ORIGINAL MESSAGE

NAME: Terry Greenham

DATE: 25 September 2004

CONNECTION WITH QE: Pupil 1954-60(?)

I know that I only ever stayed at the school because, as a boy from a council house my family were so pleased and proud that I had made it to QE.  I recall that I was fearful that somehow my home address and my Dad's job (he was a postman) would be found out by some of the others and I would be ridiculed.  I think that I got better at becoming a malingerer after the third form and the last part of my time at the school was a bit more bearable.  Mind you for many years I carried a strong desire to go back and get even with 'Tiger' Timpson for the times he gave me the cane.

I can remember that you [i.e. the webmaster] used to have an ability in Latin that was far in excess of any interest that I managed to maintain.  I still have no idea about the ablative absolute but due to Mr Whitely's intense belief in teaching by rote I can still decline bonus, so long as nobody is listening too carefully.  I always remember that Mr Whitely used to be in charge of the 'pound' and we used to have to pay a penny to redeem lost items (that was of course if you couldn't wriggle said lost item, or one similar, out through the wire mesh of the pound's basket).  Some wag said that Mr Whitely's motto was to "take care of the pennies and the pound would take care of itself".  I always thought that was clever.

Our other Latin teacher was, of course, 'Winkie' Wingfield who was susceptible to the odd 'red herring' about Roman warfare which could often allow one an opportunity during his period to get on with uncompleted homework.  Many. many years later over here in NZ I heard a radio play by a Rex Wingfield and I made contact to check if it was the same 'Winkie' that I knew, but it turned out to be another author of the same name.

Another teacher who believed in the 'rote' method was 'Johnny' Hoskins/ Hoskinson (?) who taught French.  Again I can still remember some parts of a passage he made us learn.  It started "Il y a trois semaine j'étais en train d'écoute la radio" or words to that effect.

As I the names come into my head.  I am thinking now of 'Dickie' Whittington (music teacher extraodinaire).  'Dickie' used to sit on a wooden chair and he had the habit of holding on to the chair as he walked sort of duck fashion from his desk to the record player.  I remember one day when one of the class put a drawing pin on his chair before the music lesson started and didn't have time to retrieve it before Dickie entered the room.  Dickie, quite a large man, came in and we sat in trepidation as he took his seat.  He sat down and nothing happened!  Dickie used to give us tests where we had to determine, or perhaps guess, the notes and the length of the notes, he was playing on the piano.  The last note was always 'doh', always 'four', and always the only one I ever got right.

The music room doubled as the art room where I recall being taught by a Mr Purches. 'Frosty' (Mr Winter) of course was charged with imparting his knowledge of history.  One day he suddenly decided on a history test.  The unexpected swiftness of this decision denied any opportunity to prepare cheat notes and I managed only to write my name and the date on the top of the paper.  I had absolutely no idea what the questions were about.  'Frosty' had a penchant for pulling the short hairs on the back of your neck, those short hairs having been sculpted by the deft hands of 'dribbling Tom' of the hair salon down the alley behind Flaxmans in the High Street.  Those of you who had the misfortune to be a customer of 'dribbling Tom', will know he got his name due to his propensity to dribble down and off the end of his pipe as he cut hair.

1st REPLY

NAME: White, D

DATE: 03 August 2007

CONNECTION WITH QE: Pupil 1955-62, Broughton Ho

I was one of two Whites and four Smiths gathered in, I think, the Third Form of 1957.  Smith AM, DP, GH, and JAW followed by White D and then RB !!!  Hoskison's passage began Un soir il y a trois semaines jétais en train découter la radio quand un de mes amis arriva chez moi.  Il venait d'acheter un appareil et il en etait tres content....

I recall we all knew how many words were in the passage (142?) and the number of acute, grave and cedilla accents.  He also had us singing La Mer - amazingly I love to hear it sung!!!  I still meet up with Parkes AJ and we can only get as far as .. tres content with Hoskisson's passage - mind you it got me through 'O'-Level.  Hope this might jog someone else's memory.