instead of being informed of my result on the Friday, it was on the following Wednesday that I obtained the information. Wednesday was mart day in Carmarthen, and so I was able to get transport. I remember quite distinctly climbing a lot of steps in the County Offices and having to roam around, quite bewildered, looking for the appropriate Education Office. When I did eventually find the office I was confronted by a surprised clerk, who could not understand why I was so late finding out my result.
I was the youngest of those who passed that year and who were promoted to Form VI. I was fifteen years of age, and was told by the Head that I would have to take three years to sit Higher, since he believed that no boy should enter a University under eighteen years of age. That again was no disappointment for me, as my attitude towards school was a philosophical one; that is, I allowed my life to proceed without any thought for the future and without having any specific aim.
Form VI had a profound influence on me; it widened my horizons and opened new worlds. The study of English Literature, Welsh Literature and Latin Literature for three years, without any doubt opened new worlds for me. Shakespeare’s works, for instance, came to have a new meaning for me.
I am inclined to think that reading Shakespeare’s plays in the Lower forms is not only a complete waste of time but encourages a distaste for his works and discourages any enjoyment in watching performances of his plays. The method generally used in my school-days was giving the best readers in the form individual parts to read in front of the form, but the language was so strange to us that the reading had to be stopped after almost every sentence so that the meaning could be explained.
The only time we saw a performance of a Shakespearean play was when a company of three or four actors visited the school to give a performance of short extracts - performances not to be compared with those given in professional theatres. I do not think that our Head was very appreciative of these performances. Such companies visited the Girls’ School next door more frequently than they did our School. I remember on one occasion when I was in the Sixth some of us being invited to one of these performances in the Girls’ School. When we returned to our school, the first question the Head asked us was, ‘Did you have to pay?’. And when we said,’ Yes’, his reply was, ‘Then I need not send a thank you letter’. There was no love lost between Mr Allen and Miss Holmes - there was no liaison at all between the two schools, although the Chemistry laboratory had to be shared by them, an arrangement, I should think, that was not agreeable to either Head.
What opened my mind to the treasures to be found in the plays of Shakespeare was the reading of Bradley’s ‘Shakespearean Tragedies’ (I forget the exact title of the book). We were encouraged in Form VI to read around the subjects we were taking. The Library had locked cupboards that had no glass doors, and the keys of the cupboards were entrusted to the Prefects so that we were able not only to keep check of the books borrowed by the Lower Forms, but we were able to take books out at any time we liked. I should think that one of the first books borrowed from the Library which engendered my interest in literary criticism was Bradley’s book - a scholarly and highly interesting study of the four great Shakespearean tragedies - Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.
I do not believe that I have a particularly retentive memory - just a memory that was retentive enough to remember appropriate quotations and salient facts for the period of examination. I was so impressed in my study of King Lear with the many dramatic passages which I read in the text and which I read as quotations in Bradley’s book that I was determined to learn some of them off by heart, however laborious the task. When home at weekends or during holidays, I used to roam the fields and declaim loudly such passages as:-
Ingratitude thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster.
Ever since, performances of King Lear have thrilled me more than those of any of Shakespeare’s other plays. One of the most thrilling performances I saw was the King Lear of Donald Wolfit in St James’ Theatre, London - a performance I saw during the War when I was stationed in Woolwich barracks.
Two books which had a great influence on my appreciation of literature were Arthur Quiller Couch’s Art of Writing and Art of Reading. I cannot remember whether I had chosen them at random from a library which could hardly be considered a comprehensive one. Indeed, I think I am completely justified in criticising the inadequacy and inefficiency of the instruction given by our English teacher. We had to produce the occasional essay and to copy notes on the various authors, notes which were identical with those dictated by the English Professor in Aberystwyth University college. The main incentive to study was the frequent testing done in examinations.
The teaching of Welsh was even more inept. The Welsh teacher was the one whose method of teaching History I have already described. I would be inclined to be more critical of this teacher were it not for the fact that when I became a Temporary Teacher in my old School, after leaving College, he was the one who gave me the most support and the most help with the problems of a newly-fledged teacher. But an accusation of laziness would not be too unkind.
A valid example of this laziness can be given. In my first year in the Sixth I was the only one pursuing the Higher course in Welsh. He and I would meet in a small ante-room for the Welsh lessons, but more often than not after setting me a task he would disappear from the room. But the one particular lesson I remember is the lesson in the last period of the Wednesday afternoon. In this period every week and throughout a whole year I was given the task of copying into my exercise book the whole of John Morris Jones’ ‘Elementary Welsh Grammar’, a book which he maintained was out of print and unobtainable. Think of my disillusionment and feeling of frustration when at the end of the year I spotted the very book on the shelves of the Old Curiosity Bookshop, and was told that it had been in stock for a long time! If the Head was a strict disciplinarian with his pupils, he cannot have been so with his staff. When the teacher had seen me at the beginning of the lesson and asked me how I was getting on with the copying, he would disappear not to the Masters’ Room, but to his house, which was situated just behind the School buildings.
The tuition I received in Latin was vastly different from the tuition in English and Welsh, and the reason for that was that the Latin teacher was the headmaster himself. I must admit that although we held him in awe, yet we respected him greatly. However we dared not neglect our work and made every effort to be well prepared for every lesson. The atmosphere in his Form VI classes, made up of three or four pupils, was a much more relaxed one than in his classes in the Lower forms, even in Form V. Yet we found it difficult to unwind completely, and to give frank opinions on different subject matters. But we were often successful in drawing him away from, say, a topic of grammar to a subject completely unrelated to Latin such as the theory of motion pictures in the cinema.
I believe his aim in teaching was to give a good grounding in Latin and to a lesser extent in Greek without any thought of passing examinations. He never tried to anticipate questions set in Examination papers. A good example of this was his approach to teaching Latin for the Senior certificate. For the Set books paper we had to prepare Virgil’s Aeneid book II for translation, for scansion and for a literature question. Because we had spent so much time on scansion and learning nearly two hundred lines off by heart, he failed to cover the four hundred lines set. It seems that he was not worried by this, as there was an alternative paper to the Set books paper - an unseen paper. And it was this we eventually sat.
It must be admitted that when I taught Latin in Llandeilo Grammar School, I was much more concerned with gaining good results at O level, and found that by a thorough preparation of the Set books my pupils could get good results through sitting the Set Books paper rather than the Unseen paper. At the same time it must be admitted that the Unseen paper demanded greater command of the language itself.
In spite of some of the adverse criticisms I have expressed concerning the instruction I received, more especially in English and Welsh, my results in the Higher examination were almost the same in the three subjects. If I remember rightly, the average mark I received for the twelve papers (four in each subject) in English, Latin and Welsh was sixty four per cent, a mark that was good enough to give me the overall result of fourth in the County. Unfortunately it was not good enough to qualify me for a County Scholarship - only two were awarded in the County of Carmarthenshire. When I went to College I found that other counties were much more liberal in their awards.
But I did receive, as it were, a consolation prize. In the year I passed Higher, 1925, the Old Boys’ Association had decided to award an annual Scholarship of £10, to be held for three years (a princely sum in those days) to the one who achieved the highest position in the Higher Examination. The annual Reunion of the Old Boys was held every Christmas in the Boar’s Head Hotel, when a distinguished Old Boy was the guest of honour. It was in this Reunion, among important and even aged Old Boys, all in their dinner suits, that I was presented formally with the Old Boys’ Scholarship cheque.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I was not the favoured choice of the Head. From what I gathered afterwards he was quite keen on awarding the scholarship to the Head boy and the Captain of the rugger team and Cricket Captain, although he was well down in the county list, but the Secretary of the Old Boys had insisted that the scholarship must be awarded to the boy who came top in the Examination - it was an academic award rather than an award for the general contribution to school activities. Nevertheless the Head presented me with the prize with a few complimentary remarks. I can remember that he gave me the appellation μоνοχειροs (’monocheiros’ for those who cannot read Greek). He gave me this title because I had studied Greek with him and because I had an unusual batting stroke in cricket. I used to be very successful in dealing one-handed (that’s the meaning of μоνοχειροs) with balls bowled to the leg. I held my head high, shut my eyes, and poked the bat out with my left hand, guiding the ball away, often to the boundary.
As prefects in Form VI we were given a large amount of freedom and also much responsibility. That, added to my experience of lodgings, helped to make the transition from school to college a less unsettling one than it was for students who had had their schooling under a more restrictive regime. I have already referred to the responsibilities given to us as prefects. So I must explain what I mean by a large amount of freedom.
First of all, the Prefects’ Room was a small room on the second floor of the part of the School which was at one time the Headmaster’s house and the dormitories for boarders. Some of the Form VI lessons were held in this room, but since we had many free periods we prefects, only about six of us, had the room to ourselves with no supervision by the staff. These free periods, of course, were meant to be used for private study. But, knowing that the location of the room was some distance away from the other class-rooms, and that this ’sanctum sanctorum’ was not likely to be visited by any of the Masters, it was very rarely that one could sit down by one of the two tables to study in peace. The table were very often used for ’shove ha-penny’, a game that could be played without making undue noise.
But even the Headmaster must have turned a blind eye to our misuse of free periods, for we often could be seen from his study, playing on the school field with a rugger ball in the winter, and having batting and bowling practice in the summer. We were, however, very careful not to be detected in another misuse of these periods. We could make our way undetected through the back entrance of the school and over back lanes down to the Public Billiards Hall. In order to do this and in order to have the statutory half-hour of play, our visit to the hall had to be made when we had two consecutive free periods, usually in the afternoon. It is often said that an ability to play billiards is a sign of mis-spent youth. Well, I never became a skilled billiards player, but when in College, my co-digger and I found that half an hour of billiards after tea was a relaxing preparation for the evening session of study from six o’clock to nine o’clock.
I have already said that, unlike today’s schools, we had no extraneous activities, such as plays and concerts. But the ‘wind of change’ began to blow through the school in my final year. The one master responsible for that was Mr E.V. Williams, a master who became popular with all pupils throughout his teaching career because of his enthusiasm as a teacher of English, because of his vivacious and cheerful manner, because of his strong but benign discipline and because of his interest in sport. In addition to these qualities, he had a great interest in music, and the only outlet he had for this interest was not in formal Music lessons, but in introducing for the first time a musical performance. The performance was that of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Trial by Jury’, the precursor, it seems, of many subsequent Gilbert and Sullivan performances.
While I am writing these reminiscences, teachers throughout the country are holding strikes, and the comment often heard from the public is that the working week of a teacher is just five days of working from nine to four, with a long dinner break. That was definitely not E.V. Williams’ week - he would spend hours after four o’clock in the winter rehearsing for the performance of ‘Trial by Jury’, and in the summer he would be seen playing with the boys in cricket practices. To accompany ‘Trial by Jury’ he had gathered a group of instrumentalists from among his friends in his native village of Laugharne. I have very happy memories of these rehearsals and of the performance itself, acting as one of the twelve jurors. The chorus of ‘Trial by Jury’ and the pop songs of the day became my musical repertoire, but, sadly enough, because of my sieve-like memory, I can no longer remember the words of the songs.
The three years I spent in Form VI were very happy ones, and the main reason for that was that I enjoyed taking part in sport, especially Rugger and Cricket. In my first year in the Sixth I became a member of the first XV and of the first XI. I cannot claim that I had an innate ability to play these games, but again as the result of the freedom we enjoyed, I was able to spend a lot of time kicking a rugger ball and hitting a cricket ball.
Our matches, especially cricket matches, were social occasions when the Head, members of the staff and parents would come to watch. Our pitch was near the school, and it had an ideal piece of rising ground on which the spectators stood or sat on chairs. This we called the Mound. The matches were held on Saturday afternoons, an ideal time for parents and those Carmarthen people who preferred to watch schoolboy football or cricket to watching, say, Carmarthen Harlequins. Nowadays school matches are held on Saturday mornings with just a handful of spectators watching, and the only member of the staff watching is the one on supervisory duty.
We had a Sports Master who acted as a kind of censor for our arrangements. He did not act as a coach, nor did he assist in the selection of the teams. Indeed we were allowed to have freedom to choose the teams, arrange the fixtures, to make travelling arrangements, and to entertain visiting teams. All he did was to give his approval or non-approval to our arrangements, and give us our cash allowances.
I do not think we were renowned for our hospitality to visiting teams. We had no showers and no hot water. The changing room was the cloak-room where there were five or six wash-basins that had only cold-water taps. We did provide one amenity - towels. After the match and after washing and changing, the visiting team, with one reserve and a teacher, was sent to have a shilling tea in the Crown Stores café, but no provision was made for the home team.
One year we as a team decided to ask the Sports Master to give us the seventeen shillings so that we could arrange with the help of the caretaker to provide tea in the gymnasium not only for the visiting team but for the home team as well. This he agreed to do. So we bought two or three large loaves of bread, a tin or two of salmon, and a few cakes. We spent the morning cutting salmon sandwiches and arranging the tables. After the game, both teams joined together, in a happy atmosphere, to enjoy a satisfying but by no means a sumptuous meal. Hot water for the tea was provided by the caretaker from his cottage on the school premises. This rough and ready food arrangement, although appreciated by the boys of both teams, was not, for various reasons, continued for more than one season.
Conditions in other schools were no better than in ours. If anything, they were worse, especially in Llanelli County School for Boys and Swansea Grammar School. In Llanelli the changing room was exactly the same as in Carmarthen - a cloak-room with wash-basins that had no hot water. But the playing field was infinitely worse - a grassless sloping pitch about four hundred yards from the School. My first experience of playing there intensified my bad impression of the whole set-up. The match was played in atrocious conditions - heavy wind-driven rain lashing down and producing little rivulets in parts of the pitch. But worse was to come! When we returned at the end of the game to change in the cloak-room I found, to my horror, that no towels were provided. I had taken for granted that since this minimum amenity was provided in our school there was no need for me to bring my own towel. All I could do was to use my soaking-wet jersey to rub off some of the wetness from my skin. The tea arrangement was similar to that in Carmarthen, tea in a café in the town for the visiting team only, but the café was much further away from the school. It was no wonder that when I returned home late on Saturday night that I was immediately packed off into bed and remained there for almost a week.
Strangely enough we experienced the worst conditions in schools in the two biggest towns. One would expect to have better conditions in big schools in highly-populated towns. Our experience playing Swansea Grammar School was even worse, although this time I made sure that I would have a dry towel.
Swansea Grammar School, where Dylan Thomas received his education, was situated on the slope of Mount Pleasant Hill on a road leading up from the Albert Hall. It seems that before my playing days the Grammar School had a playing pitch higher up the hill in what was called Paradise Park, a park that I should think was thus named for the simple and sole reason that it was on top of a hill - nearer to heaven. But for our match we had to play on a pitch in Singleton park. This meant having to walk down the hill to board a tram-car near the Albert Hall for a ride of about a mile to the entrance of the Park, and then having to walk a few hundred yards to a bare pitch - that is, there was no kind of shelter or changing room anywhere near. All this would have been bad enough if it were a fine day but the weather was very similar to what we had experienced in Llanelli. I can still visualise the scene on the top-deck of the tramcar when we returned to the School, a sorry-looking group of schoolboys in soaking wet and muddy togs with the windows all steamed up with sweat and moisture.
One of the interesting outcomes of this was the appearance in the following week of a letter in the South Wales Evening Post. The writer was shocked to see a group of schoolboy footballers on a tramcar looking half-dead, bedraggled, wet and muddy. He deplored the fact that there were no facilities at all for schoolboy matches in Singleton Park, and urged the city council to provide, without delay, the necessary amenities, a changing place having plenty of hot water.
We did not experience these conditions in every school. There was a distinct difference between the treatment given in Mixed Schools from that in Boys’ Schools. The girls must have had an influence in relieving the Spartan conditions prevailing in Boys’ Schools. For this reason we always looked forward to playing against Llandeilo County School - not only because we usually won there but because of the civilised amenities provided. After the game we washed in tin-baths filled with hot water. These baths had been laid out either on the floor of the Art Room or in the gymnasium, neither of them an ideal venue, for it was impossible to avoid bespattering the floors with mud and splashes of water. After changing we were taken to the school kitchen nearby to find the tables beautifully laid out by good-looking Form VI girls. Indeed the Carmarthen boys believed that the Llandeilo girls were much more attractive than those girls of the Carmarthen County School that we from our Sixth form window could see parading on the school drive. Some of the bolder members of our team would be brave enough to ‘make points’ with the girls.
We were very proud of our Rugger XV. In the last two years of my three-year membership of the team we had an unbeaten ground record, even beating Llanelli County School, our main rivals. In Llanelli, however, we had very evenly balanced games. In the season 1923-24 we had two schoolboy internationals in our back division - I.K. Thomas at outside-half and W.E. Phillips at centre. Llanelli had an international forward in their side, Watcyn Thomas, who in later years had many caps playing for Wales, and I believe was Captain in one year.
In the game at home we had been able to cope with the extra height of this forward in the line-out by opposing him with the shortest of our forwards. He was ordered not to attempt to jump for the ball, but just to tackle him around the legs as soon as he held the ball. In Llanelli, it had been decided that this huge forward should be taken out of the pack to play at centre, in order to counter our international backs. Well on in the second half the score was 3-3, a try each, but towards the end of the game Watcyn Thomas had the ball and landed a magnificent drop-goal from about half-way.
In the next year, when, if I remember rightly, neither team had international players, the score towards the end of the game was 3-0 for Llanelli. In the last few minutes we scored a try right in the corner - 3-3! By this time, as it had been raining throughout the game, the ball was like a lump of lead. So we realised that our regular kicker could not possibly convert the try from the touch-line, and so a gamble was made with our strongest forward, but most unreliable kicker. To our surprise and delight he kicked a low long ball which just scrambled over the bar - 5-3, a thrilling triumph!
With no undue modesty I think I can claim that I was quite a good rugger player, being made Vice-Captain in my final year. But I realised that I had many shortcomings that would prevent my developing into a very good player. I was not fast enough to play in the backs and the only position in the pack in which I could play well was hooker, for I was not heavy enough and tall enough to be effective in any other position. Indeed I developed into quite an effective hooker, even playing in this position during one season for the College XV.
Actually, I was chosen with two other forwards to play for Carmarthen county against West Glamorgan in an international trial. When I was easily brushed aside by the bigger forwards of the West Glamorgan pack, I realised that there would be no further recognition for me. Probably I would not have been chosen in the first instance were it not for the fact that our Sports Master was one of the selectors. Certain particulars had to be given to the selectors, such as age, weight and height. I remember well going to Boots’ Shop to be weighed - ten stone four, a weight which I consistently kept throughout my adult life until I had a serious operation when I was seventy four years of age. I must have been by far the lightest member of the pack.
Once chosen, we three had a short spell of strict training. The magic panacea for all strains was Elliman’s Embrocation. So I had a session of my being rubbed down with this Embrocation on the Friday before the game. This particular embrocation was not odourless; no, it had a very strong, pungent and persistent smell. I was persuaded by the Captain, Bill Elias, who had also been chosen, to have a relaxing evening in the pictures, in the Lyric Cinema. I spent a very uncomfortable two hours, realising that the pervading odour cast its waves all around. All this turned out to be in vain - I was not chosen for a further trial, but the other two were. They too failed to progress further than the second trial.
I have claimed that I was a fairly good rugger player. I cannot claim that I was a fairly good cricketer, but while in School I managed for three years in the Cricket XI to make a substantial contribution to its performances. Again I was made vice-captain in my final year. To become a good cricketer you need specialist coaching and that was not to be had in our School, although I have stated that Mr E.V. Williams played for the team against non-school teams. My limitations were exposed when I played a trial in College. Gilbert Parkhouse, who later became a very successful member of the Glamorgan County XI, pointed out to my co-digger, Bill Elias, that I lacked the one essential of a batsman - a straight bat. That could also be said of Bill Elias, but he gained a place in the College XI through his natural ability, and through having a real aptitude for ball games.
I cannot claim that I really enjoyed playing in cricket matches. Unlike a game of Rugger, you were an individual, you batted alone and you fielded alone. Every mistake you made was obvious, not only to your team-mates but also to the spectators. I managed to put together a few decent scores, reaching the grand total of 45 on two occasion. But I have a distinct memory of a serious lapse in fielding. There I was fielding near the long boundary, when a visiting batsman hit a towering ball which seemed to take ages coming down to where I stood. Although it was a high ball, it fell directly into my hands, only, to my deep embarrassment, to drop to the ground. But worse than dropping the ball, I ignominiously fell on my back.
Nevertheless, there were very pleasant games, especially when I had made a respectable score, and had succeeded in holding catches that came my way. Most of these pleasant games were against non-school teams, such as that of the Carmarthen County Office and of the Carmarthen Asylum. Our games with these teams, made up of adults, were closely fought, but generally ending in our favour.
When you have reached old age, there are many coincidences which come to your mind. One such coincidence took place when I was admitted to Bronglais Hospital four years ago. After I was taken to one of the wards and had settled in bed, one of the other three patients in the ward welcomed (if that’s an appropriate word for a patient) me and introduced the other two. Then he said that his names was Delves - a very unusual name. So I was prompted to say that I remembered a Delves, who, more than fifty years before, played for the Carmarthen County Office XV. ‘That was me!’, he said.
It may sound strange when I state that the most pleasant game we had was against the Asylum Cricket Team. The game itself was quite an experience for us. The team was composed, of course, of members of the staff, but their opening two batsmen were two of the inmates, both of them I should think between forty and fifty years of age. They were typical opening batsmen, dour and steady, scoring at slow and even pace. The surrounds added to the pleasure of the game - beautifully mowed lawns, a well-rolled pitch, and the field surrounded by borders of beautiful flowers. Then, either at the interval between the innings, or at the end of the game, we were given a really sumptuous tea. It was a fixture to which we always looked forward.
Before I finish my account of school life, I must give an account of a qualification which I always used in all my applications for a teaching post. I doubt, though, whether it influenced the minds of any governing body. The qualification was being the Editor of the School Magazine. Although this entailed allotting quite a lot of time which should have been given to the study of the Higher subjects, I cannot claim that it was an arduous job, nor that it required literary ability. The main work was writing an Editorial, putting pressure on the boys to produce articles and poems and items of school news, and organising the publication and printing of the magazine. The actual printing was done by the Carmarthen printing firm, Spurrel’s.
However, I had one worrying experience as Editor. One of the boys, a well-known writer of Welsh novels these days, contributed two short stories, which, after the two statutory copyright copies had been sent to the Welsh National Library, were found to have been plagiarised. They were word-for-word copies of two stories by Stephen Leacock. The master who overlooked the production of the magazine used to pull my leg about the affair - that I was sure to be prosecuted for contravening copyright.