Hello gents, first off I didn't attend Manchester Central, but I've really enjoyed reading all your contributions.
I've found your page and your school, because of one of your old teachers. I attended North Manchester High School for Boys in the early eighties and came across a fantastic teacher called Joe Potterton. Several of you have spoken highly of Joe, and I was blessed to be taught by him. I remember being one of the school's more difficult inmates, and it was a pretty difficult school. I spent a lot of lessons reading his copy of the Guardian, and listening to radio 4. Joe found all sorts of novel ways to keep me from disrupting his class too much, and it's a shame my memory of those lessons is so poor. I do remember the red circles others have mentioned, and the marking systems he used. Massive thanks to Nimble, who posted a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten all about the bike and the panniers. I can almost see him now, rolling up at the front of school on that bike.
In the end, I was expelled from school and left with nothing, but eventually got a Masters Degree in English. Joe played a big part in that, even though I never saw him again after school.
Like many of you, my experience of going to school in Manchester was pretty uninspiring, but what seems a common theme is that many of us were lucky if we found just one or two teachers that stood out from a pretty poor crowd. Hopefully, youngsters nowadays will leave with better memories.
I would be interested to know if anyone knows what finally became of Joe. I've no real memory of how old he was when he taught me. They all seemed old to me!
Cheers everyone.