Pitfalls of Memory. Peter Milward
went in for what were called “dinky toys”, with little toy soldiers and tiny models of battleships, which we would arrange in battle formation on the nursery floor. And then we could imagine all kinds of war taking place. For there is nothing that so delights the hearts of little children, especially if they are English, as war. That is to say, until we grew up, at least into our teens, when we found ourselves face to face with the real thing. Even then, I began to get impatient, as the Germans invaded first Poland, then Denmark and Norway, without paying any attention to France or the so-called Maginot Line. So for a time the war seemed all too far away. But we didn’t have to wait for long. And then it seemed all too close. And so at long last I awoke from my dreams of childhood into the real world of adulthood.
Stages in Schooling
The reason for our removal from Barnes to Wimbledon was, as I have said, simply schooling. In Barnes there were no convenient Catholic schools for us, but in Wimbledon there were plenty of them. It almost seemed as if Wimbledon, from having been anti-Jesuit (as most places were) in the Victorian age, had turned into a Jesuit stronghold. It centered on what we called “the College” (though it was no more than a high school) and “the Church”, both located on Edge Hill. But with the passing of time there grew up other churches and chapels of ease, other schools both primary (elementary) and secondary, for both boys and girls, not to mention numerous convents of various kinds – including the prestigious Ursuline Convent School for girls, with a kindergarten for boys and girls, on the nearby Downs. No less convenient for the Milward family was the location of 11 Devas Road, situated within a ten minutes walk from the College and the Church, and little more than five minutes from the Convent. So we were well off for education at each stage, from kindergarten upwards.
So to begin with my memories of two years at the Ursuline kindergarten – sadly they begin with tears. Not that I shed any, but there was a little boy named Anthony, who had been escorted to school by his dear mother. Then, when the time came for her to return home, he couldn’t be separated from her, and he cried so bitterly. We were left wondering what the tears were all about. Our teacher in that first year was a Mother Xavier. She was quite a character in her own way, but I chiefly remember her for her instruction in walking. We were instructed to walk with our toes touching the floor first – which seemed so unnatural. But the teacher who most impressed me in our second year was a holy old nun named Mother Bonaventure. I even confided to her that when I was Pope (such was my childish ambition) I would surely canonize both her and my mother. I don’t know why I left my father out. Maybe I was thinking that women were riper for canonization. On another occasion she asked the boys in the class how many of us wanted to become priests. So we all dutifully raised our hands, except for one boy. When asked, he replied that he wanted to become (in childish pronunciation) “a twolley-bus dwiver”.
Then after two years I went on from the Convent on the Downs not to the College but to its new preparatory (or primary) school on Edge Hill. Its old name was Donhead Lodge, and it had been donated by its devout Catholic owner to the Jesuits at the College. So I became one of its first boys from the ground level, while Richard came back from the College to the top class of Donhead, two years ahead of me. One advantage of this accession to the College was that it removed the younger from the bullying attentions of the older boys. For the bullying of the younger by the older boys has always been a problem in English schools – though without leading to suicide, such as occasionally happens in Japan. Even so, I found myself being bullied by an older boy named Cunningham. And when I told him not to be a bully, he replied, “You’re a rail backwards!” – by which he meant, “You’re a liar!” I have never forgotten that word, or the boy’s surname.
Among our teachers at Donhead, I have special memories of the first, a formidable lady named Miss Manning. I remember her chiefly for three things. The first was the important fact that she taught us to memorize and sing songs in French. That is, I am convinced – contrary to the opinion of not a few educational theorists – the best approach to a new language. The second is the way she answered our questions in class. I was always putting up my hand, calling “Miss, Miss!” But as she had to answer several questions at once, she told me to wait. Only, by the time she turned to me and asked me what my question was, I had forgotten! My memory was failing me even at that young age. The third was the other fact that, outside class, she was Cub Mistress, in charge of a group of Boy Cubs, before one graduated into the Boy Scouts. Only, as always, she was severe. Before we could graduate to the Scouts, we had to earn a certain number of badges, including the tying of various knots. And I could never learn the right way of tying them, so I failed to earn my badge or become a Scout.
Another teacher was a young Jesuit named Mr Farwell (he wasn’t yet a priest). I don’t remember him actually teaching me, but he ran a group of boys under the name of SML (for Students Missionary League). So he got me interested in what we then called the Foreign Missions, especially in Africa. Eventually, however, I found myself not in Africa, where a practical talent was needed, but in Japan, where I could teach Shakespeare. Years later, when he was celebrating his diamond jubilee as a Jesuit back in Wimbledon, I also happened to be there at the celebration. And then he put me the question, “What prompted you to go to Japan?” So I promptly replied, “It was you, father!” He was so astonished that his small SML group had produced such a practical result.
Then, after three years at Donhead, I crossed the road to the College, and there I remained for the next seven years – without any such division of 6-3-3 (for primary, junior and senior high school) as we have in Japan. Again, what I most appreciated, and what has proved most fruitful for me, is the amount of poems, songs, and speeches we had to learn by heart. Once we had such passages by heart, they became what the Greeks called ktema es aei, a possession for ever. Such a saying is that of Tennyson, which applies very well to the short Japanese poems called haiku (of only 17 syllables), “Jewels five words long that on the outstretched forefinger of time sparkle forever.” Above all, we had to study so many of Shakespeare’s plays in the course of those years that not a few graduating boys said they would never touch a play of Shakespeare’s again. Of course, they never kept their word. One episode recurs to my mind concerning the reading of As You Like It. It so happened there was a pretty girl living next-door to us named Rosalind, and I had taken a boyish fancy to her, without ever having spoken to her. So when the name of the heroine came up in our reading of the play, I couldn’t help blushing. Fortunately I wasn’t required to read her part.
One topic that fascinates the Japanese of my acquaintance is that of punishment at school. After all, from the time of the humanists in the sixteenth century, the common image of the schoolmaster is of a stern man who teaches his hapless pupils partly by the book he holds in one hand, partly by the rod he holds in the other. At Jesuit schools like Wimbledon, the rod was never held in the hand nor was anything like a rod used in the classroom. But delinquent boys would be ordered so many “ferulas” (usually six or nine), and they would have to go to the prefect of discipline after class to receive their due punishment. The ferula, known as the Jesuit form of torture, was made of rubber reinforced with whalebone. Even three on one hand made the flesh swell with pain, and six would be three on one hand and three on the other. Such was the pain that the most hardened boys would emerge from the prefect’s room with tears.
Then I am naturally asked, “Did I ever receive ferulas at school?” Yes, I did, but on only one occasion. Then not only I but all the boys in that class were punished with six ferulas each for some misdemeanor in which we had all participated. And then such was my experience that, if I ever became a teacher in such a school – for I had already felt the desire to become a Jesuit – I would never order any boy to receive the ferula. (But when I did become a Jesuit teacher, at Wimbledon College, I went back on my resolve, on finding it seemed to be the only way of keeping English boys in order.)
Another memory I cherish from my later days at school was connected with another Jesuit teacher named Fr Brannigan. He was teaching us French in such a way as to get everyone in our small class to vie with each other in reading the classics of French literature. And so, by the time I graduated from the College, I was better versed in French than in English literature. Yet his own forte wasn’t French but German, in which he had even earned a doctorate, I think it was at Munich. Accordingly, with a friend of mine, I went to his room and asked