Winchester - The Schools Class

I first went to Winchester in about 1953. I was sick in my pushchair after a few swigs of glycerine - illicitly obtained and taken straight from the bottle - together with some more legitimately acquired chocolate drops. We were staying in Kingsgate Street, Winchester, with my uncle, who was Head of Classics at Winchester College, the house that came with the job and which was opposite a side entrance to the school.

Winchester College was the first school I have ever went to, and although I was only there for a few hours and managed to disgrace myself in the process, it was the first in a series of places of learning that eventually defined my working life. None of the others came close to having a locomotive named after them.

John Dyer found No. 30901 Winchester at Brighton MPD in 1961, a year before she was scrapped. My uncle had taught previously at Tonbridge, which had also had a Schools Class named after it, No. 30905, which was withdrawn in 1961. I returned to stay with my uncle in the summer of 1965. He offered to take me to various historical sites during the week, but I turned them down in favour of another day on the station and I never regretted it for a moment.

My uncle was a nice man, kind and welcoming to us as a family later on, in spite of being somewhat bemused by my lack of any studious inclination at the age 16, probably quite unlike the young people of the same age that he was used to dealing with at school. In the 80s, our own children were amused by the snakes in his garden [slow worms in the compost]. On his retirement, he became curator of Winchester’s rich cultural heritage, as the former capital of the country, before London. He is remembered with affection.