I remember the time that the school soccer team was playing another school and Bert Blowers had insisted that all boys should be at the game to support the team. Criss Cundy and I thought that our support was not needed and decided to head over to the Mansion for an afternoon of exploration. Well, we had just climbed over a fence and were standing by the road when in the distance we spotted a black car heading toward us, my, but it looked familiar,oh! oh! to darn familiar! Back over the fence at top speed, hit the ground running ( boy where was this speed on sports day?) dived into a ditch. The car slowed down and pearing through the grass we could see the face of Bert Blowers looking for us through the window of his car. Bert started to drive away and as soon as he was out of sight Criss and I took off back to school, arriving back at school we joined some of our friends on the side lines, the score was quickly given along with some other bits of information about the game. A short time later Bert Blowers showed up and after a while wandered by us, casually he enquired how we were enjoying the game and what was the score and who had scored which we duly answered. Giving us that special look that he reserved for boys who were guilty of somthing, he turned and walked away. Bert did not specifically ask us if we had been out of bounds, but we think he knew.

Doc Anders and Baden Powel

Friday night movies were always fun and one time we were watching "The Life Story of Baden Powel." The next day a fairly large group of boys were out of bounds along the canal, it was close to tea time and we were wandering slowly back to school when a boy came dashing along the path, Doc's coming Doc's coming. What to do? Well didn't old Baden say that the best place to hide was up a tree as people rarely looked up when walking along. With some pretty impresive displays of athletic ability that bunch of boys were quickly hidden in the thick foliage, thanks Baden we owe you one. Sure enough there comes Doc and we all held our breath till he had walked under the trees and around the bend without looking up. Whew! Luckeeeey. Later that evening as we were leaving the dining hall Doc walked by Criss and I quietly saying, "don't believe every thing you see in the movies." Darn it I guess Doc saw the movie as well.

THE TORTURE TRAIL

THE SMALL AND LARGE TRIANGLES

Saturday mornings, oh how I dreaded Saturday mornings and the torture of the cross country runs! The small triangle was bearable but the Large triangle was bad enough to make me want to leave Elmbridge, for after about a mile I would be suffering from the stitch, that pain in the side that made any running agony. I never seemed able to get over this problem, or find a way to get out of doing the runs.

I usually managed to complete the course most of which was done at a walk,trot, walk,trot and so on (actualy more walk than trot!), apparently I was not the only boy who had these problems as there was always a bunch of us dribbling in together. If memory serves me correctly the school champion runner was a boy called Leggett who usually was the first boy back at the school. How the following episode occured I will never be quite sure. It was in the spring and the rivers were in flood and the canal full, the large triangle was the run.

Wonder of wonders!! To this day I cannot believe that on the final leg of the run where we had to cross the river I was just behind Leggett (some boys must have been having a slow day). When we reached the river there were teachers stationed on both sides of the broken bridge, the first teacher would grab a runner and throw him accross the river and the second teacher would catch him. Just after the river we arrived in school bounds on the far side of the flooded canal, Leggett looked at the dirty water (the pig sty's were not far away ) and decided to run to the far end and around. Well this opportunity was to good to miss, without another thought I jumped into the canal and swam to the other side by now I was quite away ahead of Leggett. covered in weeds and other wonderful stuff I crossed the finish line. The first and last time to ever come in first from a cross country run.

Well I was truly rewarded for my fantastic effort by the teacher throwing me into the swimming pool. (The pool was not opened for swimming that early in the year so I just added to the scum that was already there).

In conclusion

I have always said that we were blessed with the finest teachers and roll models that we could possibly have had. I am sure to this day both Bert and Doc knew that we were out of bounds but decided not to punish us, just let us know that we were not as clever as we thought we were.



A little older, a little grayer, a little heavier.

BUT NOT TOO MUCH SMARTER.

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