TRURO SCHOOLDAYS John Daniel has kindly shared some of his written memoir
John Exelby CO50 and I became friends our first day at Truro. What frightened little eleven-year-olds we were then! My mother brought me, handed me over to Mr KWD James (TS 1942-1971) the Epworth Housemaster, and left to get the train back to St Ives. I managed to avoid a farewell kiss; there were boys looking. I went into the common room, already quite full of boys, and found a seat next to a pale, thin fellow with glasses. He spoke to me. “What’s your name?” “John.” “That’s funny; so’s mine.” We both laughed. He told me he was John Exelby. He lived in Redruth. He had two elder sisters and a younger brother. After a pause, he asked, “Do you know what we’re supposed to do next?” I said, “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Years later he told me how impressed he had been with my reply, and with the apparent nonchalance with which I said it. It was then he decided he would like us to be friends. I had already decided. We both came from comfortable middle-class homes. Our mothers were stay-at-home mums. His father ran a local estate agency; mine had been away with the army since I was seven. He had three siblings at home; my grown-up sister Mary was in the Women’s Air Force. These were minor differences; we had a lot in common. Most of all we were scared: scared to be away from home for the first time, scared of being bullied by the other boys, scared of breaking the rules, scared of getting into trouble. 26
Freddy Wilkes (TS 1935-1974)
‘Boozy’ Worthington (TS 1941-1968)
Within the first few weeks at Truro we learned a lot, about the school and about ourselves. We found that the actual classroom lessons were not a problem: the teachers were pleasant, they didn’t expect too much of us, and some of them were even fun. Within days we knew all their nicknames. We knew which of them were strict and which were easy-going. We liked ‘Boozy’ Worthington (TS 1941-1968), the rotund, jolly maths master; we enjoyed classes with Freddy Wilkes (TS 1935-1974) who animatedly introduced us to French, and we were careful not to annoy Mr Spicer (Kent College Teacher), whose geography lessons were enlivened by pieces of chalk launched with deadly accuracy at any boy not paying attention.
