Leslie Scrase Celebrates Retirement in ‘It’s Another World’ (published by The Book Guild Limited of Lewes, East Sussex – £16.95)

We have enjoyed thinly-disguised autobiographical accounts of his schooldays and his time in the Royal Navy (A Prized Pupil and A Reluctant Seaman) reviewed in the last Shebbearian and on the OSA Website. Now author Leslie Scrase turns to retirement as the subject for his 13th book. Slippers, pipe, hot chocolate and early nights? Not for one moment! Old Shebbearians, national serviceman, Methodist minister and atheist in turn, owner of a car hire business when he chauffeured the rich and famous, he celebrates the move from suburban Surrey to rural west Dorset with joy and humour in It’s Another World.

LS is a natural story teller. And from one story come others in glorious twists and turns. We are lured happily into another world. Fairies, leprechauns, giants and witches appear and we accept them totally.

Fortunately, devoted wife Wend and dog Becky keep some order and perspective in Leslie’s life. But Becky can talk quite sensibly. Well, tell me a dog that can’t?

We get some clues to the author’s past. There’s wise Joe, who lives in an old, old farmhouse and owns the neighbouring land. He went to boarding school and ‘that’s where Joe and I met.”

Occasionally, Joe drops into the vernacular of all our West Country childhoods: “You must be maised boy, proper maised.”

Leslie and Wendy drive to North Devon to get an aneroid barometer repaired in Merton “a small village right in the middle of nowhere between Okehampton and Great Torrington”.

“I used to know that part of North Devon quite well. I did a lot of my growing up down there,” he explains.
He tells why he is teetotal. “Funnily enough, I left religion behind and stopped going to chapel altogether, but I never acquired a taste for alcohol. And later with drink-drive laws coming in, there didn’t seem any point.”

He objects not one bit to Wendy sipping the occasional brandy. “I must say I like the way it affects her sometimes.”

Wartime at Shebbear left him with an everlasting liking for plain food. “I like proper English food with no frills and none of that modern rubbish of plastering everything in herbs and spoiling the pure taste of good meat and vegetable.”

Back again to the war years: “I served with the Home Guard when I was a Scout. I was a runner or messenger for them.”

He touches on religion, declaring: “Preachers were never very good at inspiring people with visions of heaven so they tried to terrify them into virtue.”

A beautifully written and amusing book in which the author sees every new day as a fresh challenge and an opportunity to experience something new. And he never misses the chance to give the reader a little history lesson.

It is truly a celebration of what fun life can be when the shackles of earning a living have been removed!

Mirus Bilis! Shebbear has reintroduced Latin. After how many years? Nobody seems to know. Furthermore, two verses of the school song are sung every Friday morning. In Latin, of course.

The subject is not exactly on the curriculum but is available as a spare-time activity, along with German. Old boys who struggled with the fifth declension await to hear how many take up the opportunity.

Good news, also, from the sports’ fields – the Ist XV managed to see off Plymouth College, Blundells, Grenville and Kelly College in the winter term. At the same time, the girls’ netball team had one of their most successful seasons.

No wonder then that Headmaster Bob Barnes was in an upbeat mood at the 97th OSA reunion dinner at the RAF Club in Piccadilly on January 24, helped, no doubt, that at last his new house is taking shape on the Lake Chapel side of Beckley field.

His toast to the association set the tone for a good-humoured and even exuberant reunion with a splendid meal of venison and numbers totalling 77.

It was good to note that there were more younger members attending than ever before, among them a good showing of old girls.

There was even a memory test for the “ancients”. Keith Arnold brought up a school photograph dating from 1938.

So what of the school in its 163rd year of existence?

Bob Barnes answered the question as he replied to the President’s toast to the school: Shebbear College, he said, was very much going forward, both academically and financially.

“Last year was best financially in 14 years. Now we can actually reinvest in its infrastructure to make it the best small independent school in the south west.” That reinvestment was going into teaching resources, into computers – not just for the computer and business studies’ centre – but one for every room in the school and into the new 6th form centre.

Academically, more than 70% of pupils sitting last year’s GCSE examinations had achieved five passes or more ranging from A* to C.

That put Shebbear into the top 20% of schools in the United Kingdom.

There had been a change in routine. Now morning service in chapel took place before morning break. “And if pupils don’t sing – they don’t get a break!” he added. The school stressed moral values and standards.

“Shebbear College is working flat out to ensure that when pupils leave they are fully prepared to face and play their part in the modern world; that they are independent and able to speak up for themselves.

“We at Shebbear work tremendously hard to achieve that because we have hopes for our pupils.”

The school had had an outstanding year with regard to music and drama. Violinist and pianist Rebecca Betambeau had been appointed leader of the North Devon Youth Orchestra.

At the centenary celebrations in London of the 14 schools in the Methodist group, Shebbear had been the smallest school taking part but had contributed the most. “Some schools were more than six times as big as us.”

He went on: “As a collective the college is in very good heart compared to how it was when I first arrived. Wherever you go people speak very highly of its pupils, their academic excellence and their moral fibre.”

Over recent years £750,000 had been invested in the infrastructure. All this had come out of revenue – “making us the envy of schools in the west”.

“Shebbear is easily the most successful school in the Methodist group.” President David Shorney, proposing the toast, said he had enjoyed his year of office immensely, especially his visits to Shebbear in the summer.

He recalled his father’s time as a teacher at college and said there was always a danger that some might confuse father with son but instead he had been flattered at being recognised by people he had not seen for fifty years.

There had been a Shebbear boy called into the RAF in 1948 who was summoned to see his Commanding Office. He marched in with some trepidation. “Rodney – how nice to see you,” said the CO.

It was Old Shebbearians Alfred Earle, later to become Sir Alfred Earle, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff. “Being recognised can be a good thing,” he added.

He was grateful to Shebbear for having made so many differences to his life. It had fostered his love of music and singing, books and radio which, in that remote school, had been the only link with the outside world.

The toast to the OSA was jointly and charmingly proposed by Cara Hyman, Head Girl, and Greg Barnes, Head Boy, and responded to by Paul Sanders.

Then came the award of the War Memorial Scholarship. Charles Verney reminded guests that the award owed its origins to the work Lt Col Walter Parkes, H.E.Down and John Rounsefell.

Their aim had been to establish a fund in memory of the many Old Shebbearians who gave their lives in two world wars to provide a grant to help old pupils in higher education.

This time the recipient was Debbie Kinsey, of Winkleigh, who had achieved four A grades in her A-levels and was now reading Political Science at York University. The evening drew to a close but not before Lt Col Michael Johns JP was elected as President for 2004, Michael Buckingham as vice-President and the committee en masse.

A Reluctant Seaman (published by United Writers, £16.95) is the sequel to A Prized Pupil.

After leaving Perspins, Roger Wallace becomes a National Service sailor. Denied his preference to work in education he becomes a writer (or “scribes” in naval slang). While the course of his Service life provides the chronological peg on which the narrative is grounded, the main thrusts of the novel are his continuing passion for Gladys and the development of his journey from Christianity to Humanism.

The author ponders earnestly on his philosophical response to pacificism (in relation to the Korean war), homosexuality (as a witness at a Court Martial on board HMS Victory), and above all the basic tenets of the Christian religion. He takes unexpected parts in a marriage ceremony and a funeral. These are brilliantly described, the first hilariously, the second elegiacally.

Throughout Roger alternately pines for Gladys, spends a blissful fortnight with her in North Devon, is cast into despair when she tells him she is to marry another man and, by seeming serendipity, is reunited with her in Surrey when he leaves the navy and buys a small car hire business.

He revisits Perspins to play rugby for the Old Boys and again to seek “Mr. Emerson’s” advice about the Korean war. There are a number of well drawn characters in this volume, notably the splendid Lieutenant George Trelawney, his Commanding Officer on HMS Defiance. Altogether it is a deeper book than its predecessor, entertaining, and most interesting for what it tells of the author’s (or perhaps one should say the central character’s) evolution at a highly formative age.

David Shorney is modest about his achievements.

He will tell you that during his six years at Shebbear he was a member of Troop 1 and the choir but failed to distinguish himself in the classroom or on the sports field.

Probe a little further and you discover that in fact in fact he subsequently achieved much more. Scholar, teacher, academic, researcher and writer would more aptly describe him.

Dig even deeper and you find out that the real purpose of his life has been to care about and give hope to those less fortunate than himself. Our President for 2003 is the son of the late Dick Shorney, who taught for two decades at Shebbear, before taking up a lectureship at Loughborough College in 1943.

David went with his parents to Leicestershire to finish his schooling. He trained as a teacher at Westminster College, then in London, before National Service in the RAF.

Afterwards, he set out to gain a place at Oxford University and won an Open Scholarship to Exeter College where he read Modern History. There at the same were John Page in his final year and the later Robin Howard in his second. Leaving Oxford he taught at Hardye’s School, Dorchester, and in a number of schools in Leicestershire before going to New Westminster, British Columbia, to teach at a senior high school.

Returning to Britain in 1962, he took a postgraduate diploma in Theology at Durham University, followed by a lectureship in history and religious studies at Neville’s Cross, Durham, a teacher training college. He also began research into British disarmament policy in the inter-war years which led to the award of a PhD.

Moving south, he took up an appointment at another teacher training college, Avery Hill in south-east London, which eventually became the headquarters of the new University of Greenwich.

In 1986, after taking early retirement, he began what he regards as the most important period of his life. His history of Avery College (Teachers in Training 1906-1985) published in 1989 was acclaimed in the academic press. In 1996, he wrote Protestant Nonconformity and Roman Catholicism for the Public Record Office. One reviewer said it was the best introduction to the subject he had ever read.

Retirement also gave him more time to devote to the homeless and disadvantaged. In Durham, he had already set up a hugely successful club for children from one of the city’s most deprived areas. In London, he worked for Crisis, the organisation which provides comfort for people forced to live on the streets at Christmas; worked and became a trustee for the Attlee Foundation in London’s East End; became treasurer of a day centre for the homeless and marginalised in Deptford, and joined a team of Simon Community volunteers taking soup and sandwiches to rough sleepers in central London.

In 1991 he set up the Aldo Trust in Bradford, Yorkshire, as a memorial to his parents and acquired a large house which for more than 10 years provided accommodation for the young homeless, as well as conference facilities for churches and voluntary organisations.

Now he is researching the history of the Bible Christians: “It has enabled me to come much closer to Shebbear and its origins. It is a remarkable story of which we can all be proud and one which I hope I shall be able to share with others in the near future.”

25 January 2003

Back at its old home at the RAF Club in Piccadilly on one of the warmest January nights on record, the OSA’s 95th annual reunion dinner attracted a splendid total of 81 members and guests, only slightly down on last year. Bob Barnes was making his first appearance as Headmaster, only the eighty Shebbear’s history. But for Bill Lyddon, a pupil from 1939-41, this was his 50th consecutive reunion.

Each was roundly applauded.

These were not the only significant happenings. The news that the first marriage between Old Shebbearians was imminent brought a stunned silence – followed by an audible sigh of relief that they were, in fact, boy and girl. The announcement that the OSA is to have a permanent, Devon-based vice-president was warmly welcomed. Michael Down, who has played a prominent part in the Friends of Shebbear College, will fulfil that role and seek to get more younger members involved in the association.

And for the first time one of the school’s valued Hong Kong contingent, Ms Micky Kong, was awarded the OSA Memorial Prize. She exceeded expectations in her A-levels to gain a place at Hull University. Such a pity that the college’s only nationally recognised sportsman, jockey Steve Drowne, could not attend. He was deservedly holidaying in America after notching up his 100th winner in a season on the flat. Members and guests stood in silence as the names of Old Boys who had died during the year were read out.

Then to the business of the night, beginning with presentations of Dartington glass to two former members of staff, Brian Pocock and Jim Scott, who retired after long service in 2001.

Proposing the toast to the school, President Geoff Watts outlined his busy year of office, highlighting the Summer Ball, the Leavers’ Service, Speech Day, the reception in Bideford to mark Paul Mason’s retirement, Leslie Clarke’s retirement party in November and the Holly Ball in December. The year had brought back “bitter sweet memories” of his time as a boy at Shebbear to which he gone as a “bucky new snip” in 1952. He said the school remained a magnet, drawing its old pupils back, Bucky new snip! How the memories flooded back – but would he recall the three great end-of-term Sundays, odd sock, buttonhole and kick-the-door? Alas, not this time.

Replying, Bob Barnes said he stood before the gathering both sad and proud. Sad that he had to report the deaths of Gordon Angrave, who had done so much to restore the beauty of the college grounds, and John Blainey, Head of Information Technology, who had died in his sleep on January 1. Proud that 13 years after arriving as head of Physical Education and Games, “hard work had brought him the headship of Shebbear College”. The year had seen a a number of retirements – Paul Mason after 30s years of working tirelessly and with total dedication, Marianne Ogbourne, who had been on the domestic staff for 20 years, and Pauline Cann of the catering staff who must have prepared a million meals and cooked five million potatoes. And, of course, there was Leslie Clarke, who in his five years as headmaster had totally transformed Shebbear’s fortunes. “His doggedness and his endeavours did not make him popular, but he came at a time when he was needed.”

The school was in very good heart and going forward. The aim was to make Shebbear the very best of small schools and it continue to instil in its pupils the importance of honesty, self-reliance and good manners. Plans for the future included expansion of the Junior School, thereby adding to a foundation that would ensure the college’s existence for another 160 years and beyond.

He congratulated Oliver Wickett on being names Devon Young Cricketer of the Year and also thanked the Friends of Shebbear College for raising £4,000 for school funds.

The toast to the OSA was proposed for the first time in a “duet” by Head Girl Penny Rowe and Head Boy Oliver Wickett. They claimed that the head had been so concerned about what they might say that he had “momentarily gone in denial”. It was, apparently, Ms Rowe who had most to say, for your reporter has only two words written in his notebook – netball and needlework. Replying Martin Butler said he had been warned that he would be shot if he spoke for more than three minutes. Six minutes later he was still telling how he had left with one O-level in 1980 but was now the deputy head master of a school in Essex.

The Shebbear experience, which provided more than an education, had given him the will to achieve.

With that Ted Lott proposed David Shorney, son of the later and much-loved master Dick Shorney, as President for 2003. David was truly a Shebbear boy, having started his education at the village school in 1936 and who had followed the Old Shebbearians tradition of giving selflessly to others.

His deputy and President for 2004 will be Lt.Col. Michael Johns. Proposer Bill Oke said he had had not only a distinguished military career but was someone who gave valuable service to the community.

Leslie Scrase was at Shebbear from 1942 to 1949. He is writing a sequence of novels in the genre of autobiographical fiction. A Prized Pupil (published by United Writers. £16.95) is the second volume and is a lightly veiled account of his years at Shebbear.

The volume is dedicated to three Shebbearians: Jackson Page (JP), Guy Wright and John Shapcott. Like JP, Guy Wright returned to teach, for two years 1946-48, when he illuminated junior maths, music and the stage. He died tragically young. John Shapcott was also struck down in his prime.

The fictional Scrase, Roger Wallace, arrives at Perspins (as in Ad gloriam ….) for winter term 1942. His contemporaries will easily decode the transparent change of other names. Wallace was an evacuee when Shebbear provided a rural escape from the ravages of German bombs for many urban boys, and thus became a more diverse community than it had ever been – greatly to its advantage.

There are broadly three threads: school life; the war and the author’s evolving attitude towards it; and a (perhaps vicarious) romance.

The new boy anticipated a recreation of Tom Brown’s Schooldays or Stalky & Co. Although he seems to have been disappointed in this, the narrative is not without echoes of both, particularly perhaps the former. The book proceeds at a crisp pace and faithfully describes the ethos and rhythm of Shebbear in that era. As Scrase relives scrapes, scats, triangle runs, rugby triumphs, spud picking, scout camp, ditch and dyke (oh yes), the school play and dawning appreciation of an exceptional schoolmaster (Mr Emerson alias JP), the chapters are necessarily episodic. It is interesting to compare the fictional account with coeval editions of the Shebbearian.There is a graphic description of our hero’s debut for the 1st XV, mirrored score for score in a (Winter 1947 edition) report of an exciting win against Kelly College. He routs the Tories in a Union debate (the Spring 1949 edition informs us: “Mr Scrase spoke throughout with much confidence”) and comes second to “John Cob” in the senior cross country – a photo of Scrase and John Shapcott captioned “Runner up and Winner” is in the same edition.

Another arrival in 1942 was J.B. Morris. Although the author’s first impression of JBM, accurately enough, was of a “human dynamo”, some of his later appearances in the book seem rather caricatured. The rugby tackle dramatically executed on the unpleasant and dishonest Mr Smart at ‘Downland Halt’ station is nevertheless chalked to his credit. (Anyone who can recall this episode might enlarge in a letter to the OS editor or an email to the OSA web site).

The three wartime years (1942-45) occupy three quarters of the book. The author provides regular mileposts – the London blitz, Alamein, Monte Casino, D Day, Doodlebugs, VE Day, etc. These act as a peg on which to offer his reflections on this war and on war in general. One of Wallace’s older brothers visits Shebbear to tell him another has been killed flying his Hurricane in North Africa. There is poignancy here, and there is a moving passage when, on Remembrance Day some years later, Wallace reads the names of those killed in both World Wars, silently adding his brother’s name at the end. There is humour too for those who may find mid-century resonance in his parents’ fastidious economy with the telephone and shock at a daring request for two shillings (10p) extra pocket money for a visit to Lords – he tries his mother first, of course.

Then there is Gladys. Wallace has a fling with this pretty kitchen maid and is emotionally as well as physically smitten. An initial disclaimer implies that his occasional trysts with Gladys, hazardous and intense, may be less autobiographical than much else in the book. It is after all a novel.
A Prized Pupil gives a good and atmospheric idea of Shebbear in the 1940s. It is over 60 years since Wallace arrived at Perspins. Imagine the difference between the school shaped by J.B Morris and the establishment run by Ruddle 60 years earlier. Then fast forward to 2003 and be surprised, not by the evident differences, but by the survival of so many familiar features. Guy Wright would be proud of today’s music even if a little incredulous at the existence of 10 Visiting Music Staff. Roger Wallace would surmise the school Food Technician does not prescribe maggots as a meat supplement. But there were redeeming features in what we might now call the late Middle Ages. Among other things one is reminded what good writing there was in the Shebbearian when three boys were editors under the supervision of JP. In the Summer 1947 edition there is a clever and amusing article by Leslie Scrase – “Learning One’s Lines” (for his part in Julius Caesar). The boy could write even then!

27 January 2001

held at

The RAF Club, Piccadilly, London

The President: Harry Aspey (1954-60)
The Headmaster: Leslie Clark
Mrs Alice Kingsnorth
Miss Sarah Kingsnorth
Rev. Dr. Malcolm White (Chaplain: 1971-75)
Vice-Chairman The Friends: Mr David Hale
Secretary The Friends: Mrs Jane Down
The School Captain: Andrew Uglow

C. Vernay (1936-41)
W.E. Lyddon (1939-41)
K. Arnold (1937-41)
D. Shorney (1938-43)
D. Verney (1939-43)
G.W. Shellard
A.G. Andrews (1939-45)
A. Hawken (1941-45)
A.E. Lott (1942-47)
H.C. James(1942-47)
J. Forster (1945-48)
R.W.Horrell (1946-53)
J.C. Ruckes (1949-54)
D.W. Haley (1951-56)
G.L. Watts (1952-56)
C.I.R. White (1952-56)
P.T. Webb (1952-57)
J.F.W. Oke (1952-59)
P. Gartrell (1957-62)
C. Blencowe (1961-68)
M.A. Buckingham (1967-72)
W.M. Down (1968-73)
S. Birks (1968-75)
N. Blencowe (1968-75)
P. Collins (1970-77)
C. Gooding (1970-77)
D. Littlejohn (1970-78)
J. Williams (1974-80)
C. Steel (1977-80)
J. Duncan (1977-82)
K. Stewart (1977-82)
S. Stewart (1978-84)
R. Brommell (1979-82)
D. Williams (1980-85)
P. Jeffries (1981-84)
R.W. Harwood (1983-86)
P. Meadley-Roberts (1986-91)
P. Lockyer (1988-95)
R. Edmondson (19?-97)
D. Smith (1989-97)
W. Blencowe (1989-98)
Rebecca Smith (1994-98)
Kimberley Oram (1994-98)
R. Turner (1992-99)
J. Marshall (1992-99)
W. van Rensberg (1996-99)

Apologies for Absence:
Mr J. Scott, Mr and Mrs T. Danby, Mr Dick West, Mr S. Malore, Mr P. Mason and C.K. Barrett, D. Pugsley, M.J. Tucker, R.L. Thomas, J.S. Symons, T. Gilbert, M.J. Ibbetson, B. Bowley, P. Sanders, R. Bickles, B. Inniss, K. Hall, J. Ware, W.A.R Coombe, E.F. Oliver, C. Inniss, C. Hodson, W.A. Batten, E.D.K. Coombe, R.J. Heard, M. Creedy, R.S. Knapman, G.T. Gooding, M.W. Beck, J. Hancock, M.A. Searle, D.F. Marshall, P. Whatley, J. Dunster, P. Littlewood, D. Richards, B.A.M. Jones, N. Giddy, C.N. Phillips, N. Laws, R. Davies.

A School Apart was commissioned and published by the OSA in about 1986.

Many contributed to it including Leslie Johnson, Kingsley Barrett, Jack Morris, Jackson Page, George Kingsnorth and Russell Buley.

It was put together by the late Tony Fairchild, then yachting correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.

Michael O’Driscoll was a pupil from 1958-63, a member of Pollard House and still remembered with great affection by all those who knew him.

A fine athlete and rugby player, a talented actor also, he gained entry to Dartmouth Royal Naval College after A-levels.

By early 1965, he was serving as a Midshipman on HMS Invermoriston as part of a British operation against Indonesian infiltrators in Malaysian waters.

The minesweeper was attacked off Singapore with mortar fire from an Indonesian gunboat. Michael was killed while manning a machine gun.

Posthumously Michael O’Driscoll was Mentioned in Dispatches. The citation said that Midshipman O’Driscoll showed
“outstanding coolness and devotion to duty while in action”.

Michael O’Driscoll is commemorated at the National Memorial Arboretum on the memorial wall for the Royal Navy, 1965.