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'BRATS!'
(Part 1)
Duke of York's RMS
"The Eton Boating Song" (Trad.)
To write about one's own school life may seem rather pointless these days. The era of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" has long gone; similarly the fantasies of such as Greyfriar's School and the like seem destined to belong in our safe, childhood memories. The traditions of the British Public School system still exist though. Indeed they are often ridiculed by those who see them as archaic, even if in reality life in such bastions is now much more modern. However, I wonder how many people have even heard of the British Armed Services' Public Schools, whose traditions and roots are no less honourable and ancient or (dare it be said?!) are probably more so(?!!), let alone know much about them. I leave it to the informed reader to compare the life about to be described during the 1950s and 1960s with its civilian counterpart.
The Royal Navy has its own Royal Hospital School at Holbrook in Suffolk and perhaps some day an ex rating will reveal its surely fascinating story (from a former scholar's point of view): a small insight appears in the following pages because of a short visit I once paid there. The Royal Air Force does not have a counterpart, (that I know of) a reasoned presumption being that the RAF evolved from the British Army's Royal flying Corps earlier in the 20th Century and there would have been no incentive to set up such an establishment during those times.
So, we are concerned here with the Army's contribution to this (doubtless, to the civilian, anyway) strange phenomenon -- the Armed Services' Public School. Originally there were four of these: the Royal Soldiers' Daughters School at Mill Hill, London, the Royal Hibernian School in Ireland, Queen Victoria's School, Dunblane (Scotland) and The Duke of York's RMS, Dover (the latter originally being the Royal Military Asylum on the site of what is now the Headquarters of the Territorial Forces, bearing the title 'Duke of York's Headquarters', in Chelsea, London). Only three of these establishments now remain, the Royal Hibernian School having been incorporated into the the Duke of York's RMS in 1924. The boy soldier shown saluting in the stained glass window that still glints above the 'minstrel gallery' type balcony of the Duke of York's School Chapel in Dover forever reminds present pupils and other visitors of that incorporation.
The Crest of the Royal Hibernian School
bearing that School's motto: 'Fear God Honour The King'
The reminiscences about to be unfolded are from the memory of just one boy's journey through just one of these institutions, highlighting the golden thread of its philosophy that probably stays in most similar scholar's personal embroidery for the rest of our lives. I hope you enjoy the read!
This page last automatically updated: 24 December 2010 22:02 hrs.
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