ࡱ> 685 q bjbjqq @,ee_8'CC0WWWWW222s^22222WW   2WWpv 2   W1Eh \0C ss  s <22 22222 222C2222s222222222 :  Brian Groombridge Twelve Unexpected Experiences 1940 - 1951 1 1940: My London school evacuated to Somerset, but my parents were allowed to send me to Midhurst, West Sussex, where my father had relatives. So I went to Midhurst Grammar School. 2 It was not just a day school, it was also a boarding school. The headmaster secured me a scholarship, so I stayed on in the sixth form, which I could not have done in London. 3 The head was N.B.C. Lucas, a recently appointed history master from Newcastle Grammar School. The governors (chaired by the local landowner Viscount Cowdray) appointed him reluctantly. Theyd already offered the post to two previous candidates who had withdrawn - their wives did not fancy being in this - to them - remote countryside. Lucas was the last person available in time, though he seemed somewhat worryingly unorthodox. He had not been in post long before I became a pupil. 4 Luke, as we called him in the sixth form (and years later for the rest of his life), was in effect a Progressive headmaster. We liked a Punch cartoon of a boy coming out of the heads study. His friend asked him: Were you whacked? Oh. No, came the cheerful reply - I was psychoed. Lukes regime included House Meetings at which the boarders could comment on, even criticise, the way the House was run. He organised an inspiring sequence of Saturday evenings in his drawing room. Exceptionally interesting visiting speakers opened discussions with sixth formers, far more exploratory than most of what we had to learn in the classroom. 5 This regime meant that we all developed interests and talents we did not know we had. We not only sat the Higher School Certificate exams, but also for University scholarships. A dayboy, a postmans son, won a place at Oxford and a year later, I was offered an Oxford College Exhibition and an Open Scholarship at ͨs College. Given my very ordinary background, such achievements were, sociologically, quite exceptional (and maybe still would be?). 6 My Higher School Cert. Exams were in History, French (and Latin, learned in a one-year hurry). I was awarded a history scholarship, but the College was surprised when I said that I wanted to study Moral Sciences (as Philosophy and Psychology were called then). It was highly unusual to study philosophy straight from school, but Luke taught history in ways that prompted philosophical interest, and one of the best Drawing Room meetings involved us in a Socratic Dialogue. The College changed the Scholarship. 7 I was exceptionally lucky to have the Rev. Ian Ramsey as my philosophy tutor, a wonderful man who was College Chaplain (later Bishop of Durham), and an acknowledged expert on modern philosophy. At this time, Id also volunteered to serve in the RAF. The University had adapted its system to allow students also to study with the local RAF one day a week, hoping we could become officers (!). A fellow-student, the late Stuart Maclure, who became an expert on Education, enrolled on a similar scheme for the Navy. After 2 years or so, my studies were interrupted as I had to go into the RAF full-time, training to become a fighter pilot. 8 I was in the RAF for nearly four years. Id only served for about a year-and-a-half when the war ended, but the services rightly insisted on applying a first-in, first-out system of demobilisation, so for more than two years I was stuck - in the RAF. How to keep my brain in working order for academic studies? I managed to be posted to London and became one of an RAF team working with civil servants in the Air Ministry. Another airman with real negotiating skills persuaded them that we could leave the office early, providing wed done that days work satisfactorily. I became a student in two leading adult education centres - Morley College and the City Lit (Literary Institute). I studied philosophy, literature and stagecraft (one improbable result: when Covent Garden Opera House re-opened, the Sleeping Beauty ballet was its first production and I was one of the Morley students recruited for walk-on parts!). 9 I returned to Cambridge - and confessed to Ramsey that I was now an agnostic and politically well on the Left. I still valued him as a tutor and friend, but I wouldnt attend chapel services. To my relief, he responded positively, recalling the pre-war militant hunger marches from Northern England to London. I completed Part 1, but reckoned that I needed to move from the abstract to the concrete, so then I read History with Dr John Plumb. I combined my studies with being a part-time tutor with the regional Workers Educational Association - and decided that I would try to work in that field. 10. Ramsey died a mere twenty-odd years later, aged 57, when he was Bishop of Durham. I went to the memorial service in Westminster. Peart-Binns Ramsey biography quotes a typical tribute from the Durham Mineworkers Union leader, who said he would be remembered for his courageous advocacy of their cause over the years.* 11. As well as Ramsey, there were other remarkable figures active in Cambridge at that time, including the major philosopher Bertrand Russell. I went to a public lecture series by Russell and also saw him in action in the Moral Sciences Club, which students attend as well as staff and leading Cambridge philosophers. Their debates could be passionate - there was one occasion when G.E. Moore (well known for his Ideal Utilitarianism) lost his temper with Russell, causing clouds of dust to fly from the arms of his chair. The Master of ͨs, Charles Raven was also, like Russell, an impressive public speaker - Russell for his rational clarity, Raven for his passionate oratory. I used to go to Great St Marys University Church, to hear him preach, but Raven matters not just for his Pacifism, but also for his knowledge of scientific history, including several contributors from ͨs. 12. When Id graduated, my career choice was regarded not only as unusual but really eccentric. It led to a portfolio career in several kinds of adult education - as a tutor, researcher, writer, broadcaster and academic. The Improbable Bishop, John S. Peart-Binns, The Memoir Club, 2010.     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