The tale of two Lawrence Sheriff masters - one a spy and the other kept a loaded revolver under his pillow

Former Advertiser reporter John Phillpott examines the strange case of the Rugby teachers who were both involved in wartime espionage…

The masters at Lawrence Sheriff during my schooldays were very much authority figures.

Note that I refer to them as ‘masters,’ not teachers.

For that’s what they were… and therefore had to be accorded the degrees of respect that was expected from those beings to be found lower down the food chain in the

classroom jungle.

There were three kinds of masters. Those we feared, the soft touches we could play up, and then there was the type of individual who was respected because of his basic humanity and sense of fair play.

One day, during a quiet moment in physics class, the master asked the motley crew that was 4b if we had a favourite teacher.

Back came the resounding chorus of “Mr Baker, sir!”

The physics master – his name is now lost to the passage of time – asked why we liked Mr Baker so much.

Cue deafening silence from us, so the master obligingly filled in the gaps.

For after what seemed like an age, he said: “I know why Mr Baker is your favourite master. It’s because you think you can play him up, isn’t it?”

Cue what must have now been an ear-splitting period of quiet, other than a few nervous sniggers, from the now strangely mute denizens of the chemi lab.

Pinning us to our desks with his beady blue eyes, the master finally spoke.

“Yes, I guessed as much. But what would you say if I told you that Mr Baker is the bravest man I’ve ever met?

“The man you ‘play up’ was a spy for Britain during the Second World War – constantly at risk from betrayal, capture, torture and death.”

As you might imagine, we were absolutely flabbergasted.

In those days, teachers always signed exercise books using initials rather than Christian names, so we rarely learnt what their nearest and dearest

would have called them.

All that I remember about Mr Baker was that his nickname was ‘Satch’. I have no idea how this came about, other than it might have been a reference to the late, great jazz trumpeter Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong.

But did Mr Baker play the trumpet? I have no idea, so the origin of the name must remain a mystery, I’m afraid.

Whatever. It appears that Mr Baker was fluent in several European languages, including Spanish.

Through subterfuge, cunning and – above all else – sheer guts, he apparently flitted from one continental capital to another during the late 1930s and early 1940s, gleaning information that

was of vital importance as the war clouds gathered, and finally broke, over Europe in 1939.

Throughout the war, he apparently carried on his cloak and dagger existence in occupied Europe, arguably in constant mortal peril of discovery by the Germans or the Vichy French.

And yet, here we were, stupid and selfish adolescents, playing up a man whose briefcase we were barely fit to carry. From then on, the class of 4b had a newfound respect for ‘Satch’ and, to the best of my knowledge, never played him up again.

This was indeed a lesson in life for schoolboys who knew absolutely nothing of life.

Around the time of my days at Lawrence Sheriff School, there was another master who, it later transpired, had also led a clandestine life. I know his identity, but he shall remain nameless for various reasons, not least because my knowledge of his story is very sketchy.

All I know is that when he died, his relatives made a surprising discovery when they put his house in Rugby up for sale.

For hidden in the man’s bedroom they found a loaded revolver and a box of ammunition.

Apparently, ever since the end of the Second World War, the man had slept every night with the gun under his pillow.

Whatever he had done during the war, we cannot know.

It seems that he lived the rest of his life after 1945 in constant fear for his life.

But what was the cause of his anxiety, this terror of someone taking retribution that led to him shutting his eyes every night not knowing whether they would open again in the morning?

During my years as a reporter on the Rugby Advertiser, I met some fascinating characters, most of them people who proclaimed their eccentricities, talents or otherwise.

But sometimes, the really interesting people are those whose lives are closely guarded secrets, tightly shut books, the pages of which are only turned by accident or persistent probing.

In the case of ‘Satch’ the story only slipped out during what was probably an unguarded moment on the part of the physics master, who presumably felt secure in the knowledge that his revelations could not bring about any harm.

But the tale of the man with the gun under his pillow was different… for whatever were his dark secrets, he took them with him to the grave.

John Phillpott’s third book titled Go and Make the Tea, Boy! published by Brewin Books, is now on sale.