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.

1962, Camping, fishing and a surprised milkman + 1963, the big freeze.

1962 & 1963.

The blog has now arrived in the 1960's.  Some people say "if you can remember the 60's then you weren't there!"  It was the time of the Beatles, free love, drugs and music festivals so I suppose what they meant was, if you can remember the 60's you were there, you just didn't enjoy them as much as some people did!

Well I was there and can remember the 60's so maybe I missed something?

 

While others might have been trying out new things and products, I was discovering the great outdoors, nature, birds (feathered) the countryside and generally having a very good time without doing any harm.

 

The weekends would see me and some friends heading off down the coast to Tetney Marshes for a spot of bird watching, fishing and camping.  When I say camping, forget modern hi-tech tents and equipment.  This was really basic seat of the pants camping, gathering wood for a fire, fetching water from a pump at the nearest houses and sleeping in small tents.  It was not only impossible to stand up in our tent but very difficult to sit up!  They had to be small though as everything we brought for a weekend had to be carried on our bikes. 

 

Here's me getting bedded down for the night.



Yours truly with more wood for the fire.  This shows how low the
tent was!

 

Before anyone gets the wrong idea here, one of my mates had an air rifle.  I don't remember anybody actually hitting anything let alone killing something.  That would have horrified me.  So why am I posing here with a pigeon?  We found it already dead out on the marshes and though it would make a good "trophy shot!".  No. we didn't eat it either!

Going back to the tent, somebody offered to lend us a large Blacks patrol tent, a popular choice of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides movement.  It was made from heavy duty waterproof canvas and supported on stout poles but , best of all it was huge.  It was 8 feet long, 6 feet wide and high with 3 feet high side walls so plenty of room to move around in.  The first time we took it out disaster struck, while we were nearby fishing a herd of cows came ambling along grazing as they passed by.  One cow however was curious about our tent and, after going into it to take a look decided to exit the tent through the back wall, tearing it from top to bottom!  We all chipped in to get it repaired but, needless to say, it wasn't offered for further camping trips.  Back to hands & knees tenting.

Another part of my outdoor life was biking.  Once I got a "proper bike" if I wasn't camping at the weekends I would go out with the CTC, the Cycling Tourist Club (of Great Britain) on one of the guided rides.  These rides weren't for speed, other racing clubs catered for that, these outings were purely to get out and see the countryside.  The motto of the CTC was "we ride at the speed and capabilities of the slowest riders" so it was a very friendly and gentle introduction to the pastime.

 

A friend and I decided to try a ride on our own and chose to ride to Mablethorpe, a small seaside resort on the east coast of Lincolnshire, about 35 miles away.

 



This is me, somewhere between Cleethorpes and Mablethorpe.



 

 

We set off just after dinner on a Saturday and arrived, quite late in Mablethorpe, as it was getting dark.  It had rained most of the way. 



My cycling companion Billy Antill as we arrived at Mablethorpe...in the rain!



 

We had our trusty (small) tent with us and needed somewhere to pitch it for the night.  After several enquiries in Fish & Chip shops we were told there was a field just  on the outskirts of the town that people sometimes camped in.  Off we went, by this time it was dark so when we found the field we were quite relieved and pitched our tent.  It continued to rain all night and our tent leaked.  In the morning we awoke quite early and could hear a milk float and the clinking of milk bottles so it must have been quite early.  I stuck my head out of the tent to see a very puzzled looking milkman staring at our tent.  A little while later I found out why, when we came out of our tent we realised that, in the dark of the previous night, we had pitched our tent on an area of grass adjacent to the Barclays Bank car park and we were still in the middle of the town! 

We were very wet after a miserable night in the leaky tent so decided to go straight back home, another 35 mile ride.  When we were almost home we stopped at a pub at Tetney Lock, about 6 miles from home and had a rest on their porch seating.

 



The Crown and Anchor pub, it's still there today.

I still fish at a lake opposite this pub.

Not sure if this is me or Billy resting here on the porch seating.

We had other, more successful bike rides but I'll always remember that one, and the surprised milkman too!

The winter of 1962 - 1963 was very cold.  Snow began to fall at the end of December 1962 and some places had 20 feet drifts isolating villages and remote areas.  On the east coast were we where there wasn't very much snow but, like the whole of the rest of the country, we experienced long periods of sub zero temperatures. 

 

January was the coldest since 1814 with temperatures as low as -19.4 degrees centigrade.  The sea froze in many places including here at Cleethorpes. 

 

February  brought more snow in many parts with a blizzard that lasted for 36 hours and winds reaching 81 mph!

 

A thaw set in in early March and the 6th March was the first frost free morning anywhere in Britain.  temperatures soared to 17 degrees centigrade and the snow thawed rapidly!





I took this picture showing the ice flows
around the pier at Cleethorpes in early 1963.

Another picture I took of one of the fountains
in the Kingsway Gardens on the seafront.

I started this blog in November 2014 with a description of the terrible winter being experienced by the people in Great Britain that year.  I was around but, as I was born on the 9th January that year, it passed me by completely. 

I started the blog as a collection of my memories, being a boy born in the 40's as part of the big baby boom which occurred just after WW2.  I've enjoyed bringing my memories to you, at times it's been a little harrowing for me but I do hope you've enjoyed reading them. 

 

I've decided to finish the blog here.



 

It seemed a very appropriate point to wind things up, I started with a record bad winter in 1947 and so the coldest winter in 100 years in 1963 was a good point to finish. 

 

Thank you for all your lovely comments, plusses on Google+ and the re-shares, I've really appreciated them all.

I'll continue with my lincolnshirecam blog, the link to it is on the link list alongside.

 

 

THANK YOU.

 

 



 



 



 

 

 



 

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



1953 to 1959.

For this post I'm just using a few photographs from the 50's with a little explanatory text.

 

Me and my sister Kathleen by the pier in 1953.

This little angel is me in 1953 aged 6.

Me in the garden of our new council house in 1954.

What a prat!  Me again, now in 1955.  Look at the short
trousers and the tank top! 

Kathleen in 1958 posing on my bike.

Me in 1958 diving into the Cleethorpes outdoor Swimming Pool.  As mentioned in an
earlier blog post it was the largest outdoor swimming pool in England.

Me & my mate Johnny Davis, again in 1958 and again at the Swimming pool.

Between 1958 and about 1963 we spent every day of our summer holidays at the swimming pool.  We bought season tickets on the day it opened for the summer season and prided ourselves on not missing a single day until it closed at the end of September.  Some days were really cold but we still went swimming!
 

Me with my hamster "Sammy" in 1958.

Kathleen with Sammy on her head, 1958.

Posing on my bike in 1958.

Me and my friend Carl Burgess, plus Sammy emerging
from my trouser pocket.


Carl was the one of 3 brothers, he was the youngest.  Next was Kieth, a couple of years older and then the eldest brother Dereck, who was four years older.  Over the years we lost touch so I was pleasantly surprised to meet up again with Dereck 4 years ago.  he is the water bailiff at the club lake I fish at!



Rubber to the rescue.

Last week I talked about the day to day lives of fishermen and their wives and mentioned also how hazardous it could be for their livelihood if the fishing trip was not a success.  There were other hazards for the fishermen, it was a hard life at sea and could often result in loss of life.

The sinking of a fishing trawler was, unfortunately, quite a regular occurrence. Many families in Grimsby and Kingston upon Hull, our near neighbours and also another large fishing port, lost husbands, fathers sons and brothers at sea.  Heavy seas, storms and ice would overwhelm the trawlers and cause the fishermen to abandon ship, often there wasn't even time for the men to take to the boats.  The lifeboats in the 1950's were of a rigid construction and made of wood and had to be swung out on derricks mounted to the decks and lowered into the water on ropes.  This took quite a while and involved a lot of effort, if the boat was taking on water and listing badly the lifeboats on one side of the boat would not be able to get down into the water.  If the boats were able to be launched and the men were able to get into them, they would then have to be rowed away from the sinking vessel in heavy seas and maybe in the pitch dark. These lifeboats were basically large, open rowing boats and would not last long in a heavy sea.

In 1954 representatives of the fishing industry gathered in Grimsby for a demonstration of the latest equipment to safeguard fishermen, rubber lifeboats!  They had been used to rescue the 8 man crew of the Icelandic trawler Gladour who had drifted for 22 hours in a gale off Iceland before being sighted and picked up by the trawler Hull City.  They all survived.  The skipper of Hull City (a Grimsby boat) was so impressed with the life saving capabilities of these new rubber life rafts he got permission to bring one back to Grimsby to show it to fishery representatives.

The new raft could be launched by one man by simply pulling on a single painter line attached to it,once it was in the water.  The valise burst open exposing the raft which inflated within 30 seconds. Half a minute later a canopy had unfolded and erected itself over the raft.  The raft could carry ten and gave the crew shelter from wind and spray, it was almost unsinkable and wouldn't turn over.  It carried emergency rations and distress flares and, providing they had been able to issue a Mayday call via the radio before abandoning ship, it would protect them far better until a boat could get to them and rescue the men.

The new rubber life rafts received an enthusiastic welcome.

 

In 1956 I was playing in the back garden when a knock came at our front door.  I knew someone was talking to our mam but didn't take much of an interest why.  A while later she called me in to tell me that my dad's boat, Osako had been sunk at sea but that he had been rescued and was alright.  Although my dad's boat the Osako didn't have the new rubber life saving rafts another Grimsby boat the Thessalonian did have them and when the skipper of the Thessalonian heard a distress call from the Osako he steamed toward them.

A newspaper report of the demonstration of the new rubber
life rafts and also the first rescue of fishermen from Grimsby
using the new life saving dinghies. 

The 28 year old Osako had sprung a leak in her fish hold below the water line and the pumps were unable to cope as the water levels rose.  The weather was rough, heavy seas and gale force winds.  The Thessalonian, which had been built the year before, rushed to the rescue.  The skipper of the Thessalonian, Harry Ellis, had seen the new raft being demonstrated  

 three months earlier but had no practical experience of their use, however he ordered they be made ready for use as the situation was

deteriorating quickly.  Heavy seas prevented him from approaching the stricken Osako so he went to the weather side and floated the rubber dinghies on a line to the crew of the sinking Osako who were now clinging to the rails of the vessel!  For two hours the dinghies were hauled back and forth until all 13 men of the crew of the Osako (including my dad) were safely aboard the Thessalonian.  Last to leave the Osako was the her skipper Harold Gladwell from Grimsby.  He tried to save his ship by attaching a towline but it had to be cut as it sank lower in the heavy seas.  The Thessalonian steamed for Torshaven, the capital of the Faroes and landed the rescued crew there, some were suffering from exposure.

 

This had been the first rescue of Grimsby fishermen using the new rubber dinghies and, following their huge success, it wasn't long before all fishing vessels registered in Grimsby became equipped with them.

The crew arrived back in Grimsby a week later Skipper Ellis said his crew had joked as they abandoned their sinking ship and jumped into the rubber dinghies! 

When my dad arrived home, having lost everything in the sinking Osaka, he was kitted out from head to foot in clothes given to him and the rest of the crew, by the Faroese fishing community.  Such was the camaraderie of the fishing fraternity!  He looked quite comical though as he was wearing a typical, very large flat cap worn by the Faroese fishermen, known in Grimsby as a "Scrob Hat"!  Scrob was/is the affectionate term for a Scandinavian fisherman. 

The rescued crew of the Osako after they had been landed at
the Faroes.  My dad is 3rd from the right on the back row.
(Minus his "Scrob Hat!" 

My dad didn't have much to say about the whole affair, he told our mam that reports about it had all been grossly exaggerated and that the rescue had been a very casual affair in flat seas!  The newspaper reports soon told a different tale though.

The old Osako was a steam engined vessel and was replaced a year or two later by a larger diesel engine boat.  My dad sailed in her for a while before moving to the Yesso of the same fishing company.  He remained in that boat as Chief Engineer until he died of cancer in 1977.