Internal house architecture - the staircase

Up that hard square staircase and I came to the grimmest place of all - the dormitories.

A little more on the staircase. I remember it as a key area of emotional bleakness and fear. It was an area where I was forced to pass by many persons who filled me with fear - large, threatening. There was no escape. It led to and from doleful places and shared in this dolefulness.

I remember in my first year one of the fourth years approaching me, he descending, I ascending. He was a boy with an especially threatening look in his eye. I remember his hair as being black and stiff, cut short in a "flat top". Around him was a sense of menace. He seemed very large but that was due to my small size at the time (I have seen him since and he is not a large man). I was passing him on the stairs when suddenly he turned to me and with considerable violence yanked me up to his level by jabbing his fingers under my armpits and gripping my body. He thrust me against the wall and said, with venom, "you little rat". Then he let go and walked away. His doing this had no precedent - in general the sixth formers had no doings with the juniors (third years and below).

One of the threats of the bullies was to grab a victim (normally a first year) and hold him upside down by his legs over the staircase from the top floor. We were told that in the past the person doing this would drop the child and another big boy would catch him at the level of the next floor down (so that he did not hit the bottom and break his neck). I do not remember the 'dropping' ever happening

All the way through my time at Goring that staircase was a place of foreboding and I tried to ascend and descend it without delay. I think if I smelt it now it would bring back many mournful memories.

So to the dormitories...