Rhubarb 2020

ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

M MARTIN, JOHN (G, 1936-1939)

spent the next four years rebuilding and enlarging it as well as landscaping the 3½ acres around the house and putting in a pool. Since 2005 it has been rented out on a self-catering basis and run as a bed and breakfast. Diccon has much experience of the Italian holiday and expatriate retirement property market and would be very happy to advise any OSE who are contemplating buying in Italy. Please do email him on ​ diccon.masterman@gmail.com or connect with him via Alumnet.

encouraged me when ill to be positive and told me he had once been the Warden’s curate. So my wife put on lunch in their honour but just before the meal the Warden had some sort of indisposition and retired for a short while. He returned looking rather blue but still jovial. Brian said afterwards that faith had opened the door and there was nothing there. It had been a healing day. Henry Kendall died on his way to New Zealand by ship. I read that every school House now has an Agony Aunt available. Eighty two years too late for me. It was surprising that men and boys could be so unfeeling. There was a boy in Segar’s who was related to me by marriage who sometimes said “Hello”. He was wounded at the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940, a POW for 4 years, awarded the MC and became the senior partner of Freshfields, the law firm. Such a boy clearly profits from the rigours of public school life which are predicated on resilience, duty and heroism. However some boys told a new boy to face off if you even looked their way, shamed him if he had an incorrect number of buttons undone on his jacket, occasionally beat him for some minor group offence. Lines were ineffective as discipline because these were stored in advance to produce maximum irritation of the prefect class. It was more difficult for those who had to dig up 50 plantains in the quad. Fagging and beatings were no doubt regarded as aids to the toughening up of the mostly unaware neophytes. But there were pleasures when the catering staff sometimes ran out of stored bread and had to provide us with freshly sliced loaves. We did the football pools, often successfully, and Mr Merry would take bets as small as a halfpenny. One tiny bet paid me 18 pence when Battleship won the Grand National at 40-1 in 1938. Things improved as I became used to the mores of boarding school life and my parents, after an unhappy two years, felt able to visit me at half term without upsetting us all. Mr Gauntlet (The Gro) visited Perth later and invited me to a Gaudy. After the usual rituals we sat in deckchairs and watched the cricket. Heaven at last. MASTERMAN, DICCON (A, 1954-1959) Diccon bought Dolcevento, a beautiful house in Tuscany, Italy in late 1999 and

At the age of 98 John Martin writes from Australia about his memories of School life: When a fellow pupil, John Fenton (G, 1935-1940), then Canon of Christ Church Oxford, visited Perth, Western Australia we were able to share some reminiscences. John was in Segar’s frequently helping me with homework, as genial then as he was now, appointed to the position of Distinguished Visitor to the Anglican Cathedral. Both with families, we speculated why none of the Housemasters were married. The only approachable woman was the Matron of the Sanatorium who comforted me and my mother during periods of misery. When the new block for A and G houses was built there was a large bank of lavatories on the ground floor but without doors. Was this a 1937 Orwellian architectural arrangement, an anti-smoking manoeuvre or to prevent blindness? I reminded John of the notice (circa 1937) decreeing that the Daily Mirror was banned in Day Rooms as “It had ceased to print news in its columns”. Was this necessary because “Jane”, a cartoon character dressed in a mini-nightdress supported by ample superstructure was considered, probably correctly, as being sexually stimulating. We could only speculate that The Star was banned because of page 3. Additional attempts were made to suppress nascent libidos by the frequent use of cold water and runs up the Woodstock Road if it was raining or the football fields too muddy. I have met only one OSE in Australia, Dr Vincent Cooper from whom, quite fortuitously, I purchased our house in 1960. He became a valued medical support and friend when I became seriously ill. Some years later we were told that Warden Kendall would be visiting OSE here on his way to New Zealand. Panic ensued. I did not have much sympathy with him because having told him that my gallant father left school at the age of fifteen which seemed to surprise him, even though that was the fate of 95% of children in those days. I was helped by Canon Brian MacDonald who

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O OBHOLZER, FELIX (H, 2014-2016) Congratulations to Felix who has just been selected for Regular Officer training at RMA Sandhurst, to begin either this September or in January 2021. P PELMORE, BARRY (B, 1957-1962) At Henley Royal Regatta 2019, the late Barry Pelmore was remembered principally for his duties on the Martyrs Boat Club committee from 1976- 1989, ending as Secretary. Barry’s wife Stephanie spoke and christened the single scull Barry Pelmore . In support, Stephen Holroyd (E, 1956-1960), Rob Sherwood and John Broadhurst (G, 1956-1961)

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