COHS in Wartime 40-45 Brian Gumm writes: “It is strange the things that stick in one’s memory after sixty years. Not so much to do with the school curricula but the extra topics such as George Wright’s lectures on poison gases. How many of you remember the effects of phosgene or chlorine? Obviously for me, this topic made quite an impact as I remember it still today.
George Wright must have “drawn the short straw or” or had a great sense of duty for it was he who organised the training of us into being stretcher bearers. I recall gangs of eager schoolboys charging round the playground carrying a “casualty” on a Hessian and wood stretcher. This was just after Dunkirk and sure enough, the COHS stretcher bearers were thrown into action at Oxford station to carry the wounded from the trains to the ambulances.”
David Cooper writes: “George Wright would not nowadays be allowed his party trick of asking a boy to stand up, stretch out his right arm and extend his index finger so that he (George) could hang his hat and his coat, which he wore as a cloak.” Does David have bitter memories?
Dr Bob King (1952-58) writes: “My prime recollection of George Wright was the occasion when he must have been making a point about a past British Monarch and requested four of the stouter lads in the form to lift him in his chair up onto the front desk (to simulate the throne)…..Much to his embarrassment and the forms delight it was just at that moment when Freddy had decided to make a visit to the class!!!!
I always wondered how he would have explained the circumstances to Fred.
By the way, whilst the photo shows him bareheaded I always remember him wearing a somewhat battered green trilby hat.”
Tony Argyle (1941-46) writes: “I recall meeting George Wright on coming out of the Super cinema when we should have been at school. He was not amused and neither were we later.”
JOURNEY’S END. Ron Baker writes:
Further to Ted Bown’s reference to “Journey’s End, the play was produced by George Wright and performed on 2nd to 5th February 1949. The cast:
Captain Hardy: Alan Stokes
Lieutenant Osborne John Robinson
Private Mason James Higgins
L/Cpl Broughton Maurice Croxon
2nd Lt Raleigh Howard Jones
Captain Stanhope Paul Groves
2nd Lt Trotter Michael Somerlad
2nd Lt Hibbert Alan Lower
Co Sgt Major Michael Tregoning/Keith Gibbons
German Soldier Maurice Croxon
The Colonel Ron Baker
DURING WWII Don Adams (39-45): “I joined COHS in September 1939. The school premises were shared: COHS in the morning and Clement Danes in the afternoon. We were set 3 hours homework. George would arrive red-faced at 14.50 hrs and set homework.”
Ralph Baer (1941-45): “Did you know that GEORGE WRIGHT wrote a book entitled “Dan the Dog Detective”, the proceeds of which went to pay for dog licences for dog owners who could not afford them?”