Page 65 - The Old Ratcliffian 2015 Magazine

RATCLIFFE’S PAST 65
Andrew Coker (78): “Fr Slack’s (59) scooter being parked on the Paul Rudd (60): “Locking Simon Giles (60), now Fr Giles, in his
High Altar!”
John Hobday (56): “Winning every rugby match in a season.”
Ian Gill (63): “Teachers who had an important influence on me
included ‘Doc’ Orton and Br Adrian Smith. Doc brought history to
life - for example, by standing in a wastepaper box and delivering
a Hitler speech - and Br Smith imbued us with the need for critical
thinking in a brilliant diatribe against misleading advertising.”
John Challoner (72): “A group of us were caught trying to make
wine from oranges when in the Fifth Form. We had put the bottle
behind a panel against the hot pipes and, when it began to
ferment, it stank the place out, and was a bit of a giveaway!”
John Terence Conran (59): “There was a search conducted for
magazines of a saucy nature, which resulted in my CCF kit bag
being emptied. It contained all the empty beer bottles from the
away fixtures in the Boat Club; I was deputed to keep them,
so that I could redeem the bottle deposits from the pub in
Cossington, to add to the Boat Club beer kitty. The bottles were
confiscated and I was reprimanded. I was not Head Prefect at the
time!”
Richard Mascari (67): “The ghost of Lady Mary Arundel in the Old
Library.” (Editor’s Note: Lady Mary Arundel was born in July 1787.
For much of her life, she had to keep secret the fact that she was
a Catholic, otherwise her property would have been confiscated,
and she would most likely have been deported. Following the
Catholic Emancipation Act of 1830, her husband was one of the
first Catholics to take his place in the House of Lords. After his
death in 1838, Lady Arundel did a lot to help Antonio Rosmini to
establish religious houses in England. She also supported other
Catholic orders, and funded many of the churches designed by
Pugin (the designer of the first buildings of Ratcliffe College). She a ‘note’ for that!”
lived in Loughborough and personally oversaw the establishment
of the Rosminian convent there. Lady Arundel died in 1845;
two years after the first buildings of Ratcliffe College had been
completed, in accordance with her wishes, she was buried under
the College church of the time. This is now the Old Library.)
Lady Mary Arundel
Douglas Chamberlain (50): “The excitement of D-Day, with many
aircraft overhead.”
Guy Carter (61): “Undoubtedly, the most memorable time
was when we went on one of ‘Butch’ Tedesco’s Grand Tours,
particularly London-Paris-Genoa-Sardinia-Sicily-Rome-Paris-
London, all for £50!”
wardrobe, facing the wall of his room!”
Paul Rudd (60) with Philip Jones (59) & Fr Simon Giles (60) in 2015
Donal Heffernan (75): “Our Lady’s Dormitory had two rows of
about fifteen beds along each wall, with toilets and washbasins
through a door at the far end. After lights out, I visited the
toilets and filled a Fairy Liquid bottle up with water; on my way
back, I squirted every boy in bed. Because of the darkness in the
dormitory, I did not notice Fr Ted Mullen (60), Dormitory Master,
standing at the end in his black cassock. I was duly dispatched
to the Discipline Master, Fr Keith Tomlinson (52), to receive
four or six of the best, which was the accepted punishment of
the day. However, for some unknown reason - maybe because I
didn’t tell him the full extent of why I had been sent down (oops,
mea culpa!) - Fr Tomlinson was in good humour that evening,
fortunately for me, and I was let off with a warning!”
Andrew Harris (00): “Mr Lillywhite not noticing that the ‘on call’
room was on fire!”
Etienne Vicariot (67): “The day in the Fifth Form when the English
Master, ‘Pee Wee’, explained to us that, in the past, ‘monsters’
were exhibited at fairs, such as midgets and bearded women.
One of us (I can’t remember his name) said, without raising his
hand, ‘Sir, we have one such woman in the Ref - Mrs B!’. He got
John Hearson (58): “Richard Meyer, serving at Mass, discovered
that he had no bell to use at the elevation. He improvised by
singing ‘ding a ling’.”
David Taft (57): “On my first night in the Dormitory, we looked
out of the window and a huge Saint Bernard dog was walking
past. We were told that the dog was there to ensure that we did
not escape. We were terrified! Only later did we find out that the
dog belonged to Brother Primavesi (36) and was very old and
completely benign.”
David Thistlethwaite (50): “The ‘egg-splosh’ mutiny - this was a
mixture of powdered egg and water, which was spread about one
inch deep in trays and baked in the ovens with, sometimes, a light
brown (even black) crust on top. The trays were delivered to the
head of each house table by Br O’Brien and Br ‘Speedy’ McEwen,
and the senior Sixth Formers, usually the House Captain, cut the
‘splosh’ into squares, slapped them onto dinner-sized plates,
and they were delivered to the house members down the table.
‘Egg-splosh’ was served up twice a week as a main meal and it
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