Secondary School Days

                                          Starting secondary school was hard for me, Mum had gone out with us to a shop in Southport, I think it was called Rawcliffes, and I was bought a new school uniform , something I had never had to wear at infants or junior school. I had a blazer, a cap a new school tie and crisp white shirt, I wanted long trousers but I was sent to school in short trousers. All the other lads had long trousers and I was one in 800 pupils instead of 50 that had been at Pinfold. I was put into a class with 30 other kids that I did not know and felt totally lost.  We were given a timetable of where we had to go and when we had to be there. We had to go to different rooms for each lesson and had a different teacher at each lesson too. It was all so confusing.

                                                   We had to do metal work and wood work which I did not like. We all had our brand new aprons that were three sizes too big, what a site we looked with them rolled up in the middle. You could not do that today with health and safety, there were gas bottles in the class room for welding and a big forge like  the blacksmith had. We were shown how to braise two pieces of metal together and how to rivet steel sheets. I managed to make a tool for scraping the mud off a spade in metal work with Mr Corfe. He was great a real old country man, we called him Wilfe when he was not in earshot. I did try in wood work but I kept on cutting the pieces too small and gave up wood work after one term. I asked if I could do cooking instead as I wanted to be a chef, Philip Prescot and I were the first two boys to do domestic science at the Ormskirk secondary modern school and we did it to GCSE standard. A few of the teachers stick in my mind. 

                                “Dickie” Thomas was the assistant head master and he was always getting confused. Now the school tie was bright red and was part of the uniform for all pupils. In assembly one morning Dickie was on the stage trying to control the 800 pupils in the hall. It was rather noisy and at the top of his voice he shouted, “ You. Boy with the red tie, Get out now!”  There was a roar of laughter and he lost his temper started blustering and spitting and went bright red. He just could not understand what was so  funny.

                                 Lots of the teachers were great but some were cruel, “Percy”Hender was the physics master and his class room was up stairs in the west tower of the school. He would use a metre rule to hit pupils over the head if they spoke or did something he did not like. He also had a plimsole he used to beat boys with, they would be made to bend over in front of the class and he took a run up and landed it with such a thwack on their behinds. You definatley could not sit down after three of the best from Percy.

                                    Across in the other class room up in the tower was Mr Ponsonby, he taught biology and there were always lots of interesting things going on in his class. Every year he would get the incubator out and hatch chickens, he would bring in frog spawn and we could see the tadpoles change in to frogs. One year he came in with a dead fox which he skinned and pegged out the pelt to cure it, it absolutely stunk the class room out for weeks.

                                   Tom Roberts was the chemistry master, had a brand new class room built at the back of the school. If we got bored in his class it was easy to get him talking about the war where he had been a prisoner in Malaya with the Japanese. He told us of the horrific times they had suffered and said the film         “ Bridge over the river Kwai” was like a picnic compared to the real thing.

                           Charlie Fogg was my maths master, he was strict person in the class but outside school he was fun, he took a group of lads, only about 3 or 4 of us, swimming every Saturday to The Victoria indoor baths in Southport. He did not need to do this but we all enjoyed it.

                         Terry McDermott was the Drama teacher and he had a great influence on me. He taught me not to be shy and to go for things that I wanted in life. I joined the drama club and really enjoyed that. I was in two productions, I played a police man in the Aladin the pantomime, then I played Hobson in Hobsons choice. I loved the feeling that performing gave me, it was fun and exciting, there was an element of danger that something could go wrong. During one of the performances of Hobson’s choice I had a very bad cough and it was interfering with my lines. I had to addlib extra lines to cover the cough. It really worked quite well as Mr McDermot complimented me after how I had added the lines to cover.

I sang in the choir and Mr. Nelson was the choir master.I tried my hand at the brass band but could never learn the instruments.

                          For sport we had Ken Lowe who thought teaching games was either sending the boys out to play football or cricket and if they could not play they had to out on a cross country run. I skived most of the games lessons in Ruff  woods on a “cross  country “ run. We ran the first 200 yards and the last 200 yards to make it look good.  

                               Mrs Leach was my form mistress for the last three years at school and she was a wonderful person. Our classroom was the girls sewing class room  and Mrs Leach taught sewing, knitting and how to make clothes. Most of the girls made their own summer dresses for school. Mrs Kemp was my cookery teacher, she taught me the basics of cookery and baking.

I learnt French from Miss Eason, she was a spinster in her forties, every one had to speak French to her in the class room as she would not answer if you asked a question in English during the lesson. I remember she had very long plaits which were usually tied up in a bun on top of her head.

                                 Mrs Worthington was another cookery teacher. She was very good at home cooking but a lot of her methods would not work in a catering kitchen. We were taught domestic science and that meant learning how to wash and iron clothes, there was even a flat set up in one of the school towers so that we could practice cleaning the home. I could not see the use at the time but it was ever so useful when I came to set up home after I got married. I wonder what the kids of today would do with domestic science lessons.

                                At school I got on well with a most people but one new boy that arrived in the fourth year seemed to want to be the cock of the play ground and he started to pick on me and a few other boys that stuck out from the crowd. Nobody would stand up to him because at fifteen he was six feet tall and we were only about five foot six. One day he cornered me in a brick square outside the old gymnasium. I was backed into a corner and I swung out without thinking. My fist landed and the cheek bone and his nose, he reeled back with blood streaming from a burst nose and a cut under his eye. I got collared by the teacher on duty and sent up to the headmaster, he was sent to the first aid room. I had to stand outside the office under the school clock for an hour with the whole school walking past, before Mr Wagstaf called me in to his office. I was given a lecture on the evils of bullying and fighting. He would not listen to my excuses that I was the one being bullied and I was the victim. After all he was the new boy and I needed to help him settle in to the school. It did not matter that he was six foot tall and I was only five foot six, I had beaten him and he might be scared for life. I got the stick for fighting and he got sent home early. When he came in the next day he had a beautiful black eye and I was never picked on again.

                                       In Wigan Road school at the top of the two towers were little rooms that were never used, Old disused desks and cupboards were stored up there. If we wanted to skive off a lesson for some reason like forgotten home work, this was an ideal place to go especially if the weather was fowl. You just had to remember to be quiet as the class rooms under them were always in use. I was caught once up there with two other lads, we were smoking and someone smelt the smoke and came to investigate, it was Miss Lathom. She was the girls assistant head, a striking tall slim lady with a voice like a fog horn, she wore tweed suits and had her hair tied up in a tight bun. We all got taken down stairs to her office where the cigarettes were confiscated and we got three detentions each. Detentions meant staying back after school in  a room with a teacher sat at the front watching while we did futile tasks like writing out lines which were destroyed at the end of the detention. 

                                         At times I found school very boring and in my final year I spent most of the summer in the outdoor pool at Southport or in the coffee bars in Liverpool. I would get the bus as normal if I wanted to go to Liverpool, then when it got into Ormshirk I would get the train into Exchange station. I would wander round the big stores Like Lewis’s and Blackler’s. Then go along to one of the many coffee bars and sit with a coffee or coke and read the news paper. I like to go to the record shops and listen to the records that were playing. If it was a nice warm day I would go out with my trunks and towel in my bag instead of books and catch the bus to Southport. Here I could go to the outdoor sea water pool which was on the sea front and spend all day for a few shillings. There was always lots to do with swimming and diving. The high diving board was at one end and it was great to watch the girls showing off for the life guards. They would parade round the pool in their costumes and show of all their tanned figures. I was just a skinny fifteen year old and could not compete with the sculpted muscles of the life guards. I just enjoyed my own company and was happy not to be at school.