No . 137 The Trusty Servant
A Brother Provides Balance Peter Hilken ( B , 50-55 ) writes :
The Trusty Servant publishes many obituaries of successful boys who moved on naturally to become successful men : Captain of Lords , Sen Co Prae , scholarship to Oxford , then Chairman of a well-known corporation …
But what about those for whom the school was not a happy or successful time ?
My brother , Richard Hilken ( B , 48-52 ; obit . TS 133 ) was one such . Stuck in a low form , owing to the punitive system of promotion , and unappreciated by his housedon , he left at 16 to join the Royal Navy .
This was by no means the end of the story , however . He left the Navy and became a pacifist and a Quaker . He worked for ICI , and then in his late twenties went to Cambridge to read Architecture , did well there , qualified , and took a job with Ove Arup ( the designer of the Sydney Opera House ). He later became Director of the Housing Corporation in Glasgow , and then for the South West of England . He was happily married , and did significant charity work in retirement .
But he never went back to Winchester , and must count among those who do not trace their achievements to the College . Reassuringly for many , the School Report is not the final word .
Entrance Exam Memories
Malcolm Borthwick ( F , 52-56 ) recalls his Winchester Entrance exam of 1952 and meanwhile recommends Tom Holland ’ s translation of Herodotus The Histories .
Seventy three years ago , aged 12 , I sat alone in the dining room of my prep school headmaster , with a Greek dictionary , Herodotus ’ s page on catching a crocodile , pen and a pad of paper . As instructed , I read Herodotus ’ s piece through . I didn ’ t recognise a noun , verb or adjective - nothing . My heart sank . So I set to using the dictionary to try and translate sufficient words to create a jigsaw from which I could arrange into some meaningful sort of tale .
Shortly my form master came in to see how I was getting on . I was in floods of tears of fear , frustration and general sense of helplessness . Not a good start . But good enough for The Dicker to let him into Chawker ’ s . A perfect answer might have been :
There are all sorts of ways to hunt the crocodile- but since there is one that strikes me as particularly notable , I will
stick to writing about that . A hook is baited with the back of a pig , and set to float in the middle of the river ; meanwhile , on the riverbank , the hunter has a real live pig , which he wallops . The crocodile , hearing the squeals , makes a rush in the direction of the noise , comes across the bait , gulps it down - and in he is hauled ( incidentally , this was as far as Malcolm got ). Once the crocodile has been landed , the first thing the hunter does is to smear mud all over his eyes . Only manage this , and the remaining stages of the crocodile ’ s capture can easily be completed ; fail to do it , and there will be trouble . Herodotus , The Histories . Book 2 , Chapter 71 .
Malcolm concludes : I wonder , in the intervening years , how many times this piece from Herodotus was set as the Commoner Entrance Greek translation . The answer is beyond the Trusty Servant ’ s reach . However , he can reveal that The Histories are currently a GCSE set text . Furthermore , Classroom A7 in Flint Court , currently occupied by Rupert Mercer ( Coll , 04-09 ), plays host to this crocodile :
The inquisitive can learn why it is sporting bracelets by reading The Histories , Book 2 , Chapter 70
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