Category Archives: Bean

Bean

Sadly, Bean is probably no longer a name not known the majority of current Worksopians. However, it is safe to say he is the original Mr Worksop College and his encyclopaedic knowledge (of all things Worksop) will never be surpassed. The College Archives were established by him and are still going today.

The following address was given by Dr I.M. Webster on Sunday 3rd May 1992.

A year ago last evening, Arthur De Millichamp Beanland, always known as ‘Bean”, died peacefully in hospital. A year ago last Sunday afternoon, I had called to see him at home, at 14, Willow Close. He was very frail, but true to form the first word he uttered – if you can call it a word – was “Whacko!” Bean came “on staff’, as he so fondly called it, at the College in the Michaelmas Term of 1934. My first encounter with him was in my first term, the Summer Term of 1938. As a prep boy (the Prep then occupying the now Portland House), I found myself in the Boy Scouts – I was a Cuckoo – and one of the Scoutmasters was Bean. His enthusiasm was boundless, as it was for everything he undertook. He would charge round saying “Whacko, chaps, rally!” to me. He had been instrumental in building a brick and concrete frying top and oven on the South Field, his culinary specialities being Lancashire hot pot and pancakes.

He became Housemaster of Mountgarret in the Lent Term of 1939, and I joined the House in the Michaelmas Term of that year, three weeks after the outbreak of the Second World war. On the second Saturday of that term there was a 1st XV rugger match – one of those headed ‘the school will watch’. At lunchtime, he said to me and the other ex-Prep boy to join Mountgarret: “Why don’t you cut along to my study after the match for a dish of tea?” The two of us waited on the landing outside Mountgarret Dormitory, and I remember saying to the other boy: “What is a dish of tea?”, “I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps you drink it out of the saucer.” Bean came charging up those stone stairs and unlocked the door of his study. There was a roll-top desk on the right-hand side, a coal fire burning, four easy chairs with all the horsehair stuffing falling out and, above the mantelpiece, a car steering wheel; and underneath that, askew on a piece of string, was a car number plate: WN 2733. You could hardly call it a study; it was more of a den, or a pit. We put a kettle on the hob in front of the fire. (Electric kettles hadn’t been invented.) He sawed up two loaves of bread, (this was long before sliced bread had been invented), and told us both to start toasting. (Electric toasters hadn’t been invented either.) The kettle eventually boiled and he produced three mugs of hot, sweet tea. To my amazement, he compounded two tins of sardines in olive oil with a pestle and mortar and added that to a jar of Robertson’s strawberry jam. This we applied liberally to our buttered toast. I suppose you would call it a Mountgarret Gentleman’s Relish. I have to confess, I never became addicted to it, nor have I sampled it since, but at the time it was a schoolboy’s dream. I also recall being told by Bean to collect some papers from his bedroom on the landing outside the House, opposite his study. I opened the door, switched on the light: what was there? One uncomfortable school bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a wash basin. But it was the light switch that intrigued me. It was a brass contraption, which looked like an old-fashioned bicycle bell, and from it a knob stuck out. Round the knob was tied a long piece of string, which went up to a hook or an eye on the ceiling then turned at right-angles to go over the wardrobe to the other corner, back over the window, then at right-angles back over the bed and then down by the side of it. The object of the exercise was that Bean could switch the light off without getting out of bed. Such was the expertise with Mediaeval technology which a single Housemaster required before the war.One evening in the dormitory in the Summer Term, we were listening to the nine o’clock news. The House wireless was in Bean’s study. It w as so ancient, it must have been one of Marco Polo’s prototypes, just superseding the cat’s whisker. An extension loudspeaker hung in the dormitory and the House listened to the newly appointed Prime Minister Winston Churchill after the ignominious defeat of the BEF in France and the miraculous evacuation of a quarter of a million men from Dunkirk. It was one of Churchill’s greatest speeches: “We shall fight you on the beaches. We shall never surrender.” This is a broadcast I shall never forget. As a fourteen-year-old, one wondered whether or not you were going to spend the rest of your life in subjugation. To cheer up our rather depressed spirits, Bean decided to put on a 78 record. It was Flanagan & Allen, singing ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’.

Wedding bells rang in 1941, and Beryl arrived on the scene. The House was transformed by her gentle and kindly touch. The steering- wheel and WN 2733 disappeared from the study and Beryl and Bean were installed in a sitting-cum-dining room above the Mountgarret landing and next to the Mountgarret common room, where seniors were entertained to dinner, be it bangers and mash or toad-in-the-hole. For very senior boys there was a glass of cider, but certainly not Mountgarret’s Gentleman’s Relish. Beryl produced, in my time, three very successful House plays, and she continued to do so until they retired from the House in 1956. Bean, of course, was by no means idle during the immense impact that Beryl made on the house. The Scout Troop, which had started to ‘dig for victory’ in 1940, was disbanded, and Bean became Master i/c Fire Brigade. Two boys from each House, making a total of twelve, went on regular fire drill, squirting water through enormous hoses. I can confirm this, because I was one of the Mountgarret representatives. One night in the Lent term of, I think, 1942, someone had forgotten to put any water in the gas heater radiators in the wooden gymnasium where the Churchill Hall now stands. But by the time the School Fire Brigade arrived, it was too late. In any case, the fire hydrants were frozen solid, and there was six inches of snow on the ground. Bean counted up his troops and discovered that only eleven were present. “Whacko!” he said. “Where’s Joss?” A wry smile came over the face of the other Mason representative, who said: “As a matter of fact, Sir, he’s in Shirley dorm, fire-watching.” I have to explain that two senior boys slept in Shirley dorm each night and would be woken by a porter in the event of an air-raid to parade up and down the South Front looking for incendiaries. No one had thought to tell Joss that the gymnasium was no more. In addition to this, the L.D.V. (Local Defence Volunteer) were converted into the Home Guard, and in my last year at School Sgt. Beanland’s section would attack L/Cpl Webster’s section after Chapel on Sunday morning. Stumps were drawn promptly at 12.30. Dad’s Army had nothing on us.

As well as all this extra activity, Bean still had to run an efficient House, and in addition he was Head of Physics and eventually Head of Science. Physics, unless you are a physicist, is, for most boys, an unfathomable subject, and for three years in the VI he drilled into me such topics as properties of matter, heat, light and sound, and electricity and magnetism, which included unravelling the mysteries of a contraption known as a Wheatstone bridge, which looked like Harry Lime’s zither. You didn’t know whether to play it or measure resistance by it. Many years later, I had to confess to him that all that knowledge he had imparted into me had been not the slightest bit of use to me in later life. “Never mind,” he said. “It made you think.” When it came to sporting activities, Bean was a terror on the squash court, and those who played him never forgot it. A master of the drop-shot, his incredible service would leave you grovelling in the backhand corner, thinking you needed a shovel rather than a racquet. I must have played him four or five times a term for five years, and the number of games – not matches – I took off him can be counted on the fingers of one hand. After a match, he would produce a dog-end from his blazer pocket, light it with a lighter that I swear was fuelled by Diesel, cough furiously and wander back with you to the changing-room. He promoted tennis; not a recognised team game during the war. He would organise a tournament where you drew lots for partners, an over-15 and an under-15. In my penultimate Summer Term, my partner and I were defeated in the final. There was a sixpenny sweep (old pence) and we went to his study to collect our winnings. My share was six old shillings, and with great seriousness he said: “Whacko! Must keep quiet about this, otherwise you could lose your amateur status.” Such was the honesty of the man.

For all the indignities that I had suffered on the squash court, I did in the end manage to redress the balance. He came in at Number 11 for the MCR cricket team, and I was bowling. I thought to myself: “Right, Master Beanland, I’m going to give you a hard time.” In the event, the first ball was perfect, just short of a good length, and Bean was not sure whether to come down the wicket or not, and was caught between Dan and Beersheba. He looked back at his wicket, which was by now in considerable disarray, and then looked back at me with that great smile on his face and said: “I think that was rather unkind.”.

He was Housemaster of Mountgarret for seventeen years until 1956. During my five years under his housemastership – in a school which in those days seemed to rely heavily on corporal punishment, when boy was allowed to beat boy – I never knew him to use the cane. I don’t think he ever did. He didn’t need to. He led by example. I left Worksop in 1944 and went to medical school. Had it not been for Bean, I would not have got there, for he had taught me to apply to the best advantage my very limited intellectual powers. There was a gap of some ten to twelve years, and apart from playing for the occasional Old Boys’ team and having a chat with him, we went our separate ways. However, having turned up to three consecutive Old Boys’ Dinners (Bean was O.W. Secretary) I found myself on the Society’s committee. My first notification from Bean was “Dear Webster” , signed “ A. de M. Beanland ”; then it was “ Mr dear Webster”, signed A. de M.B.” finally “Mr dear Ian” signed “Bean”. It was at that moment that I realised that the enormous gap which then existed between Master and boy had at last been breached. It was after my second stint on the committee that I became the first OW from Bean’s Housemastership of Mountgarret to become Chairman.

He went to great pains to write to every member of the House of 1943/44 to invite them to preprandial libation before the annual dinner. He must have done a lot of cajoling, because ten turned up, including Bill Rhodes, who has read this afternoon’s lesson. It was after this that Beryl and Beanland and Mary and Ian Webster met fairly frequently for lunch or dinner at No. 5, East Field or at our home in Ashby-de-la-Zouche. It was only then that I discovered his fluency in French and his passion for Napoleonic memorabilia. He even went into print, publishing ‘Motoring in France’, ‘A Fortnight Camping in France’ – one might have known about this ability. In 1946 he published the Mountgarret Jubilee Book and in 1955 he edited the College’s Jubilee Book 1895-1955, both of which demonstrated his incredible attention to detail. As O.W. Secretary, he again demonstrated his extraordinary memory. When an Old Boy was nominated for the committee, he would invariably know his name, his initials, his House and, very accurately, his years at the College. His labour of love was a small collection of O.W. memorabilia, which was housed originally under the eaves of, I think, the South wing. This is now in the Edmund Beanland Room, which is opposite the Lady Chapel.

The social lunches and dinners between Beryl and Bean and Mary and Ian Webster came to an end with Beryl’s long suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. It lasted a long time. I recall that in 1974, when Bean retired from the staff and a number of old Mountgarret boys organised a farewell party and a presentation to him in the Churchill Hall, sadly, Beryl wasn’t there. She died in 1979. The only task that Bean undertook on behalf of the School which he did not enjoy was when he was appointed Second Master. I don’t think he wanted the post, he certainly didn’t like it and furthermore it made him ill. So he asked to be relieved of that post. This rather sad affair possibly promoted the great one-liner about himself. “Schoolmasters,” he said, “are not men among children, but children among men.” He trotted this out over lunch at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. I have dined out on the story, but I don’t believe it. Generations of Worksopians will make their own assessment of Arthur de Millichamp Beanland. For my generation, and for me in particular, Bean’s footsteps will forever walk those lonely cloisters – the lonely cloisters of Worksop College – Worksop College whose servant he was, and which he served in such a multiplicity of disciplines with such distinction for upwards of half a century.A child among men indeed. He was man’s man, a man for all seasons, and this afternoon we salute that memory.

40 years at Worksop

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The following passage was written by A. De M. Beanland for the Michaelmas edition of the Worksopian. Bean had started at Worksop in 1934 and became one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject of the College. He authored a truly excellent book on the College in 1955 and went on to establish the College Archives, a fantastic facility which an still be enjoyed today.

An American lady, after I had shown her round the College, asked in quick succession whether the boys were ever caned, if I owned a cane, and whether she might see it. With her wish granted, she gazed reverently, tentatively stroked it as one might caress a cobra, and then exploded with “Gee! It’s just pure Dickens!”

While I would never equate Worksop with Dotheboys Hall, I realise now that forty years ago it ran in some ways, without question or dissent, along lines of extreme Victorian strictness. Only sixth formers were allowed trouser pockets; for others an unsewn pocket involved a caning. Visits to Worksop, with or without parents, were absolutely forbidden; fathers drove miles to take sons out to lunch. A late return from exeat, if only by five minutes, was a major offence uncondoned by fog or puncture. Only prefects and Upper Sixth used the front doors; the rest circuited round the School to enter at the back. There was a Compulsory Evensong every day, a compulsory Sung Eucharist on Sunday mornings, and seven voluntary early Communions a week. Black suits were worn by all on Sundays — school prefects had full morning dress, house prefects sported wing collars, Marlborough suits were worn by the Senior School and Eton jackets by the Prep.

Several times each day the School lined up in cloisters, every boy in his appointed place, before moving like a chain gang into Hall or Chapel. A precise ritual accompanied these cloisterings. Before movement into Hall a school prefect silenced the noisy cheerful lines with an enormous bellow of “Dry up.” In the total silence that followed, the Duty Master moved from Common Room to Hall, the Senior Boy at the head of the line intoned “Man In,” and the prefect said “Close up.” The School then marched in, while two twittering Prep, boys, in visual contact down the Theatre Cloister, signalled at the exact moment for the Prep. School lines to start moving from outside their Common Room (now Portland) and to tag on, without check or gap, at the end of the senior files. The Hall door slammed, the master said the grace which starts “Benedic nos Domine,” the School Captain ordered “sit down” and a babble of chatter began.

On every holiday a school call-over was taken in cloisters by the Master on Duty, which lasted from ten to twenty minutes according to his speed of call. At meals each house prefect wrote down the names of absentees from his table on a small coloured slip of paper, which was collected by the school Captain and checked by the Duty Master against San. and exeat lists. The slips were infinitesimally paler on one side than the other, and the shiftless prefect who wrote on the wrong side was “crimed.” When I came to Worksop in May 1934 the School consisted of 306 senior boys, split up into five houses, and a Prep School of 79 boys centred in the present Portland wing. This was officially opened during my first term by the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who excitingly came and left by an aeroplane which landed on the South Field.

The teaching staff, numbering about thirty, was very young. Mr. J. E. Anthony, arriving fresh from Oxford when only twenty years of age, had reputedly taught History to a “boy” slightly older than himself. Outstanding sportsmen were Mr. K. Fames, the Cambridge Double Blue who bowled for England, Mr. N. A. York with English rugby trial caps and Mr. D. F. Surfleet who had batted for Middlesex. So the Common Room could and did turn out full sides which played on terms of equality in matches against the School rugby, hockey and cricket teams. Only Mr. O’Meara, Mr. Sowerbutts and the organist Mr. R. T. Main were senior in length of service to Mr. Mackie who, after nine years on staff, was a veritable old-timer. There was no accommodation for married staff on the campus and marriage automatically barred or terminated housemastership. With the School full to capacity, two staff slept at the school farm and I, with five others, had bedrooms in Sparken House,
where the Henry Hartland School now stands.

Dr. Shirley was Headmaster and he ruled the School energetically and autocratically, keeping boys and staff alike on their toes. In summer the first period was before breakfast at 7.15, and there were only two periods in the whole week after lunch, one on Tuesdays and the other on Fridays. Both were Corps afternoons, but while Fridays saw “civvie” parades, on Tuesdays full uniform was worn, with the invidious task of rolling on puttees and polishing brass buttons and badges. Possibly because of this, black ties were worn by all boys on Tuesday mornings, though the unimpeachable reason given was that Queen Victoria died on a Tuesday. The custom of “ black tie day” was scrupulously observed by Mason long after other houses had abandoned it. Sunday nights, after Hall in summer, were practice nights when the Corps band played its way down the Drive and through the cutting, to circuit back round the triangle of trees. Flatteringly, there was always a crowd of admirers gathered outside the Lion Gates to observe them marching past. We had some notable sporting triumphs and certainly one catastrophic defeat. This was on Black Saturday when, at home to Denstone, the School was all out for 20 runs and lost by 10 wickets. An even blacker Monday rapidly followed when, on the principle “If you can’t play, you’ll certainly work,” the length of periods was increased from forty to sixty minutes.

At a staff meeting in July 1939 we were surprised to hear Canon Molony say that the Christmas term would start on September 22nd or within 24 hours of outbreak of war. If war was declared, boys might return and the staff must do so. Such a contingency then seemed remotely improbable. However, before dawn broke on September 3rd I was threading my way, with headlamps masked, through an unlit Swansea — and nearly hit a stray horse cantering loose along the darkened streets. Mr. Cheadle, driving north from London, spotted a plane overhead and, peering shortsightedly upwards, could not distinguish between the noughts or crosses on its wings. So, to be safe, he closed the sunshine roof!

Back at School, the staff and about thirty boys blacked out windows (with Mr. Blake heroically operating on top of giddy ladders), dug trenches and filled sandbags. Masters belonging to the Officers’ Reserve were called up immediately, many others left in 1940, and we gained a changing succession of foreigners and resurrected pedants. Among the former were Dr. Joseph from Berlin, who complained that whatever he tried to teach was gladly greeted with “Eet ees not in the seel-ar-buz!”; Dr. Neumann from Austria with an unusual sort of dog called a Schnautzer; the Hungarian Dr. Tompa and Mr. Genser who was Armenian. Half the staff were said to click smartly to attention whenever we sang “Glorious things of thee are spoken” to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles. After Dunkirk we had a Local Defence Volunteers unit, consisting of staff and a few local gamekeepers, which was on duty each night against potential parachute drops on the South Field. The guard, composed of four, used an old car sandbagged up below the Chapel as sentry box, and stand-to was from 10 to 11 and 4 to 5, with three hours sleep for each pair in between. Later the unit was called the Home Guard and senior boys were included, but the threat of invasion was then remote and night duties had ended. The house trenches around the School were never used, and the School’s descent to cellars at an air raid warning changed to the emergence of two firewatchers when an alert sounded. During these war years the number of boys dropped to 210 (with another 67 boys in the Prep.), the playing fields necessarily became neglected and were partially cared for by the Pioneers (a junior group, alternative to the Boy Scouts) under Mr. S. B. Smith, food became rationed and was not very good. Indeed, on the grounds of inadequate nourishment, a popular move was the temporary suspension of the Dorm. Run. But normal activities continued in the main, even though South Field cricket, played on postage stamp squares, inevitably resulted in balls being lost in the long grass of the outfield.

In 1948, after negotiations to have Clumber House and Chapel for our Prep. School had failed, Ranby School was opened by Earl Manvers and for a while our Prep, School was part there and part at Worksop. Mrs. Beanland, who had joined the staff during the war and continued until 1962, produced a number of school plays, notable among which was “Hassan” with a cast of over sixty, and also staff plays such as “Arsenic and Old Lace.” House concerts, which originally took the form of variety shows, were replaced by house plays, School House specialising in Aldwych farces.

Canon Molony retired from the Headship in 1952, after seventeen years — a period during which he had always had Dr. and Mrs. Coldrey as parents of at least one boy in the School. Soon after Mr. Northcote-Green’s arrival, the Prep, was completely transferred to Ranby, the houses were increased in size and Portland House was opened. The first royal visit was made to the School in 1955 when Princess Mary laid the foundation stone of the new swimming bath, her visit marking the School’s Diamond Jubilee.

The War, coupled with retrenchment after Dr. Shirley’s huge programme of expansion, had limited the amount of building done in Canon Molony’s time, though it did see the Duke of Portland open the Music and Art School, and also the building of staff houses on the East Field. A second era of development came with Mr. Northcote-Green when the erection of a temporary, and then permanent, gymnasium (to replace the one burnt down in 1941) was followed by new staff houses on the North and East Fields, a new chemistry block, a bursar’s house opposite the farm and the new Talbot House beyond Chapel, while funds grew for the Churchill Hall. But trees as well as buildings rose. A pleasant shrubbery appeared beside the score box, Cricketer’s Copse was set, and fresh trees fringed the East Field. Other changes were the transfer of the running track, once shared with cricketers on the North Field, to the East Field, and the levelling of the First XV pitch.

Beneficial changes have continued under Mr. Everett with the opening of the Churchill Hall and of the new kitchens, the introduction of self-service meals, and various increased comforts and amenities inside the School itself. Two innovations of great educational value have been the development of Senior Alternatives, permitting a non-ruggerish Senior to play other games, and the institution of Ash Thursdays when the majority of the School enjoy a range of pursuits under the wide classification of Activities, Societies and Hobbies. Obviously many names and events have regretfully been omitted from this account.

Mention could have been made of the courageous re-call of 245 runners by Captain Collings after a false start to the Dorm Run; of splendidly ubiquitous photography by the Chaplain, the Rev. R. J. C. Lumley, and the legendary feats of our parsoning cricketer, the Rev. H. J. Pickles; of the staff member who luxuriously umpired country cricket at square leg in a deck chair; of the breathing exercises daily performed under staff control by everyone at first period and of the test for spelling the ten words of the week endured by all each Saturday; of the outstanding Fifteens of 1937 (containing “Bucky” Rhodes and Ian Pinkney, both to have England trials) and 1941 (with “Nim” Hall, “Maxie” Miller and “Hoagy” Carmichael spearheading an attack which made a 30 – 0 win seem modest); of the epic batting of Phillip Sharpe, who took his runs in centuries instead of singles; of the Morecambe and Wise like dialogue “Who’s that splendid bowler?” “He’s Good.” “I can see that, but what’s his name?”; of the superb hurdling of P. R. Brunyee (who later ran in the Empire Games at Cardiff) and Barry Thompson; of the “even time” for the 100 yards clocked by Peter Southcott at Cranwell; of Fred Ainsley and Bill Audsley who, in pre-myxamatosis days, scored a century of rabbits before the end of June; of Klaus Reidenbach, the de-Nazified German youth who came to learn how a free people live and, after a week of Worksop, asked in bewilderment “But where’s the freedom?” and of so much more.

What changes have the years produced? Surprisingly few! The lovely grounds are lovelier, the friendliness is friendlier, a happy school is happier. Though superficially altered a trifle, Worksop is basically unchanged.

A. De M, Beanland 1974