John “Johnny” Scragg was a Steyning Grammar School teacher from 1936 and Headmaster from 1944-68.
Some boys knew him as The Leopard as they never knew when he was going to pounce on them. He would appear from nowhere when they least expected, or wanted him.
Known as “Scraggy” by the boys, they never took liberties but they knew he only ever pretended to be an ogre.
Johnny and the previous Headmaster were both at, what was the Gold Coast, as staff at the Achimota College at Accra. Scragg become interested in, and retrained in, anthropology and moved up the country. It was at this time he contracted Malaria of which he suffered relapses of for the rest of his life.
Returning to England he was offered a temporary post at Steyning Grammar School by his past colleague. He lived in a ground floor pair of rooms in the school boarding house, staying there until he married in 1943. When the Headmaster at the time left, the Governors lost no time in appointing John as Headmaster to, it is said, the considerable alarm of the boys.
As a Headmaster he seemed rather remote and austere. When you met him after leaving the school you found a very different character, friendly, chatty, and eager to hear about what you had been doing. His wife Jean always said that as he left the house in the morning he put on the mask of a Headmaster and on returning in the evening took it off and hung it up as though it was a hat on a peg in the hall.
| Unit or location | Role | Posted from | until |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wiston Patrol | Patrol member | 03 Jul 1942 | 03 Dec 1944 |
Assistant schoolmaster
In 1939 he is an ARP Warden Chanctonbury Regional District Council with a Local Anti Gas Certificate.
During rationing Scraggy was allowed to shot on the Wilton Estate and would supplement the boys diet with many rabbits. He would sometimes appear in class in Auxiliary Unit uniform. He was chosen to be in the Patrol due to his excellent local knowledge from numerous school field trips. Though not a “local” he would have known the other men due to shooting around the Estate and an interest in local history meant he knew the area well. He was experienced in trekking and living off land from his time in the Gold Coast where he would travel for weeks on foot to visit remote tribes.
Shortly after the war John used some plastic explosives to slice the top off a rookery as a London Hotel wanted rooks for game pie.
Later on John would show his Fairbairn Sykes knife to people and would demonstrate how to mould plastic explosives.
His son Charles remembered his father speaking of driving with Captain Cooper, with a break for refreshment at the George and Dragon at Houghton, to Stansted with a load of high explosives. This was after the Patrols had been stood down and the gamekeeper there was responsible for collecting the unused explosives.
Charles Scragg
TNA ref WO199/3391
1939 Register
George Barker and his book “Nudes at Breakfast”
Tony Abrahams