School days

When I first went to school I really did not like it. The Parish Church Day School was in Church Street, opposite the north door of the church, and my teacher was Brenda Green (Miss Green to us). I don't remember all that much about my first day - but I didn't like the smell of the place. To me it smelt like a mixture of gas and Dettol. That first day I went home for lunch to the London Road flat, and when she took me back for the afternoon I was sick in the classroom. Not really a very good start ...

I don't really remember much about the rest of my time in her class, apart from doing some jigsaw puzzles and sometimes playing with toys in the afternoons.

My next teacher was Miss Chamberlain. Again I remember very little about my time in this class apart from one unfortunate memory. Now, aged 6, we had all been asked to paint a picture of the seaside, and I painted the lower half of the paper yellow - for the beach, and the top half blue - for the sea ... I then painted various things onto the beach and some fish on the blue section. We all had to stand up and talk about our pictures - and when my turn came I remember Miss Chamberlain saying that the picture wasn't very good because there was far too much yellow sand - and that you don't really see fish in the sea.. I didn't actually tell mum or dad what had happened in case they were cross with me - but that incident put me off painting for many years - which is quite ironic considering dad's painting skills.

I remember the playground seemed enormous. It was behind the buildings and backed onto Holland Road. Due to the varying levels of the site there were concrete steps down to the main playground area. Looking at the site today (now Church Mews) it doesn't look that big - but to us as children it looked huge. There were two concrete air raid shelters in the playground left over from the war, but these were always locked and no-one went inside. I remember feeling anxious at lunchtime that I might not be collected. Usually it was my mum or Gwen Moore who collected us, but then Andrew's brother, Christopher would walk us backwards and forwards from school to Grange Drive. He was about 4 years older than us, so this arrangement worked quite well for everyone until he left the school.

In those days the toilets at the school were outside - and if it was raining then you got wet - and if it was icy then it was very slippery. The boys' toilets were very primitive with no roof - and very smelly - and we were not usually allowed to use them during lesson time. In recent years mum often joked that her living room at 3 Church Mews was on the spot where the toilets and bike shed had been!

The school used a reading scheme called 'Janet and John' - actually quite a well though-out, if rather dated, scheme. Phrases were repeated with one new word on each page - and I vaguely remember a 'little red hen' in one of the books.

Mrs Munson looked quite a formidable woman, and seemed completely obsessed with making us all learn our times tables (up to 12 times in those days). I can remember really struggling to say my 7 times table, and when we went wrong she would hit us on the knuckles with a wooden ruler, and we had to start again. The front window of her classroom looked out towards the church, and I remember she would often stand at the window and look out when there were people coming out of the church - presumably after a funeral. I also remember that she sometimes did some knitting in the classroom! - but I don't actually remember much teaching. The classroom had a partition wall adjoining 'Mrs Fox's' room.

Our playground was now the front of the school and the right-hand side. I remember we would hide in a small alcove to play hide and seek, and playing with marbles was also popular. It was also the era when picture cards could be collected and swapped. These cards were found in packets of tea and in packets of cigarrettes.

I remember falling over in the playground very regularly - and usually grazing my knee on the tarmac surface - with some bits of debris having to be picked out with the aid of cotton wool and dettol.

The caretaker (I think his name was Mr Bailey) wore blue overalls covered in coal dust - and he was always annoyed when boys hid in the alcoves around the building, and especially cross when marbles got left on the playground ...

Mrs Fox was the first teacher that I really liked. I found her completely different to my previous teachers, and she seemed to take an interested in us as actual children. I really enjoyed her lessons, and I remember lots of games involving spelling. I also remember making cards for Mothers' Day, Easter and Christmas. She had a small indoor 'garden' on one worktop with cress and other items - and she said that if anyone brought a small watering-can to school, they could take charge of looking after it. The next day I brought one - and got the job. That year was certainly my favourite, and most memorable, so far.

Miss Andrew was a relation to Sydney Andrew, the Headmaster - and was rather like a typical grandmother figure rather than a teacher. Her classroom was in another part of town on Priory Road - near the old Johnson Hospital in a building known as the Church Cote. (Opposite the old St Peter's Church - now demolished to make way for the Council Offices.)

The Church Cote was heated by a coal fire in the front left-hand corner of the classroom, and we had to fetch coal, and stoke the fire. (No health and safety rules in those days ..)

I don't actually remember any other adults being with us, so I presume she was alone with her class - as classroom assistants were unheard of at that time.

At playtime the boys could go across the road and play around the side of the old St Peter's Church, while the girls stayed any played in the yard outside the Church Cote. I don't remember anyone supervising us at all - not even to cross the road! Next to the church was an old concrete air raid shelter, and we were also allowed to play inside there as well!

All children had the chance to have a bottle of milk (one third of a pint) with a straw. In the winter the milk would freeze and had to be placed in front of the coal fire to thaw out. That was another job that we as children had to do.

Strangely enough I don't really remember any lessons apart from reading and PE. For PE we went across the road into the old St. Peter's Church, which smelt of smoke and dust from the old coke boilers - and I always got splinters from the old wooden floorboards. A lady called Mrs Dear used to occasionally come and take us for PE, although I don't really remember what we did apart from somersaults and star jumps. I didn't mind the star jumps - but was not keen on attempting somersaults - I couldn't seem to get my neck tucked under properly and used to flop over sideways!

Reading around the class seemed a popular lesson, and we did that a lot. We all had the same book to follow, and each person would read out a section aloud whilst everyone else had to follow. Occasionally she would pick on someone to see if they were following - and she would ask 'What is the next word?'

Mr Stubley had one of the two upstairs classrooms at Church Street. This room was accessed by climbing a steep, almost spiral, wooden staircase. At the top of the stairs was a sink area with a glazed door into his classroom. There was a partition wall separating his classroom from Miss Brooks' classroom next door.

For some strange reason some boys had two years with Mr Stubley - who only had boys in his class. One or two very able children went to the Grammar School a year early, but most of us had two years with him.

My favourite subject now was maths, and I really enjoyed doing pages of 'sums' or computations - including long division and long multiplication. Looking back, some of the work we had to do was fairly unlikely to be relevant in real life situations. I wonder how many of us have actually had to multiply or divide fractions in our everyday life - or needed to reduce £5 6s 4d to pennies [in old money]

(5 x 240) + (6 x 12) + 4 = 1276d .. hope that is correct!

My least favourite subject was football. We had to walk along Stonegate to the Clay Lake site (which originally just had 3 classrooms) to use the field. I always hoped that it would pour with rain, and that we wouldn't be able to go. I had such a dislike of football that once or twice I would purposely scrape my knee on a wall in Halmergate so that when I got to school I could say I had fallen over and couldn't play football. That worked a couple of times. The rest of the times I would play 'full-back' whatever that meant - and just run up and down - keeping well out of the way of the ball, and hoping it didn't come near me. Whenever teams were 'picked' I was always one of the last .. with the team captain saying 'Oh we'll have him,' ... as a last resort! That situation remained the same throughout my time at school, wherever sports were concerned.

Another thing that I really disliked was what I suppose was a kind of drama. I remember standing in the hall listening to 'music and movement' on the radio - and having to act out various poses. I did not enjoy that at all.

Mrs Munson used to play the piano for school assemblies in the hall at Church Street and, one day when she was ill, Mr Stubley asked if I could play a hymn. He knew I was having piano lessons, and he also knew our family a bit from connections with Chestnut Avenue where he and my Grandparents lived. I played All things Bright and Beautiful - very slowly..

I don't really remember many of the hymns that Mrs Munson taught us - but two stick in my mind - neither of which I have ever heard again since .. 'Fierce raged the tempest o'er the deep' - and a hymn which began 'From out of a wood did a cuckoo fly, cuckoo, cuckoo'. I also remember that number one in the hymnbook was 'All people that on earth do dwell'. I think the hymn book was called 'The Daily Service'.

I remember walking to the Clay Lake field for country dancing - with Mrs Whitaker in charge. I don't really remember much about that - apart from records being played on a wind-up gramophone, and us standing in circles of about 8. Phrases still come to mind like 'sides together, right; sides together, left; sides together right and left; sides together both.' I also remember the record getting stuck sometimes, and other occasions when it ground to a halt when the spring on the gramophone was not wound up enough.

At the beginning of 1967 we had the news that we would be moving from Church Street to new classrooms at Clay Lake. By 1967 five new classrooms had been built at Clay Lake, together with two workrooms, an assembly hall and various office rooms. It was very exciting to pack up all the classroom items ready for the move. I think the move was completed ready for the Summer Term, and we were the first pupils to use the new classroom. In that Summer term at Clay Lake I remember doing a project on modern 'gadgets' around the home, and also a geography project on citrus fruits! Allowed to choose a project of our own, for some strange reason I chose 'wild flowers' and more or less copied out sections of a ladybird book with the same name....

I enjoyed lessons with Mr Stubley, although he was extremely strict - and many of us had felt his knuckles pressing into our backs if we were not paying attention. I also remember how annoyed he got when one of us would say, 'Please can I go to the toilet?' He would reply: 'It is not CAN I but MAY I ...'

At a child, I was quite pleased that I didn't have Miss Morley or Miss Brooks as teachers - for some reason. They both had a reputation for being somewhat unpopular - rumours that were probably completely unfounded, but I really don't know.

I did have one lesson now and then with Miss Brooks - and that was 'clay' or pottery. Her classroom was very old-fashioned and had rows of desks - each row being tiered - rather like seats in a cinema.

I remember first of all making a thumb pot, and later a duck as an ashtray. She said the duck would not survive in the kiln as the beak would break off. Actually she was wrong as I still have the duck - complete with beak! I also made a tortoise with a very precarious head. That also survived!

In 1967 I went to Spalding Grammar School. In those days there were no 'induction' days or visits to the school beforehand. Attired with the obligatory school uniform - including cap - and complete with new leather satchel I arrived feeling very nervous. My form teacher was Mr Lulham, and my form room was room 17 - which was one of the old Medway Huts (where the new sports hall stands now).

On the first day I lost my satchel somewhere during the day, and had to go to the school office - where I was met with a cool reception from Miss Munro. Probably not the best person to meet on your first day at a new school! In future whenever I had to visit the office I would hope to see Mrs Nash, rather than Miss Munro - who reminded me of a very strict hospital matron.

Looking back, I think that I may have actually been better suited to an education at the Gleed School - where the subjects were more practical and 'hands-on.' I certainly did not like Latin with Mr Lines,, and although I persevered with French - and eventually achieved French 'O' Level - I can't say that I really enjoyed it much. I remember the Mr Woodward, the headteacher, saying that I might be better doing something else instead of Latin ...

History

I really enjoyed History with Peter Ryde taught in Room 15 I think (another of the Medway Huts) - but that all changed when Peter left and someone else took over. I then found the subject boring and lost interest. Looking back I realise how a teacher can influence the interest of children by the way they deliver a subject.

Maths

Maths was one of my favourite subjects up until O Level and, as I did quite well, I (wrongly) decided to take Maths at A Level. I soon found that I was completely out of my depth and, looking back, those teaching the subject were not actually that good at helping students to understand the subject. I can remember one occasion when the teacher demonstrated a long and complex calculation on the blackboard. When he got to the end, the result was wrong, and I can remember him rubbing it all out and giving up without any further explanation ...

Art

Mr Eggleshaw taught Art, and this was another subject that I didn't really like - again rather ironic considering all the pictures that my dad was producing. He didn't seem to actually teach us how to draw or paint - just tell us to do it!

Chemistry

Chemistry with Mr. Botterill was slightly better - but only when practical work was involved - bunson burners and mixing chemicals were two of my favourite activities. I found all the technical details quite boring - periodic tables and using formulas ..

Physics

When Mr Bradley joined the school to teach Physics my interest in the subject picked up. I particularly liked the work with electricity, magnets, prisms and light - and the static electricity demonstrations that Mr Bradley would give using a fluorescent light tube, and bending the flow of water. I also remember a machine which was called a 'ticker-tape' machine - but I don't remember what it was used for ...

Music

Strangely enough, music with Colin Martin was not actually a great favourite subject of mine. Although Colin gave me private piano and organ lessons, his school lessons were too basic for me, and sitting playing the recorder limited to B, A and G for weeks on end made me totally bored. Singing at school also did not interest me much. Colin used books called Songs of the British Islands from which we sang items including Rule Brittania and The Bluebell of Scotland. Some of the boys used to play pranks on Colin, and I too joined in at times. The music room was Room 17 - the last room of the old Medway Huts - and was my form room when I first joined the Grammar School. One of their favourites tricks to annoy Colin was to put chewing gum on the old coke heater which was in the corner of the classroom. The gum would bubble and smoke away throughout the day and was very difficult to remove from the heater. Later on, I found a renewed interest when 'O' level music was being taught. As Colin was not qualified to teach A level music, I then had to travel to the High School on Stonegate for lessons with Jennifer Chappell. Jennifer was a highly respected teacher at Spalding High School for many years - one of the 'old school' who stood no nonsense ...

During the 1970 she had the experience of teaching groups of boys from Spalding Grammar School 'A' level music, as there were no facilities at the Grammar School to teach that level of music. I happened to be one of three boys that she taught in 1973/74, and I think she found it rather a novelty, and somewhat different to teach boys instead of girls. We managed to get around her normal authoritarian attitude - and were able to get away with all kinds of things.

On occasions we would miss her lessons, claiming that we had 'got stuck in a snow drift', or 'been detained helping someone' on the journey between schools. She took it in very good humour, and we had quite good fun, as well as learning a great deal from her.

Woodwork

Woodwork with Mr North - in the woodwork room, overlooking Haverfield Road, made a welcome break from academic work. The biggest irritation for me was the pace at which the lessons went. It would be weeks planning a simple teapot stand and learning how to make a joint before we were actually allowed to make it. Even then everything was prescribed and formal. As interesting and technical as it is - who actually needed to make a mortice and tenon joint unless you were going to be a carpenter? I remember the hot glue pot which used to reside on the windowsill, and using the glue with a brush to fix the joints together - and I always remember Mr North saying, 'Measure twice and cut once' - and, 'saw on the waste-wood side of the line'. Good advice that I have never forgotten!

Games and PE

PE and Games were my least favourite subjects. Outside - the rules of rugby were a complete mystery to me, and I remember walking across to the West Field, or the Memorial Field, knowing that I had 90 minutes of this to endure. Slightly better was hockey - organised by Mr. Berry. Inside PE was no better - as we had to do circuit training with press-ups, sit-ups and other types of exercise. In later years I managed to find excuses not to attend, and even wrote notes 'from my mum' with various reasons ... This dislike of sports is probably one of the reasons I became something of a loner - as the whole school ethos at that time was built upon sporting achievements, and most of my peers were involved with sport in one way or another.

Cross Country

Cross Country running was marginally better - as usually it went unsupervised. The route went somewhere around the West and Memorial fields and along the old railway embankments. Usually - of course - I was in the last group to finish - and on occasions we would sneakily miss out part of the course, and hide in the bushes, until everyone else was on the way back past us again. Then after a few minutes we would join back in for the last part of the run with no-one the wiser - still arriving back last to avoid arousing suspicion. Once a year a whole-school cross country was held, and somehow I always managed to be 'ill' on those occasions ...

Swimming

I did quite like swimming, and at that time the Grammar School had an unheated outdoor pool which we were allowed to use unsupervised once we were in the sixth form - as one of the sports options. This was a much better alternative to rugby - and a small group of us used the swimming pool even when the water was freezing cold. Later - as 6th formers we were allowed to use the indoor pool at the Castle Sports Centre - and this was the one sporting activity that I really enjoyed!

As a result of my general dislike of sports, the one day that I really tried to avoid was Sports Day. I wasn't particularly good at any event, and remember bashing my legs on the hurdles, and falling flat on my back in the sand trying the triple jump...

Geography

When Mr Sleight arrived to teach Geography I found that subject much more interesting - with weather stations, weather maps and map reading / orienteering as two of my favourites. The geography room was at the top of the main stone staircase - Room 1. In later years I went on Geography field trips to Wales and Snowdonia and I found these an invaluable source of information - as well as acquiring lots of life skills. Whenever I see Brian Sleight in the street I remind him of how much I gained from those trips that he organised.

English

Mr Charlesworth taught English in room 7, and I remember him telling my parents at an Open Evening that I was not very observant, and that he wished I would engage more fully in discussions. He also thought I found it difficult to find things to write about .. I remember having a great problem when tasked with writing poetry. This was sometimes set for homework - and despite my best efforts I found it totally impossible to construct a poem. I remember that in the end my mum had to write something for me to hand in!

Biology

Biology with Mr Surl was a more interesting subject, and I remember someone bringing in live snakes for us to hold - I wasn't very keen on doing that and let other people hold them. I remember that he would readily throw the board-rubber across the room at anyone not paying attention.

Hobbies

Friday afternoon usually ended with a period for 'hobbies'. I can't remember all the choices on offer, but over the years I remember playing chess, making some small lead figures from molten lead in a mold, and stamp collecting. My favourite activity, however, was electronics - taking apart old radio sets and soldering various components into circuits. I seem to remember this activity was held upstairs in the tower that holds the clock.

School Musical Productions

When I was in the 6th form I was involved with the musical production of 'Tom Sawyer' and played the piano for all the rehearsals and the public shows. I still have the original music scores for this - and really enjoyed a move away from the usual 'classical' music which had been instilled in me by Colin Martin. I also enjoyed playing the piano for rehearsals for another school musical production 'West Side Story'. This was the first time that I had played any music that was not 'classical' - and Mr Charlesworth showed me how to use the sustaining pedal to better effect with this 'kind' of music!

Geography Field Trips

I think that being involved in the school Geography field trips, and the school musical productions gave me much more confidence, and at that stage I began to consider becoming a teacher. My education so far had given me enough information, and quite a lot general knowledge - and I hoped that I could use the different styles of teaching that I had encountered over the years to my advantage. I remember very enjoyable school visits to North Wales and the Lake District - and fell-walking in boots that gave me blisters, even though I had walked them in for miles beforehand ...

More about my years spent teaching can be found at chapter 4.

Socialising

During most of my time at the Grammar School I didn't make many really good new friends - just more acquaintances. Most of my friends were those who lived nearby, or those who were in the church choir at the same time as me. In December 1973 I actually started socialising with other 6th formers from the Grammar School - something which I hadn't really done before - and of course alcohol, and visits to pubs, began to feature.

I distinctly remember meeting with three others in The Bull at Pinchbeck in December 1973 - with the memorable Christmas Song playing 'Here it is, Merry Christmas' by Slade. I cycled to Pinchbeck from Spalding ...

At lunchtime we would visit the White Horse near High Bridge, and in the evening we would meet at The American Bar - part of the Red Lion Hotel. The American Bar was towards the back of the main hotel, and could be accessed from Red Lion Street, and was a very lively place during the 1970s - probably one of the busiest places in Spalding.

Whilst still not quite 18 years old, in 1974 I began to work part time behind the bar - initially washing glasses and later serving drinks. In those days no-one asked for ID, or even asked any questions about age ...

(The American Bar was later renamed The Bacchus Bar, but is now no longer part of the Red Lion, and is used for other commercial purposes.)

Parties

During 1974 we had frequent parties to celebrate each other's 18th birthdays. I remember some were help in the Masonic Hall on Pinchbeck Road, and some in a side room in Ayscoughfee Hall (towards the right of the entrance). They were normally 'bring a bottle' parties which meant that there was quite a cocktail of drinks on offer - completely free ..

I held my 18th birthday party at Holbeach - in a mock-tudor room owned by engineer Geoff Parker. I am not sure that he was quite prepared for the amount of booze that some might consume, and was somewhat taken aback to find people lying outside on his lawn somewhat worse for wear.

A 'disco' was set up on the balcony, complete with flashing lights, and a 'bar' set up in front of the organ. Many years after the event we discovered quite a number of corks in the model ship that was hanging in the centre of the room - no doubt from fizzy wine bottles ...

When I went to Durham in 1974 I kept in touch for a time with some of my 6th form friends, meeting up with them whenever we were back in Spalding between terms. On one occasion I spent the weekend at Nottingham, as several of my friends were at Nottingham Polytechnic.

Sadly, I have not kept in touch with most of my 6th form colleagues - something which I do regret, as we had such good times in 1973 and 1974.

I continued to work part-time during the holidays in Spalding at The American Bar of the Red Lion, and then in the Welland Bar (and occasionally the Lounge Bar) of the White Hart

More about my time in Durham can be found in Chapter 3.