College Record 2013
substituting ‘Queen’ for ‘King’, and in the second verse beseeching the Lord of Heaven and Earth to sow confusion on the enemies of Queen Elizabeth II. The mood amongst my friends, however, very rapidly changed to one of relief and, I regret to say, joy, because rumour again intervened to tell us we would have a day off school to assuage our ‘grief ’. I imagined that I would have time to spend with my pet snakes and lizards, newts and fish, or perhaps wander down to the woods with my best friend Roger in order to observe birds or woodlice, or get up to no good with Peter and George, two tearaways who led me into very bad ways, stealing goldfish from a neighbouring estate, an activity perhaps less dangerous than some of the other activities of my feral childhood such as throwing stones at passers-by over the hedge or, in the guise of a medieval knight (history was always a passion), firing a flight of arrows over the house which came down to form a corona around the pram of a sleeping baby three houses away. Who said the 1950s weren’t fun! Alas, we were soon told that the day off would have be postponed until the Coronation the following year, which felt like an age away. When that came round, however, it turned out to be quite fun, though in retrospect just a little confused in my mind with the Festival of Britain which took place a year or so before the death of King George. That Festival, with all its quirkiness, made an impression on my imagination, from the Skylon ( nicknamed ‘Churchill’s Cigar’) to the Dome of Discovery with its models of life in Ancient Britain designed by Jacquetta Hawkes. These ended up in Leicester Museum where I got to know them well in later years, and they made me determined to become an archaeologist. There was also the funfair in Battersea Park, and especially the grotto, with this over its entrance: Please remember the grotto Father’s gone to sea Mother’s gone to fetch him back So will you remember me. Things always seemed to be going on in London, and the Coronation when it came – on 2 June 1953; we have just been celebrating its sixtieth anniversary – was a wonderful pageant for the young mind: all those stands along the Mall, bunting everywhere, an air of anticipation, excited children eating ‘knickabocker glories’ in Selfridges. And always those images of the pretty young Queen on every hoarding. 127
I suppose we were a generation lost in fantasy, living in the aftermath of a big war before we were properly conscious, an Empire falling apart around us, and a future in which all the grown-ups wanted to get back to the sixteenth century. My mother certainly did, educated at UCL by Professor Neale, and her abiding love of history entered my inner world and became coupled with the tortoises, terrapins and stick insects which shared my bedroom. Television played a minimal part in my life, but we had a set early on, and I still recall a newsreel which pretended that Elizabeth I was still on the throne and there were potato riots in the countryside. King George was dead; and we were the new Elizabethans, each of us given a little blue book and a medal by the government to prove it. Meanwhile the real drama of daily life continued. I survived the horror and grit of Prep School, and almost being drowned in a flooded quarry in North Wales on a nightmare school camping-trip; instead I escaped to the wilds, or to Stonehenge, or to West-Country castles and ancient abbeys where I could be respectively an ancient Briton, King Arthur, or a monk. And what of Prince? He – or rather she – lived on to the end of my Prep-School days: I took my Common Entrance exam in the Head’s awesome study where Prince had just given birth to a litter of puppies. Finally I escaped to Merchant Taylors’ School where they thought I was mad, but which was, on the whole, far more humane and much less traumatic. No nightmare lessons from a deranged Head; but no Prince either! Whenever I recite the evening office in church using an ancient copy of the Book of Common Prayer and see those words: O Lord, save the King I sigh in memory of King George VI or, rather more, in memory of Prince … and then I pull myself together remembering that I am, after all, a ‘new Elizabethan’, a match for Drake, Raleigh, or even the Earl of Essex. So I write this in memory of my best friend in those days, Roger, who died in August 2006 as Roger Deakin, author of Waterlog (1999) and (published posthumously) Wildwood and Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, books which have become instant classics. 128
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I suppose we were a generation lost in fantasy, living in the aftermath of a big war<br />
before we were properly conscious, an Empire falling apart around us, and a future<br />
in which all the grown-ups wanted to get back to the sixteenth century. My mother<br />
certainly did, educated at UCL by Professor Neale, and her abiding love of history<br />
entered my inner world and became coupled with the tortoises, terrapins and stick<br />
insects which shared my bedroom. Television played a minimal part in my life, but<br />
we had a set early on, and I still recall a newsreel which pretended that Elizabeth I<br />
was still on the throne and there were potato riots in the countryside. King George<br />
was dead; and we were the new Elizabethans, each of us given a little blue book and<br />
a medal by the government to prove it.<br />
Meanwhile the real drama of daily life continued. I survived the horror and grit of<br />
Prep School, and almost being drowned in a flooded quarry in North Wales on a<br />
nightmare school camping-trip; instead I escaped to the wilds, or to Stonehenge,<br />
or to West-Country castles and ancient abbeys where I could be respectively an<br />
ancient Briton, King Arthur, or a monk. And what of Prince? He – or rather she –<br />
lived on to the end of my Prep-School days: I took my Common Entrance exam in<br />
the Head’s awesome study where Prince had just given birth to a litter of puppies.<br />
Finally I escaped to Merchant Taylors’ School where they thought I was mad, but<br />
which was, on the whole, far more humane and much less traumatic. No nightmare<br />
lessons from a deranged Head; but no Prince either!<br />
Whenever I recite the evening office in church using an ancient copy of the Book of<br />
Common Prayer and see those words:<br />
O Lord, save the King<br />
I sigh in memory of King George VI or, rather more, in memory of Prince … and<br />
then I pull myself together remembering that I am, after all, a ‘new Elizabethan’,<br />
a match for Drake, Raleigh, or even the Earl of Essex. So I write this in memory<br />
of my best friend in those days, Roger, who died in August 2006 as Roger Deakin,<br />
author of Waterlog (1999) and (published posthumously) Wildwood and Notes from<br />
Walnut Tree Farm, books which have become instant classics.<br />
128
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