The Old Albanian Club

former pupils of St Albans School

Memories of the Old Hall Block

Old Hall Memories

I entered the school in 1961, when of course it was just The Hall. I have several abiding memories: Mr Marsh presiding at school assemblies. He was a bit like Nelson to ‘Daddy’ Read’s Hardy, in that although there was no doubt he was in overall command, he left Mr Read to undertake the mundane duties of running the ship. Marsh always managed to stand throughout assemblies as if he was not really there, or rather was a critical observer who just happened to be sharing the same platform. I can see him standing leaning slightly sideways and backwards, twirling his glasses in one hand, staring hard but not  aggressively, almost quizzically, at the poor boy having to read the School Prayer. It was as if he were thinking to himself, “I wonder if he is going to fluff it”. He certainly was not praying himself, because on one occasion he interrupted the recital, corrected the way the boy was reading, and made him start again.

Frank Kilvington, ‘FIK’, was like an action man. He strode into the hall a bit like an actor responding to an encore he had known was coming, and bounded up the steps two at a time. In a later age it could have come out of a management training session – demonstrate by your body language that you are youthful, fit, eager, ready to take on responsibilities. He was the young chairman of an old established company, keen to stir things up and demonstrate his new and different style of helmsmanship. I don’t remember his being terribly popular, but then ordinary pupils hardly met any headmaster. I was in his Latin set, and his favourite saying was “Some men haven’t learned their vocab, have they, Pope?”

He warned once in assembly towards the end of my school career that there were boys (‘men’) in the 3rd year sixth who were hanging around being a disruptive influence. Others were like me, I already knew I was going to Cambridge, and Kilvington said we might as well leave if we had nothing better to do. So I went along to his study and told him I wanted to leave. He was flabbergasted. He had not meant it literally, and had I suppose meant to shame us into showing more respect for rules and buckling down into something useful, I don’t know what. He told me I couldn’t just walk in after seven years and calmly announce I was leaving, and seemed puzzled that I thought that was what he had said I should do. All the same, I left soon afterwards. That was in the Autumn of 1968.

The entrance lobby to the Hall was the scene of regular confusion and terror at the start of each term, because the announcements of setting and timetables were posted there. So every boy in the school was trying to push his way to the front to try and read from a small piece of paper what his timetable was, and where he was supposed to be going. It seemed an incredibly inefficient way of communicating such basic information. Throughout the morning stragglers would appear in lessons, having gone to the wrong place first, or misunderstood the timetable. Anyone caught running about desperately trying to get to the right place would be jumped on by the Gestapo-like prefects which, of course, caused further delay and then probably further punishment. In fact, the analogy between a somewhat benevolent regular police (ie staff) and the feared Gestapo (prefects) was quite an apt one. Monitors were I think a more recent creation, like traffic wardens a bit unsure which side they were on, but with some doing their best to clock up enough bookings to ensure promotion.

Milk cartons were dispensed from temporary benches in the Hall at break, having recently displaced 1/3 pint glass bottles. They spilt easily, especially if dropped, as demonstrated once spectacularly by Maylot, I think, who threw one from the gallery into the assembled crowd. If not actually expelled, he was certainly beaten by Daddy Read for that exploit. The new hall was under construction in my later days, but not I think actually opened for use. I remember watching the opening ceremony. Some bigwig laid the foundation stone, and pretended to carefully trim the mortar away and neaten it up. Then the instant he had gone two workmen picked up the stone and whisked it away into the site hut. When it subsequently reappeared it was in a different place.I think the new hall probably did just open in my time, because I remember that there was a design fault with the projecting cantilevered concrete steps up to the stage. Certainly they could not withstand FIK’s robust bounding, and most snapped off  within a few weeks.