My Strange Connection With Canford

I lived between Boscombe and Southbourne from 1954 until 1956 and I remember some family outings in our very first car - a black Ford Prefect saloon. Trips into the Dorset countryside were exciting for me and also for my father who had never taken a driving test because he had a licence before tests were introduced! Sometimes we went through Canford and my father told me it was a wonderful boarding school.

For this ten year old it sounded attractive as I had been brought up on a diet of story books about Billy Bunter at Greyfriars School and similar schoolboy yarns. I so wanted to go to Canford School. In the event my father promised me that if I failed the scholarship for Bournemouth School for Boys then he would send me to Canford. It was probably the worst thing he could have said as it was a positve inducement to fail my exam!

As luck would have it, fate intervened. I damaged both my ankles in 1955 and spent a couple of months in the Lord Mayor Treloar Hospital for Crippled Children. One of the features of this long stay hospital was the provision of tutors in the hospital school. I had week after week of intensive one-to-one tuition and when I returned to school with my feet mended I found I was ahead of my friends (although behind in P.E. and games!). The result was that I won a scholarship to Bournemouth School a year early!

Sadly, not only did I miss my chance to go to Canford School but I also missed my place at Bournemouth School as my father's job moved to London in 1956 and he negotiated for me to transfer my education to Pinner Grammar School which I entered a year early in 1956.

Sorry to miss you Canford!