N O. 1 2 1 T H E T R U S T Y S E R VA N T
Win Coll in WW2 – result of Survey
Suzanne Foster, College Archivist, reports:
In 2014, Win Coll was approached by Clémence Pillot, a PhD student from Paris, for assistance with her work on public schools and how they changed between 1930 and 1951. Clémence asked us to circulate a questionnaire to OWs, which asked about their memories of the School in WW2, and their perceptions of the educational reforms of the mid-1940s.
With the help of Win Coll Soc and the College Archivist, the surveys were sent out in November 2014 and about 50 OWs responded – the best result of any school involved in the study. This short article gives a flavour of those responses.
Most felt that daily life in wartime Win Coll continued much as normal, but with‘ constraints’, and that the Headmaster and his staff‘ absolutely kept the standards’ throughout the war. Many remembered wartime austerity and rationing, including an‘ illicit’ trade in rationed sweets. Some recalled the evacuation of galleries at night, particularly during the doodle-bug threat in 1944-1945, and the influx of troops of all kinds to the city in the weeks leading up to D-Day. The arrival of Jewish refugee boys and pupils from Portsmouth Grammar School was widely remembered and these new admissions were thought to have settled in well. Some Collegemen remember a question in the Election exam held on 5th June, 1944, which asked,‘ If you were General Eisenhower, how would you plan the Allied invasion of Europe? Draw a map to illustrate your answer. Note – If the invasion has already started by the time you do this paper, show how you think it ought to develop.’
Many commented on agricultural work, harvest camps and growing vegetables in boarding-house gardens. Some hated this work, considering it‘ definitely War Effort’, but others thought it‘ useful and fun’, enjoying both the‘ hard physical work and camaraderie’. For most respondents, military training like the OTC and Home Guard patrols was timeconsuming, but as one OW commented,‘ it was also, without any doubt, a valuable preparation for later Army service’.
Most respondents mentioned that older dons were brought out of retirement to replace younger men on active service – the return of these younger dons in 1945 was remembered as a welcome improvement, with men such as Ronnie Hamilton and Tom Howarth,‘ who opened both eyes and mind in a way that we had never enjoyed before’.
All the respondents commented on how aware they were of what was happening in world and war affairs. Many mentioned the visits and lectures of Field Marshal Montgomery and the constant reminder of war casualties, among them OWs. Reading the responses as a whole, it is evident that the School spirit was strong, although there was‘ perhaps more a national spirit than a school one’. As two OWs put it in their replies,‘ we were much caught up in the national spirit of cooperation to support the war effort’ and‘ of course we wholeheartedly supported the war. We were all in the Corps, training to be soldiers’.
The questionnaire asked if OWs felt that the war had helped the school to be more attuned to the realities of wartime England, and
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