Disorder and Early Sorrow
By JOHN WELLS
MR ANTHONY CHENEVIX- TRENCH, the tiny but ebullient headmaster of Eton, appears to have caused a mild rumpus among Old Etonian ele- ments in the afternoon drinking clubs and labour exchanges by announcing the abolition of Early School. This, it is perhaps necessary to explain for progressive readers, was the first lesson of the day at Eton, beginning at seven-thirty and end- ing at eight-fifteen, when the little inmates were released for breakfast. It was, he felt, unreason- able to expect boys on cold winter mornings to go straight into classrooms 'without even a cup of tea.' There was, however, no mention in the handout of the wretched ushers, to whom even a cup of tea was no great incentive—that dim band of workers who were described by Wayland Young, I think, as the boys' intellectual lackeys.'
I first went into service there myself almost exactly five years ago. The only warning I had received of Early School was from a retired beak living on the south coast, who said that he had always found it an awe-inspiring ordeal, and had made a habit of being in his bath by six-thirty in order to prepare himself for it. This struck me at the time as being a little over- cautious, but I was nevertheless in the bath by seven on the first morning, even risking the depressive effect of having to share the bathroom with a fresh-faced and hearty young colleague who chattered away brightly while shaving, and I lay boss-eyed and groaning in the bath. The only interesting feature of his toilet was that he filled the basin with hot water and then left the taps running, so that water was con- stantly overflowing into the waste-pipe. In this way he could dip his razor into the water near the outlet, the little pieces of shaving soap and stubble were carried away, and the rest of the water remained pike. He himself was unable to explain why he did it, but I discussed it with his aunt some time later, and she said she thought it almost certainly had some simple psychologi- cal explanation.
Despite these distractions, I had tied my white tie by seven-twenty-five, drunk my cup of tea, gathered up my books and my gown, and was ready to unfold the riches of Faust, Part 1, to my new masters. In prospect, the idea of Early School on a bright September morning was not unattractive. Everything in Eton always has a scrubbed and well-cared-for look about it, and with the sun on the old red brick, a blue, peaceful morning sky over the meadows and the birds singing, it all seemed rather nice. The boys slouched along in their black theatrical costumes with a certain gawky elegance, spruce young masters marched down to their schoolrooms with an air of self-conscious cockiness, one rigid white finger extended to keep their bright new briefcases shut, and older masters glided pacifically past on rusty bicycles, occasionally exposing a few yellowing dentures in a humour- less leer of greeting. It was possible to feel one- self a part of some timeless academic pageant, going down to drink at dawn from the pure fount of all wisdom. Inside the schoolroom, these illu- sions evaporated. Grey-faced and still sticky with sleep, twenty-five children in shiny black tail- coats and grubby white ties dragged themselves to their feet and then flopped back in attitudes suggesting nausea or penitential gloom, mingled in some cases with a hint of feeble contempt. The idea of kindling any flame of interest seemed as ridiculous as striking a match under water.
To begin with, the challenge nevertheless seemed irresistible. Leaning out of the leaded window overlooking an orchard and a quiet cottage garden, I would inhale huge draughts of morning-chilled air, and then pace up and down dictating copious notes on Goethe's imagery and symbolism. The decadently sloping lids grew heavier, and the ink-stained fingers moved slowly across the page. Information seemed to be seeping in, but only through a drugged haze of drowziness. I tried sudden and exaggeratedly dramatic readings from the original, representing Faust as a mixture between Sir Laurence's Richard III and Robert Newton's Long John Silver. (`Come 'ere, Mephistopheles, lad.') Hands were thrust almost elbow-deep into trouser pockets, and heads nodded nearer to the desks. I even tried telling jokes. Next door, the voice of my nearest fellow-lackey droned on like the chanting of some unenthusiastic Buddhist recluse, and I began to realise that sooner or later I should have to surrender to the system.
The theory held by most of the staff seemed to be that Early School was tolerable, as it offered the opportunity of hitting them when they were groggy. Later on in the day they would have woken up and started applying their minds to new schemes for spreading treacle on the seat of one's armchair or for locking the French master in the lavatory. Before breakfast they were passive and malleable. Even if this had been true, the task of moulding minds at that time of the morning became less and less attrac- tive as November deepened into December. The mornings grew darker and more arctic, hoar- frost gleamed on the roads, and breath, even in the schoolrooms, seemed to hang about like fog. I delayed getting up more and more, waiting first until my fresh-faced colleague had finished splashing about in the bathroom, and then until he had gone downstairs before I turned back the warm covers and began to grope about in the darkness for the plug of the electric fire.
Usually I managed to stumble down to the schoolrooms just behind the last little lord, who would be holding up his trousers with one hand and trailing his braces, while I peered at my books in the icy darkness to see if I had brought the right ones. In some cases I had not, and the forty-five minutes was spent in elaborate eva- sions. The only real breakthrough occurred on the last morning before the Christmas holidays, when a boy called Duckworth, who had been scattering metaphorical marbles under my feet for some weeks, put his hand up and said that it was a tradition on the last morning at Early School to embark upon community singing. righting down my feelings of hunger, fatigue and rage, I said that it sounded a nice idea and perhaps he would like to conduct. As I watched the vile infant struggling to overcome the sleepy apathy and natural reserve of his little chums as they joined in 'Jonah rowed the boat ashore,' it occurred to me that it was probably the most worthwhile Early School I had ever attended, and the singing even succeeded in drowning the earnest monotone from next door. How wise of A. C. Trench to cut it off for ever.
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