Half a century since our Grammar School
MY old pal and best man, Dave Tarsky, reminded me a while back that a momentous anniversary was approaching in 2021.
It spurred me on to write about the Brierley Hill Grammar School trip to Paris in April 1971.
During that Easter week Mom and Dad sent me on a school trip to the French capital that they had long scrimped and saved to afford. They stumped up a huge £43 (as the payment card, signed by Mrs Slack, shows), the equivalent of £611.81 today.
It was my first time abroad, but I was perhaps less grateful than I should have been since it led to me missing my first home Wolves match since 1966.
Sorry to bring football into it yet again but in my absence, and indeed at the time I believed because of it, Mike Channon mugged Wolves at Molineux on 17th April to give
Southampton a 1-0 win.
I calculated that he scored at the same time that we were between Arras (our lunch time stop) and Paris in our Joe Green’s coach.
We had set off after breakfast with the Hoverlloyd hovercraft speeding us out of Pegwell Bay, Ramsgate, Kent, on its way to Calais. This was the same Saturday that a clearly offside goal from Tony Brown saw West Bromwich Albion win at Elland Road to virtually end Leeds’ title chances and spark off a riot that saw the Yorkshiremen banned from playing home games there at the start of the following season.
Setback
Although the setback at the hands of the Saints would ultimately cost Wolves third place, as we were on the way home a week later Hugh Curran and Jim Mccalliog scored at Leeds Road to see off Huddersfield Town and register away league win number nine of the season, and a fourth double of the campaign.
Tottenham would eventually succeed in stealing third place from Wolves on goal average. On Monday May 3rd they succumbed to a Ray Kennedy goal at White Hart Lane that secured the league and cup double for their bitter rivals Arsenal, but two days later they picked up the requisite two points with a 1-0 win over Stoke.
Their success came in spite of the fact that they had won three fewer games. Ironically, with three points for a win Wolves would have finished three points clear of them in
third place. However, 52 points was never going to be a championship winning total since it left Wolves thirteen behind the triumphant, double-winning Gunners. The 64 goals Wolves scored that season was a good tally, but the 54 conceded and 12 defeats was ultimately their undoing.
Adventures
But back to gay Paris fifty years ago. It was a real culture shock for us Black Country boys and girls, and our adventures are recorded by party members in the 1971 edition of the school magazine, ‘The Bromlian’.
We had a hotel on the Rue de Bearn, just up from the
Place des Vosges and the house of Victor Hugo, and it was a shock to the system for a growing lad from Pensnett to be presented with a breakfast consisting of croissants, marmalade and coffee, not a cornflake or piece of thick-sliced toast in sight.
I recall being particularly unenamoured with the food in general, and felt that the paté that we were offered was more in keeping with dog and cat food. Although I obviously had no class I did lose a bit of weight during our stay, something that wasn’t such a bad thing.
We of course did the sites, including the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe on the first day, and our snaking
51 pupil cohort succeeded on more than one occasion in bringing Parisian traffic to a grinding halt.
On the Sunday we ‘did’ the Eiffel Tower, a visit that I remember best for an encounter with a dodgy street vendor, as the magazine article describes: “On a breathtaking visit to the Eiffel Tower we were accosted by a swarthy Spaniard who wrongly accused one of our girls of having stolen some of his vinyl records. However, after reporting the incident to a gendarme, who made a fruitless search, we hurriedly made for the Metro, fleeing from our Spanish tormentor. Fortunately, this incident was successfully concluded by
a confrontation between Mrs Vessey and a member of the Surete.”
Other highlights of the trip including a visit to the Palace of Versailles, Notre Dame Cathedral, the French Television Centre, Sacre Coeur and Montmarte, Fontainebleau and the Louvre.
Mona Lisa
Like many other visitors we were somewhat underwhelmed by the Mona Lisa but maybe we 13 to 14 year-olds were not suitably educated in art appreciation.
Louis XIV’S incredible palace made the biggest impression on me and further nurtured my interest in history that eventually became a career.
At the time though my puerile sense of humour, along with that of others, was more tickled by the juvenile purchases that we made from street markets. One novelty that almost everyone bought was a ‘cow noise’, a small cylindrical box that made an exasperating mooing noise when tipped. We really tested the patience of one particular waiter, who we named ‘Grimnasty’ in an unwitting precursor to what should surely have
been a character in the Harry Potter books. Not only did he have to tolerate the unspeakable moo boxes but also, to our eternal shame, our strategic placement of pretend cow pats on the table and throwing plastic bags of water from our room window onto the awnings below.
One evening a moment of over exuberance led to Gillian Attwood injuring her already broken arm – I cannot recall who was at fault. I believe that Gillian, who I knew from Brook Street primary days, shared a room with Sally Cotton and Linda Bateson. Sally has a famous daughter, none other than Sophie Jonas (nee Turner) of Games of Thrones fame.
Bidet
Of course in those days we did not have ensuite facilities but having lived in a house with inside water for only three and a bit years I was spellbound to discover the bidet and how effective it was for washing socks and underpants.
However, in the interests of common decency I will not reveal the use to which Andy Parsons put the shower in a moment of desperation. I know
it took us ages to get rid of the peas – we had peas with every dinner for some reason. May I apologise to Andy for revealing his secret and to all concerned for our behaviour, and yes I did become a teacher.
It was a fantastic trip though and one on which I earned an unusual nickname. When doing the bus roll call one day a teacher, I think Mrs Harris, thought that my first name began with an ‘O’ and I became known as Olive Corbett for some time afterwards.
On the final day we did our last-minute shopping and I purchased a print of Paris for Mom and Dad that they had framed and kept for many decades – well at least they got something for their hefty investment.
I also recall a last night disco
on the tiny hotel dance floor, an event that went on until the early hours – well 10pm.
The return hovercraft journey was on the 24th April 1971 and meant that I missed a much more important family event than a Wolves match.
The occasion in question was the marriage of my cousin, Marilyn Walker, to John Beasley
at St Mark’s Church in Pensnett. So this is also the time to congratulate Mal and John on fifty glorious years.
Thank you to the Brierley Hill Grammar School staff and so many friends, most of whom I have completely lost touch with, for a week in Paris that lives long in the memory fifty years on.