Daily Mirror, London, 26 April 1958, p.5

Prefects swoop on the vodka

By David Thurlow

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THE school prefects decided there was too much smoking, which was against the rules, by the senior boys.

So the prefects — at Felsted School, near Braintree, Essex — raided the 380 senior boys’ lockers and tuck-boxes, looking for cigarettes …

They found cigarettes … HUNDREDS of them. But they also found things they were not expecting —

* Two hundred rounds of 8.22 calibre ammunition, some twelve-bore shotgun cartridges, and an air pistol;

* Miniature bottles of gin, brandy, whisky and vodka, and bottles of beer.

30 Caned

After the swoop, more than thirty boys were caned by prefects.

Others — including those who had the ammunition — were sent to be dealt with by their housemasters.

Nobody was expelled from the school, which charges up to £324 a year fees for his 500 boys, and has the Home Secretary, Mr. R.A. Butler, on the board of governors.

Last night the headmaster of Felsted, Mr. H.E. Reekie, said: “Neither I nor the masters were brought into the search. The prefects decided on it themselves.”

Mr. Reekie added: “The boys caught with cigarettes and miniature bottles of spirits were mainly aged fifteen and sixteen.

“They probably did it out of bravado.”