Photographic Quiz.
Photo number:- Three
of the new letters to you Blog - agreed????
Question:- This is dead easy Blog ..... which School is
this???? Nil Point for that Bloggie
Boy!!!!!
Dear Blog,
In
the last few days, that nice Mr. Cameroon has made some passing comments about his
actions in Europe and living with the reaction of our neighbours from across
the Channel. I didn't know our esteem Premier was au fait with Newton's Third Law of Motion, obviously a man with
hidden depths. He will probably be into thermodynamics next week and get
friendly with Canot???
This action
and reaction business reminded me of my being at school and the two reactions /
consequences of one particular action of mine - one immediate - one delayed for
six months.
Read on Blog.
I
attended Keighley Boys Grammar School having being the only boy from my junior
school to pass the 11+. A new Head (Watthey by name) to the Grammar School was appointed
during my later years. He was a Methodist lay preacher and I could not
reconcile myself with his attitude and his faith. I had attended the local
Wesley Chapel for a time as a youngster, and I thought the ideas preached were
admirable although I had become atheistic in my outlook since. The new Head soon
alienated me by scrawling in large letters all across my school report 'WAKE UP
STUPID!' for no valid reason that I could detect. How could I explain that
outburst to my parents who knew nothing of the functioning of education. I
couldn't.
From being a
kid, I had always been one to keep my own council and keep a grievance to
myself until I could unleash my frustrations at a time and place chosen to suit
me!! I thought that that was a good one to stash away for future use. And so it
proved to be!
Whether it
applied to the rest of the school I do not know, but in the sixth form (Upper?)
Watthey announced in morning assembly (I think it was) that he was introducing
a Games Attendance Card which had to be carried by pupil to all school matches
to be stamped by the master on duty to prove you had been present to support the
particular school team playing at the time. I remember his smirk now, as he
pointed out to the assembled pupils that he would definitely not be giving a
good reference to any pupil who had not got a high number of attendance stamps on
their Games Card. We must have been given them as we left the room I suspect.
Two things to
bear in mind when you read the following about my reactions Blog; one, as I
have just written was immediate, the other took six months to manifest itself
.......... I was desperate to get to University despite my social background as
I saw a degree as the only way open for someone like me to escape the life of
grind in the mill that my parents had had to endure. Also I was metaphorically
flexing my muscles as a teenager and was acutely aware of my circumstances. It
was the time of the Cuban missile crisis and I can clearly remember thinking as
I walked down to school by myself as usual, on the morning that Kennedy had
issued an ultimatum to Khrushchev that the world could well be embroiled in
nuclear war by that evening and all the efforts I had put into my academic work
would have been a total waste of my time. It may sound melodramatic now Blog,
but it was terribly real to me then.
So Watthey
announces his Game Attendance Card, supposedly to enhance the school's sporting
prowess? I was a couple of weeks away from taking any interest in sport and was
incensed that he expected me to waste my Saturday mornings watching some stupid
school game or other. No way. By break time I was spitting feathers, so I marched
politely to the office and asked if I might see the Head. Whether I was allowed
to see him then or at a later date, I do not remember but when I finally made
it to the inner sanctum, I was far from slow in expressing my feelings. I can
see his look of astonishment even now as I tore up my Games Attendance Card in
front of him. Perhaps that was not the wisest move on my part as he exploded. I
suspected he was going to attack me. Voices were turn up to full volume and he
became almost apoplectic! He finally informed me that he would ensure that I
never got to university as he would make sure I had a very poor reference from
him. I fully expected to be summoned in
the near future to be told I had been expelled for insubordination or
similar. In reality, I never spoke to the bloke again. I never acknowledged
him. I did not attend the Keighley Boys Grammar School Speech Day to receive my
'A' and 'S' level certificates. And I never thought that the exchange had been
over heard by any one and certainly it was never ever mentioned by anyone to
me. I didn't quite make it to the rank of Prefect!!
In those far
off days to get to University you simply wrote a letter of application to your
chosen institution. No UCAS forms to fill in nor a Clearing House to act as a
fail safe net! Certainly no advice was given to me about what to put down or which
university to apply to. And bear in mind Blog, there were not too many
universities in those days, perhaps nine in the Northern area, so gaining a
place was not easy. It was the days of Polytechnics and further education
colleges.
I sent off
my letters of application and could not understand why I was not being called
for interview as were all my contemporaries. As the time for 'A' levels and 'S'
levels approached, I was seriously worried. Some twerp on the staff arranged
for me to attend a Teacher Training College interview in Dudley [Blog I do not
joke!] for some reason, which I turned down. My parents actually bought me a
suit to wear at interview. Not only did it break the bank, but it got no wear.
The only way we could afford it was that my younger sister had by now left
school and got a reasonably paid job as a 'mender' which was a highly regarded
job in the mill, near the top of the pecking order. By the most unconventional
means which I will go into sometime later with you Blog, I wheedled an
interview at Durham. Durham is a collegiate University. In my virgin best suit
I was ushered into the presence of the College Head (Society actually but it is
the same thing). Him and me! The first question astounded me. Completely threw
me. After all the different scenarios I had imagined a University interview to
be, the first question thrown at me was one that I had never ever imagined.
'Why don't you get on
with your Headmaster?'
He could see my astonishment and that I was obviously lost for words, so he
continued with
'Why has he given you
such an appalling reference?'
By the end of the interview I had been offered an
unconditional place, which in lay terms means that I had been accepted at the
college / university if I wanted the place!!!
Thank you
Watthey, you bastard, may you rot in hell. I assume the bloke has long since
stopped preaching, at least in this world??
Even Newton
would not have expected that reaction??? Perhaps it was a double bluff on the
Head's part to stimulate my studying. But then again, perhaps not.
As I never
went back to the school or had any contact with my contemporaries, except one
who became my Best Man, I have often wondered if the events related above were
a product of my over developed fertile imagination. Slowly the mists of time
had dulled my recollection???? The set-to with the Head I began to think of as some
weird dream .... no one else was present and his office seemed so cavernous ....
coupled with the fact that there was no one else from the school with whom I
could check the facts about the Games Attendance Card. There is an extensive
O.B.s webby thingie that I once looked at but there was no reference to a Games
Attendance Card. I did start to wonder if perhaps I should change the habit of
a life time and attend one of their functions??? Then I decided 'perhaps not'!!
THEN. OUT OF THE BLUE, about five years ago I
met a former teacher from the Grammar School when we were both attending some
local village function here in Coventry - I cannot remember what the occasion
was about, to tell you the truth Blog, but he approached me and enquired if I
was the Colin Kirkham, THE runner who had attended the
Keighley Grammar School about 50 years previously. I confirmed it was me but
confessed I had not a clue who he was ... he gave me his name and I apologised
that I was still not any the wiser. He explained that he had never taught me
but he remembered me from his second or third year of teaching at the school as
I had been something of a cause celebre
in his early introduction to teaching.
Our School secretary's
office at the Grammar School was at the end of a long wide corridor in the old
Victorian building, the Head having his study next door. During breaks,
apparently, the office was a hive of activity with staff dealing with various
odds and ends but part of the attraction [the main part??] of the hive of
activity in the office in that testosterone loaded all male school was the new
appointment of a young female secretarial assistant!!! This teacher and a couple of colleagues had
been in the secretary's office when the shouting match between me and the Head took
off and it was soon to be the talk of the staff room - a sixth former taking a
stance against a dictatorial Head made an impression .... and it took me fifty
years to find out about the rise in my stock in the eyes of the staff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So my memories were remembered correctly. Well done me!!!
One
consequence of our meeting was that he kindly invited me round to his house
where he filled me in with gossip about dozens of members of Keighley Boys
Grammar School staff about which I had been totally unaware ... do remember
Blog, that my parents were basically poor and there was no spending money for
me to go out socialising with school mates, so I never knew what went on in and
around school. I grudgingly served me time at the school as a means to an end.
Period.
Colin
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