Summer Times, November 2004 - Old Scarborians

24became a Prefect and wore the distinctivered prefectʹs cap. This promptedlittle Fraulein Binder to comment, onseeing, me pass: ʹ Ist Prust unter den Jungender Konig?ʹThese fire watching sessions were extremelyprofitable to Bradley and mefrom a cultural and civilizing point ofview. Our conversations with Binderranged over a wide field ‐ classical historyand literature, philosophy. French,German and Spanish language and literature.Bradley was an exceptionallyclever boy. He had come to SBHSfrom a school in Liverpool [Binderʹshome town] where he had passedSchool Certificate at the age of twelve.He had done Latin, Greek and Frenchand, on coming to us, had picked upenough German in one year to embarkon the subject for HSC. I hadtaught myself quite a lot of Spanish,and Binder gave me a great deal ofencouragement.In the course of our discussionsBinder soon discovered that our Germanwas not going well. Our teacherwas a Dr Haynes who, although Britishby nationality, had been brought upin Germany. His doctorate was fromLeipzig, and he was a considerablescholar. As a class teacher he washowever hopeless, though he washelpful in one way ‐ he used to takeBradley and me for walks round theMere or Oliverʹs Mount conversingall the time in German and pointingout plants, insects and birds. These tookplace on Saturday afternoons, and weended up having tea with him and hiswife [like Mrs Binder a German lady ] intheir flat in Ramshill Road. One amusinglittle aside concerns the card hehad at the entrance to his flat whichread: Dr OH Haynes. We reported thisto Binder with the observation that peoplemight take him for a medical doctorand seek his help, whereuponBinder commented: ʹAnd he wouldn’tdisabuse them.ʹ When Binder realizedthat our German studies were flounderinghe told us to take our Germantexts with us to fire watching. Wewent through them systematically,and he supplemented this with sessionson Saturday mornings at hishouse in West Square. I owe him anincalculable debt of gratitude for thishelp, for which there was never anysuggestion of a fee.As I have said, during fire watchingwe discussed all manner of things inaddition to schoolwork. He used totalk about style in English andFrench. He admired Racine over Shakespeare‐ the classical precision of theFrench writer is something that I havetreasured ever since. Another writerwhose style he taught me to appreciatewas Chateaubriand. I cameacross a reference to Binder in anOxford publication. I cannot rememberexactly which book it was, but I havea vague memory that it was the OxfordDictionary of Clichés. Binder was referredto as ʹthat admirable prosewriter and acute dialecticianʹ. Ofcourse at that time I had no idea whata dialectician was and had neverheard of the Hegelian dialectic. Anotherphilosopher that he referred towas Heidegger. There was a phrase ‐ I