School Institutions
The pre-dominant activity, of course, is sport, especially (rugby) football, played by about 500 out of the 900 boys in almost 30 teams.
Other winter sports include hockey and soccer, very much in the minority, and played by the fattest and thinnest boys!
Other sporting events are the annual athletic days, the swimming sports, and the steeplechase in which the seniors are supposed to go twice round the junior course, but they often take advantage of the bushes and wait until the others come round again!. To avoid coming last a group of boys get into line and reach the finishing post together.
The Camera Club is only recent but already has an excellent dark-room with an enlarger and plenty of other equipment. I have already done a lot of printing, enlarging, etc. Membership is growing but not too large.
The next year I had a part in the hugely popular play ‘Charlie’s Aunt”. There is a good stage with some recently built dressing rooms, and the performance nights have a professional atmosphere of bustle and tension, even though the curtains got stuck and the guns didn’t go off one night. Usually with these performances the scenery paint is still wet on the first night, and once during the first scene the producer was frantically fixing up the lighting for the second scene.
Other clubs are the Debating Club which holds ‘Oxford Union’ debates, when anyone can talk, as well as ordinary debates. The subjects are of interest to everyone, such as ‘whether women are delightful’, or ‘whether sport plays a too important part in school life’. There is also a Stamp Club and a Crusader group.
The Cadet Force may also be classed as an institution, although it is compulsory for all. There are opportunities for promotion, and to join specialist units such as medical, signals, A.T.C., mortars, 25-pounders, and the NCO training unit. Everyone gets a shoot with a .22 rifle at least once a year.
So really no-one has any excuse to say he has nothing to do!