The Repton year by C A Parker (1944)

Towards the end of August 1939, at the age of 12 and eagerly looking forward to my second (remove) year at KES, I was on holiday in Scarborough. As KES Autumn Term began several days later than ordinary schools, my father had arranged his annual leave rather later than usual, so that we could see some of the matches in the Scarborough Cricket Festival. However, as the first week of our holiday proceeded, it became apparent that war was inevitable, and our holiday had to be cut short. The Touring Term (was it Australia that year?) made a hasty departure to their own country, and the Cricket Festival was disrupted.

We arrived home just in time for me to go to school on 1st September for evacuation to Repton, where arrangements had been made for KES to share facilities of Repton School for one year. The temporary wooden buildings, fronting Bristol Road, which had housed the School for a few years since the departure from New Street, were required for military purposes, and the new building would not be ready for use until the following September.

So it was that, at 11 o'clock on the morning of Sunday 3rd September 1939, in the home of my host and hostess at Repton, I heard Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain make his radio announcement that "This country is at war with Nazi Germany". There will not now be so many OEs who remember the Repton year, but we were excited to be part of the first generation of Edwardians who received some of the education in the glorious new building, soon to entre it's 70th year.