(The following reminiscences, covering almost the same period
as that described in our
last issue by Dr. A. E. Dunstan, have been contributed by Mr. J. G. WILLIAMS,
of Buxton).
WHEN I joined the Grammar School as a very small boy in 1892, the far side of Ecclesall Road was all fields and market gardens from Hunter's Bar to the Moor, with a dam and toll bar at Hunter's Bar.
The class for small boys in those days was held in the Headmaster's house, where a number of boarders lived, and I well remember my first class-room was a long dining-room with benches, and at 9.0 a.m. the room was still redolent with the lovely smell of cooking. A Mr. J. L. Brocklehurst, a kindly and well loved master, was in charge. There were two classes in the Headmaster's house-Prep. 2 Class occupied a smaller room next to the dining-room under the stern aegis of a Mr. Pode, a man shaped like a huge Humpty Dumpty, or a very big egg. He was kindly, but very firm, and was empowered to use the cane; the very sight of it curled up in his desk inspired order. However, Mr. Pode was very good at heart.
There was a large cloak-room next to Mr. Pode's class-room where the innumerable fights were held. Many was the time I arrived at School to find a fight arranged for me, without my ever being asked or considered. A large family of Smiths were chosen for me to battle with.
After a time boys were moved up to the Big School where Mr. Latham and Mr. Hodgetts reigned, together with Mr. Chapman and others-a few notes about these gentlemen later. Instead of the cane a system of detention was in practice. A quarter to half an hour was given in drills to be taken after school under the watchful eye of Sergeant Lowndes, a plump kindly fellow with a large black moustache and dressed in a blue braided uniform. This practice worked well, especially as the boys longed to get home to dinner. Alas, dear old Lowndes was found dead one morning in the Chemical Laboratory, having taken poison. The whole School was profoundly shocked on arrival that morning to find their old and patient Sergeant dead, and when the news was announced by, I believe, Mr. Haslam, there were few dry eyes.
For rewards a unique method was used. Each boy had a book for marks for each subject, and if a boy got three 10's one after another this was called a ' copy ' and was ringed by the master. A set of six of these ringed 10's produced a Half Holiday; not a bad idea.
After a time a large annexe was built on the left-hand side of the Main School and was called the Floyd School—a kind of carpenter's shop where boys worked with knives that fitted into a wooden handle; this work was very much enjoyed. In a classroom nearby presided the great Mr. Latham, a real character, who took singing, music lessons, etc. Mr. Latham had a hard knob on one of his fingers, with which he could deal a dexterous jab on a boy's head with good effect. His gown, or what was left of it, was good to see. We all loved Latham, for he was very human and knew the tricks of all boys in and out. If, for instance, a boy performed the age-old trick with a little mirror behind Mr. Latham's back, he never turned round, but said, plaintively, naming the boy accurately, " Don't do that, my lad; your father did it years and years before you were born." Every trick he knew. His one trouble was to keep the boys off the hot water pipes in winter.
Further on, Mr. J. L. Hodgetts reigned supreme-a tall thin man, red-haired, with a straggly moustache. If ever a man ruled with a rod of iron, Mr. H. did. He was marvellous with a wooden blackboard-cleaner, and would shy it with great accuracy at a boy anywhere in the room for some offence or other, such as cribbing. However, I sat just behind the boy nearest to Mr. Hodgett's desk and within a foot of him, and yet the boy was never spotted cribbing and gave answers to all questions under Mr. H's nose. This was the boy's method. He had a tiny roll of paper wound round and round, about an inch wide; to this was attached a piece of elastic which went up his sleeve and was drawn taut. In some marvellous way this boy would unroll the spool with his fingers in the palm of one hand, revealing the answers in turn. If Mr. H. said "What's in your hand, boy? " he just let go, and out of sight went the apparatus up his sleeve. This lad did very well in business in after years-for a time. But eventually he landed you may guess where.
Though stern, Mr. Hodgetts was very kind, deep down, and lovable. I was ill for a time and could not work properly in his class. When he got to know the reason, he was intensely kind to me. How far a gentle word goes-in my case, fifty years!
Further on reigned, first of all, a Dr. Hennig, a Frenchman I believe, who had fought in the Franco-Prussian War. Afterwards came along Dr. Bulau. This gentleman donned a rather well-worn frock-coat and top hat of the same vintage. He was impressive to look at, elderly, with a rubicund face and grey moustache. He had a novel way of teaching French. He made huge cardboard charts decorated with red and black letters, beautifully done, formulating verses and rules for the easy learning of French. These he hung up on the walls of his room. This was one of the inscriptions-which he said would always get a boy a job on leaving school. Bulau would say, " Boys, if your proposed employer said ` What is the greatest French Rule in the world? ' and you said ' a (ah) is always a to the end of the world,' you would get the job, no doubt." Another line was " M.S.T.-muss, tiss, nt." What it meant I never have known and never will.
Alas, one day when Mr. Bulau went home to lunch after locking his desk carefully with his lovely charts inside, a very naughty boy during lunch hour lifted out the inkwell in the desk, which gave access to the inside, and emptied in all the inkwells he could find. The rest can be imagined: curtain.
Of the many notable boys I remember who have occupied prominent positions in Sheffield, and whom we always looked upon as heroes at school, were the Cleggs, Bramley, Coombs, Norwood (a brilliant lad who went to the University), Hallams, Staceys.
The Wesley College we looked upon was as far from us as China, in regard to the boys, customs, etc., and there was a healthy rivalry between, the two schools, and alas, a certain amount of enmity. We used to way-lay each other in the region of College Street or Broomhall Street. To the best of my memory the Wesley College, as it was then, usually had the better of us in games.
Apart from cricket, football and fives, boys played peg-tops' very earnestly. A chalk circle was drawn on the asphalt and buttons placed inside it. A boy made his top spin by means of a piece of whipcord till it hummed, then picked it up in the palm of his hand and dexterously dropped it on a button to throw it out of the circle. If he succeeded, the trophy was then his prize. Mother's workbox was invaded for the countless buttons used. I remember a great game at lunch-time when a well-known parson's son (not me this time) ran out of buttons and was reduced to cutting off every button, so it seemed, from his trousers. He then entered School with his trousers hanging in flaps and precariously held up with a piece of string at the waist, all buttons missing-one of the funniest sights I ever saw.
On Sports Days, prizes were valuable and numerous. One of the Shield winners when I was there was a boy called Cornu, a really fine athlete. The star-turn of the day was a powerful lad known as Bluey Wilde, who could throw a cricket ball from one end of the field to the other.
The horn in the night has risen.
Up from the mist of sleep, Fear flames.
Here come the blind butchers,
Staggering in the darkness.
Sing while the chopper falls!
Sing! Sing! and drown the din!
Sing while the chopper falls!
Sing! Sing! and drown the din!
All over. There go the butchers,
Dipping their bloody hands in the East.
Dawn draws the bandage,
And the wounds of the City scream.
G. M. MACBETH
To take the Entrance Examination on the fixed day my brother and I had to anticipate the family's move to the North and stay the night at Mr. Saville's boarding house. All this was very strange but very pleasant. I enjoyed most of all the comics available for reading in bed; but this pleasure was somewhat offset by a cup of bread-and-milk, a food which has ever since been a source of horror to me. Beginning school, as I did, in the middle of the Lent Term, I was completely at sea and, to judge from my school report, was not only the youngest but also the dullest that ever graced the lowest place in the lowest form of the School. But, through the kindness and charm of Miss Copley, I settled down, and after filling in line after line of a copy-book for her my writing improved from atrocious to merely bad.
The even tenor of life in the Junior School was seldom broken, except for such occasions as Open Day. The part played by Mrs. Michell on these occasions is well-known, but not so well-known is the way in which she whipped up our enthusiasm for silkworms, tadpoles and Nature Study in general by walks in the Botanical Gardens and games with cards depicting different birds.
The blitz when it came does not seem to have affected us very much. I remember going to school on the Monday afterwards and skirting a cordon at the bottom of Newbould Lane, but most impressions of that time have faded away. The most valuable feature of the junior School was its preparation for the Senior School; there were, for example, inspections in French and History by Mr. Scutt and Mr. Clay, both awe-inspiring ordeals but serving as a prelude for later and closer associations. Others beside myself must be grateful for all the Junior School and its Staff did for us and deeply regret its extinction.
But the Senior School still flourishes, with an even fairer face from its recent decorations. Mr. Lee, a Science master, was the form-master of 2A when I entered it, and his pet aversion was poor calligraphy. This fact, coupled with the unexpected and unwelcome taste of sodium hydroxide imbibed through a pipette, was later sufficient to drive me from the bosom of Science into the cloistered seclusion of the Classics. It was in 2A that I had the privilege of paying my last respects to Mr. Saville at his funeral in St. Mark's Church Hall.
In 4A a unique achievement was the formation of a system of slavery entailing the carrying of other boys' books; though there were fixed emoluments for this service, it was firmly put down by the Authorities, perhaps because it violated the Rights of Man and the Monroe Doctrine.
Reminiscence of more recent years should perhaps be withheld until a later date, when the passage of time will have blunted its keener edges. For the present, a few random impressions may be ventured. The changed status of the School has put an end to the barbarous principle of Saturday morning school; but less welcome has been the new S system of book-distribution with its nauseating label-sticking and back-breaking book-backing. On the whole, in spite of changes, routine is the most prominent characteristic of school life. But there have been outstanding events-Speech Day 1946, for example, to which Alderman Gascoigne gave an atmosphere of gay informality; or the first post-war," Shout," which will never be surpassed; or Winterset, the most ambitious and the most absorbing play I have seen at the School. These and other such diversions and occasions have helped to make not merely tolerable but enjoyable a term-or should I say thirty terms?-of Ten Years Hard Labour.
R. G. SEARLE-BARNES