Personal Reflections

Jonathan Causer

I found the tour so much tougher than expected, because the quality instilled by Tonbridge which allowed all those brave young men to do what they did -- the elevated sense of duty and the abnegation of self -- was bought at a price which I still find difficult looking back over fifty years. I suppose I am one of Tonbridge's failures in that that teaching left a mark but still did not quite "take".

Stiff Upper Lip - Jonathan Causer

I thought of telling this story while we were in France, but decided we had enough emotional stress to deal with already. Even now, I am not sure of the wisdom of bringing it to the surface.

We had a lot of beating stories, everyone making light of what was really an unpleasant and humiliating experience. I managed to avoid that fate at Tonbridge, having had quite enough at prep school, but I think I would have preferred a beating a day to what actually happened. My father died when I was just into my second year, a little over 14. The housemaster made one of those "I want to see the following in my study" announcements at lunch, and when I got the top of the queue he said just seven words, "Your mother is coming to collect you" and dismissed me. I was fairly sure but not certain what had happened, and rather confused set off to walk towards home. I had got to the A21 roundabout beyond Stormont by the time the aunt who had been sent to collect me managed to find me.

Returning after the funeral, no-one had a word to say about this loss - teachers, staff, boys, no-one. It was as if it just had not happened, which was puzzling. The sole person to express any sympathy was that dear kind old German teacher Herr Rank. That was puzzling too: I knew that he was a Jewish refugee, so perhaps it was just that he did not understand "the English way". He was horribly bullied by two thugs from my own house, and soon left to find a quieter post.

It was obvious that I did not find the verse from Laurence Binyon's For the Fallen easy to recite at Tyne Cot, and several members of the tour male and female spoke to me very kindly afterwards. They could not have known what a huge amount this meant to me, against the background of emotional sterility at Tonbridge which still lingers 55 years later. Thank you to them all from the bottom of my heart.