I remember my first days at St. Pauls with some embarrassment. It had started quite well, flying from Dum-Dum to Bagdogra in a wonderful old Dakota, and being transported from the plains, in a quite hair-raising manner, up the foothills to that aptly named "Queen of the Hills", Darjeeling. I expected a quiet, genteel place, nestling into the foothills, beneath the magnificent mountain that is Kanchenjunga. After all, this was the hill station the old colonialists used to send their "memsahibs" to escape the oppressive heat of the plains, it having a more "English" climate! What I found was a bustling maelstrom of a place, buzzing with activity, and inhabited by some of the fiercest looking people that I had ever laid eyes on! Thankfully, as I found during my three years there, looks can be deceiving, and these people, as with the majority on the sub-continent, were polite and welcoming.
Having ensconced themselves in that once magnificent hotel, the Mount Everest, my parents started readying me for my new school. So far it had all been a wonderful adventure. The #@?& was about to hit the fan!!
We approached the school from the road that meanders up below the Chapel. I still consider this to be the most impressive approach, the other, across top field, never seemed to have the same impact on the senses.
We were met by Mr. Elloy, (or was it Mr. Janson?) and given a tour of the school. Then the bombshell!! " What? You're leaving me here? Till November?"
Everybody had been so polite as we were shown around, but to stay here, without my parents? And the boys? They all looked so "foreign"! Believe me, in the mind of a ten year old, it doesn't matter that you're in a foreign country, surrounded by the inhabitants of that country, they, not you, are the foreigners!!
But my fate, it seems was sealed! Then began my desperate, and highly embarrassing tug of war. Me, holding on to my mother's hand in a vice like grip on one side, and the Head trying to remove my arm from it's socket on the other! The arms of a young boy are no match for those of two adults, and the laws of physics prevailed. I was torn, kicking and screaming, from the bosom of my family, and spirited away to join the throng of other "inmates" in the dining hall. My fellow prisoners were very supportive, and made no mention of the highly emotive scene they couldn't help but have witnessed. Mealtime confirmed my worst fears, I was doomed! As the plates were passed down the table, I looked in horror at their contents, Stew! God how I hated stew!
My parents had waited patiently on the Quad for mealtime to finish. "Well, how was it?" "Stew!" I spat the word out, just to emphasise my displeasure. It actually wasn't too bad, but they weren't going to escape that easily!
If that was the worst this school could throw at me then maybe, just maybe, survival was on the cards. After all, it couldn't get any worse
..
could it?
"Tony Davies, your trunk didn't get here in time to be unpacked, so tonight you will have to borrow a set of pyjamas, and as no bed has been made ready, you'll have to use someone else's. The Innes brothers are still on holiday, so you can use one of theirs!"
What kind of a place was this? My first meal was a plate of something that bore a passing resemblance to food, and now, to add insult to injury, I had to sleep in someone else's bed, wearing someone else's pyjamas!!
"Get up, get up, wash time". The voice boomed across the dormitory. Sleepy bodies, roused from dreams, staggered from their beds in some pre-programmed ritual. The sound of flip-flop slippers on stone steps echoed as boys made their way to the washroom. I felt as if I had woken from one nightmare and dropped straight into another! Surely things couldn't get any worse
.. could they?
"Tony Davies, until we know what academic level you are at we cannot allocate you to a class! In the meantime we are putting you with KG1" As I sat with my new, temporary, classmates, most of whom only came level with my chest, I understood how Gulliver must have felt the first time he set eyes on the inhabitants of Lilliput! I pondered on what crime I had committed, or which of the Gods I had offended to warrant such treatment. Thankfully, my stay in KG1 was short and I was allocated a place in a class where the boys were my own age. In time the alien nature of boarding school life turned into a comfortable familiarity. Although I was only there for three years, some of the lessons I learned have stayed with me throughout my life, and I will be eternally grateful to my parents for "abandoning" me there all those years ago.
© COPYRIGHT 2002 TONY DAVIES - All Rights Reserved