INEBRIATIONS, SMOKING ETC.
I wonder if any member can identify the first RLS boy to be caught by Pr*f*cts passing a joint around under the bridge in High Trees...(David Gregory)
I utterly, totally and unequivocally DENY that I was the Prefect involved!! The fact that I didn't stop smiling for a week, started to call everybody 'man ' and was destined for a career in rock 'n roll is ENTIRELY coincidental. P.S. Ooops! I just checked the dates and it really wasn't me. " One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus, one toke over the line." (Graham Alexander Lee)
Now, I'm quite sure he will vehemently deny this... But, historically (and unfortunately I can no longer prove this since The Crash) the very first List Member to make reference to smoking of ANY kind was our esteemed Moderator! His smoking exploits took place behind the scout huts rather than in High Trees but... it wouldn't surprise me one little bit if we need look no further! In all probability we'll have to rely here on rumour as I can't see anyone actually holding up an electronic hand to this one! I'm fairly confident that it would HAVE to be someone of the 1958 (or later) vintage as I don't think such things were widely available before that! Yep! My money's on Andy! (David Maltby)
So THAT's why it was called High
Trees! (Vince)
By the time I entered the fourth form Dave Courtney had
arrived at the school. Dave had a smokers cough at 15 and always smelled like
he had Woodbines for breakfast. Dave was a real so-and-so! One day he turned up
in his fathers car and parked it in the drive along
the road where Scruff lived. At lunchtime three or four of us went for a drive
with him. We were all frightened out of our lives but it was something
different and so we went along. The next week he bought the car again. This
time he took us back to his house in Harold Wood. His parents worked and from
the look of the house, they did very well for themselves. His brother was home,
he was studying music somewhere. We were treated to a tour of the house which
finished up with a look at the fully stocked bar! I don't know how we got back
to school because we drank about two bottles of ginger wine which is very
potent. Dave wouldn't touch it, he had whiskey! Then he drove us back. They say
God looks after drunks and fools and I believe we were both that day. Some
fifteen years later ran into his brother who was a Royal Marine bandsman on the
Royal Yacht. He remembered that day and we laughed together at our excesses.
On another occasion we found an abandoned car in the same place Dave Courtney had parked his father’s vehicle. For the next few days we took turns in pushing it up and down the drive with someone steering. It seemed like a lot of fun in those days when cars were not so commonplace as they are these days. Eventually we became tired of just pushing and driving so we bashed it into trees and ripped up the upholstery, things that bored children will always resort to. One morning the car wasn't there any more. I suppose someone had reported it as a nuisance and it must have been picked up. (DGM)
I was introduced to my first Woodbine, at the tender age of
thirteen, during lunchtime in High Trees. I seared my throat and lungs, coughed
my g...s up but, not wishing to appear unmanly, requested a second. A couple of
weeks of perseverance soon had me hooked and I became one of the gang. (Thank
God the serious drugs of today were not available then.) On Saturdays I earned
2/6d. I forget the price of Woodbines but I think five Weights were slightly
cheaper at 1/1d, plus the cost of the necessary matches and an orange. No, I
did not smoke the orange! I used the peel to disguise the smell of tobacco on
my fingers, and the fruit to freshen my breath before going home.
This ploy worked well as I was never accused of having smoked. Indeed, I must
have been considered to be particularly healthy, reeking
of oranges much of the time. But one day I had a bit of bad luck. My parents
had advised me in advance that they were going to be out on a particular
evening with my younger brother and sister. They were concerned about leaving
me alone in the house. So was I, and accordingly I invited the gang round for a
friendly game of Brag - with only ha’pennies to play
with, it had to be friendly. Unfortunately they all lit up, and I could see no
other course than to join them. An hour before my parents were due to return, I
sent everyone home and then opened all the windows and doors. Alas, to no
avail. Dad came in, took one sniff of the air, and went mad. Oh for the joys of
youth and the rites of passage! I'm happy to say that I gave up the 'weed' many
years ago, although I do enjoy a MONTECHRISTO Number One on special occasions.
I was very nearly arrested in
John McCarthy wrote:- "It was
mostly skiving and smoking. By my time, a few years later, smoking within the
school grounds had become an unacceptably dangerous pastime. Not that it deterred the idiots of course, I
can still remember Jake sweeping into the school bog and heading swiftly
towards a cubicle which had a tell-tale blue cloud hanging above it. I buggered
off at great speed rather than stay around to see who got caught! Our favourite
places for a (lunchtime) smoke were 1) Hon. member Jacobson's house in
It was mostly skiving and smoking. Plus some gross insolence to teachers (masters?) What were they masters of? Does anyone remember a disused bridge in High Trees? It was supposed to be filled in underneath with rubble but we cleared a narrow entrance so that we could crawl in and have a smoke. I wish I could remember all the names of the smokers crew. Joe Levy and Tony Gason were two of them. I think Gray Walker and certainly myself. But there was at least a dozen.
Does anyone remember chemistry teacher Jet Morgan? I can remember smoking in his class. You could crawl in under the benches in the chemistry lab and light up. Jet was a chain smoker himself and he used to skive out in the middle of lessons for a smoke himself. So he couldn't smell the smoke in the lab. And what about Wally Walters? I still tell my kids now amout how we always used to tip up Wally's book cupboard so that all the books fell out when he opened it. And what about the maths teacher whom we called "Mong"? I don't know his real name but he didn't last long, because we played him up something rotten. And poor old Aggy Guy. He'd had several nervous breakdowns. Instead of being sympathetic, the cruel streak in schoolboys developed a great rendition of the Rolling Stones song "Here comes his 19th nervous breakdown". (Mac)
By my time, a few years later, smoking within the school grounds had become an unacceptably dangerous pastime. Not that it deterred the idiots of course, I can still remember Jake sweeping into the school bog and heading swiftly towards a cubicle which had a tell-tale blue cloud hanging above it. I buggered off at great speed rather than stay around to see who got caught!
Our favourite places for a (lunchtime) smoke were;-
1) Hon. member Jacobson's house in
2) The footbridge midway along the alley which ran between
and
Re "Does anyone remember chemistry teacher Jet Morgan? I can remember smoking in > his class." I was never brave enough to light up in Jet's class - the sight of Jet chaining Players no. 10 put me right off. (John Bailey)
... funnily enough, Mum didn't mind
the fags so much, it was the smell from the chip packets she hated! (Ah yes!
I wish we could sign up Pete Hutton. His house, nice and near the school, was a very safe haven for smokers. However, we used to roll our own when we were hard up and his mother hated the smell. As I recall, she was a Conservative Council member and was a bit snooty. (Mac)
With a group of others I broke into one of the concrete sheds (the one between the glider hut and the woodwork shop) where we used to make coffee etc whilst not actually being taught. Er, we used to smoke there as well. This was of course quite foolish as there was nowhere in the Pr*f*cts Room where the entrance to this concrete building was not visible. The inevitable eventually happened; a raid.
We were hauled up in front of JPC with evidence in the shape of extinguished dog ends. This was all circumstantial but confronted with the evidenced we all owned up (honesty not necessarily being the best policy!) My dog end was a Disque Bleu and I can still remember JPC raising his eye-brows as he examined it. Six of the best followed (and I have yet to tell my parents of this). All this in 1968, I think. (Robin Hackshall)
(Ad Martin Jacobson's house being a haven for RLS smokers and how his Mum didn't mind the fags so much, it was the smell from the chip packets she hated!)
Funny how memories filter things out over the years - I really can't remember anyone buying fish and chips on the way, although it must surely have happened. I thought most of us were too desperate for our "hit" to hang about. Or, as Chris Brooks used to say, "Dark in here! Must be time for lighting up !" (John Bailey)
As Robin Hackshall says, a group of us broke into the white (civil defence?) hut that was clearly visible from the prefects room. I seem to remember Norm Owens fitting a new lock on the door, so we could keep other riff raff out. (Norm Owens, he was slightly insane, wasn't
he?). I am not sure if the 'raid was the same one Robin remembers, but I was on my way to the hut one morning break, when I was pushed aside by a bunch of prefects, who proceeded to drag out a number of boys. A crown gathered (with me in it) so as they were led of to see
Jake, they all seemed to bump into me, at the end of which, I had about 10 packs of fags. I took my 'fee' from each, and returned them all later that morning.
The other huts on the playing fields were scout huts, by the way. We used to smoke behind them, but it was too easy for prefects to catch you there, so we decided to move to an even easier spot! Mong was definitely Woodhurst, I agree with John Bailey on that. (Rick Tolby)
The only house I remember being used for such purposes was Alan Wands. It became so regular that I remember having to be summoned back from there to take a GCE exam I had forgotten! The card school was obviously addictive but I cannot remember who else was involved. (Peter Herbert)
It's just as well there was more than one house in use in those days, we would have had a great deal of trouble if we had all tried to fit into one - except for Malcolm Bryden's house on Balgores Lane, which was bloody enormous (or so it seemed to a poor council-house lad!) I know a number of us lived near the school, but I had completely forgotten Alan Wands was one of them. Where was his house, in relation to the school? (John Bailey)
Stephen Snelgrove lent N. Miller a Rothman's once. The reply to this was:-
...a lot of water (and other more convivial liquids, etc) have flowed under the bridge since those far-off days when I bunked-off in the VIth form hut and (allegedly) cadged a Rothmans of you.
I remember coming back to the hut after I left the RLS. Jake had called me into the study to get my hair cut, just a few weeks into the VIth form, but I took a stance (which I now regret) and told him "no way" and promptly went home. The old boy was constantly on the 'phone trying to get me to come back, but I would not give way. Trouble was, neither would he! It's a shame really, because I really quite liked him and I'm sure he was fond of me in his own way.
Anyway, after he accepted the fact that I would not come
back he pulled a few strings and got me into the VIth
of the
The shock proved too much, though, and I let poor old Jake down again and began to bunk-off and spend my time in the RLS hut instead, which is where you (allegedly) gave me a fag. (Neil Miller)
I have no recollection of the blue haze. I cannot remember which event led to Jake calling the pr*f*cts to account. You know what they say, if you remember the 60s etc. etc. (Doug Newlyn)
Even more silly...................the smoking congregation behind the huts was traditional (I got caught there by GHRN during my first term at RLS) but I discovered later in school life that the hut, the pilgrimage of smokers and the blue haze were all clearly visible from the Prefects Room. (GAL)