King Henry VIII Grammar School

There was also a young chap called Barker. He was a geeky sort of bloke, and looked like a young Bill Gates, who had an odd accent. He was called Fag Barker because he was always smoking when outside the physics lab. He was about 22, fresh out of college, and had not been taught how to teach. His head was full of degree level physics and maths. There were virtually no practical experiments, which added to the boredom. It was all chalk and talk, mumbling at the blackboard with his back to the class. We were supposed to copy everything down. I stopped - I decided science wasn't for me the following year. (This was the fourth form.) He couldn't keep order, and the whole lesson was a class in uproar pratting about to alleviate the boredom. The complete opposite of Ron Hough. I have no idea what happened to Fag Barker.

The name Bellamy doesn't ring any bells. Liddiard does, though. He never taught my class, but everyone referred to him as Moaner. One games afternoon, it was pouring down, so we had "wet timetable" in the old metalwork shop, taken by Liddiard. During the period, my next door neighbour found his pen not working, and decide the cause was fluff, so he unscrewed the barrel and blew sharply down the orifice. The result was a short, shrill whistle. FJL's hearing was obviously suspect, for he picked on a boy seated on the other side of the room, with a verbal tirade about lack of manners, respect for one's elders etc. The poor lad protested his innocence, at which FJL blew up, saying something like "don't lie to me Arbuthnot, I saw you - you came into this room whistling with your hands in your pockets, as if you couldn't care less. You started out as a promising pupil, but the whole staffroom knows how you've changed your outlook, gone downhill this year, and are destined to be one of life's failures. You've developed a very bad attitude. You don't belong to this school". It shocked the whole class into silence, as the wrongly assumed culprit was one of the quieter, well-behaved types, certainly not one of the jack-the-lads.

I recall Bellamy, so he was certainly there in '63 - tall and slim, as I remember

I can remember some of the teachers quite well, but I'm struggling to remember the physics teachers. Probably because I was totally uninterested and too busy listening to radio 1 or the test match through my hidden ear piece. It may have been Mr Pope, the determining factor could be, which one would be likely to describe me as a buffoon on my end of year report? Harsh, but probably true! I liked Mr Vent and got on well with Geoff Courtois, as I was half reasonable at sport. Had a number of brushes with Mr Shore, lost each one of them!

I can only think that 'Pope' was actually Pop Cork. He was tall, with swept back grey hair and glasses and I can certainly imagine him calling people buffoons. The only 'Pope' at the school was David 'Pope' Harris, an English & RE teacher and some sort of part-time vicar, hence the nickname. He was a bit of an oddball, but so were many of them.

I seem to remember Pope Harris driving his Herald around the playground chasing pupils and climbing in through one of the windows to 'surprise' an English class. I believe he had some sort of Breakdown 1973/4?

Pope got stuck in a window climbing into or out of Room 5 allegedly. He did have a breakdown around that time I believe. He took us for English 'O Level' in '73/'74 and got us all through, the first time it had happened in the school's history. He may have been a bit odd, but he was a very genuine and nice guy and a bloody good teacher.

I parked my car in Spencer Road yesterday, and walked to the station. The first time for decades that I've set foot near the old school. The old cast iron telephone/electricity box still stands, but is now covered by wire fencing, and, once originally green, is now rust coloured. Otherwise, my word, how the place has changed. Most of the playground area has been built on, and some of the sports field. I guess this is in keeping with today - kids don't run around, kick balls, fall out of trees, or do much physical stuff. No, they're too busy on them new-fangled smart phone things, texting, internetting, emailing, Skyping, You-tubing, or whatever they do. The site is now cramped. What used to be an accountant's office opposite the school is now an overflow building. The old railway workers' cottages between the school and the railway line have gone. The kids are getting bigger. I'm over 6', and 13.5 stone. A girl walking in front of me was my height, and I'm sure she weighs more. There were no girls when I was there. I'm sure, if there had been, I would have had even less interest in some of the lessons! I wonder if they have introduced sex education yet? It certainly wasn't on the curriculum when I was there.

"......sex education yet? It certainly wasn't on the curriculum when I was there." It certainly was. I remember clearly Slug Hughes telling us not to worry if we did not get a girlfriend first try, since there was a girl for everybody... eventually. In some ways it was rather sweet of him, though the visage of his rotund face with slobbery lips over that vast belly did somewhat spoil the atmosphere. The rest of sex education was slightly more obtuse, perhaps in the vein of the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch where father explains to Roger "I once vacated my armchair and your mother immediately sat in it while it was still warm... sure as anything five years later you were born...."

Slug... I remember him now. One of my classmates had us in stitches. He used to do a brilliant impersonation of Slug: "Nowwww, we have hee-err, some very interesting biological specimens..." Had the voice to a tee, he did. And whilst talking, he was engaged in a futile attempt to do up the middle button of his jacket; of course, it would not stretch around his corporation.

Your memory matches mine Slim. Though he didn't have a death wish, he just didn't comprehend and was encouraged to believe he was doing the right thing.

Couldn't abide Jack Wrench, he was my from teacher in 2Alpha, Room 7 was our form room. All his little favourites laughing at his jokes. "My name's Jack. All the boys call me Jack." well no some of us called him Monkey, but there you go. I was a natural at maths, in fact on some of Tramp's sheets I was probably ahead of Jack. I made the mistake quite early on of pointing out a mistake he'd made. That was the end of me. Fortunately never had him again.

I don't recall suffering either Hughes or Wrench. I'm blowed if I can remember the bloke's name who took us for biology, but he was a tubby little ginger chap with a beard. The initials CLM seem to ring a bell. CLEM? Bob Griffiths wasn't a bad teacher at all. IIRC, he was my form tutor in my second year.

I only ever had one lesson taken by Jack Wrench when he stood in for another teacher, who was probably off sick. Don't think it was even Maths, he was just available. I do remember tales of his throwing chalk and blackboard rubbers at boys while uttering his catchphrase which was "Sacre bloody arbre." I never could figure out what a holy tree had to do with anything.

Mention of 'Tramp's sheets' reminded me that I applied for a maths job at Henry's in the late 60s I think it was. As I had done my teaching practice at a Boys Grammar School in the North East with a Head of Mathematics who had similar ideas about using thousands of maths sheets and witnessed the ensuing chaos, I politely terminated the interview prematurely. Having read this topic on the school, that was one of my more sensible decisions in life!!!!