Page 72 - Old Ratcliffian 2020 Edition

RATCLIFFE’S PAST

SERVICE MEDALS & THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

John Plumb (53): “The following facts motivate the pride that I feel in wearing the service medals
of my late father and myself (requiring their removal from, and subsequent replacement in,
the two framed photographs of both of us, right, that are prominently displayed at my home).

1. The annual Remembrance Day parades remind me to recall past military events and lost
homes that have affected my life, and the lives of those that I have loved, and still love.
2. My father endured active service, mainly in Mesopotamia (Iraq of today) as a commissioned
offi cer with the Honourable Artillery Company during World War I, until 1918. He survived the
experience, and subsequently served in the Territorial Army. Returning to the UK as a refugee in
1940, he enlisted in the army again during World War II, only to die in 1941.

3. At the outbreak of World War II, my family comprised myself, my English father, my Swiss mother,
and my younger sister. We lived in the French Jura Mountains. With the rapidly advancing German
army cutting off any route northwards, we fl ed our home as refugees. We travelled along the
French Riviera, entering the French-Spanish border town of Perpignan, traversing a hostile Spain,
and waiting in the friendly Por
and waiting in the friendly Por
and waiting in the friendly Portuguese town of Lisbon for a boat, which eventually arrived. After tuguese town of Lisbon for a boat, which eventually arrived. After tuguese town of Lisbon for a boat, which eventually arrived. After
zigzagging the Atlantic to avoid German U-boats, it deposited us at the Liverpool docks in 1940.
4. On the death of my father, my mother became
4. On the death of my father, my mother became a war widow, bringing up my sister and me in a a war widow, bringing up my sister and me in a
country that she knew nothing of.
5. We experienced a consequential nomadic life in the UK, involving the fearsome effects of German
V-1 fl ying bombs and V-2 rockets – a former one of which almost ended our lives at Carshalton
in Surrey, as it struck our house’s chimney pot and exploded nearby. We arrived at Wolstanton,
Staffordshire, in 1944 as evacuees, and we stayed in the parish of St Wulstan’s, whose parish
priest, Fr Colum McCabe, was most supportive. The D-Day Normandy landings in June 1944
meant a lot to the Plumb family, since the subsequent liberation of France would enable them to
access their former French home.

6. My mother suffered many months of ill health, and I helped to nurse her after leaving Ratcliffe.
However, in November 1953, she died from cancer, aged just 46, leaving me and my sister to fend
for ourselves.

7. Early in 1954, my deferred National Service call-up was actioned. I spent two years in the Royal Artillery as a TARA
(Technical Assistant Royal Artillery), with the rank of bombardier, being deployed for most of the time in the BAOR (British Army of the
Rhine) and defending Europe from the threat of Russia with our regiment of 25-pounder fi eld guns!”

AN EXTRACT FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE LATE

ANTHONY FEARN (50)

In 1944, I joined Form 111B at Ratcliffe College. I owe the place a lot, and I have become more aware of this debt as I grow older. At
that time, the school was entering a period in which it would produce some outstanding public fi gures, such as the exotic Norman St
John-Stevas (46) and Gordon Reece (47), later to become Margaret Thatcher’s PR adviser. Actors such as Patrick McGoohan (44) and
Ian Bannen (46) had either recently left or were about to leave. Later came Alan Gordon (51), a fi ne runner, my brother, Robin Fearn
(52), UK ambassador to Spain, and Douglas Chamberlain (50), a prominent cardiologist. The successful grooming of this amount of
talent seems an impressive achievement, given that there were only around 200 pupils, and that most of the teaching staff had only
external degrees.

The headmaster at that time was Fr Cuthbert Emery (1904), a man of refi ned appearance who smoked cigarettes with great elegance,
wearing a black velvet glove to hold the long black holder into which his cigarette was inserted. ‘Tam’, as he was known, because
he came from Tamworth, was probably not the driving force in the management of the school. That surely came from his deputy,
Fr Claude Leetham (1915).

72 The Old Ratcliffi an 2020