THREE DOZEN YEARS

DEDICATION

To the future pupils of Downhills Central School, in the hope that they will be inspired by the achievements of their predecessors.

DUTY -

"The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another."
George Eliot

COURAGE -

"Courage, the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand."
R. L. Stevenson

SUCCESS -

"The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well; and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame."
Longfellow

(In the early years of the School, "Duty, Courage, Success" formed a scroll beneath the School Badge, chosen because the initial letters of these words were also the initials of the school. The quotations appeared in the first number of the School Magazine, "Reflections," in 1921.)

INTRODUCTION

Reading history has always been a favourite pastime of mine, and I have always held historians in great respect. The courage with which they undertake an obviously impossible task, to tell the truth about the complicated affairs of vast numbers of people in the past, calls forth my wonder and admiration. Knowing, as they must, how difficult it is to get the exact truth about the simplest incident of today, the historian yet produces his "History of England," his "History of the Great War," even his "History of Civilisation."

Mr. Davis has attempted a more modest task, the history of a school in a London suburb during the last half-century, and he has been able to call on first-hand information for the whole of his period. Thus he has avoided the pitfalls which lie in the path of more ambitious historians. On the other hand, his work will come under closer scrutiny. Few of us can claim to be authorities on the History of Civilisation, but all who read this book will feel themselves experts on some part of it. Fortunately most of them are now parents, and the knowledge of the extraordinary stories which their children bring home from school must make them suspect that where their memories and Mr. Davis's account differ, the latter is more likely to be correct.

I had the privilege of reading this book in manuscript as Mr. Davis finished each section: in one way it was delightful to be present, as it were, in the workroom; in another it was irritating, as each instalment made me impatient for the next. I feel very grateful to Mr. Davis for what he has done, and I know that all his readers will share my gratitude, not so much for the printed page as for the revival of dormant memories that it will evoke. My knowledge of the School, except as a visitor, goes back only to 1932. When the real old-timers get going I can only listen and marvel. Yet I remember Mr. Roberts as the new boy; Mr. Haber conducting his verse-choir, with the stage so crammed with children that you feared that if one took a deep breath another would fall off; sitting in a dusty railway carriage on a hot summer day in 1939 opposite a row of sweet-sucking children, wondering where the train would stop; the icy winds of the Cambridge winter; the summer cycle rides; Mr. Baker and his boys as the rude mecanicals, and Pamela Spire and Mrs. Parker as Helena and Hermia in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; Killick as a bo'sun, Pat Atkins as the Bailiff's daughter; the first Beaverford Service... But every reader will have his own list.

I commend this book to all past and present Downhills boys and girls, and to their parents.

N. S. MERCER.

PREFACE

It may seem to some people that it is premature to write a history of a school that is only 36 years old. The project first entered my mind when I found that the present generation of scholars is unaware of the origin of the House names, and I soon discovered that some of the documents (the raw material of history) had already disappeared; for example, I have been unable, in spite of diligent search, to assemble a complete set of the issues of the School Magazine.

The objects of this History are:-

(1) To record the formation and early history of a school of a comparatively rare type, a Selective Central School.

(2) To give the pupils a knowledge of the past achievements, with the conviction that they will profit by the example of their predecessors and will strive to achieve a spirit even better than that which now exists.

I would like to record my appreciation of the help given to me by the Borough Education Officer, Mr.John Power, M.A., and the Staff of the Education Office, to the present Headmaster, Mr. N. S. Mercer, B.A., B.Com., to Mr.W. M. Roberts, Headmaster of the John Hampden Secondary School, Barnet, and an original member of the Downhills Staff, to Mrs. Elsie Thompson, an old scholar, and to the many old scholars who have provided me with information and background without which this history could not have been written.

I should like to thank Messrs. Methuen and Co. Ltd. for permission to quote from "The Cambridge Evacuation Survey."

This is a History of Downhills Central School and I have not attempted to tell the story of the School which occupied the building before 1919. It should be recorded, however, that the building was erected in 1912 and was designed as an infants' school. As things turned out, it was first occupied by Downhills Senior Boys' School and Downhills Senior Girls' School.