School began in an apartment on the top floor of the Linton Apartments on
Sherbrooke St. at Simpson, where a French spinster (not canadienne) called
`` Miss'' Casault gave ``pre-school'' lessons to me, one younger boy, and
four older girls. One of the latter, May Shirres, lived across the street from
us, and she and I, aged seven I suppose, walked to and from school together.
I remember that one day we found the Linton elevators out of order, and climbed
the 10 flights of stairs to school. Once Miss Casault had to abandon her pupils
for two or three hours and left me---no doubt the ``good'' one---in charge
of class discipline: as I recall, it did not work very well.
At eight I went to Selwyn House School as did practically all the boys who lived
in the ``Square Mile''. The school was then in a terrace house on McKay Street
(it later added a house on Shrebrooke where the ``Port Royal'' stands, then
moved to the old Grier house on Redpath, and is now in Westmount on Côte
St. Antoine at Sherbrooke). It was a very good school and I enjoyed it. The
headmaster and founder, C. C. Macaulay, and all the other masters remain clear
in my memory as strict and fair disciplinarians, as well as friendly and
certainly good teachers. They probably gave us a sounder knowledge base than we
could have got anywhere else, and I am sure that at S.H.S. I learned more than
in any other equivalent time slot in my life. Some 10 or 12 years later, during
a theatre intermission in London, I met Macaulay, the ``Boss'', retired, and
felt he was as glad to see me as I him.
There being no large assembly room at S.H.S. each of the six forms (12 or 15 boys) had and stayed in its own room, and every morning started with prayers said by the master taking the first class of the day. One day a certain odd but bright student came in to our class late---a rare and serious offence. Mr. Holiday, just starting our French lesson, glared at him and asked: ``Dunlop, what do you mean by coming in after I've said prayers?'', to which the boy, unruffled as he walked to his seat, replied: ``What do you mean by saying prayers before I came in, Sir?'' Dunlop was appropriately dealt with (lines, no doubt) to the satisfaction of the class who revered Mr. Holiday.
The school of course had no facilities for physical training nor sports, so
twice a week we had a couple of hours at the M.A.A.A. clubhouse on Peel Street,
and in the spring we had a track and field sports day at the M.A.A.A. grounds
in Westmount where the High School now stands. I do not recall that the school
had any sports teams in those days. I also took swimming lessons in the M.A.A.
pool (from one Jimmie Rose, I think the father of the W.W.2 spy), but I still never succeeded in swimming until years
later on a sea cruise stopover at Madeira---but that story later. (See note
to section .)
SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL
MAAA GYM---Peel Street---1917
LEFT TO RIGHT
---Gillies Ross
---Leo
Ryan
---Alan Ross---Ross Paterson---Ned Pacaud
---Henry
``Hank'' Markey---Wilson McConnell---Bey Nash---David Glassco
---``Lin'' Russel---John
``Buffy''Glassco
---Arthur Birks---Fred Cowans---Howard Wilson
---George Cantlie---
John Allen
---Stuart Webster
---Ross McMaster
---Henri
Lafleur
---Ford Jones
---Peter Gillespie---Campbell
Merrett
---Cecil Nichol---Howard Marler
---Gordon Hutchison
---Erroll Pacaud---
Tommy Henderson------Charlie Yuile---John Birks---Trevor Ross---
``Bunty'' Sise---Japp---Bill Hutchison
SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL
At MAAA track---WESTMOUNT---1917
(Courtesy Ross McMaster)
LEFT TO RIGHT
---Charlie
Yuile---Ken Carter---Harold C. B. Cave---Bill Yuile---Doug McGowan---
Japp---David Yuile---John Pemberton---Trevor Ross---``Buzz'' Holt---
Stirling Maxwell---Francis Holt
The adapted 3-storey house which the school occupied had no proper fire exit from the upper floors, so a canvas chute was provided from one of the top floor rear windows, and we looked forward to the annual fire drill when we could zoom down this device to land up in the shed which housed our carpentry shop, and opened onto the rear lane.
In Christmas holidays we were apt to attend fascinating lectures in the McGill
Physics building given by Prof. A. S. Eve (successor there to Ernest Rutherford,
and grandfather of Elizabeth and of my godson John---children of my friend
Dick), and later by Dr. Keys, later a key figure in the setting up of Chalk
River and the A.E.C. One Christmas vac (I was 11+) I was invited for a few days
sking with my friend George Drummond at the Huntley Drummond's
house at Ivry in the Laurentians: there were not many people skiing in the
Laurentians in 1920. I started skiing on Mount Royal when I was about 8, mostly
in the `hollow' near the Look-out, and ``bashy-bazooking'' home via the gulley
down to Redpath Crescent. I often skied with Percy Douglas, he then about 60,
and one of the early ski pioneers here.
I was taken to an occasional lecture: I remember a fascinating one by Sir
Ernest Shackleton about his voyage to Antarctica in the ``Nimrod''. There was
not much theatre in Montreal in those days, and I remember chiefly a few
D'Oyly Carte productions and some rare plays with Martin Harvey and George
Arliss on tour---and of course the W.W.1 army entertainers ``The Dumbells''.
All these were at ``His Majesty's'' theatre on Guy Street. Concerts were even
more rare and the only exposure I recall was being taken to the Ritz-Carleton
for one of the Ladies' Morning Musical Club of which Mother and Helen were
members . We seldom went to movies---Hilda took me to my first:
Annette Kellerman (swim star) in ``The Life of the Gods''. Another I recall
was ``The Birth of a Nation''. Charlie Chaplin came later, and still later came
Westerns and Max Sennett comedies at the Strand Theatre (gone) with the great
Billie Ekstein accompanying at the piano. ``The Marx Brothers'' were still
later.
At S.H.S., I consistently came 2
to Laffy Lafleur until the final year
when I gave up a place to Leo Ryan, & came 3
.
From Selwyn House a clutch of about six or eight
of our sixth form went to Ashbury College in Ottawa. I expect that this mutual
shield of old classmates and sharing a room with two or three of them helped to
increase one's security and minimize any trauma this new might have brought on,
but in fact I cannot remember ever suffering any pangs of homesickness or
loneliness.
The headmaster Rev. G. P. Woollcombe was, again, the founder of the School. His team of masters was almost entirely composed of Oxford or Cambridge Englishmen who played soccer, rugger and cricket and sported appropriate colourful college blazers. I expect they were also pretty fair teachers but one never seemed to feel quite the same rapport with them as one had with the staff at S.H.S.--- at least I did not, perhaps because of my less than enthusiastic interest in team sports which made up an important part of their outlook. I happily partook in cadet corps, rifle range and gym, even half-heartedly took some boxing, actually enjoyed running the 5 miles (felt like it anyway) around Rockcliffe Park or McKay's Lake before breakfast, and in season played tennis and skied a lot. None of these activities led to interscholastic team competition.
With larger classes than S.H.S. there was greater scholastic competition: I held my own in the top 3 or 4 of the class earning a few mor book prizes, but never achieved any major awards like Governor General's medals. In Senior Matric, taken in the school during two weeks after the June closing, I managed one 98, in geometry,and no sups (and I continued sup-less throughout college). As a new boy I was ``fag'' to a nice guy named Marshall Irvine (later remet when he worked at my Domtar building in Senneville), and in turn later had for my fag one John Bassett (later media tycoon, owner of ``Toronto Star'', and grandfather of the tennis girl.)
Every now and then one of our room ``mothers'' would come up from Montreal and have her son out to the Chateau Laurier for the week-end, and it was obligatory for her then to invite his room-mates for lunch at the Chateau on Sunday. On other occasions we might be invited, in pairs, to Sunday dinner at the houses of school governors and such. At one of the meals I remember being waited on by an impressive butler whom I could not stop addressing as ``Sir''!
I think I had the cane twice---acually it was a sergeant-major's swagger stick used by the Head---once on the backside, once on the hand which was worse. One offence was lobbing sponges over the partitions between the three bath cubicles, interrupted by the cruising Head. The other occasion was probably for being caught having a feast in the room after lights-out: one room-mate, Dick Ross, used to receive frequent food parcels from home, once including a cold roast duck.
We had chapel every morning, twice on Sunday, the service usually taken by ``G.
P.'', the Head. I was confirmed there by Ottawa's Bishop Roper. The gymnasium
wing
and the Head's house were built during my time. After matric exams were
over the Head had a tera party for all participants: I am afraid I rudely
skipped it in order to catch the earliest possible train home---I guess I had
had Ashbury. However, I remained an active Old Boy and for a spell was president
of the O. B. Ass'n Montreal branch. At our annual dinner that year old G. P.,
the retired Head, was a guest, a recent survivor of the ``Athenia'' sinking by
a German sub. at the outbreak of W.W.2. Judge Gregor Barclay was my guest
speaker. A few years later I was conscripted to the Board of Governors, during
Ron Perry's terrm as Head, and sat on the platform at June closing functions.
(This was after Tim and Brian had finished their stint.)
As recorded, Father and Mother each came of a military background; and Mother's three elder were married to two generals and one colonel, two of them having been commandants of the Royal Military College in Kingston. Father had served briefly as a non-com in the militia, and Stuart had been overseas as a lieutenant in W. W. 1. For whichever, all, or none of these reasons, or simply because Father thought I needed the discipline of tough many pursuits, he decided he wanted me to go to R.M.C.
Aged about 10 or 12 I had 2 or 3 times been to stay with Aunt Maud and Uncle Archie Macdonell during his term as Commandant at R.M.C. My cousin Alison (Penny Thresher's mother), 12 years my senior, let me steer their car around the driveway of the Commandant's house (until one day I missed a turn and crumpled a front fender) and I wandered around the College grounds at will, watching the cadets training, and generally enjoying myseld, and getting quite interested in the glamour, as I saw it then, of a cadet's life of horseback riding, drilling and uniforms. But, by the time I was finishing Ashbury my enthusiasm for that sort of thing had given way to realism. After all, I had not risen above the rank of private in the school cadet corps, and had no illusions as to my probable abilities in such activitis as boxing, wrestling, swordplay, and others I had seen around the Military College. Nevertheless, prompted still by Dad, I aplied for R.M.C., along with two others from the class at Ashbury. Perhaps I instinctively foresaw the outcome: much to Dad's disappointment and my own (short-lived) embarrassment, I failed the medical examination: I wasn't tough enough!