Roger
Smith (shown left in 1958 from the school photo)
discovered this website only in mid-October 2005 after a chance meeting
at a birthday party with John Child. As a result, Roger who started at
the Technical High School in September 1955, has been looking through
the site and has started to make his own contributions. He has a number
of interesting memories, including his very first day at school, as a
youngster in what was really an adult's technical college.
My First Day at School
Having a birthday in September brought about an overlap with the intake of the academic year and meant I was the eldest in every form. Consequently, when I first went to THS in September 1955 I was within a week of being twelve years old.
The school ‘lived’ in the Technical College buildings in St. George’s Avenue sharing with the adult students. They didn’t really like us (not us freshers anyway) and who can blame them. There we were in our pristine uniforms with ‘Just William’ caps and shiny leather satchels, mixing with hardened seventeen to twenty one year olds with jobs! We had to attend for a day just before the September term for Form and House allocation. It was organised chaos and resulted in deafening noise as we waited to be sorted out until the most frightening high-pitched shriek of “quierrrrrrrrrt” was heard. It was Elsie Clegg. She was a no-nonsense teacher and continued to terrify us for years. “God, I hope we don’t get her” was the whisper going the rounds and as things turned out I was allocated to Kelvin House and Form-Master Harry Hartwell; not however, before being swapped from Spike Clements’ Form after a mistake for another ‘Smith’. The College didn’t have a Hall so morning assemblies were held at the end of Floor B in a tiered lecture theatre – room B16.
It
was a school within a school but there were no playing fields or
changing rooms and so our weekly PT lesson was a partial-walk-trot round
the Racecourse in full uniform led by Pip Harris. The right hand
wing of the College was The Art School and at ground level between the
two wings were a series of pre-fabs where we went for art lessons.
Detentions were sometimes spent there too and one of the ‘arty’ lady
teacher whose name I don’t remember, would make us speed-write her
dictation and then write it up in our best hand writing when we got
home! Another favourite was to write out the whole of Psalm 119 –
all 176 verses and it was ‘tough’ if you didn’t have a Prayer Book at
home.
After three years there, we broke up for the summer holiday expecting to ‘go to the Tower’ in Trinity Avenue in the September of 1957/58, but parents received letters informing them that as the building was not yet complete, the holiday would be extended by a further two weeks.
As I lived across the Racecourse I walked, but anyone who cycled had to leave their bikes in the Technical College bike-racks in St. George’s Avenue and walk all the way round to the school; there were no short-cuts and not much fun if you were already late! It was also a rule that on arriving at the sloping drive down to the rear of the College, a cyclist must dismount and walk the rest of the way.
Soon after moving to the Tower, one of the Masters had witnessed a pupil doing just the opposite and reported him. Imagine the scene; halfway through a lesson with Tiger Timms, the classroom door burst open – it was Gunner. The boy was called out, the accusation read to him and with no Counsel for the Defence either, Tiger removed two of the front desks so Gunner could have an un-interrupted swing. The boy was told to touch his toes and then six of the best was delivered. It made us all sweat just to watch and in a flash, Gunner had swept out of the room, his cloak billowing in his wake. At a time when Capital Punishment was still with us, it was reminiscent of Albert Pierrepoint (the Public Hangman), who with his assistant would enter the condemned cell, bind the prisoner, take him through a hidden door, and execute him all in less than ten seconds. That was Gunner!