War at Secondary School

Secondary School.

We did leave Park Road School at 10, a year earlier than we should have: because of the war they said. After the 1943 summer holidays we would be going to Wellington Road Modern Secondary School.
After the teacher had sorted us into two classes, A/B and then C, I was in the A/B section, the C grade were marched off to their classroom. The deputy head told us to keep quiet and await the arrival of the Head who would bring the new teacher.
We were all jabbering away in hoarse whispers until one of the boy’s shouted, “Here they come,” as he spied a man and a lady walking across the quadrangle; all became quiet. I wasn’t able to see them properly, but on sitting down I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was Miss Henshall, my first teacher at Park Road.
The Head Master introduced her and explained that Miss Henshall was a relief teacher for six months, then she’d be leaving to get married; that news blew one of my ambitions.
We were to suffer a lack of teachers at Wellington Road, due to most of the able bodied men going off to serve King and country in its hour of need, so our schooling suffered badly. Temporary teachers came and went but there were a few stalwarts like the terror Mr Waywell, nicknamed, ‘Washer’ Waywell. The reason was because whoever he caught misbehaving he’d wipe or wash the floor with them, a very strict teacher indeed.
At the end of our first year we had to attend Altrincham Grammar School to take the entrance examination to see if we were ‘grammar school material’. It turned out that I wasn’t G.S.M, but Peter Davies, David Crichton and quite a few others of my friends were. Quite a few of my class mates who’d come from other schools passed as well, so our class numbers were substantially reduced.
Then one day our teacher informed us that the school leaving age was to be changed from fourteen to fifteen years’ of age. “This new law would affect all children born during 1933 and after,” We were all given a letter to take home.
This was a great blow for some of the boys and a bone of contention for some parents. They would not benefit from the extra money their off springs would have earned. As it turned out I was going to benefit from this change in the law.
One day during the1944 school holidays we were playing football in the road, using our gates as the goal. When our game was interrupted when the post van pulled up to deliver a parcel to our house; it was probably for Mrs Long with a few more nuts for us. As Mum opened the door she called me in, lunch was ready. Being somewhat in a hurry to get out and playing again, but as I got up from the table Mum called me back. “Not so fast me Laddo,” as she handed me a parcel, which had my name and our address on it? It had foreign stamps on which was a mystery in itself, especially when it turned out the parcel had come from India.
For a few minutes it never struck me that there was a war on, and this parcel had come half way round the World, to ME! We didn't know anyone so far away; all this time I was of course opening the surprise. What ever could it be? Putting the enclosed letter to one side, I unearthed and held up, would you believe a deflated leather football. I thought I must be dreaming. The panels were in the shape of the famous letter "T” of these days. Boy o' Boy, beyond my wildest dreams, I was now the proud owner of a leather "T" ball. But where had it come from and who had sent it?
Mum picked up the letter and she read it as I paid attention to my new prized possession. We discovered that Margaret, the daughter of Mum’s best friend from Sheffield had arranged for her fiancé, Eric Thompson to send it over for me, he was serving with the RAF in India. He had written all the instructions on what to do and how to look after it.
Footballs in these days had a bladder; a heavy rubber balloon that was forced into the case through a two and a half inch slot, this had to be closed up using a leather lace. Eric had even enclosed a football friend, a device for blowing the ball up with a bicycle pump. I dashed out of the front door like mad in the hope that my pals would be waiting for me. Harry and Ian were sat on the wall. “Look what I’ve got I shouted; it’s come all the way from India. It must have cost a small fortune”.
We had periods when there wasn’t a teacher available but a solution was found to keep us out of mischief. The headmaster had been advised that a boy from class ‘3C’ had a talent for story telling, so for two one-hour periods each week during my second year we assembled in the arts and crafts room. He enthralled us with his tales that he seemed to make up as he went along. His timing was impeccable as he brought the story to its conclusion, in time for our next lesson or home time. We were the best-behaved class in school whilst he was in charge.
When he left school a few of us wondered if he would in the future make his living from writing, I remembered his name for many years, but it’s gone now, what a pity. Just think he could now be a famous writer?
During the War, well before the summer holiday of 1944 a mysterious couple descended on our school. He was tall and well built whilst the lady was short and stocky, and she wasn’t dressed like other ladies, she wore a heavy tweed suit, shirt with collar and tie, brown brogue shoes and thick brown knitted stockings. Her hair was cut short like the man’s, and to look at them put the fear of God into us, they didn’t look very friendly at all. Who on earth were they?
Then one morning the sight of what we saw in classroom 4 chilled and frightened us to death. Word spread round all the school like a jungle fire. It was a black dentist’s chair.
After the first class had had their teeth examined, the rumours abounded, their Germans. “She’s definitely a German,” voiced one boy because she spoke like a German he’d seen on a news reel. Well, she did, and anyone who spoke with a foreign accent during war time was a German, we were all highly suspicious. And of course we’d only seen the news films at the pictures so we hadn’t a clue that the countries near to Germany spoke a similar language. Such as the Swiss for example, who happened to be a neutral nation during the war?
My pal Ian Watkins had a break very similar to mine, and when he came out from his examination; he said he had to have it capped, whatever that was? In I went, shaking like a leaf. I came out very relieved to tell Ian that mine wasn’t as bad as his, but the bad news was that I had to a filling. Oh those treadle-drilling machines, it was like being tortured, the vibration nearly shook my head off. When I think back to those old day’s, well it’s almost a pleasure to go to the dentice.
We were to start having woodwork lessons in our last two years; there were two teachers Mr. Salt and Mr. Ashurst. Every boy wanted to be in Mr. Salt’s class as he was a jovial character, not like Mr. Ashurst at all. What a relief; luckily I ended up in Mr Salt’s class. We soon learnt that all the stories we had heard about him were true, he was a funny jovial character, but also a very good teacher, he very quickly earned our respect.
Although the war had ended and it was now 1946 ‘Dig for Victory’ was still one of the slogans of the day and one of the lessons in our curriculum was now gardening, guess who took us, yes Mr Salt. He taught us how to grow many vegetables, but one in particular was to stand out in my mind for ever; growing celery! We had to dig four trenches, each a foot wide and one and a half spade spits deep, then a layer of farm manure was laid to a depth of 6” followed by soil to fill the trench to within six inches of the top.
Whether we sowed seeds or seedlings doesn’t really matter, but after they were established more manure had to be administered. Near to these trenches were two big tubs; we had never taken much notice of these, until now. We thought them to be water butts. Hearing the word manure again a few boy’s started wandering to the back of the class, you couldn’t kid Mr Salt, he wouldn’t allow anyone to skive out of any job. Pointing to the back, “Right you four, over here, you two, take off that lid, you two, that one.” As they lifted the lids off, Oh no, Cor, what a stink.
Mr Salt fell about laughing, and then he told us that it was farm yard manure with water added and then left over winter, it was now liquid manure. Phew, oh blimey, it did stink something awful; we all had to hold our noses as he tried to convince us that the smell would be more tolerable in a few minutes.
As if by magic two buckets suddenly appeared, it dawned on us then what was coming. “Form two lines, one here and one there, now spread out and form two chains.” Lifting a bucket he then explained that he would fill them and hand them out. We had to pass the full buckets down the line, share a bucketful between three plants and pass the bucket back. Some of us went home with mucky stinky boots or shoes that day; I didn’t think our Mums were very pleased, well mine wasn’t for sure. After this ordeal was over we were told that it would now be an on going part of the class responsibility and if we wanted, we could bring our wellies next week.
He gave us a short lecture on the benefits of manure and ended with the advice that human manure was by far the most beneficial for celery. Not many of us were impressed with this note of wisdom. Soon everything in the garden was growing very well, but when Mr Salt brought a pile of old newspapers out a wag remarked he’d forgotten the deck chairs. Well we were soon to find out what the papers were for.
Some minutes later we were knelt down with our noses barely out of the manure as we attempted to wrap up the plants of celery in newspaper with one hand whilst the other held our noses. “Right you lot stop fooling about and do the job properly, you won’t be going home until it is.” We all knew that we had tried his patience to the limit. “Sorry sir,” came from every quarter so we settled down and left on time with it all well wrapped and tied with string. He then informed us that the paper was to keep the sun off the celery. If the Sun was to get at it, photosynthesis would turn it green with chlorophyll, this would make it inedible. The paper would protect it, in other words we were bleaching it. More acceptable to the pallet he informed us.
In woodwork, yes we did do some, the first item we were let loose on was a pan stand; this was to teach us the simple cross joint. We were given a foot of timber 1”x1”, and told to make 2 - 6” lengths and this should be quite simple, marking and cutting the joint out would be the hard part. Then we had to master the tenon saw, learning how to cut in a straight line. Quite a few of the boy’s kept me company in the fact that chisel work was a lot harder than Mr Salt made it appear. On completion we were allowed to take our first attempt home, but I don’t think a lot of mothers were pleased to receive their sons offering, mine wasn’t too bad, fair to middlin' as they say! After about a month in the kitchen it seemed to disappear. I often wondered if my spiteful sister had disposed of it.
One day as the lesson was drawing to its close Mr Salt disappeared into the stock room; after a while we got quite anxious. One of us was about to creep up when he eventually re-appeared. We could hardly believe our eyes, he was unrecognisable. He had on a very large brimmed hat with a black veil hanging down all over his shoulders and wearing a black smock. On his hands were big gauntlets and he wore black wellies and he was holding a tin can with a spout that had smoke coming out of it.
We were all helpless with laughter; he was acting silly as he walked out like a zombie. He then announced that after we’d all gone home to the safety of our mother’s arms, he was going to see to his bees. His timing is impeccable, as soon as he’d finished talking the bell goes and we leave him in piece.
But there was a serious side to his play-acting; he looked after the beehives in the school garden and collected the honey. From time to time he showed and told us various interesting things about bees. One important thing was that if there were no bees to pollinate the plants we would all be dead as mutton within three years, this was because, no pollination meant that nothing would grow.
During the war years Physical Training and Games; well, what we had was a mish mash of lessons in the first couple of years. It seemed as if someone thought; give them a ball on a cricket or football pitch and that will keep them fit and well. That was until 1945 when a new teacher joined the staff, he was to teach us Geography and the previously mentioned two subjects. He was a bubbly man about five feet two and quite young, he had been in the RAF serving in aircrew.
He was a jovial character; he put us in mind of Arthur Askey: We enjoyed an exciting afternoon as he gave us our first Geography lesson. It was a howler when he started with the geological differences in the various counties of the British Isles. It all began when he reached up into the Scottish Highlands on the map. Within minutes he was reminiscing about a war time experience.
“Ah, now I was posted up to the Shetland Isles during the war, I was in the RAF you know.” He didn’t divulge what he did in the RAF other than something to do with air crew. Then he goes on to explain. There were no camps up there so he’d been billeted out to one of the cottages, inhabited by an old crofter and his wife. The first morning he came into the kitchen come living room for breakfast, he told us he couldn’t understand half of what they said to him.
The conversation went something like this, “Yul biharvin sum purrage nay doot ta fel Ur belliee.” He didn’t have the opportunity to say yes or no before the lady ‘ove the hoose’ slopped a big scoopful into a dish and smiled at him. He could now smell bacon frying, so he decided to give the porridge a go in case he would forfeit the bacon. Looking around the table he spied the sugar pot and not being fond of porridge, and in this case the look of it either, he liberally sprinkled sugar all over it thinking he’d enjoy that part of it however awful the rest may taste. Taking a deep breath, he went for it. He told us he had no choice but to spit it back into the dish, the sugar wasn’t sugar at all but salt. How was he to know they ate porridge up there with salt on?
We all fell about laughing. As it happened he had quite a few to relate. Well that was our first geography lesson over with. But where exactly are the Shetland Isles?
Then one day he told us that in a week or two he would only be teaching us geography, and after the “Oh, sir why sir?” chorus had died down he informed us that another teacher, a Mr Garside would be taking over our PT and Games lessons. This man wasn’t liked very much by a lot of the boy’s; it was his superior type of attitude that did it.

From ‘TIMPERLEY BOY’ by Peter Scott - Published by Churnet Valley Books Leek Staffordshire

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