Prefects’ Pleasures
“Sorry, but the bell’s gone only about ten minutes ago. Do you want your shoes cleaned this morning?”
“Yes please, but make my bed first, eh.”
So we wearily drag ourselves out of bed and have a nice long hot shower, being forced to stop by the ‘middle bell’ – 5 minutes to go. Coming into the dorm again after drying we hear afar off shouts “They’re going in!”
Dressing is a fine art, so we manage to get to the dining hall just before the doors are closed.
Soon our plates are filled and we get ‘stuck in’ to the food.
“Hey, stop that fighting down there – ‘one up’ each!”
“Please, I was only reaching for the butter”.
“Moaning, eh! Want another ‘up’ do you?”
“Oh no, no…no I wasn’t…please don’t.”
“Okay, but hurry up and pack up the dishes.”
At length breakfast finishes and we join our prefect pals in the common-room. After playing through the same old ‘Rock and Rolls’ again (one record narrowly escaped being thrown through the window), we start some argument on ‘who broke the door-knob’, or whether I owe 6d or not. A couple of pillows are made full use of, and fortunately the furniture is quite strong – although not so the lampshade! It’s amazing how soon Mr Wilson storms in (or rather he did until we broke the outside door-knob), and says that assembly has started, so off we go to school for the day, leaving some unfortunate small boy to clear up the remains of the morning paper!
The punishments given by prefects are ‘ups’ – one for a small offence, and so on. For ‘one up’ culprits have to make a prefect’s bed, clean shoes, or similar; for ‘two up’ something harder like sweeping every day. If you get five ups in a week you are whacked by the house master. You can also get ‘downs’ by doing something helpful.
All is not bliss for us, however. We have a week’s duties every month or so, supervising the cold showers in the morning and getting everyone into bed at night (harder than it sounds); or there is prep. duty – supervising in a prep. room and not getting much work done yourself.
There are also the times when we are found in the showers at 10.30pm when we are supposed to be in bed, or playing records at forbidden times, or letting boys talk in the prep. room, or going to the pictures more than we are allowed (once a month), or going into the boarding house to get books between periods. However, punishment is not severe – usually a serious talk to all of us from the ‘boss’ every three weeks or so. In extreme cases demotions may occur.
If you come into our common room you’d wonder how we could put up with each other. We might be having a brawl about who should sit in the corner seat, or there’d be a violent argument about who pulled the 6A timetable down, or who is the current champion ‘up’ giver. The latest is about the two political parties, and election fever is spreading through the whole house.
However, we all enjoy ourselves. All have the same worries, especially lack of finance, and we all kid ourselves that we are strict and efficient prefects.