Manning Grammar School

[RadFordee 68]

18 hours ago, Beekay said:

@RadfordDee, you and Miss Sparrow sound like a pair barbaric Amazon's, hell bent on vengeance. Remind me never to cross either of you. I'd be taking me life in me hands.  

BK if you think we are barbaric you should have met Pickleface! She would have made mincemeat of you and any other male on here, probably two at a time

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

She had a thing about Ilie Nastase!  If he'd had her for a games teacher, I think he'd still be running!

 

One thing I will say is that Nastase was prettier than Pickleface!

[Cliff Ton 10,458]

Not a great photo - a bit pixellated - but it hasn't appeared before. Manning from Gregory Boulevard.

 

[trogg 2,014]

It looks a magnificent building, a welcoming site.

[siddha 825]

My Mum was proud to have gone to this school before the war.

She played hockey for them and for the county.

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

1 hour ago, trogg said:

It looks a magnificent building, a welcoming site.

Ah, but you didn't serve five years inside it, young Trogg! Had you done so, your views may differ.

[Cliff Ton 10,458]

A couple of Manning photos, via Jill S.

 

 

[Beekay 5,134]

My dear sister in law has got to be on one of those pictures somewhere. But i'm buggered if I know where to start looking. Anybody got a magnifying glass?

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

Thanks to CT for posting these. I found them on an old flash drive recently.

 

These appear to be the typical whole school photo but the photographers had clearly ceased doing them by the time I arrived.  Both these specimens are before my arrival in 1969. One is from 1967 and the other is undated. The 1967 photo is, I think,  only a partial copy as it would seem to extend further to the right. The other photo is probably 1965 or 1966.  

 

I am surprised by how few staff are on both but I suppose many of them didn't work at Manning full time (possibly haunted other schools as well) and only those who were teaching classes when the photo was taken are actually on it; including the sole male teacher at that time, David Edgeley (Chemistry).

 

Both shots were taken on the tennis courts in front of the school. Today (as I saw for myself last Thursday) that area is covered by The Djanogly Academy, an edifice which puts me in mind of a Tesco superstore.

 

It will surely pain @RadFordeeto look at these but she will see some familiar faces if she does, although there are some I don't recognize and others I do but cannot name. There are those, of course, who made my life a living misery for five years. They were there forever. No one else would employ them!

[Mess 616]

On 12/29/2022 at 10:50 AM, Cliff Ton said:

Not a great photo - a bit pixellated - but it hasn't appeared before. Manning from Gregory Boulevard.

 

 

 

Cliff,

I've just found some great pictures of old Nottingham Schools on Facebook on a site called Old Nottingham Pictures

https://www.facebook.com/groups/20722646442/permalink/10160333909461443/

Seems they were taken around 1938. 
I'm sure Jill Sparrow will love the ones of Manning if she hasn't seen them before.

 

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

Thanks for thinking of me, Mess   I have seen the Manning ones previously. In fact, I think CT posted the shot of the upper quad before it was fitted with covered-in corridors. Made no appreciable difference. Still blood*y freezing cold.  I found some of Manning a few years ago and I think they're somewhere on the Manning thread. Taken, by the look of it, before the place opened in 1931. Long before I was born.

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

I heard part of Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols on the radio the other day and it took me straight back to the festering season at the dreaded Manning.

 

Manning held a service of Lessons and Carols every year but it wasn't held at the school due to lack of space. I suppose we girls could have stood in the quads, being snowed/rained on as we sang our methodically prepared and practised programme, while the parents and staff huddled in the hall. It would have given the proceedings a rather festive air but, truth be told, it was just as perishingly arctic inside the hall as it was in the quads.  Parents would not have attended.

 

Instead, we held the carols at The Baptist Church, a stone's throw from the school, at the Mansfield Road end of Gregory Boulevard. On the big day, immediately after assembly, the entire school walked to the church, full length burgundy choir dresses flapping round our ankles (choir members only) and clutching our music, for the rehearsal.

 

The church wasn't noticeably warmer than the school quads but since many of us were suffering from coughs and colds, we sniffed, sneezed and got on with it.  Head of English parked herself in the first floor gallery at the West end of the church (reserved for parents) and feigned being a little, annoying , deaf old lady. Well, she feigned deafness. She didn't have to feign the little old lady bit. She certainly didn't need to feign being annoying.

 

I was a choir member, so sat in the choir stalls, usually at the end nearest the chancel steps because I was also called upon to read at least one of the lessons, so it was easier for me to get in and out without causing mayhem and disturbing the slumbers of those who had nodded off. I well remember at one rehearsal, tripping over my long dress and falling up the chancel steps having read a lesson. I could have broken my nose but there was no sympathy. "Don't you dare do that this afternoon!" bellowed the annoying, little old deaf voice from the gallery.  Did she think it was deliberate?

 

After lunch at around 2pm, stuffed full of greasy slop and custard or, in my case, sandwiches we set off again for the Baptist Church.  Sitting in the choir stalls, battling indigestion and trying not to sneeze, we cast a glance at the first floor gallery to see who had turned up to listen. My mum always came.

 

One year, we sang Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Britten is far too modern for my taste but Ceremony is based on ancient modalities and I didn't mind it too much. The big problem was the high notes. You just know that whilst you might be able to hit top A in the middle of summer, you probably aren't going to hit it in the middle of December when you are full of cold and struggling with a bronchial cough and sore throat. Not even Ab... and there's a mighty big difference between top A and Ab (it might only be a semitone to you, mate, but it was of vital importance to us).  There are a lot of top As in Britten's Ceremony.

 

We knew that if we made a muck of it we were going to get a rocket from the music master and I don't mean fireworks of the Handelian kind.  Those parents who did attend were only there to hear the programme he'd put together. It was one of two occasions per year when he got an opportunity to shine (the other was Speech Day) and he didn't take kindly to anyone giving a less than perfect performance. It was his star moment and made up for being regarded as a second class citizen the rest of the time.

 

If we knew we couldn't do it, we mimed. The top As sounded a bit thin but we scraped through. 

 

Carols over, we were allowed to go home. Walking back along Gregory Boulevard with my mum, long burgundy choir dress flapping round my ankles, the cold, seasonal air, started me coughing as soon as I left the church. "Oh dear, " sighed mum as we passed Forest Dene, "It sounds like we're due for another visit."

 

Not until January, mother.  There was an excellent chance of being told to stay at home for two weeks to coddle the bronchial cough and it wasn't going to include the end of term Christmas holidays. It could wait until the beginning of the spring term in January.  I might have passed my 11+ and ended up at the Manning but I wasn't that stupid!

[Kimsay 0]

On 1/12/2021 at 5:53 PM, Jill Sparrow said:

Found my old school report today. There it was, on the bookshelf, winking at me in a lurid fashion from its yellow (St David's) cover, as if to challenge, 'Go on I dare you!"

 

As I had been discussing the innovations relating to domestic science with another member, in the years after I escaped, I had a look at the remarks about my prowess (!) in the fields of needlework and cookery.

 

I'd have said, if asked, that we didn't do either after the second year but I'd have been wrong.

 

The two classes were organised into 6 months of cookery, followed by 6 months, roughly, of needlework. The swap took place half way through the spring term.

 

In my first year, Mrs Clarke presided over both subjects. A most unpleasant woman. She certainly had a gift but it was not for either cookery or needlework. It was for being patronising. To be fair, many of her colleagues were similarly blessed: some more so and some to a lesser degree but Mrs Clarke took an early dislike to me which is reflected in her comments on my report.

 

In the second  year, there was Mrs Bibby. A short, rather rotund lady who walked with a pronounced limp. I wondered if,perhaps, she had been a polio victim.  Mrs Bibby was a kindly, helpful soul who didn't need to fall back on sarcasm and patronisation to improve her opinion of herself.  Her comments about my culinary efforts are quite positive.  I admit, Hubert De Givenchy, Travila and Edith Head never had anything to fear from me but Mrs Bibby was polite enough not to mention it.

 

In the third year, a new teacher arrived. I can't be sure but I think she taught needlework only. Mrs Darroch was fairly young and pleasant. All I recall of her was that she had recently been married which probably resulted in her being instantly out of favour with the irredeemable old bat contingent. She brought in her wedding dress which she had designed and made herself. It was a Tudor gown, heavily encrusted with bugle beads and faux pearls. Her veil was attached to a French hood, covered in the same fabric.

 

Tudor history has always fascinated me and I have never forgotten that beautiful garment, along with the photos of her big day.  It caused me to ponder why, with such talents, she was teaching needlework to girls who, if they were anything like me, didn't know one end of a needle from the other.

 

I can't be sure but I don't think domestic science was a subject Manning girls could study for GCE O level. It was always regarded as a poor relation.

 

After my departure and the installation of a portacabin stuffed with washing machines, ironing boards and irons, I like to think of Clarke with her rubber gloves and economy sized packet of Oxydol, amid the whirr and hum of rows of Indesits, Hoovers and Hotpoints. Perhaps it washed away her huge opinions of herself. Something needed to!

The only thing I learnt at Manning was how to sew and I still utilise my sewing skills everyday.