View From the All Saints Window
I was having a dip into a slim volume that has become a true and trusted friend over the years. It used to adorn the bookshelf of my dear old Dad, and the inside front page is inscribed 'Brian Wallas....from Oliver Kingdom...Cambridge....June 1947' in typically impressive copperplate style. I have no idea who Oliver Kingdom was, but my father was a shy, rather proper man and I imagine Oliver to have been a rare and most treasured friend, since my father was 20 years old at the time and the gift of a book is a thoughtful and precious exchange. It is a book first published in 1906 entitled From a College Window by A.C. Benson, a Professor (or 'Don' as they were called), at Cambridge University, and it amounts to what can best be described as a modest, sensitive man's 'reflections in tranquility'. It is quaint, anachronistic at times and entirely charming. Perhaps it resonates particularly strongly with me because of my English upbringing and certainly it describes a life that, whilst appearing unremarkable and even at times mundane to the author, is and was beyond the reach of most of us. Yet it contains gems that reach across the divides of time and class towards those universal truths that, precisely because they are universal, remain relevant today. Consider the following passage:
"I have grown to believe that the one true thing worth aiming at is simplicity of heart and life; that one's relations with others should be direct and not diplomatic; that power leaves a bitter taste in the mouth; that meanness, and hardness, and coldness are the unforgivable sins; that conventionality is the mother of dreariness; that pleasure exists not in virtue of material possessions, but in the joyful heart; that the world is a very interesting and beautiful place; that congenial labour is the secret of happiness; and many other things which seem, as I write them down, to be dull and trite commonplaces, but are for me the bright jewels which I have found beside the way."
What A.C. Benson recognised as 'bright jewels' in 1906 seem to have lost very little of their lustre in 2024. We agonise as educators (as we properly should) about keeping up with latest pedagogies, familiarising ourselves with neuro divergency, differentiating curricula and creating positive learning environments, but it is nonetheless reassuring to work at a school whose central, inviolable values exist in a place where time and changing trends have only a limited influence. Benson ends his book with a slightly elegiac yet inescapably triumphant tone:
"Now in its mouldering turret the old clock wakes and stirs, moves its jarring wires, and the soft bell strikes midnight. Another of my few short days gone, another step nearer to the unseen. Slowly but not sadly I return, for I have been for a moment nearer God; the very thought that rises in my mind, and turns my heart to His, comes from Him. He would make all plain, if He could; He gives us what we need; and when we at last awake we shall be satisfied."
I have long ago abandoned my belief in coincidence. All things are connected; and Benson's view from his college window, peaceful, uplifting and accepting of the mysteries of life and death comes at a time when the view from the All Saints window is clouded by a world that seems to be leaning towards the chaotic and in which many of our school families through no fault of their own are just finding life particularly challenging.
There is of course much joy too. Our musical twilight concerts have lifted our hearts and spirits as they always do (try to come along to our chapel at 6.00pm on Tuesday for our choral concert – I promise you will leave feeling well in your heart), and the irresistible positivity of our young folk as they laugh and jostle their way around the school makes it difficult to feel gloomy for too long. Many kind words are already beginning to be shared with me as I navigate my way through this, my last year, but I have been quite clear from very early on that the way I am nourished by this remarkable community always exceeds whatever I am able to give; and as each day I take 'another step nearer to the unseen', I do so with a heart overflowing with gratitude and love.
Patrick Wallas
Headmaster
