May - Old Scarborians

It was lovely down at MYTON on the farm.26There was a funny fellow there, I think theycalled him Joss, And when the farmer saw himhe was really at a loss,So he bunged a halter on him, ‘cos he thoughthe was a hoss,It was lovely down at MYTON on the farm.But life down there at MYTON wasn’t reallybad,They brought a bevy of High School girls andwe felt very glad,If you cursed ‘em down your table you were afrightful cad,It was lovely down at MYTON on the farm.We had a bearded chappy on the camp, calledIsherwood,And in “One Night at Nero’s” there it wasindeed quite good,But when he served our dinner it got mixedup with the pud,It was lovely down at MYTON on the farm.We worked hard in the fields all day, it reallywas a bore,But on sitting down to dinner it weren’t doneto ask for more,For they blamed every shortage on this tantalizingwar,It was lovely down at MYTON on the Swale.MEMORIES OF STODby John Rice (1947-56)His relentless cheerfulnessmay have been, onoccasions, irritating tohis colleagues, but NormanStoddardʹs manyvirtues were readilyacknowledged, and forus boys there was nevera dull moment when hewas around. He didnʹttake us for Maths, but he filled in from time totime for Pike, and when this happened eventhose who werenʹt much good at the subjectperked up and enjoyed themselves. The secretwas, of course, the humour. While other teacherstried their hardest to amuse, with Stod you felt italways came naturally. Some of his jokes werestraight out of the gag-book. He had a good supplyof riddles too, and there was one he wouldinvariably trot out when the subject was logarithms(it was mentioned recently in SummerTimes). As far as I remember, it had something todo with sines and cosines: ʺWhy does a mousewhen it spins?ʺ I knew the answer to this one,because Iʹd come across it in the same book thatStod must have had, and its pointlessness hadstruck me in much the same way it must havestruck him. The answer, as no doubt every OldScarborian of that vintage will know, is, ʺBecausethe higher the fewer.ʺ No, it doesnʹt make anysense at all, and presumably it isnʹt meant to. ButStod thought it a useful aide-mémoire.One of the extra-curricular jobs that Stod undertook,quite apart from games, camps and otheroutdoor pursuits, was helping to run the tuckshop.One day a rumour went round during themorning that there would be a delivery ofdoughnuts straight out of the bakerʹs oven intime for the mid-morning break. Ferdie Freemanwas selling them off a trolley in the corridor, butfor some reason we didnʹt notice him and soqueued up as usual at the tuck-shop. ʺDo youwant doughnuts?ʺ asked Stod. ʺTheyʹre sellinglike hot cakes outside!ʺ When he realised what hehad said, he was beside himself with laughter.During my time in the 6th Form, Jock Roxburghdecided that it was pointless forcing those of uswho actively disliked the game and werenʹt anygood at it to play rugby. So he introduced shinty,reputedly a Scottish form of hockey played withunsophisticated sticks and a really hard ball. Onone occasion when Stod was refereeing ourgame, this ball struck one of our number in ahighly sensitive area of the anatomy. The poorchap was felled and lay on the ground, writhing.Stod rushed over and, having ascertained that hewasnʹt crippled for life, turned to the rest of usand said, ʺThatʹs called a cannon in anothergame, isnʹt it?ʺ Incidentally (this has nothing todo with Stod), I later realised that the game Jockhad introduced us to was an irregular form ofshinty, if indeed it was shinty at all. I was inter-