Chief

A Biography of Alexander Ross Wallace 1891- 1982 by A. B. Gourlay and D. F. Gibbs

Published by The Appeal Office, Sherborne School ©D. F. Gibbs 1983

Printed at the Abbey Press, L. Cold well (Printing) Ltd. The Parade, Sherborne, Dorset ALEXANDER ROSS W ALLACE

Headmaster of Sherb orne, 1934 - 1950 PREFACE

Sometime in the early 1970's Alexander Ross Wallace (usually known at Sherborne as 'Chief') began to put down on paper some of the details of his life. The notes were soon taken over to be transformed into a full-scale biography by Abe Gourlay, historian of Sherborne School and a master there for 30 years until his retirement in 1968. Sadly, with his manuscript almost complete, Gourlay died in 1977. In August 1982 Wallace himself passed away and soon after it was suggested that I might like to apply the finishing touches to the manuscript and bring it up to date. Chapters XVI and XIX are mine, but apart from a few minor alterations and additions the remainder is Gourlay's work. Although Wallace occasionally visited Sherborne in the period after 1973, when I joined the staff of the School, I never had the privilege of meeting him. I am particularly grateful therefore to a number of past and present members of the Sherbome community and others outside it who have helped me in completing this biography. Two of his former housemasters. R. S. Thompson (subsequently Headmaster of Bloxham 1952- 65) and H. F. W. Holmes. were particularly helpful, not only in explaining to me something of the background of his Sherborne years but also in enabling me to read some of his voluminous correspondence with them. G. J. Watkins, M. M. Walford, F. G. Mee (who followed Wallace from Blundell's), J. T. Melvin (Headmaster of Kelly College, Tavistock 1959-70), M. E. K. Westlake,P. C. Boissier and the Rev.V.H.H.Green (now Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford) were other Sherborne masters who helped to fill in some of the details. Mrs. G. J. Watkins (nt!e Elderton, the daughter of a Wallace housemaster) and Mrs. P. E. H. Parry-Jones (wife of another) gave me a good idea of his family life. Lord Maclehose (Governor­ General of Hong Kong 1971-82) gave me a prep schoolboy's view of Wallace in his Cargilfield days, whilst R. G. Seldon (a Blundell's master 1919-70) gave some invaluable background to his first public school headmastership. M. R. G. Earls-Davis, Rev. D. M. Payne, Maj. S. S. Elvery and Judge J. S. Streeter told me something about their experiences as schoolboys under hin:t, whilst M. W. McCrum (Headmaster of Tonbridge 1960-70 and of Eton 1970-80) gave me both a professional and personal viewpoint as Head Boy of Sherborne under Wallace. Mrs. J. Walker of Gosport gave me a parent's perspective. Dr. R. G. G. Mercer kindly read the manuscript and gave much useful advice and Mrs. Caroline Mercer did the typing although it goes without saying that any errors are mine. D. F. G., May 1983 FOREWORD

I did not meet the subject of this memoir until I was appointed Headmaster of Sherbome in 1974, when I went to 'take off my hat to him'. Within a few minutes we were sitting on the sofa together, while he plied me with questions about Sherbome. It was clearly the great interest of his life, and his pleasure at having Wallace House named after him was obvious. I treasure the photograph of him at the opening ceremony, when he still insisted on standing to speak. All who knew him and who love Sherborne will be grateful to David Gibbs for the skill with which he has edited and brought up to date Abe Gourlay's original memoir. One's only regret must be that in these less spacious days nothing on the lines of a Victorian Life and Letters has been possible. But we are very lucky to have this record of a life, the key note of which was service.

R. D. Macnaghten ILLUSTRATIONS

'Chief Frontispiece

A. R. W. after a day's fishing in Wales, late 1930's 21

A. R. W. in the Headmaster's study, School House, late 1940's 50

A. R. W. opening the swimming pool at Batcombe Friary, late 1930's 52

The Royal Visit, Thursday 1st June 1950 64

A. R. W. crossing The Courts, late 1940's 71

Exeter Cathedral after a Red Cross Service, mid 1950's 76 CONTENTS

Preface by D. F. Gibbs V Foreword by R. D. Macnaghten vii Childhood- Lambrook 11 Clifton 4 Ill Cambridge 8 N London and Oxford 13 V Early Days in the I.C.S. 16 VI Army Life in India 20 VII Active Service 24 VIII Back to the I.C.S.- Bareilly and Lucknow 27 IX Home leave and Wellington College - Return to Lucknow 31 X Farewell to India- Wellington College again 34 XI Cargilfield 38 XII Blundell's 43 XIII Sherborne 1934-39 49 XIV Sherborne in Wartime 56 XV Sherborne 1945-50 61 XVI The Headmaster 67 XVII Exeter 74 XVIII Lyme Regis 81 XIX Last Years: Merley and Hindon 87 Chapter I

Childhood- Lambrook

About the middle of the 19th century Alexander Wallace I (to adopt the clear, if un-English, style of differentiation) was well established as a merchant in Calcutta. He had a son Alexander Wallace 11 born in 1858 who was educated at Framlingham and after passing second into Sandhurst joined the Indian Army. He went through a number of colonial campaigns and received, on the NW Frontier, wounds which left him with a stiff leg for life (though it did not prevent him from riding or playing golf and tennis regularly with considerable skill.) In 1914 he was put in command of the 15th Scottish Division on it~ formation, but later transferred to Egypt where in 1915 he defeated the Senussi in the battle of Mersa Matruh ( a name better known in World War 11) an action in which aeroplanes played a considerable part - a thing unusual at that time; this became a cherished victory in the family circle. After some involvement with the Gallipoli campaign he was invalided home in 1916 with the rank of Major General and retired to a small cottage near Wellington College- a choice not without significance, as will be seen. In 1889 he had married Ethel, daughter of Col. G. C. Ross, Indian Army. The union produced six children, of whom the first and third died in infancy, the second being Alexander Ross Wallace Ill, born on 27th September 1891 at Naini Tal, the subject of this memoir. Relieved by his survival after the death of his first child, the father - a unitarian and always a very religious man - decided to christen him Dieudonne. But his wife, with a more practical realisa­ tion that names can be a handicap, especially at school, intervened and sub­ stituted the family name of Ross. The other children were Peter, who was at Jutland as a midshipman, John who was a P.O.W. 194045, teasing his captors by three all-but-successful escapes (for which he was awarded an M.C.), and one favourite sister, Molly. Inevitably, from the patterns of their lives, Wallace never saw much of his father unless it were when school holidays coincided with periods of home leave. But even in childhood men who did not limp seemed somehow very inferior human specimens, and later a figure of absolute integrity and a gallant and successful soldier aroused fervent admiration and affection, almost amounting to hero worship. With his mother the link was perhaps less close; Wallace wrote 'She was a woman of very forceful character. As a young girl I gather she was a bit on the wild side and would amuse us with her stories of her expulsion from school for smoking cigars up the chimney, and her prowess at tennis; even when she grew up there was always discernible an extravagance of prejudice, both of love and hate, which must have made her a very formidable figure in any society'. Childhood memories of early life in India are somewhat vague and scanty, but such as they are they centre round a small hill station called Dunga Gali. Here his mother, always devoted and at this time unencumbered by any other child taught Alec, aged 5, to read and write. Also remembered were the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of June 1897. Not fixed in time, but hard to forget, was a severe and well merited beating from his father for throwing stones at the servants. It is not unusual to speculate to what extent early influences make a man what he is. No doubt in many cases they have but little effect; a rogue may emerge from a respectable environment or a great man from a slum. In Wallace's case one may hazard one or two possible connections. He was a Scot, with all the prudence and caution of that race. And who shall say that his father's deep sense of religion did not pass on and cause the son to take orders in middle life? And then there was the Army, for which (together with the other two services) Wallace always had an unfailing admiration. As a schoolmaster he was always glad when a pupil opted for such a career. Following convention he was brought home to England by his mother in 1898 at the age of six and the two lodged at first with 'Uncle Edward and Aunt Muriel'. The former was in fact E. D. Mansfield, once a Clifton master and co­ author of a well known Greek Grammar for Schools which is still in print; he was also Headmaster of Lambrook School, Bracknell, which still flourishes, one of the not very long list of preparatory schools which date back to the 19th century. Alec was at this time, and indeed .was to remain till he was 12, a rather small, weak and delicate boy, and to give him confidence for a few months he was put in the charge of a governess; the latter was a charming girl to whom her pupil became much attached. For his seventh birthday the pair found themselves inexplicably in London lodgings. However he received two presents which he remembered with pleasure all his life, a fountain pen (a reward for good work in his writing) and a box of tin soldiers from his governess's fiance. The latter was not entirely prompted by altruism, for the little boy could be and frequently was sent off to another room to play soldiers, leaving the engaged pair tete 'll. t~te. If the ruse was not detected at the time it was at least stored in a shrewd young head for future analysis. Return to Lambrook revealed the reason for the banishment to London - the arrival of a younger brother, Peter. His potential as a playmate seemed limited, so by way of compensation, Alec took up with his cousin Geoffrey Mansfield when the two entered Lamb rook in earnest in 1899. His early years at prep school were not altogether happy. The boy was timid and spent most of his time in a state of apprehension -probably at the thought of having to master the curriculum. Those were the days when schools 'for the sons of gentlemen' (the term was still in vogue) drilled their pupils in Lat1n and Greek to an accuracy and detailed knowledge unknown today. Of course, other subjects suffered. At Lamb rook it was particularly French, Wallace thought. So time went on and most holidays were spent with uncle and aunt, the usual lot of children whose parents were stationed abroad in the imperial era. There were no aeroplanes to help them: and when the aeroplanes came, there was no empire. But in 1903 change was on the way. Alec was now rising 12 and beginning to grow up. He made friends at school with one Robin Sturges whose widowed mother came from Headington, Oxford, with her large family

2 of nine to spend each summer at Ashgrove Farm, near Bodenham in Hereford where her husband had been vicar till his death. An invitation was issued, no doubt a welcome change for Alec. On arrival he at once recognised the third daughter, Winifred, whose photo he had already secretly admired hanging over his friend's bed in a school dormitory; the attraction was immediate and mutual. Childish affairs, if so they can be called, are common-place, to find one that is lasting is much more unusual; this one was to endure for 77 years. As a result of the encounter, on returning to Lambrook, Alec decided to abandon the project of a career in the Indian Army which would preclude marriage for a good many years. Instead he set his sights on the Indian Civil Service of which a school friend had told him that those joining would be assured of an income of £300 'alive or dead' (prep school language for a generous widows' pension?) which appeared to solve all possible fmancial problems. And it is fair to say that for the remaining nine years of his education Wallace never seems to have wavered from this objective. The first hurdle to be surmounted was the winning of a scholarship to a public school. In 1905 a trial shot at Rugby just failed, but three days later his uncle (with inner knowledge from his experience on the staff) was suggesting Clifton; here the boy was more successful and secured a £100 award. So he left Lambrook with every reason to feel grateful to its headmaster and the rigid classical curriculum. At about the same time the school changed hands and the holiday accommod·ation of a teenage boy became more difficult for his uncle and aunt. But an excellent solution proved to be at hand. Mrs. Sturges had taken a great liking to Alec and throughout the next eight years, five at Clifton and three at Cambridge, more or less adopted him into her family at Headington. Technically he was a paying guest, but on such moderate terms that in later years the guest was wont to say he could not otherwise have ever completed his education.

3 Chapter 11

Clifton

As a late entry 'floating' scholar Wallace had no choice of house and in later years reckoned himself lucky to have arrived at Rintoul's (now Oakeley's) in September 1905. D. Rintoul or 'the Major' as the boys nicknamed him, from his having done ten years in charge of the Cadet Force, was an excellent house­ master, strict and military in his discipline, but absolutely just and unexpectedly kind and sympathetic to anyone in trouble. Life was pleasant enough for a junior boy in his house save for the activities of a gang of middle school bullies who followed the unoriginal but effective method of visiting any individual who met with their disapproval: the intended victim was then accused of 'putting on side' and given what would now be called a roughing up. Wallace himself never suffered from their attentions, but the constant dread of their visits was a depressing obsession. The gang was finally defeated by a young Scot, who pulled out a revolver when the bullies appeared and informed them that he would shoot the first to lay hands on him; the popular opinion was that he would have kept his word. Anyway that particular gang broke up. 'The Major' of course knew nothing of the incident and no one saw fit to inform him. Firearms in schools have a long history, but they have always been illicit, although Victorian literature depicts them as manly and respectable for adults. In due course Wallace rose to be head of his house, a responsibility which he valued and took very seriously; he was resolved to rule with complete fair­ ness, but to suppress all bullying. A term or two after Wallace left, a young cousin who followed him remarked that his time was still referred to as 'the reign of terror'. On the other hand, on leaving Clifton, Wallace was admittedly glad to be quit of the responsibility. The two statements perhaps add up to a lively year. Of many friendships formed at school two in particular were close and lasting, though death was to cut both short. E. M. (Max) Salvesen, son of a judge of the Scottish bench was killed in 1915. F. W. Ogilvie was a prominent all­ rounder at school; son of a Scot, with a German mother (his second name was Wolff), he joined up, lost an arm and was gassed on Hill 60. After the war he had a distinguished academic career (and was courageous enough to keep up piano playing). In 1938 he got the chance to become Director General of the BBC but would not accept before consulting Wallace. After four successful years he was knighted and soon found himself Principal of Jesus College, Oxford; he died in this office in 1949. With his temperament Wallace was fortunate with the timing of his school­ days. Sir Henry Newbolt was but forty-five and his influence at its zenith. It was not yet fashionable to decry such things as Cadet Corps and cricket, in both

4 of which Wallace found great pleasure and satisfaction. The former in particular was flourishing at Clifton at this period. The new headmaster, David, was a very strong supporter and in 1906 got Lord Roberts down to talk to the boys. The familiar warning of a European War was greeted 'with deafening applause'. Rintoul's successor in command of the Cadet Corps was Captain H. Clissold, an Old Cliftonian who subsequently was to get a DSO before being killed in 1917 at the age of forty-six. Wallace was never to forget 'the thrill of my first Field Day; the parade in the dark in the early morning, the march to the station behind the bugles and drums of the band, and my first glimpse of the enemy, Malvern, about to attack our position on the hillside near Chipping Sodbury; at the end of a long and exciting day, our sergeant insisted on carrying my rifle to the station'. Those were the days when it was the hall mark of a good NCO to finish a march festooned with the rifles of his wearier comrades. In this case it was Heneage Ogilvie, brother of F. W.,also later to be knighted, for his services to medicine. His keenness ensured Wallace fairly rapid promotion through the three stripes; in his last year he was commissioned as lieutenant in charge of a company. At that time, by a curious anomaly, masters sometimes served in the ranks. On one occasion Wallace detected his form master, a man rising forty and former Head of the School, whispering on parade. The temptation was too great, and the offence elicited a sharp public rebuke. Next day he went up to apologise and was relieved to be greeted by a laugh and commendation of his 'proper' conduct. The system was to blame of course. Wallace was always a useful cricketer and was lucky enough to have a story­ book finish. In his fmal year he found himself struggling for one of the last places in the team. The crisis came when he was selected to play against Rugby: at the end of the first innings Clifton were over 100 behind, a large deficit largely removed on the second day by a magnificent century from their captain P. J. Richardson. Rugby were left with 135 to win, 134 to tie. 'Their ninth wicket fell at 134 and, as the last man came in, 'P. J.' threw the ball to me and said, 'You can see his knees knocking together; all he needs now is one straight ball, never mind the length, but it must be straight'. I sent down a straight half volley which took his leg stump, and the match thus ended in a tie. As we were walking back to the pavilion 'P. J.' came up to me and said,'Congrat­ ulations on your 1st XI colours'. 'No more exciting match has ever taken place in the Close; wrote a schoolboy journalist in 'The Cliftonian'. Wallace's own account was compiled over half a century later from a battered Wisden of 1910 which came into his possession in rather curious circumstances. In 1960, on the eve of his retirement, he was having supper in the Deanery at Exeter when there was a ring at the bell. On opening the door he was con­ fronted by a whitehaired elderly man who, to his surprise, greeted him by name, for he had no recollection of ever having seen him before; the visitor turned out to be P. J. Richardson, who brought the old Wisden as an offering 'to revive old memories'. Both men, in their very different ways, had had successful lives and Wallace thoroughly enjoyed the evening's reminiscences. In contrast to cricket, at Rintoul's there also survived house boxing 'once a fortnight in the dining hall during the winter terms' - never perhaps the most popular of exercises except for the spectators watching from the benches ranged on tables all round the walls, Wallace took his share as a junior, sometimes

5 of course settling old scores with an enemy. But he met his Waterloo when head of the house; he felt he should set an example and enter the competition. His opponent turned out to be the school heavyweight, and betting in the house was three to one on a knockout in the first half minute. In this predicament Wallace thought it prudent to invest in a few private lessons with the college professional. The latter, hearing the circumstances, advised withdrawal, but when assured that prestige made this impossible reluctantly began his instruc­ tion. This boiled down to 'Keep that straight left going, Sir: it's your only chance'. By following this advice, much to the surprise of the audience,Wallace kept his opponent at bay for two rounds. Gaining confidence through this particular success, in the middle of the third round I swung a punch with my right arm straight at his solar plexus and woke up in the changing room down­ stairs with Fred Ogilvie dabbing my forehead with a wet towel. I was told that it was a picturesque knockout and it put an end to my iRglorious boxing career. The gamblers had lost their money, but they were very generous in their congrat­ ulations on my having lasted so long'. The victor was killed in 1918. Long after­ wards, (though the above description is light hearted enough) in his years as a schoolmaster, Wallace consistently maintained that courage in the ring was one of the surest guides to a boy's character. Wallace's academic career was that of a clever and capable boy, not in the top flight of scholatship. He moved steadily up the school, taught by masters whose names are still remembered and by others, perhaps in their way no less effective, who are quite forgotten. His initiator in the Middle V was W. W. (Pup) Asquith, elder brother of the Prime Minister, then nearing the end of his time at Clifton. A man standing some five feet high he was famous for his sharp tongue and boys worked at full stretch to get away from it. This Wallace achieved in a couple of terms and came to rest, literally, in the Upper V; but the man in charge, who appeared so accommodating, proved a deceptive character and very soon Wallace found himself carpeted before the headmaster. Reluctantly returned to the grindstone, he secured promotion to the Lower VI a few days before his sixteenth birthday. This, however, raised fresh problems, for in those days at most public schools all sixth formers were ipso facto prefects: Wallace found himself in charge of a dormitory of several boys older and larger than himself. But he soon learnt that the system, backed by a strong tradition of sixth form solidarity, worked effectively. Rintoul filled up his top table with other 'bloods', but they were definitely subordinate in the house hierarchy. In schools today "'there is no such manifest triumph of brains over brawn - the two are respected equally. At the beginning of his third year Wallace attained the Upper VI and thus had nine terms under H. B. Mayor, 'a man with a heart of gold and a very fine scholar'. An association as long as this would be likely to lead either to frustration on both sides or the incurring of an unrepayable debt by the pupil: fortunately it turned out the latter. When Wallace was eighteen and the time came for university scholarships, his father (rather unwisely) stipulated that he could not accept anything less than £100, as he had two more boys to educate. On this condition then, entry was made at Oriel who in due course wrote to say that though they would have awarded £70 they regretted they could not go to £100. 'The Major' was sympathetic and came to the rescue with a suggestion that Wallace should

6 try Corpus, Cambridge, in the Christmas holidays (in those days Cambridge examined in December, January and March). Wallace agreed but~jaded and depressed by his Oxford experience, failed to do justice to the papers. He felt himself fortunate to be awarded an exhibition (which incidentally was raised to a scholarship at the end of his first year). Curiously the only real criticisms which Wallace made at Clifton related to the way his work was managed. He felt in after years that his Cambridge matriculation was cleared too late, thus causing last minute anxiety and. far more important, that the school had given little, if any, thought to his final objective, the Indian Civil Service (ICS) exam. The first was to some extent fair: during his last term the exhibitioner-elect discovered that he required a qualification in Maths to enter the university. Fortunately Clifton commanded the services ofR. C. Fawdry, as good a teacher as he was a writer of textbooks, and any danger was quickly removed. The second criticism was less reasonable, that he had been allowed to do some Science instead of German during his last three years; it could have been no part of a school's duty to look forward to an examination taking place a year after a university degree. Boylike, Wallace made sure he secured instruction in another compulsory I.C.S. subject, - riding, which, in a big town like Bristol, was readily available. So in July 1910 Wallace left Clifton, head of his house, in the cricket XI and a Cambridge exhibitioner. A good career, though many such peter out into lives of obscurity;but not this one.

7 Chapter Ill

Cambridge

At Clifton Wallace had been by no means well off but, generally speaking, at school this matters little. At Cambridge, where he arrived in October 1910, his financial situation was unchanged and, of course, a far greater anxietY, especially during his first year when he was subsisting on an exhibition only; he was forced to the level of cheap furniture, attic rooms, bread and cheese lunches and even to the purchase of second hand clothes. But he was lucky with the dons at Corpus. Will Spens had just arrived as Tutor and was already a considerable figure; later he was to be Master of the college and Vice-Chancellor. Geoffrey Butler taught History, a junior member of the great Cambridge family who would certainly have risen to a position of eminence had he not died when aged forty-one. Wallace was never a pupil, but the two had overlapped for a couple of terms at Clifton; so it was natural enough for him to join the informal gatherings in Butler's study enjoying his wordly wit and wisdom. Spens's rooms were equally thronged every Sunday evening with young men seated on the floor engaged in argument, debate and general conversation. After his first year Wallace was lucky enough to come under the supervision of Gordon Selwyn for his classical studies; he proved a good friend and an excellent teacher, staying at Corpus, as it happened, just long enough to see Wallace through his final schools in 1913 before moving on to become Warden of Radley and, later, Dean of Winchester. Young though he was at this time, Selwyn was already married and living out at some distance from the college. But even if he could not be very closely integrated with their communal life he was able to entertain undergraduates (Wallace amongst them) at the Manor, Southwell, where his father-in-law was the reigning bishop. Not so many of Wallace's contemporary scholars attained fame. The best known was perhaps L. S. Milne-Thompson, the mathematician; the most picturesque a well known oarsman who had not managed his fmances well and by his third year owed large sums of money to various Cambridge tradesmen, who sent agents to waylay him every afternoon on his way to the river. This involved varying circuitous detours to avoid them. Their quarry was not destined to survive more than a few months of the First World War. If he had been going to falter, it might well have been amidst university distractions but during the whole of his three years at Cambridge Wallace wavered not at all from his original objectives - to pass the stiff competition of the I.C.S. exam and thereafter to marry Winifred Sturges. He therefore worked fairly strenuously and saw but little of the opposite sex, claiming as his

8 one lapse a chaste kiss implanted on the cheek of a barmaid at The Bull Hotel after a party - and this only after being told that such a salutation was customary on leaving. Outside his work his chief interest was rowing; it was a wrench to give up cricket; but Wallace was not the first to discover that in its modest demands on a man's time - a couple of hours a day - rowing is in a class by itself. In this case too, as it happened, it was to serve as an introduction to the pleasures of continental travel. One or two of the oarsmen got into the way of calling in on a certain Father Waggett S. J. on their way back from the Boat Club and nearly always they were invited to stay for tea. One day Wallace was suddenly faced with the query, 'Would you like to come to Rome with me in the vac?' Wallace thinking it a joke replied promptly, 'Yes, of course, but I can't afford it'. 'Never mind; said Waggett, 'I'll pay'. And so to Wallace's delight it was arranged. There was a third member of the party, a man from King's. The trio stayed at the Hotel Hassler above the Spanish Steps and under Waggett's expert guidance missed few of the best sights. There was not, as now would be the case, any set length of stay. On the spur of the moment they left for Pisa, where the King's man collapsed, probably from vertigo, at the top of the Leaning Tower, but soon recovered. Thence to Florence and its galleries; both young men were immensely impressed by the genius of Michaelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini. And so home, taking in a first glimpse of Paris on the way back. Even by today's sophisticated standards this would rank as a memorable first holiday abroad and Wallace was tremendously grateful to Father Waggett for his generosity to a poor undergraduate. The idea of a possible convert and ordinand was bound to arise and was discussed quite frankly and agreeably before the holiday took place. As it happened the two undergraduates did both ultimately take orders, but in the Anglican church. Many years later, quite by chance, Wallace met his host again in the unromantic surroundings of the refreshment room of Carlisle station. After a long talk over coffee and biscuits he was presented with a copy of the Latin Vulgate which he t~~asured for the r~st of his life. There were two other continental outings from Cambridge, though Wallace never really discovered how he managed to afford them. At this distance of time one may perhaps suggest that the first - to Holland - has always been one of the cheapest holidays because everything worth seeing is so close to­ gether. The second was so obviously an extension of his ordinary work that it may have been subsidised by his parents. The Dutch holiday (with an American of his year at Corpus) was based on Amsterdam in a schoolmaster's house where the almost unvarying diet was black bread and hardboiled eggs - probably not productive of a large bill. The young men visited the accessible sights (luckily .finding the tulips almost at their best), Haarlem, The Hague and Rotterdam. But, curiously, the highlight seems to have been a diamond cutting works in Amsterdam itself, nowadays no great tourist attraction; here there was a model of the Koh-i-nor, presumably in its original Indian form, and a demonstration was given of how it had been cut 'by hand with a single blow with a chisel'. The other visit was during the Long Vac. to the somewhat unexciting town of Villerville in Normandy. This was primarily to repair a curious omission in the Clifton timetable, for Wallace had not studied a word of French since Lam brook

9 days. He was lucky, finding himself once again with a schoolmaster none of whose family knew any English, and himself the sole guest. Thus he had the fascinating experience of finding virtual non-comprehension change insensibly in about a month to understanding and this without too much formal instruction, for most of the days he spent wandering about Honfleur, Bayeux and Caen, names not then quite the household words in England that they were to become just over thirty years later. An unusual and profitable holiday one might say, but for Wallace it was an unwelcome discovery that pre-1914 Normandy houses lacked bathrooms and his recollections of the jug and basin were long lasting. Back in Cambridge, Winnington Ingram, bishop of London, spoke in Spens's rooms to a group of undergraduates from various colleges. Wallace was present and after the meeting, to his surprise, was asked by the bishop to pay a visit with another undergraduate to Fulham Palace. Not many men during their university years can twice have enjoyed the hospitality of bishops. Evidently Walla~e was already developing that outstanding personality which was always to distinguish him. Winnington Ingram was a most cheerful, if extremely busy, host. He left his guests largely to amuse themselves; in the evening he gave them a latchkey with the r~mark. 'Go and have some fun, but don't do anything I wouldn't'. This instruction the two young men observed with most meticulous accuracy; it was a very illuminating experience for them. If these were the highlights of vacations, the norm (and a very happy one) was to pass the time as a paying guest of the Sturges family at a nominal £1 per week. Wallace recorded that his unhappiest period at Cambridge was the Christmas vacation of 1911-12 when the Sturges family went to Switzerland for the winter sports and he was left entirely on his own. 'I was forced to take a temporary tutorship in Gloucestershire to coach a boy for the Common Entrance examination to Charterhouse. My pupil and I did not get on at all well ·and on the last morning he expressed his natural dislike by sliding under the table where we were sitting and biting me on the calf; I hauled him out and gave him a good slap on the behind. I was a trifle apprehensive how his father would react to this, and decided to go for a long walk out of his father's range until it was time for my train to take me back to Cambridge. A confrontation was, however, inevitable as I had to return and pack, and sure enough I met him just outside the front door and braced myself for a very stirring interview, but I need not have worried; he came up, shook hands, and said he was delighted I had given his son such a well deserved shake-up, and we parted the best of friends'. In this case, a poor vacation was only a prelude to an even poorer six months, for in the middle of the Lent Term 1912 Wallace contracted typhoid fever, probably from infected milk in a restaurant at Cowes whither he had been summoned at the end of a telegram to see his younger brother who was seriously ill with meningitis at Osborne. After a day or two back at Cambridge Wallace's own fever began with a raging headache on the morning following a Bump Supper. At first the obvious inference was drawn and no notice taken. But as his condition failed to improve, ultimately his friends secured a doctor, who diagnosed typhoid and sent the patient straight to bed in his rooms. Things are better organised today, but seventy years ago colleges were ill adapted to cope with sick undergraduates. Wallace had two months in b~d on a near starvation diet of whisky, milk and a few grapes (a fruit which for the rest of his life he could never face again) under the supervision of a private nurse; the latter

10 was however unable to control numerous parties of visitors who probably, without in the least realising it, did much to overtire the too popular patient. Though not well enough to tackle his classics, Wallace did, however, manage to get some serious English reading done, unworried, he records, by the prospects of the damage it might do to his place in the Tripos, not to mention the I.C.S. exam in the year after. Four months more of convalescence were to go by before he could resume a normal life. None the less, in his last year Wallace became President of the college Boat Club and rowed at number five immediately behind W. M. Asquith, a rowing blue, who was up at Ridley Hall for a fourth year; subsequently he was to be­ come bishop of Blackburn, then of Gloucester, but before that, as will be seen, he had a significant part to play in Wallace's career. At the beginning of the rowing year Wallace was still overweight and in poor condition for a university trial cap, which disappointed h)m. He had, even so, won the College sculls and, rowing behind Asquith, the College pairs. Then followed the rigorous training before the 'Lents' and 'Mays' - no smoking, very little beer, and in bed by 10 o'clock - with happy memories of its compensations, the enormous breakfasts consumed together after an early training walk at 7.30 a.m. each day and the intense camaraderie within the VIII throughout the term. In May 1913 the boat went up two places and rose to the First Division, thus qualifying for a visit to Henley, where they just failed to beat the Royal Engineers. Another favourite diversion, quite apart from the Boat Club, was member­ ship, as a trooper, of the Cambridge Squadron of King Edward's Horse. Recruiting was confmed to men from the Empire overseas, and Wallace qualified by his birthplace in India. Somewhat surprisingly the riding master was a very tough instructor indeed; his rough and ready discipline was not wasted on a future candidate for the I.C.S. where competent horsemanship was essential. In August 1911 the Cambridge contingent went into camp with other squadrons from Oxford, London and Liverpool; it was while they were under canvas that the Agadir crisis blew up and for some days it looked as though Britain might be involved in a war with Germany. The regiment was present together ready for mobilisation and this lent quite an edge to the training. Wallace's tent mate was Colin Crawford of Trinity Hall, an Old Cliftonian, also an I.C.S. candidate and later to become famous as a Himalayan mountaineer. He possessed a horse which was unfortunately dirty grey and its owner was constantly being reprimanded for its appearance. Before a big regimental parade Wallace, quite undeterred by any sense of the occasion, suggested that the animal be treated with blanco. This proved at first a success, the effect being that of a medieval knight t>n a snow white charger; but the glamour was short lived for as soon as the squadron began to canter, clouds of white dust enveloped both rider and mount and finally the last state of the horse was rather worse than the first, as the blanco had been intended to conceal marry deficiencies in grooming. The troops were highly amused; the Squadron Commander was not. In such pranks Wallace more than once took part, but not to an undue extent. On his first Guy Fawkes night he found himself at the top of a lamp post extinguishing the gas light, only to observe a constable approaching. He

11 descended in haste, caste a half-crown on the pavement and fled. This Atalanta -like stratagem succeeded and he never saw the man again. On another occasion he and some friends filched four ducks from the river, got them through the streets under their gowns and smuggled them into college by the ancient device of getting an accomplice to haul them up one by one in a dirty clothes bag. An attempt was then made, not very successfully, to hold a Duck Derby in the Old Quadrangle. In due course the college porter appeared, broke up the meeting and the next day had the bother of restoring the ducks to their proper habitat; likewise, no doubt, the young gentlemen of compensa­ ting him for his trouble. Perhaps the least tasteful of these escapades was the invasion of the dons' Common Room by a party at 1 am to consume an imported dinner. The food was not good, but a flashlight photo was taken and all were enjoying themselves when the sound of footsteps coming down from the Tutor's room speedily dispersed the company, most of whom sprang into their beds fully clothed to pass an uneasy night. Wallace relates these pranks almost in a spirit of penance 'with no pride at all'. But he confesses to being intrigued by a sight of the photo many years iater, preserved in a Midlands vicarage. Its owner perhaps possessed a less sensitive conscience. Seventy years later it is hard to say how wild and irrespon­ sible all this sort of thing was considered at the time. Judged against the sit­ ins, chanting demos and very occasional vicious outbursts of 'students' today, the 'rags', as they were called, of pre-1914 'undergraduates' seem just naive. In the summer of 1913 Wallace was placed in the 1st Division of the 2nd Class of the Classical Tripos. No doubt it was said that but for his six months illness the year before he would have got a first: Wallace himself, remembering Mayor's judgement at Clifton ,'He is not in the first flight of scholarship', was modestly not so sure. When soon after he took his B.A. degree, he found himself penniless and was forced to borrow the fees from the college Tutor; at this moment, deus ex machina, his father returned on leave from India and settled the matter. Wallace was extremely contrite, but no one can now exactly apportion blame - extravagance or over cautious disbursement of allowance?

12 Chapter IV

London and Oxford

At this time competitors for the I.C.S. had to be between twenty-two and twenty-four - the service required a degree of maturity in its recruits. As a result, the average undergraduate who wished to enter found himself with a year on his hands. To bridge this and to make assurance doubly sure an army of crammers had arisen. At one of the best known of these General Wallace booked a place for his son, Wren's of Powis Square, Bayswater, with comfort­ able accommodation nearby, a large sitting room with bedroom behind, at 84 Talbot Road for the inclusive charge of £3 per week. This settled, and fortified by the clearance of his debts, Wallace set off to Norway; his path had crossed once more with that of his school friend Max Salvesen (who had been reading Law at Oxford) and he had received an invitation to the holiday home of the latter's parents. Unfortunately on the very night of his arrival he fell ill of an acute gastric infection to which the doctors could attach no name and spent most of the holiday in bed, thereafter Judge and Lady Salvesen with great kindness insisted on his completing his convalescence at their home in Edinburgh. All this took time and Wallace was three weeks late in starting his cramming, a dispiriting start to what was to be a dispiriting year anyway. Wren's was efficient, but to any young man fresh from the university the routine must have appeared grim and dreary. Lectures morning and afternoon, homework in the evening. Ten hours work a day, with two breaks, lunch one to two and exercise four to five; this last Wallace spent regularly in a walk to the Round Pond and back - a good choice but not enough. He bought a punch ball to limber up in his digs, but very soon other tenants complained of the noise and that was that. The food at No. 84 was excellent and the landlady kind, but garrulous. Obviously thinking her lodger was lonely she would talk at length while she cleared away the supper- he, of course, wishing nothing more than to get on with his homework. All his life Wallace was an early to bed and early to rise man, and this particular regime did not suit him. However there were compensations; on Saturdays Wren's closed its doors at noon and the young men could do what they liked with their weekend. Many worked throughout in their lodgings; Wallace, rightly or wrongly, made a bee­ line for Paddington and caught the one p.m. to Oxford where he was met by Winifred Sturges on her motorbike and sidecar (surely now totally unknown as a method of locomotion for women) and off they went to The Lindens, Headington, for a much needed break, a game of golf, or in summer tennis. Though these surroundings had been familiar to him for so many years, it is true to say that these brief visits at the end made the deepest impression of all. Later Mrs. Sturges sold the property to a Roman Catholic order who in-

13 stalled a completely closed community of nuns. However on a subsequent visit many years later Wallace, explaining his former connection with the place, prevailed on the sister gardener to admit him for a few moments and he had the queer experience of looking through a squint at the altar set up in the former drawingroom. Return to London on the Sunday evenings after these breaks could hardly have been a very cheerful business. All his life Wallace disliked the capital and avoided it whenever he could; who can be sure that his initiation was not the cause? However, everything, good and bad, comes to an end at last, and with the summer of 1914 the examination was very quickly at hand. At his final inter­ view in July the Principal of Wreri's, no doubt already with an eye on his September lists, advised Wallace to book a place for the following year, as only the cleverer men passed at their first attempt. History does not record the reply. The examination began on August I st and from the security of his room the day before Wallace could hear the sh9uts of the crowd and the cries of the newsboys proclaiming the beginning of hostilities. For the candidates it was a distracting prelude to their long awaited and critical test but they were officially advised to carry on with the examination nevertheless. If they failed they could join up as soon as the results were published, if they passed they would later be given the chance to get a commission in the Indian Army Reserve. So the candidates struggled on with their papers, but that particular August was one of the hottest within memory and it was painful to sit sweating in an exam­ ination hall while friends were getting into uniform. The ordeal lasted on and off for a month; some days there were two three­ hour papers and at other times a complete day off, but the strain was on the whole time. Of the period Wallace retained just two vivid memories. His last paper of all was Greek Verse, a subject he had studied for many years. Tennyson into iambics; to his delight he found he was in form and the Greek slipped smoothly into place. By half-time all was fmished, but three revisions followed before, thinking best to let well alone, he handed in and took the train to Oxford in excellent spirits. Throughout that night he was violently ill, a curious delayed reaction. The second vignette was tragi-comic. One minute before the end of an exam the chief supervisor rang a bell and announced that in sixty seconds he would ring again when everyone would stop writing at once. On one occasion the man in front of Wallace completed a sentence - a half sentence, a few words at the most. The supervisor rose and stalking towards the culprit seized his two large notebooks, tore them to pieces and put them into the waste paper basket. What sort of an official to destroy thus a man's chance of a career? Wallace recollected watching the man's neck and ears turn scarlet and thinking (with shame) 'well, one rival the less'. The unlucky man was seen no more, either in the examination room or in India. The results came a month later, in September. 72 out of200 passed, Wallace was seventieth. He discovered that his best marks were in Political Economy, about which he reckoned to know little, and French which he had not touched since the age of thirteen except colloquial practice in Normandy and a very few formal lessons at Wren's. Latin and Greek came much lower and in particular fot Greek Verse he scored nought. If his recollection on all this is correct Wallace

14 could never have had much faith in examiners again; but,if so, during his school­ mastering years he concealed the fact very effectively. Shortly afterwards the successful candidates had to pass a riding test at Woolwich. For some this must have been an additional ordeal, but not for Wallace who had never got out of practice since his schooldays. There now followed the last stage of the long preliminary training, the so­ called 'probationary year'. There was some choice of venue and Wallace, given the chance, naturally opted for Oxford. Here he was based on Christ Church, but of course, all the usual university life was in suspense. The fifty probationers integrated themselves to the extent of drilling in the O.T.C. and spending a couple of afternoons a week in the riding school, otherwise they were very much on their own and had to keep their heads down. Wallace himself was handed a white feather by a woman. Not many instances,if any, spring to mind of those with courage enough to record such an incident about themselves. There was plenty for the probationers to learn, Indian history and Hindustani for example. They also had to attend and write reports on twelve English cases, six at the level of magistrates' court, six at assizes. For one of the latter Wallace reported on a murder trial, with a verdict of guilty; it made an indelible impression. Formidable as all this sounds, the strain was less than in the year before. True, no probationer could afford to fail the final test looming ahead in September 1915, but it was qualifying, not competitive -and this made all the difference; each man knew what he was up against. Amongst this company Wallace made several new friends. One was the only Indian, Girja Bajpai, who after Independence became India's Ambassador in Washington; but his last meeting with Wallace was long before this, a chance encounter outside the Louvre in 1938. Another was Charles Ogilvie, an Oxonian and brilliant enough to secure a First in the Cambridge History Tripos while on a long furlough from India. Later he was knighted for services in the Punjab. Thus by coincidence Wallace had two close friends of the same name, F. W. Ogilvie from Clifton days and now Charles, unrelated, and both knighted. Here again a chance meeting lay many years ahead- in Exeter in 1955 when Wallace was Dean of the cathedral. By this time Wallace and Winifred were officially engaged and they decided to get married during the summer well before he was due to sail for India. This appeared rash to friends and relations as a probationer's pay was only £137 a year and even this pittance would disappear if anything went wrong in the September exam. However the young people got their way and were married on 26th June 1915 at Highfield Church near Oxford. The honeymoon was spent on the Norfolk Broads; on their return the couple found themselves loaded with presents of food and clothes - not that there were any shortages in 1915 England; but it was a tactful way of giving money. Another relative offered the loan of a large mansion in Eaton Square complete with staff. The butler was unable to conceal his feelings and appeared supercilious, but the young pair were far too happy to worry. Here they had a grandstand view of a Zeppelin raid on London, mild in its effect compared with the Blitz of World War II, but more picturesque as the silver cigar-shape glided across the sky in the bright searchlights. Despite honeymoon and _post-honeymoon Wallace had gauged things right and successfully negotiated his exam at the end of S'eptember 1915 passing seventeenth out of fifty. The way was at last clear to India. 15 Chapter V

Early Days in the I.C.S.

Winifred was already 'expecting' when Wallace had to set out on his first assign­ ment and reluctantly it was decided that it would be best for her to stay at home to have her baby in familiar surroundings'. Later she would join her husband by which time he would be installed in new home and post. A wise decision probably but it was to be a painful parting. Any voyage to the East in the latter part of 1915 ran through waters reputedly infested with hostile submarines. Passengers took their turn to watch but,apart from one night when speed was increased owing to pursuit, it was said, by a hostile craft, nothing further was heard of the threat. Various ex-Wren's pupils were on board and one member at least of that non­ residential establishment revealed an unsuspected and remarkable accomplishment - the ability to eat every dish on the menu at every meal (on one occasion topping up with eleven bananas). After passing Port Said it was assumed that all danger was over; however near Suez the ship ground to a halt on a sandbank, which involved one more anxious night of blackout as rumour had it that there was a Turkish battery on the shore of the Sinai peninsula; if so the gunners were either asleep or uninterested, for no shots were fired. Next day the ship refloated and made its way to Bombay without further incident. Here the I.C.S. men were roughly allocated to their destined parts of India and Wallace, with one companion, found himself enjoying the temporary hospitality in Allahabad of no less a one than the Chief Secretary, then known familiarly as 'Dickie' Burn (later Sir Richard). Their host received them kindly and sent them off on the first day to attend a meeting at which the chief speaker was Annie Besant. Wallace never forgot this incongruous introduction to India and the skill with which the famous Fabian and rationalist handled her audience, mainly Indian students, working them through shouts of applause to growls of rage and floods of tears. Quite soon Wallace got his first posting, to Meerut, where his senior officer was James Pearson, the collector and a married man. He found himself sharing a bungalow in cantonments with two more junior bachelor colleagues, a magistrate and assistant superintendent of police. ARW was thrown in at once at the deep end as a third class magistrate with powers of one month's imprisonment or a fme of 100 rupees (£6). His first case, one of assault, took all day and resulted in a fine of 5 rupees. However, stimulated no doubt by the amusement of his colleagues at such a modest rate of progress and aided by his clerk, a kindly, middle aged Hindu, he soon learnt the tricks of the trade, the lawyers and their rehearsed witnesses, and found the cases easier to deal with yet still absorbing. But it was hard work; after a full day in court there were departmental exams to prepare for before assuming full powers. In particular this involved working

16 with a native teacher every evening to qualify at a high standard in the local languages, essential for the rapid give and take of the courts. Dull occupation no doubt, especially when everyone else on the station was relaxing at the club. However Wallace realistically faced up to the fact that on £300 a year, there could not possibly be any drinking, polo or leave for him. Tennis on the other hand was free and as possession of a horse was de rigeur he could ride as much as he liked. His first mount, a fme, strong five year old, he secured for £5; the reason for this modest price was not far to seek, for taken out on the Maidan or large open field so often found near Indian cities, the animal proved a confirmed bolter. His owner however found that after a quarter of an hour's gallop his mount calmed down and thereafter would afford a measure of service; so the investment was not such a bad one after all. Indian civilians had, of course, to live in some style. Wallace was attended by four servants, but their wages averaged less than £1 each per month. Rent and upkeep of the bungalow was shared by all the occupants. In the meantime the evenings of hard work had paid off. Within a few months of arrival Wallace had passed the Intermediate Departmental Exam and became a second class magistrate with another 100 rupees a month in his pocket. This however was shortly to be required for fares and family reunion as will be seen. After a period in the courts Wallace was switched to work in rural India and towards the end of 1915 found himself in camp with Mr. and Mrs. Pearson who were kind and conscientious in showing him the ropes. But for Christmas they returned to Meerut leaving their pupil on his own in a Dak bungalow (reserved for temporary use by officers on tour). Here Wallace rather enjoyed his first taste of being on his own and spent much of his time shooting, at that period a fairly cheap sport in India. An interruption however occurred when he was required to hold an inquest on an old man run down by a car; this he contrived to do successfully (without, of course, previous experience) with the aid of the appropriate manual which was infallibly at hand. Other jobs included a report on the depredations of field mice in the district and recommended sitings for government sponsored wells. These were produced in voluminous form, sent to H.Q. and (save for a brief acknowledgment six months later) never heard of again. Back at Meerut in the spring of 1916 Wallace received a cable from England announcing the birth of his first child, a daughter, Evelyn. For some days in club and bungalow, he was cheerfully addressed as 'Daddy' - an interesting example of what could pass for humour sixty years ago, perhaps not only in British India. When the joking had ceased the proud father was still faced with the problem of steamship fares- ultimately solved, but with some difficulty. Meantime work continued to be varied. In the absence of the regular official Wallace was ordered to take over as Superintendent of the local jail. Here there were plenty of novel sights. Carpet making by hand was fascinating, the pattern forming under the eye as the weavers on either side of the frame called out the requisite colours of the threads to each other, red, red, green, red , blue etc. Other customs would have fitted less well into the English prison regime, the securing of remission by the collection of the corpses of snakes and scorpions or the occasional showers of opium pellets projected over the walls by the prisioners' friends outside. A very unpleasant duty was the supervision of executions, always early in

17 the morning and involving the interruption of the victim's last walk to enquire his name, his father's name and his village - to compare this information with the warrant. After such incidents Wallace found himself quite unable to eat for several hours. About this time he nearly wrecked his career permanently. He was playing tennis at the club when a messenger brought him a telegram; the game was close and absorbing, and thoughtlessly he stuffed the envelope into his trouser pocket unopened. Later that evening just by chance he happened to turn it out. It was a reprieve for a man spending his last night in the condemned cell. Wallace was of course, at the prison within minutes where, irony of ironies, the prisoner was far from pleased and demanded to be hanged rather than spend the rest of his days in the Andaman Islands. It is a hair raising little story; suppose he had not turned his pocket out? Yet in after years Wallace took it in his stride as a semi-humorous episode. One other Meerut incident was not likely to be forgotten. The local super­ intendent of police was tipped off that a large gang of dacoits, some forty in number, were to assemble in a disused temple three miles outside the city before making a series of raids on neighbouring villages. So an ambush was prepared and four groups of police hidden round the temple, two in charge of superintendents, two in charge of junior magistrates. On the agreed signal of a revolver shot the groups would converge and capture the gang in the temple. As the light slowly faded white figures were seen slipping quietly into the building. At last a gun shot was heard and the group closed in. Wallace managed one shot at a white figure, but clearly missed as his target, after executing a very agile high jump, disappeared into the darkness, although subsequently a dozen prisoners were taken. It reads strangely perhaps that today's policeman should be one and the same as tomorrow's magistrate; this though was not England, but India, ruled then not by democratic government, but by a benign bureaucracy which was regarded as and was completely incorruptible. Thus it was quite in order that Wallace, both here and elsewhere, should use both executive and judicial powers (the former including amongst other things supervision of police). A more public display of arms was provided by membership of the United Provinces Light Horse, a unit of the local defence force; with parades only once a fortnight and a C .0. (in civil life a distinguished judge) who is remembered as a figure of fun. The level of training was equivalent perhaps to the Cambridge O.T.C. and the military value of the unit was not high. But more serious soldiering lay ahead. With a world war raging it was necessary for the British Government to keep an effective force in India to deal with any German plots or outbreak of sedition. In fact between 200 and 300 members of the I.C.S. were seconded for commissions. Wallace's own time in Meerut was in fact coming to an end. In July 1916 he was notified that his application for a commission in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers had been accepted and that he was posted to the 17th Cavalry then stationed at Jhansi. There very soon followed instructions from the Adjutant with details of equip­ ment required. The 17th, it transpired, was a Sillader regiment in which, by custom dating back to the Mutiny, every man and of course every army officer had to provide his own charger (in non-Sillader regiments all these were provided by a benign Government). This presented Wallace with an immediate problem, for his bolter could never be trusted on a proper parade of regulars, and he had

18 no money for another mount. However deus ex machina- a man turned up at the club, the owner of a horse for which he wanted no money, only a good home (one thinks of cats today). Wallace accepted the offer and next morning took delivery of a mare (named by him Mildred) which, to put it mildly, had already devoted her best years to the service of man. However the adjutant's letter had not specified what kind of charger the joining officer was required to bring. So in due course Wallace, with his steed,quitted Meerut en route for Jhansi.

19 Chapter VI

Army Life in India

It is the privilege of adjutants to be outspoken and the 17th Cavalry was no exception. The first words addressed to Wallace on arrival in Jhansi were 'Good God, what's that?' followed by a cheerful 'we shall have to send you up a mount from the lines'. Yet poor Mildred was to serve her master as second string for two years more when he finally gambled her away on a game of billiards. There was, of course, a good deal for an amateur to learn in a regular regiment. Things like the series of trumpet calls for drill movements came fairly easily. Less obvious were such little facts that a parade in marching order included, amidst a welter of other impedimenta, tent pegs stuck in the saddle. If a rider mounted without loosening them, the animal would be (and in ARW.s case was) goaded into unmanageable frenzy. More important - the imponderables of regimental ethos and tradition. The colonel seemed at first a rather awe-inspiring person; he was a fme disciplinarian but a man of uncertain temper, particularly in the early part of the day. Naturally swarthy, on first parades his complexion assumed a deep gamboge tint. Officers and men alike frequently wore light turbans and on one occasion a young subaltern, deceived by this, addressed him with the words 'Salaam, sahib', thereby revealing only too clearly that he took him for an Indian. Made abruptly aware of his error, he stupidly attempted to express his apologies by taking his place next to the colonel at breakfast. The latter looked up from his paper, glared and said, 'Robinson - clear - right - out'. In due course Wallace himself became adjutant and established a very friendly relationship with his C.O. who even offered him a regular conunission. This however, as a family man without private means, Wallace was obliged to decline. The 17th Cavalry was not a regiment in which officers could live on their pay. The colonel did, though, secure Wallace's gratitude in an unusual way. A general order was issued that all I.C.S. men were to return to their provinces to act as recruiting officers: in other words, as Wallace felt strongly, to go about enlisting men while remaining in security themselves. The colonel rescued his colleague from this predicament by pulling strings and actually getting the order rescinded. The mess too had a happy atmosphere; by no means all the officers were regulars, the remainder a typical cross section of civilians in uniform. But there was one inharmonious stock character, a senior regular who affected to despise all temporary soldiers, lumping them together as 'quill drivers' or even 'babus'. Wallace was much amused when, by some chance remark, it came out that his father was a general in the regular army; a considerable change of manner was immediately observable! The other ranks, Punjabi, Mussulmans and Pathans were first rate material arid the relationship between otlicers and men (devotion is not too strong a

20 A. R. W. after a day's fishing in Wa les, late 1930's

word) was an eye-opener to Wallace, hitherto more familiar with the seamy side of Indian life. One incident during his time put this attachment to a severe test. The twelve year old son of an Indian officer took a pot shot at a sparrow with a .22 rifle. A trooper's son from a neighbouring squadron was passing by; the bullet went straight through his heart and he fell dead. There was a risk of this starting a feud between the two families concerned, involving escorts for men going on leave and such inconveniences. But as it turned out nothing further came of the matter. However one overriding consideration affected everybody. There was little if any, chance of the 17th Cavalry being sent on active service. At the begin­ ning of the war they had been posted to Mesopotamia, but on arrival at Bombay there was found to be an outbreak of glanders amongst the horses and the regiment was sent back to Jhansi to be used as a training depot; thus if an officer did go on active service, he had to do so as an individual. The prospect therefore was the somewhat dull one of garrison duty with a good deal of the time spent training remounts. This involved starting with raw wafers that had never been ridden and working on them till they could drill in the ranks. The attainment of top class physical condition was also obviously very important. Wallace was once involved in an incident that was amusing only to look back on. An inspection was due and he impressed on his troop commander the importance of the horses looking fat and fit. On the day all went well, the Brigadier was pleased and said so; then, as inspecting officers will, he went off at a tangent and demanded to see the men's quarters. The first three huts were impeccable , but the fourth was found to be occupied by four of the most

21 scraggy 'bad doers' in the squadron. In response to an inquiring look,Wallace could only aver he was as surprised as anyone and had no explanation to offer. But there was a twinkle in the Brigadier's eye and nothing more was ever heard of the matter. In such an equestrian atmosphere it is not surprising that polo was a compulsory activity for officers. The game has not got great spectator appeal, but fortunately Wallace loved it and for the rest of his time in India reckoned it to be without rival. Certainly at Jhansi it filled many otherwise empty hours. Not that everything was perfection. The regiment contained a certain Pathan officer, naturally fiery and rumoured to be an embittered man as well (he had eloped with a married woman and seemed punished by Allah with a family of five daughters in a row and no son). A thrustful rider at any time, in a crisis he would go beserk and on one occasion landed Wallace on his head with the inside screw of his to pi imbedded ~ inch in his scull; he carried the scar for life. After the war, at the end of his time in India,he had developed considerable skill in training ponies and found that a raw animal bought for £5 could be sold after a few weeks for £50 to newly joined young officers; he reckoned that at the end of the day such transactions paid all his polo bills over the years. Soon at Jhansi the scene brightened even more. It had been arranged that Winifred and the baby were to join ARW in October 1916. Departure date and progesss through the Mediterranean were known of course and ARW spent some anxious days; however all went well and he obtained leave to meet his family in Bombay (600 miles distant, but no great distance by Indian standards). When the longed for moment arrived, the baby, Eve, frightened by the hooting of a tug, could only bawl lustily. Small matter;her parents were reunited after a year and never again were Alec and Winifred to be so long apart. They set up together in the ramshackle bungalow where he was already installed and made light of its deficiencies; it was their first home and they had it entirely to them­ selves. Wives in British India, whether of civilians (as Winifred expected to be) or of soldiers, led rather a dreary life. There was usually a large staff of servants to cope with shopping, popular because of the rake-off they got, housework and the garden, while the husbands, like their counterparts in England were out most of the day at work. The memsahibs were thrown back on tennis or dancing at the club (plus gossip, of course) and riding. Gossip was a thing in which all her life Winifred was to take little interest, but she enjoyed learning to ride a quiet horse of her husband's and even did a little mild jackal hunting with the local pack (mixed foxhounds and nondescripts). The baby was a regimental favourite, notably with ARW's native groom, but she was not left for very long as the only pebble on the beach, as in October 1917 she was joined by a brother, Ian. About this time riding, which had up till now been such a pleasure, involved Wallace in a tiresome and alarming experience. There was in the regiment a very ill-tempered mare which was studiously avoided as a mount by all the men. The troop commander reported this and complained that the animal was losing condition through lack of exercise. Wallace, who on his own admission by now rather fancied himself as a horse trainer, decided to have a try himself. After attempting to tire his mount by riding her in a rough nullah by the parade

22 ground, he allowed his concentration to falter. Sensing this the mare reared up and fell sharply backwards pinning the rider's right leg beneath the saddle. No bones were broken but a large lump shortly appeared on the inside of the right thigh which showed no sign of subsiding. The regimental M.O. did not care for the look of things and decreed a medical board in Bombay whither (by what seems an old variation of professional etiquette) he accompanied his patient. The board duly made their examination and it was broken to Wallace, in guarded terms, that a bone section was required; this was taken. The patient, naturally expecting the worst, was then put off day after day for a week by the M.O. on his round with an abrupt 'Nothing from the lab. yet. Don't worry, we'll let you know at once'. Finally Wallace was awakened very early one morning by a young R.A.M.C. officer who had the next bed; he had b.een wounded at Kut over a year before and could still hardly get about. His message was welcome. 'It's all right - not malignant'. It appeared that, taking pity on ARW's anxiety, he had got up at the erack of dawn, negotiated three flights of stairs, entered the M.O .'s office and been lucky enough to find the report lying open on the desk. That day the M.O. did not appear on the morning round but at 6 p.m. he stopped at the foot of the bed and made as though to pass on, adding almost as an after-thought, 'Oh, by the way your report is in and it is all right'. The tension broke: Wallace enquired whether a patient's anxiety ever crossed his mind and upbraided his indifference and delay in no uncertain terms. A fairly safe outburst actually for he was not a soldier but had a secure civilian job to fall back on. The M.O.'s response was predictable, a stony stare and silent exit from the ward; it is not always easy for patients to appreciate that if hospital doctors did not preserve a measure of detachment they would quickly lose their reason. History does not relate whether in this case the source of such an obvious leak was ever checked up - one hopes the R.A.M.C. officer did not suffer for his kindness. India had one more medical fright in store for Wallace. At the end of his time, it was discovered that a servant, in charge of his clothes, towels, soap etc. had developed leprosy. In the initial alarm, of course, the contact examined himself for a month for any untoward symptoms - then forgot all about it. Seventeen years later in England he was reading the memoirs of a leper doctor who set the incubation at up to fifteen years. Even after so long an interval Wallace admitted to a startled totting up of dates. Where ignorance is bliss .... Back in Jhansi Wallace soon found himself riding again and, now a trifle weary of regimental routine and fearing perhaps another recruiting assignment, put in a request to Simla for an active service posting; after no more than the usual few months' delay this was to lead to the concluding stage of his time in the army.

23 Chapter VII

Active Service

The posting ultimately turned out to be to the Patiala Imperial Service Lancers who were stationed in Mesopotamia. This theatre of war was not destined to be a very active one, equally it was by no means close at hand; in fact to reach it involved about 2500 miles of varied travel (approximately the width of the Atlantic). In August 1918 the train journey across the Sind Desert was hot and dusty, but three days in a comfortable hotel in Karachi and the sea breezes afforded some compensation. Thereafter a troop ship to base camp in Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf. Damp heat is the hardest of conditions to endure; it was a relief to board a paddle steamer which was to negotiate the serpentine course of the Tigris up to Baghdad. There were some interesting places en route; Kut, the scene of the famous siege of 1915-16, the vaulted hall of the ancient city of Ctesiphon and so on. At Baghdad it was necessary to transfer to a freight wagon and bear southwards again in order to reach Hillah where the Patiala Lancers were stationed. The regiment at this stage of the war was semi-permanently on lines of communications duties and the set-up of the command was unusual in that there were only six British officers, the colonel, the M.O., and four junior reservists; moreover these, in theory, were acting in an advisory capacity not an executive one. In the event this order was a dead letter; the Indian officers showed no sign of wishing to run the show. On his first parade Wallace found himself being saluted and asked for instructions by his Sikh major; so it just came about naturally, without any formal arrangement, that each British junior officer took over a squadron. The Sikhs made fme soldiers, but Wallace felt that the. standard of training was not as high or the liaison between officers and men as close as in the 17th Cavalry. There was no formal campaigning, but the regiment suffered a good deal from trigger-happy Turkish stragglers sniping at their camp during the night. No attempt was made to dim lights (though blackouts were familiar enough during the first war) because the great inconvenience would hardly have protected so large a target. On one occasion the officers were sitting down to dinner when a bullet hit a bucket quite close to the colonel's chair, which both frightened and enraged him. Turning abruptly to Wallace he said, 'Take a troop out and bring that man in at once, alive or dead'. Leaving his scarcely started meal, Wallace ordered his troopers to saddle up and led them out on an un­ promising errand. To fmd a sniper in the desert at night is akin to a needle and a haystack; however he ranged the men in a wide semi-circle with orders to close in on the camp as quietly as possible; himself he stationed in the middle with a sergeant beside him. Darkness, as usual, created its illusions, but suddenly the sergeant touched Wallace's reins and they came to an abrupt halt; in silence he

24 pointed to a bush just a few yards away. Sure enough the outline of a crouching figure became clear and there alongside was his rifle. Wallace pulled out his revolver, loosed the safety catch and took aim; the figure sprang up and raised his rifle. Suddenly a voice inside Wallace's head said, 'Don't shoot'. It was no sniper, but a shepherd with his crook keeping watch 'over his flock by night', as in the Christmas hymn. This account with its biblical overtones and expressing gratitude for 'the voice' was written many years later and in full maturity. At that time perhaps it was just frustrating to return empty-handed. Otherwise, for the regiment, it was mostly a question of filling in time with shooting and polo, though one exercise was taught which A.R.W. actually found useful after the war was over - how to get horses and their riders over a deep river without drowning either. The place chosen for this was the Diala river, a tributary of the Tigris, and the favoured technique was to grasp the mane of the horse and swim alongside - always on the downstream flank. Within a few miles of the camp at Hillah lay the ruins of the ancient Babylon. At first sight this appeared to be merely a mud mound situated amongst the sandhills, but further inspection revealed a street corner strikingly decorated with mythical monsters; this, the showpiece on view, had ironically just been excavated in 1914 by a German archaeological expedition which had had to quit the site in some haste. Clay bricks with cuneiform lay around in fair supply; Wallace secured a couple and actually got them back to England, where he somewhat casually gave them away before getting them professionally inter­ preted. This he subsequently regretted till years later he was informed by a professor in Edinburgh that such objects are commonplace and consist mainly of advertisements. News of the armistice in November was hardly likely to provoke much excitement or exuberance; the Sikhs were naturally glad to be going home again, but took it all very quietly. The voyage from Basra to Karachi was rough and unpleasant; horses are notoriously bad sailors, so too in this instance were scores of men who lay about in the hold being violently seasick. Wallace counted himselflucky to be adjutant and thus too busy to feel ill. A. R. W. was brought up in the Kipling era and in later life was accustomed to lament in the family circle that doughty deeds and decorations had never come his way. He had too, it should be remembered, left England just about the time when Loos was being hailed as a victory and had never had to witness at close quarters the spirit of the early days turning sour. Of course the Lancers may have seen much action before he joined them, but according to his own account Wallace was embarrassed at once by the acclamation at Karachi, with bands playing and flags flying. However the pageant proceeded on its way to Patiala where another triumphant welcome was in store. The Prime Minister (this was a princely-state) was waiting at the station, an immaculate figure with a blue sash round his waist and a perfect Oxford accent; Winifred and the other wives were standing beside him. The troops were marshalled for an impressive entry into the city, each officer forming a pair riding beside a Patiala general of whom there seemed to be a plentiful supply; the procession moved off to the strains of 'Soldiers of the Queen' - surely even in 1918 a slightly dated piece, and the Maharajah's guests enjoyed his regal hospitality for two whole days. Their palace bathroom was a magnificent apart­ ment with a full size tub and shining brass taps; Alec and Winifred had not

25 seen anything of the kind since leaving England some three years before. But towards evening the inevitable servant appeared and decanted some hot water from three large kerosene tins; even for a Maharajah taps did not work. Wallace spent his last few weeks of army life with his original regiment. On their first morning he and his wife were awakened by the entry of his small daughter Eve who jumped on the bed and enquired, 'What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?' This pearl of wit had been conjured up by some of his comrades; one possible answer might have been, 'A little more than some members of the I 7th Cavalry'.

26 Chapter VIII

Back to the I.C.S. - Bareilly and Lucknow

The first posting after the war was early in 1919 as joint magistrate at Bareilly, a city in which, as things turned out, Wallace was to spend a little time. The cooler months of the year were passed on tour in camp which conveyed a welcome impression of independence after army life; it was also possible to live en famille. The day began at 8.0 when there was a pleasant nip in the air, with a ride to inspect the nearest villages, check the land records, look at police station and school, and note down any petitions and complaints from the villagers. Break­ fast at 9 .30, then court in the open air with a line of handcuffed prisoners awaiting their turn. After lunch more cases ti114.0. Then rough shooting, and in the evening Winifred typed out the judgements on the day's cases. (This skill, a rarer one in those days, she had learnt in 1914-15 at the Cowley barracks­ unforgettable for any Oxford golfer.) Camp was moved about three times a week, but there were plenty of servants to ease the process which caused no inconvenience, but merely provided a pleasant change of scene. Wallace had one demanding job at this time, a quinquennial alluvial settle­ ment - a thing made necessary by rivers constantly changing their course and altering crop areas for better or worse. Every case involved long discussions with landlords and tenants; it was a relief to get the decisions made and return to Bareilly. Wallace had met with perjured evidence at Meerut, but here it was prevalent on a monstrous scale; very often too when taking the oath the witnesses used to insert sotto voce the syllable 'na', so that it became 'I swear by Almighty God that I shall not speak the truth etc.'. an undertaking to which they meticulously conformed. Regarding this as a waste of time, Wallace provided himself with a Koran and a jar containing Ganges water. If a Moslem witness was obviously lying he was asked to repeat himself with his hand on the sacred volume, if a Hindu, holding the jar. Rather surprisingly these ruses worked, but the innovation was reported to the Government and before long Wallace received a very sharp reprimand instructing him to adhere to the normal pro­ cedure. Obviously authority preferred at this stage that a few rogues should go free rather than risk political reactions. It was at Bareilly that A. R. W. first came across a criminal tribe settlement, compose.d of hereditary professional thieves (a thing not greatly in vogue in Europe even today); needless to say they were very hard indeed to catch and maximum sentences were small deterrent. But his most distasteful job was taking char~e of the Government Treasury for a period. A. R. W. was never a mathematician even in the European style; figures in Urdu were quite beyond him. Fortunately he had clerks both competent and honest, and just got by.

27 But it was a relief to quit the job without being confronted by any of the numerous papers he had signed without understanding. However, out of the frying pan ...... One evening Wallace was met by Frank Sladen, his chief, who told him that the district officer at Kheri 100 miles away, a man called Willoughby, had been murdered and that he, Wallact;:, was to replace him at once with a completely free hand to restore the situation; surprised at such sudden promotion he was delicately informed that he was regarded as just capable of handling the matter, yet not likely to prove irreplaceable if he failed to return. On arrival at Kheri next day a flustered clergyman met the train with the none too cheerful greeting, 'I have just been burying poor Willoughby. Are you the relief? I don't envy you; the place is buzzing like a beehive.' On arrival at the dead man's bungalow this proved to be a not inaccurate description, for police were everywhere. The senior C.I.D. officer soon put Wallace in the picture. It was a political crime; many local Moslems resented the recent defeat of Turkey and the deposition of the Sultan and three of them from the Khilafat movement had taken this way of demonstrating their feelings, entering the bungalow and attacking the occupant with swords. He received a glancing blow on the head, diverted by the swinging punkah (it was a curious feature of the case that the punkah wallah had continued his function throughout whereas the other servants all fled), rushed out into the garden, fell and was cut to pieces as he lay. All three murderers disappeared at once; one, having no more imagination than to return home, was already in police custody, a second soon joined him with the help of an informer who disclosed that he was hidden in the loft of a relative's house. But of the third man there was no trace. Wallace therefore used his special powers and had brought before him one of the chief local villains and, uttering vague threats, demanded information; this he failed to get, but as the man went out he told the Indian inspector that the murderer was probably lurking in a certain brothel in Lucknow about a hundred miles away. From this refuge the wanted man was speedily retrieved and brought back to Kheri, protesting loudly about police brutality. Wallace employed the technique now known as 'chatting up' and rather to his surprise the man walked over the ground with him, giving a complete reconstruction of the crime including the whereabouts of a sword tip broken off on the ground in an effort to despatch the dog which was trying to defend his dying master. English police, by all accounts, do not normally receive such full cooperation; not that it availed the criminals much, for all three were brought to trial, convicted and hanged. Thereafter tension relaxed; the police still kept a guard at night on the district officer's bungalow, but he himself soon found a revolver too burdensome to carry by day. One incident though proved alarming; there was a long drive flanked by bushes leading to the bungalow from the main road. On this drive Wallace was accosted one night by a gibbering figure in white; fortunately no attack followed and it proved possible to hand the interloper over to the police guard who removed him to the lockup. Next day in court it transpired he was a well known, but harmless, lunatic from the local asylum. But mostly life went on quietly without incident. The British community at Kheri was small but very congenial company; after a month or two it seemed

28 quite safe to send for his wife and two children and so normal happy family life was resumed. A section of the local police was mounted. Wallace was unable to resist the challenge and began to put them through their paces; the men were probably much surprised, but accepted their instruction without demur. One long cross country expedition to forestall a threatened riot in a distant village afforded special satisfaction, for it involved crossing a sizeable river. A. R. W. was able to disseminate the technique he had learnt with the Lancers. At the end of 1919 his regular relief arrived at Kheri and Wallace was appointed City Magistrate of Lucknow; this minor plum was accompanied by a very gracious note of congratulations from the Chief Secretary OlJ. the work he had done, ending with the injunction, 'Take a fortnight's leave before you go to Lucknow'. This was to be spent in a concentrated period ofhunting and shooting (Kheri being an excellent centre); it was, as things turned out, the last real chance for such activity that ever came Wallace's way. Indeed the year 1919 filled up what gaps there were in his sporting experience, from pig-sticking to an encounter with a bear in a forest ride and a Krait in a bathroom. Nor were omitted the floating log touched by a servant which proved to be a crocodile or several nights spent sitting up for a tiger. These are the stock incidents, not only of tradition but of fact. And here they were all in one man's experience. Lucknow was an important centre and the magistracy a sought-after post. The official residence was far too large for the Wallace family so they took in as P.G., one Lionel Jardine, a recruit from the political service in Mesopotamia. This was to lead to a lifelong friendship and in 1974 Jardine, with a London office, was still prominent in the Moral Rearmanent movement. A first priority for Wallace was the extermination of the cocaine traffic; one of the main difficulties was that the police were involved and that their rake-off was about double their regular pay. When Wallace expressed doubt about this he was invited by his Excise Officer to see for himself. This involved various forays in disguise, with darkened complexion, the wearing of a flower­ pot fez and so forth. Wallace soon observed enough of what was going on to convince him of petty corruption. Such methods of detection led on one occasion to a minor contretemps. Wallace either from carelessness or lack of time had not cleaned off his disguise effectively; on his return home in the early hours of the morning he found his wife asleep in bed and she, on waking to see a formidable native intruder, evinced very natural signs of alarm and her husband had some difficulty in identifying himself. Opium, as opposed to cocaine, was a legitimate government monopoly; this created a slightly different type of offence, but not much variation in dealing with it. On the strength of a tip-off once, Wallace donned his disguise, took a hookah and, with police support, laid an ambush. In due course the suspect appeared, carrying a Gladstone bag as described, and was very unceremoniously taken into custody. Wallace was dismayed to find nothing contraband in the bag, but a further search disclosed, to his relief, a dozen or so balls of smuggled opium cunningly concealed. Next day the man was up in court and Wallace on the bench had some qualms lest he be recognised. But this was far from being the case and the prisoner went ahead with the hoary excuse of planted evidence. 'I was going quietly along when a huge ugly brute caught hold of me while his assistants 29 put this stuff in my bag'. As Wallace found the prisoner guilty and sentenced him he thought he detected the flicker or a smile on the inspector's face. As a climax to his first tour of duty in Lucknow there was an unpleasant involvement in a railway strike. One morning Wallace was called out of court (a good example of the overlap of judiciary and executive functions) because a large crowd of railwaymen had taken over the station; he found them swarming all over the platforms and the permanent way with a few police watching discreetly. The strikers' mood was cheerful and good tempered, till the telegraph bell rang announcing the approach of the Punjab mail; then it changed abruptly and became ugly. Apparently the men in the station did not wish to work, whereas the engine drivers did (we order these matters differently in modem England). As the engine snailed its way along the reluctantly cleared track, a shower of ballast stones was directed at its cab. Wallace caught a man in the very act but was able to do no more than hold his wrists. A section ofthe mob decided to give Wallace a private bombardment while he was in this awkward situation, hearing the stones strike the side of the van behind him, but unable to protect himself. Finally one of his assailants scored a hull's eye, straight on the mouth and Wallace lost two front teeth. In the shock he naturally released his prisoner, and was taken to hospital, whence he emerged to subsist for several days on fluids. The Governor of the United Provinces sent an extremely kind letter of sympathy, and later Wallace was advised to put in a formal claim for compen­ sation; he was awarded fifty rupees (say £5) which even in 1920 did not go far towards meeting the dentist's fees in England.

30 Chapter IX

Home leave and Wellington College - Return to Lucknow

Shortly after the stoning incident, 'post hoc' not 'propter hoc,' the Wallaces found themselves on a steamer bound for England. It was 1920 and after five years they were overdue for home leave. The voyage should have been an un­ mixed pleasure but A. R. W.'s facial injury was tiresome amongst a crowd of strangers. The ship called at Plymouth and the family, parents and children, were taken by road to Lee-on-Solent whither Mrs. Sturges had moved from Headington. The journey, in a Rover, was without incident; not so subsequent outings in the same car, which had been bought with the guarantee that it had never been on the road at the time of the sale. This was quite correct, but the dealer omitted to mention that the vehicle had been in a ship sunk during the war and had reposed on the sea bed for some time before being salvaged and dressed up for sale. Alec and Winifred very naturally indulged freely in all the amusements not available in India and had a thoroughly enjoyable time, notably with a some­ what expensive sojourn in London during April. It then dawned on them that money for the fares back to India, £100, was not at hand and would have to be found. Then as now, for an educated man, the best temporary expedient was a job in a school. Almost on the spur of the moment, as the pair made for Waterloo en route for Lee, they called in at Gabbitas and Thring, the scholastic agents, to enquire if anything was available for the summer term in the Wellington College area (on his retirement Alec's father had recently bought a small house close by in Crowthome which might provide a base). The clerk's answer was perhaps the first of the pieces of good luck which undoubtedly to some extent eased Wallace's way on the long path ahead of him. Yes, he said, rather unusually there was a vacancy at the College itself for a modem linguist, just for one term. He had better apply at once to the head­ master, Mr. W. W. Vaughan, giving all details. This Wallace did forthwith and was summoned for interview at the Oxford and Cambridge Club on a certain day of the next week. He went up by rail from Lee, but there was a dense fog and the train was over an hour late. Wallace arrived at the club to meet the great man on the steps just about to depart. Naturally irritated by the delay, he grudgingly said they had better talk it over in his taxi; by the time Waterloo was reached Wallace had got the job, if only in the spirit of 'well, you can't do much harm in one term'. A. R. W., with considerable honesty and indeed undue modesty, followed his future employer on to the platform to point out his limited qualifications in French but was laughed off and the bargain was fmally sealed. In May the family migrated from Lee to Crowthorne where they all shared the hospitality of General Wallace and his wife. On reporting officially to

31 Vaughan, Wallace got a much warmer welcome than at their flrst meeting in London and found himself expected, after all, to teach only Latin, Greek, History and Geography; the flrst two presented no difficulty and the two latter he managed to deal with by the time honoured method of keeping one chapter ahead of the class. Wallace enjoyed the flrst term of what was actually to be a twenty-eight year stint. He found his colleagues congenial and got on well with the boys; incidentally he played more cricket than at any other time since leaving Clifton. Of the Master, a notoriously explosive character, he must overall have had mixed memories; about half-term he was summoned and treated to a violent tirade about some alleged minor misdemeanour. But Wallace's position was too strong and he was able to take the line which many would like, but few get the chance to do. 'Mr. Vaughan', he said, 'I am not used to being spoken to in this manner. I am at the moment holding a very important appointment under the Government of India. My presence here is purely temporary and an equal convenience to both of us'. The interview ended with Vaughan's hand on A. R. W.'s shoulder and the pair thereafter were firm friends. Indeed at the end of the term Vaughan asked Wallace to stay on permanently at Wellington, an offer which the latter found flattering but could not see his way to accepting. At this stage he had no thoughts of becoming a schoolmaster but was merely anxious to return to Lucknow and resume the work for which he had been trained. But there was a cloud on the horizon, not yet larger than a man's hand. English newspapers carried more and more about the Indian home rule move­ ment and how under Mahatma Gandhi it was growing in intensity. The Wallaces felt that two young children in India would be an additional source of anxiety. Parting sooner or later was inevitable; in the event, it was sooner and Eve and Ian remained in England. Back in Lucknow it was manifest that even in less than a year the atmosphere had changed for the worse. The normal routine work of police and courts was being hindered by dissidents deliberately inviting arrest in large groups with the idea of embarrassing the government by fllling the jails to overflowing. Before the magistrates they were very insolent; A. R. W. recollected asking one man his name to receive the reply, 'I've forgotten. What's yours?' The humour appears accidental rather than oriental, but equally timewasting in either hemisphere. It was at this awkward period in 1921 that the Prince of Wales embarked upon his royal tour of India, which it was widely anticipated would be a tricky business. Lucknow was an important point on his route and a conventional programme was drawn up, procession from the station to the Governor's house, race meeting, polo tournament, dance and so forth. Rather to his dismay Wallace found himself highly involved in the organisation of these events, promised full assistance and, to give him plenty of time, suspended from normal duties. Physically, the biggest task was the erection of stands along the processional route. Completion of the work coincided with the declaration of a hartal or closure of all shops and public buildings which meant, in effect, that no one, however anxious to see the royal show, would venture to put in an appearance. Desperate situations require desperate remedies. By arrangement with the Governor a sufficient number of tenants were conscripted from the rural districts (with every chance of losing their tenancies if they demurred), brought

32 in by lorries and special trains, and housed under canvas on the Lucknow Maidan with grain shops and an open air cinema to amuse them during the period of waiting. On the actual day the conscripts were all issued with small cardboard Union Jacks with instructions to wave them and cheer loudly as the Prince of Wales passed. On arrival at Bombay he had been greeted with scenes of rioting and violence. The Lucknow authorities,in the short time available, did their best to avoid any repetition. 'Tight security' is a current phrase of the 1970's and 1980's; but it is not new -perhaps only less effective than it used to be. The Indian penal code sanctioned the arrest of persons likely to cause a breach of the peace; so all the well known bad characters were put in jail, without any charge being laid, for the three days of the royal visit. Similar action took place in Moscow at the time of the 1980 Olympics but such measures in the western world nowadays would immediately provoke at least a huge civil rights demonstration; then, it was accepted and merely helped to get the programme through smoothly. All went well, though it was unfailingly observed that at the dance the Prince escaped from his partners and took refuge behind the big drum in the middle of the band. Those who remember the excessive adulation of those post-war tours will sympathise with him but a number of girls were no doubt greatly disappointed. Wallace was summoned to receive the royal thanks for what he had done and presented with a diamond tie pin, never worn and subsequently stolen. Following tradition the awards all went to senior men - who had done much less work. It was a relief after this to return to the humdrum routine of the courts, though amongst his last cases (as they turned out to be) were two that were by no means ordinary. One was a ritual murder where a woman was discov.ered, fully dressed and wrapped in a red blanket, lying on a table with her throat cut; the husband was sitting near by and offered no resistance when arrested. It appeared he was a deranged dabbler in black magic who believed that, by feeding an owl on a progressively richer diet, after five months he would become invisible at will and after ten possess supreme power over life and death. The halfway stage had been safely passed (his friends humouring the poor creature over the invisibility), but now for the climax the owl's diet required a generous admixture ofhuman blood;hence the murder. The fell bird had been kept in court as an exhibit throughout. After the long and tedious hearing was over and the man duly sentenced to an asylum, Wallace, on leaving the court, glared at the bird and said in jest, 'Now I shall see what I can do in the way of black magic', glared at the bird- and went off to his polo. Next day the owl was found dead; no reason was ever adduced, but Wallace's reputation, we may assume, did not suffer from the incident. The other case was less macabre; the police brought before Wallace an American woman missionary on a charge of kidnapping. The facts were not in dispute; a girl wife was being daily beaten by her husband, her cries plainly audible to the neighbours. The little American lady, who stood about five feet high, did not deny her complicity. Yes, she had gotten the girl away, hidden her and did not propose to produce her. Wallace pointed out that she could not take the law into her own hands, said he admired her courage, but the consequences might be serious. Actually there the story ends, for the girl could be traced. Wallace, who for some months had been suffering a crisis of choice, resigned from the I.C.S. in the middle of 1922 and quitted India for good.

33 Chapter X

Farewell to India -Wellington College again

It had been the Montagu Chelmsford report of 1919 that first set many I.C.S. men thinking. Before this a minimum of twenty-five years service was necessary to secure a pension. Now anyone who did not wish to serve under the new constitution could claim a proportionate amount at any stage. In fact by 1923,in view of the less pleasant politicaf climate and the uncertainty of the long term outlook,l6% of Indian Civilians had taken advantage of the offer. In this obscure situation, during the spring of 1922, Wallace received a letter from F. B. Malim, the new Master at Wellington, offering him a permanent post on the staff; it was, the writer commented, the first time he had ever offered an appointment to a man without seeing him, l:iut he had strong re­ commendations from his predecessor and present members of the staff. By any standards it was a remarkable offer; Wallace had declined a similar one from Vaughan two years before, and in any case temporary masters come and go and are not recalled all that often. Perhaps an English school had offered greater scope to the personality, which was one ofWallace's greatest assets, than officiaf­ dom in India had done. Be that as it may, the letter confronted him with a painful dilemma. As City Magistrate at Lucknow he undoubtedly had his feet firmly two or three rungs up the promotion ladder; he enjoyed the work in its variety and never changing interest, liked the people, both British and Indian, with whom he had to deal and did not wish to part from them. But equally he was acutely conscious of the problems facing every British family in India, and was unwilling to subject his children to the same isolation from their parents as he himself had suffered; at home kind aunts and uncles would no doubt offer generous, but secretly reluctant, hospitality; and he wanted to watch his family grow up. Winifred herself had been far from content since her return to Lucknow. This, the first parting from the children, had been a sad business and was clearly inevitably going to lead to long periods of separation between herself and Ale c. In short it was a very difficult choice which cost Wallace some sleepless nights. At last he asked the advice of Frank Sladen with whom he was still working. With a quarter of a century's experience of India behind him Sladen was in no doubt at all and advised. taking Wellington 'while you are still young enough to make a fresh start; no one can tell how the situation here is likely to· develop'. This advice, given by a Charterhouse and Balliol man, was not destined to turn out ill. (Sladen, incidentally, died in 1970 aged 95, having seen the passing of the British Raj over 20 years before; but he did not outlive the English public school system). Wallace pondered for a couple of days longer, then wrote out one after the other his resignation from the I.C.S. and his acceptance cif Malim's offer; he then ,

34 handed them to a messenger to post. After .half an hour he had doubts about the wisdom of his deciswn and rushed off in search of the man, to find he had already departed on his bicycle. Wallace had crossed the Rubicon. Winifred returned home as soon as possible, three months earlier than Alec, to avoid the hot weather and, no doubt, to have that much longer with the children. So Wallace cleared up on his own and left Lucknow station with two marigold garlands round his neck and a large throng of people to see him off; he was accompanied to Bombay only by one old servant who stood a long time on the quayside till the ship cast off. Wallace was touched to see that at the end the old man was in tears. His service with the I.C.S. had been barely seven years - less time than it had taken to prepare for it, but with India he left behind a part of his life and was always proud of having been involved in the work of the imperial era - then still untarnished. Wallace's return had been left fairly late, but,once reunited with his family, no time was lost in settling into a small rented house in Crowthorne. This had been organised in advance by a future colleague an:d his wife - General Wallace not being well and Lady Wallace preoccupied with looking after him; twelve months later they bought a similar house of their own in the same neighbour­ hood. Before the beginning of the Michaelmas term Wallace, of course, paid a formal ca.tl on his new headmaster. He approached the Lodge with some apprehension, for he had burnt his boats and it was important to make a good impression on the man he was about to meet for the first time; so much he had learnt even in one term with the tempestuous Vaughan. But the two men took a fancy to each other at once, and the trim and precise Malim crowned the interview for Wallace when he handed him his timetable which required that he teach only Latin and Greek. Wellington, then as now, was one of the great army schools; the majority of the parents were in the services, either active or retired, and the whole atmos­ phere of the place at that time had a slightly military tinge. About 60% of the boys went ultimately to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, close by or the. Royal Military Academy, Woolwich now defunct. To further this end there was an exceptionally efficient Officers Training Corps, to a considerable extent, as might have been expected in 1922, officered by men with war service behind them. Following the brief fashion of the time the C.O. was an ex-regular but not a member of the teaching staff. He invited Wallace to join; this was very familiar ground and acceptance was immediate. On field days, tor old times sake as an ex-cavalryman,A. R. W. turned out mounted and acted as galloper to his colonel. At Wellington most of the boys lived in College which was subdivided into vanous 'dormitories' named after famous generals, admirals or statesmen; there were also five out-of-College boarding houses: Even during this his first term Wallace was asked by the housemaster to- attach himself to Stanley House as non-resident tutor, an offer he was glad to accept as it gave him a chance to know boys elsewhere than in the classroom; it was to one of these that he gave a cuneiform brick from Babylon. In the summer of 1923 the Master offered Wallace from Michaelrnas the tutorship of the Orange dormitory; this was a most unusual step as hitherto no marned man had ever had charge of a dormitory. Without doubt there would

35 have been a surprise at the appointment, possibly even jealously. None the less it was a turning point in A. R. W.'s career, for without this 'house' experience he could never have coped successfully with the tliree scholastic jobs that still lay ahead of him. The snag, of course, was that the tutor nad to live in and was extremely busy; hence anotner unavoidable family split up. On balance it was thought best for Winifred to return with the children to her mother at Lee for the term and to reunite as a family during the holidays in the small house that they kept on at Wellington. But Christmas 1922 (the first in England since 1914) was sad. General Wallace fell ill during the autumn and died on 25th December. It was some consolation to know that he had received his knighthood from the King while he was still in good health only a short time before. Wallace always regretted not knowing his father better, but their paths had crossed only a little. Lady Wallace survived her husband for nearly a quarter of a century, dying in 1945. Wellington is flanked by two famous institutions. Sandhurst, older than the Iron Duke's College, probably appeared a desirable amenity to the founders. In fact by the 1920s there were so many cadets there from the College that the frequency and length of their social visits had to be rigidly controlled if any work at all was to be done. The other establishment, Broad­ moor, built only a few years after the College no doubt caused some concern at the time but has not over the years been an encumbrance. The sole contact at that time was an annual cricket match, Wellington masters v Staff and In­ mates. Particularly with everyone in white flannels it was virtually impossible to separate the two latter. Wallace was absolutely certain of only one inmate - who turned out to be a senior member of the staff. In 1919 the Orange dormitory had a very strong intake; in 1924 Wallace during his second and (as it turned out) last year was enjoying an annus mirabilis. The top of his house was composed mainly of plea~ant and very gifted boys who were successful academically and athletically; their final tally included three future generals (one also a rugger international), an admiral and V.C., a future Master of the College and a winner of the Schneider Trophy - a list hard to rival. It all made for a pleasant life, but even so the horizon was not clear. Wallace now had three children (his second son, Hugh, was born at the end of 1923). By making him a tutor so early Wellington had clarified the issue; there were only the increments in teaching salary to come - not enough to educate the children. There was but one obvious course, to apply for head­ masterships; to this end he secured the promise of Malim's support and a few weeks afterwards put in for Radley. In later years Wallace was embarrassed at what he called his effrontery, but he need not have worried; the trawl of an advertisement brings up stranger fish than A. R. W. could ever have been in 1924. Malim wrote on his behalf, but with kindly realism mentioned a possible alternative, Cargilfield, a well known prep school in the Barnton district of Edinburgh. The idea, he frankly confessed, had already been put to another Wellington master who had been deterred by the prospectus which showed photos of antique gas fittings. Wallace, less critical, allowed his name to go forward and was shortly asked to visit the actual eo-founder of the school, then retired and living in Bath. He passed muster and ten days later was invited by the Governors of Cargilifield to present himself for formal interview in Edinburgh accompanied by his wife.

36 This meeting was scheduled for the evening, so after the customary and inevitably uneasy introductions at the school the Chairman of the Governors tactfully filled in the time with a visit to the greatest of the local spectacles, the Forth Bridge. Owing to fog this was invisible save for the top of the tower. The actual interview was mercifully not unduly prolonged as the short list comprised only two names. Wallace in fact was offered the appointment on the spot but, with Radley in mind, asked for time to think the matter over. The Governors, possibly not entirely pleased, gave him until ten o'clock the next morning, a respite useless for his purpose and leading merely to a nearly sleepless night. Next day reason prevailed and he accepted the job, at a salary more than twice that which he was getting at Wellington and ample to solve all immediate financial problems. The Wallaces left Wellington at Christmas 1924. lt had only been a short introduction to a new trade, but a notably good one; A. R. W. always treasured a silver cigarette box given to him by the Orange with a photo of their trophies pressed inside. But perhaps the following also deserves record as a piece of social history long ago: 'We sold our little house at Crowthorne without difficulty, for the £1100 for which we had bought it the year before'.

37 Chapter XI

Cargilfield

Early in January 1925 Wallace set off for Edinburgh, leaving his family to follow a week or two later. He was very favourably impressed by his first proper view of a school which had on his sole previous visit been largely enshrouded in fog. Actually Cargilfield School, Cramond Bridge, Midlothian (to give it its full description), was in its way a remarkable institution. It had been founded by two young Oxonians, H. C. Tillard and H. D. Thomas, in 1883 as soon as they had secured their degrees; thereafter they had run it very successfully for some forty years and the school ranked high amongst the ten or so that made up Scotland's quota at that time. Recently Tillard, as we have seen,had retired and Thomas had died; his widow was still residing at the school. Some continuity however was assured by the Board of Governors which had been constituted during the school's development. In the circumstances there could, of course, have been no question of selling the school to a new headmaster; equally no successful and established headmaster of his own school would wish to lose his autonomy by serving under a Governing Body. Thus the latter, after wisely deciding to choose one head­ master and not to attempt to create another partnership, had cast their net round the public schools and their successful housemasters. The field attracted may not have been very large as the traffic from the staffs of public schools to prep schools has never been heavy. What happened has already been described, and it is an interesting speculation whether A. R. W. realised how exceptionally lucky he was in securing this appointment; he had already cal­ culated that Wellington was going to provide a meagre living at best for his requirements and he would probably have had to put in some ten years more before bt:coming a serious candidate for a public school headmastership - always a chancy business at best. He certainly had not the capital available to buy a prep school of his own. Here however was one that had fallen into his 1ap, not only with adequate remuneration, but also the use of a fme house and garden, and the free services of housekeeper, gardeners and maintenance staff. It is not often that such transformation of fortunes comes a man's way. The senior member of the staff was an Old Westminster, H. C. Benbow, who had been at the school with the eo-founders from its opening day onwards; furthermore he outlasted them both, not retiring till 1927. He was incidentally almost twice Wallace's age at the time of the latter's arrival, and dealing with a new headmaster who knew little about prep schools might have been an obstructionist and a nuisance. Actually Wallace's luck held and he records that no one could have been more loyal than Benbow who did everything possible to smooth the newcomer's path. A couple of coincidences affecting the staff were still very much in the

38 womb of time. At this period there were teaching at the school three youngish men - none of them ordained while Wallace was headmaster. Nevertheless all three rose to positions of prominence in the Church, Wallace and W. S. Macpherson as Deans of Exeter (1950) and Lichfield (1954) respectively, W. G. Sanderson as Bishop of Plymouth {1962); such an ecclesiastical output from the staff of one prep school may well constitute a record. And rather later again Benbow's post of first master was to be filled by G. W. L. Courtenay who had been head ofWallace'·s house at Sherborne. The best known of Cargifield parents in A. R. w:s time was Earl Haig who indeed died while his son was still at the school. It would be a hard task at the prep, school stage to say which boys are to achieve prominence in life. On a visit to the school many years later Wallace was to find that a large proportion of the then Governing Body was drawn from old boys of his time - which suggests he was not unlucky in the pupils who happened to be under him. Particularly well remembered was H. S. Mackenzie modestly setting off on the long journey to London for his Admiralty inter­ view. Later he became a Vice Admiral and from 1963 to 1968 was Chief Polaris Executive - perhaps essentially the most important job in the navy. Two others of note were J. A. Lumsden, lawyer and at one stage Chairman of Burmah Oil (1971-75),and Sir Murray Maclehose (now Lord Maclehose of Beoch) who had a distinguished career in the Foreign Office culminating in the Governorship of Hong Kong (1971-82). The young Maclehose spent five years at Cargilfield (1926-31) and remembers Wallace as a towering and outgoing figure who took a great personal interest in whatever was going·on in the school. He refereed and umpired games with great enthusiasm and he also impressed Maclehose as a thoroughly good teacher of Latin and Greek, not always a characteristic to be found in prep school headmasters. Above all he came across to the young boys as a man of great wisdom which is another way of saying that he was well endowed with common sense. Another who remembered him well half a century later was an Edinburgh doctor McCall-Smith. 'There endures the memory of a large and kindly man, whose presence was always impressive but never awesome. No one doubted his authority and no one could forget the enthusiasm which marked his deeds ~ the mighty hitting which attended his appearance each year in the Father's Match, and the acceleration of action in the school film shows when he took his turn to work the ancient hand-operated projector'. After forty years of unchanged headmastership it would have been strange indeed if many alterations and improvements had not suggested themselves to a new man. Electric light was at once installed throughout the school - Wallace perhaps forgetting his debt to gas which had indirectly led to his securing the headmastership at all! He got a Troop of Boy Scouts going, than which nothing is better in a prep school if well run. A school magazine was started and a glee society instituted - the latter an astonishing gap in a school with Victorian roots. Over half a century later these three still flourish. Though extensive building at Cargilfield lay not too far ahead,Wallace was responsible only for a new cricket pavilion and the building of the main gate of the school. Indeed in his two public school headmasterships which were to come, first fmancial stringency, and then the Second War were to stop Wallace

39 from ever becoming a great 'building' headmaster. He would· have wished to be so remembered, but it was not to be. Golf, as we have seen, was familiar to Wallace from his youthful years. But it was only at Cargilfield with a couple of courses close by that it became his favourite game, replacing even the polo of Indian days. It was, too, a pastime until he was an octogenarian. He even claimed to have set a record, still un­ broken, in a game with a Cargilfield parent at Gullane. Let his own words describe the incident: 'At the short hole known as the Pope's Nose we were faced by a thick mist on the tee; we both had good drives into the murk and on descending to the green, his ball was there but mine was invisible. I knew I had hit it a trifle too hard and we both spent some time looking for it in some bushes beyond the green. After a bit he said, 'Five minutes is up'. I replied 'Very good, it's your hole, try for a two!' We returned to the green for him to putt and I went to the flag and saw my ball tightly wedged between the pin and the rim of the cup, and it fell in as I lifted the flag. I said 'I've done a hole in one, that's mine'. 'Oh no: he retorted, 'you have surrendered and by the rules of golf it does not matter what you do after that, you have lost the hole'. I reflected that a very large number of people had holed out in one, but no one, so far as I knew, had ever lost the hole by so doing; so much to his surprise I agreed at once and he won the game in the end by two and one. As we were going to the clubhouse my host remarked, 'You know it is the custom here for anybody who does a hole in one to present the caddy with a bottle of whisky. I made no demur and so completed my record of doing a hole in one, losing it and the match and a bottle of whisky'. It was at Cargilfield too that Wallace seriously took up another lifelong pastime - that of fishing. His mentor was his colleague Benbow who owned rights on the Whitadder near Berwick. The traditional attractions of the sport, solitude, relaxation, the absence of competition, and frequently charm of scenery, quickly proved irresistible, and his pursuit of trout and salmon over the years led Wallace from the rivers of Devon via Abergavenny and County Mayo to the Hebrides and the Orkneys. It was an unforgettable experience to hear in a crofter's cottage of the German-Russian treaty in August 1939 while staying on Lewis as the guest of Sherborne's Chairman of Governors. But it was naturally Ireland that provided the best fishing story. A fellow guest at the hotel had hooked a salmon which broke loose and made off with the whole cast. An hour later another tug was felt on the line which when reeled in revealed nothing more than a bulrush, which however appeared so animated that the winding was continued. Finally it appeared that one end was hooked to the dropper fly replacement cast while the other end was held by the dropper fly of the lost tackle - its leading fly safely hooked into the mouth of a 7 lb salmon. The improbable tale was set down and sent to 'The Daily Telegraph' which actually printed it - thus starting quite a series of tall fishing stories. More important, the hero (or rather heroine) of the incident was Mrs. Waugh, the wife of Alec Waugh the novelist who had been expelled from the Old Shir­ burnian Society in 1917 for publishing 'The Loom of Youth'. It was Wallace's first contact with the family and later he was to play a considerable part in the readmission of the author,then no longer regarded as in any way disloyal. But to return to Edinburgh. Wallace's youngest child Ann, was born in the Autumn of 1926. As half Cargilfield boys were of the established church and

40 half Episcopalians,Alec and Winifred used to attend these churches on alternate Sundays. It seemed then appropriate that both Ministers should be invited to share in the christening which was to take place in the school chapel. They accepted, and thus the ceremony had a splendidly ecumenical character. Wallace never failed to appreciate his years at Cargilfield, perhaps a good example of prep school life at its best. There were no fmancial worries, it was a very friendly happy community and from the very nature of the job the academic demands made on the staff were less rigorous than at a school with older boys. The headmaster took (and thoroughly enjoyed) a full share of teaching and games coaching; he even occasionally escorted a pupil riding - it was incidentally his farewell to the horse. And for such leisure moments as were available the civilisation of Edinburgh was on the doorstep. None the less Wallace admitted to a restless temperament at this period and felt that he was living in a mere lotus-land. He gives a characteristic, semi­ serious account of the incident which fmally decided him to seek pastures new. At eight pm one evening in the middle of a dinner party a mother's silvery voice came through on the phone, 'I'm worried about Alistair now that the weather has turned suddenly cold. Could you possibly see that he is wearing his thick pants?' Biting his lips, but rem~mbering that the customer is always right, A. R. W. started the necessary search - which took half an hour as the missing Alistair was in an illicit place. History is silent about what underwear was in use, but the episode inclined Wallace to think in terms of a move. He was indeed shortly to exchange a small pond for a large lake - a migration which at various times during the next few years. he must have lived to regret. But such is the price of ambition. A few weeks later, whether by pure chance or as the result of some sort of approach, a letter arrived from Sir lan Amory, Chairman of the Governors of Blundell's, suggesting a visit with the view to becoming a candidate for the headmastership. In his current mood Wallace accepted with alacrity and in due course found himself being royally entertained at Knightshaye's Court, Tiverton. The Amorys were an impressive family, Sir Ian and his wife and their two sons John and Derrick. They owned and administered the silk factory - the largest employer in the town. Wallace was informed that his visit was to be regarded as quite secret and that no one was to know the purpose of it. None the less at dinner on that ftrst night amongst the guests was a Blunden's master (not very prudent planning one might think) but the innocent, if childlike deception was kept up so well that Wallace (as he was later told) passed as a silk merchant paying a business visit. Next day he met the Governors and was delighted at the conclusion of the interview to be offered the appointment, which this time he wisely accepted at once. Blundell's was a plum and A. R. W. had no doubts about it. But changes are seldom without some disadvantages. Back at Cargilfteld Wallace found himself more of a Scot than he had suspected and Devon began to seem a long way away. Moreover he had an idea that after less than six years his departure was not approved by parents, boys and staff - the latter containing an important percentage of women. Briefly, in 1930, Alec and Winifred went through a short but disturbing period of wondering whether they had made the right choice.

41 But in time things fell into perspective, and Wallace soon realised he need never have worried. His successor turned out a first rate man and as for himself there were soon tobe problems enough to occupy his mind fully.

42 Chapter XII

Blundell's

During their last term at Cargilfield in the summer of 1930 lan Wallace's parents accompanied him to Clifton to try the scholarship exam - in which incidentally the boy secured the top award. The trip was combined with a more leisurely and thorough reconnaissance of their future environment. Their hosts were Mr. and Mrs. Peirce of North Close who from the very start proved themselves most friendly and helpful allies, E. G. Peirce being not only a senior hi>use­ master, but also (somewhat unusually) bursar as well. Final arrival in September produced, of course, its immediate problems. A senior master had decamped in the middle of the holidays leaving behind him a large load of debts to tradesmen. These were hardly A. R. W.'s responsibility, but a replacement was; it was ill luck that the bran tub produced a complete dud who lasted till Christmas only. Less spectacular, but more tiresome, was the fact that the previous headmaster had not brought the timetable up to date, leaving his successor to make a number of adjustments without any knowledge of the tasks or the men concerned. Timetables being, to say the least, a job for specialists, Wallace made heavy weather of this. However relief was at hand; while still at Cargilfield he had appointed a young Cambridge physicist, F. G. Mee, who proved to have a remarkable flair for timetable construction and, what is more, the tact to get his arrangements readily accepted. As things turned out, for the rest of his days as a schoolmaster Wallace never had to worry again over jigsaws of rooms and times. However, in a very short while there was a much greater problem, far less easily solved. Blundell's, like most public schools at the time, faced a menacing decline in numbers; owing to the economic slump of the early 1930s parents could no longer afford the high fees. Halfway through his first term Wallace faced the disconcerting fact that twenty-four boys were leaving and there were eight candidates for admission; this decline was to continue (though not so steeply) till his penultimate year in the school, when recovery began. To begin with, Wallace inevitably ascribed the situation to some deficiency in himself and even fancied it his duty to resign- not an inviting prospect for a man with a family of four and no private means. But he was dissuaded from. this drastic step by the support of most of the staff and the loyal attitude of the Governors. It so happened that during the first week of January 1931 Sir Ian Amory was killed in a hunting accident. He was succeeded as Chairman by his younger son Derrick, subsequently Chancellor of the Exchequer 1958- 63. With such fmancial ability (and in addition a first class bursar) to back him, Wallace was in a strong position at the highest level. On the lower plane hum­ drum day to day recruitment was very much his responsibility and he was soon to be familiar enough with its routine. There was at this period a semi-

43 legendary headmaster who was reputed to set out by car every Monday during term for a tour of various preparatory schools and others; each Friday he re­ turned with a recruit and his luggage on the back seat. Thirty-six boys a year­ perhaps quite as good a contribution the headmaster of a struggling school could make as by exercising mid-week control. It was never necessary at Blundell's to employ such tactics, but, of course, academic excellence was a very early casualty. A memo was issued to all concerned that no candidate for the Common Entrance exam was to be failed, subject only (to quote A.R.W. himself) 'to the condition that he could read and write and had no police record'. And at that time ships regularly docked at Plymouth to save London pas­ sengers a couple of days by completing their journeys by train. Quite a number of well to do orientals arrived with boys not yet placed. Blundell's was one of the f1rst good schools en route, so what could be simpler? A.R.W. particularly remembered the simultaneous admission of a Muslim and a Hindu. With his Indian background he was amazed to see them settle down together, traditional antagonisms forgotten, and become the best of friends; they even ate all English food without demur. There was too the mother who arrived unheralded at the school, leaving her son in the car outside. Was there, she enquired, a place available? Interview was soon to reveal that the lady possessed not only a title, but unusual frankness. Asked why she required entry in mid-term she replied that, in fact, her boy had been expelled that morning from another well known school in the area for throwing red ink over a master who had annoyed him. Wallace, with the diplomatic comment that there were many worse faults than hasty temper, proceeded to stage a telephone conversation (the parent being within earshot) with a housemaster whom he knew to be particularly short of boys, returning with the news that 'Mr X could just squeeze him m; the mother appeared suitably relieved. Such comedies were indeed played in not just a few English schools at that time. To round off the tale, the boy admitted under such in­ auspicious circumstances was a notable success at Blundell's and in his subsequent career, which began with the winning of the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst. But not all aspects of the situation had an eqnally funny side. As things got worse, a ten per cent cut in all staff salaries was proposed. In the 1930s this was accepted with resignation, not militancy, although it must be remembered that as prices were falling at this time real pay remained largely unchanged. Finally the point was reached when one house with a normal complement of f1fty contained twenty-six and the Governors decided that, in the interests of economy, it must be closed. But Wallace knew that while small numbers overall could be regarded as a domestic matter and kept relatively quiet, to close a house was a matter of general interest and would inevitably get into the press. It had already happened to more than one famous school, leaving the worst possible impression on the public. He begged therefore for a two term stay of execution, a plea to which the Governors agreed reluctantly. Fortunately, almost immediately, the tide turned and the situation was saved by a very narrow margin. But these difficult years made a profound impression on A.R.W.; for the rest of his time as a schoolmaster he remained acutely 'number-conscious',

44 keeping a framed graph of the Blundell's figures 1930-34 on the wall of his study as a constant reminder. When problems of survival loom so large, to some extent life is simplified. At any rate there were, of course, no elaborate and expensive developments at the school during Wallace's headmastership. Indeed he claimed only one modest innovation, the establishment of a m1ssion (it would today be called community service) at Bedrninster, Bristol, which was visited at weekends by parties of masters and boys. With his great capacity for enjoyment, Wallace kept a sailing dinghy for summer holiday use on the Solent Oong a familiar location for the family). After ball games the pastime ranked high on his list, perhaps all the more so because the elder children could take part and indeed, with the adaptability of youth, soon learnt to outstrip their father in skill. 'Starlight', as their craft was named, may not have been a great winner of competitions but proved an inexhaustible source of pleasure; For the winter terms there was shooting over the hedges and roots of a neighbouring farmer who was friendly enough to scatter cyder mock here and there on his land, thereby attracting some of the (Amory!) pheasants from the estate over the road. In this Wallace's companion, whom he found particularly congenial, was G. V. Hotblack, a senior housemaster and with an M.C. to his credit, a most successful commander of the O.T.C. Each Monday afternoon the pair would set out in Hotblack's small car complete with dogs and guns. They seldom returned empty-handed and the outings set them both up for the rest of the week; perhaps the early 1930s were about the end of the period when a headmaster could so disport himself with complete propriety. There were other staunch supporters and friends among members of the staff, particularly W. W. French, a geographer, pioneer at the time of what is now a commonplace, study of the subject on the ground; some of his class maps were so original and excellent as to be eagerly accepted by local authorities. There was, too, J. W. E. Hall, an immense enthusiast who managed to combine teaching the Upper Fifth Classical with directing the school music, insistent in the latter capacity (like most of his kind) in requesting extra time and special alterations of routine. R. G. Seldon was also close to Wallace, though his real prominence was only to come a good many years later when his steadiness, tact and loyalty did much to hold the school together during a difficult period of minor internal dissension. Of course, not all colleagues were entirely cooperative; one in particular, having come to the school as the right hand man of Wallace's predecessor, was inclined to be awkward. But if this was just a part of a stock situation the ending was unusual indeed. Tinkering with his car in the garage, engine running and door partially closed, he was discovered unconscious by his housekeeper and was actually resuscitated by boys in his house with oxygen obtained from the labs. But the mishap had lasting physical effects and the unfortunate man was soon forced to retire. Despite so many friendly contacts, Wallace, as headmaster of a large school, was to find out how wearing constant interruptions could be. Even at this stage he admitted turning off his light if he thought this would deter notably time consuming callers. Twenty years later he was to fmd himself unconsciously giving up what he was doing and 'waiting for the knock'.

45 Among the boys was G. W. H. Lampe prominent for his excellence in classics. He won the top scholarship in this subject at Exeter College, Oxford, but was finally to reach his greatest eminence as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge . .Another prominent figure was W. C. Walker who showed exceptional powers of leadership as head of the day boys' house; this, for once, was a true augury of the future. As a regular soldier he held a number of important posts with great distinction, retiring in 1972 as C. in C. Allied Forces Northern Europe. Afterwards in civilian life he acquired a national reputation in 1974 from his leadership of the 'Civil Assistance' movement. Regular visitors to the school included Lord William Gascoyne Cecil, Bishop of Exeter. He was not a Governor of the school but his position and its proximity ensured frequent contact. Wallace remembered him as a notable figure with long grey hair and beard, addicted to an open car even in the coldest weather; he possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge on many subjects and notable absence of mind (on one occasion he transferred the entire contents of a dish of green peas handed him by a parlour maid to his own plate, leaving none for his neighbours). His Old Testament prophet appearance was endorsed by his prediction of Hitler's war exactly as \t turned out (be it said that three of his four sons had been killed in the Great War). Professor A. V. Hill was a Governor and a distinguished Cambridge scientist, but on his visits only let this appear in arguments and demonstrations on a lower plane - water divining (in which he did not believe) and raising the sights of rifles in very hot weather which he alsQ claimed to be a myth (though the R.S.M. of the O.T.C. did not agree). It is unclear what scientific principle prompted the Professor to compete with the Headmaster in a 100 yard race on the playing fields, but the challenge was made and - incredibly - accepted. The news, of course, soon got around and the contestants (the former in shorts and vest, .the latter merely removing coat and waistcoat) could hardly have been surprised at the size of the crowd. They had not however reckoned on the school wit with a blackboard shouting the odds_ at 3 to 1 on the don. A.R.W. none the less had a deceptive turn of speed over a short distance, won by a couple of yards and disappointed his opponent's backers. But the man who had most influence with A.R.W. at this time was, in fact, in no way directly connected with Blundell's; this was Mike Furse (as Wallace always affectionately referred to him) then Bishop of St. Albans. The two men first- met at a conference of headmasters, where the speaker affirmed his regret at the passing of the old tradition that headmasters should be in orders, attributing the change to laziness or cowardice. Afterwards in argument Wallace maintained it was purely a matter of private conscience. Even at such an improbable encounter each man was instantly impressed by the other and a close and lifelong friendship ensued. Bishop Furse visited Blundell's to preach and have a talk with some senior boys, after which he incidentally gave the headmaster some extremely practical and valuable advice on teaching Divinity. To return hospitality, on several occasions he asked Wallace to spend a few days at his Brancaster cottage, where golf and prolonged discussions filled the time. A.R.W. records that he was completely under the spell of his host's attractive personality and that it was due to his influence that he fmally decided some years later to become a very hesitant candidate in seeking ordination. 'Some forty miles to the east of Blundell's was Sherborne, a great rival at

46 cricket and football. There is seldom much love lost between schools where the sole contact is athletic competition - the more so if one school tends to win more often than the other. The Headmaster of Blundell's (whose boys inciden­ tally did not achieve level pegging during this time) very naturally shared the local feeling. At the end of 1933 a routine notice from the Clerk to the Sherborne Governors arrived announcing that their headmaster was retiring and asking whether there was anyone on the staff of Blundell's suitable for the vacancy. A.R.W. sent for Hotblack and the two seriously considered the possibility of putting up a man - some flashy individual - who would interview well, but once in 'Office would be nothing outstanding; this they reckoned might significantly help Blundell's, for the two schools were not only rivals on the playing fields, but in the much more serious business of recruiting boys. How­ ever while possible names were still being canvassed Wallace had a visit from John Murray, Principal of what was then the University College of the South West at Exeter, who was a Governor both of Blundell's and Sherborne. Acting thus as go-between, he invited him to meet the two senior Governors at his Exeter home. After a long talk the latter told Wallace that he would have their backing if he cared to lay his application before the full board. Here indeed was an unexpected problem and a formidable one. Wallace was very happy at Blundell's, had established himself as Headmaster and the 'numbers' crisis was more or less a thing of the past. On the other hand he had held the job for less than four years and his conscience told him that he had no business to move so soon. Unfortunately the Sherborne salary was more than four times that which he was currently earning, not a thing to be lightly disregarded by a man with several young children to educate (he may too have recollected David's equally short tenure of Clifton in his own schooldays.) He first consulted the Amorys about the difficulty; a generous increase in salary was offered. Wallace went to Hotblack who with the privilege of close friendship remarked that their plot was indeed succeeding, though not in the way they had planned. More practically he saw at once that if A.R.W. did leave there would be some disturbance in the community and promised to pour oil on troubled waters where necessary. In due course Alec and Winifred spent a night at Sherborne Castle and the next morning the former was offered the headmastership. No other candidate was present, though there had been previous interviews and rejections; exact details are even now not available. Wallace returned to Blundell's naturally pleased but genuinely mystified - and slightly apprehensive as to how the necessary announcement would be received. Hotblack had in fact _played his part admirably and it was· greeted with a vast silence by the boys (of course) and by the staff (even in private afterwards). To the latter there was one exception, the Chaplain who with twenty-five years at Blundell's behind him and on the verge of retirement was in a uniquely strong position to state his views, which were pungent. A.R.W. very sensibly offered neither comment nor defence, but it must have been a mauvais quart d'heure. However, practical compensation was soon forthcoming in the willingness of F. G. Mee to follow his Headmaster. This young man was developing, apart from timetables, other valuable talents; Wallace indeed regarded him as an indispensable 'eminence grise' and felt he could never have tackled the job without him. 47 So at the end of the Easter term 1934 came the parting with the usual tributes to a man who had not quite forgiven himself. Perhaps the best offering of all lay eighteen years ahead when the Blundell's staff asked him to act as their representative on the Governing Body; then indeed A.R.W. felt that he could offer unstinted service by way of expiation.

48 Chapter XIII

Sherborne 1934-39

It is a curious fact that Wallace's time at Sherborne, which latterly he grew to regard as the central and most important achievement of his career, got off to a bad start and that more than once in his ftrst year or two he must have regretted leaving Devon. It is true that he found in the local incumbent (an ex offtcio Governor) his old rowing crony of Cambridge days, W. M. Asquith, a staunch supporter literally on the doorstep. But to counterbalance {with what must be admitted bore all the signs of a guilt complex) Wallace imagined a widespread hostility amongst the staff because of the rejection of 'their' candidate; few situations could have been more wrongly assessed. G. O'Hanlon M.C., a highly respected housemaster who had been at Sherborne since 1908, had allowed his name to go forward, not from any sense of ambition (he must have known full well the difficulties that can face a promoted 'ranker' in dealing with some colleagues who have been equals); but merely because no obvious external applicant had presented himself. Actually the previous headmaster, a bachelor, had proved himself a not very active recluse and many of the older men on the staff let their memories stray to one headmaster further back still and were delighted to sense once again a family atmosphere permeating the School House and so the whole centre of the school. And all alike were glad to see a revival of administrative activity where little had been visible before - though it is only right to say that the more critical felt that some things were done in too much haste and not always handled deftly. One episode could have been foreseen by nobody. In his very ftrst term Wallace was involved in a minor row with one of the housemasters. On the spur of the moment the housemaster who was a bachelor submitted his resignation which a very taken aback Headmaster accepted. A few days later the body of the man was washed up on the beach at Lyme Regis. He had gone for a bathe by himself and subsequently the inquest returned a verdict of death by misadven­ ture. Wallace described his feelings as great agony of mind; this was inevitable and probably the fact that both parties shared the public sympathy did little to help. Nor to begin with was Wallace any too happy with his housemastership of School House. At the time of his appointment he had made it clear to the Governors that he regarded the simultaneous holding of this position and the headmastership as undesirable; this was strange because at Wellington it was obvious that he loved the pastoral side of the work and the close contacts with the boys - though he could not at this early stage have realised the great benefits to the school (of which more later) arising from the combination of the two functions. But in 1934 he was unable to carry his point. Initially then he was already half conditioned to fmding the house running none too well and was in

49 A. R. W. in the Headmaster's Study, School House, late 1940's.

no way surprised at having to tighten up routine discipline , knowing also , of course, that the next couple of years would remove by natural wastage most of the irreconcilables who were of an age to be a real nuisance. In fact he did the job of housemaster extremely well for twelve years aided and abetted by Ralph Barlow, Sam Hey and then A be Gourlay, as resident tutor. Michael Earls-Davis, for example, grew up under A.R.W. in the years 193641 and remembered in particular his regular tours of the junior dormitories as the boys were going to bed. Invariably he would be dressed in a smoking jacket and accompanied by one of his dinner guests. Conversation would vary from his experiences in India to the day's house matches. He also remembers being summoned into Chiefs study after doing well in a house match and being given a chit on Freeman's shop 'for the best bat they have to sell'; the price was forty-five shillings! But this was not all that struck Earls-Davis; he commented too on 'the calm of Mrs. Wallace's drawing room after the excitement of Chiefs study. She made it her job to know a lot about us and our families and she was a most relaxing hostess'. In the middle and late thirties numbers in public schools, though never reduced to the level of the slump years, were still not a matter for complacency. The Sherborne total was reasonable but it had to be consistently maintained. A.R.W., his Blundell's experience still fresh in his mind, was very sensitive to this atmosphere and; in order to broaden his base of operations, always insisted that each housemaster was responsible for filling his beds. Seven recruiting officers, he was wont to say, were far better than one and certainly he personally

50 set a remarkable example. In those days there was much travel by rail and two or even three times a week Wallace would be meeting the midday tntin to greet a couple of prospective parents. This gave time for a tour of the school, followed by a house lunch to meet the boys, a look round the house itself and finally a stroll on the playing fields before final departure to the station towards 3.30. Discerning parents, one might liave thought, must have wondered how, if they secured ·over three hours of a headmaster's day, he could also run the school. But run it was - and a very high percentage of these visits produced an entry for the lists. Nor was this all. Maintenance of good relations with prep schools, prize­ givings, sermons and the like, might involve a whole day or even a day and a night with a longish journey to boot - but the reward might be not one boy only, quite likely a steady trickle. Here Sherborne was very fortunately placed, with the independent Prep literally within a stone's throw. It so happened, too, that Wallace and its headmaster,Fred Lindsay, were from the start close personal friends; a round of golf together every Friday kept them in constant touch and who shall say how many entries were discussed and virtually settled on these occasions. It was a mutually advantageous arrangement. Sherborne got the pick of the boys from a particularly large prep school and if occasionally one academically weaker was swept in too this did not harm the trust on which the agreement rested. Fred Lindsay was to continue in his scliool for some twenty years after Wallace left Sherborne, whose departure he never ceased to regret. Predictably one or two jealous tongues alleged that A.R.W. was using his position as Headmaster to secure the best boys, particularly athletes, for his own house; the suggestion, plausible from the large number of cups which tended to collect in School House, hurt him because he was himself not in entire control of the situation; success breeds success and he was fond of saying openly that it was not sufficiently realised that whole schools were subject to the same law. A successful football season, faithfully reported Sunday by Sunday in the press, was certainly one of the factots affecting the number of applicants for admission. }>erhaps today this may sound absurd; fifty years ago it was a fact of life. · Wallace was never destined to be a great 'building' headmaster. In the pre­ war years existing plant had been well maintained and there was very little of which the various guides had reason to be ashamed. But money for major additions was lacking. The Biology Laboratory of 1936 was largly the result of the benefaction and from 1939 to 1950 outside events took charge very firmly; the sole building during this period, a small extension to the San in 1948, was probably only allowed because of Aneurin Bevan and the launching of the National Health Service. After a year or two, just when things were settling down normally, Wallace was given to understand that an application for a public school rather larger than Sherborne was likely to receive a very favourable consideration; the channel of communication seems to have been a well meaning, but a meddlesome go­ between who, having picked up rumours of the early Sherborne ripples, thought that such a change might prove helpful. A.R.W. had however learnt his lesson by this time and made it plain that he was not interested; the story, of course, got out and clearly must have strengthened his position at Sherbome.

51 52 Sav~ for their stint in India (which could hardly rank as pure relaxation) Alec and Winifred had enjoyed no foreign travel since before the war. But from now on till they were rising seventy a much improved bank balance enabled them to take fairly regular holidays abroad (wars and international exchange controls permitting). Fir-st on the list in 1935 came a luxury Mediterranean cruise for the whole family, the highlights being Tetuan, Athens (with of course Marathon), Ephesus and the temple of Diana, Famagusta and Malta, which duly provided the attractions now so widely publicised. Carthage with rather scanty ruins was less impressive though it produced a snake charmer who amused the younger children. Alas that in a holiday of this sort not all things can appeal equally to differing age groups. Other trips were less ambitious. Brussels in 1937 exhibited a liquefaction of the Sacred Blood - 'worked by heat in some way, I suppose', noted A.R.W.; Venice, Milan, the Italian lakes and Paris on the way back accounted for 1938. By the next year foreign travel appeared much less enticing. During this period a very well worthwhile eonnection was established with the Franciscan community at Batcombe some seven miles from Sherbome which has passed the test of surviving ever since. The first project wa~ the construction of a swimming bath at which muddy chore Wallace worked quite as hard as the youthful Sherborne volunteers who made up the small gangs. But come the day of opening and he outshone all, standing on the verge in formal dress and a grey topper which had hitherto only seen service in the garden of Buckingham Palace. After the speeches there were swimming races between Sherbome boys, friars and the odd castaways generally in residence at the time. As the teams lined up in their bathing shorts Wallace asked a bystander if he could spot which was which; a negative reply left him with the reflection that this must be the way the Creator views us, naked and without social distinction. Another pioneering innovation which was substantially ahead of its time was the creation in 1938 of a Modem Sixth. The Sixth Form was divided into Group I Classics, Group 11 Modern Languages, Group Ill Army Class and Medics and his foundation Group IV Modem. Judge Streeter was one of the first boys to pass through this Modern Sixth; 'we did Economics, Politics and Law (plus elocution and debating). Chief took us for Criminal Law - he had an old 'Kenny's Criminal Law' (1924, I think) which he lent me: he also recruited Wilfred Sims to the staff who ~as in fact a member of Gray's Inn (though not I think a barrister) and he taught us Contract and Tort. H. H. Brown was in­ duced to teach a form of legal history. Whether the Chief realised it or not I do not know but, I fancy, he created a unique division of a VIth form; it only missed out in Roman Law and so, with a few months study on my own I was able to pass my Part I of the Bar Exams'. About this time there was a knock on the headmaster's door, a thing which­ as previously stated - people in such positions grew to tolerate rather than welcome. In this instance it was not an individual who appeared but (much more unusually) a deputation headed by a senior master who had come to press a very serious objection; to wit that at the celebrations of Holy Communion in the school chapel wafers had been substituted for bread thus violating a very old tradition and causing intense disquiet. Wallace was puzzled at the vehemence of the protest and replied that it was merely a matter of convenience and the

53 change was being inc.reasingly adopted throughout the country. The deputation, unimpressed, stated that it would have to consider reference to the school governors. This, Wallace returned, would hardly be wise as the innovation had been requested by the bishop of the diocese,· an influential governor and distinguished Old Shirburnian. The visitors then withdrew and no more was heard of the matter. As ever, A's meat is B's poison, but the incident is worth noting as revealing Wallace for the first time as a man with a positive interest in religious matters. His father had certainly been such, but nothing that A.R.W. recorded of his school and university days, India, and his teaching time in England and Scotland gives any lead. At Sherborne his image was that of a man with an unusual background, successful colonial administrator and a capable lay headmaster. In fact this was not the whole picture. Events had been taking place behind the scenes of which the audience was largely unaware. Bishop Lovett of Salisbury had held a conference of headmasters at which he bemoaned the passing of the old tradition by which most positions were held by men in Holy Orders - using much the same arguments as Mike Purse when A.R.W. was at Blundell's. But the latter was· an older man now and far better placed to speak frankly. He stayed on afterwards with Bishop Lovett and pointed out that many men might shrink from ordination for fear of incurring the charge of securing a valuable extra qualification for further lay promotion. Now that he (Wallace) was permanently settled at Sherborne this consideration was no longer relevant and in earnest sincerity he presented himself as a candidate for ordination forth­ with. The offer came out of the blue; the response was unexpected. No, Wallace was too much of a 'stormy petrel' to be acceptable (Bishop Lovett, enthroned at Salisbury only in 1936, was perhaps not yet fully in the Sherborne picture). Naturally A.R.W. did not see his way clear to accepting rejection in such cir· cumstances and applied to Mike Purse for his support. The latter took consider­ able trouble, giving up a couple of days to the case, and eventually promised to write favourably to Bishop Lovett subject only to one unusual proviso - the agreement of Winifred. 'She married a layman and it is only right that she should give consent to this change of status'. No objection was raised and to the surprise of most of the Sherborne community Wallace spent the Easter term of 1938 training at St. Mary's, Portsea, and was ordained deacon by Bishop Lovett on 18th September 1938 in the Sherborne School chapel (and priest a year later)­ certainly the first time the building had been used for such purposes, but happily not the last. On the former occasion Wallace received a letter of congratulation from his mother expressing her particular pleasure because in his infancy she artd her husband had always hoped he might take this step. The proposed name Dieudonne had been mentioned but that had been the end of the matter and A.R.W. records his surprise on opening the letter. None the less ordination and the ministry (undertaken when he was rising fifty) remained perhaps one of the most important features of the rest of his life. His progress in this new sphere turned out a reflection of the past. After a token year as assistant chaplain at the school, he naturally assumed the full functions of that office for the remainder of his time; chosen Select Preacher at Cambridge University for 1942, in the same year he became a Canon of Salisbury, and while still a headmaster wrote the two most important of his three religious books. Exeter and its

54 Deanery lay ahead but,of course,far beyond the vision of anyone at this stage. By 1938 Sherbome problems, such as they had been, had settled down and the local scene, by itself, looked good; but it could not be isolated from inter­ national affairs. 1914 had come with what, in respect, seems merciful sudden­ ness. Now Europe had had all too long to consider the dicta-tors and their potential for harm. The Munich affair, dishonourable as it appeared to many, Wallace believed to be a reprieve which ultimately saved our country. But this was far from obvious at the time and so the earlier months of 1939 were darkened indeed for a man wl:l.o not only realised very well the mess into which the politicians had led the country but (quite apart from four children of his own) was in charge of several hundred belonging to other people and fully aware of what such responsibility was likely to involve.

55 Chapter XIV

Sherborne in wartime

The first air raid alert (naturally false) of the 386 which Sherbome was destined to endure was heard early in September 1939. Very shortly afterwards the Headmaster was summoned to the phone to speak to some ministry in Whitehall and brusquely informed that he was to make ready to receive from London seventy pregnant women who were to be billeted in his empty dormitories. Wallace's expostulation that over a hundred boys would be returning in ten days to resume their school education was greeted by the official at the other end (no doubt himself harassed beyond bearing) with the statement that there was a war on and he must make the best of the situation,adding, as he rang off, that the women would be arriving by train about 6 p.m. the same day. It will have become apparent through preceding chapters that Wallace had never been overmuch burdened with domestic chores; however a crisis often reveals hidden talents. It being holiday time, as customary, no staff was in Fesidence, but such members of the family as were available were 'roped in' and set to work. It was a hot day and clamping beds and placing mattresses before even starting on blankets and sheets was not light work. Still it got done some­ how and in a mood of considerable despondency Wallace went down to meet the train to be informed by the station master that by some oversight it had just run through Sherbome and was now two miles to the west beyond recall (it transpired subsequently that the passengers were accommodated in a franciscan friary - not Batcombe, but somewhere well beyond Seaton Junction.) Greatly relieved,Wallace returned to his house and, realising that possession is nine points of the law, instructed all housemasters to begin addressing envelopes. Next day a circular was sent to all the parents to return their boys at once unless they wished their education to be abruptly terminated. The· boys reported promptly with very little grousing; to set them to their books forthwith would have been too much so they were put onto trench digging round the Upper and various other sites - a dull task, but tolerable for a time because of its novelty. Meanwhile, in consultation with the local police, housemasters and O.T.C. officers, A~R.P. plans were given high priority. So long as· there was actually a state of peace it had seemed difficult and unrealistic to do this in any detail. Now all were on their toes; no one was to know that bombs would be unheard in Sherbome before the summer of 1940. Gaps in the master's ranks began to appear quite soon, though in a more orderly and foreseeable way than in the First War. Here Wallace had acted with great foresight, building up over quite a long period what he called his 'shadow staff. At first the bulky files of correspondence bore good fruit, with plenty of reliable teachers ready to return to harness. But as the years went on inevitably the quality tended to deteriorate and the Headmaster decided to employ some

56 women. This, in the event, proved a great success, the best of them were far better than the weaker male replacements and in many cases could have held their own in any teaching company whatsoever. One strange episode occurred in the very first week of the war. The front door bell rang one evening whilst the Wallace family were at dinner and to his astonishment A.R.W. found Heinz Brack, a young German, on the doorstep. He had been engaged in the previous year to help out temporarily in the Modern Languages Department with a strong recommendation from Professor Murray. He turned out to be a delightful young man and very efficient at his job. None the less A.R.W. was somewhat uncertain about him as relations between the two countries deteriorated. He even had him tailed by Scotland Yard whilst away from Sherborne on holiday. 'What on earth are you doing here?', Wallace asked, 'you ought to be back in Germany preparing to fight for your country'. Brack replied that he found it impossible to fight against his former friends and so had remained in this country. The Wallace's gave him a bed for the night and then handed him over to the police the next morning. Brack was arrested and held in Dorchester jail before spending the rest of the war as a P.O.W. in Canada and Australia. Extraordinarily it transpired that throug4out his time in Britain he had been a Nazi agent whose particular task had been to collect information about all Germans living in Dorset. Troops were stationed in the town (as in most places of its size) through· out the war - with Evelyn Waugh as perhaps the most famous military visitor. Luck first produced a battalion of Grenadiers; both they and their successors the Queen's were in France in time for the withdrawal to Dunkirk. Back in Sherborne their successors, the K.O.S.B. raised local morale more than they may have realised by beating Retreat on the Upper at the height of that grim period. Towards the end of the war there was even an American chemical warfare unit stationed in Sherborne. Throughout the long drawn out 'phoney' war life had continued very much as usual and such was the force of habit (and the power of censorship)at the time that Wallace's first intimation that things were going very badly wrong was when he met in the school Courts a member of the staff whom he and everyone else had imagined to be serving in the smooth and coherent organisa­ tion of the B.E.F.; he had actually been sent off in a hurry and was one of the first to reach England. Very soon afterwards the town received its first bomb which landed harm­ lessly about 6 a.m. in a field well beyond the Girls' School. This for most people was their initiation and it was a matter of comment at the time that the whistle lasted long enough for several sleepers to awake and dive beneath their beds before the explosion. Inevitably there was a slight hysterical reaction, reluctance to discuss the war at all lest one appear defeatist. Even dimmed car lights on West Hill (incredibly) were suspected of signalling to hostile aircraft. Wallace, more sensibly, used the opportunity to put the finishing touches to the school's A.R.P. plans. These were, in the event, to undergo successfully a very exacting test on September 30th 1940. This, the famous Sherborne air raid, became a more than twice told tale and it is not the intention here to do more than set it down as it appeared to one man, the school's headmaster. He had just concluded a game of squash with a colleague and was caught by the first bombs in the most awkward of positions - relaxing in a hot bath. To

57 get dried and into a dressing gown which by ill chance had a sleeve inside out was a longer process than he could have wished. However on descending he found all the domestic staff either already in the house cellar or else making their way there; but of Winifred, who might well have been expected to be in evidence, no sign. The raid was now over - to drop several score bombs in a straight line is no long matter - and Wallace emerged into the Courts amidst a cloud of dust and the stench of cordite to hear his costume greeted with loud laughter (brave or slightly hysterical?) by some of the boys emerging from shelter. This, if it registered much at all, could hardly have been very welcome to a man who had one prime duty - to find out how many of his charges were dead or mutilated. This took less time than one might have imagined; the number of missiles received (some half dozen) was speedily ascertained and it became clear that the A.R.P. had been well conceived and effective. No member of the community had even a scratch - though an unlucky jobbing gardener working for a master in Richmond Road got a bomb all to himself. The most startling sight A.R.W. witnessed was two members of the staff unrecognisable, but covered in powdered plaster so as to resemble the statue in Don Giovanni. Making sure they were unharmed he returned to School House, where to his great relief he found Winifred who had been having tea with a friend in Abbey­ lands nearby. Time bombs (at that time almost unknown to the general public) provided an unpleasant postscript. However their sites were soon spotted and after an explosion or two in the next twenty-four hours, the then limit of Teutonic ~genuity, all was adjudged safe and the school proceeded methodically to fill up the craters on its premises. Bomb stories, of course, proliferated in no time. A.R.W. records only one which perhaps appealed to him by reason of its Old Testament overtones - Bal.aam and his ass. A dayboy parent, wife of a local bank manager who lived in a village about four miles out, had planned a shopping expeditiop to the town with her . small daughter; her mode of transport was the old fashioned pony and trap. All went well for the first two miles when quite suddenly the pony dug in her heels and stubbornly refused to advance a step further. As neither objurgation nor the whip had any effect on this unprecedented be­ haviour the driver gave up and returned home. Just as they arrived back they heard the crash of the bombs and saw the tops of the clouds of smoke. A simple calculation showed that but for the pony's refusal she would have reached Sherborne simultaneously with the intruders; moreover one of the shops she had intended to visit had a bomb only a few feet from its entrance. It was entirely typical of Wallace that next morning the first lesson was cancelled and the entire school and as many of the other members of the community as could be squeezed in were summoned to the school chapel to give thanks for safe deliver­ ance. The aftermath of the raid proved troublesome and complicated. Sherborne was twenty-five miles from the coast,just on the border of the official danger zone. A few boys were withdrawn and pressure from less sanguine parents was soon suggesting a general move to a safer area. Wallace, realising the ruination of a school in such circumstances, was loath to take such an extreme measure; at the same time he could hardly hold out in the face of similar raids if such occurred. He devised a sop for the nervous. If necessary, the school would simply

58 be divided into two, bisecting every department and every activity. One half would remain at Sherborne under himself, the other under his deputy G. O'Hanlon would move to Scotland or some other safe haven. With hindsight it is easy to see that the raid was a fortuitous jettisoning of bombs by an enemy in retreat and, of course, it was never repeated. But at the time the plan was a bold and skilful example of keeping the options open. The work of the Home Guard to which every senior boy automatically belonged, whether soldier, sailor or airman (A.R.W. was particularly proud of the school's rare distinction in providing all three), naturally received a fillip at this time and the school units fitted in with those of the town in a perimeter type defence scheme. Wallace objected and suggested guerilla activity for his boys. The idea of a 'bow and arrow warrior' were however, he records, not heeded. Truth to tell, probably neither would have been much good, though the official plan might have been slightly less nasty for the defenders. On one occasion the authorities staged a mock turnout for an invasion, the whole thing to be presented for real. How in the absence of church bells and the issue of live ammunition it was possible to be convincing is not clear. But convincing it was and for years afterwards A.R.W. remembered with regret any pale cheeks visible that night. Two School House boys had better luck another time when a German pilot with no fight left in him after a nocturnal parachute escape emerged from a hedge and surrendered. 'Not a bad bag', they commented to their headmaster, 'for a Sunday walk'. PropoSals were mooted for th"e construction of an auxiliary airfield, with official insensitivity fairly soon after the raid and almost exactly on the site of Sherborne's first isolated bomb. This, close to an educational centre, was not a welcome idea and school representatives chartered a small plane in which Wallace, Fred lindsay and Miss Stuart of the Girl's School embarked and were guided over the site to see for themselves how inconspicuous it would be. In the end it was. never laid out; but wits (no doubt of both sexes) did not fail to remark that the Luftwaffe, by leaving the small plane unmolested, had missed an unrepeatable chance. This was less absurd than it sounds for on one occasion subsequently School House boys emerging from lunch observed a German fighter proceeding westward over the Courts, fast and very low indeed; it was as well no rear gunner was carried in such models. The most serious threat to the school was less spectacular and more insidious. The R.N.C. Dartmouth was damaged in an air raid (not as badly as Sherborne) and possible alternative sites had to be considered. Accordingly a deputation arrived from the Admiralty to inspect the main buildings. Wallace did his customary tour, merely pointing out the worst features of the place, normally scrupulously avoided. To his dismay the party showed obvious signs of' satis­ faction till it was mounting the staircase to the dormitories when someone said 'stretcher'. Actually no known case had ever been recorded of a stretcher being used there, but A.R.W. seized his chance and stated quite truthfully that geometrically it would be awkward if not impossible. The deputation, bound no doubt by some naval by-law, retired shaking their heads and Wallace rang up a governor who was also an Old Shirburnian and a Field Marshal; no more was ever heard of this threat. Burdens enough there were; no mention has yet been made of the ever­ present possibility that sleep all too often broken by alerts and the constant

59 irritation of fire watching, coupled with a diet which was adequate but no more, would lead to impaired resistance and epidemics. Actually health remained pretty good, though Wallace noticed diminished activity in the boisterous knockabout games in the Courts and decided (ashad been done in the First War) slightly to shorten official exercise periods. And there were the casualties (sedulously collected and recorded by Admiral Pickering Pick - whose own younger son had been one of the very first.) By the end of the war Wallace had known involved Shirburnians at first hand for eleven years - quite long enough to be most deeply concerned by the lists. In all 242 Shirburnians had been killed on active service and the roll of decorations included one VC (awarded posthumously to J. H. Grayburn killed on Arnhem Bridge), 38 DSOs, 81 MCs, 142 Mentions in Despatches and 211 other decorations. He had also two sons of his own on active service and a son-in-law (Eve had married in 1937). In those days the telephone was not the utterly common­ place thing it has since become, the telegram was still in favour. Probably few of the senders (mainly parents contacting their boys) realised how the Head­ master in his study could hardly fail to note each messenger boy cycling down his drive and how his heart missed a beat each time. The worst was not to happen but it would be a thoughtless judgement indeed which dismissed as trivial the effects of such continual insidious pressure. After it was all over A.R.W. remained in touch with the school and its old boys for long enough to form the strong impression that those who spent their formative years under inferior conditions were in no way distinguishable from others lucky enough to have been born at a different time. It provided, he observed, considerable food for thought. Few schoolmasters would disagree.

60 Chapter XV

Sherborne 1945-50

V.E Day, long heralded, was celebrated on 8th May 1945, with perhaps some artificiality in the minds of those who could remember 11/11/18. None the less there was much jubilation in the school, but not for Wallace who found himself under a cloud of deep depression, a rare affliction for him. His elder son Ian was still in Burma and later that year it was to turn out that for his unit this very day had been one of the bloodiest and most damaging of the campaign; a clear case of telepathy even halfway round the world. However life at home had to go on and a week or two later there arrived a surprising communication from the headmistress of the Girls' School inviting 100 boys to a celebration dance. Forty-six years of rigid segregation lay behind, but this was hardly an offer that could be refused. The occasion, accompanied by the strains of a radio­ gram, was naturally a great success; Wallace was much amused by the piles of fan mail that arrived as a sequel. Inevitably the next term, with V.J. Day now to celebrate, a return of hospitality was imperative. There could only be compliance, but as host A.R.W. felt certain responsibilities. He engaged an excellent live band and the staff wives transformed the Big School with decor­ ations. Private instructions (to be circulated by the head of school) included (a) no wallflowers (b) no sitting out in dark corners. On the day 100 girls in pairs entered from the north and 100 boys from the south. From then on no need to worry. Pioneer days, and the participants must now be staid middle-aged folk; but social contacts between the two schools have flourished ever since. In 1946 Wallace achieved his wish and relinquished School House; it was a relief because, although he had been assisted in turn by three house tutors all of whom he found congenial and competent, the ultimate difficult decisions had had to remain in his hands. None the less he soon found that a headmaster without a house knew very much less about his school than one in daily en­ counter with boys and their gossip; it was a change being made by many other schools, but not all and the latter may well prove in the end to have been right. A 'Headmaster's House' (reassuring to parents) as a foundation of recruitment has not been much in demand since the war, but education does not stand still and it may yet be so again. Meanwhile with time on his hands the Headmaster conscientiously applied himself to some innovations. Instruction in 'Arts, Crafts and Techniques' proved a fragile structure that did not survive his reign. 'The New Venture' was a more solid and expensive enterprise (most liberally supported by Old Shirburnians and parents) designed to introduce boys to the experience and skills of moun­ taineering and sailing. There was too during this time prolonged discussion about the form of the War Memorial. Unanimous agreement was reached on the provision of bursaries

61 for the sons of Shirbumians who had been killed. Thereafter enlargement of either the Chapel or the Big Schoolroom was urgently needed. Wallace favoured the former, but wheq it was clear that architecturally it was virtually impossible, the opposing party (with an infinitely easier building problem) won the day. In May 1948 a letter arrived from the Boulting brothers asking permission to take scenes in and around the school for their new film 'The Guinea Pig', based on a recent successful play by an Old Shirbumian, W. Chetham Strode. As their proposed arrival was within weeks Wallace politely declined on the grounds of imminent exams; later however he was induced to relent by an immensely long telegram from the author offering to fulfil any required conditions. A.R.W. was not demanding; no interruption whatever of school work or tampering with buildings and no payment for boys acting as extras. A large sherry party broke the ice effectively and pleasantly. The actors found schoolmasters less puritanically stuffy than anticipated and the schoolmasters that actors were by no means as permissive as had been feared. The boys, un­ paid, volunteered in large numbers and the Boultings contributed generously to the school charity. What could have been better? The Wallace family were, of course, invited to the London premiere and arrived at the theatre in a taxi to cries from a surging crowd of 'Put on the light'. This was not done and when A.R.W. emerged the cries were silenced and the crowd retreated - a good family joke for a long time. After the show there was a reception at the Savoy. 'Had he enjoyed the show?~ Easy. 'Was it a true picture of school life?: Impossible. Perhaps so many years later the background will bear recapitulation. At this period boys from the state system were financed by certain local education authorities at public schools in their area. While the scheme lasted Sherborne took about three to four every year. In the film the 'guinea pig' was a marked boy from the word go, bullied, harassed and mocked. In real life he and his like had the most ordinary of careers varying from good to indifferent. There was no discrimination; their paying schoolfellows to a very large extent knew nothing and cared less about identities and backgrounds. The author had had to create a play and incidentally, having entered Sherborne in 1910,was hardly up to date anyway. In 1949 owing to exchange control regulations the average Englishman had about as much chance of visiting the U.S.A. as the North Pole. Wallace then should have considered himself fortunate when the Bishop of Salisbury secured him an invitation to give a course of lectures in February at the Evanston theological seminary near Chicago. And doubly so when a Mrs. Lange (mother of the exchange student currently at Sherbome) backed this up with the offer of hospitality, both before and after, at her Larchmont home just outside New York. Alec and Winifred crossed in 'The Queen Mary' and were duly met on the quayside. Their first impression was that shared by many in Europe just after the war - total inability to cope with the portions of food owing to shrunken stomachs. For a fortnight their hostess did them the honours of New York before they moved on to the less familiar ground of Chicago. Here A.R.W. found himself busy with the preparation and delivery of his lectures; the students were appreciative and there was time over for some long drives in and around the city. The fme planetarium (of which there was no example in Great Britain till nearly ten years later) particularly impressed them. At the end stfldents were encouraged to commit to paper their frank assessments of the

62 lectures; this was done, but Wallace did not receive them till after his return to Sherborne when their impact (if any) would clearly have been much reduced. He visited a number of schools, quickly summing up the most important difference -a wider syllabus, but pursued to a lower standard than in England; he much admired the care given to speech therapy and E.S.N. children (the gap is probably less wide today). Inevitably he got involved in preaching, fmding postservice handshaking almost universal and (as with his students) associated with comment, not necessarily polite. To compensate after saying 'a few words' at a purely social guild tea party, he found a $10 bill pressed into his hand (accepting it in the spirit iri which it had been offered!). Back at Larchmont Alec and. Winifred flew to Washington for the day, managing to see a great deal of that compact city in the time. But mainly it was hospitality without cease, very acceptable for a period. And, in 1949, to find nylons, chocolates, even cigarettes in their cabin was genuinely welcome. The crossing was a rough one and England's damp cold unattractive. Over there A.R.W. had made light of far lower (but drier) temperatures partly perhaps by virtue of a borrowed sheepskin coat which had started life on the back of a German officer in Russia and which was subsequently annexed by a member of the Sherborne staff in France. Both Alec and Winifred emerged very pro­ American and realising how the mixed population appears to far better advantage on its own ground than when en touriste. The term at Sherborne proved to have been uneventful,G. O'Hanlon reporting as perhaps the most unpalatable incident a nocturnal incursion by some of the wilder spirits into Girls' School property and the breaking of a window or two. A.R.W ., no doubt meditating on the civilising effect of dances, determined that nothing similar should occur again while he was at Sherbome, nor did it. With unerring sense of timing he had decided that the Quatercentenary _of the school's foundation (or refoundation), in 1950, was to be the occasion of his resignation when, incidentally, he would be entering his 60th year. It happened also that by discreet activity in the corridors of power the Governing body had securea the attendance of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth· a few days in advance, but none the less forming an integral part of the celebrations. As with the raid of 1940 these events are recorded in such detail that it seems best to avoid a repetition and set down here; perhaps for the first time, only certain. things that Wallace hlmselfreckonedworth recordirig. To begin with, though the royal visit to the school was just as important, indeed rather more so than that of the Prince of Wales to Lucknow, in some respects it was less of an ordeal for the man in charge: the scale was smaller, there were precedents for such high occasions, and above all the natives were 100% loyal and reliable. Of this aspect of the situation Wallace of course breathed no word at the time. A provisional programme was made out and discussed in detail at Buckingham Palace with the King's private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles. There was only one complete innovation (subsequently adopted by most other schools) that at lunch their Majesties should be flanked on each side by a senior boy, more stimulating company perhaps than the customary chairman of governors plus their respective wives. Sir Alan instantly approved this, added a number of other suggestions. and the stage was set. Wallace was fortunate in having a first class organiser in A. H. Trelawny­ Ross, a former senior member of the staff who had retired entirely on giving

63 0\ ~

Thursday June I st, 1950: The Royal Visit. From left to right outside School House: Sir Alan Lascelles (the King's Private Secretary, partly obscured), A. R. W., King George VI, Anne Wallace, Mrs. Wallace, Queen Elizabeth, Hugh Wallace . up his house four years before and had plenty of time. Of this he made abun­ dantly good use and seldom can a six hour visit have been more carefully thought out. Wet weather, fme weather- of course. But a doctor never more than a discreet fifty yards away in case his ministrations were needed? And this was not a-typical of all the arrangements. It had been foreseen that considerable rehearsal would be necessary, but not that questions of precedence would arouse much rancour. After all, what difference between seeing their Majesties from the kerb passing slowly by in a car and watching them walk across the Courts through several serried ranks in front? But human nature is a strange thing and Wallace received such vituper­ ation from those disappointed in their hopes of securing a ticket of the right colour that he was forced to create an adjudication committee - on which he found himself too busy overall to serve! Bows and curtsies rehearsed by staff due to be presented produced, by contrast, only hilarity. The forecast on MI!-Y 31st was not good. At 5.30 a.m. next day A.R.W. got out of bed and took a look through the window at the flag on the Abbey Tower. Reassured, he returned and even managed to snatch a further hour's sleep. He was quite right; the weather was to turn out perfect. As stated, the day's celebrations are already on record; not so four incidents in lighter vein which Wallace recorded. (i) The reception committee was waiting expectantly at the Main Gate when a large car emerged from Abbey Road and turned left. Immediately the strains of the national anthem were heard and the royal standard broken on the school tower; from the vehicle emerged the chairman of governors. A case for quick thinking; to stop the band - a ruinous procedure, so on they went to the end, at which moment the royal procession entered Hospital Hill from the north; as it came to a halt 'God Save' burst forth again. Repeat performance with perfect timing. (ii) After the presentations the monarch found he had mislaid his hat -a more awkward thing perhaps for a King than a commoner. Wallace hastily went off on a personal search; it seemed an eternity before he found it at last on a chair in a corner of School House. (iii) Another hat - this time Wallace's own. During the afternoon he had occasion to uncover in the royal presence. The King pointed out that the label was stuck to his host's forehead, with the light and gracious query, 'A new one just for this occasion?' (iv) A small group of boys, spurning the official send-off on the fields, decided that one of the railway bridges would give a better grandstand - a procedure not provided for by the rules and perhaps not even very polite. However they were awarded by a glimpse of the royals relaxing with their feet up and very sensibly starting on a second tea. It might seem that after two such spectacular events the remaining six or so weeks of the term could only be an anticlimax. In A.R.W.'s mind at any rate this could in no way be so; there was the question of his own future to be settled. Earlier in 1950 a dignitary of the Exeter diocese had hinted to Wallace at a London conference that his name was high on the short list for the Deanery shortly to fill vacant. Late in May the same source disclosed that another name had· slipped ahead - a disappointment, but for the next three weeks or so there were distractions enough at the school to banish the thought of it. As soon as

65 there was time to consider such matters a Sherborne governor put Wallace in touch with the patron of the south Dorset living of Moreton, with its attractive church, large dilapidated vicarage and salmon pool close by. The village is widely known as the burial place ofT. E. Lawrence, and Wallace accepted the offer of the living without much hesitation. Quite soon, on July 1st, a confidential letter arrived from the Prime Minister asking whether it would be agreeable if he sent his name to the King with a recommendation for the vacant Deanery. Two hours later a telegram announced the birth of Ian's first son, A.R.W.'s first grandson. One of the better mornings, to be slightly clouded later by lunch with friends near Moreton who of course could discuss nothing but the village and the Wallace's plans for it. Neither of the latter liked double talk and did not enjoy the occasion. Formal with­ drawal was effected by letter; the patron proved a realist and made no demur. So the term drew to its conventional close. Wallace stood at the foot of the eastern chapel steps and shook hands with every boy in the school. At the final Lists all went according to tradition until the customary 'three Cheers' when, to his embarrassment, he found himself unable to speak- merely raising his hand and quitting the platform. Winifred and the family left very soon to get the Deanery into some sort of order. A.R.W. spent his last night at the school on a pile of mattresses in a junior dormitory where he had so often amused and entertained the occupants on his rounds. Perhaps as good an exit as any other.

66 Chapter XVI

The Headmaster

Wallace always said that he regarded his sixteen years as Headmaster of Sherborne as the central achievement of his career. His previous headmaster­ ships had been of limited duration, five years at Cargilfield, four at Blundell's. At Cargilfield he had effected the tricky transition from a school which had been run by its founders for forty years to a new r~gime responsible to a Board of Governors, whilst at Blundell's he had steered the school through the difficult years of the Depression. He had done both these jobs well but there was in­ sufficient time to achieve anything of real substance. It was at Sherborne that his talents and accumulated experiences were most fully realised and indeed where in the long ru,n he was most influential. He looked upon his task as a headmaster as almost of Holy Stewardship. He saw the whole school and its community in the widest sense as his parish. Not only did he. know his staff well but he also knew their families. He would invariably greet wives and children by name and would take an interest in what they were doing. Young bachelor members of staff as a matter of course would call upon him on leaving and returning to Sherborne at the end and beginning of term. But he did not confme his attentions to the teaching staff; he knew as well what we today would call the ancillary staff - cleaners, groundsmen, maintenance workers. He knew where most of them lived and if ill would call in the same manner as the parish priest. One whom he visited in the Yeatman Hospital after a nasty operation received the next day a bottle of Champagne­ Wallace always had the greatest faith in this as a 'pick me-up'- in an age before the National Health Service - found that their medical bills had already been paid. This then was his philosophy of Headmastering, that he was pastor to this large and heterogeneous flock who invariably responded to this interest and concern. Undoubtedly Wallace was outstanding in this role but there was a good deal more to his work in Sherborne. It is probably true to say that his most import­ ant achievement was to weld together the federation of houses that he inherited into the modern school that we know today. And at the same time he gave the school confidence in itself and a sense of direction. It was no easy task. In a Supplement (marked Strictly Private) to his Report to the Governors in October 1934 when Wallace had only had one full term at the school he wrote, 'I feel conscious that some centrifugal influence has been at work. I have the impression generally in the School of a lack of co-ordination and orientation towards the centre. Sherborne appeared to me on first acquaintance more as a group of seven houses than a school. This was, for instance, visible in the position of the School Prefects, who hardly seemed to work as a body at all, and accepted their office as a title of honour and nothing further ..... and the

67 Houses, especially, seemed to be organised as separate communities, with no contact, and apparently Jittle desire for contact, with the main body. It will be, I feel, one of my first duties to establish contact with these various units, and establish at least some degree of co-ordination'. What Wallace did over sixteen years was to raise the numbers overall from 420 to 500 and in doing this to integrate its more diffuse parts into the whole. It was a task which required great skill and some patience. The geographical nature of Sherbome's houses scattered round the town together with the historical fact of private ownership meant that the houses had become highly independent in the hands of some resolute characters. During his time the last of the private houses came to an end so that they were now Governors' property. The houses, however, were not the only divisive force that from time to time had threatened to pull the school apart; the issue of Athleticism versus In­ tellectualism was by no means dormant. My Histories of Cricket and Rugby Football at Sherborne School have shown that there were considerable dangers both before and after the Great War that Sherborne would become a mere games' playing academy. There were some strident characters on the staff for whom games were very important indeed and at times they threatened to swamp the school. The intellectuals therefore were inclined to over-react, to do all that they could to pour scorn on the games' ethos. One of the tasks of a headmaster is to set the tone and in this particular concern Wallace was admirably well-equipped. A keen games' player himself but not a fanatic, rather did he have a wide spread of interests and enthusiasms which embraced the academic. If overcoming these divisive forces and pulling the School together is con­ sidered to be Wallace's principal achievement at Sherborne, one must look for the qualities that enabled him to do this. He was a big man in every way. Physically he was imposing- strong jaw, large barrelled chest, upstanding - and blessed with a loud voice. Michael McCrum, one of his most distinguished heads of school, remembers him characteristically striding across the courts, mortar board atop, gown flowing and a pile of books tucked under the arm, looking rather like a ship in full sail. He had, too, that indefinable quality of great presence. He was very much in command and people took note of what he said. Certainly he knew what he was about. But he was big enough to delegate important tasks for which he had no aptitude. At Blundell's F. G. Mee, the young scientist, had been his right­ hand man and he followed Wallace to Sherborne dealing with time-tables, lists, orders, returns to the Board of Education and the like. Wallace was later to say that he could never have been a headmaster without the assistance of Freddie Mee. But Wallace was never bigger than when dealing with a crisis. The war as a whole put enormous strains on the school which the Headmaster took in his stride. Peter Boissier spoke of this in his Address at the Memorial Service to A.R.W. in October 1982: 'Apart from the normal problems and crises which are the common lot of headmasters he had to cope with the privations and anxieties created by the war; the loss of the younger and more energetic staff who were called to the colours; their replacement by older and previously retired schoolmasters; the digging of trenches, the building of shelters and the setting-up of air raid precautions. Under these pressures and many more, he stood foursquare to the world; a Sherbome colossus resisting the demands that the school should move overseas, ensuring that it survived for a better day.

68 There is some evidence of his resolution in those days contained in a letter received from his housemasters in July 1941: "Dear Chief, Some of us have thought, at a time like this, the end of the second year of the war, that we would like to send to you some expression of our confidence and friendship. What we want to tell you very briefly is that you have our affection, trust and loyalty; we realise the burden you have to carry and are full of admiration for the way you have borne it. Your unfailing readiness to help us all and your equanimity when things are difficuly have set us an example which we are proud to follow". A.R.W. treasured this letter to the end of his life. Obviously he inspired confidence, not only amongst the staff who would have known him best but also amongst boys and parents, most of whom would have known him only incidentally. Stephen Elvery, as a boy in School House, re­ members Wallace's immense calm immediately after the bombing on 30th September 1940. He rose to the occasion, 'Bombing? What's wrong? This is what you woUld expect in a war. No one hurt? Fine. Back to work then!' Although he was an Exhibitioner of Corpus Christi College and took the classical sixth at Sherborne, Wallace was neither a great scholar nor a notable intellectual. Perhaps he was slightly suspicious of such people and on occasions he could be remarkably naive in some of the things he said. At the Headmasters' Conference, for example, he was regarded as very conservative and somewhat unintellectual. At times he could be mistaken for a bluff, prosperous farmer. His most abiding quality as a headmaster however was that of the energetic enthusiast with an enormous zest tor lite. He was interested ·in every facet of school life. He was a very competent teacher of classics and something of an actor in class: he attended all the concerts although certainly no musician: he took a particular interest in the Duffers (where members of staff and occasionally boys read learned papers):he would stride round the games fields whilst cricket leagues were in progress, chatting to boys on the boundary, umpiring for a few overs in different games: he would visit the Sanatorium almost every day for there he could talk with boys he might not ordinarily come across: he had no particular dramatic leanings but even after he had left Sherborne he could write to Hugh Holmes, in March 1951, 'I wish we could see the Staff Play, they were always the greatest fun and I always felt that the last evening of the Easter term was one of the happiest in the whole year.' Perhaps he was something of an overgrown schoolboy with his love of golf and other games and his ability to get carried away by his enthusiasms. Certainly he enjoyed life and he had a bubbling sense of humour and a loud, cackling laugh. To Holmes again, 'P.S. What about getting engaged to some nice girl (British) in Switzerland this year- you are getting thin on top'. In atl this Wallace was helped by three important factors. First, as Headmaster and Housemaster he lived in School House right at the very centre of things. It takes a special sort of person and family to live without privacy but it does have the advantage of being in the heart of the school; little that went on could escape his eye and ear. Second, the school was smaller than it is today. For most of his time there were less than 500 boys in the school, which meant that he could just about know them all by name. A more monolithic structure, too, meant that it was easier to keep a grip on what was going on. And third

69 he was largely uninvolved in outside committee work which meant that he could devote all his energies and time to the school at the expense of less outside publicity in public circles for the school. His views were summed up in a letter he wrote to R. S. Thompson in 1946, 'I have always felt that one's first duty is to the school and the House. But this does naturally apply to holiday work; I think it is one's duty to do a certain amount of that, though I think it is pleasanter to be playing golf.' The~ were fairly straightforward and obvious advantages, there were however two other factors that to Wallace were infmitely more important in enabling him to do this difficult job outstandingly well- his wife and his faith. Opinions about Winifred are remarkably consistent - self-effacing, shy, charming - and absolutely the 'right' wife for A.R.W. She was a perfect foil, ever-present in the background, devoted to him and her family. Not the 'grand lady' that woUld have been impossible alongside the imposing personality of her husband but rather the quiet wife, the unending source of strength. And, ori occasions, A.R.W. did need a good deal of looking after. In fmancial matters his qualities were limited so that Freddie Mee looked after the large matters and Winifred ensured that he always had change for collections and the like. The private side of School House provided a lively and entertaining community. Rarely were there only family at meals - tutors in School House, official visitors to the school, family friends, Old Boys on fleeting visits, all could be found and A.R.W. in his element at the head of the table enquiring about the 'world outside' the cloistered Sherbome community. The entertaining was neither particularly grand nor formal, rather, it was the extension of Winifred's family to a very wide range of people. This was never more so than in war time. Joy Walker, mother of a boy in School House, and a friend of the family remembers the enormous calm and support of Alec and Winifred in a period of great anxiety with the bombs raining down around her house in Gosport and a husband and elder son on active service overseas. She stayed in School House often. Alongside his family was his deep Christian faith. A.R.W. had surprised many people when he announced his intention to seek ordination. His faith was simple and clear in his own mind and it gave little room for doubt. On one famous occasion in a Sixth Form Divinity class, and this was by no means untypical, he had said, 'This is the truth, boy, write it down!· to which one of the class replied, 'Certainly, Sir, so long as you don't expect me to believe it'. Wallace had sufficient sense of humour to appreciate this reply. His sermons were straightforward and relatively simplistic as were his three short books on Christianity; sound teaching of the gospels was their hallmark. Many also remem­ bered the outstanding address he gave in 1942 at the Memorial Service to Edward Parry-Jones. Here Wallace was able to express in the School Chapel what so many of the community felt at the tragically early death through cancer of a housemaster and husband at the height of his responsibilities and powers. It was as well that Wallace possessed this happy family life and strong Christian faith as well as the human qualities already mentioned for the life of Sherbome headmasters has never been easy. Not only have they had to contend with strong independent housemasters but also with a number of capable men

70 A. R. W. crossing The Courts, late 1940's. Back left: A. H. Trelawny-Ross (Housemaster of Lyon, 191446, wearing hat) and J. H. Randolph (Housemaster of Abbey/ands, 1940-55)

71 who have put their all into the life of the school. For them the school has been the whole focus of their abilities, energies and emotions and although this has many advantages it has on occasions created its drawbacks. They have not always been able to see things in perspective and hence we have seen, for example, that Wallace had to face a deputation of senior men about the structure of communion wafers. Intelligent men, too, who had stayed in the school rather than move on to new challenges were only too willing to criticize the headmaster. Wallace coped with all this not so much by tact and diplomacy, these were never his strong suits, but rather by force of personality. At the outset he was something of a 'bull in a china shop', sometimes aggressive and assertive. After the inactivity of Boughey and the rejection of O'Hanlon the inheritance was bound to be difficult and Wallace did not have an easy introduction. Jean Parry-Jones weJl remembers in those early days the occasions when the phone would ring at 10 p.m. or so, just as she and her husband were going to bed and Edward would be summoned over to the Chief for a glass of whisky and a chat about school affairs and the chance to unburden himself and seek advice. He could also be impetuous and impulsive. He would take up new ideas without always seeing through their implications. And he could 'put his foot in it . On one famous occasion he preached at the Girls School advising the girls that their duty was to marry young and have plenty of children. Today that sort of advice would arouse howls of protests from womens' 1ibbers' and environ­ mentalists; in those days it was perfectly acceptable except that the staff of the Girls School was composed practically entirely of spinsters who not surprisingly were somewhat embarrassed at such advice being offered to their charges in their presence. At Sherborne, as in most schools, relations between colleagues were friendly; but it would be wrong to omit all reference to the extraordinary love-hate relationship between two outstanding men, A. H. Trelawny-Ross and A.R.W., who both found much to admire and oppose in the character of the other. The former, as boy and man, had been associated with Sherbome since 1899 when the school numbered 200, was closely knit and jealously loyal to itself. In 1914 he became a housemaster and in course of time an outstanding one. A bachelor, utterly devoted to his job, with an infmite capacity for taking pains, he got good material and made the best of it. But he could never come to terms with the idea that thirty-five years later the same school {three times bigger) might inspire devotion equal to his own and in addition require chang~s to keep up with the times. Thus, no doubt with complete sincerity and sense of integrity, he seemed to obstruct and delay (without of course stopping) many desirable developments, from growth in numbers to the introduction of games like hockey, tennis and squash. He once even forbade his house to attend holy communion in the School Chapel as a protest against an occasional choral service - a course so close to the wind as to rank as virtual defiance. On another occasion when there was a School Concert in the Big School Room, Trelawny-Ross held a Lyon Concert in the house. Not for nothing did the boys refer to Lyon as 'Mr. Ross's Academy'. But Wallace was very wise; he knew that A.H.T-R. fllled Lyon House, and in the 1930s the order book was a crucial factor, and he appreciated that he was a great benefactor of the School in a period when there were no funds for capital

72 investment. He also knew that in due course time would remove his adversary and he therefore refused a collision, despite much provocation. Hence in 1950 Wallace was able to call on A.H.T-R.'s remarkable talents. The royal visit might have been organised by another man, but for the Quatercentenary a week or two later involving several days and thousands of visitors there was no one on the Sherborne scene likely to have managed things equally well. Finally, no mention of his headmastership would be complete without some reference to a few of the outstanding products of the school in his time. David Sheppard, for example, was head of Lyon House in 1946. Subsequently he gave up his cricketing career (22 England caps, Captain of Cambridge University, Sussex and England on two occasions) to pursue his vocation in the Church. After pioneering work as Warden of the Mayflower Family Centre in Canning Town, he was Bishop of Woolwich 1969-75 before being transferred to the see of Liverpool. He has spent nearly 30 years working in the inner city, a far cry from the cloistered calm of Sherborne. David Cornwell (better known as John Le Carre) left Westcott in 1943 for brief careers in schoolmastering and the Foreign Office before devoting himself to writing and becoming one of Britain's best known spy-thriller writers. Michael McCrum was head of Abbey House and of the School in 1942 and rose subsequently to become Headmaster of Tonbridge in the 1960s and Eton in the 1970s before returning to his old college Corpus Christi, Cambridge, as Master. McCrum remembered Wallace's advice at a crucial stage of his career. He had just started out on a school­ mastering career at Rugby when out of the blue came an offer to return to Corpus as Tutor. Not at all sure what to do he wrote to his former headmaster, now at Exeter. 'Take it. You'll never get another chance like this again', came the firm response. McCrum took the advice. Four more of note were Christopher Chataway, Olympic athlete, one of the parties to the first four minute mile, and subsequently a Minister in Heath's government of 1970-74 and now an international banker; Steuart Pringle who as Commandant General, Royal Marines was so cruelly maimed in an IRA terrorist attack; Geoffrey Chandler, fmancial journalist, Director of Shell Petroleum and from 1978 Director General of the National Economic Develop­ ment Office; and Hugh Thomas, historian and writer, who was raised to the peerage as Lord Thomas of Swynnerton in 1981. It may well be that these people would all have gone on to great things in any event but none the, less they do in part provide testimony to a highly successful and forceful headmaster of Sherborne.

73 Chapter XVII

Exeter

Even before reaching Exeter Wallace received two letters of a distinctly vituperative and unwelcoming character. Reflecting that, even with all his experience, he had not been subjected to an assault of this kind he shrugged the matter off. Reference will be made again to this particular feature of the English scene. The Deanery, as a residence, did not turn out too attractive. The exterior was a forbidding purple colour and the whole far too large; inside were some better features, the Great Hall, dining room and a private chapel. There was also a ghost which Wallace took over with benevolent tolerance. This was no doubt because he had recently extricated himself at Sherborne from a potentially tricky situation. Somehow the rumour had got about that the Sanatorium there was haunted. Although the subject fascinates them, boys are scared of ghosts; select a few who are ill as well and, as A.R.W. saw at once, you have a problem on hand. He acted quickly and sent for the most learned member of the Franciscan community at Batcombe who after a few incanta­ tions and a little water sprinkling proceeded on his way home. This, aided by some very discreet propaganda, was the end of the matter. Why then worry in the sanctity of a deanery without responsibility for other people's children? Actually, as will be seen, the Devon ghost too proved tiresome - but that lay some time ahead. The Bishop and official visitor of the Cathedral was Robert Mortimer, a most brilliant scholar, who had only joined the diocese in 19'1-9. Apart perhaps from one or two liturgical differences he and Wallace got on well; golf was a mutual tie. His Chapter the new Dean found to be a small group of most charming elderly men (one had served since 1913), but he sensed from the start that he was not likely to be able to infuse any great spirit of progress or reform: indeed it was more than halfway through his time before he felt this might be happening. The decanal duties he found light at first, with four months holiday in each year at times of his own choosing. When in residence there were matins at 9 a.m. and evensong at 5.30 p.m. each weekday, a fortnightly Sunday sermon and fairly frequent celebrations of Holy Communion. Such routine services were, of course, regularly supplemented by other much more spectacular occasions, Armistice Day, Battle of Britain, ordinations, Police, Marines and the Mayor's service (involving some complicated protocol with the Lord Lieuten­ ant who also attended). Wallace also welcomed the association with the Assizes - traditionally followed by a glass of sherry at the judge's lodgings. Occasionally he even attended court cases and records the following dialogue held quite openly in

74 his hearing: 'What did you give that chap this morning in the end?' 'Six months.' 'You bloody fool, he ought to have had twelve.' One might have thought that after a full introduction as a young man into the seamy side of life in India, enough was enough. But not so; while most people come across sufficient human frailty without looking for it, for A.R.W. the law and its workings afforded a lifelong interest. Few things pleased him more than when he was made an honorary member of the Magistrates' Association and later on when he had the chance of hearing his elder son Ian acting as Deputy Chairman on the bench at Poole. He disliked London as a city, but the Old Bailey, when he could slip away, provided a never failing compensation. Incidentally the Dean and Chapter gave the judges some of the best dinners in the country; they must have been lucky with their cooks. Away from the Cathedral itself there were many associated duties. Sermons and institutions all over the diocese. And as he wrote to Hugh Holmes in November 1954, 'I am now on six Governing bodies and know all the secrets and all the troubles'. Most pleasing to Wallace was his election as Masters' Representative at Blundell's. At long last he felt that he could repay some of the debt which he still considered he owed his former employers; and on top of this,marriage guidance, help for unmarried mothers, study groups, the Exeter clergy society, the Almshouse and so forth - cumulatively a very demanding programme. Not surprisingly Wallace soon adapted to this new way of life, although not without some wishful thinking. As he wrote to Holmes in March 1951. 'Things are going quite well here though I am quite ready for a holiday after a very tough week which included thirteen sermons in Holy Week; quite a liberal allowance for the most verbose of windbags! ... I am still living, to a certain extent, in mind at Sherborne though it is not as bad as it was the first six months when I began to wonder if I was going to get schizophrenia.' It is convenient here to allude to two sidelights on cathedral life - the first essentially parochial. In 1949 a well-wisher had bequeathed as a loan (an unusual arrangement) a large silver cross with diamond necklace to stand on the high altar. Inevitably it was very soon stolen, but shortly after Wallace's arrival, though the diamonds had gone for ever, the cross was recovered. The insurance company made good the loss and the bequest committee requested replacement as before; but the Dean and Chapter, unable to afford the services of a night watchman refused. The deadlock was resolved by a compromise, the cross to be on view by day only - the diamonds never leaving the bank. So things continued till 1962 when Wallace's successor was perhaps relieved to see both treasures removed to another church in the country, the whereabouts of which shall not be divulged here. The second concerns the many visitors to the Cathedral. At the humble level the guide is at least reasonably sure of his lOp per visitor. At Sherborne and Blundell's A.R.W. with his countless tours for prospective parents frequently had the satisfaction of securing a boy for the school. At Exeter, of course, the system was different and such work was done by a group of clergy, 'priest interpreters', A.R.W. taking his full share of the duties. He particularly remem­ bered the Princess Royal (who sent a personal note of thanks), Princess Alexandra, a catholic Cardinal who showed a remarkable lack of tact in doctrinal discussion and an African chieftain somewhat unschooled in European manners; but he welcomed all alike.

75 -.] 0\

Procession out of Exeter Cathedral after a Red Cross Service, mid-1950's. A. R. W. with hands clasped and, to the left, Robert Mortimer, Bishop of Exeter, 1949-73. Small wonder then if Wallace felt that purely secular bypaths were not only a duty but an attraction, though membership of the special constabulary was hardly the most obvious. Pacing the beat had its amusing side and donning uniform at night was as near the ring of Gyges as anyone is likely to get. On the other hand a hatpin in the behind from some harridan when he and his colleagues were cordoning a crowd was unexpected sharp medicine. Lectures on first aid and civil defence, support of the local rugger club - all sometimes leading to rather dull dinners also did something to strengthen the ties between Cathedral and city, which was A.R.W.'s prime plan. He was now about halfway through his time and his main lines of policy seemed fixed and accepted and Wallace could write toR. S. Thompson in 1955, 'I think the last five years have been among the happiest I can remember. The freedom from care and responsibility is magnificent .... The only clouds on the horizon appear in the newspapers. It has been a very saddening experience to watch the British Empire so rapidly deteriorating and disintegrating and our society in this country so sick but I am very thankful to have been privileged to be alive and active during our fmest hour'. However, man proposes .... In this case the trouble was right on the door­ step, organist-choirmen discord; the situation is common enough to form a stock part of the English scene. The organist whose competence may vary inversely with his tact; the choirmen whose length of service exceed their ability to sing in tune and as a final touch the youthful choristers who are by any standards in­ capable of taking sides significantly. In this case there were serious compli­ cations. The organist had great musical gifts and low qualities of self control; the choir was high average. The Chapter carpeted the organist; in such a situation they could hardly do otherwise. Organists come and organists go, but a scattered and disgruntled choir lives on in a parish for decades, an indefmite source of disharmony. Wallace, not really a musician himself, got a professor of music at Bristol (a colleague of his Wellington days) to come over and arbitrate. He could have done no more, but only succeeded in buying a few weeks'peace; so the organist was duly dismissed. As it turned out however, he was not the man to go without a fight. Gathering his heavy artillery from as far afield as London and Oxford he launched out into a vicious campaign of misrepresentation against the Dean and Chapter which inevitably centred mainly on Wallace himself. Of course nothing could be, or was, achieved. The sad result was that in one or two quarters Wallace created a lasting coolness which was none of his wish or making. Perhaps the sequel to the story is the strangest part of it. The dismissed man did not leave the city, but fmished off his professional career teaching at the university. Why, one wonders, make such stupendous efforts to hold on to his narrow niche in the restricted sphere of ecclesiastical music when the scope with gifted undergraduates is in many ways so much more wide and varied. Amour propre, no doubt. About the time of these events the Deanery ghost was laid. The Wallaces had always been prepared to accept its existence (one of their predecessors having, rather tactlessly, made a point of mentioning it), and they were not worried by alleged footsteps in the small hours and the scent of summer flowers in winter. But that their grandchildren refused to use the spare room and in-

77 deed were disinclined to stay in the house at all was something that did have an impact and Wallace, with Sherbome days in mind, engaged an expert, in this case the bishop suffragan of Crediton, after whose ministrations there were no more ghostly phenomena. All very discreet and uncontentious. Not so the pigeons which in their hundreds constituted a plague in the cathedral close. Their habits, of course, were messy and by continuously pecking out mortar they endangered the fabric. So the Chapter ordained a reduction in numbers, very wisely giving the job to the R.S.P.C.A. who both netted the birds on the lawns and also captured them when roosting under the eaves. True, humane destruction was probably their end in either case, but there was no mistaking the genuine storm of protest from the feeders of these pests. The dean was quite unsuitable to hold his position; he was not even fit to be a clergyman and the bishop should remove him. Of course, it was all forgotten in a week or two, perhaps most quickly in the local press. But Wallace had not quite expected such an explosion and had a longer memory. It was now nearly ten years since their American holiday and, what with the surprises provided by Devon, Alec and Winifred felt they might well seek a change of scene before it got too much of an effort. So 1957 found them cruising off Sweden in a cargo boat. In 1958 they saw for themselves the oft remarked fact that in battered Cologne the Dom stands virtually unscathed. Gott rnit uns. In 1959 in Barcelona came their first 'and only' bullfight. With· out aligning oneself with the pigeon fanciers of Exeter it is perhaps legitimate to comment that, without the tourists who go 'just once to see', the purveyors of corridas would be out of business within a year. Palma, with its Chopin associations, was an easier visit to justify. Routine minor inspections had been a regular feature of the Indian scene and in the years when it might have mattered - when he was making his way up as a schoolmaster - A.R.W. was never bothered by His Majesty's Inspectors. Now in 1959 after ten years it was Bishop Mortimer's duty to carry out an Episcopal Inspection of the cathedral; this, a matter left neglected since the 1920s, certainly left a backlog to be cleared up. But it is odd to find a man nearing seventy to have reckoned manifestly it his duty to immerse himself in so many details; perhaps it was because he was getting old that A.R.W. felt he must do so. Anyway there was much checking of parochial work through­ out the diocese, cathedral treasures looked over and cleaned, library catalogues updated, chapter activities tabulated and, of course, a thorough audit of all accounts - the latter as will be seen, not proving an entire success. However for the most part all passed off well and an occasional clear up of this nature does nothing but good. There was yet one more crisis to be overcome and a very ugly one. To under­ stand it one must go back to the years 1957-58. About this time Wallace, whilst routine visiting in the Devon and Exeter hospital, came across a patient recovering from a car accident; he was from the other side of England, a man of some education and high intelligence and it only transpired later that he was also awaiting trial on a charge of dangerous driving. The case duly came up and a term of imprisonment was imposed. Meantime at the Cathedral Choir School the headmaster had retired after a long and successful reign. As so often happens in such circumstances, his replace-

78 ment was just not up to the mark. It was clear to the Chapter that another appointment would have to be made - and soon. Meantime, almost as it seemed by chance, the erring driver, now out of prison but without occupation, was given a job at the school as general handyman. The unsuccessful headmaster departed and seemingly no one was competent to deputise, even for a short period. The new recruit soon showed his abilities; he was good with his hands, tidied up the school and incidentally proved him· self an excellent cook. Then a member of the Chapter found out that he also possessed a degree of sorts; most important of all he had a way with him which impressed boys and even adults despite themselves. So the almost incredible experiment began to take shape; small wonder if the chapter seized on the chance of shoring up the tottering situation by securing such a stopgap for day to day decisions till a regular appointment could be made. Anyway if the handyman was not headmaster, no one else was either, and somehow the place was keeping its doors open. Of course it was too good to last. Tongues wagged, cherchez la femme, extravagant outings at restaurants and so forth. Wallace listened and finally, in his capacity as Chairman of Governors of the Choir School, visited the bank manager. The account was over £2,000 in the red. The cheques had all been countersigned, but the innocents of the Chapter had had the changes cleverly rung over their heads. A wire was sent at once to the defaulter to attend and explain. In the absence of a reply the police were called in; for them it was an easy enough case, from parent to parent and finally to a lone room in a motel. Even so the authorities could report no capture; their quarry had preferred poison and on Wallace fell the grim task of visiting the hospital for identification purposes. There were not lacking those who - after the event - had foreseen everything all along. Wallace (who was certainly an excellent judge of character) felt bitter self-reproach at being 'conned' so easily and in later years came to think it was this incident which made him realise he was too old for the job; herein the dates do not support him. His resignation had gone in and he was actively house­ hunting; the sordid little tragedy was merely a postscript to events already well in train. In the spring of 1960 the Wallaces secured a cottage at Hawkchurch near Axrninster (only the second property A.R.W. had ever owned),satisfactory in every way till Winifred, exercising women's privilege, changed her mind and decided that the kitchen was too small. Her husband, a man of old fashioned principle in such matters, refused to go back on his word and so was landed with an unwanted cottage and nowhere to go on leaving Exeter. For the former nothing better than a short let could be found and meanwhile time was getting on. Then, as happens, the luck changed at once; a purchaser for the cottage appeared and simultaneously the ideal house turned up at Lyme Regis over­ looking the sea, the Lim valley and harbour complete with moorings for the dinghy. This highly promising opportunity cropped up, as such things do, when Wallace was booked to officiate at the wedding of a friend's daughter and there must be no suggestion of indecorous haste. However the getaway was duly made and with Hugh as chauffeur Lyme was soon reached. As so often with such breathtaking journeys, the need for speed was not immediately apparent.

79 The house was owned by two brothers, one a bachelor and present, the other married and away for the day. The former showed off the place, which indeed came up to most of the agent's claims, accepted Wallace's bid without demur (no doubt for good reasons of his own) and saw off Alec and Winifred highly delighted with their bargain. Two days later the agent revealed a snag, as it appeared the married brother had on the same day at about the same hour sold the property independently to a rival bidder; and he too for good reasons of his own wished his accept­ ance to stand. The fraternal dispute in fact was so hot as to require a lawyer's help: the latter (an Old Shirburnian as it happened), using no doubt some well worn formula, advised that the bachelor (perhaps elder) brother had prior right of disposal. So it was the Wallaces who got Bracken Bank and spent the next eleven years overlooking Lyme Harbour. A tiresome little hurdle for them, but as it turned out amongst the last of what Exeter could produce. They did not escape· without two large farewell gatherings, one at the Bishop's instance at the palace and the other at the Mayor's invitation at the Guildhall. The Bishop made a most gracious speech and presented a cheque from friends. Wallace was pleased, but embarrassed because he knew full well that various troubles affecting the cathedral, though not of his own making, must have had a disturbing· and divisive effect. He felt better on hearing another generous speech from the Mayor and re­ ceiving the police medal. He had always wished to bring City and Cathedral closer together and in this respect he had clearly had some success. Towards the end of his time, in fact, Wallace must have had it borne in on him that for twenty-five years previously he had been a headmaster whose word was by tradition law and that those with whom he was working, colleagues, parents and pupils,were a select band which by and large revealed its better side. Here is no place to discuss this well known indictment of the teaching profession. But by 1960, at rising seventy for the first time he had come into wide and close contact with an English community. Perhaps on one, so much a public figure and bound himself to be above suspicion, the effect was the more surprising. For workers in the cathedral, paid and unpaid, his praise could not be high enough. The best of the diocesan clergy were the salt of the earth, but the lazy ones he regarded as too numerous and could never understand why they were in the ministry at all. Like most people he could not fault the hospital staffs; more unusual was his consistent admiration for the police. He was never at his best with publicity seeking cranks and anonymous letters worried him. Maybe he felt that in incurring personal criticism he was allowing what he held most dear to be denigrated. This was probably much too sensitive, but he makes the point with some emphasis, so it is set down here for the record. Alec and Winifred left Exeter for good in July 1960. A Barset living would have been a lot more comfortable, but a Cathedral Close had proved a challenge, on the whole very successfully met and one that A.R.W. would not willingly have missed.

80 Chapter XVIII

Lyme Regis

Situated high up on the flank of the town's Timber Hill the house amply justified the efforts made to secure it. The views commanded were magnificent, to the south over Lyme Bay, to the west over the Lim valley and inland away to Axminster some four miles distant. The town golf course was literally only 150 yards from the door and the harbour provided a mooring for a new sailing dinghy. True the garden was a fraction large and on a rather steep slope, but a rotary mower and after a year or two a jobbing gardener provided the answers to these problems. For some unexplained reason the area vyas not fully developed and there were but twelve houses in all, of which the Wallaces occupied the last but one at the top. Thus they were in a quiet enclave almost on its own, well away from the crowds of summer tourists seething below on the other side of the river. Of course, in what was practically a separate hamlet there was always the danger of too close proximity to neighbours. But even here the good luck held; the majority of the latter proved to be retired officers from the defence services and· no one could have wished for more congenial company. These, with the odd retired bank manager or schoolmaster, were amply sufficient to form a golfmg pool, and life tended to centre round the club house. One figure, the strongest player in the circle, deserves passing mention; he combined a very low handicap with the ability to keep up a running commentary while actually playing his shots which entertained, without irritating, the other members of the four. Wallace had in his time played a pretty good game. At Sherborne his handicap was eight, sank to twelve at Exeter and in the fmal stages at Lyme· he was on twenty. As late as 1967 however he was writing to Thompson, ' .... still managing to get in three rounds of golf each week which is not bad going for an old man of seventy-seven'. It was a sad day when through increasing years he was finally obliged to give the game up. Despite its difficulties and frustrations he never lost sight of the compensations and overall he reckoned it had brought him more friends than any other pastime. One of the last of these was a man who joined the Timber Hill community a year or two later than the. Wallaces and settled next door to them. Major General Reginald Kerr and his wife seemed quite naturally to be able to help anyone in trouble in the neighbourhood, whatever the nature of the difficulty. Once Winifred was victim of an unpleasant minor accident when a sashcord broke and a heavy window frame fell and trapped her hand. The general appeared, secured a ladder and climbed through an upstairs window to free the imprisoned hand. Easier recounted than done and, as will be seen, not the only good turn that the Kerrs were able to do a neighbour. But this is to anticipate. At sixty-nine Wallace felt that golf and gardening

81 were indeed very well in their way, but that he still had a serious intellectual contribution to offer - teaching being the thing for which he was most obviously qualified. The first necessity was cle'arly to fmd a school within reasonable distance of Lyme. The latter consideration tending, as it happened, to rule out boy's establishments, Wallace,decided to try Shute School for Girls at Axminster and wrote to the headmistress, Miss Freeman, for an interview; she fixed a date and Winifred accompanied her husband to the school, but declined to go into the house as the whole procedure struck her as 'altogether too embarrassing'. At that time of course there was a great deal less mixing of the sexes in education. Wallace for his part thought it was worth a try and that he had nothing to lose if the headmistress could offer no vacancies on her staff. In fact she had none at the time, but there were prospects for the following year. A.R.W. mentioned that he was unable in law to accept a salary above £180 in addition to his various pensions, which may have helped to clinch the bargain initially. Anyway he was engaged at that modest figure as from September 1961 to teach Latin and Scripture to the upper school, confirmation preparation being thrown in as part of the agreement. A.R.W. was genuinely pleased to accept, Winifred equally surprised at his employability. Actually the arrangement had every chance of being a success from the start; it kept Wallace pleasantly occupied with mild mental exercise for a couple of days a week and he was soon to fmd his pupils keen and willing to learn. He was amused to find himself quite nervous on entering a classroom after an interval of eleven years. Of course, there was nothing that he did not know about boys. With girls there would obviously be a difference; the question was how great? The answer was not long in coming; girls, no less than boys, are not averse to taking a rise out of their mentors, equally both sexes alike dislike ridicule. Wallace for his part went out of his way, as anyone would in such circumstances, to be scrupulously fair, never to lose his temper, never to 'pick on' anyone or to have favourites. In short everything soon settled down and the girls became as attached to A.R.W. as he was to them. It sounds odd that a man who had held his own for years in the Sixth Form classroom at Sherbome should initially have been worried at the rustiness of his Latin and Greek and its possible inadequacy. Actually the boot was on the other foot, for with few exceptions the girls were not by any means scholar material and in many cases the attainment of a modest '0' level required a real effort from the teacher and taught. But there were very few failures, which was the main thing. Of course, A.R.W.'s position was unlikely to stand up to logical analysis for very long. With his record of experience and success the new· ·•assiStant mistress' quickly found himself a director of the company which ran the school (or with the latter's change of status, simply a 'governor'). This was underlined when Dr. Marion Bridie, founder of the school and chairman of its board, fell ill and retired and Wallace was elected to the vacant position. This might have led to a difficult relationship between chairman and headmistress. As assistant teacher he was clearly her subordinate; as Chairman of Governors she was his subordinate. In the event, with two intellingent people no difficulty ever arose. Joan Freeman and A.R.W. both got on extremely well and became and remained lasting friends. On one occasion however the anomalous relationship was put to the test

82 - in circumstances such as almost to out-gilbert Gilbert. A section of the staff started an abortive rebellion. Wallace had always reckoned that as an assistant teacher he was a member of the Common Room and invariably made a point of sharing elevenses with his colleagues, male and female. These he found pleasant, competent and quite dedicated to their work,though in this instance some minor cause of friction had arisen. On the other hand as Chairman of Governors he frequently took tea with the headmistress in her study; thus the rebels put him in a very difficult position. He attended their ftrst meeting, discreetly held at Seaton, when with probably as much authority as any schoolmaster in England he explained that causes of disagreement arise from time to time in every community and that, given patience, they normally sort themselves out. At the same time he made it clear that his own functions must be strictly limited to those of a go-between. He was quite willing to pass on any criticisms and suggestions to the headmistress, but take sides he could not and would not. In due course Miss Freeman heard the tales, was greatly upset and wondered if she should resign. A.R.W., with all his experience to draw on, advised strongly against it. A few of the protesters did themselves resign; all honour to those who put principle, as they see it, before the attractions of a secure and pleasant job. But so it has always been; quite soon replacements as good as or better than before had been engaged and after a few months life at Shute was carrying on perfectly smoothly. None the less it was as well that this hurdle was safely behind Wallace and his fellow governors, for a fresh and more serious problem was looming up which perhaps at the time had not been very carefully considered. It was in fact a question of thinking· back some forty years. With a World War, some spectacular events at Sherborne and ten years of uncharted waters at Exeter all intervening it would have been strange if the recollection of the struggle for boys at Blundell's had not grown a fraction hazy in A.R.W.'s mind. It was now to be the same at Shute; the market for small independent girls' schools was not good. Three such in the neighbourhood closed down; with one Shute arranged a merger and the fifteen girls acquired helped to negotiate a particularly awkward corner. But the threat remained right to the end ofWallace's time. One feature. of the situation has received little mention. Obviously every possible effort was made to stimulate recruitment by personal endeavour; but in one respect Shute School could speak for itself - in its historic and magnificent buildings, exceptional by any standards. A stroke of luck helped Wallace over his last few years. In 1971 R. J. 0. Meyer (or Jack Meyer as he prefers his entry in 'Who's Who' to stand) retired from the headmastership of Millfteld, that remarkable establishment which, starting from nothing in 1935, he built up into one of the best known schools in the country. Wallace offered the Shute Chairmanship to his old friend as a challenge. Meyer did not leap at it. Why jeopardise forty years of success with the risk of a failure, however small, right at the end? However as a sportsman and good friend he ultimately agreed, provided that in September 1971 Shute could muster ftfty boarders. Fortunately thanks to some last minute entries ftfty-three were scraped together and Wallace was able to quit with an easy mind, reflecting that an octogen~P"ian teacher was perhaps not quite the best advertisement for the staff of a school.

83 The sequel deserves brief mention. In 1982 Shute School still flourishes and Jack Meyer has just retired as headmaster of a school in Athens. The final parting must have been taxing - school and staff all lined up in Shute's fme Great Hall. A huge arra:y of presents, but what words to choose? Hard enough in a male assembly, but in a female? Best to end on a different and perhaps totally unexpected note. A.R.W. regarded it as a privilege to conduct the marriage service for his ex-pupils. F-rom 1955, five years before the Wallaces joined the Lyme community, its church affairs had been in the hands of a curate, the Rev. Kenneth Rowcroft. In 1962 a vicar of the town was appointed who had not been in office many months before he made minor parish history by standing up in church during his curate's sermon and stating loudly and clearly that what the latter had just said was entirely wrong and should in no way be accepted by any member of the congregation; a good example of cleverness outstripping common sense, and, of course, a nine days' parish wonder. Wallace realised at once that relations between the two clerics could in the future hardly be of the smoothest and at an early opportunity approached the bishop of Salisbury and put forward Rowcroft's name for the incumbency of the tiny village of Hawkchurch some five miles north of Lyrne, where he yet remains. The vicar whom he left behind him stayed at Lyme till 1974 and is still an active minister of the church elsewhere. There was a postcript to the part that Wallace played in that for his remaining six years in the district he had a commitment to preach regularly on certain Sundays at Hawkchurch. The matter must have been fully discussed between the two men, for Rowcroft would hardly have been likely to ask his ally for anything burdensome. Wallace was no doubt more than ready to meet him half­ way, and indeed after over thirty years of preaching, school occasions large and small, big cathedral ceremonials, unpretentious sermons in a small village church perhaps had a charm of their own, particularly when followed by drinks and a lunch over which the hostess would have taken special pains. Light school work during the week, and this on occasional Sundays - perhaps- in some ways an ideal arrangement. In 1969 he was asked by the incumbent (an old Shirburnian) to preach at the Chapel Royal in Windsor Park. 'The Queen Mum was in the congregation and after the service asked us in for drinks. She remembered her visit to Sherborne well, which I thought amazing after nineteen years; so we had a long conversation about the school and the Investiture of the Prince of Wales a few w~eks before. It was all delightfully informal, not even a domestic to hand out the sherry which she did herself, as Wallace wrote to Thompson soon after­ wards. 'To combat the fatal inertia of old age' Wallace accepted membership of the British Legion and became their local chaplain. It is unlikely to a degree that his path ever crossed that of any comrade in Mesopotamia fifty years before; a gesture only, but a gracious one. Apart from the debating society and other such which proliferate in small towns, one activity does deserve special mention - membership of the Moo­ mouth Society, which ran a monthly meeting in the Talbot Arms. Traditions of 1685 are still .very strong in certain parts of the West Country and never a year -out that hundreds of students and enthusiasts retrace every step-[and most

84 of them are known) of the ill-fated plotter. Perhaps many of these joined the meetings at the Talbot Arms to air the latest theories; it is hard to credit that Lyme alone could have supported such a society. So life at Bracken Bank went on without any obvious reason why it should change. But in early 1970 Winifred, who by and large had always enjoyed excellent health, fell ill and was condemned to a longish spell in Exeter hospital. This indeed could not fail to upset family routine. From Lyme in the extreme west of Dorset to Exeter is some twenty-five miles. From Canford School, which lan Wallace and his wife Janet were now running, to Lyme means traversing the whole breadth of Dorset, rather more than forty miles. Thus each visit to his mother in hospital was a major outing for a very filial son. Hence, when the crisis was over, came the idea that with the older generation aged now about eighty years the time was suitable for a closer grouping of the family. So it was arranged that Lyme should be quitted and Ian undertook to fmd something suitable in the Canford area. The Wallaces were in some ways very reluctant to sell Bracken Bank which still possessed for them the qualities of a dream house. They had, moreover, no wish at all to part from the pleasant group of neighbours which had collected around them. None the less, on grounds of prudence, the change was desirable. A.R.W. had for years expressed his reluctance to live too long and .become a burden to the younger generation of his family. And his wife's recent absence in hospital served to underline his dependence upon her (and, to be fair, no doubt hers upon him). The eternal dilemma in fact of the aging couple. Now, here, most readily offered, was a palliative at least; there could not really be, by any rational standards, any question of non-acceptance. The actual sale proved tiresome, as ever when more than one solicitor or surveyor is operating at the same time. Wallace had moreover been rash enough to let it be known that he had to offer vacant possession by the end of the year, which was an open invitation to sharp negotiators on the make. In the end everything followed the usual pattern; the house was sold but for less than the owner had hoped and A.R.W. expressed himself as utterly disgusted by the ethics and tactics of even educated people. Perhaps he had not pondered enough on the fact that for many a house purchase is the biggest outlay in their lives and that a mistake can affect living standards for years to come. Finally, purchase of Bracken Bank at seventy must have been a different proposition from its sale at eighty. But it was the last tiresome excursion of its kind to come A.R.W.'s way; for the remainder of his life he was amazingly lucky with his housing and never even had to face the problem, now only too familiar, that paper gains on house 'A' never seem to purchase their equivalent when buying house 'B'. Ian owned at Merley, a tiny village near Wimborne, a bungalow which he reckoned to rent to his school secretary at Canford. It so happened that more or less while Bracken Bank was being sold this lady became engaged to the school chaplain and the marriage was planned for Christmas 1970. lan decided his parents had first claim on the place and offered it to his father at the same rent as the previous occupant had been paying - thus eliminating all the bother associated with capital transactions. The inevitable series of farewell sherry parties remained to be got through, but, these over, there was only the business of clearing out and packing (A.R.W. says nothing of this, but sales on a fairly large scale must have been inevitable;

85 for furniture to fit Sherborne, the Deanery and Bracken Bank could hardly have been compressed within a small bungalow). Alec and Winifred were fortunate to get their daughter Ann from Edinburgh to help. The Kerrs, true to form, provided beds and meals over a crucial period of disengagement. The longish midwinter journey was not exactly the thing for old people to take in their stride, but January 6th 197l,although misty, was extremely mild. And so farewell to Lyme.

86 Chapter XIX

Last years: Merley and Hindon

Until Alec left Lyme in January 1971 he had maintained a remarkably robust health and looked much younger than his years, now at Merley he aged visibly. Indeed he was eighty and could not really expect to sustain the hectic pace of previous years; slowly he began to adapt and to settle into this new life with Ian and Jan a mile or so away at Canford keeping a watchful eye. It was a most suitable arrangement. Alec still needed his exercise and twice a day would walk the dog and on the morning trip buy lunch from the local shop. Here he was a well known and friendly figur.e and each Christmas it was they who presented him with a bottle of sherry. Gardening had never been his strong suit but he did cut the lawn regularly. The golf course at Broadstone was too hilly for him but he could still just manage nine holes of the tlat, often with his grandsons. It was a sad day indeed when eventually he put down for the lasttime t.he clubs that had brought so much enjoyment and fellowship. Still on Saturdays he would watch rugby and cricket matches at Canford and always made a point of watching the annual Sherborne v Blundell's rugby fixture. Games and the people playing and watching them had played a big part in his life. Old age and diminished mobility brings much loneliness for many in retire­ ment, not so Alec and Winifred. They received endless visitors. Apart from Ian's family close at hand, other members of this large family called regularly and in particular the grandchildren, who indeed eventually produced for Alec and Winifred twelve great grandchildren, all but two of whom he had great pride in christening. Old boys and staff from Sherborne, friends from Exeter and Lyme and the nephews of Alec's cousins who were at Canford School and came ·out for tea on Sundays with their friends. Not surprisingly, too, Alec began to play a part in the life of the parish. He attended regularly the Tuesday evening Bible Study group held by the vicar John Collins and soon he took on occasional visiting in the parish. Here he was in his element. He had lost none of his interest in people, their successes and their disappointments, the contrasts of fortune that make life so absorbing, and a lifetime of experience allied to his deep Christian conviction was once more put to use. In 1972 he played his part in helping the local community cope with the eccentricities and prejudice of President Idi Amin, as he wrote to Thompson, 'refurbishing. my Urdu in order to be able to converse with some Ugandan Asian families who have been billetted in Wimborne .... I have been telling them about India about which I know more than they do as they have been settled for three or more generations in Uganda'. Reduced mobility and more time, meant that he read a good deal and also began to write his autobiographical notes. This gave him great satisfaction as

87 it brought back memories of a life that had been lived to the full. Later, as explained in the Introduction, he passed these on to Abe Gourlay, his former Tutor in School House and the historian Of Sherborne School. Gourlay had almost almost completed turning these drafts and notes into a full biography when he died in 1977. Alec wrote to Thompson, 'Abe's death was a bitter blow .. I can never forget what I owe to him, twelve years and more under the same roof with never a cross word or serious disagreement. I really loved that man. God rest his great soul'. Alec maintained, too, a voluminous correspondence, keeping him in touch with family and friends. Still he could remember in vivid detail former pupils and staff of many years previous. Additionally these letters contained some of his thoughts. His faith had always been simple and straightforward leaving little room for doubt and uncertainty as some of his letters to Thompson suggest: 'We became very depressed at times over the news in the papers or on the TV. So few people comparatively seem to realize that in proportion as we lose our hold on the Christian faith so in just .that degree we continue to decline towards the edge of the cliff, and again, 'You must not be disturbed Thomper by the way life is going in this country here and indeed in all the world. This marks the penultimate or perhaps the ultimate of the powers of evil and it carries all the symptoms of division in church and state everywhere'. The Wallaces still maintained a car, although it was Winifred chiefly who did the driving. She even succeeded in running herself over in the garage. She was just getting out of the car when it began to roll back down the slope, she tripped and one of the wheels ran over her leg. Fortunately no bone was broken but it must have been a most unpleasant experience and it was several months before the leg was right again; characteristically she made no fuss at all about the matter. At the end of the summer term of 1976 Ian Wallace retired as Headmaster of Canford School. It is not a good idea for a headmaster to retire within close range of his former charges and he and Jan had long since purchased a home at Hindon, a delightful village on the edge of Salisbury Plain and some fifteen miles west of Salisbury. It was a sizeable house, too, with an extra wing that had been built on and with their own children out in the world there was no hesitation in inviting Ian's parents to move in with them. Now aged eighty-five and eighty-six Alec and Winifred were getting to the stage where they could no longer wholly cope by themselves, but were mindful of the problems that any elderly couple, no matter how much cherished, can provide. Lady Wallace, for example, had lived with them throughout their time at Blundell's and at Sherborne until she died in 1945. Ian and Jan however made the decision for them and so in the midst of the heat wave of August 1976 Alec and Winifred moved for the last time to their final home in this world, some sixty years after they had first set up a permanent home together in India. Fourteen days after the family arrived in Hindon Winifred had a stroke which left her severely incapacitated. At Merley she had had a minor stroke that had hardly been noticed, this one however meant that she had lost most ofher faculties. Slowly but painfully Alec taught her to read again but it was a lengthy process and communication was never easy. It was sad that a life that had offered so much to so many, as wife and mother and friend, should spend its last years in such incapacity. She died on 28th January 1980 and was buried three days later

88 in Hindon churchyard. Alec left a simple wreath - 'seventy-seven years of inexpressible happiness'. Occasionally now Alec, too, began to think about his own departure from life that could not be all that far away. To Thompson he had written in 1977 . . . . with typical arrogance I am not in the least arraid of death, but coward· like I dread the actual moment of Disassociation though I am fully aware that I may be in for some unpleasant shocks on the other side in view of my past misdemeanours. God is very merciful'. At Hindon Alec still had many visitors - old friends from Sherborne like Freddie Mee, Laurie May and •thomper? cousins, grandchildren in whose activities he took the greatest interest, the Charingtons from Lyme Regis and many others, not least old Shirburnians who still kept up with their former Chief. One such was Rev. David Payne who had been in School House 194549 and having not seen A.R.W. for twenty-five years visited him again in 1977 by which time Payne was Warden of the Crowhurst Home for the Church's Ministry of Healing. He described how Chief received him, 'Welcome in my dear fellah -of course I remember you and your brother- tell me what you've been up to'. Payne goes on, 'Although well into his eighties and physically limited (frail would be an utterly incongruous word to describe this great frame), that magnifioent head and the bold, pithy staccato sayings that were still there. He had warmed and mellowed with the years (or was it me?!), and we found at once a happy rapport, both in reminiscence of the 'old days' at Sherborne, which it was clear he still loved deeply, and in mutual interest and involvement in the Church's Ministry of Healing'. Sometimes there would be expeditions out in the car, and one which gave him enormous pleasure was to open formally the new boarding house named after him at Sherborne in 1980. Wallace House had, in fact, been the holding house for new boys known as Elmdene since 1931. Now the original house had had substantial additions and been converted into a full boarding establishment. Sherborne has a tradition of naming boarding houses after distinguished former headmasters (Lyon, Westcott and Harper) but in this case the honour was doubly fitting for it was Wallace who early in 1934 had saved Elmdene. The house had been established in 1931 under Max and Violet Westlake. In 1934 however, after Wallace had been appointed but before he had arrived, the Governors decided it should be closed. On hearing this Wallace immediately took the matter up, convinced the Governors it could be filled and so it re­ mained. After Winifred died Alec never read a book .again. Often he would start one that in the past would have interested him but soon he lost concentration and went on to something else. Still he would take his twice daily walk to exercise the dog and was a well known figure in the village chatting to passers-by. He became less steady on his feet however and more than once he collapsed and had to be helped to his feet and home. On one alarming occasion, too, he collapsed in the bathroom and in writing to Thompson a month or two later said that he thought his moment had come. In the last ten months of his life there was not much that he could do for himself. Nothing but his determination kept him going. His critical faculties remained practically to the end although his handwriting had deteriorated to a scrawl. He spent the last ten days of his life in bed, and close family and

89 friends were summoned as his life ebbed away. A little confused sometimes but he remembered faces and people until he died peacefully on 26th August 1982. He was buried alongside Winifred on 2nd September. On a mild autumnal Saturday a month after his death relatives and friends gathered in Sherborne Abbey to give thanks for a life that had been lived to the full in the service of others. First as a student and then from India to Crow­ thorne, Edinburgh, Tiverton, Sherborne, Exeter and fmally retirement, Alexander Ross Wallace had added substantially to the lives of those with .whom he came into contact. His commanding presence and remarkable human qualities will long be remembered and it was fitting that this Memorial Service should be held in the Abbey Church alongside the school where his leadership had been so important and constituted the principal achievement of his career. It is fitting too that his name will ever be commemorated by Wallace House.

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