大象传媒

In 1939 Cheltenham College was evacuated to Shrewsbury School which meant the Bursar spent a great deal of time travelling between the two sites. On 30 January 1940 the journey took even longer than usual.

The train was over an hour late starting from Shrewsbury and stopped at every station. At Birmingham he had to struggle through six inches of snow to reach the other station. He eventually arrived at Cheltenham two hours late in the total darkness of the blackout.

There had been no snow but plenty of rain which had frozen. He fell in the station yard and seven times more before the first roundabout. Bags shot in opposite directions and the torch in the third. They were recovered on hands and knees with the aid of matches and he decided to tackle the problem scientifically. He found there was a slight crunchiness in the gutter wide enough for one foot but not for two, so with one foot in the gutter and the other on the ice pavement, he hobbled.

Battered and hungry he reached the edge of the College playing field and decided progress might be easier across the grass than on the road. It was, but it was like walking across a mass of broken milk bottles and, when he had to deviate from a straight line to negotiate unexpected ponds which had formed in hollows, he got incredibly lost.

At last he reached the gate of his house only to discover that the latch was embedded in ice and nothing would budge it. So near and yet so far. He pushed his bags through the wire, struggled over the gate, stepped on the frozen path and took his last graceful header. But he was home.

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