Off to School
Off to School
‘Joanna did well at King Arthur’s’ said Lily, as she and Arnold discussed a school for Joy. King Arthur’s School in Kensington seemed a good choice for Joy – it was fairly small, easy to get to, and the staff cared about the children.
‘Yes, she did do well there,’ agreed Arnold. Education was important to the Stotts, and they wanted the best for each of their children. Joanna had moved on to boarding school before Joy arrived at King Arthur’s.
The Stotts had the same conversation about John, two years later. (He was first taught at home by a governess.) Aged six, he joined Joy at King Arthur’s, wearing his slightly-too-big school blazer, and with his cap pressed down firmly over his new haircut. His governess had already taught him how to write, and he was good at drawing. He especially enjoyed drawing birds and all his life he kept two drawings from those days. One was of a parrot, carefully coloured in, using his brightest pencils; and the other of an owl. He loved to write about birds too. The walks in Regent’s Park with his father sparked an interest in the natural world which never left him.
On John’s first morning at King Arthur’s, Joy took him to his classroom. ‘This is my brother,’ she said shyly, handing him over to his teacher. ‘Ah, another Stott,’ said John’s teacher. Some staff at King Arthur’s remembered Joanna, too. Doubtless comparisons were made, as teachers always make comparisons.
John’s mother had encouraged him in learning a little French at home. Many children learn numbers in a new language, so they can count up to ten or even twenty before their formal lessons begin. This introduction to a language is always a help, and builds confidence.
But when the class launched into French, and a few proudly demonstrated their ‘un, deux, trois...’ John was clearly ahead of the game. John had done more. He could write about his favourite animal in French. John didn’t just love animals: he found out what they ate, how they built their homes, how they related to their young. Like many children, he was drawn to elephants. By the age of seven, he had already composed this French riddle:
DEVINETTE (Riddle)
Devinez qui je suis.
Guess who I am.
Êtes-vous un animal?
Are you an animal?
Oui, je suis un animal.
Yes, I am an animal.
Avez-vous quatre pattes?
Do you have four paws?
Oui, j’ai quatre pattes.
Yes, I have four paws.
Êtes-vous grand?
Are you big?
Oui, je suis grand.
Yes, I am big.
Habitez-vous le Zoo?
Do you live in the Zoo?
Oui j’habite le Zoo.
Yes, I live in the Zoo.
Mangez-vous du foin?
Do you eat hay?
Oui, je mange du foin.
Yes, I eat hay.
Aimez-vous les gâteax?
Do you like cakes?
Oui j’aime bien les gateaux.
Yes, I love cakes.
Avez-vous une trompe?
Do you have a trunk?
Oui, j’ai une trompe.
Yes, I have a trunk.
Êtes-vous un éléphant?
Are you an elephant?
Oui, je suis un éléphant.
Yes, I am an elephant
John enjoyed King Arthur’s School, and the car journey there and back each day with Joy. But two years later, changes were in store. When he was eight, and just a few weeks after he was rebuked for ‘unruly behaviour’ in the park, he was to leave home. His parents were sending him to boarding school. They chose Oakley Hall, in Gloucester, about a hundred miles away.
Joanna was always full of stories when she came home from boarding school. It sounded fun. So when John heard this news, he got quite excited. Everything seemed to happen quickly, and over the next few weeks he was fitted out with his new school uniform, towels, sheets, pyjamas, sports gear ... and the whole school list.
‘You can choose what else to take with you,’ said his nanny, helping him to pack. He chose some of his favourite books, his toy guns and daggers, his roller skates, and his butterfly net.
Oakley Hall
‘Please be extra careful with my butterfly net,’ John said politely to his father’s chauffeur. John had started to build a fine collection of butterflies, so his butterfly net had to go with him to Oakley Hall. The school trunk and tuck box of goodies had been loaded into the family Chrysler. Each bore the initials JRWS carefully stencilled on the top. The chauffeur now laid John’s precious butterfly net on top of everything else. The car was ready to leave, and after a three-hour drive a new stage of life was about to begin.
‘This is your bed over here,’ Matron told him. ‘I’ll help you unpack.’
John found he would sleep in a dormitory with seven or eight others. There were strict rules about lights out, and when to stop talking, but new boys soon got used to everything, though they missed home. In winter the dorms got very cold, as there was no central heating then. In the morning it was sometimes so cold that the water in the wash basins, poured ready for the boys to wash, had ice forming on its surface.
At Oakley Hall John learned a good deal of British history, largely through the stories of battles, and he could recite the dates of the reigns of kings and queens.
Classroom teaching in those days was based around a lot of reciting, and the children began by reciting their multiplication tables. The whole class would chant together to a rhythm never forgotten. ‘One two is two’ (which seemed rather obvious), and then ‘two twos are four, three twos are six, four twos are eight’ and so forth. All tables up to the twelve times table were covered in this way. And so were French verbs.
John had begun to recite French verbs at King Arthur’s, so he was comfortably ahead of the class at Oakley Hall. The first French verb most children learn is porter (to wear or carry), to show how ‘er’ verbs behave. Then they learn venir (to come), to show how the ‘ir’ verbs behave. John knew both, and, as we saw in the riddle, he had also mastered être and avoir (to be and to have).
John’s Scripture teacher found he could recall several stories from the Old and New Testaments. Something must have lodged from the All Souls Sunday School lessons before he was sent out of the room! Altogether he was doing well.
‘What do you make of John Stott?’ asked one of the younger teachers in the staff room one day. He didn’t teach John, and wondered what he was like in the classroom. John was evidently bright, and he was also full of pranks. How did teachers manage to contain his lively spirit when the whole class had to slog through irregular verbs? Especially if he knew them already!
‘Likeable rogue,’ came the reply from behind a newspaper. This expression, used by older teachers, was a kind of shorthand. It stood for: ‘Yes, they misbehave, and it can disturb the class. But it shows they’ve got something about them. And that “something” is often leadership in the making.’ John was one of the brightest in the class, and he almost always smiled; it would have been hard not to like him, but that did not stop him from being beaten with a cane. He was caned at least three times in his first year. He wrote to his parents about the canings in letters home, adding in all honesty, ‘I don’t know why I keep being caned!’
John could hold his own at cricket and he played for the school Second XI at soccer. He was good at acting, and had a fine singing voice. So, with the happy combination of natural talent and of getting into trouble from time to time, he became a popular boy.
If French came easily to John, Latin was harder. This was partly because at first he couldn’t sort out the ‘subject’ of a sentence from the ‘object’ of a sentence. In Latin this matters a lot. The same word can have a different ending, depending on whether it is subject or object. For some nouns the ending for both is identical. But for the first group of nouns the children were taught (‘the first declension’) the ending is different. John didn’t want to lose marks. Neither did he want his teacher to think he was stupid. So like all intelligent schoolboys, he found a way around the problem which worked brilliantly, at least for the first declension. In Latin the word for table is ‘mensa’ when it is the subject of a sentence, and ‘mensam’ when it is the object. So what was his ruse?
‘I would write “mensam” if I wasn’t sure, and then put a faint pencil line through the “m”. If it should have been “mensa” the teacher would think the final letter had been crossed out. But if “mensam” was right, the teacher would see the line, but as it was faint, would just ignore it.’ A shrewd plan!
In school holidays, John continued to go with his father on nature walks. As well as teaching John to observe, his father also taught him the names of plants, and of butterflies and birds. Arnold explained to John what we call the eco-system; that is how plants and animals, birds and insects all depend on one another. These nature walks led to John’s earliest hobby of collecting butterflies.
One day his father handed him a glass bottle with a tight lid.
‘Johnnie, promise me you will be careful with this,’ he said.
‘What’s it for, Daddy?’ John asked quizzically.
‘It’s a killing bottle. It will kill butterflies instantly. Then you can add them to your collection. But you need to promise me you won’t sniff it.’
‘I promise,’ said John.
He realized only years later that if he had sniffed it, it could have killed him as well as the butterflies, as it contained cyanide! John’s father evidently had a high level of trust in his son.
In the summer holiday, John and his father would go ‘sugaring’ in the evenings, to catch butterflies and moths. They laid traps, mixing beer and treacle, and then at night his father would wake him and they would go out together to see what was caught. Inebriated by the beer, hapless butterflies and moths would lie on the ground, ready for John to examine. John left the more common ones to fly off again the next day, and placed the rarer ones in his killing bottle, to add to his collection. Over time John amassed a collection to be proud of. He may have had dreams of becoming a world expert on butterflies. But during one school holiday, disaster struck.
In the nursery one day, when John was carefully setting new butterflies in the display, Joy threw a cushion at him. It landed right in the centre of the butterfly box and destroyed it in an instant.
‘Joy, look what you’ve done!’ He was stunned. All his work had been ruined. The care and love with which he had mounted the specimens was now worth nothing.
Joy was silent, then started to cry loudly, and Nanny rushed in to see what was happening. Joy was as upset as John was. The butterfly collection meant everything to him. His father knew that, and tried to repair it, but it was beyond repair. John was devastated.
Many years later, John Stott spoke about the incident. ‘I had probably provoked Joy,’ he said. ‘So it was partly my own fault.’ Then he added, ‘It was then that I turned to birds, and I have often used this as a good parable of the Providence of God. I was inconsolable at the time, of course, but I’m very glad now.’
John Stott became an expert on birds from every continent. He said with a grin: ‘People think one is eccentric enough to go round the world with binoculars. To have gone round the world with a butterfly net would have been much too much to bear.’
* * *
The family often spent summers out of London. Some time after the butterfly incident, when John was nine years old, and the Stotts were on holiday, his father gave him a gift he prized dearly. It was a book, beautifully bound, and inscribed in the front:
Johnnie from Daddy, 19th August 1930.
Burton Bradstock, Dorset.
John knew straight away what he wanted to do with it. In his best handwriting on the flyleaf he inscribed the words ‘Nature Notebook’. Turning over to the first page and with great care, he wrote at the top ‘List of birds seen’. Now he began to list their names. Crow, Rook, Blackbird, Robin, Thrush... On that holiday in Dorset he also saw a Kingfisher, a Green Woodpecker and a Cormorant. The book went back with him to boarding school. It became a constant companion. In school holidays he would roller-skate up to Regent’s Park on his own, and see what he could find. Over the next nine years he filled 150 pages, closely lined. The pages included the names of birds, descriptions of where and when he observed them, and some short essays on their behaviour and their habitats.
The following year, a teacher called Robbie Bickersteth arrived to teach at Oakley Hall. Mr Bickersteth, like John’s father, was keen on nature, and he soon became a friend of the whole family.
‘Write to me, John. Tell me what new birds you and your Daddy see,’ Robbie Bickersteth would say, at the end of term. Robbie and John would occasionally go on bird-watching expeditions in the north of England and in Scotland during the school holidays. John always took his precious ledger with him.
John and Robbie kept in touch all through John’s schooldays and while he was a student. There was no social networking in those days, nor did anyone have a mobile phone. They both had landlines, but in those days people used them sparingly. So the best way to keep in touch was by writing letters. John and Robbie wrote often to each other, and shared their thoughts on many things. John admired Robbie a great deal.
All too soon John was in his final year at Oakley Hall. It was a year with some big surprises. The first came when he was called into the headmaster’s office soon after he had unpacked and put his school trunk back into the store. Wondering what he had done wrong, he straightened his tie, and knocked on the headmaster’s door. The headmaster’s reason for summoning him was to tell him he was being made head boy!
Then John received more good news. He was chosen to play the part of Mark Antony in the school play, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. He received fine reviews for his ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ speech.
John knew how badly his parents wanted him to go to Rugby School. He worked as hard as he could before the entrance exam, and it was a relief to have it behind him. Then, like all the boys sitting this exam, he sat nervously, waiting for the results. His parents would be so disappointed if he didn’t get a place.
‘Do you know when the results will come, Sir?’ John asked his form teacher.
‘I’m as keen as you to know,’ came the reply. ‘You’ve worked hard, and I know you’ll have done your best. I think you’ll be fine.’
After a few tense days, the news arrived. It came by telegram from his parents:
23 NOVEMBER 1934:
HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING AMONG THE FIRST THREE LOVE MUMMY AND DADDY
So the following year John went up to Rugby School,1 the birthplace of rugby football.
‘I’d like John to be in Kilbracken, my old house, if possible,’ wrote Arnold Stott to the school registrar. Kilbracken was then sited at 1 Hillmorton Road, a large redbrick building, housing around eighty boys. It wasn’t very comfortable, indeed some called it spartan. The registrar placed John’s name on the Kilbracken list. [This school house was relocated to a better building shortly after John left.]
A pattern began to emerge as John travelled to and from Rugby. At the beginning of each term, Dr Stott’s chauffeur would fill the Chrysler with petrol, and then pack it. This done, he would park it by the front door of 58 Harley Street.
‘The car’s outside now, Master John.’
‘Thank you. I’m almost ready.’ First John had to say his goodbyes.
The journey from London to Rugby took much longer than it would now. Rugby is just five miles from Junction 15 of the M1. But the M1 was not opened until 1959. So John’s journey began up the A1 from London, known as the Great North Road. Eventually signs appeared for The Midlands, and then for the town of Rugby. Life in Kilbracken was once more in sight.
* * *
John enjoyed being at Rugby. As with all new schools, he had to settle in, find his way around, learn the subculture, and make new friends. He played the cello, and sang in the choir; he acted in the school plays; he ran regularly for the school in cross-country events. Each day was full, with activities crammed around his work. His full and varied schedule meant he quickly got to know a lot of boys from other houses. He was friendly, and took an interest in other people, so he would naturally fall into conversation as he walked from Kilbracken to chapel, then on to classes, or to the library.
John would point out birds to his friends as they walked between school buildings. ‘Look!’ he would interject mid-sentence. ‘Did you see that?’ Then he would stand completely still, craning his ear to hear birdsong. His friends laughed at his passion and dedication. However, maybe years later they would say to their own children, ‘There was a boy at Rugby called Stott who told us to shut our mouths and open our eyes and ears. We laughed at him. But you know, we learned a lot when we did it.’
While school uniform was a sports jacket, a few boys wore blazers. These boys were members of the Levée. The Levée was a Rugby tradition (and it still is). It met regularly to help govern the school, and to shape school policy. This committee was made up of heads of houses, with two extra places only. When John entered the sixth form, aged seventeen, he learned that the Levée had given him one of these places. He wrote to his parents with great excitement, and asked if he might order a blazer from the school shop. The reply came almost immediately. His father had not been on the Levée while he was at Rugby. He could not have been more proud of his son.
John was a natural leader. He became chairman of the Levée, head of Kilbracken House, and then head boy of the school. John gave disciplined time to each responsibility, as well as to his studies. (Every school speech day saw him walk across the platform to collect prizes.) In his final year he even found time to take the title role in the school play, Shakespeare’s Richard II.
But as John Stott looked back on his schooldays, it was not these achievements which stood out for him. It was something quite different. A Sunday afternoon meeting was to change everything about the way he thought. It was to change everything, full stop.
John Bridger, a friend in the year above, and a member of the Levée, ran a Christian Union meeting after lunch on Sundays. One day in March 1938, a few weeks before John Stott’s seventeenth birthday, John Bridger was walking over to the library with him.
‘John, a friend of mine will be here on Sunday to speak at the meeting. I think you’d like him. Are you free to come?’
John Bridger was good at everything. He played cricket, hockey and rugby for the school’s first teams, and, like John, was outstanding in modern languages. He had become a Christian two years earlier. John Stott admired John Bridger. ‘Well, I have nothing in my schedule for that time. All right. Yes, I’ll come.’
John Bridger had been praying for John Stott for several months. But how would John respond to what he heard at the meeting? John Bridger knew that was up to God, and not up to him. He prayed that his friend would indeed come, and not change his mind, and that he would listen carefully.
John Stott walked into the classroom in New Quad in good time for the start of the meeting, and sat down. John had been aware of his need for God, but had not found him. He had read his Bible, as he promised his mother he would, and sometimes he crept into the school chapel by himself, to read religious books, and absorb what he described as ‘the atmosphere of mystery’. He wanted to know God for himself, but was unable to get beyond his searching. He envied John Bridger for his clear and confident faith.
The speaker that afternoon was a man called Eric Nash (better known by his nickname Bash). John found himself listening intently. It was a simple message. Bash explained that the boys needed to do something with Christ. They could not just remain neutral about him.
‘Either you reject him, or you follow him,’ said Bash.
John had been baptized as an infant, and confirmed at Rugby eighteen months earlier; he had read his Bible and said his prayers. But he was very conscious that he did not know Christ. A new longing in his heart was stirred. So at the end of the meeting he introduced himself to the speaker.
‘There are some questions I’d like to ask you, if I may, sir,’ John said to Bash.
‘Do call me Bash, please. Everyone does,’ said Bash. ‘And yes, I’d love to hear your questions.’ Bash paused for just a second. Then he added: ‘Let’s go for a drive. It will give us time to talk.’ Here was an able boy with a genuine desire to speak about spiritual matters. Bash wanted to avoid any interruptions, so he could give John his full attention.
‘My car’s just over there,’ he said, as they walked around the corner of the building. They headed out of town and for the next two hours they talked deeply. John told Bash everything about himself, and Bash listened. He never put pressure on people, and he put no pressure on John that afternoon. He explained that everyone is born with sin in their hearts, and that this sin separates us from God. He then showed how we can become friends of God, how we can know him, through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is what John needed to hear. That afternoon he was more aware than ever of his desire to know God. Bash found a place to park, then he pulled out his New Testament which he carried with him everywhere.
‘Here, John, see what your namesake the Apostle John wrote,’ he said, passing the little New Testament over to John. He was pointing first to John 3:16 – the gospel writer’s summary of why Jesus died. ‘Read it.’
So John read aloud, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.’
Then Bash flicked over the pages. ‘And here’s what the Apostle John wrote years later. Jesus gave him a special vision which he wrote down. It’s all in the last book of the Bible, called Revelation. In the vision he receives a message for each of the churches in Asia. I just want to show you one verse.’
John was intrigued. Bash continued, ‘It’s in the message to the Church in Laodicea. Here, it’s in chapter 3, verse 20. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of Laodicea before. It’s Jesus speaking to that Church, but it’s also Jesus speaking to you, right now.’ Bash once more pointed to the place for John to read:
‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.’
It was already dark by the time Bash dropped John outside Kilbracken. That evening when John prayed, God was no longer shrouded in mystery. Now he knew for sure what he needed to do with Christ. He resolved to follow him for the rest of his life.
John wrote in his diary two days later, on Tuesday, 15 February 1938:
‘I really have felt an immense and new joy throughout today. It is the joy of being at peace with the world, and of being in touch with God. How well do I know that He rules me, and that I never really knew him before.’
Bash visited Rugby regularly, and spent time with John, helping him build a daily habit of reading and praying. Bash also prayed for John. Not long after their first meeting, Bash gave him a small New Testament. On the flyleaf he inscribed the words:
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
(Philippians 4:13)
E.J.H.N.
Bash wrote a letter to John every single week for the next five years. In these letters, Bash outlined major doctrines of the Christian faith, or raised ethical issues he wanted John to think through, or he gave advice on how to help younger boys who had become Christians. Sometimes he rebuked John, if he sensed that was needed. Bash’s letters could be very weighty, but they always ended with a joke, to keep John from being too serious!
Bash ran an Easter camp and a summer camp for boys from the top public schools, including Rugby. John Bridger went to these camps. The summer camp was held in Iwerne Minster, in Dorset and known simply as ‘Iwerne’ (pronounced ‘you earn’), but nicknamed ‘Bash camp’. John was there in 1938 and he loved it. The camp officers (leaders) taught the boys the basic truths of the Christian faith, while also teaching them leadership skills. John went back the following year, this time as a camp officer. Bash thought the best way for John to learn to lead was to throw him in at the deep end.
Jesus invested time in a small group of disciples for his three years of public ministry. People like Bash sought to follow that model. We can’t invest in many people, as time would be spread too thinly. Bash could see in John a gift of leadership which would one day tower high above his own. (Recognizing this in a younger person is a mark of great humility.) As he prepared for the summer camp of 1940, Bash had a new idea.
‘John,’ he said when next they met. ‘I want you to become Camp Secretary.’ John was very honoured, but also surprised. He was still at school and there were several older officers who could do it better.
‘What will that mean?’ asked John. He wanted to be sure he could manage the role well, and his days were already very full.
‘Food is always important,’ said Bash. ‘Let’s start there. You would need to order the food, and make sure we have a team of cooks. Check with those who came last year and see if they can come again.’
John was writing things down. ‘Yes, I could do that,’ he said, looking up again. But he could tell from Bash’s face that he hadn’t finished.
‘John, there’s something more. We need to help the war effort,’ Bash added. The Second World War had begun in 1939, and it affected the whole nation. ‘I think we should give time each day to helping local farmers. Or doing other practical work in the area. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d need you to get in touch, and find out what we can do.’
John gulped a little. He could see the time needed for letters, phone calls, more letters. But he knew Bash could not easily manage this, as he was travelling around the country to visit boys in school. ‘Let me think and pray about it,’ John replied. ‘Could you give me a few days to do that?’ Bash agreed. He was glad to see this measure of maturity in the way John made decisions. John wrote to Bash with his decision the following week. He took on the role.
In his heart, John seriously began to wonder if God may be leading him to serve as an ordained minister in the Church. He knew his father had high hopes for him, perhaps in the Diplomatic Service. John’s sharp mind, peace-loving spirit and excellence in language skills would have suited him so well for this. How would the idea of going into the Church be received? John Stott’s father was a lifelong agnostic, and the thought of his only son going into the Church seemed like a waste of a good brain and a good education.
1 See Fact File 3.