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Hi Bilbraborn and firbek,

It is great to see your replies. In my third year I was in Mr Crompton's form. He was a great English teacher and he introduced us to science fiction. I loved that. English literature is the only exam I failed! The books we had to read for the exam were deadly, though going to see Judy Dench in Saint Joan at Nottingham Playhouse was quite good. I much prefer the works of Spike Milligan! Mr Crompton left at the end of that year and he went to Clifton Hall Grammar School. A good friend of mine went there and she said he was a popular teacher.

I have found the BGS thread on the site and it is really interesting. In fact there are so many interesting threads that I am becoming totally hooked. Big thanks to everyone who contributes.

Shirley, Mr Crompton was our second year English teacher, so he was teaching us at the same time as you. He and I got off to a difficult start, he soon gave me my one and only school detention for 'insolence in class'. After that we seemed to quickly gain each others respect and I always rated him as one of the best teachers I ever had. The girls certainly loved him, I recall some of the older girls were very tearful when Harry Peake announced he was leaving during the end of year school assembly, with Clifton Hall being an all girls school he must have had a right time of it there. The first time I ever came across him was when I was in my final year at Firbeck Primary School, us 11 plus successes were whisked off one evening by Mr Lomas, the headmaster, to BGS in order to watch a production of 'The Mikado' in which he played the starring role, altering the original Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics to suit a more contemporary situation. I recall that at the time he was teaching us, our favourite TV comedy programme was 'It's a Square World', written, presented by and starring ex Goon Michael Bentine. There was a particular sketch every week called 'An attempt on the life of the King of Slobodia' which speaks for itself. Mr Crompton thought this was hilarious and encouraged myself and my partner in crime, Mick Attenborough, to plan a plot and start each lesson off with a short play based on this. We did this with a vengeance as often as we could, making up our own storylines, bringing in props and generally causing mayhem. I recall spending all weekend making a rifle out of timber and Meccano so that when I pressed the trigger the barrel flipped downwards and I shot myself in the foot. Another sketch involved bashing poor Mick over the head with a mostly sawn through wooden club, despite the fact that he was wearing a crash helmet under his regal gown, the club wouldn't break and the poor lad nearly passed out with concussion, I think that at this point Mr Crompton thought we were getting a bit over the top and put a stop to it, quite right, we were running out of ideas.

I remember going to see St Joan at the Playhouse, there was a big group of us and we all met up outside, all wearing school uniform of course, and were lucky enough to sit near the front. When I was clearing out my mothers loft a few years ago I found an old suitcase stuffed full of BGS memorabilia, books, school magazines, speech day programmes and Playhouse programmes including that particular play which confirmed to me that indeed it was Judy Dench in one of her early starring roles, that must have been over 50 years ago now.

It's interesting that the only O Level that I failed was English Literature as well, considering the amount of reading that I did, I thought there must have been a mistake and asked for it to be checked again, not that it was. My pal who never read a thing and hated the subject, passed, and I used to maintain they'd got our papers mixed up. Looking back, I think I created the problem for myself. I got absolutely sick of being crammed with Shakespeare to the point that I couldn't look at it anymore, I haven't done to this day. I suspect I didn't answer the questions in the required way, ie, Please analyze Portia's real feelings towards Shylock'. I was so sick of constantly analyzing 'Merchant of Venice' that I probably just said she was anti-semitic and left it at that. I was always complaining to the teachers that we should have been studying real works of literature such as our local boys Lawrence and in particular the contemporary works of Sillitoe. The exams and syllabus were prepared in Cambridge though, they probably thought that Nottingham writers were beneath them.

Incidentally, did you ever see Spike Milligans one man show at the Playhouse, it must have been about 1971, it was fantastic, he didn't want to stop telling stories to the point where the management started flashing the lights and started to close the curtains. We all got chucked out in the end, it was nearly midnight!!

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Funny you mention Shakespeare Pete. Ole Kipperfeet took us to the Playhouse so often and we had Shakespeare coming out of our pores. I now like Shakespeare. My Grand-daughter did it at school in a much more child friendly way and we went through some of the stuff together. But like you I still prefer Sillitoe and other local writers. I have recently been struggling through DH Lawrence (and NO! not just one particular book either).

About five years ago the library in Mansfield had a sale of old books and I was able to buy six Sillitoe Favourites including 'Birthday' which was the late sequel to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Poetry was another pain. We had to study works by poets who did not interest us. Wordsworth was not my bag. But since then I have grown to enjoy the works of Auden, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Kipling (and not just the cakes) and when I lived in Scotland, I also grew to love works by Robert Burns (Rabbie Burruns!), although I had to get used to the lingo before I could understand any of it.

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Hi Bilbraborn and Firbeck

Many thanks for these replies. I have been reading the Bilborough Grammar School thread again and put something on there as you will see. I am beginning to get my head around how the site works.

I did not see Spike Milligan in 1971 as that year I was away being a student and mixing with a number of others who enjoyed his work.

It is getting a bit late now, or perhaps early!

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  • 1 month later...

Yep, I lived at 60 Cockington Rd in the 50s, also went to the junior school, which was about 50 yards away.

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oppppsss post did not work, I tried to post a couple of photos on here but, to no avail.

Anyways thanks for your kind welcoming words.

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Good Lord, how difficult it is to post a photo on here, even tried tiny pics but no success.

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Keep trying Tompa, i'd help but ain't got a clue,but the clever ones on here will put you right.

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Hi, Can't remember any of the teacher names. I have a class photo which I have tried to post on here, but that seems to be impossible, tried photo bucket and tiny/ pics but with no success.

This site seems to be a little too complicated for the older generation, I am used to drag and drop system, I have a friend who has been doing computers for years trying to help but gave up after he had almost ripped all of his hair out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh dear !!!! how frustrating it is trying to upload photos, I have tried photo-bucket, image-shack and a couple of others without success, surely there must an easier way. Anyways thanks to those who have given me advice on how to but, I am afraid nothing seems to work. suck !!!!

A busy and complicated site, especially for the older generation to get their heads around.

And NO I am not novice when it comes to computing.

Sorry to complain, but a picture tells a thousand words.

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I can put pictures on this site from Photobucket but ONLY from the PC, not the IPad. Does this help with your problem? I spent ages trying to do it from the IPad

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I used to walk from Cockington Rd to Woolaton to attend Sunday school. Always got a picture stamp to stick in a little attendance book. Our Doctors surgery was on the corner of Russel Drive and Woolaton Rd The house is still there and is called " Doctors Corner belonging to Lindens Medical Group. I doubt if the Doctor who stiched up my lip after being biten by the family dog after teasing it, is still there.

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Hi Tompa, I think it was Dr McGowan who was in residence from the mid 50's until his death. I think his son John took over the practice but I may be wrong.

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Oh dear, I can't remember, I know it was a wooden building, and not far from it there was an orchard where I used to go scrumping ( God helps him who helps himself ) lol it's was only cooking apples, so I did suffer the after effects lol.

I was about eleven when I moved from there to Bracebridge Drive, and after that to Union Road St Anns. But you are probably right.

Thanks to all your replies, fantastic at there are people out there that still remember .

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I remember going to the pictures at an old farmhouse, or whatever it was,and it did have a sort of court yard and it was somewhere in Bilborough and the bloke who showed the films,( Lassies come home, Flash Gordon and the clay men, Hopp A Long Cassidy ) had only one leg, can't remember too much about the place but it might jogg somebodys memory.

Cassidy

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Tompa i was about 4 years old and we were taken to see a movie at Old Park Farm, gone now its a housing estate. it was situated at Graylands Rd and Meldreth Road, still remember it saw my first Mickey Mouse film there

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