Cabin Hill Campbell College 1964-1969

D C was in the same class as me in Cabin Hill. He was a boarder and I was a day pupil. We used to spend a lot of time together at break times, lunch times and after school. One of my first memories is of playing ‘holesies’ with him outside the wooden buildings. This a game of marbles or ‘marleys’ as we called them. David got bored at week-ends and I would cycle to school –quite a long way –two and a half miles with my burberry stuffed with oranges to give to him. He didn’t like the food at school! We played cricket and soccer together aswell. Unfortunately , he lived in Lurgan, which was forty minutes away, and so I didn’t see him in the holidays. The friendship developed when we went to Campbell.

During these times I don’t remember much of my brothers. My eldest brother R was seven years older and my elder brother P was four years older. Neither of them had much time for their kid brother or ‘worm’ as they affectionately referred to me. We were not close mainly because of the age difference.

Campbell College

“You should write a book ,Don,you’ve had such an interesting life”

How many times have I heard it said to me? Hundreds of times! Well, dozens at least! Well maybe one dozen, perhaps. Usually after an amusing story from one of my earlier incarnations –sometimes consummated with the assistance of an alcoholic beverage.

It has been a strategy of mine since I was a teenager-telling entertaining stories to gain attention. I think it started as keeping the lads amused in the Lower sixth at Campbell College in Belfast. This was a full-time occupation in my teenage years. It was serious stuff –it was a matter of survival.

Campbell was a public school in Belfast. For my English readers this is not an Oxymoron. Campbell had, and still has the reputation of being the ‘Snobby’ school in Protestant East Belfast. It was exactly that. Only the well-off and the propertied could afford it. All the teachers had RP accents and were Oxbridge graduates who had failed to get jobs in the English Public schools. It is to the eternal credit of my parents that they sacrificed so many holidays in Majorca in order to send my self and my two brothers there but we never really appreciated it and I still can’t, no matter how hard I try! I appreciated their intentions but the school was a failure for me in almost every sense.

At a personal level the experience of Campbell for me was pretty miserable. I hated most things about the school like all normal teenagers. I was handicapped by my painful shyness. I don’t know where the lack of confidence in myself came from but it has stayed with me until the present day. I was always the “Outsider’. Never really part of the ‘Rugby” group or “Swats” and not officially a nerd either.

I was a curious anomaly – nerdish perhaps –something of a loner. Well not quite alone –there was D C of course,my chum, and he still is. D C was something else –that rarity – a true friend-a true believer –in me that is –an even greater rarity.

“Crowhead” as I still affectionately refer to him was someone who could actually amuse me. To this day I don’t know the origin of his nickname. But without Crowhead I would not have survived at Campbell.

He was a boarder. He had a very dry sense of humour, and a wonderfully generous and patient nature. We became buddies at Prep school and the friendship thrived and survived all through Campbell into Trinity and for many years in foreign parts on to the present day. At Campbell we were inseparable, and we were known as the ‘terrible duo’ by some masters. Like all young teenagers we spent most of the time laughing at others and the rest of it laughing at and with each other.

Dartmouth and the MFV trip

Two memorable experiences indeed. At Campbell, both Crowhead and I were in the cadets –the naval section. One summer holidays it was compulsory for us to go on a camp. David and I found ourselves with a group of other cadets on a boat trip to Scotland on a Motor Fishing Vessel which was 37 feet long. The trip from Belfast to Campbelltown took 19 hours. When we arrived we pitched tents and Crowhead and I were sharing. I managed to lose my wallet with five pounds in it which Dad had given me as spending money. I was distraught and I remember Crowhead was very helpful. We found it and bought fish and chips to celebrate. This was the first time I had lost something really important in my life.

Crowhead and I attended another Cadet camp at Dartmouth Royal Naval College in Devon the following year when I was fourteen. We travelled to Liverpool from Belfast on the boat and then took the train to Devon. It was a twenty four hour journey and we arrived at Dartmouth exhausted. Immediately we found ourselves with other schoolboy cadets from all over the country in the hands of fresh Royal Navy recruits who had just completed their thirteen week induction course into the Royal Navy at Dartmouth. You can imagine that this was not a holiday camp and the new recruits were only too pleased to put us through for one week what they had been through in the previous thirteen!

On the night of our arrival we all had to have our bunk beds inspected in the dormitory by the section commander. As we all stood to attention beside our beds I could see the commander giving some of the boys a hard time. When he arrived at my bed he picked up my tennis shoes and hurled them with an unnecessarily dramatic flourish into the middle of the floor. He said they were ‘disgustingly filthy’ and that I should buy another pair. I remember having made a point of cleaning these shoes before leaving Ireland. They were spotless. He then proceeded to inspect my clothes. Opening one of my drawers he stared at my five pairs of socks (One for each night we were going to be at Dartmouth). He then turned to me with a look of incredulity on his face and started to shout at me with words to the effect that how could I possibly have thought that it would be acceptable to bring an ‘odd number’ of pairs of socks (five) on camp? When I begged his pardon he resumed shouting at me pointing out that surely it was obvious that I could not pack an odd numbered pair of socks neatly in a drawer: six or four pairs apparently would have been acceptable –but not five.

I don’t remember how the conversation ended but the next thing I remember was being carried out of the building by four officer cadets-one for each arm and leg-and someone slapping my face and saying –are you ok? I suppose the journey and the shock had been too much for me: I had fainted into the arms of the commander and his lieutenants. I quickly took stock of the situation and decided to try and turn it to my advantage.

I was taken to the sick bay where a big, burly Ex - Royal Navy Doctor examined me. He asked me how I felt and had a quick grope of my balls. I replied that I thought I had the flu and perhaps ought to return to Ireland. He told me that all I needed was a big supper. How he could have worked this out from feeling my balls I have no idea. But he was right. I felt fine after supper. This incident introduced me to the arbritrary abuse of power and sexual assault. I was amazed at how irrational and stupid grown men could be. It left a deep impression on me.

Dartmouth was a bad place -for me anyway. Up at the crack of dawn for a run before breakfast, it was rush, rush, rush-and you had to be five minutes early everywhere because you were in such and such a division- ‘Benbow’ division-probably named after some British war hero. Everything was a competition and you lost points for your division if you were late for any activity etc.

I managed to keep out of trouble until the penultimate night. A nerdy cadet called Cox from another division came to me and told me I had been ‘selected’ by Cox’s division commander to be on the welcoming committee for the arrival of some Royal Naval vessel in the middle of the night. I was genuinely puzzled by this request because Cox was not in my division. So, I went to my section commander and asked him what to do. I learned a lot in the subsequent twenty four hours. My commander, ticked off that someone in another division had not asked his permission for me to attend this welcoming party, told me to ignore Cox’s request. The job of the welcoming committee was to stand in a line and blow whistles at the ship as it docked so I was quite pleased , if a little surprised by my commanders decision.

I slept like a bird-as I say it was the penultimate night. Next morning the shit hit the fan. My absence had been noted and I was put on ‘defaulters’ My punishment was to miss the last night party in the officers Mess-a euphemism for a bar. Here we juveniles were to be treated as adults by our tormenters for the first and only time having been abused by them all week. They took out their guitars and started to sing songs and buy us beers!

Anyway, I missed the party on the last night because I was put on ‘Defaulters’ . The worst part of it all was my own commander failed to back me up against the other one. I felt totally betrayed. In fact , my punishment was not only unjust but vindictive. After the party was over I had to report to my own commander (the ‘Judas’) -in my full No.3. uniform. For the uninitiated , No.3 is the most elaborate naval uniform to put on –with all sorts of bits of rope, lanyards and things which have to be put in the correct place. I had to wake up Judas and then go back to sleep and report to him again on the hour for each and every hour through the night!

So that was my last night at Dartmouth as the rest partied. I learned from this experience, at the early age of fourteen not to trust those in authority. This incident also had a lasting impression and influence on me. If I wasn’t beforehand, I have certainly been since, suspicious of those in authority. Another piece of the "outsider" character puzzle was now firmly in place.

My main job at Campbell seemed to be to amuse people. The person I had to keep most amused was M R.You see M was the school ‘Out-half’ on the first XV rugby team (the equivalent of a quarterback in American Football)-and to be a friend of M was really worth a lot of kudos. In retrospect, the kudos of being Mark’s friend more than compensated for being of average ability academically and nerd-like in other respects. (Thankfully, I didn’t know really know I was a nerd at the time.In fact, I didn’t really know it until about a year ago.).

M laughed at my jokes-and for that I was prepared to do almost anything at the age of sixteen . I tried all sorts of things to foster my friendship with M including smoking ‘Players No.6’ cigarettes, “Wills cigars, and ultimately a Sherlock Holmes droopy Pipe with St. Bruno tobacco. I felt the latter gave me a certain air of intellectual gravitas which I desperately needed. As well as being on the first XV, M’s Dad was a sports TV announcer! R R was the closest thing we had to a celebrity in the school. Besides, Mark was cool and all the guys liked him. His Dad had a colour TV and a video machine-the first ones to be seem in Northern Ireland –by me at least.

Yes, Campbell was a school which did little for me, and I have rarely been back. The teachers were strict, for the most part distant and disinterested-and the food was stodgy. Its one saving grace was the cricket. I was good at cricket. That was my saviour –because it gave me a certain status in the eyes of the other boys and the staff.

Back to M again. Iwas sitting with Ma at the back of T.C's Geography class giggling inanely at my own witty comments and, more importantly, making M laugh that started me on the road to obsession with two things: recognition (getting people to pay attention to me) and teaching.

Let’s face it –how many other people can have actually experienced as many schools as I have as a student or a teacher! At last count –it must be over twenty in nine different countries. Each school culture is different –and the concepts of authority and leadership in have come to fascinate me. I am particularly interested in how power corrupts authority and leadership. Not just the leadership shown by management. I mean leadership in the broadest sense. This might include teachers leadership styles with students; teachers leadership styles with other teachers, and even students leadership styles with other students. The whole issue of why people behave in the way they do within school cultures has always intrigued me.

After fifty years of study I’d have to say that I’m not much the wiser for it other than to state the bleeding obvious that each school has it’s own culture and people behave differently in every school.

Duuh!