SE CHRONICLE 684

40 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

also an inspiring companion. Reggie left us to go as organist to Calcutta Cathedral. He used now and then to produce daring effects on the organ. For instance, on one occasion the voluntary was a clever re-arrangement of ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay’ but he had so altered the tempo that I doubt if many recognised it. He was succeeded by Jocelyn Perkins who became Sacrist of Westminster Abbey. Perkins also lived below me and I saw a good deal of him. On Wednesday and Friday mornings after breakfast I heard a good deal of him too, for he used pertinaciously to practise (vocally) the opening words of the Litany, which was to be said in Chapel on those mornings. I am afraid I countered this by upsetting several times “accidentally” a heavy milk stool. I have mentioned my friend EH Montauban several times. He taught me to take pictures, and one of the first I ever took was an indoor one of him which I think was one of the best I have ever taken. He won’t blush nowadays if I say that he was very good-looking. He was the Science Master and worked in what was then a small and probably not very well-equipped laboratory. I often spent evenings there over photography and other gadgets. I remember

he made me an acetylene gas apparatus for the use of my magic lantern. Acetylene Gas has a horrible smell which has been said to resemble that produced by taking an old billy-goat, pelting him with rotten eggs and shutting him in a charnel-house! I used to have very pleasant teas with boys of my form or ‘Set’ in my rooms. In winter time we ended up with chestnuts, roasted in the fire; and Mrs Johnson would complain of the awful mess left on the hearth when she came to clean up the next morning. For these teas I always kept a 7lb biscuit tin, and replenished this from time to time with a pound or two of different biscuits. The result was an exciting medley in the tin, and one would see boys sitting on the floor prospecting in its depths. The boys collected all sorts of pets. Montauban, on one occasion, was sitting at the end of the table taking the Third Form, with a row of lockers behind him which had swing doors. Once he tilted his chair back, and was horrified to see just over his head a green snake which had pushed itself through the swinging door. On another occasion the door was slightly lifted, and a row of little pink noses appeared – a family of white mice. At the beginning of one Autumn Term

an enterprising tortoise merchant appeared, and the place swarmed with these ‘insects’, as the railway porter called them. It was the first night of term, and the purchases were temporarily tethered on the edge of the squares of lawn in the Quad. Each had a good length of string, and naturally pushed away from the gravel path towards “fresh fields and pastures new”. At half past seven, the masters proceeded, often hurriedly, in the dark across the grass to supper in Hall. Any boys who were crossing the Quad at the time by the gravel paths would not have seen much, but would have heard most unusual ejaculations as the men tripped one after the other over the tightly-stretched strings. I wonder what the tortoises thought of it. We were well-off for holidays in those days. As the school was a “High Church” one, we observed Saints’ Days with more than usual ceremony. We always had a half holiday, and felt it rather hard luck when a Saints’ Day came on a normal half-holiday. Evensong on Saints’ Days was always a special one, with the altar crowded with lights and all the boys in their white surplices. In my time there was a certain amount of enthusiasm in respect of ritual. On my first Easter there, the altar for Easter Eve was

The Camera Club in 1901