Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Peter Farrant MANX HERITAGE FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT ‘TIME TO REMEMBER’ Interviewee: Mr Peter Farrant Date of birth: 31st October 1924 Place of birth: Interviewer: David Callister Recorded by: David Callister Date recorded: 7th March 2001 Topic(s): Early school days Royal visit of King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth King Williams College Officer’s Training Corp WWII and internment camps Shropshire and Manx Home Guard Agricultural training camp in Isle of Man Volunteering for Army and Officer training VI Doodlebug bomb attacks over Maidstone, Kent Commission and passing out parades Career as lawyer Getting married and living at Bishopscourt Appointment as Vicar-General The Bishopscourt saga The Bishop’s vote in Tynwald Chairman of Douglas 2000 Partnership Douglas Retail Association Peter Farrant - Mr F David Callister - DC 1 Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Peter Farrant DC Peter Farrant, born on 31st October 1924 at 4 Albert Terrace in Douglas. Where do you want start, Peter, do you want to start with early childhood memories, perhaps? Mr F Well, yes, my father of course was High Bailiff of Douglas when I was born, he subsequently became Second Deemster and First Deemster, as you know. My first school, I think, was the little Redcoat school, it was run by the Stancliffes, I think it was and then subsequently I went to the famous Miss Cowin’s school and I expect you know that there were a number of distinguished pupils there, there was Eunice Salmond and there was Peter Downward, now Major General Downward, and a number of others. I well remember Miss Cowin’s school because there used to be a picture on the wall and it showed the progression of two students from their early days in school, one would be talking and throwing chalk at the others and the other would be working very hard. And it went through their whole career and the one who threw chalk ended up in jail and the one who worked hard, of course, was shown with a picture with a wife and children, happy and prosperous and underneath were the words, ‘Which road will you take?’ And my mother, who had quite a sense of humour, used to pull my leg about this – ‘Which road will you take, Peter?’ You know you never forget these things. DC You haven’t finished up in jail anyway … Mr F No, no, not yet anyway. DC … so you must have taken the right road. Mr F Yes, I think I’ve taken the right road all right. So I then – when I was 8½, in accordance with a rather brutal custom of those days, I was sent to board at Junior House in King William’s College, and I remember that first night very well. You know the fog horn down there and the bell in the bay, well, I was put to bed early, as a new boy, and I remember lying in bed and listening to the rattling windows and the fog horn and the bell and thinking that the end had come, it was most depressing. However it didn’t remain like that and we were very happy there, it was quite a rough life and the climate is pretty rough down there, you know, and I remember the 1935 snow, I think it was, and we had to go home by train, you know. We were allowed home every fortnight and of course the great joy then was to have a lovely Sunday lunch, you know, roast 2 Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Peter Farrant beef and – oh, boy, I can remember it now because the food was fairly spartan and sparse. DC At the College? Mr F At the College, yes. DC What activities were you involved in? Did you get into the various organisations within the College? Mr F Oh, yes, we all joined the Scouts, of course, and lit fires on the beach, you know, and of course we played rugger in the winter, we played hockey in the Easter term and in the summer cricket, and Canon Stenning used to take us swimming in the bay. You know Hango Hill … DC Yes. Mr F … where Illiam Dhone was shot, well, we used to go into the water there and I can see now this huge man, he was a very big fellow, and about twenty or thirty little boys all rushing about and jumping in the water, and of course it was icy cold, but we didn’t seem to mind, I’m sure – I suppose it did us a lot of good. I don’t think they do anything like that now. Then the other thing of course was, in 1933 when I went, I was the youngest boy in the school. That was the centenary year and the foundation stone for the improvements of College was laid – my first term. The oldest boy then was Archdeacon Kewley, an enormous man with a tremendous pot and spats, you know. DC And massive beard. Mr F And massive red beard, you know, and he and I, as the youngest boy, laid the foundation stone. DC Really? Mr F Yes, and you’ll see it there now and that of course was the start of the renaissance of King William’s. It was a pretty run down and depressed place in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, the Depression had meant that many parents couldn’t afford the fees. But what saved College then was the great 3 Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Peter Farrant philanthropist Mr Arthur Hughes-Games, a retired tutor from Dartmouth and a real character, I think he was the son of Archdeacon Joshua Hughes-Games, very well-known church people over here, and he devoted his life to raising money for College and he raised a very considerable sum and out of that money the Barrovian Hall was created, the quadrangle, which was just mud when I was there, was paved over and a lot of other improvements were made. We had a new headmaster then, of course. When I first went it was the Reverend Harris, one of the old parson headmasters and he was followed by Sidney Ernest Wilson, who was a real live wire and I’m sure many people in the Island will remember him and his very talented wife, and he really galvanised King William’s College into activity. But he was helped by the money that was being expended on it and as you probably know, in 1945, when the King came over for the wartime Tynwald, just after the end of the European war, but before VJ day, July 5th 1945, one of his engagements was to open the King’s Court at King William’s College. And as I think I mentioned to you on another occasion, Archdeacon Stenning, although he of course was the Reverend Stenning when I knew him, he was one of the few people in those days who had a cine camera, he took a lot of camera film at College, those films are now in the hands of the Museum, as you know, but they do contain a film of the 1945 Tynwald, showing the King looking very worn, you could see the strain of the war on his face. As we know he didn’t live very much longer, and the only person still living, the Queen Mother – wonderful shots of her, of course. DC And boys from the College, as the OTC [Officers’ Training Corps], were almost a guard of honour as such at Tynwald, were they? Mr F Not at the 1945 Tynwald, that of course was the Navy, as you can imagine, because the Governor then was Admiral Granville and he arranged for the Navy – the Isle of Man, you see, had a big naval contingent here, as you know, under various forms of training. Some of them, as we now know, were very secret – and of course there was the RAF here too. But in pre-war Tynwalds’ King William’s College OTC [Officers’ Training Corps] actually provided the guard of honour, and if I remember rightly they used to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and – senior boys, of course, sixth form boys and you have to remember boys, in those days, stayed at public school for a very long time. The head of school might be a boy of nineteen, nearly twenty, which isn’t the case today, so we did have some very big fellows. And they marched from King William’s to St. John’s and provided the guard, and you’ll see the photographs. 4 Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Peter Farrant DC Marched all the way? Mr F Marched all the way, yes, yes, so – it was a much more homespun affair, Tynwald, in those days, of course. DC And did you get a few beatings at the College? Were they going on all the time? Mr F Oh, yes, yes, the cane was supreme in those days, if you made a noise in the bedroom or anything like that you’d get three or four, you know, and if it was more serious it would be six. Oh, yes, it was an accepted form of punishment and no-one complained or thought anything about it. And Mr Wilson, I remember after the war, him saying to me, ‘Oh, Peter, I’m not the man I was when you knew me. On Saturday mornings now there’s nobody outside the door.’ Pre-war days there were six or eight waiting to be beaten.