No 18 - June 2021
Dear All
We are now at 125 members (31 March - 125). I seem to be running out of copy for the literary corner but to keep things going Harvey White has kindly sent me his personal memoirs. I have also included something on Koby Kobylanski, the French teacher. One staff member whose name has constantly cropped up is Michael White. I think I just missed him so can anyone let me have an article for the September newsletter. Harvey White’s memoirs start with the verse below which seems particularly apt so with thanks to Harvey:
“Memories are priceless possessions that time can never destroy,
For it is in happy remembrance the heart finds its greatest joy.
Memories grow more meaningful with every passing year.
More precious and more beautiful more treasured and more dear.”
A New Beginning - Helen Steiner Rice (1900-1981)
The Search
We are still struggling to find the remaining people on the “wanted” list so any help you can provide in finding them would be very helpful.
The Website and White Star Magazines
Martin Koronka has revised the web site which should now be much easier to use. You can also pick up the White Stars there as well. I have added all the old newsletters.
www.hillsideschool.org.uk
I have made a huge effort on the web site going through all my old emails loading everything which might be of interest. We now have all the White Stars and newsletters plus a much else so please sign up if you have not already done so.
We have been considering the longer term future as we have accumulated a lot of history and it would be a shame to lose it all when we have gone. With help from Mike Goodridge I have made contact with Godalming Museum and agreed with them that I will let them have a file with all the White Star newsletter, which can be updated on a quarterly basis. Robin has kindly agreed to also donate the bound copy of all the White Stars. It is envisaged that an online facility might be added in due course.
Photographs
For a long time we have been wondering what to do with photographs. In an effort to get everything on the web site in an orderly manner you will find I have opened a space in date order under “Annual School Photos” so that I can load the school photo and the hockey, cricket and football first team photos with names. In say 1960, which was my final year I have a full set. In other years I have entered what I can. On some occasions I have had to guess which year it is and the names of the players. If I have got these wrong please let know so that corrections can be made. Anyway there are many gaps so please, if you have photos, please help me fill in the gaps.
Lunch
We had arranged the bi-annual lunch for Saturday 20th June 2020 but sadly had to cancel. Once Covid is no longer an issue we will look at new arrangements.
Sports
Hillside v Cranleigh yearlings – won 2 – 0
It is noticeable if you look at the match statistics that Hillside started playing many more football matches in the late 1950s and early 1960s. RHRW seems to have developed a taste for taking on public schools and certainly in 1960 we encountered four. If you look at the team photo it is noticeable that a number of our team were still at Hillside some years later so I cannot believe that the average age would have been more than twelve.
1960 – Football First Eleven
Played 14 – Won 13 – Drew 1
Back L to R - M Coverley, M Hall, P Sutton, P Hall, R Jacob, A Riddy, J Reynolds
Front L to R – C Pringle, A Leonard, J Botting (C), T Gibbs, R Noble
Anyway we found ourselves pitted against Cranleigh so I will leave the match report to RHRW:
“Richard Butler (Hillside 1959 captain) was at outside-right for Cranleigh before moving to centre forward for the second half. Most of our opponents were members of the highly successful Colts rugger side and though out of soccer practice were old, big and altogether a better side than last year’s. For fifteen minutes we were overawed and nervous (not Leonard or Noble!). Hall was constantly in action but was cool and safe. Gradually we had more of the game and Leonard, after putting two shots just wide scored with a lovely cross drive just before half time. In the second half, even against the wind, we gained confidence and showed great courage and fight. Jacob, Coverley and Botting then laid on a “sitter” for Pringle which he missed but at last Botting made one of his solo bursts through the middle and scored our second. Cranleigh forced six corners but we were still attacking at the end. Full marks to everyone for a courageous display but especially to the rear defence and Leonard”.
It was certainly the hardest match we played and particularly memorable in my case as I was awarded my colours after the match.
For those of you getting bored of match reports from 1959 and 1960 please stop hiding your lights and let me have reports of your past glories. If your memories are fading a bit the White Stars will help your recall.
The Staff
Koby Kobylanski
Koby was a Hungarian refugee from the 1956 uprising. Unless my memory has faded I remember him as big man who taught us French.
My clearest memory of him of him is in his other "job" as the mower of the outfields with the machine (Atco ?) which looked like a giant pair of barbers clippers. We would all be surreptitiously watching as he would occasionally find a long lost cricket or hockey ball. There would be a resounding bang as they disintegrated. On one occasion he was working at the bottom of the lower field near the wood. He stumbled and the machine dragged him to attack the nearest tree. I cannot remember if the machine survived the encounter.
Rob Spooner recalls his ancient Lambretta:"I think you are probably right about 'Koby' being from the Hungarian uprising. He used to ride an ancient Lambretta and on one icy day took me on the pillion for a spin! No crash helmets then, just short grey flannels, no gloves but boy was it fun!" (see letter below)
David Rangeley also remembers him:
"Round about 1963 I was hitch-hiking through France, heading from Nice to Grenoble. Late afternoon picked up by a nice chap who said that I would not get to Grenoble that night and would I like to stay the night at his family holiday home in Beauvezer les Alpes, where he was bound. One of his sons said that he had worked in England as a teacher. Guess where? He had replaced Kobylanski who by all accounts had become mentally ill".
I remember Koby well too. He said he was a 'White Russian' emigré, as I recall. He had a fervour and a zeal that was occasionally quite combustible in French lessons. I do remember an excruciating end-of-term play where he recruited a young Ricky Kempster to play some role which somehow included Koby reeling around the stage impersonating a drunk Topol or something. The Whickers and parents weren't hugely amused as I recall. Shame - perhaps that was an early indication of his struggles with mental disease. In about 1973 I ran into him again. At Speaker's Corner, on a soapbox, expounding. I said hi. He seemed OK really... a bit distracted... but then so was I, I guess. The hippy years were well underway.
John Foster-Pedley
Literary Corner
“Loose Chippings on a Minor Road” by Harvey White
Harvey wrote this book for his grandchildren but I persuaded him to let me see it. Harvey had been brought up in Hong Kong before the war and reading the early chapter brought memories flooding back as I had spent summer holidays there in my days at Barfield and Hillside before I spent fourteen years there when I first qualified. In one of those strange coincidences which crop up in the Hillside story my father (RASC) was the garrison quartermaster while Robin Whicker was, I believe, doing his national service there. I have often wondered if my father was feeding Robin while Rolf was doing the same for me 8,000 miles away. If Robin ever visited him he would almost certainly remember. If you stood outside father’s office and held up a 10 cents coin a monkey would come flying out of the tree, grab the coin and go straight to the popsie man and buy itself an ice lolly. I suspect a bit of Chinese entrepreneurial collaboration between the monkey and the popsie man. Both Harvey and I (Harvey on return from Australia after the war and I after Barfied stopped taking boarders) were struggling to find schools when Rolf put us both us out of our misery.
It a fascinating story of a man who has had a distinguished medical career. With Harvey’s permission I can email a copy to anyone who is interested.
Letters to the editor
Dear Roger,
As ever, I greatly enjoyed the news of the dear dead days beyond recall.
I’m glad to hear that the back numbers are to be preserved in the Godalming Museum. I wonder whether it still has the small black-hilted rapier, which so attracted me during forbidden visits to the town.
Best wishes,
Nikolai
Dear Roger,
I think Mr Tolstoy might be referring to the object in the attached photo which we have catalogued as a mourning sword c.1775-1800. If so, then, yes, it is still in the museum and on display in our new ‘open store’ in the local history galleries.
Best wishes
Alison Pattison
Curator - Godalming Museum
Another splendid read, Congratulations to all correspondents.
I really do hope we can enjoy that intended Lunch - Autumn perhaps? Who knows?
Kindest regards
Ian
Hello Roger. It’s always good to receive your newsletter. It brings back so many memories, almost all of them good.
I am proud to have been the goalkeeper of the stellar 1960 hockey team. I have to admit that the stellar part of it was more ‘up front’ than at my end, but so be it. My pride however is tempered by the damage done to my feet due to the inadequate protective gear provided. I wonder whether other goalkeepers remember the frequently vain scramble to find a pair of pads and kickers (or even just one of each) which actually had all its straps and buckles present. Most of them had one or more missing, which sometimes rendered the kickers less than useless, so I would occasionally dispense with them altogether. I’m paying for that now and reminded all too often of my time at Hillside in a manner I could well do without.
But, hey ho, it was a great place.
Best wishes.
Tony G
Dear Tony
You were beginning to trouble my conscience as I, as the 2nd Eleven goalkeeper, had no problem with my over boots, but as your forwards were averaging 8.42 goals per game you clearly were not having to do much. Yours were probably decaying with non-use?
Regards
Roger
Ed – Interestingly looking at old school photos of playing for Dover College I am struck by how little protection we had compared with modern day keepers. It was just pads, over-boots and the trusty box (we knew where the valuables were hidden!).
Hi Roger, another good effort! About Nigel Coates, he told me that during the war he was stationed at Church Lawford, Warwickshire. I remember this because I told him that I was going to stay with my grandfather who lived at Draycote nearby. The airfield was used mainly for training, and I wonder what Nigel did. I imagine that this can be found from RAF records.
I also remember coveting his Velocette motor bike with a water-cooled engine. In my last days at Hiilside I offered to buy it but he said something like it was not suitable for me - maybe clapped out. He had long since graduated to a nice sports saloon car. (Ed by coincidence an old police Velocette was on “Bangers & Cash” on the TV last night. I think the car was an MG Magnette)
David Rangeley
Dear Rob
I am starting to get copy together for June newsletter. On the staff I was aiming for something on Koby. I am sure it was you and the Lambretta outing. You do not by any chance have any photos I could use?
Regards
Roger
Hi Roger! I don’t have any ‘photos I am afraid!
Koby’s Lambretta ride was fun
! My goodness the blue smoke that poured out the back, the stink!! I may be repeating my story, but did I tell you it was during winter, snow on the road, me with SHORTS!
And a blazer, off we went down The Drive, into Godalming and back, knees blue, no helmet, Kobi wearing a long knitted maroon scarf. Those were sensible (!) days before ‘elf and safety’, when we climbed trees, fell off ‘bikes, used catapults to ’shoot’ each other! No-one died, we had lots of bruises, cuts, scrapes. No ‘Risk Assessments’ before doing anything.My goodness, I am old!!!
Rob Spooner
Pal’s corner
Jack Fuller has now located ten of the 1963 hockey team, but he is still anxious to locate Jonathan (?) Weale to get the full team. Can anyone help? A possible clue is that his father owned the bicycle shop in Godalming.
We have also accounted for ten of the 1960 football team. Can anyone help on the last member Tim Gibbs who was last heard of as a publican in Sutton. I have written to his sister but so far without success.
Roger Noble
roger.noble@btopenworld.com