The Chronicle January 2020

33 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Tom Barns, BM. BCh. MA. (Oxon) DM. FRCOG, Hon FRCP. Tom Barns OSE attended Keble College, Oxford, before qualifying as a doctor. In 1942 he was posted to India where he served in the Royal Medical Corps of the Indian Army. He returned to the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after the War to train in surgery, later taking up a research Fellowship in Newcastle followed by a period as State Obstetrician to the Sultan of Johor. Continuing to work all over the world, he held positions in the UK, India, the USA, South-East Asia and Egypt. Tom celebrated his 100th birthday on 6th February 2019. nightmare. On parole for a month at Christmas, an empty tuckbox, a trunk packed by the invisible hand of the housekeeper and a ticket to Paddington in my pocket, I stood on the platform of Oxford Station.

Although ‘Annies’ worked behind the scenes and an invisible female housekeeper issued one’s clean linen, meals were served and day rooms swept by the ‘Johns’. It was only following an epidemic of meningitis during the Easter Term of 1933 which claimed the lives or at least the disappearance of three of the boys (necessitating the closure of the School), that a nurse and surgery shared between two Houses was installed for the first time, from where we found unlimited supplies of Eno’s Fruit Salt for aerating our fruit drinks in the Summer Term. On the third Sunday of term new boys had to ‘sing in’. Alarming in anticipation, but when it came around to it, one only had to stand on a desk in the day room and sing a song before a jeering audience who showed appreciation by pelting one with Corps Boots and other solid objects. Before getting to the end of the first verse of ‘Old Man River’, a score I had frantically written home for before the ordeal, I was stopped by the traditional applause! The end of term at last, one had come through! It had not been the expected

an hour’s prep on dark winter mornings; a race across the Quad for porridge and sausages; a short day room break or brisk walk round the Quad with a friend before Chapel; four morning classroom periods in the ‘Workhouse’ (now the ‘Work Block’); lunch, changing room, compulsory games, hot showers to wash off the mud; another spell in the day room or visit to the school shop for ‘Stodgers’ (lardy cakes), an ice cream or a milk shake (depending on one’s money supply), two further classes in the ‘Workhouse’, Evening Chapel, Dining Hall, prep, dormitory, lights out and a hot slipper bath once a week. One shilling pocket money was given out every Saturday. As elsewhere the School was an all- male establishment. Only one of the seven Housemasters was a married man. The Warden, an ordained bachelor, lived with his sister-in-law. As in prep schools, staff were provided with bachelor quarters, with meals and a Common Room, making marriage a difficult economic decision, possibly requiring the Warden’s permission.

Let it Rage, Let it Roar, We Shall Come Through , by Chris Nathan OSE, is available to purchase for £15 from the Teddies online shop under the What’s On tab on the website.

Shelters in the Quad in 1943.