Preface to the Preface
Note from Andrew Alcock: This post was written by my father, Donald Geoffrey Alcock, in 1994 on the venerable XyWrite and Ventura Publisher - I have converted them to a newer format. Over to you, Dad!
Preface
The schools stood at opposite poles; Beacon Hill at one, St. Andrew's Preparatory at the other.
Beacon Hill School was founded by Bertrand and Dora Russell in 1929, so named because of its location near Beacon Hill on the Sussex coast. After her separation from Bertrand, Dora carried on the school alone. She moved it over the years from Sussex to Essex to Surrey to Somerset, and eventually to Cornwall. It was a school notorious among educators of the day for being left wing, co-educational, godless and progressive.
St. Andrew's Preparatory School was founded by Major A. G. Mullins (‘Ponty’ on account of his fine Punch-like nose) as a boarding school for small boys. He offered God, competition, manly sports, and nothing remotely progressive. This was at Grahamstown in South Africa.
I went to Dora at six years old and stayed until the war. Then I was sent to Ponty.
Sending a child of six to boarding school is unusual. Removing a child from Dora's regime to Ponty's would seem inexplicable. I relate only briefly the circumstances of my transfer from one to the other because this is not an autobiography; its purpose is to compare two opposed approaches to education and record the impact of one on an intermediate product of the other.
From Dora to Ponty.