Quirister School Memories from World War 2
elsewhere or trips to choir festivals. Travel
was discouraged unless necessary. However,
as we did not know of these, we did not
miss them.
I arrived for the first time at Kingsgate Street
in September 1943, from a London where
we were used to having to sleep in air raid
shelters. Our unpacking was supervised by
the matron, a rather humourless lady, Miss
Rose, who, I was advised by Seniors, was
known as ‘the old cow’.
My main memories are of my second
year, which saw the invasion of Europe
on 6 June 1944 – D Day. But a few weeks
before this event, the Chapel choir, joined
by the Winchester Choral Society, sang
the magnificent Bach B Minor Mass in the
Cathedral. We had a full orchestra (which
one I cannot recall) and we were conducted
by Dr Sydney Watson, Master of College
Music at that time. My main memories of
that event are two fold.
One of the first things we had to do
was to hand over our ration books. Our
Housemaster, John Weekes, known to us
as ‘Wally’ had a magnificent moustache.
He is now something of a legend as he
served diligently for many years and was
most firm on good manners, in keeping
with the school motto. When I wrote to him
from Kenya some years after leaving he
responded with warmth.
First, the cathedral was packed to the walls,
many standing, with hundreds of troops,
mainly Americans. They were waiting for
the forthcoming D Day invasion of Europe,
the date of which was obviously not known.
Looking back, I often feel honoured that
we gave these men (many of whom would
not have survived the invasion) something
very special, and I cannot listen to this
masterpiece even now without being moved
when recalling all those young servicemen.
One of the clearest instructions we were
given at an early stage was that on no
account were we to enter the garden at the
rear of the yard. This was Wally’s domain,
and although now I see it as his main form
of relaxation I believe he did a lot to assist
with fresh vegetables. Although there was
an air raid shelter in the garden, we did not
use it once during my time there.
Secondly, some 40 years later, I met up with
another Old Quirister of my time, David
Cowan. He had kept a lot of souvenirs and
produced the programme for the B Minor
Mass. In those days of war time economies
this was a single folded sheet of A4
reproduced on an ink duplicating machine.
To my amazement I saw that the contralto
soloist was Kathleen Ferrier. She was not
well known at that time but I remembered
being struck by her unusual tone. I stood
within a few feet of her.
Everything was either rationed or had to be
used sparingly. Such things as oranges or
bananas were not to be seen until the war
had been over a few years. At bath time,
I seem to remember we had a little more
than the four inches recommended by the
government (and to which the Royal Family
are said to have adhered), but as the water
was not changed as sixteen of us in turn
got into one of the two baths I think this
was justified. In the evenings we had to be
constantly making sure we did not breach
the blackout.
On 6 June 1944, we were woken up at about
4 am by the noise of a huge number of
aircraft going over. When we looked out of
the windows we saw vast numbers going
over at quite low altitudes, all with 3 white
What we did not realise at the time was
that there had been customs such as
Quiristers and Eton choirs visiting each
other on alternate years and giving concerts
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