Lift up Your Hearts

The readings we use in church this Sunday include the description of Abraham greeting three men at the Oak of Mamre. The pronouns are strange, moving between the plural and the singular, and the men bring to Abraham and Sarah the promises of God. The Triune God is revealed: three Persons, one God. One of the most famous of Christian ikons shows this meeting, and the hidden circles and triangles in the composition express the Christian interpretation of this passage.

Near the city of Hebron is the now dead stump of a very ancient oak which was for long held to be the same tree which marked the sacred site where Abraham met God. It died about twenty years ago but was recorded from the sixteenth century and was certainly then already mature. Here are pictures of the  tree in 1900 and in 2008.







The oak as a symbol of life, resurrection, steadfastness and loyalty is well known to anyone who knows Haileybury. What would the place feel like without the Lightning Oak? The burden of the passage set for this Sunday is that God's promises are stronger even than the oak. Though they might live a thousand years oak trees do eventually die; but the Word of the Lord lasts forever.

The Happiest Days?

Having fun?

Those of you who followed the link to the obituary of Spen King (B 1939.1) may have noted that it stated that he 'hated' his time at Haileybury. It's sadly not unusual to find those who hated their time at school, and especially boarding school. My parish was the Marlborough Mission (we are to Marlborough what the Stepney Club was to Haileybury) and a few years ago there was a chap who became a key part of the church community, who had hated his time there. A trip we had to Marlborough one bank holiday was part of a process by which he healed those memories and came to look a bit more kindly on the parents who had sent him there. Some people (like me!) loved their time at school. For all that there were horrid moments the overall experience was a good one. Others didn't like it at school but have relished the place and its wider community subsequently. This has been said of one of our more famous OHs who is now a good friend to Haileybury despite bad memories. Some liked school well enough but 'put away childish things'. I was with a friend at Haileybury earlier this year who had not been back more than a couple of times since leaving nearly 25 years ago; it just wasn't part of his life any more. I'm not sure that there are not some who actually had a jolly time but feel it is more acceptable to accentuate the negatives. I wonder where you feel you are on this spectrum? There is such a huge emphasis on pastoral care nowadays at Haileybury and similar institutions that one must hope that fewer people come out the other end feeling that their whole childhood has been ruined. Certainly my spies at modern Haileybury are having a great time. Their father has been known to grunt about 'schools of today being like holiday camps.' But that is surely better than being like prison camps.

The Evolution of Dormitories 2

Once the East India College became a school the old single rooms were knocked together to produce the 'long dormitories' which were to be part of Haileybury life from the 1860s to the 1990s. At first each bed was surrounded by a cubicle - 'comparts' as they were known - with high walls.  The hot water of Old Haileybury days was done away with. Dr Bradby, Master from 1868 - 1883, insisted that the wash jugs be filled in the evening to ensure the morning was was always in cold water. It was under Wynne Wilson, Master between 1905 and 1911 that the compart walls were cut down, though in his time curtains were provided around the head of each bed to allow some privacy.

The curtains went in due course, but the old hospital style beds survived until the mid 1980s when new beds were provided with drawers underneath, and the old chests of drawers were removed. In some Houses every other compart wall was removed. The new bed meant that 'lampposting' became impossible as lifting the bed up onto the headboard was now impossible. Maybe this was something only done in Hailey (and Allenby?) as we - being civilized places - had three smaller dormitories rather than one long one. It meant that inter-dormitory raids took place.

Top Gear

Having a house full of boys means that Top Gear is on quite a lot. Secretly I really quite enjoy all the sillyness and jolly japery which makes the otherwise rather tedious subject of cars rather fun. But even so I found it difficult to take quite seriously the assertion that the Range Rover has an 'inspirational shape' which I saw in today's paper in the obituary of Spen King (B 1939.1). Together with a colleague, Gordon Bashford, King was responsible for the Range Rover and, after being in charge of Triumph after it was swallowed by British Leyland, King oversaw the concepts of the Metro and the Maestro. They are gone (my first car was a Maestro), but the Range Rover is very much around. On the last day of term they were all over Haileybury like a rash as luggage was packed into the cavernous air conditioned voids of their boots. Good design is not noticeable. Whether it be Routemaster busses or Gilbert Scott phone boxes or Perpendicular windows in Mediaeval wool churches, a good design is the sort of thing we only notice when it is not there. Maybe we will miss the Range Rovers when they are gone.

Summer Flowers

Haileybury was in full bloom in the last week of term. These roses were outside Albans.

These outside the Bookroom.

Another lovely display by the Art School. 

Battle of Britain

A vivid memory of school days is of a warm summer term afternoon playing House Thirds cricket on a rough pitch on the edge of Terrace when a sound familiar from films rent the peaceful afternoon air. The Battle of Britain flight came low over the school, turning overhead and heading off. A little while later they came back and a third time! I suppose there must have been an air show at Stanstead or Duxford and were using Haileybury as a land-mark.

The 10th of July was afterwards arbitrarily chosen by Sir Hugh Dowding as the opening day of what became known as the Battle of Britain, so the seventieth anniversary of that long, hot, desperate Summer is marked now. Duxford was the HQ of 12 Group, commanded by Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (M 1906), covering the area North of London. Sir Hugh Park's 11 Group covering London and the South East bore the brunt of the Battle, and relations between Leigh-Mallory and Park were soured by the former's advocacy with Douglas Bader of the tactic known as the 'Big Wing', massing fighters in large numbers. The Big Wing seemed to reduce casualties, but Park complained that the formations were often late to arrive and in the wrong place when they did.

Leigh-Mallory won the arguments at the time, but the verdict of history has been less swift to agree with him. Although the centre of a feud with other senior air commanders, Leigh-Mallory was noted for his knowledge of the army and specialism in co-ordinating ground and air forces, a skill which was instrumental in winning him appointment as Air Officer Commanding the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, the most senior air officer for D Day and the Battle of Normandy.

Leigh-Mallory was killed when his plane crashed in late 1944, one of the most senior British officers to be killed in the war.

Meeting in February 1944 of the commanders of the Allied Expeditionary Force, London, February 1944. Front row, left to right: Arthur Tedder (deputy commander), Dwight D. Eisenhower (supreme commander), Bernard Montgomery (Twenty-first Army Group). Back row, left to right: Omar Bradley (U.S. First Army), Bertram Ramsay (Allied Naval Expeditionary Force), Trafford Leigh-Mallory (Allied Expeditionary Air Forces), and Walter Bedell Smith (chief of staff).

Just Like a Waving Flag

Thank you South Africa! Although Sir Henry Bartle Frere faced some censure for his decisions as High Commissioner of Eastern South Africa and Governor of the Transvaal and Natal, he would perhaps be proud of what is being achieved now in the lands he once governed under the Crown.