Charles Sprawson

Saturday

Charles Sprawson

Visions of boyhood

From our UK edition

Among the many photographs in this comprehensive history is one of a master in a clerical collar. He stares at the camera with a startled expression and looks out of place, devoid of the self-assurance of others alongside him. His name is J. W. Coke Norris, and it dawned on me slowly that this was the man on whom Rattigan had based the character of Crocker Harris, the dessicated classics master in The Browning Version, played in the film by Michael Redgrave, a play so close to Rattigan’s heart that he never had to make an alteration or change a line. Like Crocker Harris, Coke Norris taught only the lower forms Latin and Greek, and was principally in charge of the school timetable. He took early retirement at 40.

Wednesday

Charles Sprawson

The true Stoic

From our UK edition

An early memory from the years we lived near Stowe was the sight of my father pushing our front door firmly shut in the face of one of its headmasters, who was attempting to force his way in and apologise for some misdemeanour. He had, I believe, tried to seduce my mother. Later on I shared a London flat with a Stoic, a dark, mysterious, gipsy figure who worked on Ready, Steady, Go but was principally a beautiful tennis player, mentioned here for having helped Stowe win the Public Schools Championship in successive years. Sometime after I left, he was found by the police dead in the bath. Nights there had been full of incident.

Saturday

Charles Sprawson

‘The college of God’s gift’

From our UK edition

The only man from Dulwich College I have ever known, or met, was a master at my school, M. H. Bushby. A distinguished cricketer at Dulwich, he went on to captain Cambridge. Here he is described, in later life, as a ‘much respected and much loved housemaster’, so my attitude to Dulwich has always been entirely favourable, though all I knew of it was its vague outline on the edge of the South Circular road, a distant palazzo surrounded by extensive playing fields. This monumental volume, beautifully produced by the college, leaves nothing out. Old boys of Dulwich are known as Old Alleynians because of its founder in 1619, Edward Alleyn, who played all those ‘over-reaching’ heroes in Marlowe’s plays.