‘Einstein wrote to our school when Elected as head of society’
Historian MERVYN EDWARDS looks back on his former school with the help of author Andrew Dutton...
THE notion that we were all toffs and polymaths at Wolstanton Grammar School – sorry, Wolstanton County Grammar School – was risibly untrue. It had a reputation for providing gold-standard education, without necessarily living up to it. And while some of the pupils had brains so big as to be growing out of their ears and down their nostrils, other boys were academic no-hopers, being about as much use as a man with no teeth in a Blackpool rock eating contest.
So having dispelled some of the myths connected with the Alma Mater, it was interesting to chat to a fellow ‘old boy’ recently and to swap notes about our old temple of learning.
Author Andrew Dutton, 57, now lives in Derbyshire but his family name was and remains well known in the Wolstanton and Porthill area.
“I started as a Grammar boy – very serious and shorthaired, and a neat uniform – in the autumn of 1974, and departed in the summer of 1981 as a long-haired scruff, just right for university,” he informs.
“The school transformed from
Wolstanton County Grammar School to Marshlands High School mid-way through my time there.
“My brother, Nick, was two years ahead of me. Our father, Peter, went to the school in the 1940s, and much later my nephew and niece were students there. The former works there now. In due course, perhaps my little greatniece will go through those gates too.”
I first interviewed the late Peter about his recollections of the school 22 years ago, but with that fellow’s passing, memories have been passed down through his sons.
“My father was a pupil in what was arguably the heyday of the school under Maurice Marples, headmaster between 1937 and 1961,” says Andrew. “There were thriving after-school events and school societies, one of which, the Sixth Form Society, held a meeting to elect a president.
“In a rush of enthusiasm, it was agreed that Albert Einstein should be elected, and the Society wrote to the great man to inform him of their decision.
“Einstein wrote back to say that he was very honoured, but he had always been under the impression that someone who was to be elected to a post should be told about it first!”
Evidently, the person who made the approach was, erm, no Einstein, but at any rate, Andrew laughs, “I hope the letter is still somewhere in the school archives.”
Most of us who attended the school in the 1970s will testify that some teachers seemed aloof and inhumanly strict. Andrew agrees: “When I started, I was rather overawed and afraid of the teachers. I remember wandering alone in one of the quadrangles, for what reason I cannot remember, when a stern voice boomed ‘Are you lost?’
“It was the formidable German teacher, Mr Ernest Kershaw, and although he guided me to the correct room, I was almost too terrified to speak to him.
“He was teaching during my father’s schooldays, and much later, they became colleagues and friends.”
Andrew recalls that many oncecherished Grammar School traditions were fading into history by the 1970s – rather to his relief.
“A survivor, however, was School Prize Day when attendance was compulsory. I recall one speaker with an overpowering voice that boomed from the stage, his speech reaching a window-shattering peroration with words that he dropped like cannonballs: ‘And remember,” he admonished, “We are all one world…”
“The ensuing silence,” relates Andrew, “was broken by a laconic, youthful voice from the captive audience: ‘Now, I hope you’ve all got that quite straight.’ The perpetrator was never caught!”
The school had a fine sporting record, though not all of us excelled at the oval ball game.
I’ve seen anglers landing trout quicker than it took me to catch and hold a rugby ball.
“The school was rugby-mad,” agrees Andrew, “and I was pressed into playing even though I could not see a thing without my glasses, so I would stumble round the field, bemused.
“On one occasion, the ball was thrown in my direction and I caught it by accident, running in what I thought was the required direction.
I was complimented by a blurred figure that was the kindly ‘Johnny’ Wood. It was my only moment of rugby glory, and after that, I went back to being flattened by people I couldn’t see.”
I gather from Andrew that though he achieved no sporting distinction at the school, he was once involved in a boxing match.
He explains: “A simmering disagreement with a classmate broke out into mutual threats, and the poisonous atmosphere was noticed by our physical education teacher ‘Bill’ Astbury.
“He took the unusual step of refereeing a boxing match between us in the changing room of the old school gym. I was told I won - though I couldn’t see who or what I was hitting.
“This resolved the problem admirably, but it’s probably not a solution that could be applied nowadays.”
I ask Andrew to recall some of the more notable teachers from the 1970s and he suggests a handful of names, saying: “My favourites among the staff were inevitably those who taught the subjects at which I thrived. There was Mr Graham Knight (Classical Studies) who encouraged classroom discussion and debate that shook up our sluggish young minds.
“Dave ‘Face’ Burgess (History) had an unforgettable, explosive teaching style. You knew he was setting a test when he blazed into the classroom shouting ‘Nuuuuuuuuumber One!’. He once handed me back an essay with the comment that it was written ‘either by a genius or an idiot’. I think he leaned towards the latter interpretation.
“I must also pay tribute to the efforts of various maths teachers to get me to grasp the subject – the patient Mr Watson, the affable Mr Fletcher, and Mr Bolton whose demands to the class that we ‘Sort it out’ sparked a minor cartoon
subculture but couldn’t reach my embarrassingly maths-free mind.
“Throughout my schooling I was terrified of the thought of being taught maths by Mr Gordon ‘Killer’ Kirby. I was sure he would have been enraged by my ineptitude.
“It was quite a surprise to me when, as Sixth Form Tutor, he turned out to be a quite different person from his legend, being gentle, reasonable and humorous.
“I suppose the transformation of teachers from monsters into human beings is all part of the process of growing up.”
But as a self-confessed long-haired scruff, did Andrew ever incur the wrath of his teachers – and how were wayward pupils reined in at the school?
“The range of disciplinary
capability of various teachers was always remarkable,” he responds.
“Messrs Kirby and Burgess could hold a whole room in nervous thrall whilst Mr Knight exerted firm authority but remained friendly – unless provoked.
“Art teacher Mr Rayner Holder punished my whole first-year group for talking in class by making us write out the first chapters of the Book of Genesis – ‘No gaps allowed!’
“English teacher Gordon Renshaw made us copy out, multiple times, a statement to the effect that ‘Loquacity is the enemy of good education’ – through which means I at least learned a new word.
“Others had less success. One master who shall remain nameless told his riotous class that unless they settled down, he
would impose ‘10 lines’. The riot continued. ‘Very well, I’m really angry now – twenty lines! A collapse into outright chaos ensued.”
I don’t have the impression that Andrew Dutton runs with the old adage that your school days are the best days of your life – and his detached, philosophical view is borne out in his parting comments: “From the late 1970s, the change from Grammar to Comprehensive status began. The school was a building site as new sports and science facilities were constructed.
“The all-male ethos came to an end, the school name, the uniform, all changed. We barely noticed. I suppose constant change is the norm for teenagers.
“I haven’t seen the school in 40 years – I wonder what else has changed?”
Well, for one thing, the school now
rejoices in the name of the Orme Academy.
Meanwhile, the long-haired scruff who was nurtured there has become an author, whose intriguing, very original and recently published first book appears to have drawn very heavily on his experiences at Wolstanton Grammar.
■ Andrew Dutton, born in Newcastle-under-lyme is the author of a recently-published paperback novel entitled Nocturne: Wayman’s Sky, published by Cinnamon Press. It can be purchased from Amazon for £9.45p. There is a Kindle edition for £5.