KBGS Old Boys' Forum

A place to discuss Keighley Boys' Grammar School. 


Terms of use.  Anonymous, offensive, or malicious postings will  be deleted. School-related topics only please. If you need to add a "family notice" reply to any of the current messages in that thread, and remember to change the Subject to the name of the newsworthy person.

 

 

KBGS Old Boys' Forum
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Re: Frank Wellock

Sorry to hear this, remember him well though I was never a strong sport player. He was much more 'user friendly' as a games teacher than Gilbert Swift. RIP

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Re: Frank Wellock

A good innings for Frank. Nearly a century!

Re: Frank Wellock

Frank Wellock . What memories that name brings back . He was a good sports master and together with Gilbert Swift managed a terrific number of teams for house and school . There was a wonderful spirit about in all the school teams both in the war years and afterwards . He had a long life and left a lasting legacy.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 43-46

Current location (optional) Tasmania

Re: Frank Wellock

Frank Wellock was my sportsmaster during my time at KBGS. Always cheerful, encouraging and knowledgable about rugby and cricket. I learnt a lot from his coaching, he was a good teacher, fair, someone you respected. I'm glad I was lucky enough to have him as my sportsmaster.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1954 - 1960

Current location (optional) Embsay, Skipton.

Re: Frank Wellock

Frank was, of course, also an Old Boy of the School. He was also opening batsman and captain of Keighley Cricket Club in the Bradford League for many years. The last time I ever met him was one Saturday morning, in the early sixties, at Foxwood School, in Leeds, where he had accompanied one of the School rugby teams - probably the Under-fourteens - and I had brought a very weak football team from Pudsey GS, to be slaughtered by their Foxwood opponents. I had been left School five or six years, by that time, but Frank remembered me well enough, addressing me by my Christian name immediately, and when we parted he said we would doubtless meet up again at some future date, 'on the circuit', but, alas, we never did.

Last year his daughter wrote to me to give me news of her dad who was by that time in a local nursing home, his memory ragged about what he had had for breakfast but clear as a bell as far as his years at KBGS were concerned. Like each of the contributors above I felt I learned a great deal about sportsmanship from him, and am sad at his passing. He must be the very last of the teachers of those of us who were at the School in the forties and fifties.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Keswick, Cumbria

Re: Frank Wellock

Frank Wellock was an acquired taste. When he was pleasant he was fantastic. But when he was unnecessary critical not so nice. But always very knowledgeable.

Obviously better at cricket than Gilbert Swift who was clearly the rugby specialist. His affable son Tim who who was in some ways rather more wimpish than his pugnacious father was a cricket writer for the Northern Echo. Strangely after school I only met him once quite by accident in a very basic hotel in Crete. I was alone with my books and he was with a group of not so interesting scribes from his Darlington office. I was glad to part company with him and his tedious mates -- and chat up sun-kissed Scandinavian ladies on the backpacker trail back in the seventies.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1961-68

Current location (optional) Riddlesden

Re: Frank Wellock

Could they have been the two I met in a "hotel" in Istanbul in 1968?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Re: Frank Wellock

The first part of your statement, Vernon, reminds me that once, in my middle school years, I was last into the gym - can't remember why - but Frank had already started our class on its various activities. He must have been in a mood for some reason that day and he decided to take it out on me. He had a sawn-off cricket bat and he belted me so hard on my backside that it brought tears to my eyes; he then began taunting me in front of the whole class about not being able to "take my punishment like a man." The whole situation was so very unjust and I think whatever tears I shed were certainly in anger. So yes, I know what you mean. But, I confess, it was the only brush I ever had with him, though I think I was always wary of him after that incident.

Doug

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Keswick, Cumbria

Turkey, Greece and lovely Swedish ladies

Quite possibly Shaun, but I do know the young Scandinavian ladies with their shimmering blonde hair and deep erotic sun tans made West Yorkshire seem a long way away. Did you accompany them into the Aegean islands after Turkey. Our paths may have crossed at some point as we possibly waited for infrequent ferries from the Turkish coast to the easterly Greek island of Samar. Intrepid Lord Byron lingered there for a while drinking Samian wine, writing poetry and eyeing up the local beauties.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1961-68

Current location (optional) Riddlesden

Re: Turkey, Greece and lovely Swedish ladies

No Greek islands for me at that stage. Having been around Anatolia and the east, the dalliance in Istanbul was but a brief interlude before moving on through the Balkans, an encounter with a young Croatian fellow with a knife, and 10 days stuck with broken wheel bearings and no money. All infinitely preferable to a PE lesson at KBGS. If Christmas drinks at the Brown Cow ever return I may pop in and exchange anecdotes.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds