“I was at QMGS from 1973 to 1980, and I was fortunate enough to get my name down for a number of trips to Farchynys, especially, when as a sixth former, I went as a helper taking first-year pupils for their first visit to the Coach House.

One particular memory was the MOG bed.

Some years before, an unknown pupil had painted the word ‘MOG’ in luminous paint on the wall by one of the upper bunks in the dorm. Even after painting over it, the word could still be seen as soon as the lights were turned out. When first-year pupils were taking their inaugural trip, we would talk on the minibus and assure them that they would be okay staying away from home…. unless they were the unfortunate one to get the MOG bed. What or who was MOG nobody knew, but the mention of it instilled fear in them. Until lights out on the first night of a trip, no one knew who was sleeping in the MOG bed, but as soon as the word became visible, the unfortunate was identified, and immediately he would be on the receiving end of a salvo of pillows.

There was another time when, after lights out, we made a collection of discarded cans by sending pupils down the fire-escape with torches to find cans which had been thrown out by pupils on previous visits. It was all done quietly, and I recall we soon had a collection of over sixty, which on returning to the dorm, we stacked on one of the dorm beams. Amazingly, we completed this task without alerting any masters until eventually, after hearing loud laughter and applause, Mr Yates came into the dorm to see what the noise was about. He walked down the dorm and stood beneath the beam looking up at the cans when one bright spark threw a pillow and hit the stack smack in the centre, bringing down a rain of cans upon him. Mr Yates wasn’t best pleased, but it served him right for catching a huge spider earlier that evening and putting it under the kids’ noses to scare them.”

Glenn Pugh

Scout and Pokémon Professor

QM 1973-80