LEGS The Long Eaton Grammar School (Reunited)

A Long Eaton Boyhood a book about Risley and Long Eaton during the 1920s and 30s by Alan Neatby-Smith

CHAPTER SIX

More school personalities

ALTHOUGH when starting school I must have been a gangling, oversized lad, the seniors always seemed immeasurably bigger and older, and only a little less awesome than the masters. I remember particularly, flaxen-haired Tommy Sharman, son of a humble Castle Donington railway worker, a brilliant Latinist who, in 1930, won a State Scholarship and was reputed to be destined for high places.

I never heard that he had got any higher than Consul at Riga but I am probably wrong. About his time would have been tall, dark, Eton-cropped Brenda Clarke (also from Castle
Donington?), who already seemed to be grown up, and Winnie Feber, whose physiognomy I don't recall at all, but whose cerebral attainments in the mathematical field, together with those of Brenda, were made known to us lesser plodders. They must have been mathematician Fletcher's pride and joy.

Any lady reader rejoicing in the name of Joan may be interested to read of: Joan Knott - first woman in the country in the Civil Service administrative Branch Examination; Joan Godfrey - first woman in the Assistant Tax Inspectors' Examination; and Joan Hurley, who won a State Scholarship in 1937.

Long before my time there was Keith Palmer, of a Sandiacre family and a brilliant dyechemist, who became head of the ICI plant at Billingham before being head-hunted for a still higher position in the USA. So even the humble LECSS was involved in the brain drain! One Saturday I watched Keith bowl at Sandiacre cricket ground. It must have been very dry for both he and the ball seemed to disappear in a cloud of dust, and he put me in mind of Harold Larwood.

His younger brother, Neville, my senior by four years, also ended up in the North of England, managing a power station. He also bowled but at a much reduced pace for Risley.
About Neville's time there must have been Mary Cordingley, with a sublime English beauty and already sufficiently developed, to my young eyes, to provide a noble bosom on which a confused adolescent could rest his aching head.

Not far behind would have been the eldest of the Smedley trio, from the Beeston area I believe, who, with his younger siblings, were universally known as Gale, Breeze and Draught, the last being in my form and, I believe, Breeze in brother Mick's. Gale resides in my memory for his charming injunction when, as a server of Mrs. Frost's school meals, he
invariably said: "Get it darn yer, that or nowt." This brings me back to Neville's contemporaries. Brother Paul and his greatest friend, Les Statham, of Breaston, were later both in the art world, Paul having gone to Nottingham Art School and Les to Derby Art SchooL Paul became a commercial artist at the Carrington Studio in Nottingham, did photoretouching on Picture Post at Watford and finally, having married a Southampton girl, ended up as a cartographer at the Ordnance Survey HQ at Southampton, where he died in 1981.

BROTHER PAUL WITH LES STATHAM.

Les served his apprenticeship at the Offset Press on Nottingham Road and became a skilled chromo-litho artist, ending up at Rolls-Royce in charge of their graphic departments. Paul and Les must have had a very real affinity, one of their most pleasurable pastimes being trips in Paul's MG to quiet country pubs well out of the LE area. I have heard of occasions when, on entering some pubs (as two nearly-six-footers) they were met with a frantic clearing of tables as some guilty consciences quickly reacted. Les died in 2000.

Alec Lawley now comes to mind and as soon disappears but I recently heard that his younger sister, Ruth, progressed to the other side of my fence - the Tax Inspectorate, at Nottingham, one inspector I have never had to cross swords with. One of her contemporaries must have been Harold Horner, who for years seemed to be the secretary of the Old Scholars' Association. It may have been my imagination, but he always seemed to arouse more contemptuous mirth than respect, but he was certainly a sticker and quite irrepressible. I believe he ended up teaching at Draycott.

Jumping a couple of years, we come to brother Mick's form, two above mine, and we have a candidate for the Honours Board. Ivan Hobday from Breaston, whom I remember as a gangly youth, eventually matured into Sir Gordon Hobday, chairman of the prestigious Boots Cash Chemists.

Johnny Whitaker, whose sliding tackle at football was my first introduction to this manoeuvre, became a sort of rôle model for me and, after getting a fairly unexpected degree at "Notts. Coll." regrettably paid the final price as an RAF pilot. Brother Mick, probably the most gifted of us four brothers, served his time as a cabinet-maker with the local firm of
Bartlett and Worth, later working for the top Broadway firm Gordon Russell Ltd., and on outbreak of war worked on wooden aircraft, including the Mosquito. Later, he moved from the workbench to the drawing board and, among other things, was involved in the draughting of a part for the original Concorde. He had moved to Cheltenham and there produced my only nephew, Geoffrey, who became an architect in the Telford area. Mick died in 1997, aged 82.

MOTHER WITH NEPHEW GEOFF

I don't recall much of the form below Mick's, except that it housed one of the best sporting all-rounders, George Breed, whose cannonball shot at goal, after a lightning twist, was particularly memorable. More of George in a later section on cricket.

One of his year was Ernie Plackett, from the Sandiacre haulage firm, whose sudden twist with the ball after a dash down the left wing I learned to time fairly accurately. His elder brother, "Charry" Plackett, was one of the star pupils of the Art Room, and only comes to mind from one unusual episode. For some reason a hair had been pulled from among his incipient chest hair and we were gathered round staring at a spot of real blood.

Dennis ‘Tagger’ Taylor, the fastest runner in the school, of whom we shall hear more later, was around at this time. He and I came into collision in a house soccer match in which I upended him in what I still consider was a fair shoulder-charge, but as he was the fastest runner in the school and I was only a gangling near-six-footer, the decision went against me. As my favourite master, John Crompton, backed up the decision I can't accuse him of favouritism.

Coming now to my form, first mention must go to Katie ("Swot") Boyes, from York Avenue, Sandiacre, undisputed top of the form, year by year; a quiet, blond, serene girl, ethereally fragile-looking, but obviously tough enough to achieve first-class honours in economics at Cambridge.

There was nothing fragile-looking about statuesque Betty ("Jigger") Lloyd, nor her gingerhaired cousin Joyce ("Jo") Tunnicliffe, both from Breaston; carroty-haired Muriel ("Mudge") Miles, of Wellington Street (of whom more later); Margaret Taylor, sister of Dennis, Hermione ?, the plainest girl, with steel specs and long plaits, but what a good sport she was.

I have to admit that my boyish admiration for the opposite sex resided not in my own form but in the one above. For in a brief sojourn in the sixth form, after matriculation, I encountered Margaret Dalgleish, of the mineral water firm and then in second-year sixth. She was not a conventionally "pretty" girl and I was not put off by her nickname - Maggie Dagger - but admired her for being both the champion slow cyclist and one of the fastest 80-yarders. I suppose I was also attracted by the fact that she seemed to be the only girl remotely interested in me. Being somewhat unnaturally diffident, I was reluctant to tackle the problem head-on and attempted to employ Mudge Miles as a go-between. Dear old Mudge never seemed to do her stuff and only a much later revelation made me understand that she would have preferred to have played first fiddle.

Immediately after I left and had commenced my articles at 34 Market Place, I took my afternoon cup of tea to the window, hoping to see Maggie cycling past on the way home to 180 Wollaton Road, Nottingham, and afterwards we managed a very decorous and short-lived courtship.

Having previously mentioned my placid nature, I would hate to think that I had given any reader the impression that I was more of a mouse than a man. It may have been shortly after I left the sixth form than I found that a small French exchange teacher was paying more attention to Maggie than I considered necessary. Having established the whereabouts of his lodgings, I went there one evening and as he stood in the doorway, I towered over him, and in stilted schoolboy English (unmixed with crude Anglo-Saxon) informed him that unless he desisted I might find it necessary to push his Gallic teeth past his epiglottis. Looking back with horror, I recognise my foolishness: but for a Merciful Providence he might have had a flick-knife under his armpit, or the French equivalent of a skean dhu inside his sock - he might even have come out top of his épee class!

By now the house system had been instituted and if memory serves me correctly, Derwent was most often top house. I sometimes wonder how random was the allocation of pupils. I don't recall very much detail, but it must go on record that their prodigious all-rounder, George Breed, knocked spots off us by throwing the cricket ball a magnificent 103 yards. However much I wound myself up, I never managed more than about 60. Even George had something to learn from an Eton College boy who apparently knocked up 130 yards! I wonder how this compares with professional cricketers?

I can't even remember who captained Soar House at cricket, whether Ken Bettle of College Street, or myself. But I do remember that he and I seemed to share the bowling and often shared the wickets 50-50. I had always been regarded from Risley days as principally a batsman, but for Soar I developed a high shoulder action which enabled me to maintain a very straight ball and little short of a yorker. Once again, I cannot remember having been called upon to bowl for the school team, having been relegated to opening batsman with George Breed. Masochistically, I always chose to take "first bowl".

Living only a few stone-throws from Trent College, it would have been strange had we not come into some contact with the scholars, but there never seemed to be any about the town. Father was visiting dental surgeon to the college, but we learned nothing from him. I do remember one occasion when the public must have been admitted to a rugby match and I had my first glimpse of the celebrated Prince Obolensky, with his shock of golden hair pushed back by the wind as he flew down the wing. This was a preview of a later occasion when he did a like service for his country in an international game. Am I right in believing that soon
afterwards he gave his life for his country in the ensuing war?

The headmaster at that time was G F Bell, and I remember writing to him after I had left school suggesting that a cricket match be arranged between an XI from our old scholars and one from his college. Alas, it fell on deaf ears - probably most fortunately for us since they would most likely have murdered us.

Apart from this one rugby game and one cricket game, the only other episode I remember in connection with Trent College was a visit to their outdoor swimming pool during their summer vacation. I had gone with Alan and Keith Hall, only to find the pool covered with pondweed, which took some clearing before we could take a dip. Brother Hugh recently told me that he did much the same, with the Hall brothers and Wally Tunnicliffe, but that the weed was not only on the surface.

As Alan and Keith had been educated away, I seldom saw much of them, and I am quite puzzled how this episode came about. Their father had been a tenant of my father, with a hairdressing salon under his dental surgery at 70 Derby Road, before moving to more commodious and palatial premises at the Green. Whether the fumes from the salon and the
fumes from the surgery helped or hindered either business, history does not relate. While Keith elected to continue the hairdressing tradition and remained in LE, Alan went in for medicine and, like me, lost track of the ancestral haunt, by moving to Lincolnshire.

Having seen, in 1999, a letter to the Daily Telegraph - in prime position - from a Dr Alan Hall, of Sleaford, I took the liberty of writing to him asking if he was the brother of Keith, and formerly of Long Eaton. A few days later I had a telephone call from Alan confirming that I had guessed rightly and he seemed genuinely pleased to be remembered after such a long interval. No more pleased than I, because he had often stuck in my memory as being an impossibly good-looking lad, rather like a youthful Gary Cooper or Alan Ladd. It was a brief correspondence with Keith that put me on the Sleaford scent.

Carnival time was always popular. The Breaston Highlanders were a most impressive band and it seemed difficult to realise that they were not real Highlanders. The procession seemed almost endless and I suppose they coincided with the Wakes. I was slightly smitten with the elfin looks of Jeannine Gentis as I trailed along among the side-shows with a mixed group. She and her younger sister, Ella, were daughters of Mother's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gentis, of Elm Avenue. The father, of French extraction, had the job of sorting out an incredible confusion in the books of the biggest estate agency in the town.

During some of my long convalescences I helped Mother to entertain Mrs. Gentis with my cucumber sandwiches which (I like to believe) would have gone down well at Buckingham Palace. Eventually, Jeannine married Reg Alton and, with him, pursued a highly academic career at Oxford University. Her half-French blood must have helped as she delved into medieval French literature.

As a family, we never seemed to go in for social life. We boys always gravitated to Trowell Grove, to Les and Topsy Statham's. The only two outings I recall were to a performance by Frank Titterton, the tenor (and England's answer to Richard Tauber), and a matinee at the Nottingham Theatre Royal showing "Rose Marie", to which I had bullied eldest brother Paul to take me. He was reluctant and, coming out into bright sunshine after the performance, I felt the show was a bit out of place.

SIXTH FORM GET-TOGETHER AT MARGARET DALGLEISH'S HOME.

L to R: ? Balmer, Donald Grist, Doug Harrison, Ken Bettle, Girvan Dalgleish, Charles Owen, George Breed, ? Bingham, Joyce Tunnicliffe, Muriel Miles, Joan Comety, Katie Boyes, Joan Godfrey and Margaret Dalgleish.

I don't recall to whom I am indebted for a photograph of the sixth form (of approximately 1933), probably taken shortly after I had left, which would account for my not being included.
This was taken at a get-together at Maggie's parents' house, which also accounts for her elder brother, Girvan, being in the background. I recall all of them well, except for Balmer and Bingham, the latter, I believe, being the son of the school secretary.

No school memoir would be complete without an eulogistic reference to the kitchen staff who ministered to the hungry bellies of growing youth, especially during that post-war austerity - those softies who took their own sandwiches can skip this bit. The un-remembered helpers – if still around – must share some of thes lines about their boss, the indomitable Mrs Frost, who travailled for 32 years from mid-WW1 until 1948.

MRS FROST IN HER KITCHEN - ROOM 15 (1916 - 1948)

Quoting from the jubilee Book 1960: “Another important event at this time was the provision of school dinners from 1916. The only catering before this was the warming of
food, chiefly pies brought from home by the children, and the supply of tea and coffee at 1d per cup for morning and mid-day breaks. Now, because of travelling difficulties and shortage of food, Mrs Frost, previously employed by the Siamese Embassy in London, was engaged to run a meals service. Cooked meals were provided for scholars from a distance, the full cost, 4d, being paid by the diner. Vegetables were grown in the school grounds; dried milk was
used; a ration of one ounce of butter a head was granted by the food authority. Soup was made from bones and all vegetables were prepared by hand. These meals were prepared in the kitchen, now Room 15 (see picture) and served through the serving hatch …”

A personal appraisal of the position by a very early (1914–1919) old scholar, the late Revd J Dawson Hooley in his contribution to the Jubilee Book “Forty Years Back” makes interesting reading:

“Her kitchen was to us just as holy a ground as the Head’s study (and probably pleasanter when recollected in tranquility). Though it was in theory out of bounds, an occasional visit was always worth the risk. Food rationing was a very serious business and there were times when the rice pudding served in the dining room bore a disquieting resemblance to the paste we used for colour printing in the art room. But we accepted it, unquestioning, for Mrs Frost’s baked potatoes made up for all deficiencies.”

A final reference to her leaving states “… she had provided school dinners in ever increasing numbers from a kitchen which for years had been inadequate. She had always had the keenest interest in the pupils and, for many years, Mrs frost in the kitchen was a figure without whom no Old Scholar’s function was complete.” However, she was fully human and did have her favourites for second-helpings!

OTHER BOOKS BY ALAN NEATBY-SMITH

• Escape to South Africa also £5.95.
• to be published a book about his years spent in Corwall.