Matt Harper
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Posts posted by Matt Harper
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Here's the 3d 'virtual' Model I've built of the school.
That is awesome! If I remember, there was a row of much more modern classrooms up a flight of steps at the back, overlooking the playing fields - or did I dream that?
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I also started there in 1970 as well and remember Matt quite well. Didn't you used to knock about with Featherstone?.....If I remember rightly, you were in the "A" classes throughout your time there
Wow - I'm intrigued. Yes, you got me. David Featherstone and I were friends (both from Radcliffe-on-Trent), but met at that school - I went to R-o-T Juniors, I think he must have gone to a private junior school, as he had quite well-to-do parents. He also had a brother in the year above us (Stephen) who we figured would be good insurance if things got dicey - but we were sadly deluded as he and his mates were a bunch of bullying psychopaths, in my view at the time. I didn't like that school very much and I certainly wasn't a gifted scholar - very mid-stream I recall, though I did talk a good game. My over-riding memories were that the dining hall always smelled of stewed cabbage, the chemistry labs of sulphur and the changing rooms of stale sweat. I also remember trudging down the main road to the Swimming Baths - which were medieval - the changing cubicles were arranged all along the length of each side of the pool and the roof was like a mouldy old greenhouse.
So - come on then - how would I remember you?
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Had to Google that one, never heard of it, but been past many times on Sandlake and the 528.
Boggy Creek Road and Jetport Dv, car rental befor Sanford Airport took all the Charter flights.
Correct - it's a sleepy older neighborhood that surrounds the Lake Conway chain - not typical of cookie-cutter central Florida, in that we have lots of very large oak trees and only one real thoroughfare, so zero commuter traffic - which is all on the roads you mention.
It was originally planned and built to accommodate workers at NASA and Lockheed Martin - I have lots of neighbors who actually are/were rocket scientists! All a far cry from rural Nottinghamshire...
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You forgot the overhanging threat of the Prefects........overall a nightmare place to be, ....where discipline was drummed into you from every angle.......Yet we survived.
True - though I never felt threatened much by them - they seemed to spend most of the school day in that big wooden hut in the quad, presumably sleeping or perusing jazz mags.
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Hi Matt,welcome,from another ex-pat living across the pond.
I live just up the road,in Deltona.
Wow! Small world - I live in Belle Isle, just west of Orlando International Airport.
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Ha! I'm sure I did deserve most of the horrible things that happened to me at that school. I remember being terrified of the last day before school broke up for the summer holidays when I was in the first year, because the rumor was that the second-years 'bog-washed' and then threw all the fags in the gorse bushes. As it turned out, no such torture occurred when I was there, so my fears were unfounded.
Thinking back, I also remember the school had a really good tuckshop and there was some kind of military cadet thing too - I remember staring out of the window during latin class (we were actually taught latin! How ridiculous and pointless was that?) at all these kids marching up and down the playground - some in military uniform others in the school garb - very bizarre.
The first year boys had to wear caps I think - I remember mine getting thrown under a bus in the melee that was 'going-home-time' - we were lined-up on the pavement outside, waiting for the green buses to take us into town (Huntington Street Bus Station) just a huge throng of little arse-holes all squabbling and fighting and farting about - and then a mad surge when the bus pulled up and a fight to get up the stairs, so we could light up our blagged Players No 6.
I won the school public speaking competition in 1973 (even beating some of the 6th formers, which I was well-chuffed about) with a speech about a pet wasp that followed me home from school one day. That was thanks to Mr Henry, so if you're somehow reading this Sir - you set me on a good path with your encouragement and enthusiasm. I can't say that much for any of the other teachers I had before or after.
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Thank you for the welcome - I'm from a big family (7 brothers and sisters) and growing up together out in the countryside was just brilliant. My parents bought an old house (that was falling down!), but had a massive garden, surrounded by fields - just perfect for children. There was a stream at the bottom of the garden (Polser Brook?) that we spent hours fishing in during the summer. There were a LOT of kids my age close by in Radcliffe and the youth club there was great. We also used to camp at the old gravel pits (now called Finger Ponds, I believe), back then, they were still active gravel extraction workings and the ponds were very deep and quite dangerous, but it didn't stop us swimming, fishing and generally larking about there all summer long. This was the time when they were building the National Watersports Centre, so the place wasn't really on the map at that point in time. I distinctly remember the noise of the trains on the line that ran from Cotgrave Colliery through Holme Pierrepont to Nottingham and the big barges on the Trent.
I also recall there was a terrible foot and mouth disease outbreak when we lived there. The local farmer (Hackett) had to slaughter all of his cattle and bury them in a huge pit they dug in the fields adjacent to Holme Lane.
I'm guessing the house we lived in (which Dad paid about 5,000 quid for in 1968) is now worth at least 750,000 - it's a beautiful thatched residence now, looking at it on Google Earth, at least.
It was an idillic place for young kids to be - out in the countryside, safe and healthy - we all loved it and were really upset when my father's job meant we had to leave.
Thanks again for the warm welcome - looking forward to reminiscing about that happy time.
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I started there in 1970 and the first years were somewhat un-pc-like referred to as "fags" - it was an intimidating place for an 11 year old, particularly as most of my mates hadn't passed their 11+, so I only knew a few other kids at the start. The teachers I remember were "Jed" Strutt who was the headmaster and a guy called Driscoll, who was a very angry looking deputy - they both used to where scholarly gowns and waft around the corridors like Batman and Robin. I also remember Bonsall, a sickly looking music teacher (amusingly called Mr Sharpe). My geography master was called Hutchinson - his nickname was "Pig". I also had that lunatic, Mr Bottom, for maths - he used to refer to us as "apes" and for the real dimwits, "ape-apes". He must have been about a hundred years old back then even.
The PE teacher was called Sutherland and he was a sadistic bald git - he smoked like a fiend and we used to nick his cigarettes when he was in the showers.
There were constant head-lice outbreaks when I was there and quite a lot of bullying of the younger kids (usually by the year above them). We all learned to smoke there (in the air-raid shelters) and there was a unique playground game called hand-pill that we used to play - though I've never encountered this game anywhere else. The last year I was there, my form teacher was a lovely young guy called Mr Henry, who was drafted in as a relief teacher (we gave him hell when he first worked there) - but they kept him on and he turned into a really good English teacher.
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Hello - just discovered this resource when googling my old school (Henry Mellish in Basford).
My family lived in Holme Pierrepont from 1968 until 1973, before my dad's job moved us to Yorkshire. I went to the Junior school in Radcliffe-on Trent and then the 'big school' from 1970 to '73.
I have many very, very happy memories of living in that part of the world.
Henry Mellish
in All other Nottingham Schools Discussions
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I remember you well, Mr Sharpe. You tested me to establish my 'tone-deafness' as a candidate for clarinet lessons. My ear was sufficiently well tuned and I spent happy hours in the school vestibule trying my best to emulate Acker Bilk. My not so positive memory was the day myself and another lad skived-off from games one afternoon and were making a Great Escape-esque run for it out of the gates adjacent to the music room. Sadly for us, you busted us. You then collared us and frog-marched us back into school and handed us over to the delightfully sadistic Mr Sutherland, who administered to us a fairly robust beating. We deserved it, I suppose - but I think I probably gave you the stink-eye for the remainder of my career at Henry Mellish.