Blasts from the Past: Memories of King’s During WW2

I recently had the great pleasure of visiting a former pupil who left King’s in 1946. Noel Pepperall started in the Senior School in the Autumn Term 1939. His younger brother Brian entered the Junior School at the same time; their older brother, Dennis, was already at school. Apart from moving for a time to Newcastle-under-Lyme (the move was prompted by the threat of bombing), Noel was at King’s for the duration of the Second World War.  His memories of that time provide a vivid picture of everyday life: the shelter that his father dug at the bottom of the garden but which was rarely used due to the intimidating presence of rats; the identity cards and gas masks which had to be carried at all times; the challenges his mother faced coping with the demands of three growing boys in the face of rationing. She did marvels, Noel recalled. His father, meanwhile, kept two allotments and joined a ‘pig club’, the members of which were allowed to share around half the bounty with the food authorities. Later there were hens.  

At school, the structure remained largely as it had been – and as it would continue to be for decades: lessons from Monday to Saturday with compulsory games on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. This was not a problem for Noel as he was sporty, being particularly good at tennis and squash. He also acted as the prompter for the school plays (Hamlet and The Pirates of Penzance) and was later given the role of the Earl of Worcester in Henry IV Part One. He became Head of Boarders, and was made a School Prefect.

Noel, like all his contemporaries, was required to join the Junior Training Corps (J.T.C.).  When he turned 17, he also became a member of the school’s platoon of the local Home Guard; the American P17 rifle and ammunition with which he was issued, as well as two grenades, were kept in his wardrobe at home. On night patrol, when the skies were clear, he could see the fighters overhead.

‘This was a period with raids most nights, but I would not like to leave the impression that our lives throughout the war were lived in the fear of constant threat. For long periods, apart from wartime restrictions and precautions, we lived a normal life. We played cricket and tennis in a nearby park and roamed on our bikes with a freedom unusual today.’

The only truly bad memory of daily life (revealed as much by the look on his face as the words he used!) was of the ‘daily spoonfuls of thick cod liver oil syrup and a noxious liquid called Parish’s food.’

When the V1 bombs started in the summer of 1944, things became slightly hairier: ‘These had a distinctive sound, more like a motor cycle than an aircraft, and when the engine cut out it would usually go into a tight vertical spin before exploding.’ At school, pupils would dive under their desks when the unmistakable noise of a V1 was heard.

For two summers Noel, liked others from King’s, spent some of his school holidays helping at harvest camps in West Sussex. It was before combine harvesters had become commonplace, and the work was hard. The teas, on the other hand, were good! Noel would later return to Burpham, the location of the camps, for meetings of the Georgian Society, a drinking and dining club established by a small group of former pupils who had all shared the experience of the war at King’s. Membership was limited to nine – ‘one over the eight’ – while the name was a comic nod to the building which housed the loos (demolished in the 1960s) which a French master had maintained was a fine example of Georgian architecture. In 2007 the Society celebrated its 60th anniversary with a lunch at the school.

The war did bring a very sad loss, however, Noel’s brother Dennis. Called up aged 18, Dennis had elected to join the Grenadier Guards and was subsequently selected to serve in the elite King’s Company of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. In October 1944, Noel went with his father to see Dennis off at Raynes Park station. Noel, aged 16, was aware of his father’s anguish. The following March, Dennis was killed when his platoon came under heavy fire in the town of Aalten. He is buried in the cemetery there alongside his comrades; his gravestone bears the inscription – ‘Tell England and ye who pass this monument, I died for her and rest content’. Dennis is one of those we will remember this November when the whole school comes together for the annual Service of Remembrance.               

I am most grateful to Noel for sharing his written memoirs with me, and for giving up his time to meet. If you would like to take part in the Recollections of King’s life stories project, please do get in touch (archive@kcs.org.uk).

Dr Lucy Inglis | School Archivist