in bed". Benjamin Britten, Hedli Anderson and William Coldstream visited Auden at the school several times to work on their collaboration for the GPO Film Unit, and to perform music and teach art to the pupils. Among the poems that Auden wrote at the Downs were Hearing of harvests; his evocation of his Vision of Agape in June 1933, Out on the lawn I lie in bed (later dedicated to Geoffrey Hoyland); Our hunting fathers; Look, stranger; and, during his return in 1937, the despairing Schoolchildren. He was particularly taken with one of his pupils, Michael Yates, with whom he fell in love for some years and later maintained a lifelong friendship. Auden's time at The Downs was one of the happiest periods in his life. The epigraph to Auden's posthumously published play The Chase (written in 1935) was a poem by a Downs pupil, John Bowes, which had been mocked by the other pupils in Auden's class. Auden rebuked them, saying that the poem was not only satisfactory but that he would use it in his next book. Bowes (later second master at Bryanston School) and Auden corresponded in later years, and Auden stayed with Bowes and his wife in Cheltenham in 1972. Downs Light Railway The Downs Light Railway is a distinctive feature of the school. This miniature-gauge railway was begun in 1925 and, complete with a tunnel under Brockhill Road and a station, is situated within the school grounds. It maintains working engines under both steam and petrol power and is used as an extra-curricular activity to teach pupils a range of skills. Former pupils Derek Bangham (1924–2008), research scientist James I. C. Boyd, railway historian Gurney Braithwaite, Conservative politician Percy Browne, politician and business man John Crabtree, lawyer and businessman; Lord Lieutenant of the West Midlands Sir Lawrence Gowing RA, painter Sir Alan Hodgkin , neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Humphrey Kay (1923–2009), pathologist and haematologist Richard Mason, novelist Peter Parker, author and journalist Drummond Hoyle Matthews FRS, geologist and marine geophysicist Will Merrick, actor Lionel Penrose, medical expert and mathematician Frederick Sanger , biochemist and the fourth person to become a double Nobel Laureate Charles Settrington, Lord March of Goodwood A. J. P. Taylor , historian Donald Wright, schoolmaster Michael Yates, television designer References Citations Bibliography Jim Brown, The First Five: The Story of a School (1988) External links School website The Downs Light Railway Trust