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Title INTERVIEW WITH MR TONY HORTON Description
?It was a jolly good school, very small ? I think about 250 of us. You either got here by passing a scholarship or you could pay (the fees were very low). I was a scholarship boy. It was a wonderful school. It was so new and the teachers were so enthusiastic. They were people you remember for the rest of your life.?
Tony remembers getting up to some school boy mischief.
?I travelled to and from school by bus. The bus stop at Hemel was at the Plough (close to the present day ?magic roundabout). Nearby was a telephone kiosk and in those days there was no 999 number, but rather an emergency button. And what, of course, did boys do just before the bus came? One day it was my turn to press the button and the bus was late and the police came. I got home and didn?t say anything. The next day Mr Screeton (headmaster and a lovely, lovely man) called me into his office and read the riot act. He indicated the things that could have happened as a result of what we did ? an ambulance might have come when someone was dying 100 yards down the road, that sort of thing. And he said he would be writing to my father. So I got up at the crack of dawn and intercepted the letter. But it was such a nice letter and really called for an answer so I stuck it up again. My father wrote back and said, ?Why didn?t you cane him?? Mr Screeton had said that he would have to cane me next time. The cane was used very infrequently.
Another incident springs to mind. I had a great friend called Len Cruise who could be a real devil. There were swimming baths where the sports centre is now and the car park next to it was empty because you couldn?t get petrol. A custom grew up that if a German plane had been shot down that wasn?t too knocked about they used to drag the plane round the country and put it on display. People would pay 6 pence to go and have a look at it and the money would go to make another Spitfire. They had a Dornier or Heinkel bomber in the car park and Len and I saw that there was an oxygen cylinder that was loose, so we decided to nick it. It must have been small, otherwise I don?t know how we got it home. Three or four days later, Mr Taffy Evans, my German master, took me to one side and said, Fritz (the name I was given in German lessons), a certain Mr Whittle would like a word with you. He may be interested in something you have. Mr Whittle was the superintendent of the swimming baths. I had to go and say sorry. It was just a school boy prank and I was forgiven.?
Other incidents could have had a more serious outcome.
?We used to have house matches on the playing fields and we were playing cricket. This would be summer time in 1940 and we heard a rat-tat-tat in the sky. My imagination tells me I saw a German bomber. There was no air raid warning or we would not have been out playing. We boys dashed for the toilets as it was the nearest place for cover. But our (boys) playground doubled up as tennis court in summer the girls, who had been playing tennis, were much nearer to our toilets and were already sheltering there so we boys were crowded out of our own toilets.?
Most boys of his age expected to leave school at 16 and join the armed forces.
?I volunteered and joined at 17? . This meant I got into the service of my choice, the Navy. I knew most of the boys whose names are on the school memorial - a lot of them were in the air force. On the outbreak of war, Mr Boucher, the PT master who later joined the RAF and was decorated, formed an Air Training Corps force at the school and almost all the boys over 14, including me, joined. I didn?t enjoy it, and once uniforms were to be issued I left and joined the nearest Sea Cadet unit in Watford. This was a great relief, as I felt sure that if the Air Force had tried to teach me to fly, the matter would have become so hopeless, Germany would be bound to win the war!
I was also a Boy Scout and did fire watching duties in the Kings Langley Road where I lived, and with Denis Hodgson, a fellow scout and also in my form at school, did weekend duties as wardens at the Phasels Wood Scout site. This followed the full time Warden joining the forces.
Like many of his fellow pupils, Tony corresponded with a member of the crew of the Lord Keith.
?The school adopted a ship called the Lord Keith. It was a Suffolk trawler, chosen, I believe, because Mr Screeton?s wife was a Suffolk lady. I used to write to a fellow called Jimmy who was a member of the crew. I can still see his writing now, it was long and thin and he couldn?t spell at all. With all the arrogance of a reasonably bright boy of 15 I sometimes felt it was a waste of time writing to a man who was only just literate, but later, after going to sea myself I realized what a hard time Jimmy and his shipmates must have had during those war years when I was just a school boy. War is a great leveller, bringing out the best and worst in mankind.?
* matriculated ? passed exams that were the equivalent to GCSEs
Interview by Zoe Wills
Keywords Scholarship, Mr Screeton, German bomber, Dornier, Heinkel, Spitfire,Taffy Evans, Mr Boucher, Air Training Corps, The Lord Keith Collection Hemel Hempstead School Place Hemel Hempstead Year 1936 - 1941 Conflict World War Two File type image Record ID number 129 Can you add any more information to this resource?
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