MrKing

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Posts posted by MrKing

  1. Further to DJ360 and other posts, yes, it was P P Payne. I lived near there from mid 1940's to early 1960's. Starting at the top of Hucknall Road was Thos Forman's printing works and next to it was what we kids called Forman's field. We used to sneak in there and explore the tunnels underneath. Anybody know what they were for?

     

    Later, Turners built their bakery on Forman's field and I did loads of night shifts there. Later on, in college holidays, I drove their bakery lorries. 

     

    Down from Turners there were about ten houses followed by the Co-op store on the corner of Teesdale Road. After Teesdale Road there was a sweet shop run by the "Misses P and F Legg". There then followed a gent's barber, Wm Frost's greengrocery, Mr Greasley's fish and chip shop and Slaney's garage.

     

    Down from the garage was the Bairnswear factory where they made .... bairn's wear. Then came P P Payne, whose factory backed up to the sandstone cliff behind the gardens of some of the houses on Weardale Road. The cliff had loads of sand martin burrows in it.

     

    I remember the pumping station and the sight of the shiny steel machinery moving up and down behind the doors.

     

    Round the corner from P P Payne on the south side of Haydn Road were garages and other buildings belonging to Meridian and their main factory was opposite. Later, possibly in the 1970's, someone bought the garages and also the allotments behind them in order to build more commercial premises.

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  2. I've only just joined, so very late joining this discussion.

     

    Taff Davies was still there when I attended. I saw quite a bit of him as, being somewhat lazy, there were quite a few occasions when I was "on report". 

     

    Mr Graham (History)  was my Basford Housemaster. The long-winded history teacher was probably the Aberdonian 'Jake' Murray. Because of his teaching style I deliberately failed my end-of-year History exam so that I could take French the following year.

     

    Stan Middleton was a great teacher. I was also taught English by Mr Moorcroft, who was reputed to be emphatically socialist and, therefore, a strange fit in a Grammar School.

     

    Mr (Tom??) Ormonroyd taught me French. He often made me stand in front of the class to demonstrate my ignorance of French but I got my own back after my parents took me on holiday to France, where I had to do all the talking and translation for them. My dad did know a bit of French but it was the 1914-18 war Tommy variety such as "Voulez vous coucher avec moi se soir?". On my return from that holiday I was able to answer Mr Ormonroid's test with flying colours and he never picked on me again.

     

    E W N Smith was known to us as RK Smith. There was another Smith, known either as 'Fat' or 'Art' who was a brilliant art teacher.

     

    Doug Slater took Zoology, Swill Hill took Botany and Mr Carlisle took Chemistry. There was another Chemistry teacher we called 'Crock'. He was Mr Crossland (or was it Crossman?) who was known for loudly smiting the chemistry lab benches with his walking stick if he thought we were not paying sufficient attention. He had a limp from a wartime experience and had served, I think, in the Middle East. Anybody know the name of a Physics teacher who also taught Calculus?

     

    Mr Blackburn taught Metalwork. Great fun using the forge.

     

    Can't remember the name of the PE teachers but two of them he made a great impression on me, for different reasons. The first used to take delight in walloping pupils with a slipper as he set them off for a punishment run down the length of the gym. The second joined in a game of basketball and we both leapt up for a ball. Unfortunately, he was still going up as I came down on his knee. An experience I am able to recall clearly after over 60 years.

     

     

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  3. Regarding fastfil2004's comment about getting the strap from Mr Martin, I too got the strap on the palms for allegedly throwing snowballs at a lady near Mr Cook's newsagent shop at the junction of Hucknall Road and Haydn Road. Yes, it hurt. Another boy, whose name I cannot remember was also punished for that alleged offence and we were adamant at the time that we were not guilty.

     

    I attended the little school in the old church opposite the junior school from 1949, then moved to "the huts" in the playground of the junior school and finally into the junior school building until moving to High Pavement.

     

    At the infant school I remember playing "What time is it Mr Wolf" in the playground.

     

    In "the huts" I was in Miss Smith's class in the first classroom nearest the boy playground gate. Memories include "Music and Movement" on schools radio, painting (I had no clue about perspective), woodwork (I have a photo of this) and Miss Smith reading to us.

     

    In the junior school I remember Miss Woodward (played piano for assembly), Miss Rosslin(?) who was famed for knuckle-rapping and, at a school assembly, Mr Martin announcing the tragic death in a motor accident of a male teacher who had played a large woodwind instrument for us all at an earlier school assembly.

     

    Anyone remember the long ice slides we had in the boys playground?

     

    Remember boys having to be quiet when going to those awful outside toilets because the children at the nursery school were having their naps on the lawn? 

     

    I apologise if my memory is faulty but I think senior girls were recruited to make tea for the staff in the staff room whereas senior boys were recruited to be milk monitors.

     

    Names that I remember are: Angela Cree, Angela Pheasant, Nigel Knowles, Peter Payne, xxx Williamson, Robin Stalvies(?), Sidney xxx,

     

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