Visited schools and found everything absolutely bloody marvellous ! Fanny Leon

Can you believe it ? 

Yesterday SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN PEOPLE read what I drafted for the chapter LEON THE NAME BEHIND A SCHOOL. Can I share now the DRAFT ending for the chapter.

The Leon Family lived in Bletchley Park throughout The Great War which is fully explained in the previous chapter. Both Sir Herbert and Lady Fanny had passed on when the Second World War broke out.  Born on 11^th February 1850 Sammy left us on 23^rd July 1926. Lady Fanny Leon followed her husband on 19^th January 1937.  Both were spared the horrors of World War Two but their home, Bletchley Park, took on a role which has gone down in history beyond anything either could have imagined.

World War Two grew directly out of The Great War – the war to end all wars !  The Cold War then grew out of World War Two where Leon School played a part and secretly was part of a larger government strategy which has now been forgotten.

School dinners have never been an appetising feature in any school but the kitchen and dining

room at Leon were designated as a refuge area in the event of a nuclear attack. The nuclear attack warning siren for Bletchley was located on the roof of the Lower School Tower Block. How fortunate neither were needed but as the Cold War came to its end Leon School did its bit.

The Berlin Wall came down on 22^nd December 1989. Those of us old enough to remember shed a tear as we watched the news reports on TV. Then as Eastern Europe began to open up the eyes of the West fell upon some sad stories. Leon teacher  Peter Cutler presented an idea which Headmaster Bruce Abbot gave his approval. Peter and I then presented it  to the Leon Students who enthusiastically took it into their hearts.

Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ordered that families in his country were to have many children so increasing the population. He and his wife, Elena, were executed on Christmas Day 1989. When it became known just how many Romanian children were living in spartan orphanages as their parents simply could not look after them all kinds of people and organisations in Britain sent aid trucks to Romania. Leon School made up one of those trucks which Peter Cutler, his son and I drove to Romania. We drove the truck but on board we had the support of every member of the school. Not only in the hundreds of bags of clothing, food and gifts but the love every Leonite pupil had wrapped around them

It must have been around Eater 1990 I guess that this adventure happened. No satellite navigation in those day, maps of Eastern Europe were not particularly accurate. No internet. No Google. No mobile phones, smart or otherwise. The drive from Milton Keynes England to Budapest Romania, 1,649 miles, was not without incident. As I recall things there were only a few miles without an incident.

Peter Cutler was in charge but I had the job of planning the route via France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary and into Romania. What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men ?

There were the three of us driving the truck. Two hours behind the wheel, two hours navigation and two hours resting.

Leaving Bletchley’s Lakes Estate we headed for Junction 13 on the M1. It was closed due to an accident. An alternative route via the A5, Saint Albans and London Colney to the M25.

A P&O ferry to Calais. NO ! The French were doing some form of protest, as the French do, at the port on their side of the English Channel so we had to take an alternative boat to Ostend in Belgium, where the natives would not know a protest if it smacked them in the face. No problem, a nap in a cabin onboard the ferry and we were set to start driving in friendly Belgium.

Germany ! In 1990 there were two German countries: West Germany and The German

Democratic Republic of East Germany. Our paperwork was forensically analysed, our passports were photocopied and faxed to the exit border control with Austria. We were charged an extortionate fee for the inconvenience and hold up. The border guards wore guns so hold up is not a metaphor.

I do not know if it is still the case but driving in Germany in 1990 was different to the roads in England. On the autobahn, the German motorway system, there was no speed limit.

Goods vehicles on German roads were, in places, forced to drive only on the inside lane. The right hand lane as Germany drives on the wrong side of the road. This rule applied when crossing a bridge or driving up a steep hill. I am sure the Germans built extra bridges and navigated their roads up as many hills as possible just to frustrate our journey. We were not in a heavy goods vehicle, we were driving a seven and a half tonner so not subject to the rule but better to be safe than sorry, we never knew where the German police would be lurking.

All trucks were banned from driving on European roads on Sundays but this ban had been lifted for all aid trucks en route to Romania. There were so many aid trucks heading for Romania, dozens of them. It was obvious which trucks were on this mission, we would flash our headlights and wave to one another.

Planning for the journey, I had taken empty five gallon containers to ‘bus and coach companies, to haulage business and to filling stations where I put operators under pressure to donate fuel, a minimum of five gallons, in these containers. So in the back of the truck we had enough diesel to take us all the way to Romania and a hundred or so miles along the return journey.

Into Austria leaving Germany behind, phew !  We spent the night in a local hotel, very nice, before heading in the morning to Hungary. Not so nice.

I remember as a small child saying to my father that Hungary was an odd name for a country. I am guessing  that would have been at the time of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. My father responded saying it was called Hungary because the people there were hungry.

As our aid truck crossed into Hungary we were not aware that Hungarian truck drivers were in dispute with their government over fuel prices. Trucks were blockading the border with Romania. It looked as if our journey was over and we would have to turn round to head for home. Sod that !  How were the other aid trucks getting through ?

I approached a Hungarian trucker and bribed him with $50 US to let us through. Form him that was almost two weeks wages so obviously he did not turn us away. We were taken down a track and into a field. Then another field, and another field and another field until we were in Romania never having seen a border post.

Reaching our destination we unloaded at the orphanage then turned to head back home. Maps came out, we could not go through Hungary so a circular route round the country was needed. That was going to have to be through Yugoslavia, that country does not exist today, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and finally France.

On the way to the Yugoslavian border our truck was stopped at gun point by a lone Romanian soldier. Obviously a conscript he looked all of sixteen years old. With the collapse of communism did Romania have an army anymore ?  This lad was freelancing.

In a friendly and polite way but still with his rifle ready the soldier took me to the back of the truck and had me open the shutter. “Oh you are empty !” He said in English – well I can’t speak Romanian can I ! “What can I have ? Orphans get everything, I need something.”

Back at the cab we gave him a few bits and pieces.  Seeing a torch under the driver’s seat he picked it up and said, “For me ?”

No way !  We may need that.  I took it out of his hands. He did not shoot me, we shook hands and our truck was on its way home.

In Belgrade we were lost. We saw a young man and tried to ask for directions.

“Go down the road, up the hill then take the first right. Go round the roundabout then follow the signs.”

Wow ! Perfect English and perfect geographical knowledge.

Next problem. About ten years earlier while on holiday in Italy I had been on a day visit to the then communist Yugoslavia. I remembered there were tolls on its motorway system. We had no local currency and did not even know what it was. Fortunately the US dollar, of which we had a good supply, is universal so was accepted both at the toll booth and at the filling station.

Many miles later, and I do mean many miles later, in Calais the French had given up whatever silly nonsense the French delight in, I think it was the fishermen protesting about the size of the holes in their nets or something like that, we were on a ferry and back to the calm of British soil and to report on our adventure to the lovely Leonite students who had made it possible.

Wars, why do we need them ?  During the Falklands War former Leon pupils were serving in the armed forces. When the Gulf War broke out Headmaster Abbott received a secret memo from The Ministry of Education which he shared with his heads of year. It spoke of how we were to cope when the body bags came back. Thank god that did not happen and the memo was consigned to the rubbish bin.

A former student was serving in the army during that Gulf War. He came and spoke with our year group. The inevitable question was asked: Did you kill anyone ? He explained that he had, it had been a case of the enemy or himself. Later his mother explained to me that being able to get that off his chest and to share what happened had been so important in helping him to move on.

Leon School, Sammy you would be so proud of what your Leonites achieved.

When a new charity was set up in Milton Keynes the school ran a twenty-four hour sponsored disco to support the new Willen Hospice.

In the early planning stages for Milton Keynes Community Trust which today does do much in our town the new chief executive officer addressed a Leon assembly explaining the new organisation’s ambitions.

Bruce Abbott had his school take part in a media photoshoot launching the very first Comic Relief Red Nose Day.

Today tinned harvest festivals for The Food Bank are common but Leon was ahead of its time holding such assemblies before anyone ever thought of a Food Bank.

My year group was twinned with Sutter Junior High School in Sacramento USA. For our first

visit to California we flew with Pan Am. The flight purser went out of her way to look after the Leon School party, she was a lovely lady. She wrote to Headmaster Bruce Abbott saying what a pleasure it had been to have Leon School on her aircraft. When terrorists blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie on Wednesday 21^st  December 1988 she was the purser on that aircraft.

Leonites can be found in almost every profession you can think of: Doctors, Nurses, Police Officers, Lawyers, Writers, Photo Journalists, Radio Presenters, Skilled Craftsmen in all professions, Teachers, Community Workers, Local Councillors – Milton Keynes Mayor is a Leonite.

I refer back to an early paragraph in this chapter:

As a student teacher the last, the very last place to which we wanted to be assigned for teaching practice was Leon School on the Lakes Estate. Kindly many referred to this new development as The Lakes Mistake while I clearly remember the local newspaper in report using the words Bletchley’s infamous Lakes Estate !

What rubbish those words say. Leon School, what an incredible site within the early times of Milton Keynes. Sammy Leon you would be so proud Headmaster Bradshaw decided to use your name for his school. Lady Fanny Leon, I doubt you would have used words of excess but:

Visited schools and found everything satisfactory. Fanny  Leon

would be better written as:

Visited schools and found everything absolutely bloody marvellous !  Fanny  Leon