Nowadays, army children are taught in proper schools, by proper teachers, and sit proper exams that, if passed, will give them recognised qualifications that will help them to progress in the world. Yet during the early seventeenth century, the only schooling that the sons and daughters of non-commissioned officers would have received was in cursing and fending for themselves and, if they were girls, making themselves useful by washing and sewing for their father's soldier comrades. Although regimental schools were increasingly being established, with senior non-commissioned officers initially doing the teaching, these were originally intended to teach illiterate recruits how to read, write and calculate. But then because many of those illiterate recruits were army children, the realisation dawned that the regimental schools might as well start teaching these soldiers-in-the-making, and their future wives (for many army daughters later 'married into' the regiment) while they were still young. And occupying army children with schoolwork and needlework also had the advantage of keeping them out of trouble!
By the nineteenth century, regimental schools catering for army children and teaching a wide range of subjects (practical, as well as academic) were relatively commonplace, and in this respect, the army was ahead of its time. The regimental schools were replaced by garrison schools in 1887, and administrative changes have continued to be made in response to changing times, with the British Families Education Service (BFES) being set up to educate army children in Germany in the aftermath of World War II, for instance. Today, the schooling of army children abroad is provided by Service Children's Education (SCE), and when in Britain, army children attend local schools, that is, unless they are at boarding school.
Officers' children may always have received an education appropriate to their perceived status, but at the price of separation from their parents (often for years on end), for they were generally sent to a boarding establishment, be it a public school, a ladies' academy or a finishing school, in Britain. In addition, there were military boarding schools: the Royal Hibernian Military School (RHMS), established in 1769 in Dublin, Ireland, and the Royal Military Asylum (RMA), founded in 1801 in Chelsea, London, and today known as the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover, Kent. It has now been decades since all army children have been able to enjoy the (dubious) privilege of a boarding-school education, thanks to a boarding school allowance and subsidised flights to join their parents during the holidays. Indeed, the agonising decision as to whether to sacrifice family togetherness in favour of the undoubted benefits of stability and continuity of curricula during crucial pre-GCSE and A' level years is one that all peripatetic army families must continue to take.
PICTURE: A REGIMENTAL SCHOOL IN INDIA
The photograph below, which was kindly contributed by A W (Art) Cockerill, shows the regimental school of the 1st Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment (previously the 48th Foot) in India, probably in Secunderabad, in around 1889–90. As Art writes, 'Well before the end of the nineteenth century, every unit serving overseas – and some in the home and Irish commands – was well served with one or more teachers that might include a schoolmaster sergeant, a schoolmistress and an assistant. Some units, such as the 48th Foot in an Indian station shown here, were exceptionally well provided for. In this instance, a total of seven teachers, assistant teachers and helpers, including a munshi ('teacher' in Urdu, believed to be a linguist who taught the children and adults Urdu), attended to a class of 37 children. This was an exceptionally high teacher–pupil ratio.' Art also points out the 'uniformed boy third from the right, back row, who I am convinced is a boy soldier of the regiment. He might be 14 at a stretch'. The school's munshi is standing next to this older boy, while the schoolmaster and schoolmistress are seated in chairs flanking their young charges. Perhaps unusually, everyone in this photograph, including each child, is named, from which it appears that a number of the children are siblings.
'A CONCERT BY SOLDIERS' CHILDREN IS FREQUENTLY A TREAT': CHILDREN OF THE REGIMENT IN 1896
As 'Red Cross', the author of 'Tommy Atkins Married' – an article that first appeared in the 18 September 1896 issue of The Navy and Army Illustrated – indicates in the extract reproduced below, the curriculum taught at army schools during the late nineteenth century reflected contemporary British values. Music, it seems, was particularly thoroughly and effectively covered. (For the cheerful picture painted by Red Cross of the 'children of the regiment', click here; here for an indication of how they were fed; and here for a description of their accommodation.)
'Soldiers' children, amongst their other advantages, have the benefit of excellent schools. Here they are given a thoroughly sound English education, the girls in addition being well grounded in needlework, darning, etc. Music, both theory and practice, is taught and well taught, and a concert by soldiers' children is frequently a treat worth going some distance to enjoy.
I had the pleasure about two years ago of being present at a concert given in the Royal Opera House in Malta, by the combined schools of the Garrison. Upwards of three hundred children took part, and no prettier sight have I ever witnessed than the appearance on the stage of these little ones. The programme consisted of solos, part songs, and glees, interspersed with fan drill and other beautiful movements, the whole of which was admirably executed.'
Above: The grand Royal Opera House in Valletta, Malta, where the children of the garrison performed before 'Red Cross', was constructed in 1866.
PICTURE: GARRISON SCHOOL, VERDALA, MALTA, 1921
The photograph that appears below, showing staff and pupils at the 'Garrison School, Verdala' in 1921, was generously contributed to TACA by Liz Mardel, who, in her accompanying message, explains how it came into her possession.
'I acquired the attached photo of the school for the children of soldiers in Verdala Army Barracks, Malta, dated as you see, 1921, in a strange way. As Miss McMeeking, I was a teacher at the Royal Naval School Verdala, situated nearby, from 1957 to 1961. When we were about to have our second reunion in 2005, I put a letter about it in the local Portsmouth News. A phone call then came from a woman in Gosport who had rescued a glass photographic plate from items sent to a Scout jumble sale and had been wondering who could find a good home for it! There is also a plate of the woman teacher in the fourth row from the top in the picture, so I suspect that the plates could have come from her family. The school was, I believe, in Cospicua, one of the two dual-purpose "chapel schools" on the island, but destroyed in World War II.'
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: INFORMATION SOUGHT ON ARMY SCHOOLS IN AUSTRIA
William Dickins attended British army schools in Graz, Vienna, Klagenfurt and Villach (all in Austria) after World War II, and has contacted TACA for advice on finding out more about them. If you can help him, or can recommend a useful source of information on British service schools in general in Austria during the post-war period, please e-mail TACA.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: BAOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND SPECIAL TRAINS
Peter Watson, a former army child who attended King Alfred School, in the northern German town of Plön, in Schleswig-Holstein, between 1953 and 1957, outlines the history of the secondary schools that were set up for the children of service personnel who were posted to British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) locations after 1945, as well as the special trains that transported them there. See 'Links', below, for more about these schools.
'It was a Cabinet-level decision by the 1945 British Labour government that before their families could join the entitled servicemen and certain military-sponsored civilians in the British Zone of Germany (OP UNION), plans for an education system equivalent to the standards available to all in Britain, irrespective of service, rank or status, had to be in place. Questions were subsequently raised by MPs in the House of Commons seeking confirmation that the schools would be open to all, irrespective of rank or service, and that no special privileges would be given to officers' children.
The provision of primary education was relatively easily solved by the establishment of small schools in all of the large garrisons and individual, more isolated, major units. The problem of secondary education (for children above the age of 11) was more complex, with 1,000 potential pupils being scattered over an area the size of Wales. A co-educational, comprehensive boarding system was the only sensible solution, although this was totally alien to the majority of the parents and children, as well as the staff.
Prince Rupert School (PRS), Wilhelmshaven [in Lower Saxony, north-western Germany], opened with 70 pupils for a one-month trial in July 1947, in the naval barracks attached to the former Kriegsmarine dockyard. The experiment was judged a success, and 250 pupils joined for the autumn term. King Alfred School (KAS), Plön, was to follow in the summer of 1948, initially with 500 pupils, and subsequently with 600. There were also small secondary day schools in Hamburg and Berlin for a time, but these were not viable and closed in the early 1950s, the pupils being transferred to KAS and PRS. The provision of boarding-school places peaked in 1953, with the opening of Windsor School, Hamm [in North Rhine-Westphalia, north-western Germany].
However, the subsequent restructuring of BAOR and RAF (Germany) into the British elements of the new NATO force based in West Germany, the reduction of troop numbers and increasing infrastructural costs meant that the existing system had to be radically revised. King Alfred School, Plön, closed in the autumn of 1959, and Windsor School, Hamm, was divided into two separate schools. Queen's School, Rheindahlen [in North-Rhine Westphalia], had opened in 1955 to provide day secondary-school facilities for the children living in the new NATO headquarters and adjacent British garrisons and RAF stations in the lower Rhineland. Day secondary schools were opened in other major garrisons where there was sufficient demand, although the more academic pupils (with the exception of those living in the Rheindahlen area) were required to board at PRS or the Windsor schools.
PRS in Wilhelmshaven closed in 1972, but its name and traditions were transferred to a new day school adjacent to the then British military hospital (BMH) in Rinteln [also in Lower Saxony]. The Windsor schools in Hamm closed in 1983, but a small, replacement, boarding facility for the more academic pupils was created at Kent School, Hostert. There was a further rationalisation in the Rheindahlen area in 1987, following which both Kent School, Hostert, and Queen's School, Rheindahlen, closed and a new Windsor School opened on the latter site with enhanced facilities, including a small boarding annexe.
SUMMARY OF BRITISH FAMILIES EDUCATION SERVICE (BFES) SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN BAOR
The boarding schools were:
- Prince Rupert School, Wilhelmshaven, 1947-72;
- King Alfred School, Plön, 1948-59;
- Windsor schools, Hamm, 1953-83.
The day schools included (details are incomplete):
- (?) in Berlin, 1947-50, and early 1970s to 1992;
- (?) in Hamburg, 1947-52 (?);
- Queen's School, Rheindahlen, 1955-87;
- Cornwall School, Dortmund, mid-1960s;
- Heide School, Hohne, 1960s onwards;
- Kent School, Hostert, 1960s to 1987;
- King's School, Sundern, 1960s onwards;
- (?) in Münster, mid-1960s; [see 'TACA CORRESPONDENCE: EDINBURGH SCHOOL, MÜNSTER, GERMANY’, below]
- Lancaster School (?), Osnabrück, mid-1960s to 2008;
- Prince Rupert School, Rinteln, 1972 onwards;
- Windsor School, Rheindahlen, 1987 onwards.
THE SCHOOL TRAINS
Rail was the preferred method of long-distance travel within the British Zone, and as part of this policy, special trains to and from Wilhelmshaven, where Prince Rupert School (PRS) was located, and Plön, the home of King Alfred School (KAS), ran at the beginning and end of each term. One train for each school was initially sufficient, but by 1950, following an increase in pupil numbers, two trains were required for each school.
For PRS, Wilhelmshaven, the basic routes from 1947 to 1972 were as follows.
- A Train: Krefeld-the Ruhr-Münster-Osnabrück-Bremen-Wilhelmshaven;
- B Train: Bielefeld-Wunsdorf (where the through section from Hannover/Celle was coupled on)-Bremen-Wilhelmshaven.
For KAS, Plön, the basic routes were as follows. [See 'ON THE MOVE'/'PICTURES: KING ALFRED SCHOOL (KAS) TRAINS'.]
- A Train: Köln-the Ruhr-Hamm-Münster-Osnabrück-Bremen-Hamburg-Lübeck-Plön;
- B Train: Gütersloh-Bielefeld-Hannover-Hamburg-Lübeck-Plön.
The trains stopped in all of the major British garrisons en route to pick up or set down passengers, some of whom would have to travel by road to their final destinations. Pupils travelling to and from Berlin would change at Hannover (Hanover) to join the overnight "Berliner", the British military train.
It is believed that no special trains were provided for pupils from the Windsor schools at Hamm. They would use the existing troop trains (which stopped in Hamm), travel by civilian train or be bussed to and from their home garrisons, which were generally in the south of the British Zone. Those pupils living in Berlin used the "Berliner" for that part of their journey between Berlin and Braunschweig (Brunswick).'
Peter Watson.
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: EDINBURGH SCHOOL, MÜNSTER, GERMANY
Thanks to both Ann Lucas-Nemer and Amanda Sedgwick for supplying the missing name of the secondary day school in Münster – Edinburgh School – listed in Peter Watson's outline of the BAOR secondary schools and special trains in Germany after 1945, above. Amanda adds that the school has since closed, and that she believes that the premises are being used by the Dutch military.
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: BFES PRIMARY SCHOOL AT STADE, (WEST) GERMANY
TACA has received the following message from Elaine Hart, prompted by the missing name of the secondary day school in Hamburg that Peter Watson touched on in his piece above (see 'BACKGROUND INFORMATION: BAOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND SPECIAL TRAINS').
'I see that the information listed on this website is incomplete for the BFES day school in this area. There was a school at Stade and I attended it between c.1949 and 1951 (between the ages of 7 and 9). It was for children aged up to 11 – after that, children boarded at Wilhelmshaven. There were two classes – one for infants and the other for the junior age group. I think the whole school roll numbered fewer than a dozen children. I seem to remember the number 15 being mentioned, but I can't remember all of them. We lived first in Stade, but then moved into married quarters at Hesedorf and travelled an hour each way to school, in all weathers, even the tiny children. Service children have to be tough! I hope this information will be useful to you. My purpose in accessing this site was because I am trying to find the name of our teacher there. She was marvellous. Scottish, I think – perhaps from Inverness, and she gave us such a good grounding in the 3Rs despite having such a wide range of ages and abilities to deal with. The infants were taught by a German teacher, I think. If you can suggest any other sources of information to enable me to find her name, I would be grateful. Perhaps there are lists published of those who served in the BFES in those days in BAOR?'
Elaine (whose father was in the RAF, based at RAF Hesedorf, near Bremervörde, when she attended this school) also writes that she and her sister Margaret managed to locate their old school in Stade on a visit to Germany in 2005. If you can help Elaine in her quest to learn her teacher's name, please contact TACA.
PRINCE RUPERT SCHOOL (PRS), WILHELMSHAVEN, GERMANY: THEN AND NOW
Prince Rupert School (PRS) Wilhelmshaven, which was situated in north-western Germany, educated the children of British military and civilian personnel stationed in West Germany between 1947 and 1972. A number of video clips taken from a three-hour-long DVD about PRS Wilhelmshaven, scripted by Barbara Steels and produced by John Leggett for The Willhelmshaven Association (TWA, see http://www.prs-wilhelmshaven. co.uk), can now be viewed on YouTube. Click on these links:
- to learn more about the background and opening of PRS Wilhelmshaven (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3GNejo6aKdc);
- to watch a family's home movie featuring Wilhelmshaven's Sportsplatz, aquarium and quayside, as well as a school sports day (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3p94KKRp38A);
- to see archive images of Collingwood House (http://uk. youtube.com/watch?v=XdrlVt-KXHI), Drake House (http://uk. youtube.com/watch?v=JGgRiU8DJlE), Rodney House (http://uk. youtube.com/watch?v=jVekYsLHwO8) and Howe House (http://uk. youtube.com/watch?v=r2x1tFlLC8);
- to watch footage filmed on the last day, in June 1972, of PRS at Wilhelmshaven (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVYr03SGhCE);
- and to view recently filmed footage showing what the school's site and buildings look like today (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aX06P_ugYNs and http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JPqwiukDPLg).
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: PLÖN AM SEE
The postcard below, which is captioned in German Das 700-jährige Plön a. See ('The 700-year-old Plön am See'), presents a view of Plön (or Ploen), a city on the northern shores of the Großer Plöner See (the larger of two lakes named for Plön), in the northern German Land of Schleswig-Holstein; click on this link to see a map of its location: http://ploen.alpha-kart.com/.
Plön was the home of the BFES' King Alfred School (KAS) between 1948 and 1959, and in the 'Links' section below, you’ll find further basic information on the school and a link to the associated Wyvern Club website. On this website, an interesting article, entitled 'Swords into Ploughshares' (http://www.kas-ploen.org.uk/HardStuff.htm), gives a potted history of the school's origins in Plön. In addition, the following link will take you to the city of Plön's official tourist-information website, which offers German-, English- and Danish-language options: http://www.touristinfo-ploen.de/tiploen/en/home/en_home_main.php; this website also provides more details of the city's history (see: http://www.touristinfo-ploen.de/tiploen/en/die_stadt_ploen/en_die_stadt_ploen_geschichte.php).
PERSONAL STORY: MY EDUCATION AS A MARRIED-QUARTERS' CHILD
Unless they are sent to a boarding school, most army children change schools as often as their parents are posted, which can be very often indeed. Chris Fussell has already contributed many illuminating memories of his childhood to TACA (see 'PERSONAL STORY: 'EVER HEARD A SHOT FIRED IN ANGER?'', 'PERSONAL STORY: BULLFROGS, CICADAS AND MACHINE-GUN FIRE IN EGYPT, 1951', 'PERSONAL STORY: WARTIME IN THE UK; PEACETIME IN MALTA, EGYPT AND OXFORDSHIRE', 'PERSONAL STORY: EXPERT FIRST AID IN MALTA', 'PERSONAL STORY: MAYHEM IN A MALTESE MARRIED QUARTER' and 'PERSONAL STORY: A MARRIED-QUARTER CRISIS IN EGYPT'). Here, he sums up his schooling.
'AGED THREE (1942, CARRICKFERGUS, NORTHERN IRELAND): in Northern Ireland in those days, school (Presbyterian) started earlier in Ulster than in England. (By then, Dad had been medically downgraded due to a head injury and had been seconded from the Royal Warwicks [the Royal Warwickshire Regiment] to the MPSC [Military Provost Staff Corps] in NI [Northern Ireland] Command.) I learned to read and write here, with a slate and pencil! I threw stones at kids from the neighbouring RC [Roman Catholic] school – it was just what us "Prod" [Protestant] kids did – we never really knew why.
AGED FOUR TO SEVEN (1944 TO 1946, ALDERSHOT, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND): following a move back "home" – a posting to Aldershot – there was no school for me as I was too young in England! My eight-year-old sister helped me to keep up with my reading. I started at school again at the age of five, and was ahead of my class due to that year in the Ulster school. I got into fights with other kids because of it! One fight resulted in a nose/sinus injury. The MO [medical officer] got Dad a posting to Malta in 1947 so that I could recover in a "nicer" climate!
AGED EIGHT TO TEN (1947 TO 1949, MALTA): in Malta, I went to an army children's school (but my big sister went to the joint-service, grammar-school-standard Royal Navy Dockyard school). School was from 0900–1300, six days a week, after which it was down to the beach in the summer. This gave me a great head start as a swimmer.
AGED TEN TO TWELVE (1949 TO 1951, HULL, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND): having returned to England, Dad left the army in Hull. I went to a normal primary school and played left half at football.
AGED TWELVE TO FIFTEEN (1951 TO 1954, EGYPT): Dad having re-enlisted, we joined him in the Egyptian Canal Zone for four years, just after I had passed (in England) my Eleven Plus exam. I went to a really excellent, small (there were 200 pupils) secondary school in Moascar Garrison. I did well here, especially in English, and had three GCE [General Certificate of Education] London University external O' levels (including one in English literature) at the age of thirteen and a half! I went to the beach every afternoon, swam competitively and did RLSS [Royal Life Saving Society] Bronze Medallion lifesaving during school PE [physical education] time.
AGED FIFTEEN (1954, BICESTER, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND): I went to Bicester County Grammar School for one year. They did not like my "unbalanced" O' levels much, but I topped them up with maths, physics and others that summer. I worked part-time for a market-square butcher's shop because I could not get a paper round to do.
AGED FIFTEEN TO SIXTEEN (1954 TO 1955, ARBORFIELD, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND): having left school at just fifteen with six or seven O' levels, I went to the Army Apprentices School, Arborfield, to be a REME [Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] apprentice telecommunications mechanic. Here, I started on my City & Guilds exams. I had to do Army Certificate of Education, first class, map-reading to complete my exemption from other ranks' education exams.
AGED SEVENTEEN ONWARDS (FROM 1956, WELBECK ABBEY, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE; SANDHURST, BERKSHIRE; AND SHRIVENHAM, WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND): I was now "kicked upstairs": firstly, to Welbeck College (where I gained A' levels in maths, physics and history); secondly, to RMA [the Royal Military Academy] Sandhurst (where I was runner-up for the military-history prize); and then to RMCS [Royal Military College of Science] Shrivenham (where I was awarded a BSc [Bachelor of Science] general degree in maths, physics and chemistry). But educationally, I was running out of steam (and interest in classroom life) by then and wanted to get on with being a soldier! So I joined the RAOC [Royal Army Ordnance Corps] because other Old Welbexians in the Royal Signals, Royal Engineers and REME seemed to spend all their time as young officers on courses, courses – and had a great time.
LOOKING BACK . . .
Hand on heart, none of us three Fussell kids who were dragged around from Blandford to Carrickfergus, to North Camp, Aldershot, to Malta, to Hull, to Ismailia, and then to Bicester, and so on, could claim that the army let us down. And what school kid would not envy the six-days-a-week, 9–1-pm-schoolday+down-to-the-beach routine? (Many years later, I recreated this lifestyle, in part, as a middle-aged management trainee for some logistics consultants in southern California.)
Oh, and did I mention that the selection of schoolteachers who elected to serve abroad in army children's schools were a really great and caring lot of people? I owed them a lot more than just my GCE O' levels. They were often supplemented by a number of Royal Army Education Corps officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] (regulars and national servicemen), especially for maths, map-reading, craft subjects and similar – they were a nice lot, too.’
Chris Fussell (b.1939).
PERSONAL STORY: SCHOOLDAYS IN BENGHAZI, LIBYA
Mick Kiernan lived in Benghazi, Libya, from 1951 to 1955 when his father, a clerk of works, was posted there. During this period, Mick was to all intents and purposes an army child, and attended Queen Elizabeth II Coronation School, a school for forces' children, from the ages of twelve to fifteen. In the extract from his memoirs that follows, he describes that school, as well as a memorable school camping trip to Ras el Hilal. (To read about the Kiernan family's stopover in Malta in 1951, click here; and for more on how Mick spent his leisure time in Libya, click here.)
'My school was a couple of miles away from our flat, close to the town centre, and we children were transported to and fro on army lorries or buses. It was my introduction to boys and girls of many nationalities, including Anglo-Indians and Maltese children, an Israeli girl, a Yugoslav girl and one especially beautiful Eurasian girl. I quickly settled in with the other children, who were mainly from army families, many of whom had attended schools in other parts of the world where Britain had a military presence. (This was a time when large areas of the world map were still coloured pink, denoting the British Empire.) Friendships at this school tended to be rather less deep than in England as service families moved from posting to posting, so some friends might be with you for a year or two, whereas others might be there only for a few months.
Education at this school was not especially good, and after a short period in a class with children of my own age, I was moved into the top form just short of my thirteenth birthday, where I remained until I left school at the age of fifteen. In my thirteenth year, I sat the Moray House examination, a sort of second chance for those who had failed the Eleven Plus exam, and, probably because I felt under no pressure to succeed, I passed this time with high enough marks to be able to go to a grammar school. My father wanted me to return to the UK to have a better education, but I wanted to remain in Libya. My mother took my side, and so it was decided that I should stay where I was.
At the end of 1952, our school transferred to new, purpose-built premises on the outskirts of Berka. Here, in 1953, when I was fourteen, we created a den. In one corner of the playground, there was a tree that had branches hanging down to the ground, rather like a weeping willow. With the consent of Mr Punton, our headmaster, we senior boys were allowed to build a dry stone wall about 3 feet high around the tree's circumference to make a secluded place where we could spend break times. Almost all of us smoked by now, and there must have been times when rising smoke made it appear that the tree was on fire. On one occasion, the headmaster suddenly entered the den from behind me before I could stub out my cigarette. My pals in front of me had seen him approaching at the last moment and had ditched their fags, but I hadn't. As he spoke, I could only cup my cigarette underneath my seat and hope for the best. After a few words, Mr Punton departed, pausing long enough to say, "Don’t smoke at school Michael" – and that was that. He didn't mention the incident again, but from then on, we always had a lookout!
The senior-class children were all made prefects, and we now held our own court weekly to hand out minor punishments, such as offenders being gated at break time or being made to write lines. We also had a gang – usually ten of us. Among our escapades, there was brick-fighting with crowds of Arab boys. It was a frequent occurrence, but I don't remember any of us receiving a direct hit, though sometimes we would be caught by a bounced stone that had lost most of its force. We progressed to using slingshots, and these were quite lethal, but as the Arab boys weren't very adept at handling a sling, they came off worse and did get hit.
In August 1953, we children started out for Ras el Hilal, 185 miles to the east, for the school camping holiday. Travelling on TCVs [troop-carrying vehicles], the journey, including stops, took seven hours before we arrived at the site, where tents had been erected for us. Before bedding down that night, and every other night, we had to check out the tent and sleeping bags for scorpions.
Below the camp was a beach, where we had early-morning swims before breakfast whenever we weren't away on trips or doing fatigues. On one of our days out of camp, we visited the nearby town of Derna, which proved to be too quiet for us. There was little to do apart from drinking lemonade outside a small bar or ambling around the tree-lined streets. In these pre-Ghadafi days, there were bars in the towns selling alcohol. More to our liking was a day spent at Cyrene amongst the impressive remains of an ancient Greek, and later Roman, town, with its temple columns and standing statues, most of which had their heads broken off. The town even had an amphitheatre where we could sit on the tiered rows of seating, looking down to the arena, picturing in our minds the gladiators who may once have fought there.
Cyrene is situated on the hills high above the coast, and from there we drove down for what would be my second visit to Apollonia. Another day saw us at the old submarine pens of Ras el Hilal, and to us boys, this was great. The pens had been blown up either during or following World War II. Our teachers were not able to enlighten us on this matter, and the pens were now a jumble of enormously thick, broken slabs of concrete, piled upon one another. We explored the area without finding any souvenirs.
Our final day at the camp was spent taking down the tents and tidying the area, and after this we played long games of hide and seek in the surrounding woods and bushes. I was being chased back to the camp when, running between bushes, I came almost face up to a web spanning the path, with an enormous spider in the centre. Very frightening! (I have always had a dread of spiders.) That night, we slept under the stars. In the morning, I rolled up my sleeping bag to discover a small scorpion, which must have been beneath me in the night. I took it back to Benghazi with me in a box.
Our fourteen days over, we broke camp and began our journey back to Benghazi. We passed a column of armed Arabs on horseback, who gave us not so much as a glance. These were desert tribesmen, and were quite unlike the town-dwellers that we were accustomed to. They were having some sort of land dispute and were en route to Derna, where they shot up the local police station.'
Mick Kiernan (b.1939).
PERSONAL STORY: GOING TO SCHOOL ON BOARD A TROOPSHIP, AS WELL AS IN GERMANY, HONG KONG, WALES, PLYMOUTH, SINGAPORE, SOUTHAMPTON AND CYPRUS
Because this army child's father was in the Royal Artillery, she and her sister went to school all over the world, and even at sea.
My father was 868780 WOII Joseph Barnes Fox. My sister, Beryl, and I travelled with our parents to all his postings. My first "army school" was in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, in the early 1950s. After that, we were stationed in Hong Kong, where I attended Gun Club School and my sister went to Whitfield Barracks School, in Nathan Road. We then went to school on board the troopship MV Devonshire.
We next went to school in Wales whilst my father was stationed at Court y Gothlen, near Crickhowell. Then it was to Plymouth, where my father was based at the Citadel on Plymouth Hoe. Thereafter it was to Singapore, aboard a troopship. From Singapore, we travelled back to Southampton, where my father became a sailor/soldier escorting regiments to and fro aboard the troopship Oxfordshire. Next was Cyprus, where I attended, along with my sister, St John's School, Episkopi. I left school here and had a job on the camp.
We returned to the UK aboard the MV Devonshire. Next, we moved to Sennelager, in Germany. I worked for 30 Field Ambulance and my sister went to school in Gütersloh. It was now 1964, and my father had a heart attack at the age of 48 and sadly died. He is buried in the military cemetery at Hanover. His funeral was a big occasion and was attended by many of his friends and colleagues from his postings all over the world. SSAFA was very kind to my mother and helped us tremendously as a family to return to the UK. I myself now work for SSAFA as a caseworker.
Thelma Jean Marshall (née Fox, b.1946).
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: RATINGEN JUNIOR SCHOOL, GERMANY, 1956–59
Stephanie Strawbridge (née Hollier), whose father was in the Royal Army Education Corps (RAEC), attended a BFES junior school at Ratingen, near Düsseldorf, in (West) Germany, between 1956 and 1959. She would be delighted to hear from anyone who was also a pupil at this school (she's not sure of its exact name) during those years, and is particularly keen to trace one particular friend: Jane Stewart, with whom she lost contact during the 1970s. Stephanie can be contacted either directly (e-mails should be addressed to stephaniestrawbridge@yahoo.co.uk) or via TACA.
PERSONAL STORY: SCHOOLDAYS AT HOHNE AND PRINCE RUPERT SCHOOL, WILHELMSHAVEN, GERMANY
In this extract from his memoirs, Terry Friend, whose father was in the Royal Horse Artillery, looks back on his primary school at Hohne, (West) Germany, where the Friend family lived between 1951 and 1961, and his time at Prince Rupert School (PRS), a secondary boarding school for forces' children in Wilhelmshaven, also in Germany. (For Terry's memories of the camp at Hohne, click here; to read about his family's married quarters in Hohne, click here; for his childhood view of the repercussions of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, click here; for his reflections on Remembrance Day, click here; for his account of Christmases in Germany, click here; and for more about Terry himself, visit his website: http://www. anothercountrysong.com.)
'In Hohne, it was quite a walk from home to school, possibly twenty minutes or so. The school building was almost like one of the married quarters. At least, it was the same on the outside; inside, it had been converted into eight or ten classrooms, with the assembly hall on the ground floor. The playground had a large, paved area near the building, and the remainder was grass, with a few pine and silver-birch trees. The whole area was surrounded by a 6-foot-high wooden fence made of criss-crossed slats. Next door to the school was the playing field. Opposite, on the other side of the road and a little to the left, was a marvellous wood-and-heather area to play in. At the top end of the playing field was yet another of these wooded, heather play areas. Hohne was simply dotted with these natural playgrounds; this one in particular was a firm favourite for lizard-hunting.
I was to commence my schooling in the autumn term of 1952. There were eight or ten classes in the school; you started in Class One and gradually worked your way right through to Class Ten. When Chris, my brother, and I finally departed from Hohne in 1961, we held a school record: we were the only pupils the school had ever had who actually started in Class One and went through all of the classes before leaving the school. There were always new pupils turning up and old pupils departing as their fathers were posted in and out of Hohne. The school was called BFES (British Families Education Service) Hohne, and was a primary school for pupils from the age of five to eleven. After that age, the military family was faced with a choice: send the child back to the UK to live with relatives, or send the child to a BFES boarding school. There were three in Germany: one at Hamm; one at Plön; and one at Wilhelmshaven. It was to the latter, Prince Rupert School, that I would eventually be sent, but that was another seven years away.
At the end of the summer term of 1959, I walked out of Hohne primary school. As I left, I took with me the knowledge that I was the first pupil who had ever started in the first class and then worked his way right through the whole school. Before me lay the seemingly endless balmy, relaxed days of the summer holidays. But this year, for me, was to be a year of change, and drastic change at that. At the end of the holidays, in the early part of September, I would not only be starting a new school, but I would also be leaving home for the first time. The jolt of this was somewhat cushioned by the purchase of what I felt to be mountains of kit for me. All the items had to be brand new and consisted of two blue blazers, one grey suit, two pairs of slacks (grey or black), three sets of vests, pants, shirts and socks, one jumper, a raincoat, a cap, towels, shoe kit, football boots, plimsolls, sports shorts and vests, and washing kit. Pocket money of DM 1.50 per week had also to be arranged and sent to the school in advance. This had to cover my expenses for notebooks, pens, rubbers, pencils etc.
I was astounded by the amount of clothes that had been purchased for me. How on earth could we afford it all? Did we, in fact, get a grant? I never did find out the answer. Poor Mother had the unenviable task of sewing my name and laundry number on to each and every garment, even down to each individual sock and handkerchief. H33 was the number, and like the army number that I was later to have, it is stamped deep into my brain, never to be forgotten. The school badge, a rising phoenix, was sewed to my blazers and cap. Several trips were made to the NAAFI in Celle before I was fully kitted out satisfactorily.
I already knew which house I was going to – Drake Boys. I also wasn't going alone: there was a whole class of us leaving Hohne, although some would be going to the other boarding schools at Hamm and Plön. I would be going with about ten kids from my class, one of whom, called Andrew Young, I'd known for some time. All too soon the day of departure arrived. We all boarded a coach, which was to take us to Hanover railway station, where we would catch a special military 'school' train to convey us to Wilhelmshaven.
Prince Rupert School was situated on three separate sites in the Baltic town of Wilhelmshaven, on premises that were previously German naval barracks. The school consisted of four houses: Drake, Collingwood, Howe and Rodney. Collingwood and Drake Boys were situated side by side on the sea front, with the appealing panorama of a large bay before them. The buildings were isolated and were, in fact, surrounded by water. Across the harbour, with its contingent of German naval ships, could be seen the houses of Howe and Rodney Boys. Also across the harbour, and just beyond Howe and Rodney, lay the sprawl of the large town of Wilhelmshaven itself. To the right of the harbour could be seen the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge. It looked like a miniature version of a two-span replica of the Forth Bridge in Scotland. We were told that it was the largest swing bridge in Europe. It was constantly opening and closing as the large vessels made their way in and out to sea. To the left of the harbour was the man-made causeway that linked our little neck of land to the mainland. Just over the causeway, and on the very outskirts of Wilhelmshaven, was the main site of the school itself, which consisted of the girls' boarding houses and all of the classrooms, the gymnasium, church, assembly hall (Churchill) and a sports field. There must have been more girls than boys in the school, for as well as the 'sister' houses of Drake, Collingwood, Howe and Rodney, there were also two other girls' houses called Frobisher and Hood. I seem to remember that one of the rituals of every term was what I used to call the 'weigh-in'. At the start and end of each term, we were all despatched by houses to Churchill (which also doubled as a cinema on the weekend evenings) to be weighed and have our height measured.
It wasn't too long before we had all settled into the routine of things. We had the daily trek to school across the rubble-strewn causeway; back again by coach for lunch, and then, of course, returning once more for the afternoon's lessons. Usually, first thing in the morning, we would walk, and at the end of the day, we would do the same. We were also allowed to walk into the town, and there was also the dyke walk. This was a firm favourite of mine. It was several miles long and consisted of a circular walk along the coast. I would normally take my walks on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
I seem to recall that we had to be in our billets by six in the evening. Lights out for us juniors was at nine o'clock, and an hour later for the seniors. The house consisted of three floors: the seniors were on the ground floor, we juniors were on the floor above, and above us was the attic, which was used as a prep room. There were two hours of prep every night, and another two hours every Saturday morning. The main part of the building was kept clean by civilian staff, but we were all responsible for our own rooms. We had to make our own beds, with hospital corners, and our cupboards, drawers and lockers had to be spotless, with all their contents folded neatly. Matron was responsible for inspections and she was ruthless. It was a very harsh regime, but it obviously hardened us and made us grow up a good deal faster than the kids who stayed at home until they were almost adults. It certainly gave me a sense of independence, but there was, I suppose, a drawback to this experience, which would have a major effect on the remainder of my life.
My boarding-school days finished in spring 1961, and I once again returned home to live with my family on a permanent basis, rather than spending just holidays with them. From that point on, having tasted independence, I never again felt comfortable at home.'
Terry Friend (b.1947).
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: BOURNE SCHOOL, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, AND GROUP WEBSITES
Colin McCormac (whose father was in the Royal Australian Army Service Corps serving with the Royal Army Service Corps) contacted TACA partly to report on a recent return visit to Bourne School, Kuala Lumpur, Malaya (now Malaysia), and partly to spread the word about the Bourne School, Kuala Lumpur, Yahoo! and Facebook groups that have been set up to reconnect the school's ex-pupils, as well as other Yahoo! Groups dedicated to former forces' schools in the Far East. (Links to these groups can be found under the 'LINKS' heading towards the bottom of this page.)
'I attended Bourne School, Kuala Lumpur, in 1958 and 1959. My father was an Australian Army officer attached to a British Army Gurkha transport unit based at Batu Cantonment. I visited Bourne School for a reunion in 2006 and found that it still exists almost unchanged (it's now the Malaysian defence force's senior officers' training college). We were made welcome and were given a guided tour, including tea in the officers' mess (the old school library). The CO's office is the old headmaster's office. I was also surprised to find that after fifty+ years, my old family home still existed, and that it was almost unchanged.
There is a site in Yahoo! Groups for Bourne School, KL, and also in Facebook; our Yahoo! Group is very active, which has resulted in reunions in the UK, Australia and Malaysia. There are also sites in Yahoo! Groups for Slim School, Cameron Highlands; Terendak School, Malacca; and the Ex Far East Britbrats Schools Yahoo! Group, which covers just about every other school.'
PERSONAL STORY: MY TIME AT ALEXANDRA GRAMMAR SCHOOL, SINGAPORE, 1959–62
Many army children attended Alexandra Grammar School when their parents were posted to Singapore after World War II. In an evocative account, Roger White, whose father worked for the NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes), recalls what it was like to be educated there during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
'I flew to Singapore with my parents in the (European) summer of 1959. I was eleven, my father worked for the NAAFI, and he had just been given a three-year posting to Singapore after five years in Germany, where I had been at BFES primary schools in Bad Salzuflen and Herford.
I remember clearly being at school in my first year in Singapore, at Alexandra Grammar School, but my first day I cannot remember at all. The school's first year was based in an annexe several miles from the main building (which was in Gillman Barracks). To get there, you went south and west through Pasir Panjang village and out along the coastal road to what seemed, in my memory, a sleepy, rural setting. At that time, I think the road was an eventual dead end, although now it, or its successor, must surely go though to Jurong new town.
The school buildings were on the right-hand side of the road (the landward side). Opposite, on the left-hand side, was a kampong [village] amidst the coconut palms, with a shop where we used (against the school rules?) to buy lollipops and sweets after school ended and as we all piled out to the waiting buses to go home. Here, and throughout the island, shops adroitly combined the sale of sweets and gambling. Lollies on sticks costing 5¢ were stuck like chessmen into a rectangular board. Wrapped tightly around the hidden end of a small proportion of lolly sticks was a blue Singapore $1 note (worth about 2/6d then – 12½p).
The buildings of both kampong and school were made of the same materials – wooden frames and floors, and dried palm-leaf walls and ceilings. There were no windows, just crude blinds that folded down on a hinge below the sill level during school time and that were closed up after school. The roofs overhung the walls outside by a couple of feet to give the maximum amount of shade during the hot day. These huts were known, to the British Army at least, as "bashas", or, more correctly, as attap huts. Some of the families who lived upcountry in Malaya [Malaysia], and whose children boarded at school in Singapore, lived in similarly constructed houses. There was electricity in the school and running water, but no mains sewage. The toilet blocks were earth-closet latrines, albeit stone-built, beyond the school buildings. My memory tells me that there were quite a few separate huts, with neat paths between them, and a tarmacked play area at the front of the school. We assembled here for the school photos that I still have – of my form, the whole first year, and a separate photo of the staff with the year head (did we call him that? He seemed like the headmaster at the time). One of the teachers (a gentle man with short hair) clutches an abandoned puppy that somehow made its way on to the school site and was adopted, for a while at least, by the staff.
Above: Alexandra Grammar School's first-form boys pictured in 1959.
Above: The members of staff who taught Alexandra Grammar School's first form in 1959.
Few of the lessons and subjects that I studied remain with me from this first year at the grammar school. I can remember more the feel of lessons, trying (or not) to concentrate in the humid heat, punctuated during the monsoon season by the tropical downpours that are difficult to visualise if you have not experienced them – the thundering of rain on the roof; the intense humidity; the ferocity of the rain reducing visibility to literally a few yards; the water splashing back up into the air as it hit the ground; and, within a few minutes, the ground being awash with water and the monsoon drains being full with a rushing, swirling, junk-laden, muddy mess. And then the whole performance stopping abruptly, leaving the sound of drips loud in the quietness, and steam rising into the air all around, but with no relief from the dampness.
I made my first friends here, and I have a set of photos that I took of them, mainly draped in various poses over the outside of the toilet blocks, one or two of the braver souls giving the camera a defiant V-sign, and all wearing the school uniform of white short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts. Because of the V-signs, I took the film from my camera to be developed separately, and then refused to show those pictures to my parents. They were quite concerned, imagining who knows what indecency being played out in the small black-and-white images.
Most defiant and "cool" (although it’s not a word that we knew then, except in relation to temperature) was my Australian pal, Chris Jones. Like me, Chris was a "civilian". His father was the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Southeast Asia correspondent, and he lived in (by our standards) some considerable splendour in a detached house off the Tanglin Road, not so far from Grange Road. Apart from an amah, they had a gardener and chauffeur for the large black car that took his father to and from work and his mother on her shopping trips and social visits.
Because of the heat, school was from 8 am to 12 noon. Unlike most of the kids, who came from much of the island, I travelled, to begin with, to and from school not in one of the hired red-and-silver Changi Bus Co buses that carted forces children to and from school ("Oh, you’ll never get to heaven on a Changi bus, 'cos a Changi bus makes too much fuss . . ."), but in a grey Bedford minibus that picked up various NAAFI children and took them to two or three different schools. My first-year grammar school was the furthest away, so I always had the longest journey, since the minibus started and finished at the transport depot at Grange Road. The driver was an amiable Chinese man called Henk. The big treat was to get to sit in the front passenger seat by the sliding door, which was left open to let in the cool breezes. There were no seat belts then.
After some time, not surprisingly, the NAAFI decided that this commitment of vehicle and driver to run a few children hither and yon was uneconomic, and we were transferred to a Changi bus. It was more anonymous than the Bedford, but more fun. Best of all, and I am ashamed to remember it, was sitting on the back seat and hurling abuse at locals as we passed them. At the end of one term, we spent the whole of the last few days surreptitiously tearing up paper into confetti-sized pieces during class, and then tipping the whole lot through the back window of the bus as it set off from school on the last day, leaving a cloud of snow-like fragments in the slipstream of the bus as we accelerated away.
After a year in the rural idyll of the grammar-school annexe, a new extension at the main school was completed for the expanding number of children (we were, after all, part of the post-war baby boom), and we moved to it as I moved into the second form. Why, I don't know, but the transition seems to have somehow left me with much clearer memories of the school day thereafter, compared with that first, rather isolated, year.
THE MOVE TO THE MAIN SCHOOL, AND THE END OF THE IDYLL
Alexandra Grammar School was on the top of a hill in the army's Gillman Barracks. From the bus, our day began with a long trek up the steep footpath that led to school. Our new classrooms were at the rear of the school, past the single-storey, brick-built huts that housed some of the older pupils, and through the two-storey main school building that must have dated from the 1930s and that housed the school office, the hall, and many of the specialist classrooms, including the art and music rooms.
After that first year, lessons somehow became more serious, and I can remember much more clearly the separate subjects. These included:
- English language and literature, taught as two separate subjects – which I enjoyed and was good at, parsing sentences and all;
- maths – a continuing struggle against subject matter and boredom;
- French and Latin – in both of which three years of study left me way behind my contemporaries when I eventually returned to England in 1962.
Then there were sciences, music, art and geography. We studied sciences in different laboratories for each subject. Physics was taught in a room in the new building. The only thing I can remember is that the laboratory was equipped incongruously with presumably bargain-price balances made in the People's Republic of China, then regarded as "the enemy" and the real reason why our fathers were in Southeast Asia, that is, to stem the threatened communist tide (the communist insurgency in Malaya had been effectively suppressed only in the last year or two, and Vietnam was just beginning to look like another interesting hot spot). We learned chemistry in one of the single-storey huts at the front of the school, and biology in one of the adjoining rooms. I remember observing the dissection of a frog in my third year, undertaken in a way that would be regarded as cruel and unacceptable now for schoolchildren. I remember trying to make a thermometer in physics – having to heat a glass tube and blow a bubble in one end before filling it with spirits, calibrating the temperature and sealing the other end. I could not get past the blowing-the-bubble stage, failing time and again to get it right while other people earnestly set about their calibration. And, tedious brat that I must have been, I found only boredom in observing the refraction of light through a prism. It would be fair to say, and it catches the tone of my attitude at the time, that I was crap at science.
I was also not much good at music, a trait that I could trace back to primary school in Germany, when, during some all-school rehearsal of hymns for a forthcoming service, I remember a teacher cruising up and down the rows of children, ear lowered to catch the quality of sound coming from each small mouth, and, reaching me, whispering in my ear: "You’re out of tune. Don't sing. Just move your mouth". Was this the reason why I played up during music lessons? The music teacher frequently had his eye on me, his tongue ready to rebuke, and his ruler ready to rap my knuckles with its sharp edge when I got too out of hand. Recently, when I dipped into one of the "exbritbrat"-type websites, his features leered out at me unexpectedly from a collection of photos of teachers.
Art, on the other hand, I enjoyed. I remember spending several weeks making an elaborate linocut ("Lino? What's that, Dad?" I can hear my children saying now) of a vintage car in several colours, a subject that I'd chosen from some book of illustrations. The whole thing brought out a sort of aesthetic sensuality in me that I can recall even now in detail: the touch of the different-shaped lino-cutting tools in my hand; the distinctive feel of the lino peeling away under the pressure of their use; the smells of lino and inks; the sticky noise of the roller squidging the paint on to the lino; and the pressing of the lino on to the paper.
But best of all, and a forewarning of what I would study at university, was geography. A geography exercise book is the only remaining schoolwork that I still have from Singapore, apart from a crabbedly written and worn notebook of French vocabulary. How could anyone not like geography? It was all around you: the tropical climate and weather; the coconut plantations on the low-lying land near the coast yielding up the liquid and flesh of the coconut, as well as the copra used in the manufacture of coconut matting; the paddy fields of rice; the plantations of rubber trees and palm oil, and, beyond them, the jungle hiding a rich flora and fauna, as well as the indigenous tribes of Malaya and Borneo, who were leading nomadic or semi-nomadic lives; the different races in the towns and countryside – Malays, Chinese, Indians – leading separate, but related, lives; and Singapore, the entrepôt port sited strategically on the route between the Far East, Australasia and Europe, with its huge oil refineries on offshore islands. I loved it.
Our study was interrupted each day by a mid-morning break, when we could choose from a bottle of plain, chocolate- or strawberry-flavoured milk that was provided for us to drink, abuse (by threatening to throw the contents at each other) or ignore. At the end of the day, we would flood down the hill to the buses waiting for us lined up alongside the road through the barracks, finding time, if were we lucky, to buy an ice-cold Fraser and Neave ("F & N") cherryade or another fizzy drink from the machine outside the small NAAFI shop at the bottom of the hill. The technology of this early bright-red-and-yellow drinks' dispenser was something that is no longer seen. Its lid opened upwards, like a chest freezer. Inside, rows of bottles were suspended from racks, one flavour per row. Having put your money in, you eased your chosen bottle towards the open end of its row and then released it upwards and outwards. On the outside of the machine, there was a bottle-opener. Insert the lid, pull up, and the top would fall into a container underneath.
My personal study was interrupted in year two, when my hormones kicked in and I became a particularly obnoxious adolescent: disruptive in class and cheeking the teachers when I could, sulky when I couldn’t; running with a group of similarly-minded horrors; suddenly interested in girls, but not sure how to approach them without causing offence (but sometimes doing so deliberately) – in brief, a teenage arsehole. The cycle was only broken at the end of that school year, when I received both a stinker of a school report and a severe talking-to from my father, who made his extreme displeasure clear and set out a doom-laden set of consequences for me if I didn't reform my ways. Thereafter, the hormones still raged, but I did at least knuckle down to some serious work. (Interestingly, when my father was in his declining years and, in his own mind, settling his affairs, he gave me an envelope with virtually all of my school reports from primary school to sixth form in it. I didn’t know that my parents had saved them. The only one obviously missing was the stinker from year two.)
My memories of sport (and exercise) in Singapore are almost wholly positive for some reason. I certainly didn't excel in them. But I remember doing things that I would later have shied from, and actually enjoying them. First and foremost were the glories of swimming. Even now, as I plod up and down the local pool for my weekly forty lengths, my mind clicks instantly back to the joys of tropical swimming. As far as school was concerned, that meant weekly trips down the hill to the outdoor pool (well, they all were in Singapore. Who needed an indoor pool in the sunshine at 80°F?) in Gillman Barracks. There, we were taught breaststroke, crawl and backstroke, diving and life-saving by two teachers. "Mr X" was the head of the PE [physical education] department. A squat old army PTI [physical training instructor], with leathery skin and wavy hair, always in white shorts and plimsolls, he taught us as though we were a bunch of recalcitrant squaddies, bellowing at us from the side of the pool. He had a blonde female colleague in a tennis skirt, whose knickers we would surreptitiously squint at from the safety of the shallow end as we underwent instruction. Occasionally, there would be a swimming gala in the same pool, with flags put up around the sides and what now seem like innumerable heats that everyone took part in.
Then there were the cross-country runs (for boys only) through the scrub behind the school. The route took us along rutted paths and what seemed at that age to me like rolling hills, mostly devoid of people, the countryside being covered by ferns. The most exciting part of the route passed a local kampong from which emaciated and aggressive dogs would leap barking loudly, until, forcing that extra bit of speed that adrenaline produces, we left them behind, waiting for the next gaggle of runners to reach them.
Once a week, too, we would be taken to the playing fields beyond the swimming pool in the barracks for cricket. (I have a vague memory that elsewhere on the grass the girls played hockey, but I could be wrong.) Here, we actually got a match, if we were lucky. But we more often stood in long rows with a bat, while "Mr X" had us practise different strokes in unison as imaginary cricket balls hurtled towards us ("Defensive stroke, I said, boy, defensive!" or "That would have had you LBW straightaway!" I seem to remember him calling).
People could stay on after school for clubs or activities. For a while, I remember staying for fencing in the gym. First, on with the protective clothing and the helmet (very hot in the humid, tropical weather), then, rather like with cricket, practising thrusts and parries in a row facing the teacher, and finally having a bout or two before heading off for a late bus. Even now, almost on autopilot, I can execute one or two basic strokes with an imaginary épée.
For the last year of my time in Singapore, I stayed at RAF Tengah with an uncle, who was in the RAF, because my father was posted "upcountry" to Terendak Camp in Malaya. My parents then rapidly departed to the UK because my mother was ill. I stayed on and eventually came back by ship to Tilbury, in Essex, with another NAAFI family. There, my father and frail-looking mother were waiting for me on the quayside. We drove through the crowded London streets in the A40 that Dad had bought on his return to Britain, pausing somewhere in what would now be called the "inner city" for a sit-down meal of fish and chips, to the NAAFI flat that they were living in Claygate, Surrey. Everything was drab. I struggled with my adolescent feelings of the injustice of it all. The idyll was over.'
Roger White (b.1948).
PERSONAL STORY: A GERMAN-BORN ARMY CHILD'S EXPERIENCES IN WEST GERMANY, MALTA AND ENGLAND
On recalling his childhood, Hans-Jürgen Kariger, a 'pioneering' pupil at Kent School, Hostert, [West] Germany, comments, 'making friends was probably the main problem for army children: two to three years max at one posting, and then on the road again'. Here, he recalls his own experiences as an army child.
'I was born in 1950 in Gladbeck [then in West Germany]. My mother married Michael George Cilvert [a British soldier] in 1954, in the Standesamt [Registry Office], Gladbeck. To avoid irritation, I would bear my stepfather's surname, Cilvert, from 1954 until 1966. But on applying for an ID card (Personalausweis) to travel to the UK, the authorities would only change the surname (Kariger) on my birth certificate to Cilvert on payment of a fee, although I had an official military certificate stating that I would henceforth carry the name Hans-Jürgen Cilvert. The alteration would involve all official papers. I only had one birth certificate, thus only one official paper to be amended. But it seems that some hold a rigid position and changing the surname would incur costs that we could not afford, so I learnt to answer to the name Kariger.
The year 1954 was also the start of my odyssey, one that many army children have experienced, when we moved to quarters in Hameln [Hamelin] and enjoyed walks along the river Weser. In 1955, I think, we moved to Helmstedt, to Wilhelm Busch-Str. [Street]. I went to infants' school in Braunschweig [Brunswick], travelling in a VW bus with the daughter(s) of Captain Tyson. Dad was then a lance corporal serving with the REME [Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] LAD [Light Aid Detachment]. Between 1956 and 1958 we lived in Berlin, in Scottweg, near the Olympiastadion [Olympic Stadium]. I was now at primary school and a friend was David Smith.
The years 1959 to 1961 found us in Malta, living in Birkikara and Hamrun. I attended primary schools in Luqa and Tigne (where we did a lot of swimming – I learnt it there). We had a good relationship with the locals, and I remember mum being the only lady on the island who rode a bicycle. Although the Maltese disapproved of ladies riding bikes, Mum was the only permitted exception due to the consequences of a childhood polio infection, an experimental operation by local surgeons and the failure of her foot to heal as expected. I remember Malta well, and yet would no longer be able to find my way around the St Luke's Hospital area, where we lived opposite the hospital in Elisabeth Flats. There used to be sandy, dusty paths for donkey-drawn carts where there are now, according to Google Maps, roads, and houses where goats used to graze and feed on paper and prickly pears. I recall the showers, when water dripped from the ceiling and trickled from spaces in the window frames, and when rain gushed ankle-deep down Gwardemanga Hill in all directions to Pieta Creek and Msida Square. An hour later, all was dry again and the scorching sun blazed down from a blue, cloudless sky. (I believe that many, like me, kept their brown, tanned skin for many years thereafter.) I remember St Anton Gardens, Attard, well, too, as I often spent an afternoon there with Mum when we lived on Fleur De Lys Road in Birkikara. Mellieah, or St Paul's Bay, were the beaches where a Sunday would be spent; on a Saturday, following a visit to the barber's, you would find me somewhere along Pieta Pier, trying my luckless hand at fishing.
After returning to Germany, I went to primary school in Essen (1961) and Krefeld (1962), where my stepfather was stationed with 11 Signals at Bradbury Barracks. From 1962 to 1963, I was a boarder at Windsor Boys' School (WBS), Hamm, where David Smith from Berlin was a dorm mate, as well as Dirk Matthews from Krefeld Primary. I remember the gym-shoe (plimsoll) punishment here. I then went to Queen's Lower, in Rheindahlen.
Previous reports having stated that if only I would work half as much as I chatted . . . in 1963 I applied myself and learnt to look, listen and understand. And I had come to recognise that words cut deeper than the mightiest sword. At Kent School, which I attended between 1963 and 1965, I was one of the prefects, and we prefects had many discussions, so that we knew all of the capers that anyone could get up to, and where. The most stupid place to smoke was the toilets – and imagine two people in a classroom cupboard sitting on two chairs! Two girls in my class, Dalia and Marianne, thought that one up. It brings back a smile because they said that I gave them the matches. Yes, but not for smoking – only for the Bunsen burner! The smoke gave them away as, unfortunately, a mistress came into the room directly behind me while I was on my duty round, checking classrooms. I think that it was Miss Gilmour, my art mistress. Other staff included Mr Ford (the head); Mrs Hutchinson (his deputy and a music teacher); Mr Cork (maths); Mr Worral (languages: German and French); Miss Valerie Perkins (English, who, in 1964, had me rewriting an essay, "Heat", three times for the first Kent Chronicle, which I never saw because I had left for Catterick by the time that it was published); Miss Pole (girls' sports); Mr Woodall (science); and, at the beginning, after Miss Pole, our form teacher, Mr Davis (geography). There was also a woodwork teacher whose name I've forgotten, but who used to play table tennis with me. He was a good athlete (he beat me at the 100 yards, so that was the answer to me thinking that I was the fastest: amongst the students, yes, but against the staff, no).
During '64, I think, Kent held an initial trial for boarding. I had been asked what I thought of the idea, due to my Hamm experience, and, with Mr Lacklison, my former WBS gym teacher who had also moved to Kent, we agreed it worth a try. The experiment took place over three to four weeks, I believe, during the summer holidays, with the house behind the 'playground' functioning as a dormitory. The pupils who took part were fascinated. Kent School later became a day and boarding school.
Looking back, WBS, Hamm, offered excellent possibilities, but a boarder of 11 or 12 years old was there too early, I think. Queen's, Rheindahlen, was overcrowded, with 36 to 40 or more pupils per class, so that the teachers could not cope with individual needs, even if they wanted to. Kent School, then newly established, with smaller classes of 12 to 16 pupils, absorbed Queen's' surplus. Kent School was an important milestone for me in showing and giving responsibility. "You represent your school within and without" is a phrase that I will never forget. Kent's, and thus our, aim was to do things better. I think that we achieved this, despite all of the hardships, sticks and stones. I remember that we had two groups for dinner (and praise to the cooks and ladies!) Was the dining room a former "mortuary or morgue?" It was not a morgue, but received incoming ambulances, with a ramp leading to the operating theatre. The entire West Wing was strictly out of bounds in my time, and, quite naturally, lurid stories started to feed childish fantasies (and maybe there are still those who believe in the existence of "Peg Leg" at Hamm or the "White Lady" at Hostert).
From the autumn of 1965 to 1966, my school was Hipswell County Modern in Catterick Camp, where I fitted in almost perfectly. (I should note that I communicated with headmasters and staff myself after leaving WBS.) Here, the fifth-form class was asked how many pupils had attended BFES [British Families Education Service] schools in Germany and could speak German – it was only Roswitha (a German girl, of course) and myself. Thanks to good reports from Kent, I was in the top stream, and the class consisted of under 20 pupils, and later even fewer because some left school. I remember that reading and writing about books and authors took up most of our time, and that we studied Shakespeare for drama, and not just one of his works, but three or four: The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Dad was demobbed in '66 and we left Catterick for his home in Dorset, Sturminster Marshall, where I attended Lytchett Minster Secondary Modern, having been squeezed in to enable me to take my exams. I was in the top stream here, too, and the teachers were very helpful indeed. The standard at maths was higher than at Catterick (or maybe it was because I had missed three weeks). English was OK as they were reading Golding, whom I had already read. We were given ample time for private study in order to brush up those areas in which we were believed to be a little weak, and a well-stocked library helped our researches.
In June or July 1966 we returned to Germany, where Mum cared for her ill father, a former coal miner who was suffering from the after-effects of coal-dust inhalation.
To all of the staff I met on my way, it is my turn to say: well done! And thank you.'
Hans-Jürgen Kariger (b.1950).
PERSONAL PICTURES AND PAGES FROM PUBLICATIONS: MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE, THEN AND NOW
Jeff Harrison, whose father was in the Royal Engineers, went to ten schools in ten years. One of those was Bourne School, Kuala Lumpur, in Malaya (now Malaysia), which Jeff attended as a boarder between 1963 and 1965, followed by a term at St John's School, Singapore. To see some of Jeff's photographs from that time, as well as a selection of pages taken from Bourne School publications, click here.
TACA CORRESPONDENCE: 'I WONDER IF I'LL EVER FIND OUT WHICH HOUSE WAS BLUE IN PASIR PANJANG'
Leslie Rutledge has already contributed a detailed and informative account of his and his siblings' army childhood to TACA (click here to read it, and here for his observations on its legacy), but reading Jeff Harrison's photo-story (see above, and to view it, click here) prompted him to send some more photographs. If you happen to know the name of the blue house in Pasir Panjang to which Leslie refers, do get in touch: he can be contacted through TACA.
'I read the story of Jeff Harrison with great interest because, like me, he had to change school so many times. It also seems that we actually went to the same school (Bourne School) in Singapore, if only for a few months, but I was in the first year, and so I don't suppose we had any contact. Bourne School was originally situated in Kuala Lumpur, in Malaya [now Malaysia], but moved to Singapore the year I started secondary modern in September 1964. As far as I can recall, only first- and second-year pupils attended Bourne School in Singapore, while the third- to sixth-formers went to St John's.
Above: Bourne School, Singapore, pictured in the mid-1960s.
I thought I'd send you photos (copied from the school magazine) to show that the drawings of the Alexandra buildings [see Part V of Jeff’s contribution] were not quite to scale – the square at the front is far too large – but by and large the drawings are excellent. I spent most of my schooling at the Gillman buildings, but also had some lessons (like science, and I remember sticking my finger in a blue flame to see if it was cold) in the Alexander building, so I knew them both fairly well.
Above: The Alexandra buildings (left). The Gillman buildings (right).
Like Jeff, I would also say that my second visit to Asia was the highlight of my childhood in the army [see parts VI to VIII of Leslie's story]. Reading some of his comments also jogged my memory because I was in a blue house in Pasir Panjang [Part VII] and a red house in Bourne, but couldn't for the life of me remember their names. Well, now I remember that my house at Bourne was called Slim, named after Field Marshal William Slim, who commanded troops in the Burma campaign. I wonder if I'll ever find out which house was blue in Pasir Panjang.'
PERSONAL STORY: BOARDING IN BROADSTAIRS
This army child had already attended five primary schools before the age of eight when, in
'January 1969, I, the eldest of two brothers, was left at Hildersham House, Broadstairs, Kent, just prior to my father's post-staff-college posting to Malta. One of several Victorian institutions set up on the east Kent coast, the school had not changed much since its establishment by the then headmaster's grandfather in the late 19th century.
The first day as a 7-year-old was somewhat bewildering, not least as several boys were crying with homesickness. Wrought-iron bedsteads surrounded the perimeter of purpose-built 20-person dormitories with a central isle of hand basins, which were filled each morning from metal jugs by 12-/13-year-olds for morning washing.
Dormitory antics were punished by cane or gym shoe, but escape committees and end-of-term dormitory feasts of corned beef and sweets, carefully smuggled in and hidden under floorboards, gave the prison-like discipline at least an edge of excitement.
Prayers that the school would burn down or close down were finally answered in 1971 with a letter to parents. In order to try to compete in an era of falling demand for boarding places, the school had offered reduced fees to sons of the army, which, it seems, were not financially viable.'
KW (b.1961).
PERSONAL STORY: AN ARMY SCHOOL TEACHER IN NEPAL, 1976–78
During her career with the Service Children's Education Authority (SCEA), Angela (Vikki) Richardson taught in RAF schools in Singapore (1966–71) and Cyprus (1971–75), and in army schools in Hong Kong (1975–76) and Nepal (1976–78, a period that she recalls below). 'I found the children of army service personnel a delight to teach', says Angela. 'They were bright, enthusiastic and self-disciplined. They accepted life as it came and appeared to settle into any new environment. I found that service schools had a high standard of education and were easily on a par with any good state school.'
'I spent twelve years – from 1966 to 1978 – teaching in British forces' schools. I was employed from the UK and was part of the SCEA – the Service Children's Education Authority. My first tour with SCEA was in Singapore, where I taught in RAF Seletar and RAF Changi. My next posting was in Cyprus in 1971, still teaching with the RAF. I thoroughly enjoyed my nine years with the RAF, but as this is the TACA website, I will talk about my time with army schools, in particular in Nepal. I went to Hong Kong in 1975 and was based in the New Territories at Sek Kong. A year later, I was offered the post of primary-school head teacher in Dharan, Nepal, which I started in April 1976.
Dharan Cantonment was built in 1958 as a recruiting depot for Gurkha soldiers joining the British Army. It was situated in east Nepal, about 100 miles from Kathmandu. The camp was 1,000 feet above sea level, and 5 miles from the foothills of the Himalayas. When we climbed to 5,000 feet behind the camp, we could see Mount Everest, plus a full panorama of snow-capped mountains.
As well as being a recruiting depot, Dharan was also a centre for paying Gurkha soldier-pensioners. There were REME [Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] workshops run by the Royal Engineers, and in 1960 a British military hospital was built to treat British and Gurkha soldiers and their families. There were about sixty to eighty British expats, including twenty primary-school-aged children who attended our SCS [Service Children's School] Dharan. There were two teachers: Maggie Howell, who taught the infant children, and me, and I was responsible for the junior class. Our classrooms were attached to the church, which we also used as a school hall, and alongside our playground was the camp swimming pool.
Dharan was a wonderful place for bird-watching. We saw storks, cattle egrets, herons, tiny green bee-eaters, kingfishers and long-tailed black drongos. We often saw the more sinister Bengal and Egyptian vultures outside camp, usually devouring some large dead animal. We regularly went on one-day expeditions, leaving camp at 4 am to catch the dawn chorus. We would travel in a Land Rover alongside the padi (rice)fields on the flat, open plains heading towards the Kosi Barrage (the barrage was built to cross the river Kosi and to control excessive flooding in the monsoon season). Nearby was an observatory where we could make our camp for the day. Apart from wonderful views of hundreds of different species of water birds, we were also able to watch families of otters playing near the water's edge.
When the young Gurkha soldiers had undertaken their basic training, there was a ceremony on camp where they pledged allegiance to our queen. As they were a long way from home and didn't have any family in Dharan to share this event, we at school were invited to go along to the parade ground and stand in for their family and friends. It was very moving to see these young men march up to the portrait of our queen and pledge allegiance to her. It was also a reminder to us as to the main purpose of our reason for being in Nepal.
Also on camp was a school for the children of the Gurkha soldiers, and we often joined up with them for several activities, including sports days and painting competitions. Outside camp was an orphanage for local children run by an ex-army pay sergeant called Tom Hughes. Some of Tom's children were handicapped and didn't have a place in their local school. Sometimes, when our school day had finished, we would go across and do some activities with these children. None of us knew much of the local language, but it was a good chance for each group to get to know each other better.
Although we aimed to absorb as much as possible of this fascinating environment, we also kept to our traditional syllabus. Each year, we produced a children's Nativity play in the school/church hall, which was attended by nearly everyone on camp. One year, it was Chuck, the camp mongrel, who nearly stole the show: he followed the Three Wise Men down the aisle to the manger and then lay down in front of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus for the rest of the performance.
Above: Christmastime at the school in Nepal.
Before I left Dharan, I was presented with a small wooden shield that has since become one of my treasures. On the front is a mountain scene, which we saw from our camp. It includes the crossed-kukri swords, a pair of binoculars and a perched hoopoe, which was a favourite bird on camp. On the back of the shield is a list of the pupils who came to the school from 1976 to 1978.
Below: Front and back views of Angela's treasured shield.
I feel very privileged to have spent two years in such a unique and fascinating place. I have some wonderful memories of Nepal, and I hope the children who spent time there were old enough to remember some of their experiences.'
Angela (Vikki) Richardson.
PERSONAL STORY: 'MÜNSTER – I CAN’T FAULT THE PLACE'
The reference to Edinburgh School in Münster, (West) Germany, above, prompted Gerald Lipton to share his own memories of his schooldays in Münster (BFPO 17), where his father was serving in 4 Royal Tank Regiment. Gerald, who was born in Singapore, also recalls how difficult it was to adjust to life in the UK after the Lipton family moved to Scotland, and reflects on some of the lasting legacies of growing up an army brat.
'I attended Edinburgh High School in Münster from 1976 to 1980, and before that, Swinton Primary School in the village of Senden, along with my brother and sister. Senden had a large British housing estate set in the countryside, about three-quarters of an hour from Münster. At that time, the school was a new, state-of-the-art, open-plan building, which even now would be hard to beat. I was one of the first pupils to attend it, and my teacher there was Mr Bishop, who had a sailing dinghy. It's amazing how things influence you when you are a child: little did I know then that sailing would become a large part of my life, and of my children's, as we go sailing most weekends. I cannot remember my first primary school in Münster, but it was in an old army barracks, just along from the Edinburgh High School site.
I have been back a few times since, and the primary school in Senden is still there and being used by the locals. The high school has been converted back to an army barracks, as mentioned on your page. However, the main buildings are clearly recognisable. I had a great time there, and remember it clearly, even after all this time. My teacher was Miss Mackie, and I remember how, when the sun was splitting the sky, she would take the whole class out to a small shop next to the school (which is still there today) for ice cream – thank you, Miss! Footballer Jeremy Goss also attended Edinburgh High School at that time, and was linked, or played, with Southampton Football Club as a schoolboy and then had success with Norwich City and Wales.
LIFE AFTER MÜNSTER
I now live in Fife, Scotland, in an old mining community on the Firth of Forth, overlooking Edinburgh. I was abandoned here when my father left the army in 1983 (his last posting was in the town of Kirkcaldy, with army carriers). My mother was in tears when my dad told her we were going back to Britain – little did I know how bad it was. It was a shock coming here. Compared to Germany, it was like going back twenty years in time: freezing cold, no central heating, coal fires, sash-and-case windows – it took some getting used to. I finished school here, at a place that was not as good as my school in Münster. Sport has always been a major part of my life, and schools here simply did not cater for, nor encourage, this.
I left school in 1982, with five O' levels, and went straight into a government employment scheme (the YTS [Youth Training Scheme]) as a plumber. I was then a car-body worker before getting a start as a roof slater and plasterer. I got my City & Guilds and did a five-year apprenticeship. After that, I became self-employed and now run a small building firm. I firmly believe that my own success is down to having been an army brat.
The funny thing about army kids is their accents. For instance, in our family, we all speak differently. My dad, although he is Scottish, sometimes does not pick up what I'm saying; my brother, on the other hand, stays in Northampton and speaks with more of an English tone. Even now, when this is the place that I have stayed in the longest, the locals are puzzled as to where I am from, with my mix–match of difference accents. If I find that someone does not hear me right, it comes as no surprise, and I instantly change my accent from a Scottish tone to an English one so that they can understand me.
Thankfully, the standard of life in Scotland has changed for the better. However, everything about me is German, from the way that I work to the food that I eat. I even drive a VW and will not buy anything British if I can help it. The only problem I have is that I feel that I have no roots. I still move around every couple of years – I am sure that it's in the blood – but at least I am staying local. Given the chance to move back to Germany, I would. That’s not so easy, but with cheap flights, it’s no problem to visit. I was last in Münster in New Year 2009, to look up old friend. I can't fault the place.'
Gerald Lipton (b.1965).
PERSONAL STORY: 'I HAVE CHANGED COMPLETELY'
Taima McDonald-Pizey's father was in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC), and it was as Lynda Carter that she travelled all over the UK and (West) Germany with her family from April 1972 until March 1984. Taima sums up her army-child experience as follows.
'As an army brat, I suppose that the thing I loved most was the travel aspect of our lives. I lived in Hiddingsel and Senden, near Münster, in Germany. I attended Senden Primary School and then moved up to Edinburgh High School in Münster from 1979 to 1980. I remember Alan Jones, Martin Jones, Mandy Smith, Sean Bell, Jackie Mohammed and Kim Linton. My name was Lynda Carter then, and some thought that it was amusing that I was named after the actress Lynda Carter, who played "Wonder Woman". I was very much a loner, and was never one of the "popular" crowd – I never wanted to be, either. I have since changed my name and have changed completely.'
Taima McDonald-Pizey (née Lynda Carter, b.1967).
NEW RESEARCH: THE EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATION OF THE ARMY CHILD
Dr Grace Clifton, staff tutor in education at the Open University, has been researching the educational experience of army children attending secondary schools in the UK since 2002. She sums up her main conclusions in the abstract below. To read more, click here.
'In the UK, there are over 100,000 children from an army background, and parliamentary debate has highlighted the issue of the challenging experiences of these children in local schools. Using an ethnographic approach, this thesis investigates the educational experiences of army children. Four Year Eight children from one school were observed and interviewed in order to build up in-depth case studies. In addition, the outcomes from discussions with their parents, teachers and other associated education and army professionals were explored. The emerging findings were subsequently compared with findings from a second research site. Working within a socio-cultural theoretical framework, it was found that there was a clash of cultures between the world of the army and the world of the school. As a result, army children's needs were not sufficiently identified and understood and neither the army nor schools attended to the children's needs. Furthermore, the culture of the home was seen to have a strong effect on the educational experiences of the army child, with the role of the mother being considered to be particularly important. Another important finding was that the mobile lifestyle also had a negative effect on the children's educational experiences. As a result, the children developed unique and individual coping strategies. The research has implications for both military and educational policy-makers, as well as for the teachers and parents of army children, in terms of collaboration between army and local education authorities in order to improve the educational experiences of the army child. More generally, the research addresses the role of the home in supporting school experiences and suggests that further research into the effect of mobility on children's educational achievement is necessary.'
Dr Grace Clifton, the Open University.
[© Dr Grace Clifton, 2008; not to be quoted without the author's permission; TACA is grateful for her permission to do so.]
NEW RESEARCH: THE EDUCATION OF ARMED FORCES CHILDREN IN STATE SCHOOLS
In 2008, Aggie Robertson conducted some research into the education of armed forces children in British state schools. As part of this research for her education-studies degree, she asked former army children to share their experiences with her through various online forums, as well as through TACA. Her dissertation now being complete, Aggie summarises her findings below.
'The research highlighted the fact that schools are not very supportive of army children, mainly because of a lack of understanding or a level of ignorance that stems from prejudiced views held on army children. Just because the child might not be in the school for long is not an excuse to minimise input. Schools, however, can provide a stable environment in a turbulent time. The children will come to school often during term time after having left friends behind and with the high possibility of a parent being deployed at short notice. The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2003) recognises that starting during the year may have an impact for some time. Schools can ease the transition by providing "buddies" to help the child settle in. I would recommend support lessons, especially for older children who have exams coming up, which would help to close the educational gaps often present because of frequent postings and different exam boards. Raising awareness of army life through displays and literature could reduce prejudice and bullying. The children come to school with a wealth of experiences that the school could build on; an indication of where the child has lived on a globe could teach the "stable" children about those countries and cultures. The Service Children in State Schools (SCISS) team has put together a handbook to support schools, which refers to the Service Children's Education (SCE) Toolkit, used by overseas service schools as a resource to help army children, where staff are used to dealing with high mobility and the emotional turmoil that comes with army life and deployment. It is also important to support the child when he/she is due to move to a different school, as suggested by the DfES (2003), which recommends a positive exit programme. The department also suggests putting an induction mentor in place for mobile pupils to ease the transition, and to provide a link between parents and school.
The forums indicated the need for a support network, where adults can share their experiences. The replies suggested that many still find it hard to settle in one place or job and feel the need to move every two to three years. They tend to have problems with forming close relationships and often feel "lost". Some felt that they came from "everywhere and nowhere", which reflects the issue of "rootlessness" and a failure to connect to new places and faces (Clifton, 2007), although they easily adapt to new situations. The gaps in education can also mean an inability to reach full potential in later life, where careers would have been affected due to a disrupted education. Many older participants, however, look back on their childhood with nostalgia and enjoyed the travelling around and the experiences related to it. Everyone experienced his or her childhood differently and it would be wrong to generalise. Army life has shaped them in a unique way.
There are many issues that I have been unable to examine in more detail, but each would be worthy of a separate study. It would have been interesting to compare state schools with SCE schools, as would it have been fascinating to compare army children with other minority groups, such the Gypsy Roma Traveller group. Each of these has been researched in depth, and as a result inclusive practices and strategies have been put into place and published by the government. Clifton (2004) states that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has so far failed to fund any significant research into the educational experiences of service children, although the department does recognise that the welfare of the family influences the effectiveness of serving personnel. Soldiers from the Territorial Army are now more likely to be deployed to hostile areas, and I am concerned that schools are not prepared for the possible emotional effect that this can have on the child and the family who has no support from an army families officer. More and more serving soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan with emotional and physical scars, or even lose their lives. The impact that this will have on a large group of children will be immense, with irreparable consequences unless plans and strategies are put into action immediately to help army children cope in the near and distant future.
REFERENCES
Department for Education and Skills, Managing Pupil Mobility: Guidance (2003)[online text: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/documents/pmguidance. pdf].
Grace Clifton, 'The Experience of Education of the Army Child', PhD thesis (Oxford Brookes University, 2007). [For a summary, click here.]
Grace Clifton, 'Making the Case for the BRAT (British Regiment Attached Traveller)', British Educational Research Journal, 30(3) (2004), 457–62.'
Aggie Robertson.
[© Aggie Robertson, 2009.]
LINKS
The following links relating to the education of army children over the centuries may be of interest.
- The wide-ranging Delta Tech Systems website presents in-depth information about army education during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. You can also read about the histories of the Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea (today the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover), and the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin, here, as well as follow links to related websites like: http://www.rma-searcher.co.uk. Visit: http://www.achart.ca
- Service Children's Education (SCE), an agency of the MoD, is dedicated to the education of the children of service families and MoD personnel serving outside of the United Kingdom, providing education from foundation stage through to the sixth form. For further information, visit: http://www.sceschools.com
- The BFES-SCE Association is open to all who have worked with service children's education abroad. Visit its website at http://www.bfes-sce-association.co.uk, and on its 'Links' page you'll find a list of websites dedicated to schools in Malta, Asia and Germany.
- The archives of the Institute of Education, University of London, hold records of the British Families Education Service (BFES)/Service Children's Education (SCE) Association, 1947-2001. For further details, visit: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/services/932.html
- The Alexandra Grammar website is aimed at former forces' children who attended British forces' schools in Singapore from 1945 onwards. These include schools at the Royal Air Force stations at Tengah, Changi and Seletar; the army bases at Tanglin, Nee Soon and Gillman; the naval base, HMS Terror; as well as some schools in mainland Malaya/Malaysia. Visit it at: http://www.alexandragrammar.org or http://www.britschools-singapore.org
- St George's School, a school for British forces' children in Hong Kong, closed in 1996. A website devoted to it includes photo galleries and forums. Explore it at: http://www.saintgeorges-hk.com
- Slim School, in Malaya's (now Malaysia's) Cameron Highlands, was a boarding school that educated army children between 1951 and 1964. Visit www.slimschoolmalaya.com/maingate.htm to learn more about the school, and, if you went there, to make contact with past pupils and teachers. There is also a Slim School Club Yahoo! Group (http://groups. yahoo.com/group/slimschoolmalaya2) where ex-Slimmers can interact.
- Bourne School was located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya (now Malaysia), between 1954 and its closure in 1965 (it then reopened in Singapore). The Bourne School Kuala Lumpur Yahoo! Group was established for those ex-Bournies who attended this school, and its website (http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/bourneschoolkualalumper) includes messages, photo albums and a collection of Bourne School Magazines. There is also a closed Facebook group (Bourne School Kuala Lumpur Malaya) for former pupils.
- Although called the Royal Naval School Tal-Handaq, and run by the Royal Navy, this secondary school in Tal-Handaq, Malta, also educated army children from 1947 until 1978. Past staff and pupils are welcomed at http://www.tal-handaq.freeserve.co.uk, where the history of the school can also be read about. A nostalgic gallery of photographs can be viewed at: http://www.talhandaqnostalgia.org. Recent images of the school (now the Liceo Vassalli) can be seen at: http://www.tal-handaq.co.uk
- Former pupils of the Royal Naval School Verdala, on Malta, which also schooled army children (it served as a primary school from 1949 until 1976), should visit http://www.verdala.com, a comprehensive website aimed at past pupils and teachers. A history of service children's schools on Malta can be accessed by following the two timeline links on this website, and some illuminating memories can be read in its 'Staff Room' section.
- Prince Rupert School (PRS), for the children of British armed forces and Control Commission personnel, was based at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, between 1947 and 1972, and is thought to have been the first comprehensive, co-educational boarding school established under the terms of the 1944 Education Act. Follow this link to read a history of the school: http://www.prs-wilhelmshaven.co.uk/open/school20.html; to become a member (if you went to the school) and access the rest of the The Wilhelmshaven Association (TWA) website, visit: http://www.prs-wilhelmshaven.co.uk. In 1972, PRS moved to Rinteln, Germany, where it remains; follow this link for the Prince Rupert School Reunion Website: http://prs.jwarburton.com, and this one for details of Prince Rupert School today: http://www.princerupert.de
- King Alfred School, Plön, was a co-educational boarding school that educated forces (and Control Commission) children in Germany between 1948 and 1959. You can read about it on the Wyvern Club's website. See: http://www.kas-ploen.org.uk/overview.htm
- The Windsor Society's members are former army children who went to Windsor School, Windsor Girls' School and Windsor Boys' School in Hamm, Germany, between 1953 and 1983. Its website presents information and photographs pertaining to the history of these schools. Visit it at: http://www.windsorsociety.org.uk/index.htm
- Queen's School educated army children in Rheindahlen, Germany, between 1955 and 1987. The Queen's School (Rheindahlen) Association's website, at http://www.queensschoolrheindahlenassociation.co.uk, which is aimed at reuniting former pupils and staff, gives a brief history of the school. In addition, queensschoolrheindahlen.com acts as a community website for former pupils of Queen's School, Rheindahlen; visit http:// www.queensschoolrheindahlen.com for a 'Where are they now?' forum, photo albums and more.
- The Kent School Association website is dedicated to maintaining contact between former pupils of Kent School in Hostert, Germany, which educated army children between 1963 and 1987. It also gives an overview of the school's history. See: http://www.kent-school.co.uk. There is also a Kent School Yahoo! Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/ kentschoolpupils
- A number of Yahoo! Groups have been established for those who attended certain BFES/SCE schools in (West) Germany, including: Edinburgh School, Münster (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/edinburghschoolmunster); the Havel School, (West) Berlin (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/havel school); and King's School, Gütersloh (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ thexkingsschoolgutersloh)
- Ex British Forces Kids is an online, public-access-restricted club open to former army children (and their teachers and parents) who attended BFES schools around the world. It can be accessed at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exbritishforceskids2 and http:// exbritiishforceskids.multiply.com
- The Friends Reunited website (http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/) has a number of BFES schools in its ‘UK Overseas’ category; those who have registered with the website can add their names to lists of former pupils and can contact others through the website.
- Ex Far East Britbrat Schools is a Yahoo! Group for members of all ex-BFES schools of the Far East, such as Alexandra Grammar School, Bourne School, St John's and SIS of Singapore, Slim of Malaya, Victoria and St George's of Hong Kong. Members can reconnect, share memories and make new friends through its website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exfareastbritbrat schools.
- The Terendak Schools Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ TerendakSchools) is for ex-pupils (and staff, family and friends) who attended Slim School, BACS Terendak, Mountbatten, Seaview, Sungei Udang or any other school in, or near, Terendak Camp, Malacca, Malaysia, during the 1960s and early 1970.
- Britbrats.com (http://britbrats.tripod.com) is an online community and magazine for past and present pupils and staff of BFES and SCEA schools.
CLICK HERE TO SEE JEFF HARRISON’S IMAGES OF BOURNE SCHOOL, MALAYA/MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE, AND ST JOHN’S SCHOOL, SINGAPORE
TO READ A SUMMARY OF DR GRACE CLIFTON'S RESEARCH INTO THE EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATION OF THE ARMY CHILD, CLICK HERE.
TACA SCHOOLING ALBUM: GIBRALTAR
