Speech Day Tea on the Quad (1945)
Refectory (1943)“Goodbye, Mr. Chips” is a novel by James Hilton, first published in 1934. The story was published in the British Weekly, an evangelical newspaper, in 1933 but came to prominence when it was reprinted as the lead piece of the April 1934 issue of The Atlantic. Afterwards, Hilton became a bestselling author and numerous adaptations were made including two Academy Award-winning films and various stage adaptations.
The novel tells the story of a much-beloved schoolmaster through the long years of his tenure at Brookfield, the fictional boys' public boarding school where he taught. Arthur Chipping conquers his inability to connect with the boys at the school as well as his initial shyness when he marries Katherine, a young woman he meets on holiday who provides him with his nickname. "Chips", despite his own mediocre academic record, goes on, to have an illustrious career as an inspiring Housemaster and educator at Brookfield.
Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it also depicts the sweeping social changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in 1870, as the Franco –Prussian War is breaking out, and lies on his deathbed shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. Chipping is seen as an individual who is able to connect to anyone on a human level.
Clearly discernible, is a nostalgia for the Victorian order that had faded rapidly after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 and whose remnants were fully destroyed by the First World War. Indeed, a recurring “leitmotif” throughout is the devastating impact of the war on British society. When the war breaks out, Chips, who had retired the year before at age sixty-five, agrees to come out of retirement to fill in for the various masters who had entered military service. Despite being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleashed by the war. At one point, Chips reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking transcendent values of honor and friendship, and dares to include the name of a former Austrian master who died fighting on the opposite side.
Sentiments and Reaction:
I recently watched the original version of the film and of course, it transported me back to the Darjeeling District and the “good old days”. While there are strong elements from the movie that generally apply to all our schools in the Darj District including Goethals, one can clearly see St. Paul’s in the setting and plot. I watched the film after a good 31 years and it actually took me back to the “Goddard Era” at St. Paul’s and my father’s years at school (1945-1957). The Old Paulites I reconnected with in Australia were from an earlier generation of OPs and World Wars One and Two impacted the life of the school and theirs in a fashion similar to the movie. The Paulite Chapel at St. Paul’s has numerous listings of the names of Old Paulites who fought and lost their lives, serving in both World Wars.
The film’s British Public School ethos is emphasized repeatedly and the strict manners and dress code was St. Paul’s all over again…….a Sunday afternoon in Darjeeling…..groups of Paulites on their Sunday outing….three-piece navy blue suits with umbrella in hand (“Chhatawallas”) and “exeats” issued by the MOD (Master-on-Duty) tucked securely inside their jackets pockets! Sixth Formers set apart in their grays’ and boating jacket with the OPA or The Duke of Edinburg’s Crest…… rushing up Jalapahar as the Chapel bells rang, to make it in time for the compulsory roll call and “Evensong”……those were the days!
The film opens within the quadrangle of the revered Brookfield School, founded in 1492:
...one can almost feel the centuries...Gray old age, dreaming over a crowded past.
A train whistle blows, signaling the arrival of chattering, excited boys for the beginning of the new school term. As all the pupils, each wearing a hat, file into a building for an all-school assembly, they carry on the time-honored tradition of the British boys' school called 'call-over.' (The film ends with the same tradition.) A master stands at the doorway with a list of the names of each pupil, and the boys file past and call out their last name.
It is the late 1920s - the Rector announces a "small disappointment" for the students:
For the first time in fifty-eight years, Mr. Chipping has been unable to attend first-day assembly. Chips - and you'll allow me to refer to him as 'Chips,' seeing that thirty-seven years ago this autumn, he gave me a thrashing for sheer-bone laziness. Well, Chips has a cold, and a cold can be quite a serious thing for a young fellow of eighty-three.
Old schoolmaster 'Chips' was ordered to stay at home by the school's doctor, "but it was quite a battle. Our old friend was finally induced to surrender, and he is now sitting under violent protest by his own fireside."
The novel tells the story of a much-beloved schoolmaster through the long years of his tenure at Brookfield, the fictional boys' public boarding school where he taught. Arthur Chipping conquers his inability to connect with the boys at the school as well as his initial shyness when he marries Katherine, a young woman he meets on holiday who provides him with his nickname. "Chips", despite his own mediocre academic record, goes on, to have an illustrious career as an inspiring Housemaster and educator at Brookfield.
Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it also depicts the sweeping social changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in 1870, as the Franco –Prussian War is breaking out, and lies on his deathbed shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. Chipping is seen as an individual who is able to connect to anyone on a human level.
Clearly discernible, is a nostalgia for the Victorian order that had faded rapidly after Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 and whose remnants were fully destroyed by the First World War. Indeed, a recurring “leitmotif” throughout is the devastating impact of the war on British society. When the war breaks out, Chips, who had retired the year before at age sixty-five, agrees to come out of retirement to fill in for the various masters who had entered military service. Despite being taken for a doddering fossil, it is Chips who keeps his wits about him during an air raid, averting mass panic and sustaining morale. Countless old boys and masters die on the battlefield, and much of the story involves Chips's response to the horrors unleashed by the war. At one point, Chips reads aloud a long roster of the school's fallen alumni, and, defying the modern world he sees as soulless and lacking transcendent values of honor and friendship, and dares to include the name of a former Austrian master who died fighting on the opposite side.
Sentiments and Reaction:
I recently watched the original version of the film and of course, it transported me back to the Darjeeling District and the “good old days”. While there are strong elements from the movie that generally apply to all our schools in the Darj District including Goethals, one can clearly see St. Paul’s in the setting and plot. I watched the film after a good 31 years and it actually took me back to the “Goddard Era” at St. Paul’s and my father’s years at school (1945-1957). The Old Paulites I reconnected with in Australia were from an earlier generation of OPs and World Wars One and Two impacted the life of the school and theirs in a fashion similar to the movie. The Paulite Chapel at St. Paul’s has numerous listings of the names of Old Paulites who fought and lost their lives, serving in both World Wars.
The film’s British Public School ethos is emphasized repeatedly and the strict manners and dress code was St. Paul’s all over again…….a Sunday afternoon in Darjeeling…..groups of Paulites on their Sunday outing….three-piece navy blue suits with umbrella in hand (“Chhatawallas”) and “exeats” issued by the MOD (Master-on-Duty) tucked securely inside their jackets pockets! Sixth Formers set apart in their grays’ and boating jacket with the OPA or The Duke of Edinburg’s Crest…… rushing up Jalapahar as the Chapel bells rang, to make it in time for the compulsory roll call and “Evensong”……those were the days!
The film opens within the quadrangle of the revered Brookfield School, founded in 1492:
...one can almost feel the centuries...Gray old age, dreaming over a crowded past.
A train whistle blows, signaling the arrival of chattering, excited boys for the beginning of the new school term. As all the pupils, each wearing a hat, file into a building for an all-school assembly, they carry on the time-honored tradition of the British boys' school called 'call-over.' (The film ends with the same tradition.) A master stands at the doorway with a list of the names of each pupil, and the boys file past and call out their last name.
It is the late 1920s - the Rector announces a "small disappointment" for the students:
For the first time in fifty-eight years, Mr. Chipping has been unable to attend first-day assembly. Chips - and you'll allow me to refer to him as 'Chips,' seeing that thirty-seven years ago this autumn, he gave me a thrashing for sheer-bone laziness. Well, Chips has a cold, and a cold can be quite a serious thing for a young fellow of eighty-three.
Old schoolmaster 'Chips' was ordered to stay at home by the school's doctor, "but it was quite a battle. Our old friend was finally induced to surrender, and he is now sitting under violent protest by his own fireside."
2 comments:
Dear Viraj
Distance and a generation separate us but we do have much in common.
Your posting has taken me way back to the 1940’s when I sat in the Study Hall which doubled up as the Cinema Hall to watch in absolute wonder the film, “Goodbye, Mr Chips,” that has had such an impact on our lives.
I cannot raise my hand, as Richard Johnson suggests in his article, if I didn’t have a bad experience. I went through my formative years in Goethals from 1942 to 1949 with enough experiences, good, bad and indifferent, to come through unscathed and return to teach there for many years.
Had the School had married quarters, I would have still been there but Destiny carried us to St Paul’s where my Wife, Myrna and I taught from 1965 to 1972 and where our fledgling family was brought up.
We have been in Perth since December1972 and the old Home Town keeps calling and we have made several memorable trips to both Institutions.
It’s a coincidence that we have affiliation to both Schools and I would like share some of the common ground that we have come from, albeit years apart !!!
My e-mail addresses are Matthewlobo@bigpond.com and per kind favour of Radheshyam Sharma, I have a G-mail address on his Blog.
MONITI MELIORA SEQUAMUR and OMNIA BENE FACERE …..Having been advised we follow higher things and do all things well.
Dear Mr. Lobo/Sir,
Thanks first of all, for taking the time to write; a rare pleasure to hear from you. Undoubtedly, we have much in common and despite the difference in age, our experiences share a sense of continuity and desire to reconnect. This is a quality that is sadly lost in today’s global madness and all the nostalgic comfort I have received over the years, is from your generation or older. In many ways, I feel like a wise old man at 40!
My family association with the Darjeeling District and St. Paul’s goes back at least three generations (1940 – 1984). I was at GMS from 1976 – 1981 and my family knew the Christian Brothers from St. Vincent’s and St. Patrick’s in Asansol, where we owned several coal and mining companies. I probably met Brothers Fitzpatrick, O’Donohue, Cahill, Morrow and Murphy when I was 4 years old – I am still in touch with Brother Fitzpatrick!
I continued in the family tradition and finished from St. Paul’s in 1984 during Mr. Hari Dang’s Rectorship. Mr. David Howard was Senior Master at the time. After SP, I came to the US as an undergraduate, met my wife Tracy in college and we have been based in Iowa City since 1990. I have 2 boys (Nik,12 and Shawn,7) and over the years, we have spent a year and a half in India-Nepal at different times. Tracy and my boys love that part of the world and if all goes as planned, we might have the chance of returning to India-Nepal for 2 years in the near future!
If all of this wasn’t enough, we have Australia in common as well. I spent three wonderful years (2004-2007) in Adelaide when I was offered a research fellowship at the University of Adelaide. I loved Adelaide and Australia and got an opportunity to reconnect with some wonderful Old Paulites from the 40s and 50s (including a couple of my Dad’s classmates). Had we been in touch, I would have loved to have met you and Mrs. Lobo in Perth!
Well, we have to thank Mr. Radheshyam Sharma for bringing our experiences together; I was very touched when he invited me to contribute to the GMS Blog. As is evident, a majority of the nostalgia and spirit is confined to the pre-1970’s era. This is perhaps reflective of the immensity of change in India in social and cultural terms. St. Paul’s has managed to hang on but the OPA in Calcutta is not as strong as it used to be. “The old order changeth”……but we have to be hopeful that the old school values and ethos will remain alive in a rapidly changing India.
To go back to Mr. Chips……a wonderful movie that still impacts our lives (yours and mine for sure) ; it has certainly brought us together! I would love to keep in touch.
Please convey my best wishes to Mrs. Lobo.
Warmest Regards,
Viraj.
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