Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode

82, Hero.

The surroundings of Hero during the time of Winston's entrance were very different

than today.

Although just to the northwest of London, Windsor could be seen on a clear day.

The school was only a dot among open fields and the rolling English landscape.

The old boys, or old herovians, graduates from Harrow before Churchill's time, talked

in rather tense tones of the changes coming to their beloved school.

The railway was getting too close, bicycles were all over the place, and, quote, annihilating

distance, unquote.

These former students were happy with the school as it was, change was automatically viewed

as bad.

Heroean traditions were sacred and guarded fanatically.

One tradition was that the food was horrible, but that's the way it had always been, so

the new students, once they found this out, needed hefty allowances in order to buy enough

outside food to survive.

So the private tuck shops on high in west streets did very well during the semesters.

It was the same with any books, not of classical literature.

Get them in town.

Another tradition was the boys always saw their masters or teachers as the natural enemy,

because in it felt right the unspoken war between the two groups.

And Winston's time at Harrow would bring this particular tradition to new heights.

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