The more I read here the more I remember so here are some of my memories. My name is Malcolm Spicer and I entered Whitworth Street MCGS in 1959-60.
I was in Grade 1W with Mr Wyeth as HR teacher. It was the class room top left through the Hall. The Old dark brown intricate wooden structures and walls inside and the shaped windows. The small playground outside with the toilets hut thing. I had my first ever fight in that school yard. No idea why. Used to share Spic and Spans.
After the first year we moved to Kirky Lane and I loved my years there, from 60-67, grades 2L1 up to 5L1 and then upper and lower sixth.
I lived in Cheetham Hill and then Blakely near Heaton Park. It was 59 or 60 bus to Queens Rd and then the 53 to Kirky Lane. That 53 was something else! I remember every inch of that journey I made every day, most days in glorious Manchester showers.
I was an avid trainspotter and used to walk down to Longsight sheds just around the corner, once or twice a week.
Would stay behind after school to play table tennis and then pick up a cigarette at the little shop round the corner and then it was 53 and home.
I remember we used to go across the field at the back to the right and climb over the fence to a fish and chip shop there and get steak and kidney pie, chips and mushy peas.
We had a craze of skipping class by hiding in the top cupbard in the room, which was empty and could hold two people. Teachers never missed us.
De La Perelle was a sweet humble man and I liked him, even though I was the only prefect he ever caned, he told me. Can’t remember what it was for but must have been bad.
Bowcott was a typical Deputy head , scaring the [censored] out of everyone and always seemed to be angry.
Johnny Hopley was my favourite teacher, maybe because I was real good at Maths. He was also a United supporter and I actually met him several times at Old Trafford. Me and my buddy Rick Jones would hitchhike to all of United’s away games. We had to take a day or two off school and Hopley always knew why I’d missed class (and privately asked me how the game was).
Mr Thomas, our English teacher, was a kind man and always stable and sober, unlike some. I became a teacher in my earlier years after that and I think he had some bearing on my style.
Mr. Eckersley and I were enemies. His lessons were so boring and me and my buddies were always laughing and joking. He walked up to me one day looked me in the face and then slapped me across the face. Wallop. Never seen anyone get that before or since. He’d be arrested if he did that today. Following that we went on a hiking trip to the Isle of Aaron. That really cemented our friendship. On our train trip to Scotland the train stopped at Carlisle and me being an avid trainspotter and seeing all these Scottish Jubilees and Scots I got of the train and ran up and down the platform to saee the other trains in the station. I knew our train wasn’t moving cos the engine was being changed and so off I went. When I got back on the train I thought Eckersley was going to kill me. I think I heard certain words for the first time! When we got to Aaron, it was a walking tour. First day out both feet blistered up. What the hell was I thinking going on a walking tour. So me and another had to stay behind next day with instructions to make all the marmite sandwiches for the goup for when they returned. We had other plans. We snook off from the hostel to a crazy golf setup nd spent the whole day there having a ball. Of course when we got back to the hostl, they’d all arrived back and we were nowhere to be seen. Eckersley had me banned from all school trips in the future so I missed the class trip to France the next year.
Was it Mr Horrocks (?), the history teacher, with Willy Whakem, a slipper he kept in his inside pocket. Boy did he like to whack young boys with that. Every lesson.
And then Mr Firth appeared. Killer Firth, smashing his fist into the blackboard. He was about 6”6”. Everyone was afraid to even smile in his class. It was real fear.
I remember Mr Rourke, the music teacher in the dingy basement in Whitworth Street. What a freak he was. He used to walk up to you and rub his stubble chin across your face and used to love to whack you with his slipper, for any reason. I did learn to play the recorder though.
Mr Judson was my buddy through the sixth form, doing A Level math, further math and Physics and spending many hours with just the 4 of us who were doing those topics, over two years. He made me laugh when I got a perfect score in the A Level Math mocks but he said he’d never given 100% in an A-level test before and so he gave me 99% ! It was announced at assembly and was my 15 minutes of fame in the school!
I was really in to Physics, and Alf Dobbins and Stelfox helped me a lot. I owe them both. Dobbins was grumpy and Stelfox was much more open and friendly. Liked him a lot.
Form teacher was Rocky Stones, our German teacher. I did not want to take German! I was forced into it and continually got 0% on my tests and exams. We used to hide under the table in the lecture room for the whole lesson. Being Jewish and with the World only a decade or so away from WWII it was abhorrent to me.
French was different and Bill Lawes, boring as he was (and also a City supporter) always provided me and my mates with constant laughter, especially doctoring the drawings in the French textbook.
The woodwork teacher was a real bad*ss. Can’t remember his name. He was like sergeant major. Great with the insults.
We used to have to go by bus to Parrs Wood for PE/Games every week. I hated it. We had to do Cross Country and we found some great short cuts which cut the trip by about two thirds. We eventually skipped the bus trip altogether and went into town, bought lunch at Henry’s and wandered around Lewis’s and up and down Market Street. Saw my first ‘erotic’ movie there one afternoon ( I was 16) in the theatre next to Henry’s.
Memories are flowing back. More later.