School in Hendon

I was 9 when the war started. My Prep school closed when the war started as so many people left London so I had to go to my sister's convent school; there was only one other boy there.
In January 1940 it reopened under a new headmaster and less boys. I remember being told to be quiet and good when we went home one day as our parents might be upset; this must have been Dunkirk time.
We all slept downstairs when the blitz started and my father showed me an incendiary bomb he had put out one night. I took it to school and the headmaster blew his top and called the police to take the dangerous thing away.
On Decenber 29th 1940 our family busines in the City was destroyed - we could see the horrid red glow in the South East sky about ten miles away.
Soon I went to a weekly boarding school in Oxhey near Watford as it was safer but we still very often had to carry our mattresses downstairs when there was an air raid. One of the other pupils was David Shepherd who was artistic even then
In 1943 I went to Bedford School as a boarder, it was a great school and won the Rosslyn Park 7-a-side rugby several times, also the Princess Elizabeth cup at Henley. The two princesses visited the school very briefly one day, they had wonderful complexions and looked lovely. The food wasn't too bad for wartime, I remember drinking custard by the glassful to fill up. We also bought chips and the younger boys (Fags) made a good profit as thery fetched them for most of the other boys as well.
Our best films were Henry V and the newsreel of El Alamein which raised terrific cheers when shown in the school hall.

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