Fore! - Sepia Saturday

When I started at St Andrews University in 1955 I had never played golf.

It was also the first time that I had seen the Royal & Ancient, fifty years after this photograph was dated.

R&A Clubhouse 1905

It may not have a foursome like those in our prompt but I will leave you to judge which ones are more appropriately dressed.

In my time at St Andrews, and a point that I regret, I never played there. Of course time on putting greens did not count,

Not a time to get the yips

especially when your opponent is your girl friend at the time.

It was 20+ years later that she became a golfing widow.

I was over 50 when, while working in Stavanger, I took up golf seriously - there is no other way to play it.

Over the years in between I suppose we played a few round of crazy golf but it was the 1990s, back in England, that I achieved a measure of success with the CEGB Canute Golfing Society and on Teesside at Billingham Golf Club.

A modest haul of trophies

Since then I've played in a number of countries including Scotland (of course - but not St Andrews), Denmark and the USA.

I never managed to beat my son-in-law.

Winter golf - Steven drives off at Oxford Hills, Michigan

And at the 13th it's my turn on this par 3 with a creek and a steep bank in front of the green.

Bobble hat and gloves - not shorts weather at all

I have struggled to beat my daughter, even on the Mountain Flowers Par 3 at the Homestead, Michigan's freshwater resort on Lake Michigan.

Rachel by the side of a Mountain Flowers green

Some holes on this course were quite a challenge.

The green may be only 190yds away but it's still a daunting drive.

On all courses however you will come across the posers.

One is a bronze!

Water is often a hazard to be avoided like this lake at Mulberry Hills, Michigan.

And in recent winters may make it necessary to close the course.

Flooding at Billingham golf course

If you hit a ball into water sometimes you may need a helping hand.

Or mouth

But the best water(ing) hole of all is always the one like this.

Approaching the 19th hole at Mulberry Hills

To see how others have succeeded with golf or other shots, visit the links at Sepia-Saturday-317

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.

School Days - Sepia Saturday

As chemistry was my favourite subject at school I thought this week would be ideal for ma as soon as I saw the laboratory photo.

However when I looked through my photo archive it was more difficult than that. From the age of 11 I went to Stamford School in Lincolnshire, then an independent school, Now it it is part of Stamford Endowed Schools along with what back then was Stamford High School for girls.. [Note to Facebook - Stamford School, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England - NOT Stamford School, Lahore, Pakistan as you insist it is on my profile and won't let me correct]

Stamford School & School Chapel

The buildings are situated on St Paul's Street; on the other side of the street are more school buildings.

Brazenose House - 2007

(Richard Croft - CC BY-SA 2.0 - Geograph Project Collection)

Brazenose was built in c 1688 and rebuilt in 1723 and is now part of the Stamford Endowed Schools campus. In my day the upper floor contained the Staff Room and class rooms; the two bottom windows on the right were those for the School Prefects' Study. The entrance at the right hand end led down to Brazenose gardens. 

Later in 1957, two years after I left, a new science block was built at the bottom of that same entrance. Annoyingly, for me, the photos of the opening of the block and one of my old chemistry master in the lab are copyright protected on the members only part of the School website

Major Lamb (Algy) to us was the one who suggest that I go on to his old university at St Andrews. [Note to Facebook - In St Andrews, Fife, Scotland NOT South Carolina] St Andrews University is 600 years old this year.

St Salvator's Hall -1956

I'm perched on the railing on the top floor of the men's hall of residence; you can't see it in this shot but that is the North Sea behind the far hedge,

Not to be thwarted I managed to find a shot of a St Andrews lab that did not exist while I was there.

Nuclear Resonance Lab, St Andrews - 2009
(Shandchem from Scotland - CC BY 2.0)

Finally, definitely before my time, I finish with a shot of Paris from the Scientific American Supplement - Author L Page.

Drawing of the Lab of the School of Physics & Chemistry
Paris - 1884

For more of the best days of your life, schools, laboratories  - whatever, cross over to Sepia-saturday-176.

Sporting Organs - Sepia Saturday.

When I was sorting the pictures I took in Cornwall last week I found two of the interior of Truro Cathedral that included the 17th-century Byfield Organ. Originally intended for the Chapel Royal at Westminster it was never installed there. A local mine owner presented the organ to Truro..

The organ pipes can just be seen to the right of the left hand pillar.

Here the organ is at the top right.

To introduce some sporting men I have to go back to 1955 with this team picture taken at the Appelby Frodingham Steel Company cricket ground in Scunthorpe:

Lincolnshire Colts v Nottinghamshire Colts (1955, I think)

I had to get into the act - centre front row.

But on 28 April 1956 at St Andrews University sports ground the photographer could not get all the fielders in the shots. You will have to accept my word that I was there at coverpoint in both.

St Andrews University v Forfarshire

Photos by Gillian Falconer

There's more to check out at: Alan's Sepia Saturday 75

A Sporting Sepia Saturday

I can't comment sensibly on ladies hockey other than to say their stick work was better than the men. However I still bear the scars from playing mixed hockey during the school holidays.

My first picture shows Stamford School 1st XI from 1954. I'm at the left end of the front row at the tender age of 17.

The white 'blob' above the doorway behind the third and fourth player is the 'Old Man' gargoyle on the chapel at the school. All new boys were lifted up in turn to kiss this at an initiation ceremony. I understand that this practice has been discontinued now.

I can remember everyone's surname in the photograph but am struggling to remember all the christian names. Must be old age!

The same applies to the photo below of the United College team at St Andrews University for 1955-56.

 You should be able to recognise me in this.

The nearest I can get to a ladies team is to show the tennis team from Stamford High School for1953 some of whom played in those mixed hockey games in the holidays. (We weren't meant to mix in term time.) 

The girl third from the right in the back row became my wife in 1958.

More sporting action at: Sepia Saturday 57