The Polytechnic School magazine, The Quintinian, was published at the end of each term. This is the complete wartime set: there was no Autumn 1944 edition. It has been re-formatted to facilitate printing on A4 paper though the original style and language have been retained.

First hand accounts by pupils tell of how 400 London schoolboys reach Minehead - some dashing home across Europe as war is declared - and adapt to rural life in a small Somerset town. One family makes a dramatic escape from Brussels whilst a boy tells of his time at a Nazi school and at a fascist summer camp. Pupils contribute their stories about spies and derring-do, poems on the war and bombing, on nature and the countryside, puzzles and jokes. These city boys describe their attempts at milking, hay-making, stag hunting, forestry and much more. Air Cadets and Air Scouts flourish with much model-making of aeroplanes, aircraft recognition and the occasional flight. Meanwhile, the Houses compete in sports, examinations are passed, plays are put on, and school life goes on.

Old Boys send letters, some from North America where they are learning to fly or from comfortable Cambridge University where rowing is kept up. Others have civilian jobs, especially in engineering. But mostly they write from training camps and on active service. Many are in the R.A.F., one is a prisoner of war. Inevitably, deaths and missing in action lists start to appear.

Pupils were asked in early 1944 what they will miss when they leave Minehead and what they are looking forward to back in London. These accounts are poignant. Boys are keen to rejoin their families but aware that homes have been destroyed and London is still under attack, and sad to be leaving friends. They would miss the Regal cinema, fish and chips and Woolworths but most of all the sea and the free and easy life in Minehead.

We are grateful to the evacuees who between them managed to assemble this set as a result of reunions they have held since 1991. Harold Beck (1935-42) converted them to digital format. You can read Quintinians on-screen plus much more about his time at the Polytechnic School on Harold's website.