The story of a successful town and gown project
After reading Mike Brogden’s cynical reminiscences of COHS in 1952-59 I found it hard to reconcile his views with those of mine. Could this be the same school? Admittedly, I was there 1940-44 and the headmaster was J.E.Badham but could it have changed that much in ten years?
Continue reading “When did the rot set in?”In 1941, as far as I remember, fee-payers all started in 2A and scholarship boys in Remove. Why it was called Remove I do not know. I only remember being told “it is traditional” which was no answer.
Both classes numbered about 30 boys so there must have been about as many of one as the other. There was no 1A or 1B because School Cert was done to a four year programme and you had to finish up (if successful) in year 5 in the Sixth Form.
After Remove one was put into the next year’s A or B form depending on your results, no social selection, The bright ones went to the next year’s A and the others went to B. And we didn’t have cap parades, or monthly merit order to determine one’s seat in class, I think I’m glad I left before Fred Lay really got into his stride! I think there was also in 1941 a Form 5C, known as Shell.
Encouraging the debate: Lord Philip Hunt sides with Nigel Molden
(Lord) Philip Hunt (1960-67) writes:
I was very interested in Nigel Molden’s piece. Some of my experience chimes with his and I thought you might be interested in some comments.
I went to the school at the same time as Nigel (I lived in Cowley and went to Cowley St James primary school). I was in the 1b/2s etc class through to O levels. It was definitely regarded as the bottom stream. It’s an interesting commentary on the time, that science was not rated so highly as the classics/arts.
I don’t think Nigel is right that we were banished to the old Central School. In fact 1b was in the main block with Mr I Taylor as form teacher. But I do remember going there for art and TD – both of which I was completely hopeless at!! The visits to South Oxford School for wood-work bring similar dreaded memories.
I didn’t really enjoy my school experience and struggled academically until I reached Sixth Form. Nigel has no memory of the B/S people going onto the sixth form, but I was certainly not the only one. There I was very fortunate to be taught by David Walker and Colin Rummings and got really interested in history and economics. I went on to Leeds University to study politics and I am pretty sure that there were others from the B/S stream that went on to university.
It is interesting that comparatively few of the students starting out at the school did go directly into higher education. I do agree there was a lack of ambition for the students by the school. I guess most of us were the first generation in our families to go to university and the school reflected a philosophy pre the expansion of higher education which took place in the 60s.
I didn’t leave school enamoured with the grammar school system. There was a pervading sense of superiority over the secondary modern schools and inferiority to schools like MCS.
Congratulations to Mike Chew on encouraging this debate.
Writer known:
“Mr Badham, Headmaster during my time at School, rarely gets a mention in the Newsletters. He was the only man I ever met who regularly wore spats. He enjoyed quoting, in his slightly old-fashioned accent. “Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh were the only two who ever got through to the land of milk and honey,”
Mr Atkinson, Classics master, had a “thing” about the application of the birth qualifications for international Rugby. He would often interrupt a lesson by turning on a boy and asking him if he had a Scottish grandmother; and if the answer was “Yes.” He would say triumphally “Then you can play rugby for Scotland.”
Tich Wright was an elegant batsman who sometimes turned out for the School in matches against non-School (as did Sam King, the groundsman).
Mr Masters was always known as “Kitty” after a dance band vocalist popular on the radio.
Mr Searson was the Geography master and form master of Remove (form room, at least in my time, the first in the row of huts inside the New Inn Hall gate entrance and opposite the tuck shop). In 1933, when I was in his form, he used to organise unofficial boxing contests in the space at the front of the form room. I have no idea whether they took place in other years. (Ed: I remember boxing there against Tony Patterson. I won because he was even smaller that I was at that time, and he even more scared than me.) He also played a part in organising the annual outings of the School Geographical Society. I remember interesting trips to the Cadbury factory at Bournville, Morland’s match factory in (?) Gloucester, and the Imperial Institute in London.”
Stephen Peters writes:
“Further to the remarks of Colin Justin and Nigel Moulden about “Flea” Lee, another of his punishment options was to be beaten with a broken chair leg (wooden). What luxury to be able to choose between the metal pipe, the length of rubber and the chair leg!!
It is of little comfort now to know that he and several other masters of the period 1956-64 would these days be imprisoned for child abuse – and not all of it physical abuse.
Like John Geach, my (too many) years at COHS were far from the happiest of my life – though I do cherish the memory of several sympathetic teachers, particularly “Eddie” Swire, the musical Busby and “Titch” Wright.
Too many members of staff, though they may have had a knowledge of their subject were, as far as teaching it was concerned, way beyond incompetent. It is not surprising that in the post war years there were so many dropping out before University as several correspondents have mentioned.
Tony Argyle (1941-46) writes (again with real ink) from Pearce, near Canberra in Australia.
Do you remember putting milk bottles or chalk dusters in the grand piano? I recall many a time when Mr Bielby had to stop in the middle of “For those in peril on the seas” to remove these various objects which made a dreadful din on the piano strings.
Who tried to set light to the “Annexe”, that overflow place at the bottom end of George Street? A belting was going to be given to the whole class in alphabetical order unless the culprit owned up. This did not appeal to A A Argyle nor my mate Brian Abrahams. However the culprit did own up and we were spared.
Remember blowing up condoms purchased from Wesley Lloyd in New Inn Hall Street? There was a door there with ”Consultations Gentlemen” on it.
Remember the harvest camps at Kelmscott near Lechlade? We had to get there on our bikes and were paid five bob a week for really hard work.
New boys used to have to “Kiss the Cross” on the old city wall before being ducked in the bogs.
I remember taking my dinner money over to Morgan’s cake shop when school dinners did not appeal.
“Spud” Taylor: Does anyone recall the following song?
Let us with a Litesome mind
Praise old Spud, for he is fine
For his jock-straps, Eh endure
Ever faithful, ever sure.
Off to Norfolk Island in the middle or the Pacific next week for some R & R after a knee replacement and a dose of DVT.
Offer of a glass or five of good Aussie wine to any old boys still stands. Trying to get my oldest mate Brian Amos to come over, but the wimp won’t fly. Have told him that it’s a b—-y sight safer than his driving.
John Corbey (late 1940s) writes:
“The Annexe was adjacent to Gloucester Green, facing Worcester College Gardens. During the war it was designated for use as a mortuary, if there had been deaths in the area around Gloucester Green due to enemy action. It had been a dispensay at some earlier date, and was well situated for its new purpose, being close to the fire station and the entrance to the bus station. Luckily it was never required aa a mortuary.
The School probably began using the ground floor as an annexe some time after VE Day in 1945. Certainly during 1946 and 47 4B and 5B “enjoyed” maths lessons there under the tutelage of Ben Atkin.
The Fire
I am not sure of the precise date of the Fire. Ben had the key to the room where our maths lesson was to take place. Ben was late and there were some thirty of us gathered in the entrance hall awaiting his arrival. Just off the hallway was the door to the locked cellar, but idle hands and a penknife soon removed the screws and access was gained to the cellar.
There was no electric light, but daylight filtered down through a grating, and a dozen of us explored the many rooms below. Most were almost empty, but in the furthest cellar were a number of exposed X-Ray plates. One of our number used a cigarette lighter to ignite one of the X-Rays, which smoldered, rather than illuminate the area. Ben eventually arrived, the X-Ray was stamped out (apparently) and off we went to yet another “boring” maths lesson.
Later that day news spread round the School that the Annexe was on fire, followed by an announcement that it was only smouldering. The Head demanded to see all those who had been in the cellar that day. No one confessed to having cause the smoulder and Freddy decreed that we would all receive six strokes.
I was first and painfully took my punishment. I think Colin Britton followed me. Anthony Wilson then decided to confess that it had been his cigarette lighter. After giving us all a stern lecture, he told me that my name would be removed from the punishment book. In a way, however, I had been equally culpable and deserved the punishment. The marks took at least a week to disappear.
Postcript
The Annexe then became a servicemen’s cafetria where one could get a cup of tea and a sandwich long after the Stowaway, Ross Cafe and similar haunts had closed for the night. The cafetria ceased to function in the mid fifties.
These are my memories of the event after some sixty years, and both Brian Amos and Colin Britton can confirm the details.
(Ed. To add another view to this story, read this reference to the fire in the Annexe by a boy who was in the same class but not directly involved.)
John Gaskin writes:
The precise origins and authorship of the School Song (see Newsletter 4) were never known to more than a tiny handful of people: F C Lay and Jimmy Soulsby are long since dead, and it would be a pity for the knowledge to perish unrecorded with me.
I don’t remember what put it into my mind, but when Len Tombs and I jointly embarked on the production of “The Forum Presents” for May 1955, the thought occurred to me that we had no unique school song – “O quanta Qualia” was more or less functioning as one, but it was not OURS.
At that time (and until his death) I had been much befriended by the lately retired Jimmy Soulsby (Solar) who seemed to me then, and still seems to me fifty years later, one of the wisest and most understanding human beings I have ever known. He was also a talented musician and versifier.
I asked him to help with a song. He did. The music and established words are his. I was merely responsible for some of the verses sung at its first performance at the end of The Forum Presents on 4th May 1955.
Solar also wrote the finely worded review of the whole show for the July edition of the School Magazine. His diffident but prescient mention of the Song is worth recalling.
“The verses were too light and topical to wear well, but the chorus was compact and deftly woven with all the essential elements, faults and virtues alike, of a successful rallying slogan. Nobody can tell beforehand whether such a thing will catch on. They may or may not have found a new School Song; they have, beyond doubt, given expression to the urgent need for one.”
Lyrics of the School Song
The school motto “Labor Vincit Omnia” (’tis work that conquers all) was carved above the prefects’ door, and became the basis for the school song that every boy knew by heart:
In tranquil days of long ago
Under good Victoria’s rule
Their faith in Oxford’s youth to show
Our grandsires built a school.
“Labor Vincit Omnia”
Tis work that conquers all.
This gem of ancient Roman lore
Was carved above the prefects’ door.
“Nemo Repente Sapit”, too,
Was there beside it in full view,
Reminding those of slower pace
That perseverance wins the race.
Labor Vincit Omnia
Labor Vincit Omnia
Ed. For alternative songs see this reminiscence and this one
Richard Coleman (53-60) writes:
“In my memory Malcolm’s most singular claim to fame came during an English lesson in 2A.
Jock Sutton obviously thought that the country’s total preoccupation with the coronation had gone too far and urged us to write a poem celebrating the conquest of Everest. Malcolm stood up to read his piece:
Everest
Only two men have reached the summit.
Hilary and Tensing dunnit.”
When originally published Mike Chew apologised that he had temporarily mislaid the name of the author of this item, but would acknowledge its provenance in due course, which he never did. “Sua culpa”, as he said at the time.
“Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the latest COSA Newsletter I was trying to remember the various masters during the period 1941 – 1945. Old (very old) school reports gave me the following.