Page 4 - Martin Holmes - Old Derbeian Article

Derby School & WWII
masculine and my quick to flare temper and I was soon a “marked man”!
While I may have been easy “sport”, after a while (a couple of years or so) things simmered down as we adjusted to each other and those for whom I was “sport” found that when pushed I knew no restraint in my defence and
someone was liable to get hurt.
Unfortunately Dennis was not in the same class, dormitory or “house” as
me (the school was divided into four “houses, each named after a current or former master) so I didn’t have his support as available as otherwise might have been the case.
However, life was far from being all doom and gloom!
When we first arrived at Amber Valley the camp had insufficient rooms
for classrooms for the whole school and my form classroom was in the Napoleon’s Arms. This meant we got plenty of exercise every day, whatever the weather, as we had to get from the camp to the village after breakfast, return again for lunch and the required after lunch rest before again going to NA and “home” again at the end of the afternoon.
One of the benefits of being the class at NA was the occasional access we were given to the small damson tree orchard attached to it. I also remember that our “classroom” had a cracked wall that our geography teacher used to imprint on us the relativity of three important rivers to Derbyshire; one crack for each river!
We also had a year of classes in a small Methodist Hall halfway between the camp and the village. Later still they built additional facilities at the camp and all classes were there.
While the classroom was the focus of schooling the dormitory was the centre of your comfort, not that that was much. Nowhere was there an easy chair, radio or table. Your only facilities for the storage of your possessions were your classroom desk and a double compartment bedside “locker”. The bedside “locker” was in fact a waist high unit divided into four open “cubic holes” placed between the two-tier bunk beds, two for you and two for your bunk mate. Coats were hung and gumboots stored in the cloakroom at the end of the dorm as were empty suitcases in a separate room at the opposite end.
The dormitories were long buildings with a covered deck at the end nearest the relevant ablution block. There were entrances to the dorms from the centre of each end and halfway down one side. Immediately inside at each end was a small room either side.
At the deck end there was a bedroom to the right and the cloakroom to the left. Past them was the central aisle between the two rows of double- decker bunks; a full row on the left and an interrupted row on the right where