In response to the request for alumni to share their memories for the 175th anniversary Tim Lever (F 49-52) who became a furniture designer and cabinet maker after Bradfield before moving into dairy farming for over 25 years and the building trade shared the following…
“I think you may be entertained to know that I was a member of the Chapel Choir and sang at the Centenary Celebrations, long, long ago…
I also recall an earlier production of A Midsummers Night Dream in Greeker which was overtaken by a torrential downpour. This resulted in Titania resting on her “grassy bank” floating slowly around the orchestra, attended by the Headmaster’s young daughters, the fairies, but looking more like drowned rats with their wings limp and stuck to their sides!”
Tim also remembers what he describes as his only claim to fame to be “knocking out the entire village electricity supply while flying a kite with an aerial wire and a wireless set, when the wind and kite dropped onto the 11,000 volts overhead cable near the Houses on the Hill!
My Housemaster, Arthur Sopwith (SCR 26-68), sent my mother a telegram that started “But for God’s providence Timothy would no longer be with us…” You may not be surprised that she failed to read the rest but hopped into her car and drove to see what was left of me!”
Forays outside the college grounds were adventures in those days of the early 1950s and Tim fondly remembers the magic “Oval Pond” at Ufton Court not far from Bradfield. “We used to cycle to this lake, and took a boat I had built, and swam and paddled. The magic was (and hopefully still is) that it appeared and disappeared on that last corner of the approach to the pond! I do remember a magnificent fig tree growing out of the church wall at Ufton Nervet, I wonder if that is still there 75 years later?”
Reflecting after the 175 Summer Gathering this summer Tim said “I must have been a sore trial when I was at Bradfield, not at all the perfect student. It was lovely to revisit the Iron Bridge over the Pang, and to wander along the riverside and not the rising of a grayling. These triggered memories lost for so very long. I remember that the bank between the Pang and the playing field was the nesting place of Sand Martins, and I wonder if they still inhabit so delightful a spot? I also recall that unlike the fly fishers who caught fish for sport and put them back, I was motivated solely by hunger, and with a sharpened dinner fork tied to a hazel spear, I caught fish to cook on my Primus to supplement the inadequate and dreadfully badly cooked rations upon which we were fed. I know that WW2 food rationing continued until 1953, a year after I left Bradfield, but even rationing was no excuse for the terrible standard of cooking.
I also remembered the College Steeplechase, because it took place in winter or spring, cold times of year, and after running several miles across wet ploughed fields we would arrive at the weir pool through which we had to drag ourselves before climbing the weir, then crossing the Pang, and staggering up onto the path to limp to the finish near the Iron Bridge.
The last memory stirred by the bridge might amuse you. As a kid I was interested in model making, and had specialised in models of Motor Torpedo Boats, there were at least three manufacturers in England, I now only remember Vospers and Fairline. The Greek Theatre were having a clear out of surplus materials, bits of plywood, bits of wood, blackout fabric, paint and the like, and I was able to draw upon these to create a larger than usual model of a MTB. It was about 2m long and having finished the hull I decided not to complete the superstructure but use the hull as a boat! I got hold of a couple of bicycle wheels and some iron piping and fashioned a boat trailer to go behind my bicycle (I recall how very hard work it was to pull a trailer behind a bike). I took the boat to the Thames at Pangbourne, and to the lake at Ufton Nervet, and as it was painted a very bright yellow, must have drawn some attention as I paddled up and downstream. One day I had the boat just below the Iron Bridge, and someone betted me 5/- (25p) that I could not get under the bridge. By getting into the water, filling the boat to sink it, and then pulling it behind me, I was able to refloat it on the upstream side and win a princely sum!”
Tim said he very much enjoyed the production of The Midsummers Night Dream this summer as a very fitting end to a thoroughly enjoyable day. He added: “I don’t suppose that I’ll get the opportunity to visit Bradfield too many more times, old age takes a toll, so yesterday was particularly good for me and made me reflect how lucky I was to have spent my time at so good a school, in such a beautiful location, and to have been given the freedom to make boats, and poach pheasants besides getting a formal education, whilst enjoying all my time there.”
