Wellington School

Sticky Leach

My final TP was at Wellington School.

Some of the students were boarders and at lunch and high tea at the end of the afternoon session I was asked to supervise a table of younger children. These children were quite fussy and grumpy pulling extraordinary faces at the offerings. No problem for sir who often had multiple portions to eat.

When not supervising children the teachers high tea of toast and cakes was absolutely wonderful.

We had Wednesdays off but taught Saturday mornings. The digs, with a local farmer were only Monday to Friday so Friday evening I returned to Killerton and an early start for School in the morning.

Wednesday afternoons were good as there were rugby matches to watch and supervise and extended gym sessions with the various teams.

My landlord enjoyed squash so there were matches to fit in around our evening meal and my occasional babysitting for the family.

During my time there the History department included me on a sixth form trip to the Houses of Parliament and the Old Bailey. We had a tour of both and briefly sat in on a trial. On our return journey there was either a rail accident ahead of us or a fault with the engine. We were stranded for many hours, such that the leader of the trip gave me a five pound note and told me to go to the dining car to get something for the boys to eat. By then there was virtually nothing to be had so the boys had a fiver’s worth of crisps between them.

We returned to Taunton station in the early hours to be met by staff with their cars who enjoyed the open road at high speed back to school. A few hours sleep and back to teaching. At that time we had the national petrol crisis and it was at Wellington Post Office that I picked up my ration book. Thankfully it was never needed.

My College supervision was from a lecturer who only visited on a Tuesday morning. Inevitably he only saw me “teach” at these times, the same class for 9 or 10 weeks. His critique was very nice, his only criticism was that my regional accent was too broad! OO Arrr!