Ex Pat Recollections of Big Modern and Big Classical

The information that Big Modern (the Library) and Big Classical are to be renovated has prompted these recollections of the use and appearance of each hall when I was at the Junior and College.

Big Classical or Big Clas as we knew it presented a very different appearance then. I started at the Junior as a small boy in 1942 or 1943. As juniors we had very little experience of Big Clas as our lives were regulated by events at the Junior School. However, on Saturday nights we were allowed to attend film shows in Big Clas and it is these occasions that I recall. There were tiers of fairly uncomfortable wooden benches against each side wall together with other benches and chairs on the floor of the Hall running across the floor of the Hall. In the centre and about half way back was a blue metal film projection box from which the films were projected onto a screen at the stage end. On the walls were Honours Boards which listed the names and dates of the Honours won by OCs. There were many of these and the only ones I can remember were the Board for winners of the Victoria Cross and one solitary name of a winner of the George Cross. I have called these “Boards” but they were not the standard wooden board with gold lettering. The Boards were in black paint and appeared to be painted straight on to parts of the white plaster lining the walls. After Big Clas was re-modelled I never saw those Boards again.

Of the films we saw I remember being terrified by the black and white version of Great Expectations, laughing till I was almost ill at the Marx Brothers in A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera and seeing Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. As a very junior boy I wasn’t allowed to see Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty but did see Laughton’s The Private Lives of Henry VIII- all films were black and white. The first colour film I saw was Henry V with Olivier, which was shown at a commercial cinema in Cheltenham. The film projector box caused great excitement one Saturday evening when, while a film was being shown, it caught fire and was burnt out. After this event the Juniors were shown films in the Junior School, on the fairly rare occasions when such entertainment was provided. For some reason I wasn’t present when the fire occurred but heard all about it from other boys who were there. It must have been very exciting.

In 1948 I entered College and the appearance of Big Clas was as I have described it. I have a memory of rehearsing part of Handel’s Messiah in Big Clas. At that stage some eccentric music master had the idea that I could sing and put me in the Choir to sing as an alto. I can only say that he made a very great mistake and after a short while I was relieved of my position as a chorister on the universal vote of my fellows; I suspect that they were just as happy to get rid of me as I was to go. I recall rehearsing the chorus of For Unto us a Child is Born as part of a performance of The Messiah.

Early on in my time it was announced that dry rot had been discovered in the rooves of both Big Clas and Big Mod. This necessitated the complete removal and replacement of the entire wooden roof structure of both buildings, a major and no doubt very expensive undertaking, particularly at a time when building materials were scarce and in heavy demand as re-building was going on all over the UK to make good the damage suffered during World War II and to provide housing for many rendered homeless as a result of bombing. I well recall the Gloucester Aircraft Company was turned over to manufacturing Pre-Fab homes. These were largely made of metal and were in two sections which were transported by road to the site where they were needed and then erected with the two sections being joined together, to form one house. In transit by road these were a significant nuisance to other road users who had to try and pass the low loaders which moved very slowly and also took up a great deal of room on the narrow major roads of those days. Michael Innes refers to these homes in Operation Pax.

The need to re-roof both Halls had other effects on College. First it rendered both buildings totally unusable while this major work was going on and secondly it led to the removal of Speech Day from Big Clas to the Cheltenham Town Hall, a move which the Headmaster, Elliot-Smith, described as being “to decadent plush”. We, that is to say the boys, no girls in those monastic days of course, were accommodated upstairs in the balconies while the parents and those who were in receipt of prizes, never an event effecting myself, were in the body of the Hall. This move had the undoubted advantage of providing considerably more space for parents and friends than could possibly have been available in Big Clas.

I remember watching and puzzling over the reasons for work on Big Clas as the roof was first taken off and tarpaulins put in place and then later on the roof was put back in place. I now know that dry rot is a very serious condition which makes the total removal of all effected timber essential if the problem is not to recur. I also know that the expression ‘dry rot’ is odd as the usual cause of the condition is bad drainage leading to damp which in turn causes the spores of the rot to grow and thrive.

Eventually, after a year or two, Big Clas re-opened but with what a difference. The Honours Boards had gone, as had the benches along the walls. All seating was in the body of the Hall facing the stage which in turn had been completely renovated. I remember being told by someone involved in theatrical performances that the new switchboard, which was the latest word in equipment, had been donated to College by Strand Electrics after it had been on exhibition at the Festival of Britain in 1951- this may simply be a legend. Not only had the Honours Boards gone but Big Clas glowed with fresh new paint. I recall the colour scheme as being cerise, the College colour, and green, the brain child of an OC architect or interior designer. Big Clas remained like this for the rest of my time at College-I left in 1954- quite understandably as it was still very new. I haven’t seen it since due to my leaving England and coming to Australia in 1961.

Big Modern
When I went to College Big Modern, or Big Mod as we called it, was brought back into use; this was well before the alterations to Big Clas were started. Someone, probably the Council and the Head, had decided that Big Mod should become the College Library. It was used as a library and was available all the time for Study or Spare Periods. Big Mod on these occasions was always supervised by one of the masters, an essential precaution to ensure discipline; a condition sometimes lacking in other Spare Periods presided over by masters who could not control those present. When it opened the book cases were all grey metal, no doubt as part of the economy drive which so dominated post war Britain, The only really odd thing I remember was a glass case in a corner of Big Mod which contained a stuffed buffalo or bison which had been shot by a Brigadier, (or was he Colonel?), Wingfield-Stratford OC; one of my exact contemporaries was a boy of the same name who was in Hazelwell.

I spent many periods in Big Mod allegedly studying but in fact reading books on a variety of subjects which I found interesting, even if they had nothing whatever to do with what I was meant to be studying. Big Mod had the vast advantage of being quiet so that those who were studious were provided the opportunity to enhance their studies and, write their essays, a constant occupation for most of us at the time. Among other books I read Napier’s History of the Peninsula War which started me in my long-time interest in military history.

Dr Henry Gordon-Clark; Junior and Christowe 1942-1954.