Having recently observed two minutes silence on 11 November, I have been reflecting on how the war years affected life at Oswestry School.

World War II started on 1 September, 1939, with the invasion of Poland by German forces, and began its impact on Britain as early as 3 September, 1939, when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced on the BBC that the country was at war with Nazi Germany.

By 1940 the war was having a significant effect on people's daily lives, and pupils at Oswestry School soon experienced privations that resulted from the country's involvement in the conflict.

Many things were in short supply, caused largely by enemy attacks on merchant shipping, but there was also a shortage of qualified male teachers, a problem which was not resolved by Headmaster R Williamson until 1946.

R Williamson MA, Headmaster, 1920-1958.

Ralph Williamson was an astute businessman, and financial management was one of his many qualities. A man with short arms and even deeper pockets, he knew how to make the most use of the money available to him, and he even prevailed on School House boarders to provide their own evening meals a couple of times each week.

School food was notoriously poor in taste and quality, not helped by widespread rationing which continued well into the next decade, and boys during this period and the fifties often complained to their parents about its content and quality. Mr Williamson tried to  minimise the effect of country-wide rationing by producing fruit and vegetables in the kitchen gardens which were situated between the bottom paddock and the wooded area known as the Dingle, adjacent to the open air swimming pool. An occasional special treat for boarders at Sunday teatime was a bowl of jelly and cream. Sugar was on ration until 1954, and every night at teatime the Prep boys would find just three sweets waiting for them at the table (pictured below) when they entered the dining room. A small amount of sweets could also be purchased from the tuckshop, but only for those fortunate to have money in their pocket, if you could find one, as all trouser pockets were sewn up, presumably to prevent boys slouching around, hands sunk deep into pockets!

The barn and kitchen gardens, bottom left in the picture.

The school dining room.

Picture taken from the lower paddock showing the small tuckshop and bikeshed, below the classrooms.

The canny Headmaster had also wisely invested in a couple of cows which provided milk for the school, and in the photo below Tom Little, nicknamed 'Piddle', can be seen leaving the school kitchens having delivered the morning milk. Tom Little was Mr Williamson's general factotum, responsible not only for the cows, kitchen gardens and orchard, but also the antiquated solid fuel boiler, located in the basement under the classrooms at the end of the bikeshed. This ancient installation could be heard, particularly during morning lessons, cranking up its efforts to provide meagre supplies of hot water for the school. In this respect it failed miserably, often running out of hot water at critical moments. Bath nights were few and far between, and boys shared the three ancient freestanding bathtubs two at a time, toe to toe, in order to maximise use of available hot water.

Tom Little leaving the school kitchens having delivered a pail of milk.

One of the school cows.

Old Boys from this decade have told me that it was often so cold in winter that they sat with their overcoats on during lessons, unsure whether this resulted from a shortage of solid fuel for the boiler or simply that it was not up to the job. Overnight, ice formed on the inside of window panes and by morning a film of ice covered the miniscus on glasses of water left by the bedside.

More often than not the changing room showers ran out of hot water and cold showers became the norm. This hardy bunch lived a spartan existence in School House, and at break times they were not allowed to sit frowsting on the large cast iron radiators in each of the classrooms, but were herded like sheep out onto the playground whatever the weather, even during the coldest of winters.

In the summertime pictures below, circa 1945, David Tomley's friends were captured chatting idly on the playground, and I notice that one of them has managed to unpick his trouser pockets, whilst in the background the lower paddock is being used as a crude cricket pitch.

The other photograph depicts Speech Day at a time when prize-giving always took place on the grassy quadrangle immediately in front of the door leading onto the long corridor and classrooms. A smiling Mr Williamson looks on as a young David Tomley is presented with his V Form prize.

David Tomley's friends, chatting on the playground.

A smiling David Tomley inspects his Form prize.

It is a pleasure to be in contact with a coterie of colourful Old Oswestrians with ages ranging from 85 upwards into their nineties, all of whom have clear memories of life at school during the 1940s. Much of what they told me I was unaware of even though I came to Oswestry in 1952, shortly after many of them had left.

A very bright and breezy 88 years old, Terry Stewart, pictured below on a visit to school in 2017, arrived at Oswestry as an evacuee from Birmingham, aged 4, in 1940, but by 1943 he had contracted Polio and had to be hospitalised for 5 years before returning, aged 12. Poliomyelitis, otherwise known as infantile paralysis, had paralysed Terry's right arm but he soon became a very useful left-handed Fives player and left hand bowler, and he remembers playing against Headmaster Williamson who was a keen player of the game, having played for his college when at Cambridge University.

Terry Stewart (1940-52) returns to School in 2017.

During the 1940s, and even well into the fifties, there were several more cases of boys in School House catching the virus, which it was thought was found at swimming pools and cinemas. In fact, at this time there were regular visits to the cinema and town baths, so perhaps this was the source of the problem. Early into the decade Polio was endemic in England and Wales, but by 1947 it had reached epidemic proportions, and it was the largest and most widespread outbreak of the disease ever recorded.

Several families sought the sanctuary of Oswestry School in which to protect their children from bombing raids at the outbreak of war, and Oswestry Town was considered by the government to be one of the safest places in the country. So much so that the cabinet gave instructions to begin the evacuation of people from cities at risk, and thousands of mothers and children were sent to Oswestry where people provided homes for them. The town was never bombed during the war, but in 1944 a stray bomb was dropped on Lord Harlech's estate causing minimal damage.

Barry Gibbs, now aged 92, and his younger brother Peter, 90, arrived as evacuees from Birmingham, circa 1942, and it was their parents who provided Headmaster Williamson with a cup, aptly named the Gibbs Cup, at a lunch held at The Wynnstay in 1948. They requested that it should be presented each year for good citizenship, and every boy in the school, whatever his age, or station, was eligible to receive it. 

The Gibbs boys themselves were both keen cricketers, and are captured below in photographs.

The School 1st XI, pictured during a match against Ruthin School in 1949, Peter is seated, fourth from the right.

Barry Gibbs (1941-48), seated far left, in the 1950s OO team. 

 I will have more to say about the Gibbs Cup and other stories of interest at a later date.