At St Olave’s Grammar
Memories of Dr R. C. Carrington
by Pavlos Andronikos, July 2009
from When I Was Young
The 11+ was a
grading exam. On the basis of the result it was decided whether you went to an
ordinary secondary school or a grammar school. Because I had done well, the
Headmaster asked to see my parents. He told them he thought I should apply for
St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar School for Boys near
I was very
proud of my new school. It was in a grand old building, with a beautiful hall.
The masters wore black gowns and sometimes mortar-board hats, and were addressed
as “Sir”. The school was very traditional, having been founded in 1561 and
granted a charter establishing it as a grammar school in 1571, when Shakespeare
was seven years old. In the Charter it was called The Free Grammar School of
Queen Elizabeth of the Parishioners of the Parish of Saint Olave in the
At St Olave’s
I was the first of 1964’s new boys (“weeds” we were called) to get into a fight.
Another weed, whose name has faded from memory, called me “Greek scum”, and this
for no reason that I can remember. I was angry, and I laid into him. I wouldn’t
have reacted like that if he had just called me “scum”, but he had no right to
pick on my nationality as well.
I managed to
get a few blows in before a teacher separated us and sent us to the Headmaster
Dr Carrington to be dealt with. I was called in to his office first, and, still
flushed with anger, I told my story. Then he saw the other boy, and after
questioning him, he called me back in. I was expecting a caning.
I stood there
in front of his desk waiting for sentence to be passed, but instead Dr
Carrington smiled reassuringly, and said just what I needed to hear:
“Andronikos, we’re proud to have you here. You can go.”
With those
few words he won my eternal gratitude and respect. It wasn’t just relief at
being allowed to go back to class unpunished, it was the fact that in this most
English of schools, with its centuries old traditions and proud history, there
was a place for me, a little Greek-English boy from Elephant and Castle.
The other boy
got “six of the best”. He never bothered me again. Nor did anyone else at that
school.
There were
times when I did get caned, and it really hurt, but I never held that against Dr
Carrington. The rules were rules, and we accepted that if we broke them and were
caught, we got punished. The odd thing is that I don’t remember those other
occasions with any clarity. All I remember is that I was caned once or twice for
misdemeanours which I cannot now recall.
The encounter
with Dr Carrington which I remember most clearly was probably also one of my
most embarrassing moments at St Olave’s. I had missed a Saturday-morning
detention because I couldn’t be bothered making the hour-long train journey to
school to spend two hours writing lines. The following Monday I was summoned to
his office after Assembly to explain my absence.
“Why weren’t
you at detention on Saturday, Andronikos?”
“I’d hurt my
leg, sir. With a pitchfork, sir.”
“When?”
“Early on
Saturday morning, sir.”
“And how did
you manage that?”
“I was in the
garden, and I was messing about with the pitchfork when I dropped it and it fell
into the back of my leg.”
He didn’t
believe me. What would I be doing in the garden messing about with a pitchfork
at seven in the morning? He wanted to see the evidence.
I tugged at
my trouser leg, trying desperately to pull it up far enough for him to see where
the pitchfork had gone into my calf, but my fashionably tight trousers were far
too tight. Dr Carrington was determined:
“You’ll have
to take your trousers down, Andronikos.”
Reluctantly I
did as I was told, and stood there, a victim of fashion, with my trousers around
my ankles, while he inspected the small red scab on my calf.
Still not
satisfied, he told me to pull my trousers back up, and sat down again at his
desk. It was obvious that he didn’t believe me, but the physical evidence was
there. I had dropped a pitchfork into the back of my leg, and there was a
scab—only a small one unfortunately—where it had pierced the flesh. How was he
to know I had done it on Sunday? I stuck to my story.
Why was I in
the garden at that time of the morning? I’d gone out to feed the dog, sir. How
did I get the pitchfork into the back
of my leg? I’d been holding it hanging over my shoulder, sir, when it slipped
out of my hand. Why was I holding a pitchfork anyway? It was just there, sir,
and I picked it up. I was just messing around, sir.
He looked at
me quizzically for what seemed like ages, and then, with a twinkle in his eye
that told me he found me quite amusing, said something which—as I realised years
later—summed me up perfectly:
“You’re a
good lad, Andronikos, but a bad lad.”
With that he
dismissed me. I left the room trying to look contrite, but inside I too was
smiling: I’d managed to avoid a caning!
Recently I
managed to get hold of a copy of Dr Carrington’s book
Two Schools, and from it I learnt that
soon after I had left St Olave’s in 1968 to go to a school nearer home, he had
fallen ill. I recalled my last sad trip to that wonderful school to return my
textbooks, and I wished that I had made a point of finding Dr Carrington and
saying goodbye. He was a man I admired greatly.
