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My life so far..

Page 5 of 15

Leighton Park School 1948-1953

Academic achievement seemed unimportant , at Leighton Park - LP avoided those dimensions of life that were divisive, and that included academic grading - better to focus on those activities, like sport and crafts, where lines were fudged and everyone could find a convincing niche - I pursued every kind of hobby, knitting, basketwork, bookbinding, woodwork, music composition, pottery - but on the sporting front I had nothing to offer - my drive for academic prowess was designed to counter the athleticism of the majority.

I even had the temerity to fall in love with the Games Master's daughter - Jill Hopkins was a freckled Welsh redhead, but she did not respond to my Dylan Thomas charms - I even became "Scorer" to the First XI, so that the glories of athletic success might be taken to rub off on me, somehow - as "Fatty Evans" throughout my early schooldays, I experienced the cruel teasing of teenage life - I got my own back by excelling at my studies - indeed my language skills carried the day - adept at both French and German, and with beginner's Russian - my performance skills did the rest.

For I was above all a performer, an entertainer - the eternal Fatboy strategy to deflect attention, giving tormentors another reason to laugh - but all performance brings other highs, and they live with me - I acted in every school play, every Gilbert & Sullivan, I was a First Violin in the School Orchestra (taught by one Miss Tully), sang in every Messiah - graduated from the George Formby-style ukelele-banjo to an acoustic guitar - became a right little Burl Ives, a full decade before the Beatles. I must have been a real pain in the proverbial.

And I became Head Boy - Senior Prefect, Great Panjandrum - a Welsh policeman of an English boarding school that was policed by Prefects at night - policed strictly in the Quaker way, without the use of any corporal punishment - Prefects, like the staff, were forbidden to resort to corporal punishment - we had only a Black Mark system for disciplinary purposes - it reinforced 		  my deepseated rejection of corporal punishment, and dislike of coercing children generally - being the Senior Prefect of an English public school was my first experience of personal leadership, of the acceptance of personal responsibility for the initiation of action, and for structuring the perceptions of others.

I must have been a real pain , at boarding school - won all the School's performing competitions, at some stage or other - Prepared Reading, Unprepared Reading, Poetry Reading (Dylan Thomas served me well), Unprepared Speeches and Prepared Speeches - latter two competitions were held on Saturday evenings before the whole School - an intimidating audience of some 250 - it was "entertainment" only in the sense that throwing Christians to the lions was formerly considered entertaining.

My best winning speech? That was on The Abolition of the House of Lords when aged 16 in 1951 - I have not changed my view since. The Lords should go entirely, and we should have single-Chamber government. I remember well the process of researching for that speech. I wrote to two public figures for their views, both active in the campaign to reform the Lords, namely Lord Hailsham and Aneurin Bevan. I was delighted to receive replies from both of them. Hailsham's reply came to me at school, four pages individually conceived and personally signed on embossed House of Lords notepaper - a schoolboy's delight! Bevan's reply came from a Personal Secretary, who thanked me for my letter, and explained that "Mr Bevan is too busy writing his autobiography to reply". I made use of both replies in my speech, although I now forget the gloss that I put upon the incident...

When University Entrance loomed , my academic efforts stood me in good stead - my Languages got me in to Trinity/Cambridge - no doubt assisted by the intervention of my Headmaster John Ounsted, who was an ex-Trinity mathematician, and who was keen to "put good pupils through" to his Alma Mater - that's how the Old Boy Net worked, and still works.

Then came 1953. And Crisis.

The first Great Crisis of my life.

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