Crescat In Horas Doctrina*
ALMOST exactly half a century ago, in the glowing embers of a summer’s day, a Sixth Former in the KES Boarding House was so captivated by the sight of the school’s red brickwork in the sunset he was moved to poetry.
Once he’d committed it to paper, the poem was forgotten about. The boy became a man and went on to enjoy a successful career as an English teacher. Fifty years on, and now retired, that same former pupil has just unearthed his old poem, which we reckon is as appropriate today as it was back in 1970, when Mungo Jerry’s In The Summertime topped the charts. Read it and tell us what you think.
We thank him for sharing it with us and giving us the story behind its inspiration.
And the boy? He’s better known today as the chairman of the OLA. Over to you, Andrew . . .
We have all responded in our different ways to the opportunities offered by Lockdown. I have been indulging my desire to write by producing various newsletters. More recently I have been writing short stories and am planning a number of others. I have also unearthed quite a number of poems I wrote as a much younger man. Some, frankly, are embarrassing but a few, amazingly, have some merit. I remember that in those far off, heady days, many of us had a hankering to be poets if only to make ourselves seem more serious, mysterious and attractive to girls. We have all had those moments of delusion.
Among these poems was this one I wrote about KES. The building is staggeringly beautiful and I remember seeing it, as described, late one summer evening. As a Boarder I got to see a lot of it because I lived there. I didn’t usually think too much about it but, in the dying sunset, it reminded me of an amazing painting I had seen of St Pancras painted in similar light. I realised that I had been lucky to see the old building at its very best and wondered if would ever seem that way to me again. I also wondered if I would remember what that moment felt like.
Too sombre for me.
Returns to my eyes.
Ever again?
Andrew Stephen
