Last week I went on holiday to visit my auntie in Paignton Devon ( 300 miles away )when a stranger came up to me and said " Are you from Keighley "
He was one Keith Sutcliffe ex KBGS pupil from the late forties/early fifties.
He now lives in London W3. Used to reside in Sunnyhill Grove, Keighley. Dad was a Co-op butcher
My point is that wherever you seem to be there is always someone from Keighley or an old boy of KBGS.
Needless to say we talked a lot about schooldays and what he said was fascinating to me...so much so that I have asked him to write to me with more details which I will post on the site as and when.
Does anyone remember one Keith Sutcliffe?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-63

Current location (optional) abergele

The name is not familiar. I know you have not told us everything but what made him think you were from Keighley in the first place.

I think Sutcliffe would make him Longsdon House. But I too, Arthur, puzzled how you identify someone from Keighley in a Devonshire location. Are there "By Worth" physical characteristics? Perhaps Malcolm was wearing his green and white striped blazer - a "stick of rock" as once portrayed to me by a non-kbgs neighbour

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-60

Current location (optional) Lincoln

'appen 'e oppened 'is gob!

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

I was on holiday in Tunisia and visiting a large house when I heard two ladies talking behind a hedge. After a while I said without seeing them ( they were still behind the hedge) " I bet you're from Yorkshire" There was silence then " Aye" I followed this up " I'll bet you're from West Yorkshire." Silence " Aye" My last throw of the dice. " I'll bet you're from Keighley" a long silence " Aye" I went round and met the two ladies who lived in fact in Ingrow.
There is a Keighley 'voice', I think.

further to my last message Keith heard my yorkshire accent but also talked to someone in the hotel whom I had told I was from Keighley.
I now know Keith is 74 yrs old born 12.9.34 and indeed was in Longsden house ( how do you know that ? )So was I by the way.
He remembers Mr Hirst ( Maths ) and Mr. Catley ( French ) and played rugby on Keighley RLFC ground, Memories of a very large stone bath aopparently.
When I played rugby with a Mr. Wellock we had to walk to the Girls Grammar school pitch at Greenhead.
Why did that all change?
It took a good twenty minutes to walk each way.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-63

Current location (optional) abergele

Well when we first went to KBGS in 1958, it was rugby down Lawkholme Lane , and the stone bath was there set into the floor. But a year or two later we were playing Rugby at Marley, on what was an old rubbish tip.

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

Current location (optional) Wirral UK

I once played a game on the old Keighley Albion ground near the Cricket ground but now under the by-pass. It was ashes and cinders with a thin layer of topsoil grassed. It was a wet day and I made a tackle on a prop that had about four stone advantage on me. He dragged me about 10yards before others felled him.
My leg was scoured by the cinders and it was the most painful tackle I ever made and I bled like a pig.Sheez but it did sting. I cringe even now in memory of it.
By the way talking of bumping into Old Boys. I was playing rugby for the station in the RAF . I was second row and during a lineout I got thumped hard in the kidneys. I turned to look for the offender and found myself staring into the grinning face of an old classmate, Watkinson.We stood chatting until we got called to a scrum
I also played against Sam Keighley when he was at RAF Waddington.
Arthur

Arthur's Tunisian experiences remind me of a dialect analysis of a kbgs contemporary from Steeton who maintained that you could tell someone from Wuth Valley because instead of Keighli they would say Keighleh.

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

Current location (optional) Lincoln

I think I related this story on here a few years ago but it probably will stand a repeat. On my first visit back to Keighley after about 29 years in the early 80s I had it in mind that I would like to buy a painting by Joe Pighills, the well known Haworth Artist.I tried every shop in Main Street and was told that old Joe had long retired and I had not much hope of buying one of his. In one shop a man said to me "I'll tell you what, you bring in any photo and I'll paint it" I thanked him for his offer and said someting like" thanks but no, I did want one done by a local artist. He was astonished and said " I AM a local artist" My response was something like " No your not, you might be a Yorkie but your not from Haworth". He cracked up laughing and asked me how did I know that? I countered with "where ARE you from then?" "Barnoldswick" and he said that I was the first person ever to pick that he was not a local.Then he asked me again how did I know and when I told him" because I'm from here" he really was flummoxed then GBTVbecause I don't exactly sound like a Yorkie these days, but I can soon prove my credentials if I have to! I don't know what it was but I didn't have to think about it, I just knew. Incidentally, I do now have a Joe Pighills original in my hallway! Cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland NZ

I find I have two voices or rather I had two voices when I taught and lectured. There was the voice where I spoke clearly a standard English with a slight peppering of Yorkshire vowels to students who came from all over the country and there was the voice I used when I spoke to friends or family which included bags of owt's, nowt's and Nays with the occasional niver. A sort of verbal chameleon. I hate talking to Scots or Irish or Australians because I start talking like them even after a few mnutes and I am sure they think I am taking the mickey.
Arthur

Arthur, I have the same problem (?) as you in subconsciously adopting speech mannerisms of those I spend time with. When I first left home I had many friends from Liverpool and when I met strangers they were regularly of the opinion that I had originated from Merseyside. Later, on settling in the West Midlands, I seemed to have picked up mannerisms that would indicate to people that I was from that general area. Back in Yorkshire again I am generally identified as being from somewhere in the north of England. Yet I have friends who have moved around and their original accents have stuck.
I think my "language experience" must have had a greater effect on me that KBGS's attempts to rid me of my Keighleyisms.

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

Current location (optional) leeds

The perceptions of both Arthur and Shaun mirror those of my own speech "development" pretty accurately. Having spent many years teaching/lecturing like Arthur, and (coincidentally) having an almost identical geographical history to Shaun I can easily relate to what you're both saying. I think there's a natural tendency to mimic the accent and dialect of one's current locality; that way you feel better understood and accepted. Athough I was unaware of it at the time, it probably all started with me when I switched schools from Queensbury to Keighley!

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

Interesting stuff this accent talk. 4 years in London after kbgs did little to mask my West Yorks (nay Keighley) accent when I turned up to teach in York. But the classrooms were large and the ceilings high so I had to project vocally - and a clipped Keighley accent don't do that. So I had, like Arthur, a 2 textured delivery - classroom and taproom. However, I found recourse to the more pronounced Keighley accent - with implied menace - worked better in dealing with classroom recalcitrants.
The oral is interesting but so is the aural. I had my first 2 years in London "in hall" and I got to know just about every student and where their home was. The college had a very catholic, all-embracing selection procedure and the students were representative of a wide area of the whole of mainland UK - we even had an old Etonian.
Boast coming..... the outcome for me was that I became able to detect and locate a stranger/speaker's accent to within a few miles of their hometown - to their amusement (and occasional amazement). I would recognise a similarity in their accent to the voice/accent of a fellow-student and if I could remember where they lived, I could place reasonably accurately the accent and the stranger. It made me a few bob when I worked in the West Yorks 'bus garage in Suresnes Road.I'm afraid I can't do the "trick" anymore - but I do enjoy trying to locate accents of radio/tv contestants/participants.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-60

Current location (optional) Lincoln

Did anyone watch Antiques Roadshow last Sunday - from Dundee. If you did you would have seen a photograph of a group of men who were part of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1902 headed by Captain Scott and which included Ernest Shackleton, but you would not have seen an ex- Keighley Trade and Grammar School boy, William Shackleton whose face had been obliterated.from the picture. The man from the Discovery Point Museum said the reason was that the owner of the scrapbook containing the picture, Sir Clements Markham, removed him from his post as Physicist because he did not fit in with the other members of the team.

I rather favour the explanation in William Shackleton's obituary published in the proceedings of the One Hundred and Second AGM of the Royal Astronomical Society in Feb. 1922 which says : "During his stay in Brazil in 1893 he contrcted malaria, recurrence of which affected his general health considerably for some years. In 1900 he was selected as physicist to go with Scott on his first Antarctic expedition, but after organising the instrumental equipment necessary for the observations contemplated, he was finally left behind on medical disqualification."

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 37-44

One Arthur Seeley stated he played rugby against a Sam Keighley.Was that the same man who died tragically young after being a fit guy who played for the Keighlians?
If it is his widow Doreen married my brother Brian and still lives up Long Lee in Keighley.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-63

Current location (optional) abergele

Yes it was the same Sam. During the game in which they were regularly crossing our line. I noticed that Sam was not taking the conversion kicks and that the person taking the kicks was missing them all. I asked Sam at half time why he wasn't kicking, (at which he was masterly, of course). He told me the kicker was a Flight Lieutenant and captain and only let Sam kick after he had missed the firat five. After half time Sam took all the kicks and never missed one. As we walked off I congratulated Sam, he smiled and said' The bloody man never learns.'
We went to the same elementary school, Eastwood, and he was a grand lad and a lovely man. A tragic death.

Sam Keighley. What a player. I can see him now - gliding with the ball in hand; handing off the opposition desperate to take him out of the game; and "masterly" indeed with his boot, from hand or ground: as natural a kicker as Carter, Wilkinson or Cipriani. Great to see he is still remembered.

i played with Sam Keighley in the under 14's in 1945, see photo in that section. I think he was scrum half . is that where he played as an adult .

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

Current location (optional) Sassafras, Tasmania

Sam Keighley, played stand off half during most of his fifteen years with the Keighlians. At least that's where he played during my time at the club in the 50's. He died in June 1965. A tribute to Sam is contained in the Club's Golden Jubilee booklet. It reads,
'The tragic death of Sam Keighley in June 1965 was the most significant event of the 'sixties'. To many people he was the Keighlians, such was his contribution during his 15 years with the club. Sam began his career at Thwaites in the 1949/50 season. He was the player every team hopes to discover. Although not a great socialite, he was extremely well liked by everyone. His skill was recognised by friend and foe alike and he would have surely represented Yorkshire had not the opposition at county level been of international standard. In all Sam scored 1389 points for the club and his record of 171 points in a season [1954/55] still stands. 'The best player who never played for Yorkshire' is a description which has been voiced on many occasions and few would contest that claim.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945 - 50

Current location (optional) Norfolk

An earlier photograph of Sam can be seen under the 'Class Photographs' section, of Eastwood School 1943/4, on the back row, 5th in from the left. 'A grand little lad!' See my comments under.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley