Most of these things I have never done again since leaving in 1965.

At Woolverstone Hall I watched ....

• ... Bill Coutts, Nigel Fletcher, Dennis House, Robin Marriott and Miki Baranyay in the 1958/1959 1st XV which beat Wymondham College on Church Field.
• ... Peter Josselyn score 60 for Woolverstone Park on the main field. I was sad when he died in 2021 after moving to Shawnigan Lake in 1960.
• ... John Dorling play the lead in “Mother Courage” and Michael Bauer sing in the lead role in "The Magic Flute".
• ... our boys with girls from IHS perform “The Bartered Bride” in 1962 and fell in love with one of the IHS girls starring in it.
• ... other amazing productions put on by dedicated teachers and a host of talented boys.
• ... Sea Cadets marching up and down wondering if I should have volunteered to join.
• ... Stretch slipper Ron Scarpello for accidentally shutting the door in his face at the beginning of our very first French lesson.

and I also ....

• ... sang silly songs on the coach up to WHS, especially “The Quartermaster’s Song”.
• ... met inspiring teachers and did things never done before or since / absolutely loved all my lessons, save perhaps maths.
• ... learned how to conjugate the latin 'insula' from Leslie Johnstone in my very first lesson at WHS.
• ... listened to Georges Brassens and other French singers with Stretch, and also read and loved "La Peste" by Albert Camus.
• ... learned about plants, tropisms, bacillus radicicoli and gas cycles with Pop Corner.
• ... made things in woodwork , including a dovetail corner - all now lost over the years since.
• ... tried and failed in art with Ernie Green to paint anything worth looking at, but he was a lovely chap.
• ... studied Martial's epigrams with Brian Middlebrook, another great guy.
• ... read Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale” with Patrick Hutton and learned "The Prologue" by heart. What a star Patrick was.
• ... did experiments with electricity, levers, weights, gases and chemicals with bunsen burners and electrical gadgets in physics with Fred Mudd.
• ... learned about the Savannah, the Himalayas, volcanoes, scree, earthquakes and Ordnance Survey maps with Jim Hyde.
• ... listened to Doc T. read us "Prester John", "The Ruhn" and other stories; learned about clause analysis with him, and later to love Thomas Hardy after studying "The Mayor of Casterbridge" for "O" Level lit.
• ... struggled with maths but got a 2 at “O” Level after doing past papers for a year at the back of the 5A class while the rest did calculus and other clever stuff in preparation for “Additional Maths”.
• ... never understood what the POINT of calculus was, OR why you had to prove that angle A equalled angle B. Why couldn't you just measure them?
• ... listened to Merlin Channon’s cornet-playing and to “Peter and the Wolf” and Chopin in his music room near the woodwork shop.
• ... had piano lessons for a while with Mrs Agate and learned to play the first two movements of “The Moonlight Sonata” after hours of solitary practice in the music rooms - but never reached the standard I aspired to.
• ... was directed in the orchestra by Barry Salmon - and played before in school concerts in a little jazz band inspired by Fritz Weiberzahn, the German assistant.
• ... sat next to Doc T in the orchestra directed by Barry Salmon; once we had to wait quite a while for something and Doc turned to me and said: "They also serve who sit and wait."
• ... played the clarinet (one note in 3 - the girls were far better!) in a combined WHS/IHS/Northgate G.S. orchestra on a “Musical Weekend” at Northgate Grammar School.
• ... never tried acting in any school production, not even as an extra.
• ... learned from Dickie Mayes about the importance of length and playing straight.
• ... played cricket in the 1st XI and rugby in the 1st XV alongside Khalid Rashid, one of my heroes.
• ... scored 11 as opener for the 1st XI against the Old Boys playing really straight and carefully facing Doug Gardner but was given out caught behind by Dickie Mayes when I swear I never touched the ball!
• ... scored 80 for Halls in a housematch against Johnstons on Orwell Side.
• ... once scored 50 for the U14 XI against RHS Holbrook, but in general feel that I under-performed at cricket.
• ... once bowled Robert Coates in the nets with a perfect leg-break, a feat I never managed to repeat on an actual pitch.
• ... lost over the balustrade on Orwell Side the very first time I played with it the cricket ball my dear Mum bought me from a shop near County Hall.
• ... messed around with Chris Webb and some others "putting" an 8lb shot over a branch of a tree by the Pavilion, something Chris managed with nonchalant ease but which I never got near doing.
• ... played boxball and occasionally Pirates in the gym and failed dismally to do handsprings or more than 10 pull-ups.
• ... played for the 1st XV on Church Field (a supreme honour) and had Saturday morning match briefings with Taffy.
• ... tripped over a divot in the final of the Ipswich 7s against Ipswich School when about to score the winning try.
• ... kicked a rugby ball around outside the Sports Store with Terry Carr / ... played ‘the Kicking Game’ on Orwell Side on lazy Sunday afternoons.
• ... ran the 400 yards in 60 seconds in the 3rd year, but lost out to Ajit Bose, who ran 56s.
• ... found X-countries hard-going and never achieved a decent result, despite being fit and strong.
• ... played badminton many times with Shakey and for the school.
• ... played table-tennis in Berners commonroom, but never again after leaving Berners in 1060.
• ... enjoyed the Christmas parties in Halls: musical chairs and so on - simple but fun.
• ... watched with a few other boys the BBC's series “The Great War" in Dick Woollett's flat in the first floor corridor between Halls & Johnstons.
• ... developed films in Orwell House and made a copy of a photo sent to me by the first girl I ever loved.
• ... sang hymns in Assembly, which I quite liked even though I am not religious, but because the music and words were beautiful.
• ... did the reading in assembly once in the Lower VIth.
• .... stood by the entrance of Holbrook Lodge and watched The Queen drive by after her visit to H.M.S. Ganges.
• ... fed the pigs, and thus gained the right to go to the YFC end-of-term BBQ, where I once played with The Feetwarmers in front of the first girl I ever loved; she wrote to me later saying she was "impressed" .....
• ... was never slippered by boy or master as far as I recall.
• ... never bullied or was bullied by anyone, though one famous, big and strong 6th former once hit me three times hard on the arm for some reason I never found out. I regret not hitting him back despite his size, but I was only in the 3rd. form at the time.
• ... was once a bit upset with dear old Hassell-Smith who once unfairly said that the straps and rope around my trunk were "a bit messy".
• ... danced with Mrs Bailey in the gym when she was teaching the Lower VIth how to!
• ... went swimming in the Stour near R.H.S. Holbrook with Shakey and a few other boys one day.
• ... went with my parents and then IHS girlfriend on an excursion to Felixtowe one Parents' Day.
• ... shared a two-bed dorm for a term with later S.A.S. Commander Cedric Delves, but never kept in touch after WHS.
• ... went sailing just once with dear Clive Winter on a Sunday when he was desperate for a crew.
• ... had incipient gangrene in a finger cured thanks to an injection given by Sister Williams.
• ... spent a week in quarantine in the little room above Berners entrance during a flu epidemic.
• ... raided Orwell House with water and flour in an end-of-term prank organised by our dorm monitors. (I missed my target ....)
• ... went thanks to Stretch's recommendation on an astonishing Travelling Scholarship to France.
• ... failed to get into Oxford, despite the help of Stretch & Dick Woollett - I rather naievely told the interviewers I didn't like French poetry!
• ... to an extent made up for it later when I did my PGCE at the Oxford University TT College and was a member of St Johns College, OXON!
• ... had a date with an IHS girl in Christchurch Park, something which completely changed my life and which I remember as if it were yesterday .....

“All those moments will be lost in time - like tears in the rain."   R.I.P. Rutger Hauer