COMMENTS :

Ivan (Spadger) Sparrow - 1957 to '60

I had “Geoff” for Metalwork – practical. To me he was one of the most likeable teachers – he had a sense of humour and a great understanding of the behaviour of teenage boys – he had the ability to focus your attention when required, and let you be yourself and develop in your own time and space when permissible. He was not in any way a disciplinarian style of teacher but one who could control a class because he was respected. I would imagine that when he was younger he was a bit of a “larrikin”, just look at the photo and see the half-hidden smile. I learned a lot from “Geoff” due to his subtle method of getting information into a thick head like mine, without my realising it. I have two notable memories of “Geoff”. One, being the times when we were to do Wrought Ironwork and we had a new forge installed in the outbuilding (an add on shed) at the far end of the metal workshop – some of us would be detailed off at the start of the lesson to “get the forge going” – Great News – What better instruction could a country boy be given “Here are matches, paper, wood, and coke. Go light a fire in the forge and get it hot”. The old forge had bellows but the new one had a motor driven blower – not quite so much fun, but nevertheless. The Tech taught us to use our intelligence – so, where there is smoke there is (now don’t jump ahead), there is “camouflage” – needless to say the opportunity for a “fag” presented itself – the time allowed for our limited pyromaniacal task was sufficient to incinerate at least one, or even two (if the wood was damp – which was often the case as there was a quenching trough in the forge shed), Senior Service, Capstan, Players, that between us could easily be found lurking in the bottom of a boiler suit pocket – this was a time for luxury, not for Weights, Woodbines or Park Drive, as they were for such places as the Rye during lunchtime or upstairs on the back of the bus going home. Of course, one of us would have been detailed off to keep lookout, and when “Geoff” came down the workshop toward the forge all lit fags would go into the fire and disappear with a bit of poking with the tongs and the blower turned to “high”. “Geoff”, who I think knew all along what we were up to, would come in and say something like “Smokey in here, have you been using damp wood and coke again – get out till it clears, too much smoke is not good for you”. The other notable memory was formed during the Summer time, when the weather was hot. One side of the metal workshop overlooked the Art School, and in particular, the “Life Study” room, which of course had frosted glass windows. As there was no such luxury as air conditioning then, If a room became too hot then the windows were opened. Along that side of the workshop which was adjacent to the Art School was a long work bench on which a number of bench vices were located. When climatic conditions were favourable to us, and a nude female model was the study of the day, there would be an eagerness to undertake such activities as filing or hack-sawing, or anything that required the use of a vice. If it were a male model then little use was made of the vices and then only for the minimum amount of time. “Geoff” being the good bloke that he was, was obviously well and truly onto our “sightseeing” exploits (probably because he had observed such behaviour over many years), and as there were only a limited number of vices, would, after a reasonable period of time, come up to you and say “If you keep filing that you’ll end up with nothing but filings, so get on with something else, there are others that want to use this vice before the lesson finishes”.

What a capital “Bonzer” bloke you were “Geoff”.

John Warner - 1961 to '66

Tolerant and knowledgeable

Roy Curtis - 1958 to '61

I can remember beating a piece of copper in to an ashtray, coating it in wax, scratching the outline of a two headed eagle in it and then pouring acid on it to etch it, This was a great learning experience, just imagine that happening nowadays,

Mike (Mick) Pusey - 1957 to '60

Metalwork was not my forte but I did learn a bit such as how to scribe up before cutting or drilling, how to drill a hole in the right place and how to solder. All of this was from Geoff not the little welsh one.