An Old Penrhosian in Paris during the German occupation
A piece in the Old Penrhosian News of June 1946 contains an extract from the Yorkshire Post of August 1945 that tells the story of Gladys Wernquin, an Old Penrhosian who lived in Paris throughout the German occupation.
Madame Wernquin was interviewed by the newspaper in 1945, on a short visit to her native Leeds. She and her French husband, a professor of English at the University of Paris, lived during the occupation in a flat in part of the University’s buildings. The Post explains:
The English classes, designed for boys preparing for the French military and naval academies, were renamed Higher Commercial Studies and went on as before. Because of the German desire for the exchange of intellectual ideas, no attempt was made to intern either the professor or his son.
The rest of the building was occupied by the Germans, and Madame Wernquin escaped internment only by destroying all her British papers. Having married before the dual nationality law came into being, she ‘did not figure on any records as an alien’, and after 30 years in France ‘her nationality was not suspected.’
Life in Paris was hard, and ‘domestic difficulties’, as the Post terms them, included ‘no heating of any sort.’
“I lived in a fur coat indoors as well as out, the cold was so intense,” she said. “Last winter we got a tiny bit of wood and used sometimes to light a fire as a treat from 9 to 10-30, feeding it a stick at a time.”
The gas allowed was never enough to use the oven, and only allowed one skimpy meal to be cooked a day and one kettle of water to be boiled apart from the meal. Vegetables had to be cooked in the same water. Washing water was a never-ending problem. “We never had a bath for three years,” she said. “You had to make do with a sponge down. And you just couldn’t get clothes clean, with no soap and soda. You rubbed till they went into rags.”
The war touched the Wernquins’ life in other ways too:
An Army friend of theirs, sentenced to 12 months’ solitary confinement for refusing to co-operate, trained flies and taught himself to read German writing upside down. This last stood him in good stead when he was being interrogated later.
Professor Wernquin became a liaison officer for the 3rd Corps and was evacuated at Dunkirk, but returned to Paris to be with his wife.
Memorial Hall construction photos sent by alumnus
The photos were sent by John Grindlay, OR 1952—57. They are of the construction of the Mem Hall (Costain was already built by this time, sorry I mistitled the photos…). It was built between ’55 and ’57.
John Grindlay writes,
‘I see your website features the school architect, Colwyn Foulkes. You will see him in some of the snaps. I’m afraid we boys didn’t think too much of him, most likely because he was forever on the site and we all thought that progress on the building was slow!’
Osborn Hall vs Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Photo 1 - Trinity Hall, Cambridge, alma mater of Thomas Osborn. The crest of Trinity Hall is in one of the windows in the Library (Photo 2).
Similarities between the architecture of the two halls:
Photo 1
Photo 2
