Another lunch in Sedlescombe, just North of Hastings, is planned for Wednesday 26th January, 2022.
So far we have a party of four, all HHS men from the late fifties/early sixties, but of course, anyone is welcome and I will bring the magazine collection from whatever year HHS inmates can remember!
Yesterday, I met with two old friends from my days at HHS - Paddy Langdon and Tim Masterman. We met at a superb pub in Sedlescombe,
https://www.thequeensheadsedlescombe.com/
...and spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting over the school mags I'd taken along (they're all scanned and here now), and the goodwill flowed!
So it's inevitable that we'll do this again, and so we were wondering if there are any other OBs who might like to join us one day? We seem to have lost touch with nearly all the local names, so it might be a bridge too far for most people, but the idea's there for anyone who might want to make the pilgrimage one day, or, if you're coming this way anyway, I can easily get back to Tim and Paddy and we can meet up!
My email's at the top of the page!
James Davidson has just been in touch, and here is his message - self explanatory of course!
Dear Mike Armitage,
I have just had the pleasure of viewing your BlogSpot site. We lived in Battle and I was a pupil at Hydneye for four terms, Spring 1957 to Summer 1958. It seems that we failed to overlap by just one term.
The Hydneye Magazine of 1957 in particular is a revelation of familiar names and doings. I note my own scrawl appearing at the bottom of the signature page. Among the teachers mentioned (as well as Gerald B., of course) I vividly remember Mr Morrish, Miss Plaxton, Com. Job, and Mr Jordan (our scoutmaster, smashing bloke). Various fellow-pupils’ names also ring bells, such as J Slade, S Fry, J A G Badenoch, P R D Davidson (no relation) and the Fancy brothers. (In those distant times the rule was surnames only, Christian names were taboo for some reason.) I also see (1961 Magazine page 28) that I attended an old boys’ reunion along with my brother Adrian.
I have dug out my childhood photo album and scanned those snaps that I possess relating to Hydneye, with captions transcribed. Summer half-term tea for parents on the lawn looks like fun. Also, various chums beside the famous pond. The one of me on the lawn also featuring someone’s knees was, I guess, supposed to suggest a spectacular contortion.
After leaving Hydneye I moved to Westminster School, which fact I suppose ought to be recorded on page 9 of the 1969 Magazine but unaccountably isn’t. Ah, well! You are most welcome to post any of this material that you wish on your page. I also attach Gerald Brodribb’s Times obituary from 1999, in case this is of interest.
With best wishes
James Davidson
Now as he said, I missed being at HHS with him back in 1958, but I knew his brother, Adrian very well, and we were firm chums! Sadly Adrian died eighteen months ago, but I remember him as a great friend, and was a popular chap to anyone, especially if you liked lizards!
Here are the pictures James sent me: -
During term time, we regularly see school buses - mainly small, private people-carriers, picking up and delivering children to schools around here.
It got me thinking about all the schools we used to visit for rugby, cricket and football, so I checked where they are now!
I've got this far...
First is Glengorse, which I thought had been pulled down, but has been in the news recently as becoming another school soon! The link is here!
https://www.ryeandbattleobserver.co.uk/education/new-private-school-on-outskirts-of-battle-planned-3216989
Now, I cannot remember ever going there, but many people will recall the link with HHS, so this may be some sort of surprise!
The others are: -
Pilot: Sqn Ldr David Maltby DSO DFC
David John Hatfeild Maltby was born at 8.45pm on 10 May 1920. He was born at home, which was a large house called Hydneye, in Baldslow near Hastings, Sussex. Hydneye House was a boys' preparatory school, owned by his father, Ettrick Maltby, who was the headmaster.
Ettrick Maltby (whose unusual first name is supposed to have come from the Scottish river in which his father was fishing when he was received news of his son's birth) and Aileen Hatfeild were married in July 1914 in Margate, Kent. Aileen's family, the Hatfeilds (spelt in this unusual way) were a well known local family, with many property and farming interests in the area. Ettrick and Aileen had three children: Audrey, born in June 1915; David; and Jean, my mother, born in December 1924.
They all had a conventional upper middle class upbringing, and David was sent away to school, first at St Wilfrid's in Hawkhurst, and then Marlborough College, which he left in 1936. In 1938, he decided that he wanted to train as a mining engineer, and went to work at Treeton colliery in South Yorkshire, boarding with a local family in the neighbouring village of Aughton.
When the war started he decided that he wanted to join the RAF, and he tried to sign up on 6 September 1939. At the same time so did tens of thousands of other young men. Most of them (including David) were told to go away and wait, and that they would be invited for assessment as soon as possible. In David’s case this didn’t happen until 20 March 1940, when he was accepted for aircrew training and formally joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. There was then a further period of waiting, and he finally got his call up papers in June of that year.
He was given a fortnight’s notice to present himself at the RAF Receiving Unit at Uxbridge on Thursday 20 June, when he would begin aircrew training as a member of the RAF Volunteer Reserve. After time in the Initial Training Wing, he went to Elementary Flying Training School, at Ansty in Warwickshire, receiving one to one instruction in the famous old training aircraft, the Tiger Moth.
Flying an elderly biplane is one thing, becoming a battle-ready pilot needed more training on more advanced aircraft. David was sent to No 12 Service Flying Training School at RAF Grantham. On 18 January 1941, he became a qualified pilot and was awarded his wings.
Further training was needed before a pilot was ready for operations, but by June 1941, he had been through all this and was posted to RAF Coningsby, the airfield from which he would fly on his last operation, in September 1943.
Coningsby was the home of two squadrons, Nos 106 and 97. David flew his first operations in 106 Squadron's Hampdens, but was soon transferred to the new Avro Manchester aircraft, operated by 97 Squadron. This was the two-engined precursor of the formidable Lancaster, but it was notoriously underpowered and unreliable. However by January 1942, the new Lancasters were available (97 Squadron was only the second squadron in the whole RAF to get them) and David was able to fly as a first pilot with a crew of his own. This included a number of members who were to become close friends, plus a dog called Shep which they adopted as a mascot, and can who be seen in the official 97 Squadron aircrew picture – the only dog amongst more than a hundred airmen. David took part in a number of famous operations, including two unsuccessful attempts to destroy the German battleship Tirpitz, which was concealed in a Norwegian fjord.
David finished his first tour of operations in June 1942, and was awarded the DFC. He then spent a few months commanding a flight which trained gunners and bomb airmers before returning to active operations with 97 Squadron, in March 1943.
He was given a new crew, all recently qualified from training. Within 10 days, as a group, they were transferred to a new squadron, set up under the command of Guy Gibson, to prepare for a highly secret mission, to drop a completely new weapon on the German dams.
David married Georgina (Nina) Goodson of Wickhambreaux, Kent, in May 1942. Their son, John, was born on 1 July 1943.
