Soham Grammarians
A Day in the life of a Soham Grammar School Schoolboy of 1890

(based on the memories of his grandfather, by W. O. Runciman)

After harnessing his father's trap, and watching him go off for his first job that day - to give a horse a pill, for he was a veterinary surgeon then known as a horse doctor - this particular schoolboy trudged off to the train.

On the way to Soham, the boys grabbed one of the more unpopular pupils and slung him up onto the luggage rack, from where he said that unless they got him down he would pull the communication cord. Which he did. The train stopped and a guard came to investigate. The guard decreed that they should all for the rest of the term walk home to Ely.

The morning was fairly uneventful, apart from the fact that during French Mr. Harrison had asked Treeny Moth to repeat a French verb, but Treeny, who didn't really hear what he said, thought that he'd asked him what he liked best for dinner. So Treeny replied 'Steak and kidney pudding, sir.'

Treeny received a sharp crack just behind the ear with a billiard cue: consequently they were to be detained that night until the train had gone, which in the circumstances didn't really worry them. It was slightly different, however, at dinner time. The pupils all sat round the big tortoise stove making a noise and eating their sandwiches, for there were no school dinners, when in marched Mr. Harrison.

They were then made to eat their dinners outside in the cold.

from the Soham Grammarian 1972