Memories Of A Stubbington House Scoolboy

Hello Richard.
How nice to see a few of the old boys of Stubbington gradually coming together on this site.
Yes, you are right, my number was 50, and i am amazed you remembered it as well as your own. Did we have houses as well? I can`t remember, although i can remember marching down the corridor to the dining room each meal time. Was that in houses? I suppose it must have been.
Do you remember hunting for the secret tunnel under the pavillion? We found some sort of tunnel leading off but it was blocked up as I recall.
I also remember the gramophone in the bay window in the assembly hall, which was cordoned off so we could not mess about with it. Sometimes we were entertained by Hugh Foster putting those dreadful Harry Lauder songs about Scotland on.
I remember missing most of the Saturday night films through blotting my copy book and having to do prep. We used to sneak down through the boot room and watch through the crack in the door until having to flee back to our desks if we heard someone coming.
You are right about the Malta connection! After 11 plus, I left Stubbington and went with the family to Malta where my father was flying helicopters at Hal Far airfield. We had two glorious years there, and I continued my education at the royal Naval school Tal Handaq.
I have read and replied to Keith Maunder`s comments, and he mentioned Fogarty whom I also remember. I also remember Graham Bagnall, and Max Vine.
It is all a very long time ago now, sixty years, but I remember some things as clearly as at the time. Only gym shoes in the Gym. The conspirartorial meetings in the tuck box room, the new Gym being built, ther flagpole coming down in a storm. do you remember, we all went out and got bits of broken wood from it and made little letter opening knives? Do you remmber when Foster did his annual rook shooting sessions with the senior boys invited along. They used to use the .22 rifles from the range, shooting straight up art the young rooks sitting on the side of the nests. Goodness knows where the bullets landed, Fareham probably!
Keith remarked about the pipe tobacco which Foster smoked incessantly. He only put his pipe down in order to wield one of the apple saplings he cut from the orchard on some unfortunate boy. Do you remember we even got a beating for getting sunburn when out for a day with the parents on visiting day. Unbelievable really.

Dear Peter. Thank you so much for your message. How fascinating! Between us, including Maunder, we could piece together a comprehensive memory, I'm sure. We seem to recall (often irrelevant) fragments that are nevertheless interesting. I have no idea why I can remember your school number; I can also recall Kent (49), Hicks-Beach (131), Andrew Gordon (24) and my elder brother Anthony (way before our time, 98). I was the second-to-last of a long list of Harrisons to pass through Stub. My late father went there, plus his two brothers; he was born in 1907 so was there post WW1 with Montagu Foster. In those days, if you won a form prize, it comprised a leather bound book of photographs of the school as it then was. I still possess his copy, which makes fascinating reading. Many of the pictures are still recognisable to us, although the various rooms had different uses. For instance the Lower 6th had been a science lab full of equipment. That was the form-room right at the back of the building, beyond the changing rooms and adjacent to the hallowed Upper 6th, the latter being on the ground floor of the Jubilee Wing and leading to the corridor containing Hugh Foster's study. Reverting to the said book of photographs, I'm pretty sure that one of them was of the gymnasium, before you got as far as the New Room. I wonder therefore whether the building that you remember being erected in our day was elsewhere. You are ahead of me on this! By the way, yes we did have houses, called "Sections"- Montagu, Scott, Wauchope (spelling?) and Huddart. Apart from R F Scott, I believe these were WW1 Naval Heroes.

I'll drag up more of this soon. I could go on indefinitely bu right now I'm in St Lucia and a Martini passion fruit cocktail beckons. Last night I met, in the bar here, a perfect stranger who lives in Emsworth so I mentioned Stubbington and it turns out that his sister worked there as an assistant matron in our day. She is Miss Ferguson; I remember her well. I wonder if you do!

Best wishes

Richard Harrison.

For Richard Harrison
As in the song from that doubtful film "Gigi", I remember it well (er, perhaps). I did revisit in 1967 or 68. Agree with you; not a pleasant experience seeing a lot demolished or decaying.
Pedantic but small possible corrections -
San Sister: Miss (I believe) Scott Moncrieff. Having been through WWII stood no nonsense from chaps of any age.
Hugh Sara I think was the right spelling.
A notable character was Mr King the handy man, electrician, plumber and everything. Smoked a pipe which emitted a dreadful stench. Staff thought he smoked egg shells.
Kind regards ~David Mathews~ H. 1950-55

Some memories stirred. My school number was 6! I remember Bagnall, and someone who enjoyed the name Christopher Toby John Magneroid Pomeroid Bonham, as well as a very tall boy called Charles Tyrwhitt Drake!

Fond memories. Simon Roncoroni. Stubbington from 1954-60

Hi Simon,
I remember you at Stubbington, were you int he boxing team?

Hi there, Paul Cockburn-Mercer (number 22) I've still got my original tie with my name and number on it as well as my 'Old boys' tie. i can remember being sent out of class (room 4 I think, the one in the passage way) and being sent to 'face the clock', I often wondered how many times my father and uncle stood in front of this wretched clock many years before. The one advantage of old Foster's pipe (I think we used to refer to him as 'The Guv') was that in the drafty passages you could smell it before he got to you (it was the cane if you were caught) but one could either hide in the library next to the clock or make for the safety of the 'bogs' on the other side. Does anyone remember 'Matron' ,Miss Cowie (who stood no nonsense from mere boys) and lining up for our daily spoon of malt or lining up for our 'jabs', I'm sure they did not change the needle very often which was bad news if you were at the end of the line! I do remember the 'alcove' in the main room along with the three sizes of snooker/billiard tables. if I recall correctly the gramophone was eventually hijacked by the 'Prefects'who played non stop 'Rock and Roll' records. It's really good to here some of the memories both good and bad from some of the old boys (and that's what we all are now!) who were there in the 50's and early 60's, keep them coming.
All the best,
Paul

Hello Simon Roncoroni and Paul Cockburn-Mercer. Thank you for staying in touch. I have just rec'd an email from the Frith website. It's good to know it continues.

As Stubbington recedes further into my ever-extending past, it brings back curious memories of an era so far distant from now that I can hardly believe I was really there. Some recollections are crystal clear as though they happened yesterday. I do recall the rumour that there was/is a tunnel leading from The Mound cricket pavilion. The story has credence if only because there IS a distinct mound there, probably of soil dug from below. How else could it have been created? Nobody would cart tons of material to that spot across an otherwise completely flat landscape - simply to pop a cricket pavilion on the top. Do you also remember the tuck shop scandal? Apparently, tuck was constantly going missing so the master in charge spread black Bostik glue close to the window latch and then waited for several days, during which we were all unknowingly subjected to regular hand inspections for signs of black sticky glue. It worked but I don't recall the culprit's name.

My first term the Queen drove through the village in coronation year and we all turned out on the front lawn to wave - the lawn now being a concrete monstrosity and carpark.
Keep the stories coming.

Richard Harrison 1953-58

I wonder if anyone can help me with a little information on Stubbington when it was in Hampshire as I am trying to compile a history after it moved to Ascot.

Can anyone let me know what were the house names and can anyone recall the final few years and why it moved to Ascot? I am interested if any of the traditions and masters made the switch to Ascot or if it was simply buying a prestigious name and nothing more than that. We certainly had a massive picture of Captain Scott in pride of place in the dining room and dorimitories names after naval commanders and heroes.

Very many thanks

I was there in the late eighties. It certainly did inherit some of the traditions from its previous incarnation. If I recall the house names included Scott, Montagu and Wauchope and we held an inter-house marching competition before sports day. And yes the dorms were still named after famous military leaders. Shame there isn't much more information around, I loved it there!