Sloane Grammar School Hortensia Road Chelsea London England

1919-1970 Old Cheyneans and Friends

Classmate Profiles | User Forums | Contact Us | In Memory | Home

Sloane at War 1

Sloane's building was put to good use as a hospital during the First World War and was without pupils again at the onset of World War II.

Guy Boas was holidaying in Scotland in 1939 when, having descended Ben Nevis, he was greeted by a messenger who handed him a letter saying he must immediately return to London as all schools were to be evacuated. In the first months of the war that followed around 49% of London's school population was evacuated. By the end of the war, only 50 out of London's 1200 schools had received no damage at all and 290 were were either destroyed completely or had been severely damaged.

When the day came for Sloane to be evacuated, September 2nd, 1939, no one seemed to know for certain where they were going, least of all the Headmaster. He believed they were bound for Oxforshire but events contrived to put them in Addlestone, Surrey. Addlestone was the train's first stop after starting out from Earl's Court and, as it pulled into the station, one or two boys jumped off to buy chocolate from a vending machine. They were followed by others, including the Headmaster and his staff, who had by now assumed they'd reached their intended destination, until 250 boys, plus staff, were all standing on the platform, watching the train continue on its way with just one infants' school for its passengers. What was soon to follow confirmed that the infants were probably the only ones who should have alighted at Addlestone. After a short walk, the pupils and staff of Sloane were greeted by a welcoming Committee armed with Teddy bears and dolls, which they soon abandoned on seeing the size of the boys they were there to meet, and let the ladies of the Womens' Voluntary Service get on with the job of allocating billets. Ably assisted by Mr Bailey, they found billets for all in the Addlestone, Chertsey and Newholm areas. The first night for some was actually spent on a factory floor and Mr Boas records the following weeks as being the most difficult of his life as locals and WVS alike, feeling aggrieved and hard-done-by, proceeded to take it out on the school.

Sloane School playground on evacuation day, September 1st, 1939

Eventually, quartered near the Vicker's and Hawker's works at Brooklands, near Weybridge, the school found itself without a building large enough to house everyone, and with a distinct lack of the air-raid shelters they'd become accustomed to in London. The need of a building in which to teach was not immediate, as the school had arrived during an official school holiday period and, by the time the new term started, a disused tin church, St Augustine's, the Methodist Hall, and the Abbey Barn in Chertsey, had been found for Sloane's 300 pupils and staff. In Guy Boas's paraphrasing of Churchill's words,

"Never was so little, provided by so few, for so many."

The four weeks of boredom that followed resulted in six of the boys being hauled into the local court charged with stealing, and two others with riding two on a bicycle.

The school's situation remained less than ideal as, eventually, it took the opportunity of sharing the premises of the Strode School, Egham, on alternate days. This arrangement meant a daily eight-mile train journey to and from Addlestone so Guy continued his search for suitable accommodation. By Christmas, he managed to rent two large, empty houses, a mile apart, which he filled with equipment sent for from Chelsea. One was Addlestone Lodge, let to the school by Mr Barry-Cooper, the owner. This was considered to be 'Headquarters', and was where the upper school worked. The other, Newholm on Woburn Hill, was for the lower school. St George's College, Weybridge, allowed use of their playing fields, gymnasium and science labs. The daily journeys to Egham stopped in the new year and work began on the construction of air-raid shelters in the garden of Addlestone Lodge, whilst the necessary reinforcement of the cellar at Newholm, meant that it wasn't ready for occupation until the new term, after Christmas. With a number of the school staff having joined the services, Boas secured help from a neighbouring girls' school. When the authorities got to hear about this they sent him a letter which read,

"It is noted that you already have four mistresses in Addlestone. If you want a fifth, permission must be obtained from London."

This amused him, but he felt he had to decline the offer.

To amuse himself, and the boys, Mr Bailey wrote a play, The Black Gang. This play, about spies and evacuation, had Sidney Peever as its hero, Tiger, and, due to indoor assemblies being rightly discouraged, was performed in the open air in the grounds of Addlestone Lodge. In general, life went on much as it had in London. In fact, school life in Addlestone, away from competing interests and with smaller classes, proved beneficial from an educational point of view. R. Oblitas, E.D. Kohn and R.A. Blight all won Scholarships at Cambridge, to prove that, despite what was going on around them, work and examination results were being maintained. Football and Cricket continued to be played, and the Annual Athletic Sports day was maintained at St Gorge's. Everyone looked forward to, and enjoyed, an annual Christmas Party at Abbey Barn and Mr Bailey's plays.

Many of the older boys returned to London to sleep at week-ends and in the holidays, and during blitzes at night they fought fires, returning to Addlestone on the Monday to continue their studies. Lacking their company of an evening, life became intolerably boring for Guy and, after a couple of years, he returned to London in 1944 to preside over the West London Emergency School, which included boys from Clement Danes, Westminster City and Wandsworth schools, all wearing their own uniforms - Sloane boys wore a black jacket, and some even had a badge - and, until Guy's return had operated with the Reverend John Kingsford as its Headmaster. It had been set up to teach those boys whose families had decided to 'tough it out' in London, and was using the Sloane Building alongside the Auxiliary Fire Service. Despite the school's change of name, Don Wheal wrote in his book White City,

"we regarded ourselves as Sloane School, Chelsea. The West London Emergency School for Boys had never been a name that caught on. We played football for Sloane. We wore blue, Chelsea-like shirts. But the truth is that we were a rag-bag institution thrown together in the grim days of 1940."

And, on the subject of uniforms,

"Uniformity was, in the nature of things, out of the question. Even tidiness was difficult to impose. We pleaded shortage of clothes coupons, we pleaded mothers on war wotk unable to spare the time for repairs to torn pockets. Some boys (sometimes genuinely, but in any case not with too much relevance) pleaded narrow escapes from the bombing that week. Our masters just shrugged. They were mostly long past retirement age, recalled to replace staff serving in the forces and waiting patiently for the imminent end. Not their own but the imminent end, or so it seemed in early 1944, of the war."

Once at school the boys spent much of their time in the cloakrooms which had been strengthened to provide shelters. Where, according to Don,

"explosions punctuated our days. Air raid warnings had to be observed and the shuffle of gabbling, grubby boys, three abreast down the two staircases and into the cloakrooms, seemed to take up much of our day. Once there we sat tightly packed on wooden benches. Card games were renewed from where they'd been left off twenty minutes before. Comics were swapped from boy to boy and then from form to form, tall tales were told about girls from the school next door and pin-ups from Lilliput or Picturegoer were passed around for sale. Teachers read, chatted among themselves or went out for a smoke. Sometimes they intercepted a pin-up and stared at it wistfully before handng it back.

We did less work than we had done in any period since the Blitz. A little history of the Industrial Revolution; for English, a reading of Micah Clarke; virtually no Latin and very little French.

At West London Emergency the days were tolerable, even in some ways enjoyable. We felt that we (with Adolf's help) were putting one over, not on the masters but on the school system itself, as we spent our days playing cards in the cloakrooms."

The Cheynean of April, 1944 shows 92 boys as still being on the roll at Addlestone, with the two lowest forms being combined. All were working in Addlestone Lodge itself complete with electric fires in the class-rooms as the gas fires had proved inadequate. At this time a new House system had been instigated. This was put down to the initiative of Prefects and House Captains, and was made up of three Houses, Drake's Hood's and Scott's, their House Captains being G.E. Standing, K. Evans and E.W. Kelly respectively. Games were re-organised under the new system to the extent that it was responsible for, as April, 1944's The Cheynean tells us -

' practically eliminating the "non-games" boy from our School life. '

Not long after arrival back in London Guy, asleep at home in Wimbledon, was woken by a phone call from the master in charge of fire-watching for the evening, in the school building. As he recounts in his book A Teacher's Story the caller said,

"The Headmaster would like to know that the school has been struck."

I replied that the Headmaster did not like to know this", and as I didn't see what I could do about it at midnight, I returned to bed."

A doodle-bug had landed near enough to the school to blow all of its windows out. As a result, all but three dozen of the boys were sent to the Roehampton playing field the following day whilst the remainder were sent to buy sheets of asbestos and set about covering the windows. They did so with such enthusiasm that the boys at Roehampton were summoned to return to the school just two days later. The Cheynean of April, 1944 recalls, with humour, the time thus -

' We are most grateful to the Staff, the School-keepers, and boys, who repaired the damage done recently to the School by enemy action so that we were able to resume full work in the building, (with the flag flying), within a few days' time. We were lucky in suffering no structural injury. The rest of the boys, who meanwhile were sent to games at Roehampton, regretted that the damage was not more severe. '

Attendance at the school was voluntary during the 'little blitz' of 1944 but, according to Donald Wheal's (see the Famous and Infamous page) book, World's End, never fell below 95% full. Standards were certainly lower during this time of upheaval, and discipline slack, as some masters were just going through the motions, awaiting the end of war and their 'second retirement'. Don writes in his book -

' By day school continued pretty much as normal. To say that the West London Emergency Secondary School for Boys (Sloane) was slack is among the richer of understatements. During what later became known as the little blitz of the early months of 1944, attendance was voluntary (although it's true that, throughout, it was well over 95% every day) but many of our masters were just marking time for their second retirement to begin with the war's end. Standards, it's fair to say, were pitifully low. I remembered more of the stinging pain of Mr. Colon's fat, white finger flicking me beneath the nose than any of the Latin declensions he imagined he was teaching. French was taught by Harry Little, whose Commando French Course never seriously advanced our knowledge of the language, but whose black-market visit to Paris within months of the war ending netted the boys a good return - and himself a handsome profit, as well as renewed acquaintance with his good friends the night-club hostesses of Pigalle.'

Don Wheal, in his book White City paints a lovely picture of the time when Guy Boas returned to London from the Addlestone evacuation to take over the West London Emergency School. He saw that discipline was lapse and determined to restore it -

"We felt his presence immediately. Speaking from the platform in the hall, he said that he had observed several boys that morning slipping into school after the bell. Henceforth lateness would not be tolerated. Masters would be posted on the gate. We should be warned that every boy who was one minute late the following morning would be caned.

We didn't attempt to hide our outrage. Lateness for school was accepted as one of the perks of living in London during the war. Boys weren't on the whole very late. Ten, twenty minutes, a half hour if there had been a serious hold-up. But that was not good enough for Bo. Next morning the new guard took over on the gate. We latecomers straggled in, thirty, fifty...by 9.15 close to a hundred. Jostling in the playground finally, where we had been directed by the masters on the gate, were eighty-two miscreants.

We were lined up in alphabetical order and marched upstairs to the headmaster's study in batches of twenty-five. A name that begins with W is either good fortune or bad. There are no in-betweens. This time it was good fortune indeed. I arrived upstairs to find a wild-eyed, exhausted headmaster slumped against his desk. His black jacket was draped over his chair. His right hand which gripped the cane was wrapped in several handkerchiefs. Two broken canes were abandoned on the carpet.

He pushed himself up to his feet. His full red face was slick with sweat. Droplets glistened in his clipped moustache. His pinstripe trousers were crumpled, his waistcoat unbuttoned. He gestured to the first boy of our column to lean on the back of a chair placed in the middle of the room. The boy leaned over. I wondered why Boas had not recruited other masters, then I realised that this was a very personal contest. For the sake of the new Sloane School he had to win.

Glassy-eyed, he advanced on the boy leaning over the chair. He gave him four cuts with the cane before stepping back to take a breath. His arm, I was happy to see, was shaking. It would not have been so easy for the ABCs at the head of the line.

'Next,' he croaked. And I stood up to the chair. My four of the best were painful but, afterwards, I wouldn't have wanted to be without them. I believe we all rather admired him, overweight and hypertensive as he probably was. I think that we, the boys, would not have wanted to abandon so significant a privilege as tolerated unpunctuality without a fight. He, in turn, would not have been happy for so significant a victory simply to have fallen into his lap. By the end of the morning both sides, headmaster and boys, could feel they had acquitted themselves honourably."

Also, in Don Wheal's World's End again, he gives us an idea of what the war meant to him at the time when he writes -

' As an adult, I've often wondered what being at war really meant to us at the time. To Kit (Don's brother) and myself for example. There was, of course, always that extraordinary consciousness of it that filled the nooks and crannies of your existence. The war was always with us. "Don't you know there's a war on?" people said, as if we needed reminding. There was always that overriding imperative which put your own wishes, or juvenile ambitions, into a certain perspective. This was especially true during the blitz or when Hitler's V1 and V2 Revenge Weapons, the flying bombs and rockets, began. I'm jumping ahead now to late 1944, but back from school then would involve a quick supper and homework if you could find the time to do it. Our family system was for my mother and Kit to spend the night in the depths of Lancaster Gate tube station and my father and I to go to Whitelands where he was on fire watch duty.(Whitelands had been converted into luxury flats and Don's father was a plumber and stoker there. It was formerly a teachers' training college for women which became headquarters for Oswald Moseley's Blackshirts and the place where William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) worked as Propaganda Director before defecting). These nightly movements involved an immense amount of carrying of blankets and pillows, sandwiches and thermos flasks to the tube station. As the war went on, we were, I sense, more like Elizabethan children, children truly without childhood, much more deeply involved with the lives and fortunes of our parents and families than the children of the remaining half of the twentieth century would ever be. '


Don Wheal at Sloane		Kit Wheal at Sloane

Apart from the loss of life suffered by many of the school's old boys and some of its younger ones during the Second World War, which is faithfully recorded on the Roll of Honour below, some proved to be luckier. One of the junior boys was in a Putney milk-bar at 11pm one night when it was hit by a bomb. A number of people were killed and many were seriously injured. This particular pupil was saved by the hollow milk-bar counter having landed on top of him, and having protected him from the caved-in roof. The next day the boy turned up on time for school as usual. In a second incident, a bomb fell about a mile away from the Roehampton playing field whilst Guy Boas was umpiring a cricket match. He instructed everyone to fall flat on their face and injuries were avoided. However, one small boy seemed to the Headmaster to be acting hysterically. Guy Boas writes,

'He was abusing a fellow junior so wildly that I feared his nerve had gone, which was curious as no one else seemed to be at all affected. "What is the matter, sonny?" I asked. "You're all right. What's all the fuss about?" Came the reply, "He gave a seven-ball over!" Such were the hopes of Hitler.'

Two Sloane boys lost their lives during a night of bombing by the Luftwaffe on February 23rd, 1944. The late Donald James Wheal (see the Famous and Infamous page), talks of the same night in his superb book World's End. He had also been living in the Guinness Trust Buildings on Kings Road, on the night of the attack during the period that became known as Baby Blitz but, fortunately for him and for posterity, he and his family made it to the public shelter below the concrete of the yard. The families of Harold Constant (aged 13) and Arthur Revell had decided to stay in their flat and these two Sloane boys were killed. Records show that Arthur was 20 when he died, so had actually left Sloane, and was listed as a Fire Guard. Another Sloane pupil, Norman Godber, was living in the block that was part-demolished, but survived to tell the tale and is still with us today. Don Wheal's book gives us the exact time that the sirens sounded that night, 10.07pm, and by 11.12pm the All-clear had been given. During that fateful hour and five minutes 4 bombs fell, one after another, on World's End and as many as 77 people lost their lives. For Guiness Trust Buildings 55 deaths were recorded, escalating to 59 as some died later of injuries received. King's Road itself saw 11 fatalities, whilst another 7 were recorded in nearby Upcerne Road. In all, 457 civilians were killed in Chelsea during this war with Finborough Road and Ifield Road, both close by the school, being heavily hit.

Oblivious to what had happened the night before, Ted Simon (see Famous and Infamous page) turned up for school the following day, from his home in Notting Hill, only to find all the windows blown out and a blackboard at the school gate announcing that the school was closed until further notice. He ventured round to World's End to see what had happened and was spotted by Don Wheal

'carrying a badly bent cage with a canary still fluttering inside it.'

The bombing left Don and his family homeless until, after a few months living in Windsor his father found permanent rented accommodation at 55, Primula Street, opposite the gates of Wormwood Scrubs Prison, in the Sheperd's Bush, W12 area of London's Hammersmith.

In the Postscript to his book, Don recounts a strange coincidence regarding that sad night. The story was told to him of Ginger, a naval rating who had lived in Slaidburn Street, World's End, whose Landing Craft had been assigned to bring back some German prisoners. Among them was a Luftwaffe pilot who struck up a conversation with Ginger. In the course of the conversation Ginger told the pilot that he came from the World's End area of London -

"Know it well," the German said. "From maps that is. I bombed the Power Station (Lots Road) there last February."

"You missed the bloody Power Station there last February," Ginger said and hit him so hard the force of the blow swept the pilot over the side of the boat.

The pilot was rescued, but Ginger thought his three days in the Brig for assaulting a prisoner more than well worth it.

As soon as war had been declared, Sloane started to play its part in the war effort. Each year, as many as three dozen Sloane boys, accompanied by Mr and Mrs Boas, spent around four weeks on the Bridehead Estate of Sir Robert and Lady Williams, relatives of Mrs Boas (who had become known to the boys as 'Pussy'), at Littlebredy in Dorset. From here they harvested potatoes and other vegetables to help with the war effort. It was also profitable for them and/or the school. The harvest of 1945,from August 17th - September 15th, when the boys were also accompanied by Mr Harry Little, Mrs Green, the school cook, and Mr and Mrs Gurton, they earned £118-6s-6d for a total between them of 2,366 and a half hours! It wasn't all hard work though, as the boys seemed to enjoy the entertainment they were afforded on the Estate and the extra rations they received for harvesting. They also had to be restrained from accepting gifts from the American servicemen who arrived in the area. The law forbade them from accepting spare military caps, uniforms and weapons, but the school staff realised this was still happening when, one morning, several boys appeared for breakfast dressed and armed as though they had joined the American forces. When the VI and VII flying bombs were hitting London in the latter years of the war, Mr Boas arranged for about thirty of the School's younger boys to join him and the others at Littlebredy. They were too small for the heavy work, but helped by potato-picking, blackberrying, weeding, and putting paid to a plague of caterpillars which had been destroying garden crops.

Don Smith recalls that the boys slept in Army tents and ate their meals in the village hall. he saw what they had to do as 'cheap labour' but welcomed the extra money and the use of a full-sized snooker table, which sat in the conservatory at the 'big house.' The tail-coated butler was also on hand to bring them the apples and peaches that were grown on the estate. Don had returned to London in 1942, after spending time as an evacuee with an aunt and uncle, near Sutton Coldfield.

It took the War Agricultural Committee four years to recognise the efforts the school had been making, when it offered to provide the tents and equipment the school had already been paying for, along with elaborate printed instructions on how to run the camps!

* * * * *

On a more mundane level, the effects of rationing were felt personally by the school when production of The Cheynean magazine was stopped in 1940. Three issues a year had been printed since 1926 but it was destined not to return until December 1943, when, without a cover and of a reduced size, The Cheynean had this to say -

"We look forward after victory to resuming our pre-war length and also our familiar blue cover."

During this time, the school helped raise funds for the Red Cross by holding a dance in the gym and didn't themselves go without completely, as hot school lunches were provided by Londoner's Meal Services, at a cost of 5d each. The school also became affiliated to the British Ship Adoption Society (organised by the Royal Geographical Society and the Ministry of Education), adopting the Lowlander and one other ship, to whose crews they sent letters and parcels. The Lowlander was an Italian built ship, on Lease-Lend from the USA after having been seized after Pearl Harbour, and she survived until being broken up in 1961.

The Cheynean of April, 1944 tells us that the boys hadn't lost their sense of humour in adversity when it said -

' The Fighting Services still compete to rouse enthusiasm for the respective scope which they offer boys joining them. In February we heard a very interesting lecture on active service with the Navy, with special reference to convoy duty, from Lieutenant Heaton, R.N., and Major Costello paid us a second visit to show us a silent film which depicted graphically battle scenes during the Sicilian and Italian landings. We had a lecture last term on life in the R.A.F. and now we only await a representative of the Coal Industry to paint in glowing colours the opportunities which life offers in the subterranean corridors of Durham and South Wales. No lecturer, however, has so far proposed himself for this task.'

Individual Memories of Sloane Life During WWII

Many boys at Sloane during the Second World War saw life at the school in their own way. Here is what some of them remember -

Harry West penned this for us -

In 1940, Sloane School had been re-designated the West London Emergency Secondary School for Boys and included boys from many other Secondary or Grammar Schools in that area of London; all of which had been evacuated. There were boys from Battersea Grammar School, Wandsworth School, Archbishop Tenison's Grammar School, Cardinal Vaughan School, Emanuel School, Henry Thornton School and Sir Walter St John's School. The largest complement was provided by Sloane boys but with the addition of our 'guests', the total was, I believe, about 250.

Sloane boys referred to the others as 'aliens', a name that stuck for the rest of the War. It was not used in an offensive way as we all got on together very well. We regarded ourselves as members of the same school, whatever coloured caps and blazers we wore. In fact, my closest friend, Les Davies, was from Wandsworth School.

My belated start at Sloane which was in October 1940, proved difficult for me as most of the 1940 intake had already struck up friendships. I confess that I felt somewhat of an interloper. The Headmaster of Sloane School was Mr. Guy Boas who was with the evacuated school in Addlestone. Mr. Kingsford, who was a Minister of the Church, took over the Headship in Chelsea.

Being about a month or so late in starting school was a considerable drawback. This meant that in many lessons I had to start from scratch whilst everyone else was a few weeks ahead of me. I remember very well my frustration when I was set my first French homework. Our French teacher in the first term, Mr. Linklater, made no allowance for my situation and I remember almost being in tears as I wrestled with my homework. However, I gradually settled down to the new school routine and soon made some good friends.

Sloane School in the latter part of 1940 was still being used as a sub-station for the Auxiliary Fire Service. The firemen and women occupied that part of the ground floor that was really the school kitchens and dining room, which meant that most of us initially brought sandwiches. Eventually, the AFS vacated our school and we were then able to have school meals. I am not sure that this was much of an improvement as I thought that the food provided was pretty awful, even though there was a war on, a fact of which the kitchen staff never failed to remind us.

Eventually, I persuaded my father to let me have a shilling a day rather than the five pence, which was the cost of a school meal. With the shilling I was able to eat at the local British Restaurant that was situated near World’s End. A number of boys used this facility where we felt the food was miles better than that served at school.

Although daylight visits from the Luftwaffe gradually diminished, there was still quite a lot of night activity. The London Docks and the surrounding East End were heavily punished culminating in massive fires just after Christmas.

At school, the large cloakroom that was situated just above the ground floor also doubled as an air-raid shelter, so on those occasions when the siren (colloquially known as ‘moaning minnie’) sounded, each class immediately trooped down to the cloakroom. I was always happy when this occurred in the middle of a Maths or French lesson.

During the early weeks at school, the teaching staff seemed to be a mixture of permanent staff and emergency replacements brought in to fill the gaps left by those teachers who had been evacuated. One of these replacements, I well remember, appeared to be quite unstable and was subject to fits of rage. The rumour was that he was involved in a Staff Common Room scuffle and was sacked. Whatever the truth was, we were all very relieved to see him go.

Our Maths teacher, Mr. Nightingale, nicknamed ’Shirtie’, was a most eccentric character. He was obviously a brilliant mathematician but was not a very tidy dresser; in fact it would probably be true to say that he was quite scruffy. His gown was torn and he often used it to clean the blackboard! However we were really quite fond of him as his eccentricities kept us amused.

Our French teacher, after Mr. Linklater, was Mr. Little who was always referred to as ‘Harry Little’, why, I have no idea. He always began his lessons with a quick fire written test of ten questions. His opening gambit was, “One to five down the left, six to ten down the middle”. This was always delivered half way down the corridor. He had a booming voice which could have been heard in Walham Green! Mr. Little loved cricket and never failed to be sidetracked by some mischievous boy asking a question about the game. I do not think that he ever cottoned on to the trap that was set for him on the other hand, he might have enjoyed displaying his vast knowledge of the game. He was very proud of his record of never having a failure in the School Certificate examinations. He was therefore somewhat concerned that I might be the first boy to spoil that record. Whenever we passed each other somewhere in the school, he would stop me and ask me to conjugate a particular verb. He even did it one day when we were having cricket net practice. I was just shaping up to receive the next ball when I heard his unmistakeable voice from behind asking me to translate a short English sentence. He was quite an amazing character.

Mr. Rust and Mr. Jeavons were our Chemistry and Physic teachers. They were both very pleasant and helped me enormously in subjects that I initially found difficult. I eventually grew to enjoy our lessons in the Science Lab. Later in the war Mr. Ind joined the staff as our P.T. teacher. He was very young and fit, presumably having arrived straight from college. I loved gymnastics and was in my element shinning up the climbing ropes or vaulting over the pommel horse. P.T. was without doubt my favourite lesson.

The most popular of all our teachers was Mr. Sims who taught History and English. He was a powerfully built man with a rugged appearance and took charge of both the football and cricket first elevens. Additionally he was an extremely fine sportsman himself. We understood that he played amateur football for one of the Athenian or Isthmian League teams and was also a fine cricketer invariably being instrumental in winning the Staff versus Pupils matches that occasionally took place. His greatest attribute, as far as we were concerned, was that he always displayed a great sense of humour and was never patronising.

During the war tragedy was never far away and one morning we arrived at school to find that two of our pupils had been killed in the previous night’s air raid, Arthur Revell who was 13 and in my form together with 17 year old Harold Constant. They both lived in the Guinness flats that were situated in Kings Road. The block in which they lived had received a direct hit and had been completely destroyed. 86 people were killed including both boys and their parents. During the lunch break Les Davies and I went to see the wrecked building and by chance saw a familiar looking exercise book lying on top of a pile of rubble. It was Arthur’s English homework.

Our sports ground was situated at the end of Dover House Lane in Roehampton. Our games afternoons were always Tuesdays and Thursdays and required two bus journeys on numbers 14 and 85 via Putney. These afternoons were the highlight of my week. I was never much of a scholar but I loved sport of any kind. The grounds were spacious with two football pitches and two cricket tables. In the far corner there were some tennis courts. The pavilion and changing rooms were superb and the adjacent shower was a revelation when I first saw it. The grounds backed on to Queen Mary’s Hospital renowned for the work there to repair and rehabilitate badly injured servicemen. One afternoon an arrangement was made for a team from the hospital to play a football match against our school eleven. I cannot remember the score but the images of the young men mostly with upper limbs missing or badly burned faces, have never left me. It was a salutary reminder of what war can inflict on human beings.

During 1942 and 1943, air raids were much more infrequent than the two previous years and as a result of this, less time was spent in the air raid shelter with the result that school activities settled into a more regular routine. Although I was not a member of the football First eleven I did manage to claim an occasional place in the second team. Both teams were involved in a programme of matches against other schools in or near to West London. I particularly remember playing away to Tiffins School which is situated in the Kingston area. Why I remember it so well is because the tea that we sat down to after the match was organised and served by girls. I am not sure whether Tiffins at that time was a co-ed school but it did come as a great surprise to us from a boys only school. Indeed because Sloane School was adjacent to Carlyle Girls School there was a strict rule regarding contact between the two sets of pupils. Our surprise therefore at being served tea by some attractive young ladies can be well understood. I have to say that we all very much enjoyed the experience.

By a strange coincidence, the Sloane School caretaker’s daughter attended Carlyle and as his house was situated within our school grounds, the poor girl had to make her way across the school yard, past a throng of boys, to reach the gate into Hortensia Road. I often wondered how she felt as she made this lonely journey each day.

During the summer holidays and because of the government’s plea to have “holidays at home”, the school playing fields at Roehampton were opened on selected days for those pupils wishing to take advantage of their facilities. Members of staff were on duty and took charge of impromptu cricket matches and other games. Occasionally there was an in house athletics day. Everyone, including staff, took a packed lunch and although memory can sometimes be misleading, I do not remember it ever being wet. It seemed that every day the sun shone gloriously as we lazed around eating our spam sandwiches.

A few of us, who were interested in aircraft, formed a “Spotters Club” which was held once a week after school hours. It was, in essence, an hour spent in aircraft recognition although we did also discuss the merits of the various planes used by the belligerants. This was I think the forerunner of the school’s Air Training Corps Flight which was formed in 1944. Everyone in the Upper School was expected to join, which did not cause a problem, as we were all very keen to don a uniform that was very similar to that worn by the R.A.F. Later on we were all very excited when we were advised that we were going on a week long camp to an R.A.F. station that was being used to train bomber crews. The airfield was situated near Chedburgh in Suffolk.

The experience of this camp was, I think, every schoolboy’s dream. We were housed in a number of huts and joined in most of the activities that the air crew trainees were put through. This included sessions in the flying simulator, on bomb aiming techniques and of course, aircraft recognition. The last activity caused great amusement amongst us cadets. Because of the knowledge that we had acquired through our “Spotters Club” sessions we were miles ahead of our R.A.F. hosts. Every aircraft silhouette that appeared on the screen was immediately recognised by one or two cadets much to our hosts’ disenchantment. I think that they found aircraft recognition thoroughly boring. Their boredom was relieved, however, when every now and again a picture of an attractive girl (usually a nude) appeared on the screen. This was always greeted by loud cheers.

The absolute highlight of our stay at Chedburgh was when we were allowed to sit in on a day’s flying lesson. The aircraft used were Short Stirlings, a four engine heavy bomber that saw much action in raids on Germany.

As the only R.A.F. personnel on board were the pilot and trainee, we were distributed around the other crew positions. I had the thrill of my young life when I sat in the rear gunner’s turret complete with four Browning machine guns. Before we took off, we were given a lesson on how to use our parachutes should an emergency arise. The Flight Sergeant who was doing this took me on one side to explain that the rear gunner had a rather different situation. His parachute was not worn but was hanging on pegs to the side of the turret. It would be necessary, therefore, to grab this, put it on and then completely reverse the turret to make an exit backwards through the open door. He went on to explain that in the event of the aircraft’s electrics failing, the turret could be turned manually by using a handle. He went on to say, much to my alarm, that this process took so long that the aircraft would probably have crashed before it was possible to escape.

In the rear gunner’s turret you felt completely detached from the rest of the crew. This created a profound feeling of isolation because on three sides you had an uninterrupted view of the sky above and the land below. It was really like simply hanging in space. I could well understand how vulnerable rear gunners were and it is no wonder that their life expectancy was so short.

We spent the whole day doing ‘circuits and bumps’, the term used for flying and the practices of taking off and landing. We cadets therefore were able to swap crew positions and become familiar with every activity in a heavy bomber.

The whole experience of this camp was something that I have never forgotten and after our return we spent a great deal of time reminiscing.

June 6^th. 1944 started out as a normal sort of day, I walked to Hobbin’s shop in Earls Court, marked up my newspapers and went about delivering them. I did notice that there seemed to be an unusual amount of aircraft activity above but as this had been increasing in recent weeks I did not take too much notice. I did puzzle about the fact that all the planes had broad white stripes on the underside of each wing but did not appreciate its significance. I had breakfast and walked to school where morning assembly followed its usual pattern. We went to our form room for the first lesson but after a few minutes, a senior prefect came into the room and announced that the Headmaster required the whole school to re-assemble We were all now agog with speculation which was relieved when the Head read General Eisenhower’s first communiqué stating that allied troops had landed in Normandy. Every boy in the hall was on his feet cheering and clapping wildly. The Headmaster held up his hand to quieten us and then reminded us that, good though the news was, hundreds or maybe thousands of our troops were losing their lives. This did have the effect of reducing the excitement but we were all so happy that we might now be approaching the end of this terrible war.

During June 1944 air raids began again with the arrival of Hitler’s vengeance weapons, the V1 flying bomb and the V2 long range rocket. The first to strike was the flying bomb, generally referred to as a “doodle bug. At first the siren would sound as the guided missile approached and we would all troop down to the air raid shelter. However as the incidents became more frequent, sounding the siren was abandoned so that we were obliged to stay in our form rooms. It was easy to recognise the approach of a doodle bug because of its identifiable sound. When the sound stopped this meant that the missile was on its way down and it was time to seek cover or not, depending on how you felt. The V2 rocket was much more terrifying because there was absolutely no warning and therefore no defence. As we sat at our desks we would hear an occasional explosion caused by a V2 which was quite unnerving. We were all living on the edge. This situation did nothing to help us with our studies in preparation for the approaching examinations.

Our set books for the English examination were Macbeth and Hugh Walpole’s “The Cathedral” which I felt at the time the most boring book ever written. It was as I remember a particularly warm spring and most evenings I lay on my bed trying to cram as much as my limited brain capacity would allow.

Revision took a temporary backseat when the war in Europe ended on May 8^th, 1945. That day I just had to be part of the celebrations that were taking place in the West End and I spent most of the evening travelling between Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Buckingham Palace. It was without doubt the happiest moment of my young life.

I honestly cannot remember much about the School Certificate examinations apart from the French paper. The first part of it was dictation and as we sat at our desks awaiting the arrival of the examiner, I was amazed to see the ample figure of Mr. Little enter the room. As he dictated the French passage he pronounced every syllable slowly and clearly. I swear that for the whole of the session he never took his eyes off me for one second. I have to say that I breathed a big sigh of relief when it was all over.

After the examinations we were allowed to stay off school but I had already made up my mind that I would not re-sit in the likely event of my failure. To a large extent I made this decision because my grandfather had already recommended me for a position with British Movietonews. Grandfather was the Senior electrician at 20^th. Century Fox who were the parent Company of the Newsreel and he had pulled a few strings on my behalf.

Just after the examinations, another memorable event took place at the Albert Hall which was in fact my swan song as far as Sloane School was concerned. This was the Empire Festival held to celebrate the end of the war in Europe. It was held in the presence of King George and Queen Elizabeth and was in essence the forerunner of the Festival of Remembrance which is now held each year in early November.

The Festival was a gathering of all those services that had contributed to the War effort and Sloane School’s Flight was chosen to represent the R.A.F. Cadet Forces. The combined cadet representatives were coached by Ralph Reader, famous for organising the popular Scout Gang Shows which for many years graced West End theatres. Ralph had us racing up and down the steep auditorium stairways until he was satisfied with our performance. It was a great occasion for all of us cadets and a great way to finish my school career.

At the beginning of July I was staggered to receive a letter from Mr. Boarder, the School Secretary advising me that I had gained my School Certificate. I had achieved Credits in English Grammar, English Literature and Art and passes in Geography, French and Mathematics. I still believe to this day that the Examiners must have made allowances for the Luftwaffe’s interference with our studies. If that is so then I will always be grateful to them.

As far as French was concerned, Mr. Little’s record was still intact. I hope he was as pleased as I was.

Aubrey Jacobus, at Sloane between 1941-43, when it was known as the West London Emergency Secondary School for Boys, has sent me the following piece about his time there -

Sloane School Wartime Memories 1941-43

Like all other London children I was evacuated to a remote part of the UK in 1939 in anticipation of bombing. Like many homesick children I was brought back to London by my family as all seemed quiet, until the Blitz started in late 1940.

We lived in Kensington, near Wormwood Scrubs, and I was enrolled at Sloane School, then the West London Emergency Secondary School. I was then just 14. The school held boys from evacuated grammar schools from all over London.

Each morning after a sleepless night of bombing (we never went to a public air-raid shelter but slept downstairs), I set off to Chelsea, which entailed taking a trolley bus to Hammersmith and then another bus ride to Hortensia Road; a good 40 minutes journey. I often travelled with school friends and we invariably compared (and sometimes copied) each other's homework as well as paying tricks on the bus conductors.

The Sloane Headmaster was then Mr. Guy Boas, who was a tall, gaunt, stooping figure, always wearing a black academic gown, who to me looked like a vulture. The masters were an assorted bunch, too old to be in the Armed Forces. I fondly remember Mr. Ryecroft, an excellent Maths teacher and Mr. Davenport, who was a small, less likeable, Geography teacher. And we had Mr. Little who taught French. Text books were in very short supply and eveything was rationed. We were a pretty unruly mob of adolescents and Mr. Little, I recall, one day took our class for a visit to the Institute Français to see a film. We were kept waiting and getting restless so Mr. Little boldly marched up to the projector room, opened the door and started.."Excusez-moi, Monsieur.." only to be greeted by a cockney projectionist's.."Get the **** out of here".

Next door to the Sloane School was a girls' grammar school, but I was never bold enough to get a date with any one of the beauties there.

On the way to the bus stop I would collect pieces of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns stationed on the Scrubs, and compared finds with others in the playground. Some boys who did paper rounds had found the best souvenirs - none to compare with the boy who arrived with a piece of aircraft fuselage from a plane shot down over London, hopefully one of 'theirs'. We had a particular wild boy in the 5th form - John Begin, who blew himself up in his family garage using cordite he had extracted from live ammunition he found. He was left with a fearful scar on his neck. begin became an award winning BBC war cinematographer but was killed by being knocked down by a London bus.

Our lessons were frequently interrupted by air-raid sirens sounding a warning of an approaching raid. The procedure was then for the whole school to reassemble packed together in the school cloakrooms, which were without windows and which at least would protect us from flying glass if nothing elses, until the all-clear sounded. Our time in the cloakroom 'shelters' were gainfully occupied playing partner whist.

Looking back, I wonder how we received any meaningful educaton at all but somehow we did. I remember one boy in particular, Thorburn, who was a brilliant student and swot and not very popular because of it. We each had our specialities (for cheating purposes). Burnett for English, myself for Maths (thanks to Mr. Ryecroft) etc. I was no great scholar but still Matriculated with distinction in Maths and Chemistry and credits in the other subjects. My Geography result was a great surprise to my classmates (and to Mr. Davenport, who didn't like me); they were betting I would fail. I went to the Regent Street Polytechnic to study Quantity Surveying in 1943 and my studies were interrupted by call-up, under National Service, into the Royal Engineers, where I reached the elevated rank of Lance-Corporal. I qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 1952 and was in private practice until I retired in 1992. Other 5th formers I know were successful in various fields, medicine, architecture etc.

In all, one remembers only the fun we had and, although they are almost 70 years past, many memories are fresh as if they happened yesterday. I hope through these pages to contact again some of those who shared these memories of those years in Hortensia Road.

John Forbat, still with us and a member of this site, was a pupil at West Kensington Central School when he was evacuated to Melksham in Wiltshire in 1939. Whilst there he worked on the school allotment, producing a variety of vegetables. Being an enterprising lad, after being given his own allotment, he sold whatever he grew on the 'open market', and spared no effort in ensuring he could add to his meagre pocket money by offering delivery as well. His most vivid memory is of walking a mile clutching a huge marrow, which he sold to a lady customer for 2d! Returning from evacuation in 1942, John joined the West London Emergency School, resident in the Sloane building. Enrolment in 1565 Air Training Corps, at the school, followed between 1943-44. He rose to the dizzy height of Corporal, was Morse instructor and gained 'B' level Propeller. Time spent at annual ATC/RAF station camps meant lots of flying, starting with a Stirling bomber and leading to a 1945 gliding course on Hounslow Heath, the area which is now Heathrow Airport, on which he flew solo from the off.

John recalls that each morning's assembly during the war, inevitably included a reading out of the names of those who had been killed in the previous night's bombing raids. When daylight raids occurred, everyone decamped to the school basement, and larked about when they could get away with it. When the V-1 flying bombs, commonly known as 'doodlebugs, became Hitler's weapon of choice and rained on Britain day and night during 1944, they only served to make John more determined than ever, never to be late for school. He admits it was probably the only time during his school life that he was never late for school! In his own words he, "cycled from West Kensington, determined that despite the interminably frequent air raid warnings, Hitler was not going to make me late."

Edward Kelly recalls spending one year in Hortensia Road before being evacuated, but was on holiday with his parents when war broke out and had to wait until he received verification of where the school had been evacuated before joining them. Whilst at Addlestone, one of his duties was firewatching at the Lodge with Ken Evans. They used the Head's office, and Edward admits to occasionally helping himself to one of the Head's cigars! Edward and Ken were responsible for compiling the fire watching rota; the main reason why their names appeared more regularly than those of others! Like others, he was encouraged to grow vegetables on the allotments in the grounds of the Lodge, and some of what he produced often found its way into his saddlebag before cycling home for the weekend. He always managed to return late for school on the Monday which, in particular, seemed to annoy Mr Duffy, the chemistry master.

Edward took part in Mr Bailey's production of The Black Gang and remembers having a great friend in Sidney Peever, the boy who played its hero.

Anthony Furneaux tells of being billeted with an unpleasant family when he was evacuated to Addlestone in 1939, which resulted in his return to London by Christmas of the same year.

* * * * *

No. 1565 (Sloane School) Flight, Air Training Corps

John Forbat's time with 1565 (Sloane School) Filght ATC was, like that of all the others who joined, geared towards air crew training for the RAF, but it also acted as pre-service training for the RAF and Navy in general. It had been formed in August 1941 among those who had been evacuated to Addlestone and was expanded with the introduction, in December 1943, of the Flight at the school in London, under the command of F/O Maguire. The cadets at both Addlestone and Hortensia Road enjoyed a 15-30 minute flight in Tiger Moths when they visited Fair Oaks aerodrome, Chobham, Surrey, just before Christmas, 1943. April, 1944's The Cheynean also records that, in a piece by Corporal Evans, -

' how enthusiastic the whole squadron has been over the "Phase A" test that has been held during this term. The most encouraging results were obtained from the Physical Training Test that was held in the gymnasium at Hortensia Road by Flying Officer Boarder and Warrant Officer Ind. Every cadet except one passed. The result of the Morse and Drill Tests were also good. All that remains now is fr Corporal Lonie to come down from London to examine the Aircraft Recognition work of the squadron. Squadron Leader Nichols came to visit us for a tour of inspection and to give us an extremely interesting lecture on Radio Location. '

When first formed in 1938, under the name of the Air Defence Cadet Corps, the idea behind it was a simple one. With WWII on the horizon, the RAF were going to need many combat-ready pilots and competent support crew to keep the aircraft, that were seen as a major combat strength, in the air. BY 1940 the government realised the value of the cadet force, took control of the ADCC, and renamed it the Air Training Corps on 5th February, 1941. The Officer Training Corps (OTC) was also absorbed into the ATC. Having originally started in 1859, in schools across the country, as armed units of adults and older boys with the purpose of protecting Britain in the event of an attack from overseas, it had been renamed the OTC in 1908.

With many instructors being drafted into the RAF and squadron buildings being used by the military, cadets were sent to work on RAF stations. They became messengers, handled aircraft, filled sandbags and ammunition belts, and moved equipment. They were invaluable.

Back at the Sloane building, all of the boys volunteered for firewatching duties and, apart from Mr. Maguire, the instructional ATC staff also consisted of -

SIGNALS: G. BOAS & F.W. JEAVONS
NAVIGATION: F/O MAGUIRE & MR. J.J. MURPHY
DRILL AND PT: MR. H.W. IND
ENGINES: MR. F.J. GRIFFIN
ADJUTANT: F/O F.J. BOARDER

F/O Boarder took over command after F/O Maguire's departure in 1944 and the Flight was disbanded in 1946.

The Cheynean of April, 1944 refers to the A.T.C. at Sloane as the 'Chelsea Section' and lists some of the cadets -

E.S. Bailey
I. Campbell
W.J. Childs
J. Copland
A.J.J. Dailey
E.J. Darling
R.H.B. Feist
R.A. Fish
J.J. Hall
R.D. Hall
A.H. Lonie
R.A. Mercer
J.P. O'Shea
P. Rayner
F.J. Riegal

It would be July 11th, 1945, before the whole school was once again reunited in its old building and it wasn't until December 1947 that The Cheynean returned to normal. It would be some time before the celebrations of victory and relief died down, even though the war with Japan continued, and everything could return to something like pre-war normality. Nonetheless, as this page from the May 10th, 1945 Victory Edition of the Radio Times shows, Britain was doing its best -

Needless to say, Sloane wasn't alone in being affected by the war, as these two photos from The War Illustrated of December 13th, 1940 show -


Bomb Damage at the Royal Hospital Chelsea	Dog rescued from bomb crater December 1940

As late as 1938, no one in Britain had really been sure about what the near future held for them. Reproduced below is a piece from the April 1938 issue of The Cheynean (See The Cheynean and More page). It is attributed to I.H. and makes fascinating and, with hindsight, scary reading. It recalls the writer's experiences of pre-war Germany on a visit he paid there. The last sentence, especially, shows how naive the rest of the world was about what was really happening to Germany and what was to come for the rest of the world -

Sloane occupied the Polytechnic building in Manresa Road, Chelsea, during the First World War, but little is known about the part it played, although one-time Chairman of the Old Cheyneans Association, Alec Stewart, recalls in the last issue of The Cheynean, in 1970, that a weekly collection was held at the school, for cigarettes for the troops. That may seem strange to us today, but it was designed to keep up morale and let those fighting for their country know that they were in everyone's thoughts back home.

* * * * *

THE GLORIOUS DEAD

THE LISTS THAT FOLLOW ARE BASED ON INFORMATION TAKEN FROM A 1946 COPY OF THE CHEYNEAN AND CONFIRMED VIA THE WEBSITE OF THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION. THEY MAY NOT BE COMPREHENSIVE.

CLICK ON A NAME FOR MORE DETAILS

NO INFORMATION WAS AVAILABLE FOR WORLD WAR I, AND THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE SCHOOL ROLL OF HONOUR BOARD FOR THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THAT WAR, THAT USED TO HANG ON THE WALL AT THE BACK OF THE HALL, AND WAS FUNDED BY CONTRIBUTIONS, IS STILL A MYSTERY. ALSO UNKNOWN IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOOK, SUSCRIBED FOR BY OLD BOYS AND STAFF, THAT CONTAINED THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR, AND WHICH HUNG IN A GLASS CASE BESIDE THE 1914-18 ROLL OF HONOUR.

IN MEMORIAM

FOR THOSE WHO DIED AS A RESULT OF WORLD WAR TWO AND EVENTS LEADING UP TO IT

1937

TERRANCE NEAL LONERGAN

1939

VICTOR GEORGE ALBERY

1940

GORDON ALEXANDER CLARKE
ROY HERBERT LIONEL FRITH
ALFRED ERNEST HALL
STANLEY EDWARD HOWARD
NORMAN ALFRED PHILLIPS
LESLIE WILLIAM CHARLES STURGES

1941