大象传媒

My wartime memories of Bedford as a schoolboy Part One 鈥� Outbreak of war and going up to Bedford Modern School.

Part one of an oral history interview with Mr. Peter Cook conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淛ust to give you a bit of background really, the thing is you see we had been living in Oakley for a number of years and then we moved to Bedford, we being the family of course. And at the outbreak of war we were living I think possibly in Manor Road, Goldington. So that was quite close to the centre of Bedford, to the Goldington Road and so on. At the outbreak of war I was eleven years old and even at that age I could feel that sense of gloom and doom. I remember that awful feeling when it was declared 鈥榳e now find ourselves in a state of war鈥�.

And in the 1930s my father had learnt to fly at Barton Airport. He joined the Civil Air Guard and he was a qualified pilot but also he was a very keen rifle shot. I have some of his targets upstairs still. He shot for Bedford at Bisley and so when, I mean I don鈥檛 know how to feel about this, but he was a qualified pilot, he was a champion rifle shot, a very go ahead man, he was in the Workers鈥� Educational Association.

And so when war broke out one of the first things he did was to volunteer for the Air Force. He went into the Air Force in February of 1940 and he ended up in Coastal Command and on May the 23rd, which was my mother鈥檚 birthday he was reported missing. He had been shot down over the North Sea somewhere and that鈥檚 the last we have ever known of him. Now this threw mother into mental turmoil and I have a younger brother but as the elder son a lot evolved on me. I think to some extent this probably made me more aware of what was going on. I remember events in some ways in disconnected images and impressions. Some of those impressions were obviously very strong.

I had been to Goldington Road School but then when my parents moved into Manor Road, Goldington I ended up at the village school on Goldington Green. It was OK. The Headmaster was called Getliffe, I forget the nick name we had for him, again it wouldn鈥檛 have been very complimentary! And the thing I mainly remember is I was caught scrumping because adjacent to the school was the Headmaster鈥檚 house and his garden with apple trees, irresistible and I really plucked up my courage, donned my gas mask and invaded the orchard! Guess who was caught? Guess who got the cane? It was the only time that I got the cane at that school. There again you see it was indicative of the regime of discipline, it was, I think it was probably on my bum.

I went up to Bedford Modern School, Harpur Street, Bedford in 1939 and I remember I鈥檇 been somewhere with father in the car and I told him that I got through in the Modern School and that clearly delighted him. So I cracked some feeble pun, that鈥檚 been a characteristic of my life, feeble puns. I can remember he gave me a sort of paternal squeeze of the knee, this is a very salient memory for me because I wasn鈥檛 to realise that would be the last time that we were together.

I was very keen on aircraft and aircraft identification this to some extent was boosted by the fact that father had been in the Air Force, albeit briefly. And so I used to go to I think it was the Igranic periodically because up in one of the rooms there they would have a meeting of the National Association of Spotters鈥� Clubs. And I can still recall after the meeting cycling home, back to Goldington from the Igranic and looking up and this was a very bright moon, used to call it the 鈥楤ombers鈥� Moon鈥� and we would then tend to expect an air raid.

I was at the Bedford Modern School, although it was war the Modern School still had very strict rules. We had some thing called 鈥榣ock up鈥� which meant we had to be in at a certain time at night at home. I can tell you just how strict it was. We had a system called 鈥楽chool Monitors鈥�. And it would be a set rather similar to this in the sense that this chap lived diagonally opposite, now he was a 鈥楽chool Monitor鈥� and I remember on one occasion I had gone out of the gate, just outside of the gate onto the pavement and this chap came over and said, 鈥楧o you realise Cook you are out after 鈥榣ock up鈥�?鈥� And this was a bloke I was playing with! Came over and told me off. On another occasion we were up along Midland Road near the station, I was out with my mother on a Sunday evening and this chap cycled up and said to my mother, 鈥楧o you realise that your son is out after 鈥榣ock up鈥�?鈥� And this was to challenge my mother about it!

We had to have the school uniform with a cap even during the war when clothing was on ration. And another thing was this, if you couldn鈥檛 swim, you know there is a button on the top of the cap, we had to have a little white button sewn onto that, that made us feel like marked men, like traitors, you know. So obviously an early ambition was to get rid of that white button. So that was another thing. We were taught to swim, oh, yes because I can still picture myself floundering with the master walking along the edge of the pool with a loop, I don鈥檛 know whether he was trying to lasso me or reassure me? But anyway there he was to fish me out if necessary so they were health and safety conscious in those days.

The Modern School baths in Clarendon Street were extremely good. And the school field, yes because I was up there quite a lot really because you see attendance at certain matches was compulsory. So that at that time if I went to a rugby match it was more to watch than to play and it was more because it was compulsory, but so we had to attend. Yes up at the baths we had the Fives courts. It was all very well done. In fact the pool was so good that Bedford people used it themselves. Because I had quite an early initiation into adult life and the other sex because our changing rooms were downstairs and there was a flight of stairs leading up to the next floor where there were other changing rooms. And one day I鈥檇 just walked in and I was making my way up to our area and voices caused me to look up and there was a young lady, obviously an immature young lady, absolutely starkers, standing there. So that was the beginning of my education! I can only imagine that somebody grabbed hold of me and said, 鈥楥ome on, Cook, get away from there.鈥� So you see the school baths were rather a centre because other schools would use the baths because it was such an excellent facility.

Well now, here鈥檚 another thing, because you see at the outset of the war a school was evacuated, a North London school, Islington school, Owen School. That was evacuated so there had to be a rapid adjustment of timetables, etc. And so generally speaking Owen School would be there in the morning we鈥檇 be there in the afternoon or vice versa depending on timetable requirements. There was to some extent a certain kind of sub war going on between Owen School and ourselves. For example, in the classrooms periodically there would be a big wooden post supporting the roof in case of blast. As well as all the criss cross paper on the windows there would be these posts and some people from Owen School, some of the kids had got in and how they managed it I don鈥檛 know. They must have managed to heat up a poker or something because they went round scrawling all things on these posts you see and I don鈥檛 suppose many of them would be complimentary as far as we were concerned.

Evacuees were integrated into the community which would include the school because you see we already had this intrusion of the Owen School who had to be housed as evacuees all over the place. And that further increased the disorientation because the Modern School was organised quite systematically on a House basis which was such that the Houses were given not very imaginative names I鈥檓 afraid. I was in North House, there was South House, East House and West House. Now that doesn鈥檛 call for a great deal of imagination does it? I was in North House and the chap across the road was in East House you see so he was a trespasser, I wasn鈥檛!

We, Bedford Modern and the Owen School were treated as two separate schools and that was really maintained in attitude as well. They were 鈥榯hem鈥� and we were 鈥榰s鈥� and it was amazing really in retrospect it worked remarkably well. There was friction of course, with the marking of the (posts). We had sports fixtures with certain schools out of County and that鈥檚 what tended to be the pattern. They had their fixtures, we had ours. And of course we were losing a fair bit of schooling as a result, it was only effectively half day but - lets say that we were scheduled in class in the morning the afternoon would be games. Games were I suppose to some extent a matter of choice but clearly there were certain requirements, as for example if you wanted to row you had to have swum the 鈥榩ass鈥�, things like that. As I say the school baths were a good focal point really because that went even beyond the Owen school to other schools.

On top of that you see there were the various boarding houses and there was an additional house called County House which was for boys who weren鈥檛 resident but who lived outside the town and therefore would be involved in a degree of travel now geographically that caused further divisions. Looking back it was a very undemocratic situation in a way, in as I say we were split up under various categories, different houses and that鈥檚 not even to talk about the Form structure and then you see you had the Boarders who loathed the rest of us. And our animosity was further increased because as you can imagine those boarding houses had their pupils there all the time therefore it鈥檚 not surprising that when it came to sports and things like that a Boarding house would usually be the top house. Which you know further fuelled our envy and so on. If anyone from one of the other Houses beat someone in one of the boarding houses there was great jubilation! It was an extra triumph! And even as I鈥檓 talking more and more images are coming back to me because it鈥檚 a revelation to me now at this remove to realise just what went on there.

The old Modern School, my locker was up on the top floor and as I say everything was still very discipline orientated and for some reason I was a wee bit late for school (23rd July 1942) I remember this vividly because I went to my locker and I heard this noise. I thought, it doesn鈥檛 sound like one of ours so I went to the window, it was an overcast and then suddenly I saw this shape and it was a plane and as I say I was keen on identification, I immediately recognised it as a Dornier. A German Dornier bomber, so called 鈥楩lying Pencil鈥� because of it鈥檚 shape and it suddenly appeared and I saw these objects falling away from it and then it just disappeared back into the clouds. Those objects were bombs and one of them landed near to what was called the Royal County Theatre.

Now I had been to a pantomime in the County Theatre a little while before and I had noticed how an act on the stage which involved some acrobats, the woman got up and the back of her legs were thick with dust. And then I was conscious the light was being interrupted and I just happened to look up and this is absolute truth, there was a big circular light fitting and there was a mouse running round and round this light fitting and as it went past the light it just interrupted, flickeringly. Our nickname for the Royal County Theatre was the Bug Run Odeon and this proved to be justified! The dust and apparently it was quite sometime before they could re-open the theatre, in what guise I don鈥檛 know because we weren鈥檛 allowed to go there anyway. But they do say it took about a week for the dust fully to subside.

Another school rule which was very strictly adhered to was that we were not allowed to go into any of the Chain stores during term time. And so as you can imagine when we had an end of term ceremony what happened? The first thing was to put your caps in your pocket because you know we were required to wear them during term, caps into pockets and straight over to Woolworths. It was like an emigration of lemmings! We all shot over to Woolworths.

Later on in upper school I became a House Monitor and as House Monitors we would hold periodic 鈥楥ourt鈥� and I remember sitting in on a 鈥楥ourt鈥� where this chap was dragged in, his charge sheet was read out and he鈥檇 committed practically every sin under the sun. So without any problem at all bend over, 鈥榮ix of the best鈥� with a high quality bamboo cane. The Head of House administered the cane.

You know it was real Tom Browns Schooldays, the running up and the swoosh, I can still hear it you know. One the first things they do is check his bum make sure he hadn't got anything packed down there and there was that kind of regime going on. It gave us, I suppose in a way, a slightly warped idea of our own importance. Because if you were a Prefect you had a special badge on your cap, you commanded a certain type of authority and so as for preparation for grown up life in those days, you know before political correctness that was all accepted. And anyway, to bring it closer to home I remember that at times just to get somewhere quiet we would go and sit up in the back gallery. Now on the other side of the back gallery was a library, the Sixth Form library and when I ended my days in the Sixth Form I became the Sixth Form Librarian. I was also an assistant editor of the Eagle, the school mag, so I was increasingly getting all different spheres of interest and influence to some extent.鈥�

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