I joined Ampleforth as an assistant to Father Henry Wansborough at Junior House. I was given a room on the first floor which had a bed and was very close to the room where the students met for evening study.
The days were long especially on duty days when the teacher was expected to stay on till the time the students washed and went to bed. I was expected to be there for sport in the afternoon when rugby or football was played. I sometimes had to take students for prayer prior to them going into the refectory for breakfast. The day consisted of prayers, breakfast, getting beds organized by the students and lessons then followed.
There were two sessions in the first half of the morning followed by a break when some sort of snack was handed out by the matron and her staff. This was followed by lessons after which the students went in for lunch.
The food was extremely good, and students sat around an octagonal table which was supervised by a teacher who ate with the same students over a period of time, usually the whole year.
The waste haunted me as most of the students complained about the food which was well presented and of a very good standard. However, I did realize that most young people were more interested in fast food The students at the college were polite and attentive and I often joined them for the games in the afternoon.
On duty days I took them for prayers in the side chapel and explained my thoughts for the readings of the day. Boys would join me in my room next to the study hall and we would pray for the school and the families etc.
I decided we should have horse riding as part of the afternoon sport and after some initial teething troubles this went well, and riding became a regular feature which many of the boys enjoyed. This was not without a few mishaps. I remember, on a particularly wintry day, it started to snow heavily when we were miles away from the school. We managed to make our way back slowly but not before a few of the less confident ones ended up in the snow while I ended up having a stomach hernia; no fun.
The boys often went swimming in the lower lake and Trout fishing and sailing went on in the upper lakes. On ‘Parents Day’ the lakes also featured when the boys and their parents went there to tuck into the Hampers from Fortnum and Mason as they preambled around.
There were enjoyable trips to York with the boys and hamburgers were devoured as though there was a famine.
At that time, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else, and I was thoroughly enjoying being at Ampleforth.
All the family have their own special memories of that time. Sledging down the ‘Butcher’s field’, cycling to the college at the crack of dawn, Ursula writing stories and painting the local scenery. Peter, our youngest son who was five at the time, going for long walks on his own. This, I might add, without our knowledge. Pete loved sitting outside in the garden or in the fields nearby with his little lunch box. We would fill it with a sandwich or two and a bottle of water and off he would go, spending ages playing with his friends or just sitting looking around. The phone rang one day, and a kindly voice asked us if we had a son called Peter and if we could come and pick him up as they had found him in their barn having a picnic lunch. The barn was nearly six miles away! It seems he just wanted to see the countryside and kept walking till he was tired. He has not lost the habit and still loves long walks. Thank God for good, friendly people.
It was fun too finding out that our dog’s vet in nearby Thirsk was pretty famous. We were very puzzled to see a long queue of tourists waiting outside for the surgery to finish so that they could enter. Our local vet, Mr. Wight, had just saved ‘Lady’, our springer spaniel, from dying of the rat poison she had dug up under the garden shed. As we waited for her to recover, we asked the receptionist, “why are all those people waiting outside?” They showed us the visitors book and told us he was in fact the author, James Herriot. ‘Nice’, we thought.
Our house prayer group which we had started when we arrived in 1984 was going well. It had developed slowly and steadily, and we had developed deep and lasting friendships with many people. Juliet Brooks who lived in Oldstead Hall had become like a sister to us and her and her family were very close to both us and our boys. It was the first true feeling of Christian Community.