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worries. Aeronautical engineering is an expensive business and, alongside some lavish lifestyle choices, it may be speculated that the family kept moving to di erent residences through the 1920s to side step their creditors. One wonders whether Millicent ever saw the rent for St Serf’s paid on time, or indeed at all! The De Boloto s lived in a number of places in Kent, Sussex and London. But their luck seemed to run out having arrived with a large retinue at Kingswood House in Dulwich, where they were taken to court. The story has it that Princess Marie then feigned madness in a bid to escape her financial liabilities! One of Serge’s undoubted successes, however, was a two-seater biplane built in 1919. It was powered by a 200hp Curtiss 8-cylinder water-cooled geared engine and had a 36’ wingspan. Serge de Boloto died in 1955, at the age of 66 and Rosalie his wife in 1977. They are buried together in Putney Vale Cemetery.

Such a move was an adjustment for these pupils and their families. Children and their families were suddenly separated. Their daily attendance at the ‘Froebel Day School’ was supplanted by residence at a temporary ‘Froebel Boarding School’. Parents and children were induced to exchange letters with one another. Whilst the distance was significant, these communications o ered a temporary replacement for natural exchanges which might have occurred in the family home. Robbed of these opportunities by war, pupils and their parents tried to remedy feelings of homesickness by sharing a glimpse of their quotidian lives. The School Archives include letters between parents and their son Michael (aged 6–10) whilst he resided at Denison House. In October 1943 or 1944, Michael sent the following to his father, sharing his progress at school and eagerly anticipating ‘Parents’ Day’. The signature – replete with ‘x’s and ‘o’s demonstrates his strong feelings for his distant parent. ‘Dear Daddy, I can do my tie now. I have finished Book IV in Reading. Miss Duncan says I am getting on very well. We have made a village and I will show it to you on Parents’ Day with love form Michael. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxooooooo’ These feelings were not the sole remit of children at Little Gaddesden. Parents also expressed concern about the distance between themselves and their children owing to war-time evacuation. A letter written by Barbara Priestman to a parent illustrates this di cult transition. After speaking to the parent on the telephone, Priestman reassures the parent that her son is coping well, which is a testament to his up-bringing. Whilst the parents wishes to imminently visit her son in person, she advises her to wait a little bit longer. This brand of ‘homesickness’ which was facilitated by distant family communications was a perennial issue in this episode of School history. Although teachers made every e ort to perpetuate ‘normal life’ for their pupils at Denison House, undoubtedly children – and their families – were relieved when the war ended in 1945. In 1946, the ‘Froebel Boarding School’ inhabiting Denison House relocated to Ibstock Place House, bringing pupils back home, in more ways than one.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

AN HISTORICAL PROFILE

Writing Home During Evacuation Feeling homesick during the Second World War

Aviator Serge de Bolotoff Early resident of St Serf ’s House

While Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland and Major J B Paget have been long associated with the house that would become Ibstock Place School, evidence for another colourful character who lived at ‘St Serf’s’, as it was known prior to 1925, has emerged through recent research. This came to light following scrutiny of the final line of a Country Life article which appeared in the October edition of 1920, over a hundred years ago. This simple sentence states: ‘The house is now in the occupation of Mr Serge de Boloto .’ aristocrat, and Mr Constantine de Boloto , a “London proprietor”. He was present at an inaugural meeting at Claridge’s Hotel on 6 November 1908 when a new club was formed “devoted to the advancement of flying machines of the heavier than air type”. At the meeting, it was pointed out that “up to the present not a great deal had been done in this country to advance the science of the aeroplane, whereas in foreign countries, and especially in France, great strides have been made recently.” Serge de Boloto , along with his brother George, was made one of a number of vice-presidents of this new Aeroplane Club. His relative youth and inexperience were clearly no impediment to his ambitions in this nascent aviation industry. A few months later, on 9 January 1909, an article which appeared in the Daily Telegraph made it clear that among the seven entries received by that date for the £1,000 competition o ered by the Daily Mail newspaper to be awarded to the first person to fly across the English Channel, one had been received from ‘Prince Serge Boloto ’. It must therefore Prince Serge Victor de Boloto was born in Bulgaria in 1889 the son of Princess Marie Wiazemsky, a Russian

have been with some disappointment that Serge Boloto watched, along with the rest of England, on 25 July 1909, as Frenchman Louis Blériot landed in his aircraft in Kent to claim the prize. De Boloto married at the Russian Embassy in August 1918, although his family’s relationship with the Russian government of the time is uncertain. His mother Princess Wiazemsky’s aristocratic relations and contacts back in Russia surely cannot have thrived under the Bolsheviks following the country’s October 1917 revolution. Yet he was clearly regarded warmly enough for a request for his nuptials to be held at the embassy to be granted. Serge’s bride was the eldest daughter of Harry Selfridge, of Selfridge’s Oxford Street department store fame. Selfridge had a strong interest in aviation and presciently saw that it represented the future of travel. Rosalie, whom Serge called ‘Rosebud’, was one of three sisters. Her sister Violette also married an aviator, the Vicomte Jacques Jeande Sibour, and was an accomplished pilot herself. Violette co-piloted a round-the-world voyage with him in a two-seater plane, later publishing a book titled, ‘Flying gypsies: the chronicle of a 10,000 mile air vagabondage’. It is interesting to note that Serge de Boloto (Leon Ockenden) and his mother Princess Marie Wiazemsky (Zoë Wannamaker) featured as characters in the ITV series ‘Mr Selfridge’ (Season Three), albeit with poetic licence taken in their fictional interpretation. One thing, however, that was not misrepresented in the TV series was that the De Boloto family was plagued with money

Written by Chris Banfield, Senior Master.

The term ‘homesick’ also first entered common parlance during the late 18th century. It was first deployed in 1748 within a religious hymnbook

be evacuated from large cities, if the anticipated war in Europe inaugurated.

This plan proceeded two days before Britain declared war on Germany (on 3 September 1939). On 1 September, Operation Pied Piper was initiated. This Operation oversaw the evacuation of 800,000 children from urban targets, including London. Pupils from Froebel Demonstration School were among these masses. In 1939 the Headmistress – Barbara Priestman – began house hunting for a temporary home, which was as close to London ‘as seem[ed] compatible with safety’. A house which would provide a safe haven for these children was prioritised; Priestman was delighted to locate one house in Hertfordshire which fulfilled these requirements. This so-called Denison House ‘was entirely renovated by an American who understands the need for warmth and light.’ Within a few months of the new academic year, pupils from Froebel Demonstration School had moved to this Denison House in Hertfordshire – their new home for the next few years.

and denoted a spiritual feeling of ‘homesickness’. These ideas

expanded beyond the spiritual realm, encompassing a growing sentimentalism for the family home as it changed from the locus of a family’s business & residence to something more. To be ‘homesick’ mourned more than the distance from the safe space of home, however. Its popularity in the 18th century came to represent not only a longing for the space of home, but also for its people. By the middle of the 19th century, homesickness was a veritable clinical illness, devastating its victims who longed for home. Froebel Demonstration School pupils – and their families – learned the di culties of navigating these powerful feelings during the Second World War as they were separated from their childhood homes and families. When the Second World War erupted in 1939, myriads of school pupils were relocated. A report published in 1938 indicated that children might need to

Courtesy of Archive, Institution of Mechanical Engineers