When I was 6 in 1953 a little girl in my primary school was run over and killed on a pedestrian crossing near our house. She was in another class and I hardly knew her, but I was nevertheless deeply saddened. I can't remember who it was but someone said: "It was God's will." I never understood that, and it confirmed what I had already suspected even at that young age: that there was no God - or if there was then he was horrible. Later I heard some guff about Adam and Eve, a serpent and an apple and "Original Sin", but even when very young I never swallowed all that. How could a little girl be held to account for some fantasy written down thousands of years ago? I did believe (and do to this day) that Jesus existed and was a wonderful human that one could love and whose example one should try to follow, but the supernatural bit was always for me fantasy.

When I read Sartre at university I realized that I was an existentialist and that religion was just made up by people too cowardly to face the truth that death is the final and total end of our consciousness for all eternity. That is something indeed hard to accept, since being alive seems so normal (and desirable!) - but in fact, NON-EXISTENCE is the normal state of affairs, and Life is just a very temporary aberration in the scheme of the Universe. Granted, given its astonishing nature and rarity Life could be considered a "MIRACLE", but there is no proof whatoever that would stand up in court that it was created by "GOD". It is a stunning thought that all the vast paraphernalia of religion: the churches, the hierarchy, the rules, the discipline, the punishments, the millions killed in religious wars - the whole lot is just institutionalised self-delusion.

Well, I somehow passed the 11+ and was accepted for WHS. It was a stunning experience from start to finish and completely shaped my life. However, when we arrived of course we came across the school motto "Nisi Dominus Vanum", which I always understood to mean: "Without God all is in vain."

I did not spend hours agonising over this but right from the start it gave me problems. It obviously meant that as a WHS boy one was expected to believe in God - one does not normally belong to an institution whose motto one does not believe in - but we had no choice: THAT was the point. If you were NOT a believer then you were in some way excluded. Of course, it was not like the Middle Ages: there was no danger of a modern Spanish Inquisition coming to get you, and the practical consequences of being an atheist were near to non-existent (for boys at least - see below). I believe some boys did not attend assemblies, but I am not aware of any stigma attaching to them. Despite my beliefs I DID attend assemblies since the basic creed of Christianity always appealed to me - and I never found any problem in loving Jesus and his example without simultaneously believing he was the son of "God".

HOWEVER, in strictly logical, rational and indeed moral terms, NISI DOMINUS VANUM should NOT have been the school motto. A faith is something that each individual should arrive at without ANY kind of indoctrination or force. I felt that even when young, though not then as strongly as I do today.

There is also a philosophical argument relating to the motto. "Without God all is in vain". SERIOUSLY? So if an atheist does something beautiful that Jesus would have been proud of then his or her action would have been in VAIN? It is intellectual nonsense.

France separated Church and state over 100 years ago and we should have done the same. We had Religious Instruction at WHS (one hour a week), but I NEVER recall any discussion about what a “faith” was, why one had it or what it implied - there was no philosophical discussion about belief, or indeed about OTHER religions as I recall - though I do not in fact remember much at all from those lessons. What I DO remember is feeling a bit sorry for the teachers who taught it since most of us clearly felt it was a waste of time. They might have made it more interesting if they had covered the gruesome religious wars and their personalities rather than focussing just on the Bible.

No, the school motto clearly meant that one was supposed to be "Christian" and that was the end of it - but it was not without more serious consequences for some. I will never forget the day that I was watching some rugby match on Church Field (no idea why I was not playing - perhaps it was another housematch) and got chatting to Jim Hyde on the touchline. I was in the 5th form at the time and obviously knew him fairly well from geography and the YFC even though he was not my housemaster. For some reason I never knew he started talking about his career and said that he could never be a headmaster because he would not be able to lead a religious service in an assembly. Perhaps he felt a need to unburden himself after an unsuccessful interview or something. I only remember listening and not asking him questions - but I was both touched and saddened by his comments. He would have made a brilliant Head in my opinion, and to be denied that opportunity because of a spiritual conviction he was not prepared to lie about was very unfair.

So - there it is: we should have had a different motto, but I guess (will we ever know?) that it was one chosen by John Smitherman. I would have preferred: “Honour, Duty and Love” or somesuch. If I am to believe in the WHS motto then my entire life has been in vain - which in one sense might also be true, but not I think simply because I could not believe in the supernatural.

The IHS MOTTO: "Before Honour Comes Humility"

And WHS?