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What was life like immediately after WW2? How did the College feel in the aftermath of a global war? What did it look like?
POST-WAR Dulwich College
in hospital followed by convalescence at home. I was away from schooling for a year in all. The NHS had started on the 5 July 1948, so was being treated in the first year of its creation. It is no coincidence I spent the whole of my working life as an administrator in the NHS. Bill Blanch (45-50) The aftereffects of the war, such as the bombed-out Squash and Fives courts and the missing roof to the swimming pool, did not make any particular impression on me because they were typical of the time. The main drawback of the pool missing a roof was that the walls were too high to let the sun ever reach the water and as the boiler had been knocked out at the same time as the roof, the water was very cold. Dr David Starr (45-51) In 1948, it was decided to open a new boarding house to be called Carver House. It was hoped that this would be housed in one of the bomb-damaged houses along Dulwich Common. Mr Gilkes appointed my father, Ralph Starr, as the new Housemaster of Carver House. The boarding house was to be in the Pavillion for about 6 months and was to be opened in September 1948. In fact, this temporary accommodation remained for 7 years. The Pavillion remained the home for the boarders and the Starr family ie my father, my mother and me until 1955. Colin Deverill (50-56) Wednesday and Saturday afternoons were inter house cricket matches. At 3pm the school bell would ring, all those who could not swim had to desert cricket and go to the baths for the compulsory swimming lessons. These continued every week until you could swim a width, when you were released from having to attend. If you accumulated three transgressions of school rules, such as talking in prayers, running in the cloisters, or not wearing your cap, you had to attend Prefects’ Detention on a Monday after school in the Old Library. Detention included a written test on the school rules, ties, colours, clubs and societies. Failure to achieve a 70% pass, meant a return visit the next week. John Pearse (53-61) As one of the 1953 intake, I well recall the damaged buildings, especially around the swimming baths, and the gradual opening of new facilities in the 1950’s and 60’s. Philip Shaw (56-63) I still remember my First Year Class List (1956), presumably because it was repeated every day!
Gordon Southgate (41-46) I was one of the small number of the Master, C.D.Gilkes original scholarship boys from an ordinary working- class family to join the College in 1941. Dulwich College through the war years was served by Masters who kept the school alive and should be remembered for their dedication and devotion to their work, some had come out of retirement to do so. Geoffrey Warr (44-51) I should have arrived at Dulwich in Michaelmas 1944, but the flying bombs were still flying, so I deferred until April 1945, just in time for VE Day. I remember celebrating it at school that evening with a bonfire and fireworks. I also remember Churchill being driven past the college to cheers shortly after, though whether that was part of the celebrations or of his election campaign, I do not recall. The College seemed to me to have suffered surprisingly little from bomb damage. The swimming pool no longer had a roof but remained in use. The squash courts were no more. The windows of the Barry Buildings had been replaced. Teaching was pretty normal, though the Masters were initially all of an age that exempted them frommilitary service. By 1948, the age profile was noticeably younger. Given that the war was only just over we were, unsurprisingly, obliged to join the Corps (the Officer Training Corps, the Sea Cadets and the Air Training Corps) or the Scouts. This stood us in good stead when we did our two-year National Service on leaving school, giving us a very good chance of being commissioned. School uniform has evolved somewhat since the war, most notably we wore school caps on the back of our heads and saluted, not by removing them but by momentarily covering its badge with our right hand. Only Prefects were allowed to wear their jackets unbuttoned. We wore our shirttails inside our trousers, and these were often grey striped. Derrick Brown (45-47) I remember well the avenue of Horse Chestnut trees upon entering the school. Every year one of those trees, (white among red or was it red among white) would always be out long before the others. The story went that the reason was that a horse had been buried underneath it. Tony Daltry (45-50) In December 1948, or thereabouts, the whole school went through a MMR campaign for the detection of Tuberculosis. I was picked out in the campaign as having TB and was quickly transferred to the Sanatorium and referred to a consultant at King’s College Hospital. I had a lengthy period
The idea for this feature came about in the early part of the summer last year when the first wave of the virus seemed to be receding and things were returning to normal. Restrictions were being lifted and we were discussing how we might reflect on a period in the College’s history when Life was returning to normal.
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