The final countdown. (School days Part4)

The car park light.

In the 1950's & 60's schools considered the pupils to be ambassadors for their schools, even off the premises and out of school hours. Near our school was a public house and it had illuminated lights at the entrance & exit to it's car park. Over a weekend one of the lights got smashed and a neighbour recognised some of the boys responsible but, instead of telling their parents they informed the school.

Monday morning assembly saw the boys punished, and the school paid for the damage and claimed the money from the boys' parents. This wouldn't happen now of course.

The Woodwork teacher.

The woodwork teacher always seemed to be in a bad mood and very aggressive. He kept small (and not so small) off cuts of wood lined up along his desk to throw at misbehaving pupils in class, for talking, laughing or just day dreaming. The bits of wood often hit the wrong pupil.

On one occasion a pupil was called out to the front and was about to get the cane but, to our shock and amazement the boy said NO, I WONT. The teacher went purple, we thought he was about to have a heart attack! Again he ordered the boy to hold out his hand for the cane but he said “my dad says if any teacher tries to cane you, you're to refuse and refer them to me”. The teacher marched the boy off to the head master, who sent the boy home.

The boys father was a managing director of a well know company in town. The next day the boy returned with a letter from the company solicitor stating what would happen if he wasn't allowed back or if any other attempt was made to cane him in the future.

That boy never had woodwork lessons again, but had extra English & Maths lessons instead.

It must have stood him in good stead however as, after leaving the secondary modern school he went on to train as, and successfully become a teacher. His first post as a teacher was, would you believe, the secondary modern school we had all attended, and the woodwork teacher was still there. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the staff room!

“The Cricket Match”

You may recall I said the geography teacher ran a school cricket team, it was an out of hours affair and the team would play against other school teams at weekends. Well some wag dreamed up the idea of the pupils cricket team challenging a team made up of teachers and to everyone's surprise, the challenge was accepted. It took place just before the school broke up for the six week summer break, out of hours one evening, and it drew quite a good crowd. I've never seen so many “bouncers” or generally aggressive bowling by by the pupils team. It was all over in less than an hour.

At the next morning assembly the head master announced the result and congratulated the boys cricket team on their win and, surprisingly, he had a slight smile when doing so and I'm certain he had to assert plenty of control to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

“Five a side Football tournament”

Although I was very bad at football and had very little interest in it, a view I hold to this day, the annual 5 a side football tournament was always something I looked forward. It was a knockout competition and took most of the day to complete and was held in normal school hours, so we got off lessons. 

School leaving day!

The day I had looked forward to for so long finally arrived, leaving day!

I left school still aged 14 as my 15^th birthday was during the Christmas school holidays before school opened again in the New Year. It was one of the best days of my life, up to that point, but not everyone enjoyed it.

At the end of each term we pupils would go to the metal work and woodwork classes to collect our finished pieces of work to take home. At the woodwork classroom the teacher began handing our work out and when he got to one pupils' piece he held it back saying “are you seriously going to take this home”? It was a pencil case and to be honest, was pretty awful. The boy said yes he was, very proudly. Then the woodwork teacher told the boy “it needs a bit of an adjustment” and put the pencil case into a vice, slowly turned the handle and reduced it to matchwood! After putting the bits in a bag he handed it to the distraught boy saying “maybe you now wish you'd paid a bit more attention in class when making this”. The boy, to his credit, never flinched but accepted the bag, thanked the teacher and took it home!

A final footnote.

After leaving school I had a job in the building trade but then became a telephone engineer working for British Telecom, a job I held up to my retirement. On several occasions I had telephone work to do at my old school and on one occasion I came face to face with the teacher that had punished me more than any other, the strict games teacher. He recognised me, but now I was an adult and he treat me as an equal, he asked me if I had enjoyed my time there. I just couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth, something I've regretted bitterly.

On another job at my old school I was accompanied by a much younger colleague who had also been at the school. We were doing work in the head masters study, not the one I remembered, he had retired long ago, but this head had been there while my colleague was a pupil.

The head master was chiding a boy for not working hard enough and told him that if he didn't do well at his forthcoming exams he might end up with a lowly job, like these two telephone engineers. In a flash, my colleague said “but if you fail to pass your exams, you can always become a teacher”!

I wanted the ground to open up but the head master obviously remembered my colleague from school and answered “you always were a gobby so and so” and just laughed.

These have been my recollections of an unhappy period of my life at school, today's pupils have a much better, easy going time and to quote Monty Python, if you were to tell them now, how things were then, “they wouldn't believe you”

Games lessons and being a "leftie" (School days Part3)

Games lessons.

We had 2 games lessons a week, I wasn't very good at sports, but I could run so was in the school cross country team. In the summer we did athletics & in the winter it was football and occasionally hockey on a hard pitch if the sports field was too wet.

Cricket was only for public schools and grammar schools, although we did have an out of hours (extra curricular) team that the geography teacher ran.

I dreaded games lessons, the boys were divided into two groups, a group for each of the two games teachers, I always found myself in the group with the same teacher. One of the games teachers was quite popular, strict but fair whilst the other teacher was very strict to the point of being sadistic. He used corporal punishment far more than most teachers and treat it as a performance. He didn't use a cane, preferring to use his own gym plimsoll and he administered the punishment at the end of the games period, in the gymnasium, with all the boys watching. The lad to be punished had to bend over touching his toes and the teacher would start his run up (like a bowler) from some distance; by the time he administered the blow it would be so fierce it invariably knocked the boy to the floor!

The Rugby Ball.

A young student games teacher came to our school for his practical learning experience and was a keen rugby player. He came for the autumn to Christmas term which would have been when we switched back to football, but he wanted to teach us rugby, the older and harsher games teacher objected and said that wasn't possible anyway as our school didn't even have a rugby ball. The young student said that wasn't a problem as he'd brought his own, so we played rugby! He was assigned all the lads that were very bad at football, which thankfully included me and we enjoyed some wonderful games lessons for the rest of that year.

When school reconvened in the new year, the student games teacher had left, having finished his stint. At the first games lesson we asked if we could continue playing rugby, as the student teacher had kindly left his ball with us to continue playing. The games teacher refused and put the rugby ball into a dustbin outside saying “woe betide anyone who removes that ball”!

I mentioned how we played hockey on days the school field wasn't fit due to being water logged. On one of these occasions I was playing in goal. I became aware of a circle of faces looking down at me, which was strange. It became apparent I'd been hit square on the forehead with the hockey ball, which is very hard like a cricket ball, and had been knocked clean out. I later had a large egg shaped lump there. The games master came over, sat me up and then asked me if I could stand, which I did. He said that I looked OK and we carried on with the game!

Being left handed.

I'm left handed, in fact I can do most things with both hands equally as well, but not when it comes to handwriting. In my working life I could use any tool in either hand which was a really useful skill to have, but not writing.

In my last year at school, we had a new teacher arrive, she taught English and religious instruction. It was to be her last teaching job leading up to her retirement and she had only ever taught girls and told us straight away that she didn't like boys! At the start of each class with her she would hand out the exercise books she'd been marking from the previous lesson, when it came to my book she asked me why my handwriting sloped backwards. I said it was because I was left handed and I had to angle it that way to avoid smudging what I had just written. To which she replied that “writing with ones left hand was not only unnatural but unacceptable”

and that from this day forth I would write with my “correct”, right hand! I had been writing with my left hand for 10+ years and try as I might, couldn't do it. So I carried on with my left hand but managed to slope my writing FORWARDS, hoping she wasn't watching me. The following week she announced, very smugly, to me and the whole class that I could actually write with my right hand, as proven by my written work now sloping forward in the correct, normal manner.

On another occasion my left-handedness also caused me a problem. My name had been called out on leaving morning assembly so I presented myself at the head masters study for the cane. After removing his cape and putting it away in his locker he brought out his cane which was also kept there. He refereed to it as “his assistant” and told me to ready myself so I raised my RIGHT HAND as my left hand was for writing, and wouldn't be able to write with it after getting it caned. He almost exploded shouting “do you think I'm stupid boy? Raise the other hand”. He then raised my left arm up with his cane and whacked my left hand very hard. I told him I was left handed and he caned me on that hand too “for being insolent and deceitful” by not saying so in the first place.

Morning assembly. (School days Part2)

Daily Routine.

Each day at school started with morning assembly which took place in the school hall. Some of the teaching staff would be up on the stage and all the pupils would file in, finally followed in by the headmaster. He was always dressed in his graduation cape but (thankfully) not a mortarboard. We would sing a hymn, a member of staff might read a short lesson followed by prayers.

Then the head would read out any notices, school team successes, perhaps football or netball plus any academic achievements. Once a year this would include the annual prize giving event.

Afterwards the pupils would file out past the headmaster, if your name was called out while passing him, you knew to go to his office and wait there. You also knew you were about to get the cane for misdemeanours he'd seen you commit during assembly.

Daily assembly wasn't something we looked forward to.

It wasn't all bad.

I enjoyed some of my time at senior school and Science lessons were always uplifting. The teacher was great and made it all seem so exciting, so we paid attention and I don't remember anything unpleasant.

Same with the Art class, the art teacher was a lovely man, he seemed quite elderly (probably wasn't) he treat us pupils as equals

and always had encouraging things to say about our work, however poor it might have been. Mine was awful.

Metalwork was a favourite lesson for me, it was all practical working with my hands and using tools. We did forge work, turning things on the lathe and made practical items. I still have a screwdriver I made.

During metalwork and joinery lessons the girls went off to Domestic Science lessons where they learned how to cook, sew and do ironing! Not very PC at all.

The metalwork teacher was ok, very strict but fair, however, he was the teacher that the lady teachers sent boys to for punishment and I often saw him dishing out the cane. Fortunately I never got sent to him for caning.

School uniform.

In the 1950's & 60's all school pupils had to wear a uniform, have polished shoes and look clean and smart. Woe betide anyone arriving at school not conforming to this rule. On one occasion, on my way to school, a car drove through a muddy puddle and drenched my trousers and feet. I rushed home, managed to find a clean pair of trousers but no clean grey school socks, so I put on the whatever I could find. I was just in time for assembly but as I was leaving my name was called out, in a more angry manner than usual, by the headmaster. Off I went to wait by his study with a few other lads. The head dealt with them first then boomed at me “how dare you come to school wearing RED SOCKS”. He'd spotted them as I was exiting the assembly and I got the cane with what seemed to be more effort than usual!

A few more memories. (School days Part1)

Five years ago I said I was closing the "40's Boy" blog but I've decided I still have one or two things to say and talk about.

While we've been confined to our houses because of the virus I decided to read back through some of my 40's Boy posts, mainly to pass the time.  I was reminded of the posts regarding my school days and that I only covered my experiences at school up to the age of 11.  

These days we refer to year 1 or year 6 etc. when recalling a childs progress through school, and now of course they remain at school until they are 18 years old!  We started at age 5 and finished (in most cases) when we reached 15 years old.  We started at the Infant School when we were 5, then we progressed to the Junior School at age 7 years and finally, aged 11 years we went to Senior School.

In my case I went to a Secondary Modern School, which was a new inovation just after WW2.  In those days there were three choices for a childs senior education, if you came from a wealthy family you could pay to go to a private  school (strangely called Public Schools). But the rest of us took our 11-Plus exams and if we passed with a high enough grade we were able to go to a Grammar School; if you didn't quite make that grade then, like most kids, it would be a Secondary Modern School, which is were I went. 

So, why didn't I post anything about my time at the Secondary Modern School?  In a word, I HATED IT (that's 3 words) most days were filled with apprehension, unhappiness and fear, they were the worst 4 years of my life.  So why now, why even mention it?  While remembering the happy days recalled in my 40's Boy blog I started to relive my time at the senior school and I realised that by direct comparison to how todays kids are educated, my memories could be thought of as a social commentary on the changing times and worlds apart from the education system we know now.

I have no photographs from my final years at school and I wont be naming the school, or any of the teaching staff there, for reasons that will become very obvious.  So here goes.

1958.

I progressed to the Secondary Modern School in 1958.  Secondary Modern schools were introduced in 1944 and remained unchanged until 1970 and  were to cope with the large increase in children born after WW2 known as the "Baby Boomers".  They were co-educational schools with both boys and girls sat together in big classes of 40 + children.  National Service continued for several years after WW2 ended and when men finished it they could  opt for a short teacher training scheme and go straight into a career as teachers.  This boosted the number of teachers required.

I'm afraid some of them brought the tough regime of National Service with them into the classrooms.

Corporal punishment was commonly used in those days to instil discipline and administered by the male teachers, but only to the boys.

So, I've set the scene and in my next few posts I'll recount some of my memories of my final years at school.