Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day29

The sad nine-year-old wondered how to get through the next 12 weeks, which lay before him like an eternity

My guess is that during those first few days, he missed his mother and Largie, as he tried to come to terms with the new regime of rules, strange rituals, and a lack of privacy. He had no wet-nosed dogs to stroke, no West Highland lilting accents to listen to and no soft Argyll rain to feel. The Broonie, whose impish presence at Largie was often sensed even if never seen, felt very far away.

Different to those at Largie, the smells at West Downs were of boiled cabbage, a metallic tang of cutlery, the sound of an occasional car or lorry changing gear, as it climbed the hill outside the school, and possibly a din in the distance of tin plates being beaten against window frames by prisoners of the local jail.

Surrounding the boy were the voices of others, shouts from the more confident, and suppressed sobbing of some in their first term. The best he could do was remain silent, maintain a stiff upper lip, and not cry because blubbing was cissy.

Health fanatic

After a brief tour of the building and simple meal, the boys attended a short service (Christianity was the corner-stone of West Downs) in the chapel to sing hymns, listen to verses from the Gospels, and intone prayers by the school’s founder.

The sad nine-year-old wondered how to get through the next 12 weeks, which lay before him like an eternity.

The school discouraged parents from visiting except during the summer term when, for Paters’ Day, families arrived to watch performances of the school play (usually a Shakespeare comedy) and the boys play cricket. Because their home was so far away, the Macdonald boys received few visits from Daisy.

What Angus certainly endured at the start of the term was a thorough health inspection. Like his predecessor, Kenneth Tindall was a health fanatic. In his defence, there was every reason to be concerned about his charges as in the days before the discovery of penicillin, anti-viral drugs, and antibiotics, it was wise to be cautious.

However, both Helbert and Tindall cosseted the boys to such an extent that the school earned the sobriquet of “Wet Downs.” From the day the school opened in 1897, Lionel Helbert advertised its healthgiving aspects: at 350 feet above sea level the air was bracing; the building was well-ventilated; qualified nurses were employed and a doctor visited daily. When boys returned after the holidays. they handed in a doctor’s certificate confirming they were free from any infectious disease.

They also experienced “Puffing Billy” (the nearest modern equivalent is a sauna); 12 to 15 boys crammed into a tiny, enclosed space infused with antiseptic and filled with steam. Its purpose was to ward off colds.

After this ordeal, Angus had his hair examined for head lice. Additionally, a close eye was kept on his bowel movements: constipation in boys was taken seriously and they had to sit on a commode so their efforts could be inspected by the matron.

If nothing was produced, she threatened the boy with an enema. Like everyone else, Angus’s temperature was taken twice daily in sickness and in health.

Exalted

Fortunately my uncle missed the West Downs’ ‘Ice Age,’ a period when Kenneth Tindall’s wife threw the school windows open in all weathers and added vitamins to the boys’ diet. Mrs Tindall was influenced by Captain Scott’s widow, who brought up Peter in rigorous conditions.

Lady Scott’s theory was that a cold atmosphere (akin to the Antarctic where her husband perished) hindered the spread of infectious diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough, and flu. It is a wonder that Angus survived. One minute he was fretted over, the next hurled into sub-zero conditions.

To enquire about Angus I approached Nick Hodson, the Old West Downs Society secretary who, after investigating school records came up with nothing.

“I have been unable to find anything of interest about Charles Angus Macdonald,” he wrote. “He was not capped for either football or cricket. I am sorry to be so short of information about him; the one thing I can guess being that he was no great games player.”

This was of interest. If a private school boy demonstrated sporting abilities, he earned an exalted position in the hierarchy. In these schools, sport was an obsession passed from fathers to sons.

In sum, sportsmen and athletes were favoured over scholars.

It is unfair to surmise that Angus was poor at sport. If he didn’t excel in football or cricket, at Winchester and Magdalen College, he was good at rowing.

I debated why Angus had a low profile at West Downs. He may have found it hard to adapt in so many ways, but as a middle sibling, he did learn to ‘fit in’.

While the oldest is fussed over and the youngest encouraged, the child in the middle may feel overlooked. Angus found Jock a hard act to follow: in looks, sport, and even in the choice of a marriage partner.

My next move was to write to Angus’s few remaining contemporaries, men in their nineties.

“What a delight to be drawn into thinking about West Downs,” wrote one of my uncle’s contemporaries. “It was such a very good school. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I have searched, cudgelled, scraped my memory for Macdonald – Christian names were taboo – without any success at all.

“Oddly, there was a Gladstone, whom I remember clearly!” he added.

Remarkable

My correspondent was certain Angus had been “no buffalo”, the patrol to which he was assigned at West Downs. Since boys of each patrol slept in the same dormitory, the gentleman would have known Angus if he had been in his patrol.

As early as 1914 Lionel Helbert championed the scout movement, founded by Lt-Col Robert BadenPowell, the hero of the South African war.

Both the founder of West Downs and Kenneth Tindall had much in common with this remarkable man, who was fond of music and drama.

Unlike Baden-Powell, Helbert and Tindall were educators rather than soldiers but they were patriotic and upheld such qualities as virtue, honesty, service and, most significantly, a healthy body in a healthy mind.

Scouting fitted their beliefs and Helbert (possibly the outbreak of war influenced his decision) adopted scouting to the exclusion of all else. (More tomorrow.)