Recollections of Kilworthy by Mark Deeprose ------------------------------------------- I remember that we all went camping once out on the Moors near the Tor. I have forgotten most of the trip except the last evening meal was everything tinned in a big pot hanging over the fire. It tasted wonderful. I do remember that it seemed to rain most of the time. Do you remember paper chases and orienteering? Some one would go out with a big bag of torn paper and then leave a trail. I saw two ghosts at Killworthy, I was actually with someone else making late night tea after lights out. A young lady in a white dress sitting on a window seat, we both saw her at the same time. The second ghost, walked close to me when I crossed the front lawn, he wore a three cornered hat and a cape, the kind of thing that you would think the fashion in highway robbers. I lived in several places during my adolescents, and sometimes it's difficult to separate the different experiences in as much as institutional life is quite similar, but Kilworthy had some memorable experiences. My first allowed bottle of beer was a bottle of Newcastle Brown, served in the dinning room, I believe it was a birthday, but am not sure. Being allowed to smoke. John Farrow was the Headmaster, and believed in health food and supposedly community democracy, but that was only when the vote coincided with his requirements. I held a debate and won the vote on the peeling of potatoes and not cooking them in their skins and mashing it all together. But Mr Farrow said it was healthy and that was that. But I must say that Sunday brunch was really brilliant the luxury of a lie in and good hot food. I would then often take a mug of tea to the garden and sit on the steps that went up to the old rose gardens (that were given over to vegetables) and just sit there drinking my tea from a brown enamelled tin mug, mine I had painted with the eye of Horus. The best time I had there was during the big blizzard, we had several days with out power, people scavenged wood and cooking was done on the open fire for a couple of days because the gas was off. But I seem to remember it being restored earlier than the electricity. Or perhaps other arrangements had been made. But we all worked together for the common good and we all had fun doing so. Maggie and Derek lived in a small prefabricated building at the top of the vegetable garden, I say top because the whole thing was a slope. Two big 35 foot long green houses one on either side of the metal gates that were at the top of the steps. Everyone was expected to do some work on the vegetable garden and extra periods of work were allocated if you were unruly or disruptive. I stayed there alone one Christmas, the TV room was situated on the angle of a short corridor on the right hand side of the house as you entered the front door. The building was an E. The front door being situated in the center. The left side front room was the dinning room, with a corridor leading to the, what then was the games room, with the library door on the left side wall (as seen from entering the game's room) and the old servants staircase was accessed opposite the door of the library. My dorm door was at the top of this staircase on the left. To the right was a corridor which passed one room, on the right allocated, in my days to a staff member called Adrian who had a brindled grey border collie. Then the toilets and that opened up into the main corridor a bedroom door to the bedroom that was situated above the dining room. The corridor passed the central staircase and the layout was much the same as downstairs. The Christmas I was alone there, Queen was number one with bohemian rhapsody. I don't actually remember that there were any girls there, from what I remember it was all boys. I remember I had seen 'The Naked Civil Servant' and turned up in the meeting room, that was the big front room at the right hand side of the house. Wearing a big floppy hat and a scarf, no one took any notice %GšŸ˜%@ I remember Andy Bell. Looked somewhat Italian, dark almost black eyes and hair. Marcus and I were friends but other than that I don't really remember any of the others. I seem to remember that the project that you were embarking on when I got expelled was going to be building a light airplane, you had explained that the Volkswagen beetle engine was able to drive a propeller because of the way it works which was different from other cars. I left when the plans were being discussed and it really annoyed me that I never got to see it or even if it was done. There was a small swimming pool which was near the music room, which was a corrugated building. A pathway and steps that led to like a group of cottages or outbuildings in stone. One of them was a pottery studio. As you exited the main house back door they were opposite, I suppose that when it had been a private residence the servants had occupied them. I seem to remember that we had a timber store and axe, tree trunks upon which to split wood in fact we sometimes were set to split and stack wood. Addendum -------- Originally the armoury was a single room that occupied the whole space of the two floors, I was told that flag's were put up at the top of the room so that they hung down. The walls were covered in trophies of both war and hunting. When the building was going to be used as a school, it was decided to put in a floor for a room that would be accessable via the old servants staircase. This room is the only one in the entire house that didn't have a fireplace or flue. The bedroom window was probably original as high windows providing light from above was common. The panel door was different I believe. The other thing that would suggest that this is true is the fact that this room wasn't haunted at all. The front right one situated above the dining room was, very much so. Often someone would come from that room asking to bunk in with us.