Lives in Cricket No 5 - Rockley Wilson

Rockley Wilson remained on the permanent staff at Winchester College until 1939 and continued to help with teaching during the Second World War. His subjects were French and Greek. For its pupils, life at Winchester was Spartan and discipline strict, with sport in the afternoons no doubt a welcome relief from the routines of the classroom for most of the boys. Rockley was no disciplinarian. His classes were often uproarious and more or less out of control, leading one of his headmasters to observe, with ironic understatement: “It would be an exaggeration to pretend that all boys who left his division were completely bilingual.” 49 Punctuality and careful marking of his pupils’ work were not among his qualities. There is a story of him dashing down a hill on his bicycle, late for a class, and colliding with a boy who cried “Oh Christ!” to which Rockley is said to have replied “But strictly incognito, dear boy, strictly incognito.” 50 His lessons were punctuated with cricketing terms and phrases. He would ask a pupil to begin a translation with “We’ll give Smith the new ball” and, if Smith lost his place, Rockley might observe “perhaps you are bowling rather wide.” “Rain stops play” would be his response when taken short in a lesson, as often happened. He was not averse to a bit of play-acting. He was once persuaded by his pupils to dress up in Arab clothes and mimic a Moslem at prayer, much to the boys’ merriment and to his discomfort when the Headmaster entered the room. Rockley was always willing to provide private tuition to his pupils. Whether the subject was French literature or Greek grammar, the tuition was likely to be lightened by conversation about cricket and the offer of real Turkish delight and other delicacies. A fellow teacher at the school, F.C.Mallett, recounted that he asked a pupil how he was getting on and received the reply: “I am not very good at French but I’m up to Mr Wilson and he calls me ‘the Sutcliffe of the side’ so I think I shall Winchester 50 Rockley Wilson in the classroom. 49 Obituary in The Wykehamist , 15 October, 1957. 50 Like other Rockley Wilson stories, this cannot of course be readily corroborated.