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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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...

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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...

School Pals Reunion

I met up with Alex and Jackie again yesterday for lunch in the Peacock Room at the Crimble, Rochdale.

I didn't take any photos I'm afraid so you'll have to make do with one of the restaurant from their website.

Anyway it was an excellent jolly affair as was last year's get together. We've agreed to make it an annual event and also discussed widening it out. I do normally contact Jan and Bev but probably we leave it until too late to arrange for everyone so we thought we might go for an extra event next May Day Bank Holiday and are looking for others, Brigid, Sheila, Colin Wise (anyone know where he is???) to join us.

I'll email the ones I'm in touch with and see if wider networks can get hold of the others.

Jackie had her diaries to hand from 1970 through to 1972. Unfortunately she went a bit coy about letting us read them (!) but quoted a few bits. We were both mentioned in dispatches on birthdays - though whilst I got a card, Alex got a card and forty fags!!! Is that fair??? Can grudges be started after 37 years? Perhaps not!

Lots of food memories - was "pie and peas" worthy of writing down? Must have been a slow news day... And an entry:

"Went up to Hollingworth Lake with Jan, John and Alex. Spent afternoon in pub watching others watching us - hilarious!"

My God, what were we up to??? Grown-ups can pretend all they want but teenagers have always been teenagers and we were no different to today's.

I can heartily recommend the Peacock Room at the Crimble too. Unhurried yet attentive service and excellent food, really worthy of Jackie's diarist leanings!

Felt full; drove home; watched Fran eat her tea without even a twinge of envy...

Class Reunion

Ah, I'm full of well-being today. We've arranged a bit of a school reunion. Only a bit as there's likely only to be three of us but we may perchance admit a bit of table space if any other old geezers of the old gang want to join in! Leave a comment here or email me if anyone does happen to see this drivel...er...blog...

Jackie, Alex and I are meeting up in Rochdale next week on Wednesday (Boss, if you're reading this I will put in a request for leave, honest...)

All the rest of the crowd are a bit far-flung. Jan's fairly close but is going hiking up and down mountains - sheesh, if you just want to prove to yourself that you're as old as the rest of us then it's easier to sit and natter and realise how much has changed since 1971!

So, anyway, Alex having agreed a time sent an email mentioning "High Noon" and it got me thinking about something or other, which came more-or-less to a focus when reading an article about chess in the movies (huh? no I don't know either - it's the way my brain works these days...)

They show chess as it's the only way to show a character is brainy apparently. What a load of cods - I used to just thrash in with a bit trying to annihilate the pieces of my opponent. Preferably by lifting mine to shoulder height and then swooping it down making an aeroplane noise...

The other strategy game we used to play (yes, I knew if I wrote for long enough there'd be a link!) was Risk, which was an army game about conquering the world. In the early 1970s the entire family would gather to play and Alex would join in if we happened to be at my house.

There were some strange rules I remember - whoever was knocked out first was labelled the punkah-waller and had to go and brew up for everyone else. Much better game than chess - at least there was writing on the board so you could tell if it was the right way up...

Rainy Gig in Croxteth

Rain did not stop play until 4:15 but it was a dryer day for us than it was for the audience.

Our 6th year at Croxteth Park Open Day was the quietest so far as the weather kept people indoors.

A hardy few came out to play - we were never without an audience and sometimes it got into double figures... Compare that with the 12,000 who turned up one year and it certainly was a quiet one!

The fairground hadn't set up due to the wet ground so we were without any real competition for the noise stakes and you could hear us quite a way away.

Look at that marquee! Croxteth were certainly making sure we were kept dry and the weather kept changing its mind about what to do but by 4:15 it seemed to have set in to rain hard for a while and the marquee was starting to drip so we called it a day.

My old school chum Jackie turned up with a few props - her school beret and the old school tie plus the now infamous french dictionary whose frontspiece we ripped out in the 6th form to make a fag from dog ends when we had all run out of fags. It was ghastly... It wasn't even in english of course!

She even brought a photo of Larry the Lamb... ahh...

What do you mean; you haven't a clue what I'm going on about? Check out my nostalgia pages - most of these reference are on the readers memories page.

A Flower for Jackie!

3:00pm. Warning: this may be incomprehensible unless you have read the previous entry...

So have I got lots of reading done, ready for my course? Uh, well some...

The garage had part of the wing mirror but when unpacked it appeared to be missing a vital ingredient - the mirror bit... We agreed it may be better to keep with the cracked mirror for the moment. It works up to a point - I keep thinking a Picasso is driving up behind me...

Then into Blackpool to pick up the mysterious package - Blackpool has free carparks on Saturday mornings but I of course drive into one that has to be paid for... Not to worry, park the car and trot down to the post office full of anticipation to see what's in store - package contains a Gillette Fusion shaving razor and is addressed to Fran... I never knew - she must normally manage quite a smooth shave, I haven't noticed any stubble problem...

Then off to my Mum's to take her on the tour of markets and Tesco's. Stomach was rumbling as I had skipped breakfast in my haste to read the Prince2 manual. Luckily Tesco's had some free samples of pork and apple sausage - very nice! Mum caught up with me outside after I was ejected for eating too many bits... But they were getting cold - I did you a favour!!! Mum said she'd never been so embarrassed so I reminder her of 17 June 1983, 5 Sept 1991 and 21 May 2000. I mean, she still does those things but she's given over getting embarrassed about it now...

Got an email from Jackie who said (rather ungraciously, I thought) "By the way if that's what you call an apology I think I'd rather have abject grovel"

Which brings me back to the subject - a flower for Jackie, delivered on my knees over several yards of cinders (abject gravel, geddit? Geddit???)... Honestly dear readers, it would bring tears to your eyes to see the state of my legs - but we won't go into that! She's fighting back now - got her own blog...

Playing Catch-Up...

Agh! - I dreamed I was falling asleep whilst reading my required pre-course manual for a week long course with a [gulp!] three-hour exam at the end! At my time of life (8:05am on a Saturday morning) I thought I'd done with all that!

Have just taken wifey and daughter to the airport - they are having a weekend in London to celebrate Gill's forthcoming nuptuals (she's getting married too). I'm following them tomorrow as I'm there for the week on this course. We figured the cats might like some food over the weekend though.

A few follow-ups from previous entries.

After the entry about Ingrid's new film, I had a friend request from film director Mark Redfield at my MySpace Account which was very nice of him! Look after Ingrid for me Mark and don't believe everything she says about me!

I was contacted by someone who had attended the Change Management session at Gregynog in Wales, looking for more of the same in-house for their college.

I was contacted by my old mucka, Jackie, after the gig at Witton Park, Blackburn. She claimed I'd sent her to Croxteth Park, Liverpool - and had the cheek to send me a copy of my email proving it... oh... er... sorry about that Jackie... good job it wasn't raining then! Oh... it was in Liverpool...? well... ah... and what? You'd brought along lots of things for me to look at...? I gave myself 99 lashes with a rusty chain - she very kindly agreed that 100 was too much... "forgiven not forgotten" is what she said... The Croxteth Park gig is on Sunday 15 July - come and see a man berated... if she's dried out enough to come...

Ok - I'm off - the local garage have booked me in to have my broken wing mirror fixed, the postman tried to deliver a parcel the other day but we weren't in so that needs picking up (no idea what it may be either?!?) and must whiz my mother around the market and Tesco before getting back to the rivetting manual for this course!