Happy Mondays? All our school days were happy 60 years ago...
SOME of Happy Mondays are old boys, but the band’s brand of baggy Madchester rock is unlikely to feature on the dancefloor at the school reunion.
Jerry Lee Lewis and The Everly Brothers may well get an airing, however, and maybe early Beatles.
Those heading for Worsley Wardley Grammar School reunion are from the 1958 intake and are all 72 years old this academic year.
They are celebrating 60 years since they first walked through the gates of a school that produced some of Salford’s most famous names, an institution whose history is a snapshot of Britain’s social history.
The school was built to cope with the ‘baby boomers’ born after the Second World War. All of those returning for the reunion were born in 1946/47.
Worsley Wardley Grammar represented the optimism and opportunity of a country emerging from the ashes of the war.
In 1955, Lancashire Life magazine reported on its opening and reflected that despite its uninspiring outward appearance, inside it was a ‘schoolteacher’s dream,’ with an ‘air of spaciousness,’ ‘contemporary decorations’ and a ‘futuristic’ technical wing.
In its first year it had 69 pupils, rising to 500 by 1959, 650 in 1960; 750 in 1961; 800 in 1963; and 900 by 1965. It was run by the Lancashire Education Committee.
So far 57 pupils of the 150 who started at the former school in autumn 1958 have signed up to the reunion at The Novotel in Worsley on September 28.
Former pupil, David Harte, who will be there, said: “The school admitted boys and girls. By 1958 it had grown to five-form entry. A sixth-form was established and grew from strength to strength.
“Attendance at university was encouraged.
“The building was of a contemporary design with a flat roof, mahogany panels and large windows making it bright with a ‘modern’ feel.
“The school tried and succeeded to create a traditional grammar school ethos but was never oppressive.
“Uniforms including caps for boys and hats for girls to be worn on all journeys to and from school and of course there was detention and the cane to ensure compliance!
“We didn’t feel privileged at the time as rationing went on into the 1950s.
“The staff were led by Gerald Smith, an Oxford graduate and apparently a war hero though I never heard him talk about it.
“There were numerous afterschool clubs, photography, chess, debating society, rock climbing, tennis are the ones I attended.
“Many of the staff could be extremely amusing and often the last half of a lesson would consist of humorous stories often with brilliant accents.”
Miss Makin, the girls’ deputy head, and head of English, was well liked by all – and she was later the inspiration for a character in a novel written by an ex-pupil, ‘Rita, Sue and Bob Too’ actor George Costigan.
Of the 60 ex-students attending the reunion one has come from the USA, two from France, two from Spain and 20 others from far flung areas of Britain.
One member of staff in her 90s was going to attend but is now too frail to do so.
In September 1972 the school became a five-form comprehensive for ages 11–16, and was renamed the Worsley Wardley High School with around 600 boys and girls in 1973 and 800 in 1978.
After 1974, it was run by the City of Salford. In September 1988, the Wardley High School and Pendlebury High School merged to become The Swinton High School, an 11-16 comprehensive.
Keyboard player Paul Davis, drummer Gary Whelan, and dancer and percussionist, Bez (Mark Berry), from the Happy Mondays were pupils at Wardley.
By the 1990s it was the Wardley Campus of Salford College.
The Mardale Avenue building is now demolished, with St Ambrose Barlow Roman Catholic High School occupying the old school grounds. Wardley Grange Farm is next to the school site.
If any people from the 1958 year group wish to attend and have not yet paid they can contact Geoff Prescott at prescott.glm@talktalk. net