Alan Ratcliffe

Ratcliffe, or Rats to us, was a merry kind of Santa Claus without the regalia. He smiled a lot and was in my view a little rotund. He had us slightly bemused as he had a lady friend that he often entertained at one of the local pubs, and of course we had our own version of who she was, but I'm sure we were wrong. Early on in about 1951 he took a group of us on holiday to Saas Fee in Switzerland and again to Kanderstag the following year. I learnt to ski and even managed to get both Bronze and Silver merit awards in the sport.

In 1949 for a little extra 'pocket' money, he tried coaching me in French. I obviously required a little nudging in this area. I would appear at his room somewhere in The Grange and await his tutelage. Often he'd not front up and I would stare blankly at my 'primer'. I never worked out whether Rats had just forgotten or whether he had had another engagement of the liquid kind. Never-the-less, each lesson cost 5/-, but typically I was not dissatisfied.

He also taught English but feel he was on the staff primarily as a cricket coach as he had represented Kent in county cricket. No doubt about it, he was a good cricketer and coached the first eleven to many a victory. To select would-be school reps and talent, you'd have to face three deliveries from a demon bowler. If you produced a late cut, power drive or hook to leg or something that looked good, you were in.

Guess what? I missed all three balls and was delegated to Tank house matches for the underachievers. These matches were umpired by very biased prefects or monitors who had to be bought by ingratiations.

To 'keep your bat' and not be given out by a no ball, brum catch or fanciful LBW required a genuine look of adoration for his astute calls. This was something in which I was quite remiss. To 'suck up' to the big boys was to admit defeat and James didn't like defeat - hence more often than not he was declared

out.

Ratcliffe eventually married the lady of his dreams but this didn't alter his disposition. He remained quite a merry little

man.