Memories of Sixth Form Days

It was 1970. The old Heywood Grammar School had been closed down and transferred along with most of the staff and with Colonel John Farish, Tommy and Daisy still as Headmaster and Deputies, to a new complex at Siddal as the Heywood Senior High School.

This occurred as we entered our 4th year and we took our 2-year courses for GCE O Level exams, of which I passed 5, mostly at Grade C. The photo is of me aged 16.

"Who's that jammy bugger?!?" exclaimed Pilky, the physics teacher, jabbing a finger at the results. "4 Cs and a D? I told you, you should have done some work...!"

The overall behaviour standards had "slipped" somewhat as the school went Comprehensive. We became used to fire alarms being set off - and worse...
"I've never seen anything as depraved and vile as this!" Farish raged at one morning assembly, "Not even in the back streets of Cairo!"
"I wonder what he got up to in the back streets of Cairo?" Alex mused when we were back in the Lower 6th Form Common Room.

A levels were a two-year course so there was the Lower 6th Form and the Higher 6th Form. Each had their own Common Rooms, because part of the curriculum was supposed to be self-study so we had plenty of free periods. We spent these laughing, joking, smoking, snogging occasionally, but mostly just talking and wasting time. Every now and then books would come out - homework got done in the Common Rooms, but quite often it was too noisy anyway. We were allowed a record player in there and the room normally echoed to Led Zeppelin II, Full House by Fairport Convention, or Deep Purple in Rock.

We formed a close group of almost inseperable friends. The core of it was myself and Alex Dyson (pictured), Janet Dover, Bev Hughes and Jackie Wood. On the outer core were Brigid Irwin-Carruthers, Bill Lloyd, Sheila Ratton, Colin (Ernie) Wise, and Colin (Spike) Wycherly.

At school we were almost always together as a group. Out of school the core group met up often and we would meet the others to go to the cinema or to fairs and such. Jan's house was the most common meeting place. We would all congregate in the front room and listen to Simon & Garfunkel, or a folk group called Magna Carta. Gallons of cider were quaffed during those days... And apart from Jan, Brigid, Bill and the two Colins, we all smoked.

Players No.6 were the favourite, though one or two were swayed when the gold-packeted Benson & Hedges came out. They always tasted chocolatey to me! As far as I know though, none of the group ever tried drugs. Jackie got a taste for menthol cigarettes for a while. As far as I was concerned they neither cleared your nose, nor satisfied any craving!

Alex came up with another memory of 6th form days which I remembered immediately on reading it: "I remember one afternoon when everyone had run out of fags, two or three of us collected all the dog ends and tried to make a new ciggy using a page out of somebody's French dictionary. Bloody Hell, it tasted VILE!" That's an understatement - it was stronger than a Park Drive untipped!

Bill and I started playing folk music together. I still had the old acoustic that had been rescued from someone's coal bunker in 1965 - it had a two pence piece under the bridge to level it up... Without it the bridge had a habit of slipping and putting the guitar out of tune, or falling out altogether which definitely didn't do much for the sound! Bill had a nylon-strung guitar and the two together gave us the chance to play little twiddley bits of lead with two different sounds.

We were known as The Heywood Senior High School Folk Group - a snappy title! Gerald Fish had taken over from David Miller as music teacher and he encouraged us no end. The school choir came to an end - that wasn't Gerald's interest. But the school started to acquire musical instruments. He had some of the girls from the year below us sing a few songs with us.

I'm seen above with two of them - a man totally into his music to the extent of ignoring some splendidly short mini skirts! The wet-look t-shirt was a favourite, though every time I went into someone's house their mum would always ask if it was raining...

Here I'm with Bill, playing at the Ronald Gorton Centre in Rochdale. We used to do some traditional folk, some Dylan, and a few songs of Magna Carta, a contemporary folk group who I thought were brilliant.

A lad called Barry Lord joined us also and we were round at Gerald Fish's house one day trying to come up with a name for the group. Gerald found a reference to an ancient Greek philosopher called Anacreon who had choked to death on a fruit stone - that was good enough for us! We became Anacreon, and we played a number of gigs at the school and around the district.

I suppose one of the best gigs must have been a variety show of acts from lots of different schools which was held at a high school in Milnrow. We came on with the girls and accompanied them as they sang I Don't Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ, Superstar. Then we went through our usual set as a trio. We brought the house down and the local paper that week carried a report that specifically mentioned us and with the quote "There was some superb guitar work from this group." Wow! Fame!

Girls from the 4th year collared me walking through the assembly hall one Christmas, with a bunch of mistletoe and took it in turns to appeal to my better nature... Jackie had been walking through the hall with me. She waited patiently whilst they all finished and said "Hmmm - do you mind if I borrow that mistletoe?"

Whilst never boyfriend and girlfriend we still seemed to spent a lot of time together and had the sort of easy affectionate uncomplicated relationship that is still there 40 (gasp!) years later. Jackie remembers:

"I remember one summer's day - it was like in one of those slushy American Walton type films. We were just lying on a grass bank looking up at the sunshine, the blue skies, white clouds and the leaves in the trees above, and it was a really neat poetic kind of day. To me that day symbolises youth and summer and optimism and innocence, so no poetic license or editorial add-ons there, matey!"

Sheesh - me??? Whatever happened to that trust thing I've just been going on about???

Actually there were only one or two serious pairings in the group yet we all enjoyed a close relationship with each other that would extend to a guilt-free kiss. It was the time of free love after all. Alex and I wondered where all that free loving was going at times but hey - it was a great time!

After the rather troublesome 3-wheelers I bought a Hillman Minx for 40 quid and we all charged off here there and everywhere at weekends. We had one brilliant day in the Lake District that I remember particularly. Six of us were in the car; Alex, Bill and I and Jan, Jackie and Sheila. We stopped at beautiful trails, with gurgling streams and waterfalls and Bill and I had taken the guitars up. We just enjoyed each other's company, sun and gentle music.

Sheila, Brigid and Janet

There were the usual teenage parties - one of the outer circle fancied a girl called Jayne and invited her to a party at Jan's house. She told me she only agreed because she wanted to go to a party... But one memory is of him sitting on the top of the stairs shouting plaintfullly, "Ja-a-a-ayne!" until he made his mind up she wasn't for him and settled for vodka in a pint pot instead... I met her again a couple of years ago and I think I'm safe in saying you could still class her easily as beautiful!

By then the Hillman had gone and I had a MkIII Zephyr 4 - a beautiful car - if rather heavy on petrol! I stayed sober that party and was to ferry everyone home as many of the partygoers lived in Heywood. When we got outside though, there was thick fog. It took hours of driving very slowly but I got everyone home! Or nearly everyone - Alex: "I remember after Jan's 18th. after ferrying a paralytic Spike Wycherley home to Darnhill, Colin who only lived round the corner, came back with us and kipped at my house. God only knows why, perhaps he was pissed and thought he might get a bollocking if he went home!"

Jan introduced me to her cousin, Helen, who was visiting from her home near Northampton. We went to Blackpool for the day, Jan, Alex, Helen and I. She became my first serious girlfriend and we had a 3-year relationship, which was made a little difficult because of the distance, but was always fun.

Barry Lord became a close friend too for quite a while. He was one of those who could fit into any of the cliques in the 6th form common room. He was hugely likeable, witty and funny and was very easy going. We spent many a night playing darts at his local, The Harrows, where the landlord would call time by shouting "Come on, you rhinos!"

We used to drink Bass Charrington's Best Mild. Almost as dark as Guinness, it was smooth, creamy and wonderful. It disappeared totally not long afterwards after which the staple became Watney's Red. A startlingly red-coloured beer, it too had a flavour all of its own. It too disappeared totally by the end of the 1970s.

I went on holiday one year to Blackpool with Alex and Colin Wise. We scored all too easily with a trio of girls from Glasgow... "Do you like feeling tummies?" the one that paired off with me said out of the blue - not long after the initial "Hello". "I do..." A hand crept up my t-shirt and another guided mine up hers... We decided they were a bit too easy in the end and in best Sunday newspaper journalist fashion, made our excuses! I seem to remember that, after the holiday, when we got back to the rest of the group, the girls found this episode hilarious...

The following year there was a problem... Alex Dyson: "The week in Blackpool was in the summer of '71, in the Hillman, and then when the '72 hols came round, I was going to go, but ended up with some stomach problem and cried off, so Barry went instead, perhaps in the Skoda?"

We scoured the best spots of Margate but failed to pull any girls... Barry and I both got sunstroke and staggered round the following day feeling like death warmed up.

A Level exams came. We swotted a bit and messed about a lot and I found I had managed to fail every one of them... It was a disappointment but not exactly a crushing blow at the time. The Careers Service though I found totally useless. "Shopwork or Industry" were the choices they gave but without any explanation of what sorts of openings might be appropriate or available. It was just one or the other.

Because I wasn't able to make a decision within the 5 minute slot I was allocated their recommendation was that I go to teacher training college and become a teacher. Quite a few took that route. Jan did and Bill and Barry did. Alex went off to do accountancy. Jacquie, Bev and Brigid went off to Liverpool University. Sheila went to Manchester I think. It was the beginning of the end for the close group of friends.

Alex Dyson: "At the time, all my friends were as dear to me as family, and I thought that it would never end. Two years later, we were scattered to the four winds and I never saw any of you again for thirty years - how did that happen?"

In 1976 I married and Fran and I moved to Blackpool and the final time any of us got together was for Jan's wedding to Graham, someone she had met at college. Besides myself, only Bev was there from the 6th Form. I ran into Bev in the early 1990s at an educational conference and one by one I started to get emails from people, once my web page started in 1996. Alex came to my 50th birthday party and we've remained in email contact since.

In 2005 we met up with fellow 6th former, Maggie Pratt - now Maggie Yuill, who was visiting from her home in Australia.

Then we had a mini reunion in March 2006 at a Creeping Bentgrass gig. The photo shows Alex, Jackie, myself and Jan. Jackie has a business called Memory Catchers helping people to write their life stories. And so the idea for this set of pages turned from being a vague idea into something that got going as Jackie and I bounced a few ideas off each other and she gave me enough of a prodding to get started! If anyone is looking for ways to get going writing their own memories down I can recommend Jackie's resources. You don't have to create web pages or even write them down for anyone but yourself. But I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of dredging up all these memories.

So it's fitting that the last memory should belong to Jackie. She, Alex and I have met up every year in August for several years and it is always a hilarious day. On this occasion though we met in Liverpool where my band were playing and she came complete with old school tie, beret, ... and a french dictionary with a missing page...

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Heywood Grammar School Part 2

Heywood Grammar School was a bit old fashioned, formal and yet a place of great fun.

The first day there, way back in 1965, is remembered in a previous entry and that introduced some of the characters. There were so many more though.

A few years above us there was a lad whose nickname was Prof. I don't think I ever learned his real name. He had a book of double entendres, collected from the sayings of the Headmaster, which he called "Farish Funnies". It was full of things like "I'm not having you boys bringing your dirty balls in here..." or "I'm not having it! Mr Thomas isn't having it - and I'm damn sure Miss Woods isn't having it!!!"

I hated PE. I'd been afraid that the asthma would cause me real problems but it was mainly only the cross country runs that I found impossible. The first one started with a circuit of the playing fields then out onto the roads. By the time I was halfway round the playing field I was in trouble and by the time I got to the gate where the teacher was, I was ready to lie down and collapse, my breath coming in great panting wheezes.

Mr Law grunted, "Asthma?" I nodded, unable to speak. "Back to the changing rooms then," he said. That was the only Cross Country I ran. There were about 5 of us who were excused them and we looked forward to the afternoons when everyone else was sent to run round the streets of Heywood. We were sent out to leisurely walk the streets of Heywood.

A particular mate of mine was Andrew Robertson. For some strange reason we all christened him Sid. I can't remember why but he became Sid for the rest of his school career. Mum and Dad liked Sid because he made them laugh. He made all of us laugh. This was mainly because he liked to laugh... In fact once he started he couldn't stop! He would go off into weird and wonderful paroxysms, food flying from his mouth, should he have recently inserted anything and this would go on many a time until he was helpless with laughter and had infected all around him.

Except for once when he had undergone one of these transformations during a dinner hour. A workman who was digging the road up thought that he was the one being laughed at and Sid arrived back at school with a black eye. He had another bout of uncontrolled laughter trying to tell us how he got the black eye...

Sid was another fan of flying model aircraft and he also introduced me to a mate of his called Paul Fitton, who was in the year above us and who introduced me to the music of The Moody Blues. Paul had a superb hi-fi setup in his bedroom and also had the first set of stereo headphones I ever listened to. I was so impressed I bought the very same model. Hands up today any teenagers who were 14 before they heard music through headphones...?

Now I can't condone the next bit and certainly do not suggest anyone else try it, but for a while there was a craze (limited thank goodness) of making rockets from a mixture of readily available household products. Those doomed to abject failure mixed powders and filled tubes with this. It was highly explosive - I remember it being in the news that someone had made exactly the same mixture to blow open the coin box of a public telephone only to blow his hand off...

We made solutions of it and soaked newspapers in it. Then - here's the most dangerous bit - we dried the sheets over the fireguard of an open fire and rolled them up before stuffing them into cardboard tubes. Most failed to move - as shown, they produced lots of smoke and a roar of sorts but failed to lift off. Bic pen tops you could make whiz about - possibly the reason Bic seem to make them open at both ends these days... (correction from schoolmate Alex Dyson: it's actually because so many people suck the tops of pens and get them lodged in their throats - you can still breath a little through the hole...)

Anyway Frank and his mates had to go one better and made a 3-stage 6-foot tall monster. Displaying "WRN" which stood for "Wardle Rocket Network", they took it up on the moors, lit a long fuse of magnesium strip and took cover behind a small hill.

The explosion was apparently heard half a mile away... The explosion was caused only by the bottom stage however and the top two stages, when rested on a plank of wood as a runway, actually took to the air for about 3 feet before turning to crash in the field. It was impressive looking but hardly aerodynamic! Cine film of this event exists. Wardle had had a flying saucer incident in the late 1950s and residents must have wondered whether the aliens had returned that day!

That marked the end of Frank's rocket aspirations but we in the 5th form were impressed at the success of the plank runway and devised a cunning plan. We reckoned that a 1-foot tall rocket launched from a high window via a runway would fly. We made the rocket, took it to the chemistry laboratory on the 3rd or 4th floor, borrowed a couple of test tube stands to make up a runway of smooth metal rods, poked them out of the window and lit the fuse.

Disaster! A gratifying roar heralded a ten inch flame shooting from the back of the rocket but it stuck on the test tube stands and scorched and blistered all the paint off the window sill until I tipped the whole lot out of the window with visions of a full-scale fire. The Lower 6th Form common room was directly underneath on the ground floor and I remember one lad telling me later of the impressive fireball that fell past the window closely followed by a couple of clanging bits of chemistry equipment...

We got in surprisingly little trouble - I think the chemistry teacher must have been secretly impressed with the sheer cheek. We did have to buy paint and repaint the window sill...

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A House and a Home or Two

Nostalgia time again! This time we take a look at the home environment. There are very few photos of my childhood homes. Just odd bits seen as the background to a family snap.

This photograph isn't even a real room - it's a reconstruction that can be seen at the Castle Museum, York - a place well worth visiting.

The 1950s sitting room is so close to how I remember Nanna and Grandad's house, or Grandma and Grandad Burke's house, it could almost be my first home. Both had a front room and a back room. This is closest to the back room of Grandma and Grandad Burke's probably. Both houses had a table in the window and a writing bureau. They both had the tiled fireplace with an open coal fire. Both had carpet that covered the middle of the floor with polished floorboards around the edges of the room.

The big difference was that Nanna and Grandad used their front room almost every night whilst Grandma and Grandad Burke only used theirs on Saturdays and Sundays. In winter the fire took ages to warm up the leather settee in their front room and it took your breath to sit back on it! Both sets of grandparents had an upright piano in the front room. Nanna and Grandad had a TV. When Grandma and Grandad Burke got one, it went in the back room where they spent most evenings.

The settee and armchairs always had antimacassars draped over them. Men wore brylcream on their hair and the covers, named after Macassar hair oil, stopped the furniture from being ruined as they leaned back! There were a few other things the houses had in common.

They both had the same early washing machine - huge green things with a lever that had three positions and looked like the gear stick of a Morris Minor. I saw one in a museum ages ago but didn't get a photo.

Also the kitchen had a gas boiler for hot water. Again the photo comes from the Castle Museum, York. The clothes drying rack, suspended from the ceiling is very familiar too! I don't think either set of grandparents had one, but Aunty Cissie did and Aunty Muriel (Grandad's sister) also had one. In fact I'm sure at least one of them was in the living room not the kitchen. There would be a fire to dry the clothes in the living room! Most kitchens were only warm in summer or when the stove was on!

Though on washing day there was plenty of steam about - the boil wash was necessary! Nanna swapped her old green washing machine for a Hotpoint twin tub, but then got a separate boiler for doing the boil wash. I found one exactly like it at Elsecar Museum in Yorkshire - they have a knack for this sort of thing in Yorkshire, obviously!

Whites were kept white (almost) by the use of "dolly blue". This was some sort of soluble gunk that came on a small stick - a bit like a lollipop - and it was swished about in the washing water and turned the water blue. Later this stuff presumably got added to the more sophisticated washing powders coming out. Daz advertised "a new white - a blue-white!"... Huge wooden tongs were used for pushing the washing down into the witch's brew that was those early detergents.

The twin tub had one tub for washing clothes, then a spin dryer with a glass lid for spinning out most of the water and rinsing. It had a rubber ring, like a grill to stop the clothes from flying up - it had a hole in the middle and was great for whizzing round on your finger, then throwing it up in the air to catch on your finger again without letting it stop spinning!

Vacuum cleaners existed but were hardly powerful. Most housewives had a Ewbank - more or less a mechanical dustpan and brush. When wheeled about, the brush turned against the direction of the sweeper and brushed bits into the innards of the sweeper. A lever opened the pans for emptying.

If you think housework is demeaning or hard work now, how would you have fared in the 1950s? Housewives who lived in terraced houses used to wash the pavement in front of their house at least once a week! This would be done using hot water and a "donkey stone" that was bought from rag and bone men. Whoa betide anyone who dared walk over their bit of pavement whilst they were out scrubbing on hands and knees! Anyone who didn't have a pristine scrubbed patch of pavement was whispered about by the other wives!

We had a proper bathroom with a huge cast iron bathtub and taps and an indoor loo. Not everyone had those in the 1950s by any means. Once we moved from Nanna and Grandad's, to the ill-fated house in Castleton (see illnesses and ailments entry) we had an outdoor loo and no bathroom. An email from my mate Alex Dyson:

"I had forgotten how rich your family was, what with an indoor bog and everything! Until I was 10 our toilet was at the end of the back yard and the bath was hanging on a nail on the wall outside the back door! We had to fill it from a gas geyser in the kitchen and then empty it using buckets when we'd done. Same with the dolly tub and wringer for the washing."

My own first house was an inheritance from my Great Uncle and Aunt who had moved away from Rochdale but kept a small cottage as a base for when visiting family. It was a one up-one down cottage, just two rooms, no bathroom, with the toilet in a back yard row of privies, serving several houses. We all had our own little room, just big enough to take the loo and with a flimsy wooden barn door. Mine had a metal towel rail with a piece of rubber wrapped round it. Without the rubber in winter, there was a danger of fingers sticking to a metal bar in the freezing cold. With the door shut the bar was so close to your face that I wondered whether my uncle had piles and it was for biting...! A tiny paraffin burner had to be kept in there to stop the loo and pipes from freezing up. On winter's nights you only went out in dire need! Everyone had a chamber pot under the bed!

Auntie Cissie, Grandad Burke's sister, had a cottage in Castleton with a long garden that had a really tall rhubarb patch. It was taller than me as a kid and it scared me to death to walk through it to her loo! The loo scared me too. The little brick building had a seat over an open sewer which was about 30 or 40 feet down. If you shone a torch down you could see a small stream and sometimes rats scurrying along. The hole in the seat was adult sized and my bottom wasn't in those days! I was petrified of falling!

Alex again: "I remember going up to (a relative's) farm as a kid and the toilet was a big plank of wood with two holes cut in it, side by side - very sociable. The privy was built on the side of a hill which sloped away at the back, and under the plank it was open to the air, so everything just built up in a huge heap for 12 months and then once a year, he would shovel it onto the back of his tractor and spread it on the fields. Happy days - NOT!"

Double sitters were not uncommon - the family that dumps together, stays together - perhaps... The photo comes again from the excellent Castle Museum in York and is a double example of the one Auntie Cissie had. Some had a pail under the seat. Only one step up from sitting on a bucket. The council employed men to go round and empty them - Nightsoil Men. They were a bit like fishmongers... everyone knew when one had entered the pub...!

After Dad's health scare at the terraced house in Castleton we moved back in with Nanna and Grandad for a short while. The only photo I could find of their house was this birthday party shot with me going all red-faced, blowing out my candles! The photo was rather dark and despite my best efforts, the background objects are hard to make out. Behind Mum looks to be an old sideboard/dresser that I just do not recognise, but under her arm is our big old wireless set, the knobs of which have caught the flash - the two dots of white by my ear!

The mere fact that flash was used is probably a clue that the photo was taken by either Uncle Geoff, or Great Uncle Percy - who had a camera shop in Rochdale. Using flash meant flash bulbs, glass filled with yards of magnesium filament that went off with a pop and produced enough heat to melt and bubble the blue glass of the bulb!

Mum and Dad then bought a bungalow in nearby Royton. Although there are no photos of the house, this shows the bungalows opposite which were exactly the same. Whilst we were at this house, Dad bought his first (and second and third, if not fourth) car(s)! The bungalow was not quite at the top end of a short cul-de-sac, Grisedale Avenue at Summit. Whilst officially designated Royton it was so close to Rochdale that it made no real difference except that we now had to catch the number 9 bus to school!

How many kids today would wear a shirt, tie, pullover and blazer in sunny weather to play out? There would be a vest under that lot too! I sometimes wonder whether global warming has been going on for longer than people think! Go back 100 years and you see photos of folks in shirts, waistcoats, jackets and mufflers in the middle of summer... and that's the navvies digging roads and canals etc.! Either we as a whole (and me in particular) were immune to heat, or it had to be much colder then than now. These days I can't stand even a jacket on warm summer days - and despite Grandma Burke's sternest advice, gave up wearing a vest many many years ago!

Around 1964 we moved from Royton to the village of Milnrow to a brand new bungalow on an estate that was being built at the back of the cricket club. Our house was one of the first to be sold and when we moved in the roads and pavements were still to be built, so we used to slosh about in mud whenever we went out of doors for a month or so!

Behind the house was an open field - great for playing in. Across the field was a rough path that led down to Stanney Brook Park, a small park that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere between Milnrow and Rochdale. We used to walk through it every day, then through farm lanes and back roads to get to Lowerplace School. I was coming up to my 11-plus and Harry Whitehead didn't want to lose a pupil who he thought would pass! From home to school was probably a walk of 3 or 4 miles.

I was 11 when we moved to Milnrow and I lived there throughout my teens, through secondary school, college and first jobs, first love, first car and first heartbreak. Whether the latter was caused by the first car or the first love you will have to find on other pages!

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First Day at Heywood Grammar School

This blog entry re-creates a page from my now defunct Nostalgia web site which I've been saying for ages I should transfer to here and which several other people (well mainly Jackie Waters, long time friend from that same school...) have been saying I should transfer to here. So here it is! Day one of a secondary school career that would see the transition of a boy to a man. Yes, alright - debateable, but I'll get round to it sooner or later!

Heywood Grammar School. I started there in September 1965 with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. I'd been with the same gang of mates since starting school aged 4 until leaving Rochdale's Lowerplace Junior School aged 11. Now, because we had moved outside of the Rochdale Borough area, I would leave all my pals for a group of total strangers.

Also there was a new uniform, not just a blazer and cap but every item of outer clothing was specified! Adding to the sense of all things new was the fact that going to school entailed a coach trip from the pick up point in Milnrow, the village where we lived. The coaches were operated by the Rochdale firm of Yelloways and were, quite understandably, the older of their stock!

On the first morning's trip we learned two important things: one - the back seat was reserved for older pupils who looked (to an 11 year old) old enough to be running the country never mind going to school! Crumbs! The lads were cuddling girls for heaven's sake! Two: although the school rules required it, if you wore your cap then it was going to be snatched from your head and thrown about the coach...

We arrived at the school and were shuffled into lines and marched into the Assembly Hall. The headmaster was Colonel Farish, who was dressed in a suit with waistcoat, over which a long black academic gown flowed to floor level. The Deputy Headmaster and Headmistress, were Mr Thomas and Miss Wood. They also wore black gowns. Mr Thomas looked exactly like the teacher from the Bash Street Kids. Miss Wood wore her hair braided in two enormous Princess Leia cartwheels at the side of her head.

The first years were to be split into 4 classes, 1A to 1D, based purely on age. We would be split by ability at the end of that year. I ended up in class 1B and, together with those in class 1A, we were formed into pairs, lined up into a crocodile and marched off to our rooms which were a prefabricated building a few streets away.

Our form mistress was a pretty young woman called Mrs Pilkington. Sally Pilkington, we were soon told by second year pupils. We were asked our names; "John" I said.
"We call boys by their surname here..." For some reason that was a shock. So for the next 6 or 7 years I was Burke to the teachers and for 3 to 4 years Burkey or Burkey-Bean to my peers.

It solved some confusion - on the front row of the class I was sat between John Booth and John Butterworth! A few years ago I got an email from "Butty" - Mate, the longer I look at your photo, the more I'm convinced that you are the John Burke I sat next to in school..."

At break time on that first day we joined the kids in class 1A and got to know the people we were sat next to a bit more. At lunchtime we were formed into a crocodile again and joined a larger one that walked through the town to a canteen that served other schools at Bamford Road.

School dinners - ha! Some were brilliant, some were gross. No serving counters for us, the food went to each table in huge trays and dishes and someone was designated monitor and dished out portions for all on the table. Baked beans without tomato sauce were unbelievably bad... Semolina and tapioca were not exactly favourites.

Brussel sprouts were commandeered mainly by one of the fifth formers. If you liked them but he was on your table then hard luck... I can't remember his real name but his somewhat predictable nickname was Stinks... He was, despite this, popular. He wasn't above talking to younger pupils, he was very laid back and easy going and he protected kids from a spot of bullying every now and then.

After the march back from the canteen we spent the rest of that first lunchtime in the main playground with the rest of the school. This entailed mainly second formers, giving you a long code number that they would return and demand from you after a while. Some unfortunates were swayed by the temptation to check out the "blue goldfish" in the bogs... Their hair dried out soon enough...

We learned a few nicknames of staff - Bill Thomas, the Deputy Head, was Tommy. Dorothy Wood was Daisy. The woodwork master was called Chisel and the frightening-sounding allegedly torture-loving chemistry master was known for good reason as Basher!

I might be wrong about this, but I think the first day was a tour around some of the classes we would be visiting for different subjects and meeting the teachers. We found we had Basher for chemistry... What in fact was chemistry? The room was a laboratory and had lots of glass bottles with what looked like water lined up on benches. There was strange equipment - bunsen burners, gas taps and test tubes - strange place! Basher's nickname was not ill-founded. His favourite trick was to make a fist with the middle knuckle extended and then rap the centre of your forehead with it. In a temper I once saw him pick a boy up by the ears...

He wasn't alone - the biology teacher, whose name I forget, shocked the whole class into silence by slapping very forcibly a boy called Stafford around the side of the head with his own exercise book. He had forgotten to do his homework. Taffy, the geography teacher, was an absolute sure shot with a heavy wooden board rubber! Every school had one of those but Taffy never ever missed, no matter how far back you were sitting!

We were to see a lot of David Miller, as he taught us not only French, but music. He was a young man with a sharp beak of a nose and spectacles, which he obviously used just for reading because he would whip them off when he wanted to glare at the class. He was a brilliant musician on the piano and had a real love of music. When French got too boring someone would say "Play something on the piano, Sir!" Every now and then it worked!

Mr Miller was choirmaster of the Heywood Grammar School Choir, a choir of good ability and reputation which used to sing for Evensong in St Luke's parish church in Heywood every Thursday night. I loved singing and enthusiastically joined the choir, putting up with wearing the cassock and surplice. I regret now, that I have no photos of the choir at all, nor have I found any on the Internet - anyone reading this who can help?

You could never accuse me of being religious I'm afraid but I loved the soaring voices when we sang the Magnificat - "My soul, my soul, doth sanctify the Lord..." Again if you recognise those words, someone tell me who wrote it and help me find a CD with it on!

Mr Miller was also the pianist for morning assembly. This included Christian worship in those days and I find it hard to understand now why the Government has been so scared of offending minorities that we don't teach our own religion in schools. It's no wonder that church attendance has fallen so much. Some of the hymns we sang in Assembly are still in my head - particularly:

He, who would valiant be, 'gainst all disaster
Let him in constancy follow the Master
There's no discouragement to make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim

Ah, shivers down the spine! That and "...for those in peril on the sea"!

We had a teacher called Mr Law for PE. He was dressed in a track suit and had a whistle and called our names out for the register then said "Green!" or "Red!" or "White!" or "Blue!" I hadn't a clue what that meant because I hadn't been listening properly. It dawned on me that he was allocating us to a "house", not taking the register and I had to go back and ask what mine was.
"Name?"
"Burke, Sir," I said. He looked at his list and sniffed.
"Hmm! You are a berk aren't you, boy? Blue!"

We were ushered into a physics lab - more strange equipment and a genial, even jolly, chap standing behind the teacher's bench who lined us up and demanded to know who our form teacher was.

"Mrs Pilkington, Sir". He considered this for a while.
"Oh yes... she's nice, Mrs Pilkington... pretty... nice figure... cooks a good breakfast...!"
"What's your name, Sir?" someone asked.
"Mister Pilkington!" he twinkled. "Anyone know what physics is?"

No one did. He picked up a jar and tipped some iron filings over a lit bunsen burner. They flared and shot up like a firework. We all went "Ooooooh!" with delight just as he had planned. Pilky was a born teacher - but his experiments always went haywire. "Well..." he would say, as what he had told us would happen stubbornly refused to, "take my word for it! Now try it for yourselves!"

Chisel, the woodwork teacher, had a huge workshop in the basement of the main school building. His nickname was due to his habit of standing at one end and saying to someone "Fetch me that chisel..." He would point to a bench with several chisels on it.
"Which one, Sir?"
"That one!" ...said without moving but with a finger outstretched which could have been pointing to any of the chisels!

He had a habit of banging a wooden mallet on a workbench close to your hand - you would jump out of your skin! He also used to throw a hammer in the air, whack it with his hand so that it spun, catch it and put it down. Then he would leave the room. When he came back half of us would have rapped our own knuckles trying to do the same thing...

My best mate from 6th form days, Alex Dyson, contributes this memory: I couldn't wait to drop woodwork in the fourth form even though it meant another two years of art. We used to get a crack from Chisel with a piece of wood for even looking in the wrong place, yet when we were boiling the glue kettle one day and I set fire to a pile of wood shavings when he went out, he never even noticed. I was crapping myself because it really took hold and the air was thick with smoke when he came back, but he must have been preoccupied with some really important matter, like someone holding a pencil in the wrong way...

Priceless!

The end of the school day came and we paraded back to where the coach had dropped us off. There were 5 coaches! A moment's panic, then I found the right one and we set off back. The M62 didn't yet exist, so the coaches took us through Heywood and through countryside to Sudden, in Rochdale, turning right up to Castleton past the end of our old street (yet to be covered here in an entry about gruesome ailments) and then along Queensway, past all the mills that had contributed to my Dad's bad chest, along Kingsway and then back to Milnrow where I got off, the coach ending its journey in Newhey.

Yelloways were using their 1952 "Seagull" model coaches for the Heywood run. The photo is of the same model but a different coach firm. They had no seatbelts, nor would coaches have passenger seatbelts for many years to come, and had a large metal handrail across the back of each seat as a grab rail to help people sitting behind get up out of their seats. If the coach stopped suddenly the metal rail was just at tooth height...

Return to Family Memories Index

Annual Reunion 2010

Spent time rummaging this week through the closets and cupboards, looking for the old school tie and scarf ready for our annual get-together.

Alex, Jackie and I met up this year at Nutters Restaurant in Norden near Rochdale. These reunions have come to be a celebration of fine food and wine as well as a chance to regress to 17-year-olds and swap memories and jokes.

I never fail to be utterly entertained and entranced by these days which happen just once a year in August. We rotate the arrangements for the meal and Alex did the honours this year with Jackie looking for a suitable eatery in or near Liverpool for next year. If any other old friends would like to join in, my email address can be found in the left hand column.

We swapped personal news and dissected school life at Heywood Grammar School and its successor, Heywood Senior High School (now Siddall Moor). We were there at the start.

Jackie wanted to know what had happened to my old Nostalgia website which had lots of memories about the school. My main website disappeared when I moved ISPs and the intention is to recreate the pages here on this blog - hence old stuff like the Amsterdam weekend being uploaded.

The only problem with the blog format is that entries appear in reverse order...

So my task for sometime during the next year is to get the old Nostalgia site recreated here. There are already a number of entries under the nostalgia label and they will get added to that and also added to the family and friends label.

So of course most of the jokes told on Tuesday were far too politically incorrect to put on here and many of the memories meaningless to outsiders or have already been covered or will be recovered once I get cracking on the pages about Heywood Grammar.

The food was wonderful, I had salmon in oyster and mussel sauce - this came ringed with mussels which I really cannot bring myself to try. Sorry to the kitchen who may have been affronted at them being shoved to one side and not touched! The salmon and the sauce was beautiful though, with a herb crust and set on a bed of fine shoots and onions. Alex had fillet of beef which looked gorgeous and Jackie had ... well I can't remember actually...

We stayed for three hours and customers were coming in for afternoon tea which looked wonderful - sandwiches and cakes and pots of tea. Almost as gorgeous as the stunning young lady who came in with two friends or relatives...

"Don't mind me, lads..." muttered Jackie in exasperation as we sat goggle-eyed for a moment... They really did look delicious those sandwiches...

Heywood Grammar School Reunion

Last night after work I drove over to Heywood for a school reunion. Jackie was away at a bluegrass concert but Alex turned up right behind me and we met up with a few faces we hadn't seen in - what? - 36 years?!?

I learned a valuable lesson - even if your phone has a 5 megapixel camera, don't assume it will take photos! I should have taken a camera! Anyway it was great to catch up and chat with Brigid, Andrew (alias Sid), Jackie, Anne (both of them!), Jayne, Dave, Elaine and a few others.

There were a few teachers scattered about the room too and there must easily have been over a hundred people there.

Mike Law, our ex-Games teacher made a short speech and asked "Would you like another reunion in four years?" which prompted a few mutterings of "Blimey, I might not still be here in four years!

Reunion

It was the annual reunion yesterday.

Alex, Jackie and I met up in Liverpool - European City of Culture for the year - to... well to get some culture, what else?

Jackie's home town, so she was in charge of venues. In the plural. More than one. Three in fact. And with scenic walks through the streets of Liverpool to get from each to the next. Some of these walks were strangely reminsicent of Disneyland ride queues... as in we zig-zagged up and down streets trying to find where we were going.

Eventually Jackie admitted she was lost and both Alex and I pulled maps from our pockets... "Yes! Pilgrim Street!" she said enthusiastically. We walked along Pilgrim Street. "It's up here!" she said, taking us away from Pilgrim Street. "Well I thought it was..."

Let's not get too far ahead. I was first on the scene at the Fly in the Loaf, an atmospheric pub, which...didn't look open... Ah, wait - as I was on the phone to Jackie the shutters went up!

Jackie walked round the corner, we got a drink, Alex walked in and we yattered as we always do on these occasions - about anything but school funnily enough. Considering we were all friends at school, school didn't come into the conversation much. Old friends got a mention but most of the day was about what we are doing these days, hopes, aspirations, life.

The menu was a bit sparse so Jackie took us to an Italian - a good find, excellent food, haven't clue what it was called or where it was... So a great meal and a bottle of wine which Jackie did very well out of as both Alex and I were driving.

Conversation turned to a day in the Lake District thirty seven years ago. Six of us were piled into my Hillman Minx. It was a wonderful day of teenaged togetherness and fun. We were lucky in the group of friends we had. The bonds are still strong enough to draw us back every year even now.

"We were lucky to come back from that one..." Alex said. Well we skidded a bit round one corner! Six of us in that great tank of a car, no servo-assisted brakes. You put your foot on the brakes, pulled on the wheel until you were standing on the pedal and hoped for the best! No power steering either. With six people in it, steering was a test of strength! I had muscles like Charles Atlas in those days! (I mean Charles Atlas when he was a teenager - you know, the one on the beach having sand kicked in his face...)

Jackie went off to the loo leaving us with her diaries from 1970-72 to thumb through. (See, that's dedication! She even thinks about entertaining us whilst absent for a minute or two!) She was back far too quickly and took (took? snatched!) them back off us.

Then the rather less-than-straight walk as described above to find Ye Cracke, Liverpool's oldest pub, which we did eventually find after asking someone. How do you ask where a pub called "The Crack" is without it sounding as though you want to buy something? Must have looked bloody desperate, three mid-fifties old farts looking for transcendental spacial experiences...

Anyway here it is, loaded with atmosphere, dark, seemingly built of wood and glass - stained glass too and the three old farts on a mid-fifties version of a pub crawl. "Three diet cokes please..."

A great afternoon guys and many thanks to Jackie for acting as hostess with the mostess!

As a follow-on, Jackie left the following comment which I now transfer to here :-

Hi John,
Funnily enough not two months ago I was snapped looking at maps to work out exactly where said pub was and have pic which I will send...

...and with the photo...

Does this scene look familiar?...we were , erm... I was , looking for the Cracke - it is a bugger to find , sober or squiffy...

Which one's me and which one's Alex...?

Oh and don't forget you are charged with finding out about the Heywood reunion in September!

The Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll

This tidy up lark's not all bad is it? By which I suppose I mean it's not always all that effective either...

I found these...

A set of six triple CDs with some great early rock 'n' roll music on them. Yes ok, I already had much of it but there were some gems I've had to stop tidying up to listen to and then I had to rip them to the PC so the CDs can go back up in the attic (which at least stops them cluttering up the spare room a bit).

How do we acquire so much stuff???

And how does a week fly past so quick? I mean - it's Thursday already! All I've done is tidy up, rehash the website, realise how few of the lost websites I can find the original photos of to scan them larger (film huh?), go into town, upgrade my phone (still same number for those who know what it is), take Fran looking for a craft shop in Preston (small - hardly worth the trip), watch DVDs (Kingdom of Heaven, Sing As We Go, That'll Be The Day, Stardust), take Fran to work (heh!), taken Fran to lunch, plan to meet Alex and Jackie for lunch in Liverpool...

I don't feel so bad after reading Jackie's email which goes along similar lines to my own experience. She writes:

"Mr W is off on hols this week and we've been having a de clutter fortnight instead of a holiday---- -great... So far I've only suceeded in moving clutter around and forming new attachments to it, much to Mr W's dismay."

I can relate to that...

Fleetwood Tram Sunday 2008

Sunday 20 July 2008. The annual transport festival along Fleetwood's main street takes place so we go down for a mooch about and to drool over a few cars and other wheeled bits and bobs that jolt my memory.

Given the title of this entry, which is also the title of the event, I'd better have a photo of a tram here I suppose. However, seeing as I live in Blackpool, I can see the trams any day. What makes this day special for me are all the old cars, buses and lorries that make their way to Fleetwood for the event.

It's years since I've been to Fleetwood Tram Sunday. Usually it clashes with the band's gig at Croxteth in Liverpool, but this year for whatever reason Croxteth was a week earlier. The organisers at Fleetwood said their event is always the third Sunday in July so I've registered the band's interest in appearing next year if the two events don't coincide!

Three lorries from the same Kirkham firm, a 1937 ERF with three-way tipper, an early Ford dropside and a Thames Trader flatback. I love the added interest given on the two older lorries that the firm's telephone number was only two digits - "Kirkham 59"!

A 1955 AEC Mercury G4M flatback lorry. This could be either a MkI or a MKII as, unfortunately for me, AEC switched over from the MkI to the MkII in 1955. If anyone knows, please leave a comment. AEC were also bus manufacturers and the distinctive grill can be found on their buses from the same period.

A 1938 Bristol K5G with bodywork by Roe designed for working on low bridge routes and in the livery of the Keighley and West Yorkshire fleet. Was Ramsden's Yorkshire's most popular beer, I wonder?

An interior detail of the above Bristol K5G bus. The bell push at the rear platform was primarily for the conductor to operate, though if he or she was upstairs when you got up for your intended stop, it was usual for passengers to press the bell themselves. The customary signal was for one ding to stop the bus and the conductor would give two dings when it was safe for the driver to move away from the stop. On these buses, the driver was of course in a segregated cab and not in the same compartment as passengers. I found out recently that in certain parts of the country, the Isle of Man, the bell push is still the province of the conductor.

A 1964 Ford Consul Cortina MkI, first launched in 1962 and later during 1964 to have a slight facelift and drop the "Consul" part of its name. It was the first car to have front dashboard ventilation with vents in the rear window pillars allowing the air to leave the interior, drawing in fresh air at the front. My Dad had an early one and we gawped in wonder at the horn button which was on the end of the lights/indicators switch stalk from the steering column instead of the usual middle of the wheel placement.

A superb, if slightly garish, 1960s Vauxhall Velox. Alex Dyson's dad used to have one of these but I can't remember if it was this rather startling shade or not... Alex? Leave a comment? I always thought these were amongst the best looking of the UK's 1960s cars though, along with the MkIII Zephyr as used in TV's Z-Cars.

Wolseley 15/50. Grandad had a Wolseley just like this one but in two tone black/green with the colours separated by the chrome flash along the side of the car.

A Ford Cortina MkII on the left. It launched after a four-year run of the MkI in October 1966 and by 1967 was the most popular new car in Britain. Like its predecessor, it had a four year production run before the launch of the MkIII. It was the only one of the five Marks not to have been owned by my family, as Dad had a MkI and I had, in turn, a MkIV, MkIII, and MkV. My own favourite of them all would be the MkIII.

Another model that I had owned at one time - though my particular specimen was nowhere near as tidy looking as this one! The Triumph 1300 was what I considered a gentlemen's car, with walnut trim om the dashboard and a very smooth gear change that didn't want to be rushed! Launched in 1965 and in production until 1970 it replaced the earlier much-loved Triumph Herald.

The Humber Sceptre MKI was introduced in 1963 and had a relatively short production run with the MkII coming out in 1965. It was one of the top models within the Rootes range, competing with the likes of the Sunbeam Rapier.

In the days before the more convenient "Mk" or Mark system for Fords they had a much more unwieldy system of model numbers. This is a Ford Prefect - yes: not just a character in a radio seeries/book/TV series/film about interplanetary hitch-hikers... This is the Ford Prefect 100E which can be described as the equivalent of a MkIII, though variants were manufactured with slight differences in other countries such as Australia. This was the first more modern bonnet-interior-boot variant as the two previous designs had stagecoach boots with near-vertical hatches giving access to the luggage space. The Prefect had a stablemate as a cheaper option, known as the Ford Anglia which had the distinction of carrying on in its old form as the Ford Popular when its shape changed. Very strange idea...

A 1934 Wolseley Nine. It had a 1018cc engine and hydraulic brakes with wire-spoked wheels. It had a short production run, being upgraded as the Wolseley Wasp in 1935.

Ford's replacement for the Anglia was the Ford Escort. Launched in November 1967 it quickly became a very sought after car and by the time the MkII came out in 1975 it had sold over 2 million units. My Dad bought a black one in 1968, exasperated at his Zephyr 6 MKIV which had suffered a series of breakdowns. He bought the Escort brand new whilst on holiday and then on the way home it somehow dropped all of its gearbox oil and he sold it as quickly as possible when the dealer denied all responsibility.

A Seddon flatback wagon. The 1953 may be its year of manufacture or not... It looks reasonable but I stand ready to be corrected!

And finally, some good old-fashioned steam power! I've seen plenty of Sentinel steam wagons, but this is the first time I've seen a bus variant. It was kept busy giving bus rides along Fleetwood seafront during the day!

Fleetwood Tram Sundays Index