John West (SH 61-64) was prompted to make the following observations while trying to identify faces from a whole school photograph from 1963:

“252 is Colin Entwistle. Colin was born in Oswaldtwistle! We were at Huyton Hill together and always went cycling on three-quarter days at St Bees; among other places, to Grange over Sands and to Gretna Green.

254 is Jonty Campbell, cross country runner extraordinaire! He was in the junior running eight. I was first reserve. We did a practice run the day after an inter school run (which he had won I think); obviously those who had taken part weren't trying hard - except Jonty. As first reserve I expected to win, but he was so competitive he still beat me! I remember reading out a road test on the 1964 Zephyr 4 in big dayroom. The report said how underpowered it was and then listed other faults. After I had derided it for about five minutes, Jonty said quietly 'We've got one of those.' Oops!

286 is John Nevin. John also went to Huyton Hill and was a great musician. Despite this, he managed to get on the wrong side of Don Leggatt, because he went to the wrong room and was therefore late for his first music lesson. We are in contact on Facebook, he now lives in British Columbia. I remembered John telling me when we were at Huyton Hill that he had met Neil Sedaka by chance on a bus when he lived in Brazil and I recently asked him about it. He replied: 'Yes, I remember the encounter with Neil Sedaka well. He was appearing at a radio station in Rio around 1959 and my mother took me to see him. But when we got there the place was crowded with screaming fans and the show was over. On the way back, by some fluke, there he was on the bus so I introduced myself and had a chat. He gave me his autograph. Still have it somewhere. I was listening to pop then as a relief from my classical lessons.' Strange to imagine Neil Sedaka on a bus, even in 1959!

The Matron on School House in about '62 -'64, whose name I'm ashamed to say I can't remember, but I'm sure wasn't the one in the '61/'62 School House photo on the OSB site, was Rushwaldy's Aunt (A.D. Rushwaldy, Hostel, No.89 on the 1963 whole school photo). Rushwaldy was full back on the first XV.

We used to be allowed two newspapers in Big Dayroom and I think we had either the Mail or the Express, plus the Telegraph. The Telegraph contained all the reports on schools' cricket and rugby. One such report was to the effect: 'High flying Sedbergh's rugby team has little competition among Northern Schools, only Rossall can hope to beat them. They play Rossall in two weeks. Meanwhile they play St Bees.' What a match! Rushwaldy was on fire! His kicking was inch perfect, his tackling was supreme. Obviously he didn't win the match single handedly, but he was the stand-out player. Matron was ecstatic! The catch phrase around school for several days was 'Meanwhile, they play St Bees.'

One of the things the juniors dreaded was a 'session'. This was a particularly nasty 'Star Chamber' Court. I can't remember what earned you a session, but several seniors would gather in a study and you would wait in the corridor with others, listening to boys being grilled and humiliated. 'Look at the floor boy!' while they made fun of you and asked you the full team for the first XI or XV, including initials. I remember looking up at Duncan Peel, who was actually a great chap normally, and him shouting at me. I have an unfortunate habit of laughing if I am nervous. It wasn't the thing to do in a 'session'. For some reason he said something about my legs. I laughed again. 'Do you think you've got good legs?' Oh dear, more laughter. Actually, they all started to laugh and that defused the situation. They then asked me team names and positions. Because I was interested and knew them, I got away without further harassment. It must have been hell for academic types, who neither knew nor cared!

I left at sixteen and many of my contemporaries were determined not to continue fagging and 'sessions'. I understand that they were quite successful and that life became easier for new boys.

I recently asked Michael Graves, a Huyton Hill contemporary, who went to Rossall, whether they had similar things and whether it changed in his time. He replied: 'Rossall had school prefects (called monitors) and house monitors. School monitors could give you a ‘parade’, which involved a run at the crack of dawn (often in the dark and the rain). House monitors only gave you unpleasant chores to do in the house. I don't remember things changing at Rossall during my time but I believe they did in the year following my exit. Our Star Chamber was known as ‘the fagging test’ where new boys were expected to answer questions about the various houses, who the house masters were, all master's nicknames, school institutions etc. While answering these questions, they had stuff thrown at them by the prefects and were generally taunted and teased. Anyway, I believe this and fagging stopped after my time but it may not have been a whole school reform, just a house by house change which presumably eventually enveloped the school. It's over half a century since then and the system is considerably softer all round. Were you called by surnames only at St Bees? I believe you wore shorts too. Mustn't apply today's values to yesteryear's actions, I suppose. I tend to consider that we are too protective of the young these days which makes them risk-averse, arguably a downside of Health & Safety culture.'

Certainly senior boys could award punishment runs. One of the fagging duties on baby dayroom was to take the post from the box on the windowsill in the corridor down to the postbox, which was somewhere on Priory Road I think. I gathered up the post, but must have dropped a letter in the corridor. I found it later on, but not realising I'd been the one who'd dropped it, instead of just putting it back in the box, I made the mistake of handing it to Crowther, whose writing I recognised and said something like 'Oh, you must have dropped this!' He went ballistic and said it was an important invitation to another school for a cricket match. 'I posted it, so you must have dropped it when taking the post.' I can't remember what the next punishment run 'up' from a triangle was - a 'Sea Mills?' Whatever it was, that's what I got!

I hated the CCF. By Sunday night a little cloud formed over my head at the thought of the coming Tuesday. I would go down to the changing rooms to clean my kit, then say, 'Oh, I'll do it tomorrow', then not do it on Monday either. I used to get into awful trouble (from Hedley of Hostel, who was our 'Platoon Commander', or whatever it was) for not doing my kit. Someone suggested you could 'oil' your toecaps to make them shine. Like a fool I tried it. What a mess! Jonathan Roberts would stand next to me, immaculate, with perfectly shined boots and creased trousers – some contrast! Luckily I played the bugle, so that helped. I was in one of those teams that did a display on Speech Day. That got me out of some things.

I was lucky having an older brother to warn me about things, although others might disagree, I was told by Andy to avoid the choir at all costs. He said that it took up your every spare minute. I had quite a decent voice until it broke, but I sang way out of tune at the audition we all had to take, where Don explained that he only got one or two terms out of the younger students so it was obligatory. R.A. Ward (was it Robert?) told me that he'd been in the choir until his voice broke. Don said to him, with a big smile, some months later 'Ah, Robert, your voice will have settled down now, you'll be coming back into the choir of course, won't you!' 'Ah, no thank you sir, I won't.' Smile turned to frown. 'Alright Ward, cut along!'

I did like the Priory services though.

I was saddened to read a couple of years ago that P.F. Thompson, cross country runner only second to the legendary G. Nigel Boucher, had died flying his jet. He came once to Old Boys' Day in an open top, left hand drive jeep, which he had bought in London the day before and driven up overnight. There were definitely some characters back then!”

 

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