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.
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.