WELCOME

SCHOOL BADGE

2008 REUNION.

Winslade park in the 1800's

Shambles before it became the school

lovely postcard of school

another postcard pic

FIRST DAY BOYS

THE MARIST FATHERS

2008 EMAIL ADDRESSES GIVEN TO ME CAN BE OBTAINED FROM PAT CAULDWELL AT

cauldwell@tinyworld.co.uk

Winslade in the early 60's

Panorama

cropped long

closed up and waiting for redevelopment

Winslade today

Fortunately for me St Mary’s College Winslade Park was just opening from scratch.  My father decided that Dominic and I needed a good Catholic education and here it was to be.
It was in an old Georgian house set in it's own vast grounds close to the village of Clyst St Mary and about 5 miles from Exeter.  Here we could be dayboys.  But first I had to pass an entrance exam.

The exam took place in the headmasters study with the new headmaster. The reverend Doctor McCauley, a huge gruff Irishman who was as gentle as a lamb, God bless him.
The exam consisted of him asking me to explain what darkness or a shadow was. WOW! I struggled mightily with this using all the words I could muster.  When the sun went in there was darkness because there was no light? Was my suggestion?
The end result was that he let me in by the skin of my teeth.

Early days at Winslade.

Dominic and I turned up for our first day at this wonderful school.  Well scrubbed with new clothes right down to our underpants.  Gorgeous new blazers with a very colourful school badges, which were the coat of arms of the Bishop of Plymouth.
Dominic and I were first day pupils at Winslade.  On arrival at the school on that first day there was a short period of allocating pupils to their various classes.  Names were called and we were ushered into rooms where numbers of boys were gathered waiting to be allocated classes and teachers.

They explained that they would decide who was going where by people’s aptitude in answering questions.  And so a period of questions and answers began, I did very well and was told to let others have a go. Then disaster struck.
I was called out of the room and it was explained to me that my brother Dominic should have been in there answering those questions, not me.  I was immediately sent to join the other more junior children, more of my own age group in the lower regions of the earth, much to my chagrin and annoyance, I thought that I was brilliant!

After this preamble we all gathered outside to have the first school photograph, smallest at the front big lads at the rear.  I can still remember and smell of the newly polished school the smells of nature that surrounded us on that wonderful day.
Winslade was a large square house with a cellar complex and three upper floors.  Upon entering the house there was a large central hallway and running of this there was a central staircase and many rooms.  These large airy rooms with huge windows were to be our classrooms.  The grounds of Winslade were extensive, with large playing fields, which covered many acres of land. There was a large wood, and at the bottom of the fields there was a small slow running river. Here we once made a raft and went out a little way on it, and quite an adventure that was.

Our teachers were Marist Fathers assisted by a few lay teachers and a matron.
The caretakers were Mr and Mrs Mollineaux.  Their son John attended the school, He was my sworn enemy from the off, a sturdy lad with fast fists and who showed no mercy.
Outside, in the wonderful grounds of Winslade I thrived.  Here beneath the trees and on the luscious grass, I learnt how to play Cricket, Rugby, and football and Running Races, which came in handy when I had to escape the baying mob.  School day life now went a lot better for me, and my days were spent surviving some interesting scraps and scrapes as I grew in many ways.

Overall the Marists were excellent teachers and achieved some good results over the years.  I got some good term exam results from time to time, but this depended upon the teacher and not upon my preferences.  Eventually I left this school without any educational certificates at all.  But I did get a Raleigh bicycle. (More of this later)
Whose fault?  My failure lies in a combination of things really. My own misery at constantly having to go to the toilet, branded me as different both in the eyes of the other boys and the teachers.  The teachers having a busy schedule of lessons to be taught and results to be achieved had no time for the little boy with bladder problems who was constantly on the run.  I remember complaining that my mind kept racing too fast and I could not keep up with the ideas going through it.  They just laughed.

Undermined by the constant negative reinforcements from Aunty Mina and the serious beatings that I received from her.  I lived in a state of nervous apprehension and anxiety.  Although school was a release from the misery of my home life each day as I went on my way to school my mind was full of deep brooding thoughts.
Aunty Mina and The Priests convinced me that I was a sinner beyond redemption and that God was paying me personal attention, making me pay for each transgression of thought word or deed.  There was no escape; inevitably, I fantasised my own death, childishly thinking that if I died, then they would be sorry.

My first days at Winslade were happy ones; I enjoyed the company of boys of my own age, who enjoyed the same things as I did. Although I did not thrive academically, I did well enough to suit myself.  I took in the lessons easily enough, the ones that I liked that is, I liked English, history, Latin & French, geometry, but not algebra, or lessons taught by Priests that I didn’t like.  Some of the teachers were universally popular, like Fr (Spud) Murphy and Fr Clifford. At that time the headmaster was Dr McCauley, a large Irish man of (what seemed to me) huge physical stature. His way of punishing misdemeanours was simply to hold the offending boys hand. Because of his huge strength, “holding the hand “ was a punishment worth avoiding at all costs.

I joined the school Choir and discovered my Voice. A true boy Soprano, I came to love singing, because I was good at it [something to be good at, at last]. The standard of teaching was good, and usually made interesting by some of the Fathers who had the talent. As I have said several of the Fathers were excellent teachers, however, I had a urinary problem [which was not solved until I was 57 years old, would you believe?] this kept me constantly on the run to the toilet, and the teachers needed a lot of patience with me, but on the whole they were mostly kind.
My usual position in class was near the bottom of the class academically, not because I was stupid, but through any lack of incentive to do better. Aunty Mina made sure that each day she reminded me of how stupid I was.

My Father resolved this situation by offering to buy me a new RALEIGH bicycle if I did well in my last term at school. [I was nearly 15] so, with a little bit of an effort I duly came out in the top three in Maths, English, History, Latin, and something else, which I forget.
My Father was amazed, and I was stunned.  But reinforced by my newfound, if secret belief in myself I experienced an amazing surge of confidence. My father kept going on about how well I had done. He kept his promise and took me to the Cycle shop in Torquay; here he let me select the bicycle of my choice. It cost £17-2s-6d, a huge sum of money in those days.  My Father was proud of me, I was delighted with him, and, I had my new bicycle, the story of my life...

I made many friends at school, but apart from the John gaskell, Ross Pontin and the Walsh Brothers and John Kingerlee [who was really Dominic’s friend] and ian madden none of them endured. So although school life was full of incident, I shall not write of friendships here.
My Mother was still ill and my Father was working eighteen hours a day seven days of the week to earn the money for special treatment. While he was away in Torquay working, life at home with Aunty Mina continued to be absolute hell.

I left school eventually without an O level to my name, I did not sit my GCSE’s or whatever the exams were called in those days, but as soon as I had left school, I immediately began to read and read. I had come alive.  Now I began to question and question and discovered that I had access to the biggest resource of learning of all, other people!  Working in the ice cream factory was my baptism into life.
People like Mr Thorne, Arthur Sharland, Luigi Decina, and Maude, the crippled lady who lived opposite the ice-cream factory in Preston St, who was extremely wise and intelligent and always sympathetic and supportive to me.
All these people helped me in one way or another, to look at things objectively, and directly, and to understand the key components of each problem as presented. 
Although the lack of qualifications has never held me back in life or from trying, it has been a setback from achieving to other peoples satisfaction. Therefore denying me access to higher office. And so I do not recommend this course of action to anyone.
My quest for knowledge had begun; my whole life at this time was a wonderful feast as I drank from the cups of knowledge generously held to my lips by kind people.
Now I was free from the influence of Aunty Mina and greedy for life.
I discovered that I did not have fear of life, because of my childhood suffering everything seemed so easy now.  I felt I was just coming out of a daze of being absorbed by my childhood traumas.  Now anything shown to me or offered to me was consumed with great enthusiasm, without question almost.  I read books, went to the Cinema, Museums, Art Galleries, but most of all, I argued with Dominic.[trying to win an argument with him is an education itself].

PHOTOGRAPHS OF RUGBY TEAMS etc.

SOME OF THESE PHOTOS WERE QUITE SMALL SO DO NOT enlarge. the pixels break up

1954-55 above

very small photos that do not enlarge unfortunately

rugby and cricket pics

cricket scorers and Fr Gartlan & Boys