Stand By Your Beds

I cannot claim to have had much experience of dormitories and even less of ones occupied by the female sex. 

Our prompt this week shows a dorm room at a typical North American College in 1917.

I went to Stamford School in Lincolnshire as a day boy in 1948. I don't remember ever visiting the boarders' dormitories. However later some friends of mine were disciplined for 'raiding' the local girls school.

At St Andrews University I stayed in St Salvator's Hall, then a exclusively male hall of residence. Female visitors were only allowed in on a Sunday afternoon in those days. Now of course both male and female students live in 'Sallies'.

On balcony railings at end of top floor corridor outside room C30 - late 1950s

Hanging out the windows on the staircase over Sallies main entrance.

I have managed to find some dormitory pictures from earlier times, none as luxurious as Sallies spartan rooms.

You can only guess at what conditions were like at Ipswich School.

Interior of a dormitory at Ipswich Blackfriars (Dominican Friary)
{By John Sell Cotman (1782-1842)}

This pen and ink and water colour drawing is of the interior at the end of the period of occupation by Ipswich School.

As part of the civilian evacuation scheme in Britain  during WWII Malvern College was evacuated to Blenheim Palace. The State rooms were converted into dormitories and also used as classrooms.

Malvern College at Blenheim

The tapestry depicts a famous Malbarian battle scene (The Battle of Blenheim 1704). Because of the value of the works of art and antiques in the rooms ink was not used in school classes - all work was done in pencil. (Photo from Collections of the Imperial War Museum - IWM Non-Commercial Licence)

However refugees in Britain were not in such luxurious surroundings.

Life at Pauntley Court - School and Home for French and Belgian Refugees, Pauntley, Gloucestershire 1943

This photo is also from the collections of the Imperial War Museum (IWM Non-Commercial Licence). 

The blurb with the photo says, "Boys settle down in their bunks in one of the dormitories at Pauntley Court, the beams in this attic bedroom reminding them of the history of the building and the tradition that says it once belonged to Dick Whittington."

Somehow I doubt that was on their minds at all.

To show I'm even handed I looked for sleeping quarters containing girls and came up with these.

Early morning on a ski trip

And from my daughter's stay in Germany for a term, before she became one of the first six girls at Yarm School.

All girls together

The only dormitories I have shared were call barrack rooms. Often there you were rudely interrupted by a Sergeant Major or a junior NCO bawling "Stand by your beds!" - rather like these fellows.

French Infantry of the Line awaiting an inspection - 1885

In basic training though, the order might have been, "Stand by your beds with your boots in your hand!"

Or as one newly appointed Corporal shouted, "Stand by your boots with your bed in your hand!"

Now it's a case of "Right turn and march over to other dorms at Sepia-Saturday-229.