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My attention has been drawn to the fact that I have been mentioned several times on this site, and that there have been disagreements concerning my date of birth.

First of all, I would like to say that I am Tony Whelpton, christened Robert Anthony Whelpton, and that I was born at 2 Goodliffe St, Hyson Green on 27 January 1933. I shall be 90 next January then.

Until I began National Service in the RAF in September 1951 I lived at 418 Berridge Road Central with my parents Francis Clare William Whelpton and Alice Beatrice Whelpton née Cresswell and my two sisters Margaret and Joan. I taught for 4 years each at Beckenham Grammar School and Lowestoft Grammar School until I was appointed to a lectureship at Nottingham College of Education (at Clifton) in 1965. I remained there until 1982, having been promoted twice to Senior Lecturer and Principal Lecturer in French. I was also Chief Examiner in French at O Level for Northern Ireland (1969-1972) then for the AEB at O Level (1972-1988) at which point O Level was replaced by GCSE, and I was Chief Examiner for GCSE French for the Southern Examining Group. I was also Principal Oral Examiner at A Level French for the AEB from 1973 to 1996, and also Chief Examiner for the Malawi Certificate of Education in 1976.

After I left Nottingham in 1982, in collaboration with Daphne Jenkins, I wrote about 30 school and college French textbooks. In 2012, at the age of 79, I published my first novel, Before the Swallow Dares. These were followed by The Heat of the Kitchen in 2013, Billy’s War (2014), There’s No Pride in Prejudice and A Happy Christmas (both 2016), A Change of Mind (2017), High Time (a rewriting and development of A Happy Christmas (2018), At Dead of Night (2019) and Billy: The Early Years (2021).

I have also written two books on cricket and a history of the Cheltenham Bach Choir, of which I am now Vice-President.

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Mea culpa, Tony. I am responsible for the confusion!

 

I did find you later, under the guise of Robert A.

 

Welcome to Nottstalgia. I was born in Bobbers Mill Road and a pupil of Berridge until the age of eleven.

 

Many of our teachers at Berridge were former Clifton College students and all our students came from there.

 

I see you are a Bach enthusiast. That makes two of us...or three, including our stateside member @loppylugs

 

Apologies once again for causing such confusion. I shall look out my flagellum and quietly punish myself! :rolleyes:

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39 minutes ago, Tony Whelpton said:

I was born at 2 Goodliffe St, Hyson Green on 27 January 1933. 

 

You may already be aware of this, but despite much demolition in the Hyson Green area, 2 Goodliffe Street has survived and looks in better condition than many other surrounding properties.

 

https://goo.gl/maps/y3VZtjDesoYqojTaA

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Thank you, Jill, I’m sure there’s no harm done! Another member alerted me to the age difference, and seemed to think that I should set it right.

I used to know someone who lived towards the top of Bobbers Mill Road when I was little. Their name was Kennedy, and their daughter Moira married a chap called Gough, who was killed in the early years of the war, serving in the RAF. Later I discovered that one of my students at Clifton was their son, Sean Gough, and we had many conversations about his mum and dad! I went to St Mary’s RC School at the top of Beaconsfield St - in those days I was a Roman Catholic, then an atheist or agnostic, and finally, in old age, an Anglican!

These days I live in Cheltenham, and have done for over 40 years! My wife Joan is 10 years younger than me, but I shall,probably end up as her carer, because she has Alzheimer’s!

When I left Nottingham I married again, having divorced about 5 or 6 years earlier.

I have another friend called Jill, whom I’ve never met, and am unlikely to, because she lives in British Columbia! But she was born in Nottingham, and is the daughter of one of my best friends at High Pavement, Terry Foster.  Sadly Terry died in his mid 50s, about 1984, I think.

I haven’t even mentioned Bach! It’s true, I really love Bach’s music, and one of my best experiences was singing the final chorale of Bach’s St John Passion, in Bach’s own house in Eisenach, under the direction of our then conductor, ex-King’s Singer and broadcaster Brian Kay! (Who was once married to one of my Clifton students Angela Kay, I can’t remember her maiden name!) One of my other favourite musical experiences was singing Orff’s Carmina Burana, in a choir of 1000 voices in the Royal Albert Hall at the proms!

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Ah, Eisenach! I visited there many years ago. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Paid my respects at the 'grave' of the Master in Leipzig. Grave in quotes as no one is certain who is buried there. Bach was interred in a communal grave due, no doubt, to lack of money.

 

My childhood piano teacher lived at 92 Bobbers Mill Road and I later sang in the choir at St Stephen's as well as playing the organ. I attended Sunday school there from an early age but am now closer to being a Buddhist than anything else. Once the Book of Common Prayer was thrown out and guitars, drums and amplifiers made an appearance, I was gone. The new vicar said I was a 'mediaevalist' and long may it be so! Modernity appeals to many and, fair enough, but not to me.

 

These days, I listen to the recordings of Glenn Gould and marvel at the intellect that was handed out to some people.

 

Today, the area where we were born is sad to behold. I shall say no more than that.

 

I'm sorry  to hear about your wife. Alzheimer's is a scourge and seems to become more prevalent every day. She is lucky to have you on her side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Cliff Ton said:

 

You may already be aware of this, but despite much demolition in the Hyson Green area, 2 Goodliffe Street has survived and looks in better condition than many other surrounding properties.

 

https://goo.gl/maps/y3VZtjDesoYqojTaA

I see turning into Radford road , there is the shipstones brewery , is it still manufacturing beer  ? 

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The main Shipstone’s brewery closed down in 1991. I believe there is/was a microbrewery on part of the site recently brewing under the Shipstone’s name. I think that moved there from a microbrewery site at the old army depot at Old Dalby some time ago. I did partake of a pint of the so called ‘Shipstone’s’ at the bar on that site a few years back and can confirm the beer was more palatable than I remembered Shipstone’s to be. With Shippo’s you either loved it or hated it!

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At Christmas 1953 I did a holiday job at Shipstone’s - it was part of my education! One year I worked at Player’s, which put me off smoking for life, that year I worked at Shippo’s, and it put for off drinking Shipstone’s beer for life, one year I worked in the City Treasurer’s Rates Office, and I was put off paying tax for all my life!!!

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Shipstone's were one of my accountancy firm's clients back in the 60's. The highly polished parquet floors in the offices were precarious to walk on and could only be attempted at a slow walking pace. The best thing was that a crate of ale was brought to the audit room at 11 a.m. precisely and we paused briefly to consume this, not wishing to appear ungrateful!

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8 hours ago, Tony Whelpton said:

I was appointed to a lectureship at Nottingham College of Education (at Clifton) in 1965. I remained there until 1982,

 

Clifton Teacher Training College was across Clifton Lane, opposite the end of the road where I lived for the first 20+ years of my life. You were almost literally within a stone's throw of our house.

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Clifton College certainly churned out a lot of students on teaching practice. Several would arrive at Berridge each term. Most were very young but I remember one quite mature student who was on his final teaching practice before qualifying. As several staff members were moving on that September, he was offered a teaching post. It was my final term and I took an instant dislike to this man the moment he walked into the classroom as he'd been assigned to my class teacher for his final TP.  By the time he took up his post, I had left but I am aware that he caused an awful lot of trouble which I won't go into here.  I often wonder whether his practice supervisor heard any alarm bells ringing during his training.

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@Tony Whelpton  I see you now live in  Cheltenham.  Our grandson was at University there and he got married at Cambray Baptist Church 10 days ago. I’ve only been to Cheltenham a few times but really liked it there.  The wedding service  was brilliant but I suspect you would probably disagree as the music was provided by guitar, piano and drums!!!!  But I appreciate that we are all different and that’s fine….

I’ve read your interesting  posts and am pleased you have chosen to tell us about your life so far.  I’m sorry to read about your wife - I hope you have extra support to care for her x

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Jill Sparrow, my husband was in the Army and was in Berlin when the wall came down. I still have a little plastic bag with bits of it in.

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