Chairman’s Chit Chat June 2024
Are schooldays the happiest days of your life?
I am not sure about that, but I certainly did enjoy my schooldays, particularly my secondary education ones. My secondary education started in 1961 and friendships made then have endured through the intervening years.
Sadly, two of “the gang” are no longer with us but those of us still clinging to the wreckage keep in regular contact.
What made those days so memorable, fascinating and enjoyable? Firstly, I suppose, the close friendships forged during that time. The ups and downs of the journey through the subsequent years were common shared experiences
Unreliable old cars, the heartbreak of unrequited teenage love, the euphoria of the real thing, the boundless joy of children and grandchildren – all strengthened our bond.
Then of course there were the teachers. Being a boys only school, all the staff were males (apart from the school Secretary – there’s stereotyping for you!). Many of the teachers had served in World War 2 and so had had a career and experiences of the wider world before entering education. They were an extraordinary bunch of characters. Mr (Davey) Thomas (teachers either had a nickname or were known to us by their first name but always “Sir” when addressing them), who valiantly tried but ultimately failed to teach us Spanish, had been a navigator in RAF Bomber Command. Mr Smythe (Mr Smythe) held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel with the Gurkhas and had seen action in the Far East.
With two years of secondary schooling left to go, a new Deputy Headmaster arrived. Mr (Charlie) Phillips was ex-RAF and had been honoured with the Distinguished Flying Cross and bar. This man was a revolutionary, a real educational Che Guevara.
As mentioned earlier, ours was an all-boys’ school but there was a mirror image girls’ school adjacent, geographically, to ours but in all other aspects totally divorced from us.
The girls finished their school day 10 minutes earlier than us, in theory, to make sure they were well on their way home before we rough boys were let loose. One of the first things “Charlie” did was to set up a joint schools Debating Society, all very respectable and mind improving. Up to this point girls did feature large in our lives but now our hormones began to stir and there was a stampede to join the Society. “Charlie’s” next move to upset the status quo was to launch, at the end of every term, a joint-schools disco.
Needless to say, this sent our hormones into overdrive…… not sure how it affected the girls.
Are school days the best days of your life? I am still not sure – but they were indeed great fun and most enjoyable.