Reading " Wuthering Heights" with Mr.Kirk, a genial man, patience personified in the face of adversity, as we took it in turns to read aloud a sentence or two..........

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Who could forget lessons with (Cruddy) Crouch in the 3rd or 4th form?
Their content's not very memorable but the main agenda, while the poor hapless sod tried to maintain some semblance of order, certainly is.
For his pains Crud was also our form master at some stage (3S1, 3X, 4X ? - Help me out somebody!)

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 - 65

Brian - i think it was 3M (the precursor to 3X which didn't kick in until about term 3 when Joe W must've read an article in TES about hot-housing). Remember the day we all turned up wearing glasses? Crud couldn't figure it was for real or not. Maybe we'd all gone myopic overnight (in which case sympathy); or we were taking the piss (in which case anger)! He wasn't sure which.

Yes Allan, thats right, I was actually in 3S2 with P.D. (Nancy) Leeming. Not sure who had 3S1. The 3X form came from these three (3S1,3S2,3M) forms and started after Easter 1961. I think we had Percy Peart for English in 3S2 (as in 1A and 2L1), but when we moved into 3X it was Cruddy Crouch.

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

Current location (optional) Wirral

I had Mr Leeming, another genial man in the face of adversity.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Along with you, Brian M., I was in 2L1,3S2,3X and 4X.
I must confess I have to take your word that Leeming was once our form teacher as I've absolutely no recollection of it. I do remember him in lessons, however (was it French?), as another with serious discipline problems.
In the second form, I think Hardstaff (the biologist) was our form teacher - we were based in the old General Science lab. on D corridor, with our books in lockers in an adjoining area.
If Crud was our 3X form teacher, how come Wilbur features in the class photo from that era? Or was the photo actually of 4X not 3X, as I thought originally?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 - 65

Mr Leeming did have serious discipline problems, largely the result of the mob mentality under which students operated against any staff who showed a lack of confidence. It's abhorrent that many staff who had no real problems of control achieved that control through bullying tactics and instilling fear. Pathetic really. There were a few genuine good staff where there was a kind of mutual respect between staff and students, but, too few.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Brian - the photo with Wilbur was of 4X. Alan - I'm with you on the way we treated certain teachers. There were times when Leeming and Crouch must've been brought to tears. But the culture of the school, from Head on down, was one of 'you get control by being violent or threatening violence'. With few exceptions, teachers who didn't have violence or the threat of it in their repertoires weren't the best treated. I've often wondered whether Crouch and Leeming stayed in teaching and weathered the storm until a different culture arrived sometime later? Probably not, which is a shame - for them and on us!

I concur with the above, Leeming 3S2, Crouch (one term only)3X, then Wilbur 4X. I think we must have continued to have Crouch for GCE English whilst in 4X, it wasnt Preston or Cronshaw. We had Percy Peart for English in 1A 2L1 and 3S2, but not after that.
I recall reading parts of A Midsummer Nights Dream in class with Percy, and I had the line "How now , my love, why is thy cheek so pale, how chance the roses there do fade so fast". I could not resist "How now, brown cow" Percy was not impressed!

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

Current location (optional) Wirral

Reading from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Percy comes back to me now you've jogged the old memory cells, Brian. I remember him getting me to read aloud the part of Quince - appropriate typecasting for such a typical country bumpkin, he no doubt thought (whilst settling for an exaggerated Yorkshire accent).
In response to Bottom's question, "Are we all met?", comes the response, "Pat pat, and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot-----etc.--------, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke"
(or, in my interpretation, "afore t'Duke").
Percy also had us read "The Merchant of Venice" and learn Shylock's famous speech which begins,
"Signor Antonio, many a time and oft
in the Rialto you have rated me
about my money and my usances."
(The rest is a long-forgotten blur - "Limited involvement and learning" in the jargon of today's HMI!)

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58 - 65

Yes Brian, I remember that too. Now I dont have a copy of 'The Merchant' here at home, but I'll try to continue your start of Shylocks speech, probably will have a few mistakes, but I'm remembering from about 1960!

Thus have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me 'misbeliever' 'cut-throat dog'
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And for all use of that which is mine own.
Go to!you come to me and say 'Shylock we would have monies?'
You that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur over your threshhold.
Monies is your suit
(But missing here I cant remember)
.. Or shall I bend low, and in a bondmans key
With bated breath and whispering humbleness say this-
Fair sir you spit on we on Wednesday last,
And you spurned me on such a day,
You called me a dog,
And for these courtesies I'll lend you thus such monies?

(AMEN!)

I also Percy making us learn a silly poem called 'Mrs Reece Laughs'. I dont know the author but I can still recite it. I will spare you this unless someone is clamouring for it!

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

Current location (optional) Wirral

Once, for English homework in 1A, we were told to learn "The Ancient Mariner" by heart. Our next English lesson consisted of writing the thing out, word for word including the punctuation .... and the Government has the temerity to criticise the quality of English teaching nowadays.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Actually Shaun yes, that was Percy also. But I think it was just a 10 verse section in the middle that we had to learn. Round about this bit:-

Water water everywhere , and all the boards did shrink
Water water everywhere , nor any drop to drink.

I wont bore you with the rest!

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

Current location (optional) Wirral

No, Brian. It was the whole lot. I distinctly remenber - "There was a ancient mariner and he stoppeth one of three, By the long grey beard ... etc etc..." Which remids me [to link this thread wth "Six and Out" - there was a wicket keeper, I think for one of the Haworth clubs, who was known as The Ancient Mariner because of his wicket keeping skills. Can anyone recall who he was? {early 1960s).

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

There were 2 Shakespearean passages I had to learn:
'All the World's a Stage' from As You Like It and Sonnet 116, 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment'

I attempted to remember them before looking up the texts and I was astonished that I actually had them about 90% correct - amazing after all these years.

tp

Yes. The long term memory's pretty good but the short term memory ... I've forgotten what I was going to say.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Of course what we all really hated was essay writing!
Percy Peart often used to set more philosophical topics rather than more concrete subjects.
I remember having to do one 'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive' Quite difficult for an 11/12 year old, but doesnt sound so bad now.
I also remember 'Beauty is defined as trait which affords keen pleasure to the senses' Discuss with reference to any field of the arts with which you are familiar.
In this case I think it was a sicth form General Studies essay in preparation for the A level.

Anyone remember other essay subjects?

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

Current location (optional) Wirral

'Mad Willy' once set our class an essay entitled 'Journey to School'...
I wrote this...
Got up, caught the bus to school, bus arrived at school, got off the bus, went into school, another lousy day !
I thought this to be rather amusing.
Sent to Joe for a lesson consisting entirely of him beating me with a cane.
Pointless!
Taught me nothing!!!!!!!!!
He didn't even discuss my essay....

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 60-64

Current location (optional) Keighley

Seems a little extreme. I always thought Mad Willy a decent chap, if somewhat eccentric. His next job was headmaster of Colne Grammar School. He was famed for his chalk striped demob suit.

Kenny Prut, placing a large pile of exercise books and other papers for marking on the desk, facing one way and glancing the other, and from the corner of his mouth, uttering the dreaded words "Take out Twentyman". This text had been thrown at us when we went into 4a and was his stand-by. It was a very ancient grammar book - mine was falling in pieces - with definitions and explanations and exercises and words like "substantive" for noun and so on. The most punishing task that Prut plucked from it was precis writing - of easy stuff like part of a Macaulay essay on Glen Coe. The further punishment was when your efforts were returned. A fifty word precis spawned a couple of pages of corrections.I still cannot explain why I failed to hand Twentyman in at the end of the fifth year - and still have my copy to this day. Any illuminating theories that would make a christmas fireside tale?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60