St. Kentigern’s School Camp 1948

In the year 1935 I was eleven years old and a member of the scholarship class in St. Kentigern’s School, under the gentle (at times!) tutelage of Miss Jennie Hutchinson, sister of Madge Hutchinson (the Duchess), two stalwarts of Catholic education in Blackpool in the thirties, and for many years afterwards. In those days, our only relaxation in the school year was the annual day trip, when the whole school was bussed out for a day's frolics in some chosen place in the surrounding countryside. The charabanc ride through the country was one of the delights of the day, and if the place was not too distant (Rawcliffe Hall for example) a roundabout route was followed to give the impression that we were far from home. No doubt the older pupils were not taken in, but we younger ones whose local geography was rather hazy to say the least, found it very exciting.

At that time, I had not the slightest idea that, given another dozen or so years and one World War, I would be a student at St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill (Simmaries) being prepared to take up the gauntlet of Catholic education when it was finally relinquished by such as the Hutchinson sisters. But in the providence of God that was the case.

Nor had my connection with St. Kentigern's School been finally severed at the tender age of eleven. When home from Simmaries in the summer vacation of 1948, I was a prime candidate, as an embryonic schoolmaster, to be roped in by a certain priest, Father Bob Bickerstaffe, a curate at the church, to lend a hand with the school camp to be held by a certain teacher, Mr Tom Branney, Deputy Head of the school. St. Kentigern’s School had indeed progressed in my absence. There was actually a real live man on the staff and a real school camp as well as a school trip! Having recently been subjected to more than three years of naval discipline, I was in those days a very pliable young man. I was to toughen up a bit in the future, but at that time I allowed myself to become a willing conscript for a week under canvas.

The chosen site for the camp was the grounds of a missionary college near Grange-over-Sands. It belonged to the Holy Ghost Fathers, who had been softened up with a promise that there would be an ample supply of well-trained altar boys to serve their Masses each morning. In their gratitude, the Fathers even allowed us to make use of their outside toilets. What a relief that was! Although I am quite sure we would have been despised by the Boy Scouts, or even the Girl Guides, for not being willing and able to dig our own latrines.

It being so soon after the end of the war there was quite a surplus of army camping equipment available, which Tom hired on economical terms. It included the stove from a field kitchen which by the look of it was big enough to prepare a meal for a battalion. However, it was all delivered to our field on the back of an army wagon, with a promise that the army would return in good time on the following Saturday afternoon to take it all back.

Now, a school camp of some thirty young town boys can provide in a week enough horrifying material to fill a book. Most of that which concerns the St. Kentigern’s school camp of 1948 has mercifully faded into the dimness of an ancient memory, but two items still remain with me in all the vividness of any nightmare. The first concerns the reason why my new wife was, a few years later, rather amazed to find that she had married a man who could not stand the sight of an egg!

Tom was a most efficient organiser of a school camp, but he had one deficiency - he couldn't cook. Neither could I. Tom however had a saving grace. He could do anything with an egg. I lost count of the number of different ways in which that small item of food can be presented as a nutritious meal, morning noon or night. It became my daily task to be presented with a large carrier bag and a supply of ready cash, when I would wend my way along the country lanes to a local farm where the bag was filled with fresh pullet eggs for the day's supply.

By Wednesday, my stomach was beginning to wonder what was going on, but surprisingly enough I was not craving for steak and chips. It was the sight and thought of an egg which was the trouble. I began to develop some sort of psychological blockage, though I could still eat Tom's meals so long as they didn't look like an egg. By the time I got home my blockage was complete. I just didn't want to know an egg.

Over the years I gradually began to get on better terms with chickens, but even now, 55 years later, I cannot bring myself to face up to one of their soft-boiled products. I never hurt Tom's feeling by recounting this story to him. He was a fine teacher who served St. Kentigern’s well, before himself becoming a headmaster. He also played a very active role in local politics and, if I remember aright, he served a term as mayor of St. Annes. I would lay a small bet that there was some sort of egg dish served at the mayoral banquet that year!

My second memory concerns that previously mentioned great army stove. You perhaps have already suspected that, despite some furious telephone calls, the army never turned up the following Saturday afternoon to collect their equipment, including the stove. The best they could promise was the next Monday. The kindly farmer who owned the field said it could be stored safely in his barn until then. It was essential that the boys catch their bus back to Blackpool, so Tom had to depart with them leaving me with four of the biggest lads to see to the equipment. That kindly farmer lent us his milk trolley to transport it all to the barn, which was some way across another field and up the lane and necessitated several journeys with the trolley.

All went reasonably well until we decided it was time to tackle the stove. Until we tried to move that stove there had not been the need for such pushing and shoving and pulling and twisting and turning and grunting and groaning as then became necessary. I can only draw a veil over it all and just say that we eventually arrived at the barn, panting and gasping and covered in sweat. The kindly farmer gave each of the five of us a most refreshing drink of ice cold milk and spoke to us with words of sympathy - until he happened to notice the handles of his trolley! They were sticking out at a most peculiar angle and it was difficult to see how they were still attached to anything. One more pull and they would certainly be lying on the floor.

I could see that it wasn't in that farmer's nature to be nasty, but he was having a very hard job not to be. He didn't take back his milk, but he refused to let us have anything further to do with his trolley. I could only say sorry and hope in all charity that we hadn't made it impossible for him to handle his churns for several days to come. The remainder of the equipment had thus to be moved in small quantities by hand in an increased number of journeys across that field. By around seven o'clock in the evening we had cleared all the equipment and managed to make it to Grange -over-Sands railway station, with just enough strength left to climb aboard the last train to Blackpool.

I should say that in the next field, across which we staggered so many times, a bunch of Sea Scouts in full uniform were playing a game of cricket. They obligingly stopped their game each time so that we could stagger past with our loads, but never once did any of them make any move to help us bear our burdens. They just resumed their game. That went on all the afternoon, with the cricketers seeming to assume it was perfectly normal for four sweaty young lads and one sweaty slightly older lad to interrupt their game quite often bearing heavy loads. It never seemed to occur to them that by offering some assistance they would be acting in the finest traditions of the Scouting movement, and at the same time putting an end to the interruption of their game. I considered them to be somewhat of a disgrace to their uniforms. So, from my point of view, there were three unfortunate results from my participation in St Kentigern’s school camp of 1948. I had acquired a long-standing antipathy to eggs, a very similar feeling towards Sea Scouts, and, perhaps worst of all, Tom Branney and Father Bickerstaffe were so pleased with my contribution in 1948 that they invited me to take part in 1949!!