Memories of Thorpe House, 1965, thanks to Donald Syme

“That is me, seated on the same row as the teachers, secnd in on the right. (Looking in the wrong direction!)

I recognise Mr Streatfield and his wife in the centre, Mr Ingate to her right, and Mr Tomlinson to the Headmasters left (what a lovely man, I still remember him reading us stories in the Headmasters study on a Saturday night).

This was the summer before going up to the main school in September. On the night we arrived all the new boarders were welcomed by Mr Young (also new!).

He asked who was the smallest boy in the school, and it was between me, and Philip Green (Beachamp) 7th from the left on the back row. Not sure who the smallest was, maybe it was left as the smallest from each of the houses. My best friend at Prep school was Roger Phipps (also sitting on the teachers row – 4th from the left). I do not know what became of him after he left Langley following his ‘O’ levels. I do remember that summer we would talk often of our hopes and fears for the big move that was coming.

I did also find some photographs of me in April 1964 on the day I was left at the prep school. My father was in the RAF and posted in January 1964 to Cyprus, an unaccompanied tour as there was war on the island at the time. In less than four months my mother and young sister left for Italy (she was Italian) my older sister to school in Oxford, and I went to Norwich. We did not meet again as a family until December 1964. There I am in my brand new school uniform with cap and blazer at Norwich Castle, not sure if I was excited, or scared stiff! Can’t have been that bad, I did stay until 1971.

 My older sister (4 years my senior) took one look at Cyprus in December and resolved to complete her education on the island. She ran away from her convent school in Oxford next term with a friend and hitched a lift to London at night (they were picked up by a van taking a rock band called The Pretty Things back to London). Next day she phoned the school and both girls were immediately expelled – just as she planned. My parents did not tell me for fear that I would do the same!"