* * *
Mind you, the Headmaster was a clever fellow. He did not want our parents to think that those letters of ours were censored in this way, and therefore he never allowed us to correct a spelling mistake in the letter itself. If, for example, I had written … last Tuesday knight we had a lecture …, he would say:
‘Don’t you know how to spell night?’
‘Y-yes, sir, k-n-i-g-h-t.’
‘That’s the other kind of knight, you idiot!’
‘Which kind, sir? I … I don’t understand.’
‘The one in shining armour! The man on horseback! How do you spell Tuesday night?’
‘I … I … I’m not quite sure, sir.’
‘It’s n-i-g-h-t, boy, n-i-g-h-t. Stay in and write it out for me fifty times this afternoon. No, no! Don’t change it in the letter! You don’t want to make it any messier than it is! It must go as you wrote it!’
Thus, the unsuspecting parents received in this subtle way the impression that your letter had never been seen or censored or corrected by anyone.
* * *
Here are a few more of Roald Dahl’s letters to his mother from St Peter’s. It was obviously important to him to keep up with the latest crazes!
* * *
The Matron
At St Peter’s the ground floor was all classrooms. The first floor was all dormitories. On the dormitory floor the Matron ruled supreme. This was her territory. Hers was the only voice of authority up here, and even the eleven- and twelve-year-old boys were terrified of this female ogre, for she ruled with a rod of steel.
The Matron was a large fair-haired woman with a bosom. Her age was probably no more than twenty-eight but it made no difference whether she was twenty-eight or sixty-eight because to us a grown-up was a grown-up and all grown-ups were dangerous creatures at this school.
* * *
This is Matron. Oops, sorry. No. It’s actually Miss Trunchbull from Matilda. But it’s very easy to get them mixed up.
* * *
Once you had climbed to the top of the stairs and set foot on the dormitory floor, you were in the Matron’s power, and the source of this power was the unseen but frightening figure of the Headmaster lurking down in the depths of his study below. At any time she liked, the Matron could send you down in your pyjamas and dressing-gown to report to this merciless giant, and whenever this happened you got caned on the spot. The Matron knew this and she relished the whole business.
* * *
A school matron was in charge of domestic or medical arrangements. She supervised the pupils. At Roald Dahl’s school, she terrified them too.
* * *
She could move along that corridor like lightning, and when you least expected it, her head and her bosom would come popping through the dormitory doorway. ‘Who threw that sponge?’ the dreaded voice would call out. ‘It was you, Perkins, was it not? Don’t lie to me, Perkins! Don’t argue with me! I know perfectly well it was you! Now you can put your dressing-gown on and go downstairs and report to the Headmaster this instant!’
In slow motion and with immense reluctance, little Perkins, aged eight and a half, would get into his dressing-gown and slippers and disappear down the long corridor that led to the back stairs and the Headmaster’s private quarters. And the Matron, as we all knew, would follow after him and stand at the top of the stairs listening with a funny look on her face for the crack … crack … crack of the cane that would soon be coming up from below. To me that noise always sounded as though the Headmaster was firing a pistol at the ceiling of his study.
Looking back on it now, there seems little doubt that the Matron disliked small boys very much indeed. She never smiled at us or said anything nice, and when for example the lint stuck to the cut on your kneecap, you were not allowed to take it off yourself bit by bit so that it didn’t hurt. She would always whip it off with a flourish, muttering, ‘Don’t be such a ridiculous little baby!’
* * *
Roald Dahl described Perkins to his mother as ‘my best friend’. He was a mean conker player too. Roald himself was a connoisseur of conkers:
‘It is no good knocking down conkers in August. But in September, ah, yes, then they are a deep rich brown colour and shining as though they have been polished and that is the time to gather them by the bucketful.’
(My Year)
* * *
On one occasion during my first term, I went down to the Matron’s room to have some iodine put on a grazed knee and I didn’t know you had to knock before you entered. I opened the door and walked right in, and there she was in the centre of the Sick Room floor locked in some kind of an embrace with the Latin master, Mr Victor Corrado. They flew apart as I entered and both their faces went suddenly crimson.