Note, this post was originally written in April 2009. It is being reproduced here as the current blog host (MobileMe) will become defunct at some point in the next year. This blog post completes a series of 11 blog posts about my memories of life at Chalkstone Middle School, 1981–1985.

One billion, one hundred and eighty-three million, three hundred and nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-seven. That (very large) number reflects - at the time of writing - how many seconds that I have been in existence on this planet. I’m not saying that I have behaved like a saint for every one of those seconds, but I like to think that for the most part, I have been a honest, decent, and law-abiding citizen. As a pupil, I tried to obey the rules, and stay on the right sides of the tracks (which is more impressive than it sounds if you knew how easily Haverhill could lure you to the ‘wrong’ side of the tracks).

However, during one summers day in 1985, it seemed that it was time for me to blot my copybook and and damage both myself and my reputation, as I used just one of those seconds to say something that was not altogether appropriate for a school ground environment. One second may not seem a long time, but it is long enough to be able to quickly spit out five short words, and on that particular day the five words in question were “Miss Cox is a Nazi”.

Whilst it is unlikely that there will ever be a good time or place to call someone a Nazi, this was a particularly bad choice of location for my utterance. Had I decided to say those words from within the confines of my bedroom or even on the outer fringes of the school playing field, then maybe I would not be sitting here today writing this recollection. However, I chose to say those words at the end of a school assembly, and I overcame the possible problem of not having everyone pay careful attention to my words by using the assembly hall’s PA system to broadcast my message to each and every person in the room. Of course, I could have just whispered to it a couple of my friends. I could have even spoken it aloud to the rest of my class. But no. I was living up to my occasional nickname variant of ‘mad Nod’, and I decided to say those five words to the entirety of Chalkstone Middle School, pupils *and* teachers.

There was no introduction, no warm-up announcement to introduce the fact that I - Keith Robert Bradnam - was about to publicly decree that Miss Cox, my form tutor and a sports teacher at the school, was a paid up member of the Nazi party (a claim that was blatantly untrue I hasten to add). Likewise there was no post script to the announcement, I simply walked up to the microphone at the end of assembly, leaned forward and excitedly (perhaps even enthusiastically) said “Miss Cox is a Nazi”. It’s hard to think of anything more idiotic and shameful that I have said either before or since that incident. 

At this point I have hopefully raised some important questions, chief of which is ‘why?’. Why on earth would any sane individual insult someone in this way, and why do it in such a public manner? Why would someone who had previously been branded Jewish Nod call someone else a Nazi? Alas, there is no easy or simple answer to this question, but there were some reasons (albeit tenuous ones) that led me to this predicament. Bear with me as I attempt to clear my conscience and put forward my version of the events that unfolded on that fateful day.

As mentioned already, Miss Cox was my form tutor for my fourth (and final) year at the school. At some point in the preceding years she had changed her name (presumably through marriage) from Miss Ellel. She was young and attractive and therefore she was very popular with the boys. Though I think it is fair to say that she was very popular with everyone, as she was a fun and friendly teacher. Indeed, she was one of the last people on this planet who you might think had secret Nazi tendencies. In addition to teaching physical education, she may have also taught biology. I say this only because I remember her teaching a sex education lesson that I found embarrassing at the time...though at least I finally found out what a ‘French letter’ was.

At the start of each morning and afternoon we had ‘registration’, a short period of time before our proper classes started where the teacher would ‘take’ the register to check that everyone was present (which was important at Chalkstone, what with people doing the occasional runner). During these times, we would chat to each other, maybe play some cards and in general just hang out as school kids are wont do to. We would also chat to our form tutors (those we liked anyway). And so at some point in my fourth and final year at Chalkstone, I struck up a rapport with Miss Cox, and somewhere along the line I invented the notion that she was a Nazi. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. But the important thing about this was that it was in jest (well as much as calling anyone a Nazi can be in jest) and she seemed to go along with the joke. I should reiterate this point...it really was our little joke and she never seemed to mind when I would ask her things like “Did you drive to work in your Panzer today miss?’). All good, clean, and harmless fun. Except that ultimately it wasn’t harmless...or good for that matter. Actually it’s debatable whether it was ever clean either. It wasn’t like I was calling her a Nazi every time I saw her, just now and again I would make some subtle reference to her alleged political persuasion. As I said, I don’t know how (or why) this started, but it is abundantly clear how it all ended.

Fast forward to the middle of the year. It was a day where some people from our form class were performing in the morning assembly. I don’t think that classes were forced to do things in assembly, it was more of a case of whether pupils had enough talent and/or ego to do anything that might be of interest to the whole school. Our main school hall had one end that consisted of big folding, wooden doors. These could be opened up to reveal the drama ‘studio’ which was behind the main hall. This area was slightly elevated with respect to the main hall (probably by no more than a foot) and it functioned as a stage from which teachers could address the gathered masses. I think pupil performances in assembly were generally appreciated by teachers as it meant that they had less to do in order to fill the time. Now whilst I think it was a group of people from our class who were performing that day, it doesn’t really matter what class they were in. All that matters was that they had asked me to help them out with one small detail.

As I recall, the people in question were Andrew Jarvis, Gerald Lloyd, and possibly Zylan Hurrell and Adrian Hutton. I might be wrong about the last two. Actually, it was very likely that Sam Marsh was involved...I say this because the featured performance concerned music, and Sam was a drummer (who would later go on to find a modicum of fame as singer/drummer in Jacob’s Mouse). Their ‘performance’ consisted of them miming to a rock song...a ZZ Top song as I recall. At least I think they were miming...I can’t remember if there were even any instruments on stage. The basic plan was they would mime their way through the song, and three and half minutes later, that would be that. The end of the performance would also mark the end of the assembly. Hardly the greatest act of entertainment to grace a school assembly, but it was probably exactly the sort of thing that many kids thought was ‘cool’. I would welcome any more details about the act if people can remember anything. My memory of this segment is probably clouded by the unforgettable events that followed afterwards.

My role in this little musical workshop number was basically to stay hidden in the wings and start - and then stop - the requisite track at the relevant time. It was not a challenging role and I performed my functions as required. The music player (it might have been a tape player, but it could also have been a record player) was part of a larger audio unit housed in a lectern-like piece of furniture. The top of the unit featured a microphone that was physically attached with one of those bendy little necks. The output of said microphone could be redirected to two large PA speakers that were located above each side of the stage in the assembly hall. I had been required to turn up before the assembly started in order to learn my arduous ‘sound-engineer’ duties, and I recall that this meant that I skipped registration. It may have been in this set-up period that we discovered how to turn on the microphone.

As the performance ended (no doubt to rapturous applause, I mean it was five boys miming a ZZ Top song...could it get any better?), teachers started shepherding pupils out of the hall and back to their classes. During assembly teachers would sit (on chairs, not on the floor like us of course) down the two sides of the assembly hall and watch out for any deviant behaviour. I believe that the assembly hall had some sort of order to it (first years sat at the front?) and it took a while to empty the hall as there were only two exits that could be used.

While people started filed out of the exits, we remained on the stage. Someone among us (I’m thinking it was Gerald Lloyd) realised that the presence of the microphone afforded us to say something live to (most of the) gathered school. And so it happened. First of all I think Gerald and maybe Andrew just made some amusing, comedy noises (well it was amusing for thirteen year olds). E.g. “wah, wah, wah, wahhhhhhhh” (I hope you can hear that sound in your head). Maybe one of us was daring enough to say something like “bum”. I had yet to say anything. Maybe I was feeling a little peer pressure to say something, or maybe I chose to do this of my own volition. It doesn’t really matter any more, because you know what I said next. Just five little words, and just like the ‘good ol’ boys’ from the Dukes of Hazard, I was certainly ‘never meanin’ no harm’.

What happened next is a bit of a blur. I recall that the assembly hall was still mostly full but I didn’t think anyone’s attention was on us. As soon as assembly officially ended, pupils start chatting to each other and so the background noise level in the hall had notably increased. And it wasn’t like we shouted these things into the microphone. At that point, I honestly believed that no-one had really listened to what we had said, or more importantly to what *I* had said. It was the last thing on my mind that someone like, oh I don’t know, let’s say ‘Miss Cox’ could have heard every one of those five words that I had spoken.

We were still on stage, looking out the gathered masses when suddenly I spied Miss Cox striding purposely towards the stage. Even at a distance, I could see that her face was red with rage. Not embarrassment, not anger, but r-a-g-e, rage. And so we come to what has become my golden rule of social interaction:

Never. I repeat NEVER, call someone a Nazi in front of several hundred people, and particularly when said someone had had a major (potentially relationship-ending) dispute with their partner the night before. 

Now I don’t know exactly what had happened to Miss Cox the night before, and I don’t really know how I later found out about this. But I think it is sufficient to say that this was absolutely the worst possible day I could have chosen to bring ‘our little joke’ to a wider audience. Miss Cox bounded up from the school hall onto the stage (she was a sports teacher after all). It wasn’t just the fact that she seemed so angry, it was more the fact that this was someone who I had *never* seen angry. She wasn’t a bullying teacher, the sort to shout at pupils and humiliate them. She was kind, and friendly and yet here she was standing in front of me looking like she wanted to kill me.

I remember she then clutched the front of whatever I was wearing and proceeded to violently shake me. I was now very scared. Whilst she had every reason to criticise me for my public insult, she actually chose to question me along more formal lines. She demanded to know why I wasn’t at registration (which I think is something akin to a legal requirement). You have to admire her, she wasn’t getting sidetracked by the whole Nazi thing at all. She was just concerned about my failure to be present during morning registration. Ok, so the Nazi thing probably didn’t help. I have a memory of trying to pose a calm response and point out that I was helping out ‘the band’ with their performance. That didn’t go down very well. The rest of that day is a complete blank for me, except that I know I ended up being thrown to the floor. I wonder if the thought crossed her mind to give me a bit of a kicking while I was down there.

So that pretty much describes the whole ‘Miss Cox is a Nazi’ incident. I possibly had to see the deputy headmaster that day, as I definitely recall a chat with Mr Danes at some point about this. No more punishment was forthcoming. Indeed no more punishment was necessary. I had been humiliated in front of the whole school (which is probably only fair as I had humiliated her in front of the whole school as well). Life moved on and I probably had a very embarrassing week with people asking me questions about what happened. In fact, because so many people had seen me get the very public dressing-down I was asked about this incident for months to come, by younger pupils that I didn’t know. “Are you the kid that called the teacher a Nazi?” was a frequent question. I also remember that a year or two later (when I had moved up to Samuel Ward Upper School) some friends of my older brother asked me about the incident, as they had heard about it from their younger brothers/sisters. It was the kind of notoriety that I really didn’t want. This was something that ‘other pupils’ did. Not Keith humble-as-a-mouse Bradnam. As you can imagine, I didn’t ever risk calling her a Nazi again (even in private). I sadly have no recollection of how we interacted in our registration periods for the rest of that year. Though I probably was very careful with everything that I said.

If this incident had happened in the last 10 years or so, then I’m almost certain that the very fact that a teacher had touched me would mean that I could sue the school, have her dismissed, and probably get a large cash payment as hush money. But this was 1985 and this was Chalkstone Middle School - a school that only a few years earlier had actively encouraged pupils to settle their disputes, not by exchanging calm words of reason, but by exchanging angry punches of hate. In a strange kind of way, this was just another ‘normal’ day at Chalkstone Middle School.

And so I would like to end this blog entry - and indeed this entire blog series - by issuing a full apology to Miss Cox. I have no idea where you are right now, and the chances are probably very slim that you are reading this. But if you are then please let me offer my fullest, and sincerest apologies. This event has stayed with me through all these years and I remain ashamed of what I said. You are not, never have been, and never will be a Nazi and did not deserve my public declaration to the contrary...but you did drive a Panzer right?

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There are some teachers that you can joke around with, there are some teachers that will tolerate a small amount of misbehaviour, and there are some teachers that you know you can push to the limit without any serious repercussions. Mr. McLaughlin was not any of those teachers. Mr. McLaughlin believed that you were in school to learn, and he did not tolerate any misbehavior. Whereas some teachers use humour to win over their pupils, Mr. McLaughlin used fear...and it worked.

I think we started science lessons with Mr McLaughlin in our 3rd year (though possibly in our 2nd?). I vividly remember our first lesson with him. The first thing he did was gesture towards the science store cupboard (which was used to keep all manner of chemicals) and said something along the lines of “I have over 100 ways I could kill you with things in that cupboard...you will not go into that cupboard. Ever.” He did not mince his words, and he did not suffer fools gladly.

If you’re going to rule by fear, then it makes sense to always keep a weapon at your side. Mr. M’s choice of weapon was the half meter ruler, which was always within his reach. Whereas one meter rulers were a common sight in science classes, half meter rulers were not, and this makes me think it was a custom job. I can picture him cutting down rulers to different lengths to determine which gave him the best trade-off between portability and reach.

I think there are lots of individual stories about some of the various punishments that were administered in science classes by Mr. McLaughlin, and perhaps the most widely told stories concern the ‘board rubber’. On occasion, the class would be asked a question. To Mr. McLaughlin this would seem a straightforward question to which any idiot could answer. To us, these question sessions were a case of trial-by-ordeal, as we frequently did not know the answer. The standard pattern of events would be that he would pick someone to answer the question (it was unlikely that any of us would have been brave enough to volunteer). After being given the wrong answer, he may have said something like ‘Fetch the board rubber, you buffoon’. The pupil in question would then retrieve the chalk eraser from the black board, and Mr. McLaughlin would then ‘smack’ the pupil on the cheek with the board rubber. It wasn’t always a hard smack, just firm enough to make you regret not knowing the correct answer. He would then move on to the next pupil in the class and repeat the question. This time though, the board rubber would be held just a few inches away from their cheek. Maybe this was meant to ‘encourage’ you to remember the correct answer, but more often than not, this added stress would only make you forget everything that you had ever learnt. Mr. McLaughlin was happy to proceed around the entire class until he elicited the correct answer from someone.

Did he enjoy administering these punishments or did he genuinely think that this was a valid teaching method? Who knows, but given some of the other physical ‘interactions’ that happened in his class, one has to lean towards the former explanation rather than the latter.

One of these ‘interactions’ came when he was demonstrating how electrical circuits worked. This demonstration called for some volunteers (it wouldn’t surprise me if no-one actually volunteered for these demonstrations and instead everyone was picked). A group of us were told to stand in a circle and link arms. I believe that I was one of the ‘volunteers’ and that I was standing next to Robert Winner. As Mr. McLaughlin proceeded to explain how electricity flows through a circuit, he moved on to demonstrating what happens when a circuit was broken. To make his point, he swiftly brought down his half meter ruler on one of Robert Winner’s arms, forcing the circuit to be broken (and nearly forcing Robert’s wrist to be broken).

In another lesson - also concerned with electricity - Mr. M. had a chance to get us to receive punishment at our own hands rather than his. I think that this involved one of us standing on a plastic tray and then holding the discharging rod of a Van de Graaff generator. The plastic tray would insulate the person in question from receiving any shock. Mr. McLaughlin then asked that person to give hand shakes to their ‘friends’. The ‘friends’ in question then received a large electric shock, which Mr. M. seemed to find quite amusing.

A final memory of those science lessons once again involves electricity...I’m not sure why these are the only lessons I remember, it must be something to do with the pain involved. In many science lessons we had to use ‘transformers’ to generate the electricity for many of our experiments. As I recall, these were yellow blocks with a black and red terminal, and with a switchable voltage. The voltage started at 1 volt, and increased in intervals up to 12 or maybe 24 volts. In one lesson, Mr. McLaughlin challenged us to set the voltage to 1 volt, and then put the terminals of both cables on our tongue. I don’t know what was more bizarre: that he challenged us, or that so many of us tried it. After several people experienced the unpleasant tingling of having 1 volt of electricity on our tongues, he then urged us to try 2 volts. And then 4 volts and so on. I recall being intrigued enough to try a few of the lower voltage settings but then it started getting unpleasant. We were in class ‘3/1’ at the time, the top class in the 3rd year, and we were therefore meant to be the brightest pupils in the year. I think that those of us that tried this bizarre experiment, stopped at about 6 volts. Mr. McLaughlin was eager to see people go further and taunted us with the revelation that when he did this with 3/6 (the lowest ranked - intellectually speaking - class in our year) that some of them went all the way to 12 volts. At this point, I think we were saved by the bell.

Although these stories may paint Mr. McLaughlin in an unfavourable light, and portray him as a bit of a sadist, I still have fond memories of his science lessons. He did install fear, but at the same time I felt a lot of respect towards him. At one point he made some claim along the lines of ‘when you are all at university...’, but university seemed so far away for us then. But he was right to make us think about our future education, and I credit his science lessons with inspiring me to stay with science and make it to university...though I tried staying clear of subjects that involved electricity.

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This is a short appendix to part 8 really. And I have to confess that I’m not even sure that this was a Chalkstone era story, it very possibly was from my time at Samuel Ward Upper School. It is only because a) I can’t remember any of the teachers involved and b) can only think of the name of one boy involved in this story (who was at Chalkstone & Samuel Ward) that I am including this here.

Ok, so in addition to all of the school trips where we were able to stay for a few days, there were also the occasional day trips. At least I’m assuming that there must have been at least a few, but I can’t remember any except Boulogne and...a trip to the US Air Force base at Mildenhall (or possibly Lakenheath). Anyone else care to bring forth some details of other day trips?

We were shown around the base by some American chap who was probably depressed by the fact that this was what his military career had turned into. I remember hardly anything about what we were shown. I only remember that at the end of the trip we were taken into an officers recreation room, where other officers were playing pool in the background, and that was when we were allowed to ask any questions about all of the many things that we had been shown that day.

The teacher in charge must have hoped (or prayed) that this small gaggle of boys of girls would be capable of asking at least one question. An intelligent question would be even better. After all, there was potential to ask about what it was like to fly fighter jets, or how much money these expensive planes cost to build. An even more salient, and political, question would have been to ask about whether it was right that the UK should allow America to effectively use our country as an aircraft carrier. One hand was raised by a boy, and that boy was Christopher Todd. He had a question to ask, and the teacher gave him the go-ahead to ask it. The senior USAF airman turned to fix his attention towards Christopher, and awaited whatever probing and insightful question was coming his way. The boy who was now representing all school children of Haverhill, Suffolk asked the following:

“Is that a full size pool table?”

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A week ago I would have been hard-pressed to remember more than one class excursion away from school. But various comments on this blog have jogged my memory, and I’m now somewhat surprised by how many opportunities we had to get out of Haverhill. There are others who probably think that we didn’t get out of Haverhill that much, but my perspective is firmly from the point of view of someone who had spent all of his life in Haverhill (in the same room of the same house). Whatever lay beyond the borders of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire was - for me - an undiscovered country.

So whilst I can now remember a bit more about several trips, I’m very hazy about which order they occurred in. There was the day trip to Boulogne which I have already covered in my French blog entry. Given the various ‘personalities’ in my year, I can only think that most teachers were filled with dread every time it was announced that they had to accompany the pupils on a trip anywhere. I will do my best to recount a few anecdotes from these various trips in the order I remember going on them.

First up, Isle of Wight (was this a 1st year trip). I don’t remember too many people going on this trip, but there was certainly many of the usual suspects mentioned in other blog entries (Steve, Rob, Danny, Mark etc.). I think this may have been my first time staying overnight somewhere in a big dormitory style room. As mentioned elsewhere, I cried after arrival as I couldn’t open my suitcase and I had to be rescued my Mrs Smith. I don’t know how many other teachers were on this trip but one other teacher was certainly Mr Pope (the woodwork/metalwork teacher). He brought his guitar and there was a sing along at one point. I still remember everybody being deeply unimpressed when he started playing ‘Postman Pat’. But this might have been a response to Robert asking him if he knew how to play ‘Hey Mr Postman’ (to which Robert had his own set of lyrics). We went out to see the Needles, we visited the bay where there was a big cliff of multicoloured sand, and we visited ‘Blackgang Chine’ (whatever that was). The main memory of the whole trip was Robert Banham/Winner (someone please tell me which surname came first, I can’t remember) keeping us all awake late into the night with many ‘eggy guff’ related antics. He also did a bit of naked dancing on his bed, lit only by the moonlight coming through the window. I’m spotting a theme emerging here between nudity and Robert Winner.

Into the second year, I recall a Geography field trip to Wales. My memory is now kicking into gear and I can say with some certainty that we stayed at this place in Bryn Dinas, Snowdonia. The girls got to stay in the main building, the boys were placed in some huts outside. There were a lot of two-person huts but also a fewer big dorm-style huts. Mr Church (Geography) and Mr Eason (P.E. & maths), and Miss Ellel/Cocks were on this trip I think. I bunked with Chay Adamou as I recall. We did lots of walking on this trip and had been told in advance that ‘outdoor clothes’ and ‘sturdy walking boots’ were required. So of course Sarah Adams turned up with jeans, a denim jacket, and shoes which were more appropriate for a school disco. We did orienteering and I got lost with Chay and luckily we bumped into Mr Church (by complete chance). That was a major event in my life as I vowed never to be so useless with a map again, and I have since devoted most of my adult life to knowing a) where I am and b) where I am going at all times. So I guess getting hopelessly lost was useful in that respect. Some other people who may have been on that trip were: Stephen Edwards (Eddie), Darren Mears, Colin Wheeler, Alan Blundell (sp. ?) - who was Robert Winner’s step-brother?, Amanda Rampling, Julie Parfitt (?) and Chris Nelson.

After lights out there were a lot of high-jinx activities from the boys outside. I recall a story of how someone had bought an adult magazine and this was being shared around in one of the bigger cabins, but how a teacher discovered somebody with it. There was also a fancy dress competition one night. Eddie & Darren Mears went as Rick and Vyvian from the Young Ones (more of a vocal act, than any costume involved), Amanda went (and won) as an Indian snake charmer, and Chay was another winner as he went as an ‘all-weather-outdoor-cameraman’ (with a TV camera cleverly fashioned out of some packed lunch containers and a broom handle). To my eternal embarrassment, I chose to convert a black bin liner into a ‘superhero costume’. Donning a pair of thick, black gloves, I transformed myself into...SuperNod. Oh how I cringe now. I had not thought beyond the costume and so had no sense of purpose of what SuperNod did, or why he did what he did (by day a shy, awkward geek in school uniform, by night a shy, awkward geek in a ripped black bin liner?). This event probably sowed the seeds for my life-long hatred/fear of fancy dress parties.

The other things I remember from this trip are a lot of horrible taunting towards Alan Blundell (Blundle?). He really was picked on a lot, the poor kid. Also during this trip Colin Wheeler (who seemed a giant at the time, he was fully grown at age 9 I think) had a bit of a fit, threw a table across the room (oh how my memory likes to exaggerate, not even SuperNod could do that), and then stormed off on a mini-runner. I never knew what was behind that but for the rest of the trip I think everyone became a bit worried about what they said to him in case it triggered another episode. We walked up Mount Snowdon on that trip but due to descending clouds we had to turn back after walking about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. I say that we ‘had’ to turn back, it was apparent that other pupils (younger than us) from other schools were still going up the mountain. I was very annoyed by our failure to reach the summit and I vowed that one day, I would return and make it to the top. I think it took me another 15 years or so until I had the opportunity, and this time I conquered the beast (I am SuperNod after all, how could I fail?). 

Reading back what I have written so far, it seems that these school trips had several profound influences on my life!

Ok, so on to third year or fourth year maybe. At some point we were essentially offered a choice. There was a trip to France, or what was called the ‘Football tour’, this trip took you to (what was then) West Germany, but gave you opportunities to see the Netherlands and Belgium as well (but of course you had to play football as well). Taking advice from my brother, I chose the football tour...despite my inability to play football. My brothers advice has been the cause of many of my downfalls, but it took me several more years to realise that.

So I can’t comment on the French trip and I don’t really know what the whole deal with ‘Tony the bus driver’ that others have alluded to in other blog comments (please explain). The football tour was a joint effort with another school in Haverhill I think, I certainly recall lots of people that I didn’t know on the trip. Mr Burling went on that trip, and maybe Mr Eason (I wonder if he still lives at the same place on Chapple Drive?). The most laughable part of the whole trip was that we were were told early on that there would be four teams and these teams were chosen at random, and no-one should think that you have been placed into a team based on your perceived ability (or lack of). The names for those teams?  A1, A2, B1, and B2. Hmmm, guess which team I was in? Yep, B2.

The A teams consisted of people who could play football and were actually quite good at it (e.g. Harry Zachariou...his real name is Charalambos if you didn’t know). The A teams also got to wear the school football kits. When you moved to the B teams you had people who couldn’t play football, and indeed didn’t really want to play football. They were just there for the socialising and maybe for the chance to thump a German. There were not enough football shirts for all the teams so I remember that we had to wear the school rugby shirts (but not even with matching shorts or socks). Team B2 looked a pretty rag-tag bunch of misfits.

The matches seemed long, and were tiring. In one game, it rained a lot and I froze to death. Our lack of football skills ensured that we comprehensively lost all of the matches that we played. It was embarrassing to turn up to play other teams who all had matching kits (football not rugby) and even matching tracksuits. They must have laughed at us, and we were not good standard bearers for the country that had been dominating European football at that time.  After one defeat, the home team asked us if we still would like to play a penalty shoot-out. It wasn’t necessary but maybe they wanted to inflict further embarrassment and humiliation on us. I don’t remember who won that shoot out, but I do remember taking a kick and scoring a majestic goal that sailed into the top right corner. Despite being a meaningless goal, it was one of the best moments of my life.

That highlight of the trip still pales into insignificance when compared to what I will always remember most about the whole experience. During one of the matches, the referee had to intervene to break up a fight. This fight was not - as you might expect - a fight between one of us and one of our European opposition. No, the fight was between two members of our own team. If memory serves me correctly, it was Adrian Purr and Christopher Nelson. Was there ever a more sorry excuse for a football team? Good old Chalkstone Middle School, making it’s mark on the world!

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One of the more infamous events to happen while I was at CMS was of course the incident that can be referred to as ‘the runner’. I’m not sure how much I can really say to describe the events of that day, so I’m hoping that others will add to the comments to flesh out the events of that day (and night???).

It’s worth remembering that in the days before texting, and before facebook status updates and instantaneous twitter messages, that news had to spread by word of mouth. And so there is always an element of Chinese whispers when you hear a story which had already been passed around by several kids who might have all added their own embellishments. The events of that day were probably spread about very quickly amidst much excitement.

Of everything I have tried reminiscing about so far, this is the story which I have the least immediate recall. So I apologise now for any glaring inaccuracies. As I can remember, the whole thing started at a morning break one day, during our fourth (?) year. If you recollect, the edge of the playing fields had that very short - but very steep - downwards slope that led to the hedge+fence combo that formed the perimeter of the school grounds. That hedge always had really thick leaves which took a long time to fall from the branches come Autumn. I can remember liking the sensation of crushing the dried brown leaves whilst they were still attached to the hedge.

Anyway, one morning break a certain quartet of pupils (Robert Banham/Winner, Adrian Hutton, Steven Haynes, and Gerrard Garrett were gathered at the edge of that slope. My understanding is that one or more of them decided to expose themselves to a passing lady. I’m sure if Robert was involved there was probably some witty comment as well (though maybe not containing one of the three words that graced many of his outpourings, namely ‘egg’, ‘guff’, or ‘trump’). At the time I don’t think anything else happened. The woman left the crime scene, break time finished and everyone returned to classes.

Maybe this type of thing would not be regarded with so much shock these days. Maybe if a 13 year old boy decided to flash someone from within the grounds of Chalkstone Middle School, a passer by would today just retort ‘Put it away son, I’ve just had my breakfast’ and walk off. But back in the early 80’s this was a very terrible act that been committed. The woman in question (and I have to confess I don’t even know if it was one woman, or even if it was a man...though that seems less likely), contacted the school to complain (“Hello, I’d like to report the sighting of a fairly small, overly pallid penis please”).

It must have taken a little time for the complaint to reach the intended recipient (Mr Levi Strauss F.W. Woolworths Slow-but-steady-phew Clapham), but it reached him at lunchtime. I know this because I was sitting in the canteen eating my lunch when Mr Clapham came storming into the dining area and barked out the names of the four perpetrators, asking them to show their faces. He was very angry. This was the first I knew anything about the whole affair, and even though I didn’t know what he wanted with Robert, Adrian, Gerard, and Steven, his tone of voice told me that someone was in big trouble.

My other clear memory of this part of the timeline was that Mr Clapham - upon identifying Steven, or Steven identifying himself - came storming over to him and physically dragged him out of his chair. The amusing part came when Steven tried to protest that he hadn’t yet finished his dinner...a comment that didn’t go down too well with the furious Clapham.

At some point after lunch I think I recall seeing all four suspects lined up outside Mr Clapham’s office. They looked like they were on death row. At this point they no doubt had a deep and serious conversation about what they had done and what were the likely implications. They had the option to weigh up the situation and reflect on the possibility of giving a full and honest confession and extending a deep and heartfelt apology to the innocent victim of their ‘sex attack’. They *had* this option, but instead they reached a different conclusion, namely “let’s do a runner”.

I have no recall of the timeline of events after that. I think word got out fairly quickly that they had legged it. This provoked a lot of speculation, because I’m not sure if we all knew at that point why they had fled. Over the next 24 hours various strands of gossip coalesced to form the opinion that a) they had left town and b) two of them were making their way to London, and two to Liverpool. This was all clearly nonsense as I don’t think anybody had any real knowledge of their whereabouts. The reality was that  four twelve-thirteen year old kids with - and let’s go wild with the speculation - a combined pocket money income of £10 a week maximum - were not going to make it very far.

As I recall, they got as far as Linton (~10 miles away) or possibly a bit further. Then I recollect that the story of the day was that they had unknowingly chosen to sleep overnight in a haystack outside the house of the deputy head (Ray Daynes) who found them all in the morning and took them all back to school to be held accountable for their actions. This also sounds a bit too far-fetched to me, and so I ask for clarification from Steven. Namely:

1. What was the actual event that was ‘performed’ to the passer by?

2. How far from Haverhill did you actually get?

3. Were you discovered or did you turn yourselves in?

4. What was the punishment?

Whilst we’re on the subject of ‘indecent exposures’, I’d like to also point out that at some point in the third or fourth year, some people found out that I owned a cheap Polaroid camera. These people included - surprise, surprise - Robert Banham/Winner, Steven Haynes, and I think Zylan Hurrell and possibly Simon Lansdowne. They realised that an instant camera gave them the possibility of producing some of their own pornographic material, and asked me for a loan of the camera. I obliged them but I wanted to know nothing whatsoever about what uses the camera was being put towards. I find it unlikely that they would have coerced any females into being involved, so was the plan to photograph themselves? For once, I’m not really sure if I want to know the answers. I guess there is the possibility that a revealing set of polaroid prints is in existence somewhere, sitting on a shelf waiting to be rediscovered.

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Chalkstone Middle School (CMS) wanted to reward good behaviour and penalize bad behavior. They had a strategy to do this and that strategy was the ‘merit/demerit’ system. Like many other (but much posher schools), CMS had a ‘house’ system. All pupils in the first year were divided (arbitrarily) into one of six different houses. Sadly I can’t remember all of the names but I’m sure others will be able to help me. There was Unwin, maybe Aubrey (though maybe I’m just confusing this with Christopher Nelson’s middle name), and I was in Hill house I believe. So what purpose did these houses serve? Did we congregate exclusively with our fellow house members? No. Did we contest each other in sporting competitions? No. Did we perform artistic acts in assembly for the benefit of our our house brethren? No. There was no sense of brotherhood (or sisterhood), and little feelings of loyalty to someone else just because they were in your house. If someone from your house was being beaten to a pulp in the playground, you would not step in to stop it or help them (most likely you would act just like every other 10-13 year old and would be shouting ‘Fight, fight, fight!’).

So what was the point of the house system? The point was that each week pupils were awarded ‘merits’ for good behaviour. These were small rectangular pieces of card with the word ‘MERIT’ printed on them. Teachers had the discretion to award these to pupils for good work or just for good behaviour (which for some CMS pupils would constitute *not* trying to drink the paint during art lessons). On receipt of your merit you were supposed to place them in a box at the front of the school which had six slots, one for each house. Your good work would add to the weekly total of merits awarded to your house. Every Friday in assembly, the tallies of merits were read out for each house and someone from the winning house would be chosen to screw in a small wooden shield to a large ‘scoreboard’ on the wall. At the end of the school year you could observe which house had received the most weekly wins and they would be deemed best house of the year. There was a larger shield-trophy-thing that would be awarded to that house. 

My memories of this system are that no-one really cared. If they had tried fostering a sense of purpose for each house, a sense of respect to your house colleagues, then maybe some people would try harder for their house. As it stands, I think the people that were awarded merits would have been awarded merits no matter which house they were in. They would have still been awarded merits even if they hated every person in the school.

The corollary of the merit was of course the ‘demerit’. Demerits counted against your tally of merits. Being awarded a demerit was akin to being taken in for questioning by the police and then beaten up a little during the interrogation. Maybe it’s true that whilst no-one cared for getting merits, nobody wanted to receive a demerit. I remember in one particular Friday assembly there was only one kid in the entire school that had received a demerit that week. He was duly named and shamed and had to stand up to acknowledge his guilt in front of his peers. I don’t think the naming and shaming was a regular part of the demerits, but when it was only one person I guess that the powers that be decided to make an example of them. Incidentally, the person in question was - if memory serves me correctly - Adrian Wright. I think I might have once received a demerit for accidentally burning Mrs Chinnery’s hand with a hot pan in cookery lessons. She also made me cry at some point, so I think it all balances out.

Oh as a final note, Mr Clapham obviously decided that six houses were too many and all of these old names were not exciting enough, so he reduced the houses to four and renamed them things like Jupiter and...??? My memory draws a blank. Can people help finish naming the six original houses and the four new houses?

Next up, I will try to tackle the infamous event which only needs a two word description...the runner!

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It’s time to go back to the beginning (no not the creation of the universe), my first day at Chalkstone Middle School (CMS). I have a recollection that after morning assembly, the first years were kept back for a short talking to by the then headmaster, Mr Hutchinson. One can’t but help imagine that Mr Hutchinson had been in the military at some point. He was an authoritarian and a strict disciplinarian. I remember that under his control there were canings at CMS but I don’t know if they continued with his successor (more of him later). In that short post-assembly talk we were given some basic warnings, including the predictable ‘don’t run in the school’, but also how were were meant to always walk on one side of the corridor to ensure a smooth flow of pupils around the school.

At some point during that first year, Mr Hutchinson asked that all boys remained behind in assembly. I vividly recall him walking behind all of the gathered lines of boys and inspecting their hair. He was not checking for lice, he was checking the length of your hair. If he deemed that it was too long (and this would be the case if any of your hair covered your shirt collar) then he would tug on your hair and order you to get it cut. I guess pupils today have ‘rights’ and ‘freedom of expression’ such that this couldn’t happen any more (at least not with hair length surely?).

But the one thing that us CMS pupils remember most about the Mr Hutchinson era were the sanctioned boxing fights. In some ways I completely understand the logic. If two pupils are going to fight each other after school (why were so many fights always arranged to happen immediately after school?), then maybe it was better for the fight to go ahead *in* the school under somebody’s supervision. But at the same time it seems amazing that 10 years old fight could fight each other with proper boxing gloves and everything. I guess there must have at least been the agreement that both parties wanted to fight otherwise it would have been most unfair. I think my two elder brothers once wanted to fight each other at Chalkstone but they were not allowed. For one thing, they were brothers.  But more importantly they were three years apart in age!

There were of course two types of boxing fight, the public fight and the private fight. These would take place at breaks or lunchtimes. They seemed to occur relatively infrequently but were always a big draw. What kid doesn’t want to see other kids fight? I remember Terry Parsons once cruising to an easy victory in a public fight (not sure who against though). He (Terry) had a swagger about him and seemed to enjoy dishing out punishment in the presence of a large audience.

I was once invited to a private fight (which took place in the drama ‘studio’). In the red corner, weighing...oh probably not more than 80 pounds was Adrian Hutton. His opponent in the blue corner was Danny ‘The Destroyer’ Evans. Of course there were no actual corners, because there was no actual ring. In the public fights the fighting perimeter was defined by the crowd lining the edge of the sports hall. It was a little more uncertain about the extent of the ‘ring’ for those private fights in drama studio. If you elected to have a private fight you could invite four friends each to cheer you on (or help mop up the blood). I was an invitee of Adrian. I so clearly remember Mr Hutchinson sitting down on a chair to watch the fight. Hutchinson was the fight ‘referee’ but he didn’t really get involved that much, but was happy to offer some boxing advice from his chair. I don’t remember how he judged when a fight was over. At the time I remember Adrian getting quite a thumping from Danny and Mr Hutchinson didn’t rush to stop the fight (maybe he was secretly filming the fights and selling the broadcast rights to someone?).

Mr Hutchinson retired after our first year and so we then had three years of Mr Clapham. One of his first unpopular actions was to stop the boxing fights. He also removed the tuck shop. Both of these seem sensible decisions now, but at the time it didn’t help his popularity much. His first words of his first assembly were ‘Levi Strauss...’. He then launched into a story about how Levi Strauss came to invent denim jeans. I think he fancied himself as a thrusting, dynamic story teller. No doubt this story came straight from the pages of his ‘100 riveting assembly stories that every headmaster should know’ book. He also taught the subject known as ‘XSS’ which was eXtra Social Studies. We already had ‘Social Studies’ so I don’t know why we needed more of it. SS & XSS both seemed to be woolly attempts to study a bit of history, a bit of religion and a bit of everything really.

Does anyone else have any specific memories of Mr Hutchinson or Mr Clapham? Did anyone ever get the cane?

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This is a short little aside. Thinking back to life at school has brought back all sorts of memories, some more favourable than others. Ok, so I wore glasses and that meant that I received various stereotypical insults along the lines of ‘four-eyes’ etc. I’m also sure that I received insults on the basis of geekiness or because I was skinny. But the insult that I remember most was one that was used by a certain group of kids. I could be wrong but I’ll take a stab in the dark and guess that the perpetrators of this insult were Robert Winner, Stephen Haynes, Tom Logan, and maybe Zylan Hurrell. And what was that oh-so-clever insult? What aspects of my personality did they use to taunt me? Well, the insult went something like the following:

Mad Nod.

Bad Nod.

Sad Nod.

JEWISH Nod!

When this was said there was heavy emphasis on the word ‘Jewish’. Almost as if that last line was a triumphant conclusion to a spiritual chant that would summon the devil (well if we are talking about Judaism then maybe the devil is not so appropriate). I have no recollection of the origin of this insult. For the record, I am an atheist and at best (or worst depending on your outlook) have only ever flirted with the fringes of Christianity. Why the connection to Judaism then? I have absolutely no idea. I also take exception to the ‘bad Nod’ part. For the most part, I was a law abiding pupil. Mad and sad, well yes maybe. Bad? Unlikely. Jewish?  Jewish?!? Absolutely not. Or as my father would have said, oy vey! :-)

Chalkstone Middle School (CMS) had a ‘cafeteria’ system for meals. That is, pupils - in their infinite wisdom - could choose what they wanted to eat from the, somewhat limited, menu. I guess this sounds good in theory, but in practice  ten year old boys will naturally gravitate to food that literally satisfies their gut instincts, namely foods high in salt, sugar, and fat.

If you stayed for lunch at CMS you had to first go through an elaborate queuing system to get to the canteen. First year pupils were the only year to live on the exclusive ‘upper floor’ of the school, and rather than walk the shortest distance to the canteen, they would have to go the longest possible route. This would start with a group being given permission from the dinner ladies (and they were always ladies) to go downstairs and wait at checkpoint number two by the sports hall/changing rooms. Then we would pass along the long corridor to the arts/pottery area. Another checkpoint and another dinner lady would halt our progress until we could move through the woodwork/metalwork areas and the the cookery areas. Finally, we could walk through the needlework area and join the actual proper queue at the edge of the canteen.  I guess this was all to control the flow of pupils to ensure that we didn’t all arrive at the same time. I can’t actually remember whether the different years had any different priorities in the scheduling. Did the seniority of fourth years ensure that they got first dibs at the food?

My memories of the staff that worked in the kitchen is that they were all decrepit octogenarians, many of whom didn’t actually like children very much (so perfectly qualified then). There was one lady who seemed to have some superiority compared to the others (maybe she was in her nineties?).It could of course be possible that this is my memory playing tricks on me and they could have all been in their fifties but just seemed older because of our own youthful age.

So what culinary delights could we choose from? Well the staple foods that always seemed to be present were hotdogs, hamburgers, and chips. The hotdogs were of the variety which had been boiled in briny water and then were placed in a vaguely stale roll, only to then have a pile of wet onions heaped upon them. I recall that hamburgers (very dry and rubbery) and hotdogs were 20 pence each. I think I know this because my older brother would sometimes spend all of his daily allowance of sixty pence on three hotdogs. Nothing else would grace his place. Just hotdogs.

I think most people I knew routinely ate chips (15 pence?). There was often mash on offer (served in very rounded scoops) and occasionally there would be some sort of curry with rice or a minced beef and onion pie. Vegetables were not popular and the choice was peas, carrots, or overly boiled cabbage. Broccoli had not yet been invented. I also don’t recall any salad options. Sometimes there was fried fish and I remember the head ‘cook’ always proclaiming that fish was ‘brain food’ and that if we ate a lot of it we could be clever like the headmaster (more about him...well ‘them’ in another episode). As a quick aside, my elder brother once told me that occasionally at Christmas, the headmaster was allowed to carve turkey for everybody, but was admonished by the cooks for being too profligate with the festive bird, even though he was carving near-transparent slices. 

There did used to be printed menus in each classroom but these were rarely changed and rarely ever looked at. I have a memory of one day noticing that soup was listed on the menu. I was puzzled because I had never seen it in the canteen. So one day I plucked up courage to ask about the mythical soup and was told “You can’t have any. Nobody else wants it, so you can’t have it either”. Don’t you just love customer service?

The whole queuing system meant that if you weren’t going for ‘packed lunch’ or ‘home dinners’ then you had to go through the queuing system. Now some people clearly had plans to pop out to Strasbourg Square to go the chippy. Others had their eyes set on the tuck shop (only available in my first year before Mr Clapham had it closed down I think). So if you had to buy something in the canteen, but wanted to save money for the tuck shop, then what could you get? Well I remember someone who may have been Elliot Morgan (that’s a wild stab at the dark at that name, I could be way off) once buying two croquette potatoes. Just two little orange cylinders of potato. That was all, and at a cost of just 4 pence each, it meant that a good deal of sweets could be bought afterwards. I’m amazed that there was no oversight on what kids could buy. Two croquette potatoes, or three hotdogs for that matter, is not really a balanced meal.

Some other minor memories of the canteen involve the fizzy drinks. There were three or four flavours as I recall: cola, cherry, orange and lime? There was a brief fad for mixing all of them together as you could self-dispense your own drinks. I also remember an even stranger fad when someone discovered that if you added salt to your fizzy drink, it made it fizz even more! Never mind the salty taste, this was a revelation to me, and I probably spent a week or two routinely adding a little bit of salt to my drink just to watch the bubbles appear (I was so easily pleased back then). My final fizzy drink memory was the day I chose the curry and then accidentally spilled my cup of cola on to my plate. I had no other money and I don’t think there was any policy on refunds based on clumsiness so I had no other option than to eat my plate of curry and cola. It was disgusting.

I have exceedingly fond memories of the desserts, especially the ‘chocolate crunch’, but they were all good. Gypsy tart. The cornflake and jam cake. Even the rice pudding was great. If it came with custard it couldn’t fail to please me.

I never had packed lunches, so that group of people who sat off to the side was always a bit of a mystery to me (why couldn’t they eat their packed lunches with people getting school dinners?). Anyone care to chip in with memories of packed lunches or home dinners?

And that wraps it up for my canteen memories. Next up will be some reflections on the two headmasters of my era at Chalkstone: Mr Hutchinson & Mr Clapham. And the Nazi story is still to come of course!

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It is 1981 and I’m about to have my first experience of learning something of another culture (which living in Haverhill could have also described a trip to Cambridge at the weekend). It is my first ever French lesson. The teacher? The softly-spoken Mrs Burling, who was the wife of...Mr Burling, another French teacher at Chalkstone Middle School. I sometimes imagine how their evening conversations went. Him, “had a crap French lesson today”. Her, “me too”.

In that very first French lesson I remember that the first task was to assign us new names. Why did we need new names? Presumably so that we could immerse ourselves in French culture. Some English names have very obvious French equivalents (John -> Jean). Others have no real counterparts in the French language. I don’t remember everyone’s names (that really would be stretching the extent of my ability to remember trivia) but I think that Stephen Haynes, as I recall, became Etienne, and Sarah Adams became Sylvie. I became ‘Guy’, pronounced in the same way as Ghee (but I don’t think the intent was to make me sound like a type of clarified butter). Guy was a name that I didn’t really care for that much, but that was to be my name for four years (or ‘quatre ans’ if you want to get in the mood).

The first thing we did in French was to learn about the gender of various objects. Mrs Burling had a fuzzy board which was divided into a blue side (for masculine objects) and a red side (for...well you know what I’m going to say). Even at an early age we were being conditioned to accept boy/girl stereotypes for colour preference. She would present cardboard cut-outs representing various objects and we had to guess the gender of the object in question. She would then stick them on the appropriate side of the board where they might stay for a few minutes until the velcro gave up. A typical question might have been “Who thinks ‘stylo’ should be on the blue side, and who thinks it should be on the red side?”. I would have liked to answer “this is a largely pointless exercise Miss because the complexities and irregularities of Romanic languages makes guessing the gender of any specific noun fraught with difficulty. You could hold up a picture of a penis and we would incorrectly guess that it was a masculine word, and you could hold up a picture of a woman’s breast and we would also guess, incorrectly, that it was a feminine word. So I’m not playing your stupid little game.” As I said, I would have *liked* to have said that, but being 10 years old made it a little unlikely, especially when I don’t think that our vocabulary covered anatomy to that level of detail. But I do remember that board, and a lot of the objects that would appear on it (ruler, pen, pencil, satchel etc.).

Like my recollections of music classes, I am drawn to remembering the incidents that occurred in lessons far more than the content of the lessons themselves. As we progressed into year two (or possibly year three) we had a new French teacher, Mrs Magliocco. That was a very strange surname to be presented with all those years ago. I think we all pronounced the ‘G’ in her name, mag-lia-oco, but I’m guessing now that it is probably of Italian origin and so that would have been a silent G. Her name was made more confusing by her thick Irish accent (possibly Northern Ireland, not that I would have known the difference in the two accents back then). One thing I remember from the lessons was that she introduced basic navigation (droit, gauche, tout drois etc.) with the assistance of Monsieur Lego. How we whimpered with delight when he made an appearance...or maybe that was just me. 

What I of course remember more than learning directions was the fantastic challenges to her authority that were (repeatedly) made by a young Robert Banham (later Robert Winner, or possibly the name change went the other way around). I often wonder what career Robert ended up in. I can see him as a priest, trade union leader, politician or marxist revolutionary leader...anything where the occasional bit of confrontational speaking was called for. Robert’s name in French translated very easy, it was Robert (pronounced rob-air). I remember exchanges between he and she which were angry and boisterous. He would defiantly stand up during class (and that alone was an act of defiance), lean forward on the table and shout things like ‘Why?’...or at least that’s what I remember. Hopefully, some other people might remember more details of those fiery exchanges. I think Mrs Magliocco was severely troubled by Robert and seemed to almost break down on occasion. “It’s always you Robert!” she would proclaim (and she was probably right, it probably was always Robert who was behind any high jinx or bouts of insurrection during French).

I don’t recall whether we had a separate French teacher for every year, but I’m thinking that we maybe had two years with Mr Burling as I can only remember three French teachers in total. I wonder whether Mrs Burling passed on any notes about us to him (‘watch out for Guy, he will ask you about your genitalia!’). Mr Burling (who was also my third year form tutor) had a very strong London/South-East accent. Not so much estuarine English though. He was quite ‘blokey’ for want of a better word, with a deep, gruff, and decidedly non-French, accent. I remember that he would often tell us jokes during our registration period. If you had to bet on anyone laughing at his jokes then Anthony Culwick was a good bet. He seemed to enjoy those jokes as if they were the funniest words ever uttered by a human being...alternatively maybe Anthony just liked to laugh.

I don’t have any recollections of French lessons with Mr Burling, other than his decidedly un-French pronunciation of French words. At some point during the four years at Chalkstone, there was a school trip to Boulogne. It was a day trip, and for me it was my first time out of the country. We had to get up at some ridiculously early hour to get the (Burton’s) bus from school to Dover (well I presume it was Dover) in order to get the ferry. I recall that by the time we had to set off home again, we ended up with relatively little time in France, but that we were allowed to wander off on our own. I don’t remember being shown anything of cultural value, I just remember various people drifting off toward the hypermarket (or ‘hypermarché’ if you will) to buy things (anything at all probably). There was somebody (a quiet boy with ginger hair, who was friends with Mark Hanlon), who spent all of his money on two large bottles of Orangina, one of which then broke in his backpack no more than 5 minutes after leaving the shop (this was still the era of thick glass bottles). My brother had given me what seemed like a large amount of money to spend (I bet now that it was something like two pounds fifty pence), and I recall that I blew nearly all of it on the fruit machines on the ferry. Anyone else remember any details of this enriching cultural exchange? I wonder if the teachers just stayed in a bar all day, hoping that some of us would miss the return ferry (‘I’m sorry Mrs Bradnam, your son didn’t make it back, but I’m sure he’s brushing up on his knowledge of French anatomy as we speak’).

Taking a little detour away from French, but staying within the remit of ‘Mr Burling’ I fondly remember that in the third year he started an after-school computer ‘club’. I’m sure that those of us that attended this told our parents about how we were going to learn all about the exciting world of computers, and maybe learn to program or learn all about the wonders of the silicon world. But alas no. All we did at the Chalkstone Middle School Computer Club was play games on a ZX spectrum. ‘Sorry mum, the invention of the world wide web will have to wait a little longer, I need to get the high score on Jumping Jack.

That’s all for now, I’ll try to keep posting a new article every day or two until I run out of ‘suitable’ material. The Miss Cocks Nazi story is still to come...

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Ludo

Nice memories Guy. Should I say that penis is masculine :-)?

I had fun reading. Thanks

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 03:39 AM

Keith

Ludo, une bette = a penis, n'est ce pas?

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 06:21 AM

Zylan

I think Steve Haynes started off as Yves, not sure what prompted the name change though?

Unsurprisingly, the french equivalent of Zylan, was Pierre.

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 09:44 AM

Jeanne Fowler

I too thought Stephen Haynes was Yves - not sure why I remember that, but it seems to have stuck. Did we have anyone called Michael in our class? If we did, we certainly found his nom du plume worthy of a giggle.

Miss Magliocco - she was definitely a Miss - used to shout 'silence' and 'taisez-vouz' very very loudly.(to no effect) in what I believe was an Ulster accent. Does anyone remember those ridiculous Eclair videos we used to watch? It would probably be regarded as xenophobic these days, given the characterisation of the two main blokes in it; quite literally onion strings and stripy Breton smocks. La Marseillaise used to get in to every episode too - or it might even have been the theme tune. 

I don't remember much about the day trip to France, but I sure as hell remember the week long trip we did to Normandy in the 3rd year. Things happened on that trip with the potential that I can hardly bear think about, let alone commit to print (the girls are more likely to know what I am talking about when I say Tony the bus driver....). Looking back it makes me realise how wonderfully naive and innocent we all were.

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 05:41 PM

Mark H

Was it France or the Isle of Wight where I shared a double bed with Danny Evans and he was sick over his pillow just minutes after the lights went out on the first night? I think it was the Isle of Wight actually, but either way, I do know that this is where I was first introduced to the 'Eggy Book of Guffs" (approximate title). Robert had us all in stiches reading from it - all his own material I believe. Maybe he went on to create Viz?

Another thing that Mr Burling struggled with was the pronunciation of the word 'chocolate'. It always came out as 'choc-lit', much to Jason's amusement, who devised many ways of getting him to say the word. He *must* have wondered why Jason was so keen to repeatedly learn about everything that a patisserie sold...

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 12:32 AM

Nod

I can confirm the Isle of Wight incident with the vomit...I had forgotten all about that trip until you mentioned it (I also remember crying upon arrival because I couldn't get my suitcase opened and Mrs Smith had to come to the rescue). Maybe the Isle of Wight and the Geography trip will be explored more fully in another episode!

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 01:53 AM

Laura Marks

Mr Burling - I remember his estuary voice now and I've been trying to remember my allocated nom de guerre and I think it was Alice? Closely linked to Laura of course.

I remember having Orangina 'tasting' sessions in French Year 3, and the highlight of the class was putting holes in the cups so that the next class would experience some high level leakage. 

The trip to France involved the completion of some kind of work book with all manner of bizarre questions in it and I recall writing various random answers to seemingly rather obvious topics and then nobody collecting it in again and did a group not go for a meal somewhere? I remember being wowed by the sophisticated nature of such a behaviour and feeling envious I wasn't a part of the experience as I was no doubt the one with jam sandwiches, no money and a bad attitude!

Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:08 AM

Sharonank

I've tracked Robert Winner down and he is living in Norwich whith his partner and he is an Accountant! He's not on Facbook but ill pass him the details of the blog.

Miss Maglioco, we used to sing it to the 80's tune of Einstein a go go.

Ist yr French was in that little class room at the end of the 1st year landing where the chairs had those lift up desks, I found them very satisfying, it felt like i was now in proper serious school.

I was of course Suzanne.......

Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 09:18 PM

steve john haynes

i have pictures from the trip to bologne which will be up soon.

yep,i started out as yves but was promoted to etienne later.

and mark,i would like some recognition for the eggy book of guffs,it was a co production by myself and rob!

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:21 AM

MarkH

Apologies Steve - I didn't know you had contributed. Do you remember the allocation of fart pungency to a "gas mark", or the "Mr. Postman" song? I can remember a couple of verses from it, but its crudity prevents me from reproducing it here.

I remember (on the Isle of Wight trip I think) you had the bottom bunk and each night would lay there and chew on a piece of string that was dangling down from the bunk above. How random a memory is that?!

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 01:14 PM

Anonymous

I remember Steve being so gutted he was given a "girls" name of Yves that he went home and researched, then told Mrs Burling that his name should indeed be.....Etienne. She stood corrected. I remember mine being Helene, and I remember Joanne Purkiss being called Jeanne-Marie, and being really jealous her name was much cooler than mine!!  I too remember Tony the bus driver from the French trip, and it has been a topic of converstion many, many times since becoming a parent myself! scary....

Miss Magliocco was, Im afraid to say, one of the good reasons to go to school back in those days, just for the ridicule. I remember getting put on report for three weeks by her for getting involved in one of Roberts wars with her! I think Sam Ready was also part of that !

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 06:19 PM

Hayley P

That was me by the way, nice to hear from Stephen (Eddie) Edwards!!!

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 08:11 PM

joanne hammond/ wilkens

I remember having Mr Burling as a french teacher, when he asked us to speak out loud he would mime along with us. I also remember Tony the bus driver too. I think the words for him are child molestor!!!!. My french name was Jeanne-Marie and Joanne Yeoman 's was Janine.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 09:13 AM

steve haynes(weevil)

mark,the string dangling on the bunk in the isle of wight has drawn a complete blank but another couple of memories from iow are julie parfitt 'chucking' me for chris todd(i was absolutely gutted!) and playing 'raps' with cards.remember?if you lost you split the pack and whichever card you got,that's how many raps you got.one particular card got you 52!!i remember getting hit so hard my knuckles bled!

here we go...

heyeyey mr postman give me a letter and a sha* 

but don't you dare burn my kno* with a fag!

hey mr postman look at me

but don't you dare do a wee

hey mr postman you look like a puff

but don't you dare do an eggy guff!!!

how's that.!??!?!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 11:22 AM

Sharonank

I hear calls for Poet Laurette! x

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 05:41 PM

MarkH

Yep Steve, they are the exact words I have running through my head too. Spot on!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 06:30 PM

sarah a

I have to agree with Steve Haynes about him being co author of the eggy book of Guffs - i remember his satchel having his address as being Ufford place but he pre fixed it with a G to read Gufford place

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 07:57 PM

Introduction:

The following blog post was originally hosted on my MobileMe hosted blog as part of a series of 12 blog posts that saw me take a trip down memory lane and think back to my days at middle school. I'm going to repost these blog posts on my main blog. Partly because MobileMe will soon no longer exist, and so I need to move my blog content elsewhere, but mainly because my old school is soon about to close (as will all middle schools in the area). At some point the original comments to this blog post became detached but I managed to save them in a separate file. So I'm adding the original comments to the bottom of this post.

If music be the food of love....

I have three main memories relating to music lessons. As with most of my middle-school memories, some details are hazier than others (it was 24-28 years ago after all). I’m about 60% confident that our music teacher for most of the time was Mrs Wright (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). But I also remember another teacher (maybe she was a supply teacher) whom I’m about 40% confident was called Mrs. Price. For the sake of these particular recollections, I don’t think it really matters if I haven’t recalled the name correctly.

And so to part one of this particular episode. Thinking back, I have to say that in music our creativity was encouraged and any developing talent was occasionally able to showcase their talents (or lack of) to the class or sometimes to the whole school. Anyone else remember Amanda Pope (daughter of woodwork teacher Mr. Pope) playing ‘The Entertainer’ in assembly?

In one particular music lesson, possibly in third or fourth year of my ‘tenure’ at Chalkstone Middle School (CMS), the talents of two particular pupils were on show. Tom Logan and Mark Hanlon performed a piano duet (only one piano though) for the benefit of the rest of the class. I recall that they did this more than once, and one of those compositions may have been an instrumental piece, but that is not the one I want to talk about here. I should add that I think Mark had recently taught himself to play piano through one of those magazines that had a free tape with each issue by which you could expand your skills ‘week by week’ (week 1 was presumably ‘Chopsticks’ and week 52 was Rachhmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3).

I have a clear memory of the performance of their other composition because the subject matter was about me. The song was originally called ‘Nod’s an oval-head’. The ‘Nod’ in question was me, it was the only name that anyone ever called me (including teachers) and it is the name that I am still called when speaking to anyone from Haverhill. The oval head in question was seemingly mine (though I leave it to others interpretations as to whether my head was, or is, truly oval or not). I say that the song was ‘originally’ titled in this way because I think I took steps to get it changed. Because I knew of the planned performance in advance, I think I went to complain to either the music teacher and/or the deputy headmaster (Ray Danes). I recall none of the lyrics other than the heavy repetition of the words ‘Nod’s an oval head’ (maybe they were the only words).Whomever I lodged my objection with, it worked...well sort of. The performance still went ahead. Only there was a slight change to the lyrics so as not to offend me. The drastic editing of their penmanship produced a new title ‘Bod’s an oval-head’. I recall that I was still offended, especially when a) people all looked at me during the performance and b) several other people in the class joined in the singing.

Moving on to another musical memory. This was in a lesson with Mrs Price at the helm. It was a Budget Day I think (as in Chancellor of the Exchequer making big financial decisions). I don’t think we really had much interest or appreciation of fiscal policy, but it gave the teacher an opportunity to get the whole class to co-write a song about the day (and it’s implications). I mention this because I still recall - with perfect clarity - the couplet that I came up with and which was used in the final song:

“I go down to Sainsbury’s to buy a pack of tea,

but if I bought it yesterday, I would have saved five pee”

Why this information is still taking up valuable space in my head is unclear. But it’s there and I’m still embarrassed about it for two main reasons:

• 1)You can buy packets, boxes, cartons, or tins of tea, but you never buy a ‘pack’ as such. I was never cut out to be a lyricist.
  
• 2)I don’t recall any budget ever introducing big tax increases on tea or coffee. Alcohol and cigarettes yes. Tea, no.

My final musical trip down memory lane concerns a lesson in which the class all sang songs together. These seemed to be quite common (easy lesson to prepare for a music teacher I guess) and these were the lessons that seemed most popular with the class. For a lot of our time at CMS I think we only ever had one or two different song books that were used. Some songs from this book included:

• •Dedicated follower of fashion
  
• •When I’m sixty-four (at least I remember this being sung)
  
• •Where’s your mama gone? (you must remember the ‘oo-ee, chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap’ part?)

These lessons were fun because we (the humble pupils) could request what songs we wanted to sing. But there was one other song that became requested for the wrong reasons. That song was called ‘You are my sunshine’, and it became popular because it contained the word ‘dear’. Why was this important? Well the surname of one kid in our class (who I was friends with at the time) was called ‘Dear’, and at the appropriate juncture in the song some people would sing ‘You’ll never know Dear, how much we hate you’ (hopefully you’ll remember that the actual ending is ‘how much I love you’. Particular emphasis was placed on the words ‘Dear’ and ‘hate’. Looking back, this was - I guess - typical classroom ‘antics’, i.e. pick on someone for no real reason whatsoever. For the boy in question though I think it was - understandably - quite hurtful. And I recall that maybe there was yet another visit to Ray Danes to see if this song could be stopped (I wonder how much time Mr Danes spent dealing with music censorship issues?).

And so concludes part 1 of my middle school memories. Despite having a fairly good recollection of these specific events I am unable to recall ever playing an instrument myself in any music lesson (unless you include my elder brother’s Casio VL-tone which I occasionally brought into school). 

Episode 2 will concern everyone’s favourite French teacher...Mr Burling.

ARCHIVED COMMENTS

Tom Logan

Speechless.  I mean I could probably write something; but if this is part one - I'm gonna be speechless for a while.

Tom Logan

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 07:46 AM

Pilchard Crop Scum

Excellent work Nod. I look forward to the explanation of A-ope. B-ope, C-ope.......

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 08:30 AM

Jane Fowler

My oh my.....I am crying with laughter. 

Mrs Price was Sian's mum - I think she started off as a supply but went on to become our permanent music teacher (I will forward the link to her - Sian I mean). Whilst I don't remember the particular performances that nearly sent you to the psychiatrist's couch, I do remember Sian and I spending an awful lot of time 'performing' in assemblies and school concerts. We even started our own brass group of absolute beginners and Sian and I used to take it in turns conducting or playing percussion when we inflicted them on the rest of the school. I also remember that Budget song and singing 'Dear' very loudly in 'You are my sunshine'. The other song that has stuck in my head all these years goes something like: "Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey, a kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?" Happy Days....

I'm not sure if other types of performing art are due for future editions of the Blog, but some of those drama skits we did in assemblies were truly bizarre. I remember doing one with a group which included Sarah Adams, Stephen Edwards and Jason Harcup (of course) where we pretended to get stuck in a lift. One person was pregnant and another had a shoe fetish.....

I cannot for the life of me remember how you became christened Nod. I do hope you will share the explanation (assuming it's not too painful) at some point.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 09:39 AM

Sharonank

That is the funneist thing ive read in ages, People are coming into my clinic to see if im ok as i am making quite a racket about it.. Brilliant. The song book?? I have to admit that i stole one because i loved it so much!! and i still have it. We used to think that the picture of the bloke on the 'Dedicated follower of fashion' page looked like Mr Eason.  I also have very stong memories of sing 'A thing called love' late Johnny Cash number and i still know ALL the words, '6 foot 6 he stood on the ground, he weighed 2 hundred and thirty five pounds but i saw that child of a man brought down to his knees by love....' Great!! Music was brilliant, Sometimes we could bring in records (45's) and play them on that old Antique turntable and try and turn it up Louder than was acceptable.

Can't wait for part 2 and actually getting to the bottom of this Nazi business (See what i just did there)

Keith you write fantastically..

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:04 PM

Hayley Phillips

I remember Mr Burling in french, and that when he asked you a question ,if you waited long enough you could actually read his lips and get the answer. Why did Mr Eason always look like he was praying in maths. Looking back, he was probably counting to ten.... MRS CHINERY! Now, I always remember her asking me if I shouted so much cos my dad was a window cleaner!!( think my mum came down the school bout that one!)

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:37 PM

Jane Fowler

Will Miss Magliocco (sp?) feature at some point?

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:39 PM

Nod

I'll be addressing various issues of school life so I think many of the other things that people are mentioning will get an airing somewhere else.

Any more thoughts on music lessons from anyone? Thanks Jane for getting Mairzy Doats. It's amazing how I can remember a lot of those lyrics, even though I don't think I've heard the song since leaving Chalkstone:

If the words sound queer, and funny to your ear. 

A little bit jumbled and jivey

sing mares eat oats and does eat oats

and little lambs eat ivy

Can anybody come up with more songs that were in that book?

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:45 PM

Hayley Phillips

please Keith French must be next!! Miss Maggliocc0, (sit doin and colour you eclair books) was  a legend!!

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:47 PM

Hayley Phillips

Cant say too much about music, was always scared Mrs Wright would want me to join choir or orchestra!! Remember singin Jason and his technicoloured dreamcoat songs alot, that one with two hundred colours in it with just one breathe......

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:50 PM

Anonymous

Fantastic memory Keith and everyone else! Hey, Mr Tamborine man rings a bell......

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 06:19 PM

Hayley Phillips

Want it Jason Dear?? And the song, Nods an oval head, Nod Nods an oval head, tune came to me clearly this afternoon for some weird reason. Now i cant stop humming to Nods an oval head and its driving me crazy!

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 07:33 PM

Anonymous

You had a dead good calculator witha chasing the numbers game on it.

I wrote the lyrics to a song called "we have to save the tigers" which was the schools entry into a BBC Pebble  Mill competition. School  got a certificate but never made it to the telly , guess it was because al the schools that did make it had a very lucrative music department budget (synths etc)

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 08:03 PM

Laura M

This is great fun, what's at the top of my memories

I remember sitting in that music room on top of sandwich crusts and crap coca cola left over on the table from people eating lunch in there and the ENDLESS repetition from that songbook - was it called Jukebox? On a music theme, I recall Mrs Evans playing the piano (in a Les Dawson fashion) in assembly and some bright spark dusting her silver slip on shoes with the board rubber - I think we called them her disco shoes. Libary lessons were a particular joy I seem to remember as she clearly was completely barking.

Mr Eason had a certain pungency and did we not used to call him Brut 33? Maths was just down the corridor from Mr Burling - I recall being a smart arse on one occasion when he was our form tutor and he used to insist on reading out any letters we had to send home just in case we couldn't read ourselves by that age and me saying to him "we can read Mr Burling" and he gave me a MASSIVE bollocking as a result of my cheek.

I remember merits and demerits and Unwin house being shite. I remember Mr Clapham dancing very badly at the school disco and I also recall being rather drunk at various aforesaid disco opportunities.

Erm, was there not a competition to replicate the Eastenders theme tune that you got aired on the radio Jane? I seem to recall a splendid percussion based effort.

Fizz Buzz in maths class with Mr Naylor. In the 'terrapin' - why oh why were they called that? I think about 30% of our collective schooling took place in a temporary shelter in part of a school field somewhere.

Jaberwocky with Mr Danes.

Boxing matches at break time when Mr Hutchinson was Head.

Still, I have SO MANY happy memories of Chalkstone compared to Samuel Ward and hello to everyone who attended/suffered both!!

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 10:12 PM

Tom Logan

I remember Hanlon-I taught him some chords n whatnot. I also remember performing A (as in singular) duet with him-maybe for a captive drama class; but before the entire student body?! And, alas, as alleged co-writer (I gotta be nice to Hanlon here), I have no recollection of this (apparently verified as factual by Ms Fowler) oh so catchy -- and atypically vocal -- song, nor its near performance. But for what a web page 'comment' is worth: I'm sorry for being offensive towards you by writing and attempting to perform the song, Nod. And don't worry, I wont divulge the origin of your nickname. See! I don't shut-up for long.

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 07:14 AM

Jane Fowler

Laura remembers Eastenders and percussion; I'm not sure that was me. I did however, join up with Sian Price, Joanne Yeoman and Claire Walker to recreate a Duran Duran number for a competition on Bruno Brookes' Radio1 drivetime show. We had to use household items (and voices) only, and having chosen the rather obscure song 'The Chauffeur' from the Rio album, we assembled a selection of 'instruments' which included hairspray cans, a bunch of keys, a plastic bowl, wooden spoon, and a container of lentils. We spent many a lunch hour in the music room (once all the diners had left) rehearsing, and eventually recording our masterpiece. Although we didn't win, we did get a commendation, and an airing on the radio, principally for our genius use of a hairdryer to simulate the sound of an aeroplane engine. We were rewarded with signed photos of Bruno, and Radio 1 pens. I still have a recording of our song, although as it's on cassette, I've nothing to play it on these days.

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 06:02 PM

Stephen Edwards

Wow Nod, what have you started here? Despite my natural scepticism, you've drawn me in.... I remember 2 performances on stage in assembly: Tom and Mark with their keyboard doing an electronic version of Let It Be, and some kind of rap/breakdance/I don't know what by Warren Hunsdon/ Terry Parsons etc which some of us had the temerity to laugh at. This led to the school heavies visiting tutor groups to get some names to beat up. Harry Z stood up for us and said it was just him that thought it was crap.

Hello all and especially pleased to have evidence that Tom is still alive!

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 10:12 PM

Nod

The break dance outfit you refer to was called 'Warren and the Scorpions' and I think it may have featured at least Tyrone Archer and Gerard Garrett as two of the 'Scorpions'

Friday, March 20, 2009 - 11:23 PM

Mark H

Well, I had totally forgotten about the "Nod's an oval head" song until reading this, and instantly the words and music bubbled up from the depths of my memory like a pocket of sulphur in a Rotorua mud pool. Not an event I'm particularly proud of, but I'm 99% sure I didn't compose the tune or lyrics (why do I think of Miss Ankin?) To be honest I don't even remember singing it much; I think I was as bemused by the whole thing as you were, Nod. 

I do, however, remember being involved with the composition of tune & lyrics for an advert, one music lesson, in a group with Andrew Jarvis, Adrian Hutton and others. We decided to advertise a toilet roll, and our words were:

When you're sitting on the throne,

And you're bored and all alone.

Here is something really new,

A brand new toilet roll just for you.

A brand new toilet roll just - for - you.

Inspiring, and clearly left a lasting impression on me.

There was also a song about Alan Heward called "You're so Serious", but I think only Jason & myself ever heard/sung that.

Another one that Tom may remember is "Eachy-peachy pear plum, who's your best bum chum? Whah, a-boobi-do-ah, yeaaaaaaahhhh" and we would harmonise (a third) the final 'yeah'. Not quite Barbershop levels of talent, but it kept me amused for days.

Tom and I did play to the class a few times, maybe even four or five, becoming ever more experimental. I remember one tune where I started off standing at the back of the class with a percussion instrument and played that while Tom played the intro on piano. By some well rehearsed choreography I walked around the class back to the piano ready to play the bass line at the appropriate time (three note arpeggios - the tune is loud in my head as I type this!) 

We also played to the school during assembly twice. Once was Let It Be on piano, and the final time was a tape recording of Yesterday played on Tom's dad's keyboard and recorded to 4-track I think. Nearly right, Stephen! If I search my house hard I may even still have this tape somewhere. 

Keith, I didn't learn to play the piano from those magazines (called Play It Today, which I also can lay my hands on.) I tried to learn to read music from them, but never had the patience. Playing the piano was just for fun, and certainly something Tom helped with. Oh, and I must have gained my Christian name sometime after leaving Chalkstone Middle, Logan. Or did we fall out over something and you're still not happy? Maybe I took two Smarties from your tube and didn't put one back?

Finally, who was it who sang a solo comedy version of the Flake advert in front of the school? Steven Haynes seems a likely candidate, but I'm struggling to picture the face. Whoever it was had some bravery, but it was well received.

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 12:09 AM

Tom Logan

Easy, Mark! Surname used to avoid (further) confusion. Thats all. Smarties? I'm missing something there. I cant remember any of the melodies, lyrics or songs; but I know we enjoyed composing. Have you sworn yet? I recall your abstinence from foul-mouthery!

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 05:05 AM

Mark H

Nope, not a f**king word.

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:14 AM

Nod

I guess it's possible that 'Nod's an oval head' was 'developed' by Tom & Mark rather than originated by them. In any case it existed, and now here we are 25 years or so later discussing the history of my oval head. All very amusing. And I clearly remember the song you played Mark where you had your wood-block percussion intro as you walked around the classroom.

On other recollection is from the time (mentioned by someone else above I think) when people had to come up with advertising jingles. Wasn't there a fictional hair-piece product called 'Wiggo'?

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 10:30 PM

Zylan

The Flake advert was Gerard Lloyd (R.I.P. (I think?)) - It went something along the lines of ..."Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate. Misses your mouth and makes a mess on the floor".

Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:06 AM

Laura Marks

How the diddly devil have I mixed up a Duran Duran song with the Eastenders theme tune?? Now it's all coming back to me, sans Anita Dobson.

Quite, quite worrying.

Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:10 AM

TomLogan

Call me a weirdo, but I dug some of the  hymns. Solid stuff.  'To be a Pilgrim' and all that!

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 10:18 AM

Sharonank

Me too Tom but it must have been slightly annoying if your name was Micheal Pilgrim though eh?

Monday, March 23, 2009 - 10:43 AM

joanne hammond/ wilkens

I remember having Mrs Seeley as a music teacher and singing Lennon and McCartney. Does anyone remember the Film nights we used to get on a Friday night sometimes where they put a big screen in the hall?. I can't remember any films though. I also did a version of Thriller with Joanne Yeoman at the end of year concert that we used to do and ours was called Killer and we had Andrew Jarvis coming on stage at the end as the scary element to the preformance!!!. This one is for the girls, Miss Ellel or Mrs Cocks as she was later known, standing at the showers watching everyone go through. That is one of my worst memories of the school.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 09:28 AM

Nod

Mrs Seeley was Samuel Ward I think (we had the Red & Blue Beatles songbooks to work with).

I do remember the school cinema nights (run my the geography teacher Mr Church I think), and that is where I saw Watership Down.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 04:40 PM

Sharonank

Those films.  You could get a pass to see all films as a season ticket. I clearly remember 'Bluebeard' the pirate film.

And those Beatles books in Sammy matched the Beatles Blue and Red albums

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 06:00 PM

Zylan

Following an angry phone call from one of those concerned, I've been corrected on The Flake advert sketch. Apparently, it was performed by Micky Rinaldi and co-written by Simon Lansdown.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 10:45 AM

steve haynes(weevil)

WARREN AND THE SCORPIONS?ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THAT'S HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!never heard that before.in fact i  have virtually no memory of any music lessons at all.thank god zil corrected you mark on the flake tune!

mmm it's coming back now.the locomotion.....???i hated that song,it always seemed to get picked by the girls and i protested once by not singing!that is my only memory!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 01:37 PM

TomLogan

Zylan, thank you for slipping in the correct spelling for Simon L.  Its been bothering me for a while.

Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 11:48 AM

Sharonank

Zil, Why didnt the aggreived write on here themselves? Chicken?

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 05:06 PM

Sharonank

Steve, The girls all loved The Locomotion (pre Kylie) as we thought of it as really 60's and that was what mattered at the time!

Friday, March 27, 2009 - 05:08 PM

TomLogan

@sharonank I concur re: the aggrieved. Also 'anonymous'? Whats up with that? No shame in cms's game - irrespective of identity then or now. Anons need to read the title of this blog.  

Does anyone remember a real duet at assembly time on guitar(s) and with pretty decent vocals, including harmonies on the chorus (5ths I think). The song was 'Streets of London' and I think one of the performers was Amanda Pope, daughter of the musically-inclined woodwork teacher Mr. Pope (I dont understand why he didnt just become a music teacher? If I had that choice of vocations: woodwork teacher or music teacher, I would not have to deliberate AT ALL. Maybe the salaries reflected the challenge of teaching the subject chosen). I think Mr. Pope became friends with my dad/parents prolly for a music-related reason.   I remember him visiting our house once. Good, well-put together duet tho. I was impressed.

Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 02:58 AM

Stephen Edwards

Another music lesson song came to me today (apologies if it's a Samuel Ward one- I just can't remember) : "Ob la di, Ob la da, life goes on, BRA !!(pause - bra was a rude word) la, la la..." etc.

Friday, May 01, 2009 - 07:43 PM

I recently acquired a few more photos off of my mum which once again capture me in the halcyon days of my youth. Fortuitously, this means I can continue with a few more entries from the My Life Revisited series of my blog. I had tried to keep the previous entries in a chronological order, but I may now have to meander back and forwards a little.

Another year, and another school photograph. If my calculations are correct then this photo would have been taken from my last year of middle school. Soon I would be taking that big step to ‘Upper’ school, a slightly less innocent and more salubrious place. Once again it would mark that transition from feeling somewhat smug and superior at being the eldest year in the school, to feeling scared and insecure at being among the ‘new boys’.

Of course the big news from this photo is that the era of brown is over. For reasons for which I still do not fully understand, I spent a few years of my life in the late 1980s with an unhealthy obsession towards all things grey. I could have stuck with brown, or explored shades of blue, black, or white...all colours that would have been permissible under the school colour code. But no, I went for that most boring, and unappealing of all colours. This photo captures me in one of many grey tops that I would come to own. This one has it’s rather fetching grey mesh overlay to accentuate the grey base layer.

The really sad part of this was that the greyness did not stop at sweaters and shirts. I also wore grey trousers accompanied with grey socks and grey shoes. Let's be honest, I was a vision in grey. When walking to school, I was probably indistinguishable from the concrete pavement on which my steps fell. Was this why so many people ignored me?

Thinking back to this era, I’m still perplexed as to what exactly the appeal of all of this grey was. The saddest part of my grey obsession was that it didn't stop with my wardrobe ... it even extended to interior furnishings. I remember requesting that my bedroom walls should be furnished with grey wallpaper and I also had a matching grey lampshade. It was a decor that said "Here's Keith, he's the most boring person that you will ever meet".

All this talk about my 'grey period' is starting to make me feel slightly nauseous. Fortunately I can put everyone’s minds at rest and reassure you all that this was just a passing fad. By the time we moved into the nineties, I had expanded my color palette and I spent the entirety of that decade garbed almost exclusively in hues of blue and green.

Another year, another birthday, and another reason for hanging out with ‘the gang’. We are now into the 80’s but brown still seems to be the predominant colour in our house. Note the absence of any girls in this picture. This would set the tone for my relationships (or lack of them) for the next twenty years.

Following on from the last blog entry in this series, here is another photo from my seventh birthday, and this is the photo that provides the evidence that it really was a birthday party. Do take time to appreciate the cheeky- grin-towards-camera, from my friend Tony. You might be wondering whether such a photogenic young boy would grow up to become a male model? The answer is no.

Notice that there is acake with seven candles, which cleverly has been made to resemble a clock face with the hour hand so cunningly pointing to the number 7. I wonder if I was old enough then to be able to tell the time properly. I do remember that we had lessons at school with a cardboard clock face that the teacher would hold up in front of the class. She would then pick on people to guess what time the clock was showing. There was a point in my life where I could tell the time only if it was it was a multiple of 15 minutes, and so I would be in fear in case she held up a clock showing something awkward like 7:35.

What other things can we learn from the photo. The colour brown makes another appearance, but this time as part of the crockery. I’m now thinking that our whole house was a shrine to brownness. Amazingly, I can tell you that my mum still has some of those plates. They’ve managed to survive 30 years of ‘accidents’.

The other part of this picture worth mentioning is in the foreground. It is a paper napkin featuring a popular children’s character. If this party took place in 2010 then we might expect to see Harry Potter or Optimus Prime maybe. But in 1978 we had the cool-beyond-doubt portrayal of Uncle Bulgaria from the Wombles. Yep, in 1978, if you had the Wombles feature at your party (albeit in badly inked pictorial form) then you were the coolest kid on the block...at least that’s how I remember. Ah, you gottta love the Wombles. All together now, “Underground, overground. Wombling free..."

Ah, I have got myself into a little chronological muddle. This post (and the next post in this series) is from 1978 and so should have come before the last post from 1979. Oh well, I'm sure you'll forgive me...

This picture might look a bit strange so I’ll explain as best I can. The picture was taken during a birthday party at my house. It would have been my 7th birthday. Check out the lovely patterned curtains, and the general overpowering presence of the colour brown in the furniture and carpet. Brown was big in the 70’s!

I’m sitting on the far end of the couch, wearing the green safari outfit which I just loved (this wasn’t a fancy dress costume by the way). The dapper looking gentleman on my left was my neighbour and still my good friend Tony Lancaster He doesn’t wear the tie so much these days. The next guy has faded from my memory and if I had to come up with a name I might say ‘Christopher Powell’ but I have very little faith in that. He must have been at my primary school but I don’t think he was still around for my middle school years. Next to him is Mark Freeman who lived a few doors down the road from me. He had also made an effort to smarten up for the party, well at least he had shiny brown shoes on. The face on the end of the picture is Kevin Seabright...I think. We were best buddies for quite a few years and used to both be hugely into Star Wars (well wasn’t everyone back then?).

My mum, and Tony and Mark’s parents still all live in the same houses on the same street. So some things haven’t changed much over the last 32 years, though thankfully, the decor has. Given that I’m now living in a different country, it seems strange that all these parents have lived in the same houses (let alone the same town) for so long.

The strange facial expressions that we all seem to be adopting in the picture is because there was, off to the right of the picture, a magician! It was unbelievably cool to have my very own magician perform for me at my party. I think he was getting us all to blow at something that he was holding. I could be completely wrong, he may have just asked us to make silly faces for his own amusement.

Every seven year old should have a magician perform at a birthday party. You’re at the age where it is easy to be astounded by relatively simple acts of magic. I was very into magic for the next 10 years or so of my life, probably because of this birthday party

But I think I have to applaud the inventiveness and technical abilities of my folks as they did all the work. As I was only six at the time, I doubt that I personally suggested going as a matchbox, and I further doubt that I had much involvement in the construction process. When anyone goes to a fancy dress party today, it seems that people most likely will just hire or buy their costumes. But in 1978, costume hire was not really an option (at least not in Haverhill, Suffolk) and so there was a need for ingenuity and considerable amounts of glue and tape.

I think that the bulk of this ‘costume’ was fashioned from the cardboard packaging of some self-assemble furniture. There was a quite a bit of attention to detail in that there was - at least as I recall - an inner box that could slide within the outer container. The detail on the front of the box is a fairly good (hand painted) replica of an actual brand of matches that you could buy in 1978 (for just three pence).

My parents also gave me a red swimming cap that I was meant to put on my head so that I would physically resemble a matchstick in the matchbox, though somehow I think I opted to not wear that on the day of the competition. I don’t recall winning the contest, but I do remember there being more than one prize so I may have won something (best costume in the ‘Smoker’s accessories’ category?). As I recall, there were lots of entrants in these contests...but there was only ever one matchbox!