Memories of a Summer Luncheon at Lysses House in 1998

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A fine gathering of members and their partners enjoyed lunch at Lysses House Hotel on Sunday, 5th July 1998.  Eric Poyner, headmaster 1959-1979, Tom Hilton, whose association with the school dates from 1935, Roy Daysh and John Cole, former masters at the school, Anne Ashton, daughter of the former headmaster, George Ashton, as well as pupils back to 1920's consumed a delicious lunch of salmon mixed with lively conversation. We were particularly delighted to be joined by Eric (Dusty) Titheridge (1934-1939) from Manitoba, Canada and Kelvin Parker (1964-1970) from Dallas, Texas. Kelvin brought with him Kevin O'Carroll (1963-1970) from Loch Lomond, Scotland.

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Tom Hilton seen here with Peggy to his left and Sue Marlow, wife of our Chairman, to his right.


Antony Porter remembers

I first went to Price's in 1957 and can still remember the roll-call for my class, 2B:

Jenner, Johnson M, Johnson R., Jones, Keith, Kemp D., Kemp R., King, Lampard,
Lewis, Mason, Myhill, Oakshott, O'Keefe, Porter, Salmon, Searle, Smith A.,
Smith D., Stride, Thomas, Turner B., Turner M., Wake, Watton, Wills, Whitt, Wright.

David Vaughan and Tom Hilton's Wyvern ...

Just some musings that you might want to put on the net. I think that Tom Hilton was the major of the CCF and that Briscoe was the captain. Robertson-Fox was Head Boy and Sergeant Major of the CCF. He went on to the real army and was killed I believe in Aden fighting the rebels. I met the last governor of Aden years later and he told me a lot of guys were killed there for no reason. Aden had long since lost it's strategic importance and was just a very hot, dusty, dirty place. I know I have been there several times on business. I did not like the CCF uniform and so being the rebel I was I simply did not wear it and was always on detention. I did however enjoy the annual camp. I remember the one in Thetford well, we were hosted by the Inniskillings who were called away as the Suez crisis erupted. I think the Paras then got the job of looking after us. For many of us including me it was our first time away from home, I think we all enjoyed ourselves greatly including the odd illegal fag or two.

Talking about detention does anyone remember the incident when the Quad Board, the board that hung in the hall and recorded the miscreants was stolen. I was a prime suspect and remember being grilled by Ashton at length. I guess I had the most unserved detentions and thus had the greatest motive to remove the board hoping no one would be able to recall who had yet to serve out time. Well I did not take it, I wonder if after all this time the culprit will own up.

I do remember we had a vicar for Physics, he was certifiably mad, he went looking for a bunsen burner gas leak with a lighted taper and blew the door off a cupboard.

One time we took Hiltons car, a Vauxhall Wyvern for a joy ride and hid it behind the lab buildings. Stupid in retrospect but at the time it seemed like a prank.

There was the time in assembly when Ashton had to announce that Rod King had blown his hand off playing with explosive I believe he scrounged at the Browndown Ranges.

I believe I was the first boy to have a motor cycle, actually it was a scooter, it caused such a fuss Ashton made me park outside the school grounds. Today a new high school is being built in our town with 400 spaces for pupils cars. How times change.

The new pavilion was built and opened in my time, within six weeks it had developed a big crack in the wall that had to be filled with cement on a regular basis, I guess they did major work to repair it after my time.

We had a music club for our edification, all we wanted to hear was the Everly Brothers and Elvis ( Who is alive and working at the check out at a supermarket in Alaska, at least the local tabloid says ). Ashton came in one time and heard the racket and closed up shop.

I built a step ladder in woodwork under Briscoes tutelage, it was so bad he would not let me take it home when it was completed.

I am sure there is more but this is enough for now.

David Vaughan


Dr Duncan Pepper replies

I found David Vaughan's reminiscences very relevant and interesting, as I was party to some of the crimes he mentions and can answer a lot of the points he raises. I have been feeling rather guilty about Rodney Kings hand as I taught him how to make pipe bombs and showed him on the fateful Saturday how to scavenge steel pipe from an old bicycle frame in Wych Lane and he went off and did it,  but ignored my advice to include wadding at each end before folding over the tubing and hammering the ends flat. The rest is history.

I have been thinking of writing up some of the exploits of The Field Club as we called ourselves, it was an alternative to Wednesday afternoon games, especially attractive to those of us who hated games (about half the fourth form at that time). Robertson Fox was killed in Aden when his service Land Rover went over a land mine. I think it was a dreadful waste of a life in a totally futile gesture at the end of Empire. His younger   brother was dating my sister at the time and the family were very badly affected by it. I had great cause to thank Robertson Fox as ,  on the first day at Prices, we were all interrogated by him as to what our religion was. I remember not wanting to answer in case I said the wrong thing, after an agonising wait I answered RC, and was duly   parted off with a few other dubious characters to a quiet corner and told we were all excused prayers, it was a superb skive that l;asted all my 7 years at Prices, rather like a social club in the early years, with the impossibility of being recorded Late, and in later years was a sure path to early promotion to a Lates Prefect. The only snag was being interrogated at regular intervals by Mr Briscoe as to what church I was attending!

The detention board was removed by Gates (Senior) and Shepherd, was duly cut in half and burnt ceremoniously in Gates back garden at the end of Wych Lane and Fareham Road. I got the story from Gates younger brother who was a friend of mine and went to Gosport County Grammar School. As I recall, Gates and or Shepherd had been as they thought, wrongfully added to the board for some misdemeanour, and this was their way of fighting back.

Duncan S Pepper

Phil Crawshaw (1961-68)

Dear Michael,

I don't often use the net, but I stumbled across the old Pricean's net page,  and I thought it would be nice to make contact. I attended Price's from 1961 to 1968, so I am a contemporary of Derek Marlow , and about 65 others of course. I was always one for lists and I can still recite my 1A register list Ayres,Bird ,Bone.... ...Hawkins,Hird,Hodges,Hughes.

I am resident in York, adjacent to the race course and have lived in various parts of Yorkshire since 1973, so I just about qualify for citizenship.I have a daughter who is football crazy, so she drags me off to see Sheffield United, but I get my own back when I teach her about cheering for Pompey and not for the Saints as and when they journey north.

I left Price's in 1968, and went on to University College London. I joined British Rail as an engineering grad in 1972, went north to Doncaster ,and followed a satisfying career in Derbyshire/Yorkshire right up until privatisation turned things upside down in 1997.

As for other OP's, I exchange Christmas cards with Gerry Westbrook 61-68( now in Chippenham, Wilts) and Geoff Waudby (Perth, Western Australia). I've stumbled across Vaughan Freeman(1968-75) and John Hawkins(1969 ish ),the latter I had known for some time, but he turned up to a conference dinner in Birmingham in a tie with lions on it, and we were both amazed when I said I had got one just like it.

Perhaps you could let me know about membership. I have plenty of memories of my sentence at Park Lane, which will fill a few pages of the Web-site. It will be intriguing to hear what peers, and staff have got up to in the last 30 years!

Phil Crawshaw

From Bob Champion 1969-1976...

I attended Price's from 1969 - 1976, and was one of the first entrants to the sixth form college. I have failed dismally to keep in touch with any of my fellow students, but maybe this is a good way to re-establish contact. Funnily enough, I can still remember the register of names from 1971 - when I would have been in 3a (sad, but true!):

Ambrose, Ashton, Ashwell, Baker, Bascombe, Beats, Beats, Beckett, Benmore, Bishop, Blackburn, Blythe, Bonsor, Brangyn, Brangyn, Bristow, Brookfield, Burghard, Burton, Byrne, Case, Challis, Champion, Clark, Clarke, Cleak.

Maybe my memory is failing me - that's only 26 names. Alternatively, perhaps class sizes weren't what they are now!

Bob Champion.

And from Japan, David Roberts (1950-1958) writes:


David (D J) Roberts 1950-58 Fukuoka Japan

Your webpage sprang out at me a moment ago and I'm wallowing in what I hope is just nostalgia...

I'm visiting Europe August 9th to September 15th this year. If you have any activity during this period (except Old Boy sports!)

Please add my name to any lists and enrol me as a member, if you would. In any case pass on to Tom Hilton if you can my thanks for the only career advice I ever received at Price's.

Are any other masters of his period still in touch (Tim Foster, 'Louis' Chapman, HRT Thatcher, the Reverend Royds-Jones [who will live for ever], and that other rich and rascally Welshman-hyphen-Jones the History, who decorated the Cadet Corps)?

Thanks for doing the hard work.

Tragically, David died in an accident in Japan in Autumn 1999.