One Of The Worst And Two Of Best Years Of My Childhood

A Memory of Tiffield.

wake house (hereward the wake)1966 till 1969 I too was an inmate at that time ,the bullying from the bigger older boys made the place hell for the first year .then one evening i flipped out on the biggest bully a lad named john seymour(stumpy).I really
did try to kill him.He stole my supper again and taunted me "what you gonna do about
it"so i threw a jug of steaming hot cocoa at his face and beat him about the head with
the metal jug untill i was overpowered and dragged off to detention .i got six lashes of the cane on the bare behind and three extra on each hand for not crying and showing
no remorse and put in solitary till i appolagised, i gave in after 4 days and said
i was sorry (corporal punnishment was the norm in the sixties)Things changed after
that,the bullying ceased and wake house became home .interhouse sporting
contests made life bearable andi can remember beating cranston of robarts in the individual medley the medley relay and the last event of the gala the long plunge
.Ihad set a record and my name went on a brass plate on the swimming pool wall
.Ifelt so proud Wake house had won and i was treated like a hero .and things
just got better we won the cricket . i caught deano fleet out for a duck on his third ball the first two were certain fours but i stopped them reaching the boundery
deano wasnt happy and shouted you wont stop this one but i did we became mates after that hesketh house boys liked me because i took out their main bully
as well totally by accident but i still got the cane for it the only black boy in the school Roy Gumbs he tried to trip me up while jogging training in the rugby squad
and I just stuck my fist out and connected on his chin lights out .hospital,
fractured jaw sorry Roy it really was an accident and i was only defending myself.
Lots of good stuff went on like Duke of Edingburgh outward bound awards on two weeks camping up mount snowden i got stung on bridge of my nose by a bee and suffered anephilactic shock while absailing it wasnt funny.at the time,but other great stuff went on as well as playing rugby for the school i was selected to swim
for northants county boys club and won a national event at coventry swimming pool individual medley again ,but i had really trained hard for this event instead of the morning run i would do half an hour in the pool doing length after length ,alternating strokes and practicing racing turns and my dedication worked i won by half a length no bullshit what a lesson in life it was. to succeed you must persevere
Whatever happened to Chas Giles,VincentMorrin,Rob Forsythe,Ken Jones,Allen Blackman,Sam Burns,Dennis and Laurence(chincky)Wheale, David Lovelock, the lads from rushden and corby whos names escape me and lots more from the other houses founders house Graham Palmer(did catering course in admin block with
him) Winters(bernie) Sunman, Hesketh Ronnie Bytheway Robert Benn(football star) Gallilao(stand off half rugby team) Roy Gumbs(boxer) Deano Fleet (gymnast
and cricket teams) and i can only recall two lads from Robarts Bunting (did a bunk)
and Osullivan(did catering course with him) I want to write a book before all the good memories fade the bad ones you dont forget so if any of you old boys out there remember professor gorrillasnot thats me and if you could help refresh my
memories or if i could help refresh yours look me up im on f/b all the best ken sumner ps just remembered Tinkerbell Watson and Max Bygraves both brummies