Memories of the Boys School in the 1960s [+]

Memories of your time at the Boys School in the 1960s

6 comments:

  1. I attended School there from 1957-1961.

    I remember a Mr Vaughan (Fred) who taught me in a Class Room in the Church Hall where we entered from the Playground. As you entered the Building the Classroom was to the left and a Staircase in front of you took you to the School Dinner area.

    Woodwork Teachers were a Mr Ball and Mr Jordan (Joe)

    I also remember a Chemistry Teacher Mr Wilcox ?

    Di Davies was there during my years.

    Jake Jeffries used to play Rugby and I remember him coming in one Monday with a Black Eye ! He was a very strict Master.

    Mr Dash could throw a mean accurate Blackboard Rubber.

    I appeared in a production of a Musical “Once Aboard The LuggIer” produced by Peter Fowler.

    Miss Harrison was Stan Lowes Secretary in the 60’s

    Also RE Teacher Mr Grant (Oggy)

    Just a few memories at the minute but will forward anything else that comes to mind.

    Great to see this posting !

    [imported from email]

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  2. Dear Dave

    Great to hear from you

    Geoff did mention your project and I recognise so many faces- names I had forgotten- Nigel Seville I think was one. Jovan sent me a photo of Mr Atmers Russian class. He may have another print otherwise I can look for it in my boxes!

    I will check out the link at my leisure but Stan Lowes Mr Codrington and Cyril the RE teacher bring back fond memories. I remember him throwing a blackboard eraser at Nick Britten - there's another name just come back to me!

    I will be back in touch

    Chris (1965 - ??]

    [imported from email - abridged]

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  3. Edited extract from an email Received from Avril S

    In the mid 60s there was a collaboration between Saint Mary Redcliffe boys, and girls at Colston's girls' school (not Temple Colston).

    The play was "The Merchant of Venice ", and I played Jessica. Julia Richards played Portia and Frank Thomas played Shylock. Somewhere I have an old school magazine with a review of the play.

    Apparently with others I "breathed life and action and sweet gentility into the whole production ". Quite a stretch!

    I remember Harry Greenslade, Pete Clifford and Mike Dash very clearly. We went boating at Salford near Keynsham and hang out in the coffee bars on Park Street.

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  4. I came across this website by accident, what a delight! It took me back to 1962 through 1965 when as a very young man I taught Science there. I remember Head Master Lowes and my friend and language teacher Peter Atmer. I also remember the betting shop on the corner where I worked on Saturdays for a period and the historic lead shot tower. And of course I also remember the beauty of the Church and its stained glass windows which contrasted so vividly with the relative poverty of Bedminster.
    My only claim to "fame" in school history is that I was the first to teach a group of pupils the "O" level syllabus in science. Many of them passed and one even did well enough to get transferred to a grammar school.
    I have lived "overseas" for almost 40 years but I still remember Bristol (where I went to University) and St. Mary's with great affection.

    Michael Rosenberg

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  5. My name is Robert Date and I to attended the school from 1965 to 70.

    I remember all of the staff you have listed and was taught by several of them. I now live in Melbourne Australia and have done since 1975 so once I left school and completed my apprenticeship at Rolls Royce Aero Engines at Patchway I emigrated with my wife.

    One of my elder sisters attended Temple Colston Girls School and my younger sister attended the new school well after I left in 1969/ 1970. I still have my school tie and appear on the 1968 School photo which I also have a copy of.

    My school mates at the time were Nick Watts , Bert Tennyson, Phil Peacock, Neil Champness, The Gyngel Twins Richard and Steve.

    I used to catch the number 11 bus from Fishponds to Temple Meads Station and walk up to school from there entering through the cloak room door in the side street. I can also remember getting a Pastie for lunch occasionally at the pie shop on the corner of the street out from the playground.

    I did catch up with several old friends on the Friends Reunited web site but that of course closed down. I get back to the UK every year and almost got to a school reunion about 10 years ago but missed it.

    Several of the guys I attended the school with also worked at Rolls Royce, it seemed back in the day they were the biggest employer of apprentices.

    I remember Stan Lowe very well, I think he died either in our last year of school or just after I left, I think he had a major stroke.

    I remember calling at the school on one occasion when I was in Bristol but they really weren’t interested in me and didn’t allow me to walk around the school. I can understand them to a certain degree .

    As for the teachers I remember them all with lasting memories of particular staff such as Prideau who took us for Maths, Ben Dash for Geography, Moggy Morgan for Tech Drawing,Mike Lawrence and Bert Johns for sport, Cyril for RE who was a really great guy, and Joe Roe who hated us all.

    I was in Colston House and I think Chalky White was the House Captain, a very good swimmer if I remember correctly. Francombe was known as Chatterton then. Peter Fowler was always trying to get me in the school choir which I avoided like the plague.

    On the school photo 1968 I think you can find me as follows: Find Mike Lawrence whom is located third from the right from Stan Lowe. Go three rows up from Mike there is a blurred image of Richard Perret stood next to Doug Howton. I am the fifth student to the right from Perret with a stupid grin on my face. Phil Peacock is next to me with also a silly grin and his head to one side. Hope you find me.

    Cheers from Australia

    Bob Date

    [imported from email - edited / abridged]

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  6. “There are places I remember, all my life . . .” The Beatles’s lyrics are very appropriate as the band was shooting to fame just as my contemporaries and myself were pupils at Redcliffe, in my case, from 1959 to 1964.

    Of the pupils with me in Mr Robert ‘Jock’ Williams, the Welsh maths teacher’s class, I can recall: Philip Beek, Mark Bembridge, Steve Bevan, Dave Bugler, Vivian Jenkins, Peter Long, Graham Organ, Pervez Rana, Philip Thomas, and Ian Dempster. Ian, his brother David (in an older year group at Redcliffe) and myself have remained fast friends ever since.

    A prominent member of Peter Fowler’s school choir was Bill Stagg (known by Adrian, his second name in those days) - a close friend and excellent musician who became the Drum Major of the Western Band of the RAF. I recall also another very good singer called John Haley. I was in the same production of Once Abroad A Lugger as John Scully, another contributor to Memory Lane (see above), though he would have been a senior pupil by then.

    I remember many others too numerous to list here. Examples are: Martin Layzell (who sadly, I believe passed away some years ago) and Robert Hartland who were on duty in the library at lunch times and who some of us younger boys delighted in trying to wind up! Another memory is of attending the Christmas concerts. These featured such gems as Big Keith “Topper’ Stone mining to ‘Big John’, and musical Mike Thorne.

    In those days Redcliffe was blessed with two teachers, each of whom championed unusual areas of study. Peter Atmer, the foreign languages teacher who could speak six different languages, taught Russian after school. Along with Stephen Eddolls and Michael Mansfield I attended these classes. Stephen went on to graduate in Russian and to become a fluent Russian speaker.

    The second unusual area of teaching at Redcliffe was Economics - then little-known and taught in schools in England and Wales. Mr Geoffrey Graham fired me up with such enthusiasm for the subject that I continued to study it up to Part 1 Degree level.

    It would take up too much space to comment upon all of the staff who I remember. Not yet mentioned by others is Roger Watson, the kind and friendly art teacher. When our O Level results had come out, he said to me, ‘Congratulations Hine on passing O Level. Don’t come back to do A Level!’ We both laughed. Somehow I never quite measured up to Rembrandt!

    Another memory is of being taught by MrTom Morgan in the classroom above the TA building. Lapses of inattention would invariably get him going on how we were destined to end up in the most dead-end jobs unless we mended our ways.

    Also, I remember with fondness Mr ‘Get-your-backs-up-straight!’, ex-army Dash, the geography teacher who held the blackboard pointer tucked under one arm like an officer’s baton.

    Later, when doing my teaching practice in a secondary school in the Swansea Valley, the paths of Mr Hywel ‘Jake’ Jefferies, my former English teacher at Redcliffe, crossed yet again. He had, by that time, returned to his Welsh roots, become the headteacher of one of the feeder primaries to the secondary school where I was on teaching practice. It is a small world indeed!

    Simon Hine

    [imported from email]

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