NO.119
T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T
Memories of a Win Coll don
Simon Eliot (Co Ro, 76-00) recalls:
‘Oh no, not another bloody
historian!’ exclaimed the bearded
Housedon before turning back to his
friends at the Welcome to New Members
of Common Room Party in early
September 1976. Luckily, as it turned out,
I found that people were incredibly
welcoming: lots of dinner parties,
stimulating house lunches and generous
offers of help and advice. Only a few weeks
into that first Short Half, I had been
persuaded to play in an impromptu dons v.
boys rugby match on a Sunday afternoon
on Palmer Field and, as I staggered to my
feet from a particularly effective tackle, my
assailant politely invited me to tea in his
house the following week. He turned out
to be the Sen. Co. Prae.
That summer had been the hottest
and driest in living memory and I spent
much of it trying to master the details of
Anglo-Saxon England and 17th Century
Europe, both of which were entirely new
to me. The History Department was a
powerful force. Mark Stephenson led a
group of established heavyweights: Peter
Partner, Tony Wood, Martin Scott and
Roger Custance. Only Geoff Hewitson
and I had not appeared in scholarly print.
Seventh term Oxford and Cambridge
entrance still held sway and it was
thought stylish to score DEE grades at A
level and then to win an Open Award to
a prestigious college. Much of British and
European History was covered in div. so
there was no need for O Level or GCSE;
the A Level paper offered 100 questions
and Wykehamists could answer on an
enormous range of periods and topics.
The narrow and arid specialization of the
modern syllabus would have been
frowned upon.
Over the years I was allowed to teach
at every level in both the History and
Photograph courtesy David Ridgway of Sherborne School
English departments and the sense of
freedom inspired and required by teaching
div subjects (also at every level) meant
that one had no time to get stale. Old
lesson plans and notes were not trotted
out year after year. The regular pattern of
Sixth Book individual tasktimes was also
hugely