St Cyprian’s School – Eastbourne

L C V WILKES MUM WILKES OLD BOYS CORRESPONDENCE

Cicely Ellen Philadelphia Vaughan Wilkes (1875-1967) “A figure of some majesty” (Alan Clark MP – diarist and Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government) Cicely Wilkes, with her husband Lewis created and maintained an extremely successful preparatory school at St Cyprians. She was a very independent, strong willed person with outstanding energy and enthusiasm, and she managed the school with great efficiency. Henry Longhurst recalled his first encounter – “We were transported from Eastbourne Station in a charabanc run by a gas balloon on the roof and met at the door by the most formidable, distinguished and unforgettable woman I am likely to meet in my lifetime. This was Mrs L C Vaughan Wilkes or “Mum”, the undisputed ruler not only of about 90 boys but of a dozen masters and mistresses, a matron, under-matron, several maids, a school sergeant, a carpenter, two or three gardeners, Mr Wilkes and their two sons and three daughters. Cyril Connolly wrote “We called the headmistress Flip and the headmaster Sambo. Flip, around whom the whole system revolved, was able, ambitious, temperamental and energetic.” She was born Cicely Ellen Philadelphia Comyn in Shepherds Bush, the daughter of Charles Comyn a Civil Servant. The Comyn family was represented over the centuries in the law, the church, the army, the navy, the East India Company, and other colonial enterprises. It was said that the family was descended from the Comyn’s who came over with William the Conqueror and were at one time rulers of Scotland. Her grandfather Rev. Henry Comyn was a clergyman in the New Forest and Cornwall, whose early census in the New Forest is a valuable resource for historians. Cicely’s mother Lucy Morris came from a family of industrious non-conformists and successful businessmen, being the daughter of William Morris, who established a firm of stockbrokers, and Ellen Blacket(t). Cicely was a great niece of the Australian architect Edmund Blacket, and a second cousin of the Nobel prize-winner, Patrick Lord Blackett. She was the eldest of ten children and moved with the family to St Albans and Caterham. Three of her brothers were subsequently at St Cyprian’s. Her great uncle Henry Blackett was Vicar of Eastborne and various cousins on her father’s side taught at prep schools at Eastbourne or at Eastbourne College. She obtained a position as matron in a boy’s school in Eastbourne, where she met her future husband Lewis Wilkes who was one of the assistant masters. They were married in Kensington in 1899 and worked hard to establish St Cyprians. As well as running the school and teaching, Cicely was the mother of five children. She sat for a while on Eastbourne Council, as an “independent” of course, and her support for education more generally and for hospitals was widely recognised. The day and night responsibility for 90 children is not one to be taken lightly and there is a challenging conflict in developing independence and maintaining discipline. Mrs Wilkes was strict with her discipline which was intended to knock off rough edges and encourage politeness and consideration. Having a strong sense of justice she would strike with her sharp tongue at anyone who got above themselves, or was a bully, or sought advantage at the expense of others. She was an excellent motivator with an armoury of techniques for keeping control. Not above giving the occasional clout or tweak, it was the “satirical remarks at meals that pierced like a rapier” that were most effective. Gavin Maxwell wrote “Because I was as over-sensitive as a hermit crab without a shell these thrusts hurt far more than I believe Flip ever intended them to; she was, I think, basically a kindly person and certainly an extremely efficient one”. When Connolly visited the school as an 18 year old he noted “Flip was confidential; I saw her angry with one or two boys, then when they had gone, she would laugh about them, and say what a lot of nonsense one had to tell them at that age, how difficult it was to keep them in order.” . However Mrs Wilkes really enjoyed the company of enthusiastic and intelligent children and could be very indulgent. Maxwell records “She took me, another boy (already dressed in our regulation green jerseys and corduroy breeches that rubbed with a purring noise as we walked) and her daughter [Deryn], all of an age, to go blackberry picking. We packed into her Willys Knight (two-seater and dickey, all painted in two shades of brown) and drove off up the chalk downs and parked the car and wandered in briar-choked disused farm lanes where the chalk was everywhere like dirty snow underfoot and there was sunshine and big white cumulus clouds blowing on the early autumn wind. We filled our baskets with blackberries, and Flip gave us cake, and coffee from a Thermos; it ought to have been a wonderful start, and I don't see what more she could have done, but it didn't work because I was outside my environment…”. The problem came when boys pushed their luck too far and upset her. With the day to day stress and mood swings she could be unpredictable and temperamental and the withdrawal of her affection was so keenly felt by those affected that being “in or out of favour” became an important element of a boy’s life. Like most powerful personalities she aroused strong feelings. Most of the boys at the school adored her but inevitably a few were unable to respond in the same way. As an independently-minded woman with a business to run and a family to care for she might be considered to have been years ahead of her time. At that time the only female that the boys could compare her with was Elizabeth I. Connolly wrote “On all the boys who went through this Elizabeth and Essex relationship she had a remarkable effect, hotting them up like little Alfa-Romeos for the Brooklands of life.” Later he revealed the confusion this caused in the days before female emancipation, “We learnt the father values from a mother, we bit the hand that fed us, that tweaked the short hairs above the ear. But it was a woman’s hand whose husband’s cane was merely the secular arm. Agonizing ambivalence” Cyril Connolly described her as a “warm-hearted and inspired teacher” and her teaching of English, history, and scripture was to influence at least two generations of writers. Alaric Jacob wrote “She had a keen ear for the English language and a sound grasp of history. Her classes in English verse would have done credit to an Oxford tutor; by the time I was twelve I was well grounded in poesy and could write a sonnet or an ode that would not have disgraced a much older boy.” Longhurst wrote “[She] created a high standard of essay-writing, at which I was one of the lowliest and most inarticulate performers, little thinking that I was to earn much of my living by it later on” She was an enemy of bad writing and one of her techniques was to use the King James Bible as an example of good clear writing in contrast to “official-ese” and hack journalism. This is reflected in Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language” and other Old Boys have recognised her lessons in Orwell’s work. The study of scripture was as much literary as religious, and she ran an incentive scheme to encourage boys to read the best books. The writings of Clark, Connolly and Jacob all demonstrate a dry humour which may owe something to her effective use of the one-liner to put down both naughty boys and pompous parents. “Though Spartan, the death rate was low”, a quip by Connolly, is the sort of remark she might have made, although for him to publish it turned out to be tactless and insensitive. The classics curriculum required by the public schools comprised Latin, Greek, English and mathematics, but Cicely Wilkes believed strongly in the study of history – even writing an article in “History” periodical stressing the need to make room for it in the curriculum. The Harrow History Prize gave an opportunity to value history, and winning it becoming her pet aim as winning scholarships was her husband’s. History can be difficult, and the issues hard to grasp for pre-teen children, so she employed the principles now applied in television quizzes to stimulate interest and attention as well as other methods. Longhurst again “She made us keep history notebooks filled with jottings of quotations and any bits and pieces that took our fancy, akin to the commonplace book of adult life” Connolly concluded “Year by year, the air, the discipline, the teaching, the association with other boys and the driving will of Flip took effect on me. I grew strong and healthy and appeared to be normal for I became a good mixer, a gay little bit who was quick to spot whom to make up to in a group and how to do it.” After her husband died in 1947, “Mum” Wilkes retired to St Cyprian’s Lodge at the entrance to the old school grounds where she was visited by a constant stream of devoted Old Boys. In 1955 her 80^th birthday was attended by over 250 of her former pupils, a considerable proportion of those who survived two world wars and had not settled overseas. She died aged 91 in 1967 still attended by one of the domestic staff of the school. Henry Longhurst wrote “A year or two ago, driving by and seeing a light in her window, I thought to myself “If I don’t stop now, I may never see her again”. She was 91 at the time and I found her quite alone doing the Times crossword, which she said she was finding more difficult than it used to be. She produced the ledgers and scrapbooks of all the boys who had passed through the school and we talked of many we had known in common, not forgetting Cecil Beaton and his rendering of “Tit Willow” from the wings of the gymnasium stage. She remembered every one of them and who they had married and how many grandchildren they had, but for many, alas, the entries were closed Killed 1914, Killed 1916, Killed RAF 1940, Died of Wounds 1944….. “I really am beginning to feel my age a bit” she said “now that my oldest Old Boy is seventy-four” Alan Clark Letter to TT 1994 Cyril Connolly “Enemies of Promise” 1938 Jude James “Comyn’s New Forest” 1980 Alaric Jacob “Scenes from a Bourgeois Life 1947 Henry Longhurst “My Life and Soft Times” 1971 Gavin Maxwell “The House at Elrig” 1965 Biographical Research by Ancestor United Last Updated September 2011 © Tim Tomlinson. All Rights Reserved