The schools we attend and work in help shape the people we become. Seven of my sixty plus years in school were spent here – at Headlands Grammar School, Swindon. It is long gone and the site redeveloped.
When people go into education as a career they sometimes seek to replicate the good experiences of their own schooling. Others dedicate themselves to making sure that students don’t have to endure what they went through. When it comes to Headlands, I belong mostly in that latter category.
This is what Peter Gow has called “restitutional teaching”:
the idea that for some of us a portion of our motivation is to see to it that what was done unto us or our friends as children: the squashing of spirit and passion, the dehydration of subject matter until it was truly arid and meaningless, the petty and often unintentional unfairnesses and humiliations that can scar kids for a lifetime.
It wasn’t that the place was so bad or that the teachers were so fearsome or incompetent. Not that, although there were moments of great dread and distress. And Headlands had its fair share of the grotesque and hopeless along with the merely eccentric and hapless.
I’ve just looked through a couple of old Headlandians – annual school report/magazines from the 1960’s -the two available online. Many students clearly had a very different experience than I did. And of course – a personal viewpoint is narrow and idiosyncratic at best. Memory selects a mere fraction.
Gifted teachers are rare anywhere, and the school had a fair share of the sort that knew how to get you through the exam system and maintain at least some pleasure in the process of learning. And I don’t question the good intentions and dedication of any of them. As far as I know they were all dedicated, hard-working and well-meaning. Even the worst of them. My intent here is not to tear anyone down but rather to share what I remember and the conclusion I drew from my experience.
“Nutty” Almond, “Bomber” Brown, Mr Caws, Mrs Charlesby, “Grog” Evans, Norman Gilbert, Miss Harris, “Boomer” Hickman, “Holy Joe” Holroyd, Miss Jackson, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Litherland, Mr. Parry-Jones, Mr Penelum, Andy Pollock, Mr, Rackham, “Pop” Shores, Miss Whereat, Miss Wildman … and all the rest – I think that they were doing their best to do what they thought was right. Some are memorable and some best forgotten. And many I have forgotten because perhaps they just did their job. And the ones that were popular? – another lesson learned – are best avoided. More anon.
And among them there were the benign eccentrics of which school legends are made. Outstanding among those was the English teacher/ careers master Merv Comrie – more anon on that too.
A couple of random events has led me to reflect on the teachers and the leadership I experienced, observed, benefitted and suffered from in my secondary education.
The first was unearthing something I had put together for a presentation years ago: “So you want to be a head: Take this readiness checklist.” It was a partially tongue-in-cheek inventory of what it takes to become a head of school. (How do you feel about being under constant surveillance? Are you ready to have no friends at work? Are you ready to have everyone mad you at the same time?). The second was reading and enjoying a memoir – Grammar School Boys – published by John Trueman.
John and I were in most of the same classes and had the same teachers. He was demoted into my class in his first year at grammar school before we were both demoted into a new class – a middle section – not top, not bottom – created to accommodate the growing numbers. It was the height of the baby boom in a mushrooming London overspill town.
In his 1967 book An Awkward Size for a Town Kenneth Hudson concluded that Swindon, like many towns in the process of expansion, was too large to retain the strong social cohesion of smaller communities, but not yet large enough to support the extensive amenities associated with many cities.
He was right.
Headlands was the amalgamation of two older schools in the town center but acquired its distinct identity as a grammar school with the opening of the new building on Cricklade Road, Stratton St. Margaret to the north of the town in 1952.
In those days, 20% of students – selected at the age of eleven and on the basis of the infamous multi-year 11plus exam – were offered places at grammar schools. The actual percentage depended on where you lived but in Swindon it was 20%. About half of that number would leave for the world of work and apprenticeship after taking the GCE ‘O’ level at age 16. The rest would stay on for the two years of the sixth form and take the “A” level. About half of that number then would head for university and the rest to colleges of education, trainee programs or work. Slice, slice, slice. Education was expensive.
It was all a process of sorting that began at the age of seven and accelerated from there. It you survived the 11+ and entered the grammar school – dressed in your school uniform and carrying a big leather satchel – the next step was to be sorted into ability groupings based on your educational prospects as revealed by the exam.
At Headlands, the top class was 1U (university), the second was 1A (advanced level), the third was 1E – who knew what that stood for – and the fourth was 1O (as in ordinary level GCE.) You could probably get a similar result sorting on the basis of family income or father’s occupation. Throw in whether they had a library card and you would have much the same result.
So – carefully sorted – with some movement- promotion and demotion after mid-year and end-of-year exams – we knew our place.
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion carved the perfect woman in marble and she came to life and they lived happily ever after. The Pygmalion effect in education is the self-fulfilling prophesy of expectations. Call a class the top and treat them as headed for high achievement and they will have a better chance of success. Call them the bottom class and they will perform, and behave, accordingly. It’s why the so called bottom class was always full of such interesting characters – the defiant ones who resisted the system, the unruly rebels.
Some were institutional and borne of necessity and decisions about the use of resources: The assignment of teachers, the choice of subjects, the distribution of roles of responsibility, awards and prizes: being taught by the most incompetent in the least attractive spaces. And some were just routine humiliations – being called out in assembly for some minor infraction, detentions, impositions, icy stares and acid tongue-lashes. It all added up. Never-mind that all 120 students were among the so-called intellectually elite – the top 20% cream of the exam crop. The lowest class were at the bottom and they knew it and frequently lived up to that expectation.
That’s where I learned the advantage of staying in the middle of the pack and working at going unnoticed. From there you have options and can take advantage of possibilities as long as you keep your head below the parapet. People don’t expect much of you and therefore won’t be disappointed when you fail. And – unless you do something to draw attention to yourself – all may be well. You can always choose to surprise them. You have that power.
From the safety of the middle grouping – two above me and two below – you could see it all. For me this meant being excluded from Latin after one year – a move that later severely limited my university options, having the PE teacher drafted in to teach history which for her meant dictating from the textbook. She is actually the only teacher I remember saying a kind word to me. And – to top it all I just this week – lo! these many decades later – discovered that my name was omitted from the Headlandian university entrance list in the program for a speech day that happened almost a year after I was already at university. I didn’t know at the time because I did not – and would not attend – such a ceremony. Bless the intertubes for one final – unintentional for sure – petty insult. It fits perfectly with the rather low expectations the school had for my exam chances. You have to laugh after all the ongoing song and dance about striving and achieving and all the rest of the palaver. When the unexpected academic success actually happened they didn’t get the record straight. (See Escape from the Spirit People) In truth – they actually had better things to do. Or rather, more things to do than bother about me.This was a school with no support staff – no nurse, no psychologist, no learning specialist, no community liaison. The tiny admin team – with the support of their teachers – did it all. And that’s why it didn’t, couldn’t, get done. No blame.
So Headlands was a product of its time and place. It was also the product of stable school leadership and a trio that steered the school for more than two decades.
These are the people who ruled my secondary school existence. They were not monsters by any stretch of the imagination although they were capable of actions that were experienced as cruel and frightening. All three were born into the Edwardian era, were children during WW1, and lived and worked through the depression and WW2.
They were dedicated, committed, hard-working, and on a mission. Even in my time they were throwbacks to another time and place, true believers in the importance of standards – on the eternal warpath against the encroachments of the modern era as represented by slang, popular music, nail varnish, eye shadow, long-haired boys, wearing of jewelry of any kind and slipshod anything. Failure to wear the school hat while traveling to and from school on the public bus was a major crime and – like eating iced confectionary in the street – was “letting down the good name of the school”. Such egregious conduct was met with a battery of responses ranging from icy stares and acid tongue to impositions and detention.
There’s another school in the UK with the name ‘Headlands’ and while googling I came across its website. It seems that schools are still obsessing over eye shadow and skirt length. And now they have smart watches and cell phones to add to the forbidden list. Policing children in the name of standards marches on.
Magson – always known as “the Boss” – was an inveterate user of the fustian and florid when it came to language. As well as iced confectionary there was his fried chipped potatoes for crisps and pantechnicon for lorry. I am sure there were others that I have forgotten and surely he said omnibus. We would hear these expressions at morning assembly when he would sweep into the hall, glasses flashing and gown flowing and we would rise to our feet as the expected mark of respect while he and the teachers sat up on the platform and we were arrayed by age and class below. Two hymns, a prayer, the Lords Prayer, a reading from the Bible (King James, of course) and then the announcements. Twenty minutes to start the day.
Sometimes the reading would be installments of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I am sure that Mr. Magson took the allegory of Christian as an analog of his own work. He wanted all of us to leave the City of Destruction and seek the straight and narrow of the King’s Highway. With hard work we could move beyond the moral degeneracy of the Slough of Despond, climb the Hill of Difficulty, uphold the good name of the school and reach the Celestial City by means of good exam results.
In retrospect I am grateful for those daily readings. Not for any moral uplift but because they are extraordinary works of English literature and part of the fabric of our language. And it didn’t escape the notice of those ever vigilant about the hypocrisy of our elders and betters that both Bunyan and Christian are usually portrayed with long hair.
Educational leadership today is a growth industry, Everyone has a program or a theory or at the very least a few favorite quotations or examples. Global management consulting firms gather data on what makes leaders effective and business schools and educational institutes opine on the key characteristics and essential capacities to promote their programs.
It’s all very different from the assumptions that these three brought to their understanding of their work. I don’t think they were assailed by doubt or worried about their emotional intelligence or distributive leadership style. They operated with a kind of moral certitude and they had no qualms about exercising authority. The world may have been changing but they were there to stem the tide, uphold eternal verities and standards. Together they built a school that was firmly based on authority and a sense of righteous cause. It was, mostly, predictable, stable, certain and unambiguous.
All this was to come crashing down in a very short period of years. The town council was re-organizing secondary education in the borough. The year I left was the start of the big school restructuring. And the world was changing too, presenting new challenges to the established order. You can read the signs of the future in the words of the headmaster’s remarks of 1967 where he comments on the changes, mentions truancy and vandalism and opines at length about difficulties of hiring and retaining teachers. One by one the old guard retired and in a short period of years they were all gone. Even the caretaker “Tarz” Barnett – who had been with the school since the Euclid Street days – retired.
In second year English with Mr. Jenkins we read Tennyson’s Morte D’Arthur and it comes to me now. One of the few things I remember from that class. The dying King Arthur informs and then reassures Sir Bedivere:
The sequel of to-day unsolders allThe goodliest fellowship of famous knightsWhereof this world holds record.…
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,And God fulfills Himself in many ways,Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
In the case of Headlands, that order changed, but not without a struggle. Not without pain and loss. From what I have gathered, Magson took on the challenge and smoothly managed a complex transition to accommodate a different school population.
But the culture! – the carefully constructed, built-over-decades community ethos – the web of routines and expectations, attitudes and assumptions – so many of the things I resented and resisted – how could that survive such an upheaval? The barbarians – in the shape of popular culture, slackness, moral degeneracy, change – that had always been gnawing at Magson’s gate were now inside the house and tearing at the foundation.
In my next Headlands post I’ll say a little more about who each of these people were and about the teachers with whom they worked – particularly the old guard many of whom dated back to when the school was in cramped quarters on Euclid Street.
If you attended Headlands I would love to hear your responses to this post. And if you didn’t – well I would love to hear from you too,
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I well remember both Pat Clarke & Mike Squires ( from Moredon Juniors). Felicitations to you both.
Josie, I've Headlandian mags. from 1960 -1966 somewhere but have no idea how to "put them on line".
'O' level physics not helping 60 years on, tho' I was in the "A' stream, whatever that actually meant...
Drop me a line, if I have been able to work out what a URL is too get this posted.
Best,
Ray.
Hi, Ray, David Kavanagh here. I don't know if Josie replied, but if your offer is still open, if you send me the mags (14, Alnwick, Swindon SN5 8JJ) I will upload them and return them, soonest and intact.
Still see about 10 of our year (including Teresa) with a monthly lunch at Blunsdon.
Best wishes (and to your sister)
dk
Hello David,
A pleasure to hear from you.
Yes can do, or gatecrash your next Blunsdon lunch & deliver them personally?
I am in regular contact with a "rump'' contingent from our year ( which was of course a very special year, as indeed was yours!), several of whom still live in the Highworth/Wroughton area.
I shall of course pass on your best wishes to Pat.
Kindest regards,
Ray
Hi Josie [ and , of course , all other posters on here ] . I
ve just stumbled on these " threads " and have thoroughly enjoyed reviving memories of Headlands Grammar School. I attended the school from 1951 to 1956 and frankly was pleased to escape in July of the latter year ! There are many gaps in this study which I can fill [ and would like to be filled ] and its a pity that we cant chat over a drink at The Moonrakers ! I often think of my experience of Headlands and not having been a star pupil cant ever convince myself that I was happy there ! Most of the contributions Ive just read have been made by folk who passed through The School after my " sentence " so they wouldnt remember " Basher " Hall , " [ an extremely mildmannered man ! ] Gunner " Moore [ WW1 military veteran ] and " Ticker " Loaring " [ frequently looking at his watch ! ] Alas all three died soon after retiring. There was also Jill Richardson [ a French teacher] and one nearly fell off your chair when she hollered at you ! We all have vivid memories of " Aggie" Jacob and " Nutty " Almond who continued at Headlands until their retirement. " Aggie " never missed an opportunity to belittle someone who had erred in some almost imperceptible way but " Nutty " although feared by many was respected at the same time. Now for a gem ! Tony H [ one of the villains in my year ] arrived a few minutes late and a bit scruffy for her lesson upon which she pounced on him to tell him " I dislike you turning up late looking like a Wild Man from Borneo " Tony replied " Well youre not exactly Marilyn Monroe [ a glamorous filmstar at the time ] yourself are you ? She often went red in the face when angry but her colour must have turned near to purple on that occasion ! Ill mull over a few more memories and make contact a bit later on. Keep up the good work ! Best Regards, NigelNigel - how wonderful to hear from you. So glad you're enjoying the posts about Headlands. I tried to be fair but the truth is that my years there were mostly rather miserable. I remember the name - "Basher" Hall but not the person. The same with "Gunner' and "Ticker". Used to be everyone had a nickname - or almost everyone. But like whistling it seems to have gone out of fashion. I would love to hear more of your stories and memories of the school.
Did you also see the other posts on "Aggie", "Nutty, and Merv?
If you happen to be on Facebook check out this Headlands group with some photos going back to Euclid Street and before the war. https://www.facebook.com/groups/413266433320550
So glad you wrote. I would love to hear more.
Thanks for your response to my recent posting. Yes, nicknaming teachers was a common practice at Headlands and , of course , some were inevitable [ e.g. Snoz Adams ! ] During my time there Mr Hickman joined the teaching squad having had previously , I understand , a senior position in the army. For some time he was very loud in the classroom and was soon referred to as Boomer ! About 1953 Barbara Elliott [ an attractive lady in her mid twenties ] joined the staff and was soon nicknamed Flossie . A teacher called Keith Mayell [ who was nicknamed Gandy or Ghandi for some unknown reason ] wasted no time in dating her and they got married about two years later. It was said that on honeymoon they had gandyfloss ! Whether they did or not I don
t know but I expect they did ! ! Taffy Davies was another that comes to mind but dont think he was Welsh. Of course some children had memorable nicknames too and prime examples were David " Slim" People and " Tank " Nash whose sizes were colossal for schoolboys ! Well that`s all for now, Best Regards, NigelI well remember Slim People for 2 reasons. As an initiating ceremony as a new boy I was sat on my Slim. A few years later his father gave me a job delivering newspapers.
This is truly a wonderful read. I do agree that competent, dedicated, and gifted teachers are rare. I am a teacher and I do apprecitae your thoughts. Thank you for sharing your memories.
“So you want to be a head: Take this readiness checklist.” It was a partially tongue-in-cheek inventory of what it takes to become a head of school."
So - sounds like an entertaining read. Want to share it?
I didn't go Headlands but I did go to a school I loathed with a passion. But nevertheless went into teaching. Go figure.
Hi Barry - I'll have to dig it out. But will do. It will probably seem quite outdated given our current circumstances and the extraordinary demands on school leaders that come with this crisis.
Josie - I found your article by chance and am astounded by your memories. I was in your year, started in ‘59. My name then was Patricia (Pat) Clark. I was in 1U but should never have been in that intake as I was only 10 and very immature. I landed up in the “e” stream but somehow managed to get 6 O levels and expected to go into the sixth and on to university. Not so. I hold Magson entirely responsible for my not going to University as he said I was too young to go into the sixth form and must retake the 5th form. I stuck it for a term and then left. I have never forgiven him. Despite this I worked very hard and had a good career as an accountant but not going to university is my greatest regret. I hated my time at Headlands. The petty rules, narrow mindedness and total lack of nurturing or counselling, only discipline and punishment made every day an ordeal. I will never, ever forget turning up on the first day of term in my 6th form pleated skirt and then being sent back to 5th form (and, no, they did not tell me in advance). I do remember you Josie - very blonde hair, I doubt if you remember me, specs and mousy hair.
See! They couldn't even teach me to spell 'vicious'!
Doubt they saw teaching spelling as one of their jobs.
Hi Pat, Lettie - What a terrible memory and even worse experience. A what a story - six 'O'Levels and then held back. Which is ironic when you consider that boys seen as Oxbridge bound were often skipped a year in 2nd or 3rd form in order to give them an extra year in the 6th form. Magson even comments on that in one of his Headlandian pomposities.
So many of us seem to carry scars like that. Among them for me was being dropped from Latin which then - years later - severely curtailed my university choices Then being actually not considered as being university 'material' and then - the final indignity - being wrongly listed in the final school mag. (A slight that I only discovered this year!)
Headlands was not a happy place for me either. And for all the reasons you mentioned. Plus the fact that it was an atmosphere that allowed for and turned a blind eye to harassment and certainly never did anything about it.
I do remember you and actually thought you were in one of my classes - was it 3M? Do you have any school pics or did you shred them at the first opportunity?
Schools and teachers have a lasting impact of children. And not always for the good.
I'm so glad you wrote your comment. Thank you.
Dear Josie
Writing to you stirred up all the bad memories of Headlands and the regrets about not going to university. So my lovely new husband with his degrees in law and history said “well just do it now”. So I am. 73 years old and into my second year of a BA (hons) in History and English Literature. I am loving it and getting very good marks! So sucks boo yah to Magson !!
Lettie
Brilliant!
Good for him and good for you.
And Ya boo sucks! to all the naysayers.
This is just great to know! Thank you for taking the time to add this message.
And look! Here you are in 1U.
https://scontent.fphl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/143834345_10158494465717787_1707851509689311143_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=IC4LCLsjcLMAX9dt-Gh&_nc_ht=scontent.fphl1-1.fna&oh=b59d99037904707bba4644eb95946dbf&oe=61AD9C0C
I empathise with your experience. Indeed I find it a little alarming the creeping rehabilitation of Magson and his ilk (you know who you are).
'good intentions and dedication?' 'dedicated, hard-working and well-meaning?'. 'Even the worst of them?'. I'm afraid I don't agree - I think some of them were cruel and viscious, and it was they who enforced the school ethos. Thet had no empathy for the pupils; no love of their subject (at least they didn't imbue it in me) and no idea of the learning process. Discipline? Yes, but how much needed to be forced on 1U? Apart from me, and of course . . . . . . well, it wasn't many, anyway.
Talking of rehabilitation, nice to see that of Johnny Trueman: my recollection was that he was the school bully (behind Dave Simpson and Roddy Johns) but maybe I'm just bitter and twisted, because of (see below)
Lettie, it's not all bad news: I would've been much better off not going to University (there, I've admitted it), or at the very least having a year out (55 years is a bit OTT, I grant you but . . . . . . )
Blimey! The sooner this virus stuff is over, the sooner you'll have a rest from me!
Maureen it looks like we were at Headlands around the same time - I remember most of the teachers you mention...and their foibles...and Aggie Jacobs' perpetual dislike of the girls...she was in charge of the necessary accountrements of being female - some of the girls used "I've got to go and see Miss Jacob" as a nice excuse to get out of the classroom for ten minutes...I didn't get to have to do that - I left in the 4th year as we moved...Oh and the fabled General Book - still got mine somewhere...and you daren't leave a line empty...Great stuff!
Oh the memories flooding back - thanks so much for writing this...Teachers I'd forgotten...And the revelation that it wasn't just me who felt in the wrong place but had no means of explaining how I felt or of doing anything about it- starting off in !.A but ending up in the "bottom" stream (4.0 for me - even lower than the E stream - I always thought the middle stream was M...) This was indeed how you were treated:
"Call a class the top and treat them as headed for high achievement and they will have a better chance of success. Call them the bottom class and they will perform, and behave, accordingly. It’s why the so called bottom class was always full of such interesting characters – the defiant ones who resisted the system, the unruly rebels."
Spot-on, as were the "Microaggressions"...Aggie Jacob regarded me with hate and confusion (as well as innate superciliousness) - because I was always late, but I was top of the class in English (and only English - couldn't get my head round anything else), which was her subject, so she didn't know what to do with me.
I was unruly aka scruffy, but I wasn't an overt rebel. As Andy Pollock once wrote in my report "It isn't that she misbehaves, rather that she does nothing at all." That icy denouncement stayed with me for decades...I was considered "intelligent" and nobody could understand why I didn't do better. I think it was because, as you rightly say, some of us didn't conform and tick the right boxes so we were left on the scrapheap of the unconventional and the unfathomable. I've felt this my whole life and been labelled weird, eccentric, not-like-everyone-else...and just a few people have recognised that I'm really not like everyone else and respected me for it - I'm not some genius or anything more or less than a human being I just don't think the same way as most. That's probably why I went for art-related occupations and never fitted in anywhere. Had I been given credence for not fitting in and not made to feel guilty about it, perhaps I would indeed have done better.
I was born in Essex and passed my 11plus there - it was expected - nobody said Well Done or promised me a new bike - it was taken for granted...We moved to Swindon then with my Dad's job and I was at Headlands (chosen because it was "modern" unlike Commonweal which was apparently a better school but a bit old fashioned -?????) from 1958 to 1962 - so I left in the 4th year to move to Oxfordshire, again for my Dad's job. I desperately wanted to go to art school but not being university (hate that word uni) nurse material, I was told to get a secretarial qualification "to fall back on" because Art was considered wacky and unlucrative (a bit like me...)
It gave me quite a turn seeing those Three in the photo again...ke devils come back to haunt you...One example of Magson's verbosity was his use one year of the word "combustibles" for fireworks...And his description of those with long hair also spot-on for the attitude of the time - I was once turned down for a job because my hair was long...
One incident from those days came back with painful clarity. In the first week of term one year we made rock cakes...I think we took the ingredients in... Miss Woodruff wasn't prepared and didn't have anything for us to wrap them in to take home except newspaper. I knew beyond doubt that my mother would hit the roof if I turned up with anything edible wrapped in newspaper (the chip shop just wasn't in her realm of existence), so I quietly nicked two leaves of that precious classroom commodity known as "Block" - good lined paper, kept for Best....with which to cover the rock cakes before sullying them with the newspaper. Using Block for anything other than your Best Handwriting was a heinous crime and invoked detention for sure. So when I got home, never mind how I'd painstakingly made the rock cakes (mother was a superb cook so she didn't give them much attention anyway), she accordingly went apoplectic and promptly telephoned Magson, berating him for allowing this to happen. Magson calmly suggested the cakes be brought back to school so he could see them - he said he might even like to eat one, whereupon my mother said "Oh well if you don't mind eating something out of newspaper!" To which he told her she was being rude...I agreed...
So there I was standing outside his office next day, quaking in my shoes, partly from embarrassment at being made to give him this tatty package, but mainly fearing the wrath of the almighty over daring to pinch unauthorised pages of Block...I can't honestly remember what happened, I don't remember him berating me for using Block - probably he didn't even know the lower teaching orders were so draconian about it...!
Other things coming to mind - Miss Quartermain's outspokenness - she actually used the word Period - the girls coyly called it Being On....
I'm grateful for some things I learned - elementary French, which helped when I moved to France last year...Ma Charlesby had a dreadful accent and held my attention for about five seconds most of the time but some of it sank in...I couldn't do Algebra to save my life in tears every Tuesday, my clever Dad tying to help me and saying "It's easy..." no it darned well wasn't.
Does anyone remember the "BritishTrades Alphabet" - an annual magazine celebrating British industry and trade...It held a competition every year where you chose a trade and produced a "project" on it. I did that three times - nobody else seemed interested, yet that was something that caught my attention and I put a lot of work into it - which proves I could do things if they were presented in the right way....I got Highly Commended for my entries on Milk, Wheat and Photography...We had to go to the front in Assembly to get our certificates - only one other girl in the whole school did this too, her name was Gloria...So yes I was different and a bit nerdy - but I did't excel academically...
Something I gained from Assemblies was a love of singing - I'm not at all religious, in fact being Jewish the other Jewish kids told me I shouldn't be going into Assembly, but my parents were very liberal and left it to me...So I learned all the great tunes such as Jerusalem, Eternal Father, Hills of the North, Summer Suns are Glowing...I thought Assembly was a good way of bringing the whole school together and not least a way of catching your breath after the mad rush to get there in the morning (like I said, I was always late...)
Who remembers World Refugee Year - the school held a Talent Scheme where we were given half a crown to buy materials make things and sell them in aid of the Hungarian refugees - 1958 I think, so the second year. Mot people made sweets or toffee apples etc... me, being Different, chose an artistic path, and I bought rubber moulds of animals etc., and made plaster-of-Paris moulds painted and sold them round the neighbouring houses. I made the grand sum of about £3 10s (had to think how to write that!) My mother said "You've worked so hard on those you should keep 15 shillings of that money." "Oh no" I said "I can't, it's meant for the refugees". But she went on at me so I did, feeling very guilty. At school there was a prize for the person who made the most money. Had I not kept that 15 shillings I'd have won it....So that taught me that crime doesn't pay..!
I landed on the Headlands page when an old friend I'm still in touch with, told me about a photo - gave me quite a turn to see the old place again. A boy from my class I'd never spoken to (I was much too shy to talk to Boys at that time...), Liked a comment of mine and we've since had a nice chat on Facebook Messaging. I couldn't believe he is now 72...well so am I....
OK I've woffled long enough...great to read all this, and talk to kindred spirits...
Great memories. Thanks so much. "Combustibles" indeed. Great rock cakes story. It must have been Miss Woodruff who sent me for miss Jacob for refusing to cut up meat. And I remember Block for Best! And British Trades Alphabet - weren't we given it in the time after exams to help keep us busy and quiet?
Interesting that you were Jewish and while assemblies were innocuous enough I hope you were allowed to skip Religious Education with "Holy Joe" Holroyd. Both my brother and I remember his very open anti-Semitism. (His bigotry extended to Roman Catholics too. Quite appalling.)
I remember the talent scheme too although I don't think I came up with anything very creative or workable. Also the blankets for Oxfam phase when it was quite the thing for both girls and boys to stand around knitting away.
And those labels and comments made oh !so casually that stay with you for decades.
As a follow up to the talent scheme and Oxfam I think I can pre date them. In 1956 a large number of Hungarian refugees were housed at Wroughton airbase. I asked Magson if we could arrange a 'party' for them. He firmly told me that was not on but if someone wanted to hire the hall for such an event they should contact the Civic Offices. So I did and obtained written consent. I then asked the USAF commander if he could provide transport to and from the school which he agreed to do. To add to my mis-demeanour I went to every form asking if all pupils could bring some money on the Friday. I think I might have suggested that I had someone's consent to do this. The total raised I recall was over £50. Several teachers attended the party. On Monday I was called to Magson's study to explain my outrageous actions and why he I should not be expelled. I am not sure what I said but I was dismissed without punishment and told to chose 2 colleagues to walk with me to the nearest post office to bank the money.
Some months later Magson was the local preacher at the church I attended and after the service in as many words congratulated me on my initiative. He certainly was not all bad, I liked him
That's quite the story Mike. My brother Chris also remembered the time of the Hungarian refugees. I'm going to have to ask him about it.
I attended RI with everyone else...I don't recall Holy Joe Holroyd saying anything anti-semitic, though at that time, my parents didn't tell anyone they were Jewish in case of repercussions - it wasn't THAT long after the war...so maybe I was just used to that vibe...
I do remember one of his supposedly amusing expressions, getting us ready for our Eggshamandbacon...! PS I don't think the ham and bacon resonated with me either...we had both at home!.
Eggshamandbacon sounds like just a harmless and - when repeated endlessly - very tiresome - play on words.
The remark I most remember was his wondering why there was no synagogue in Swindon and making it quite clear that he considered this a good thing. My brother remembers something much worse.
And then there was his anti-Catholicism which was blatant and common.
By a pool in Tenerife sounds good? He's probably still there! Tried (hard) to find something I disagreed with but couldn't. Oh, okay then: you seem to regret the absence of 'support staff' - believe (as I do) that if you put a pair of crutches in a room, everyone starts limping, then the lack of psychobabble support is a positive good! Oh, and why does only Mr Pollock get a Christian name appended, oh, and (2) the only thing I remember about 'Chet' Wherry was that Lewis Hunt called him a wet cherry whereupon I laughed so much I got an impo!
I wasn't so much regretting the lack of support staff as noting that as a sign of the times as well as thinking about their work load. And I wouldn't call support staff crutches when it comes to giving all children what they need to succeed. Our ignorance about learning differences was staggering back in the day when we still caught up in the fraudulence of Cyril Burt's ideas about intelligence.
But on a more positive note - it was a time that valued its children enough to provide morning milk and a subsidized hot lunch which - while we all complained about it - was actually pretty good considering.
And it was Andy Pollock because that was how he was known. I have no idea if he was Christian.
I kicked up a big fuss about having to stay in for lunch but you're right, they weren't too bad...except if you didn't keep in withthe prefect a the head of the table you got the Skin on the Custard...yuk
Hmmm, my recollection (as a prefect) was that if you didn't keep in with your 'table' they would form a little gully of the plastic tablecloth and run water into your lap!
Sounds about right. Peace as a result of the art of balancing power .
I really enjoyed reading this! I was at Headlands from 1961 to 1968, one of 6 sisters who eventually all passed through its hallowed halls. So lovely to hear those familiar names of teachers long gone - though one or two remain, I believe. I look forward to reading more about them. And I think this is a very fair assessment of what our experience was like.
Carole King (nee Gough)
We overlapped for some of those years. The Gough name sounds very familiar.
I don't remember Headlands fondly but it's so easy to just blame and attack. It was a different time. And they did things differently. I want to be truthful to my memory and experience but also to try and understand and place things in context.
Thanks for the comment. I would be interested to hear any other thoughts you have on the other Headlands posts.
Reading this brilliant article stirred up more memories of my school time at Headlands. Before life in Swindon I originally lived in East Greenwich in London where I worked my backside off to pass my 11 plus. Not from an academic point of view but so I didn't have to go to either of the secondary modern schools in Greenwich or Charlton . They had reputations similar to the film 'Blackboard Jungle'. I therefore started at the Roan Grammar School on Blackheath but after a few months my parents sold the house in Greenwich and bought a shop in Swindon. So I had to move schools. For some unknown reason it was suggested that I went to Headlands rather than Commonweal which would have been nearer as we lived in Groundwell Rd. Anyway rather than put me in the middle streams and see if I went up or down I was placed in the bottom class. I never ever got out of that stream and as you rightly say we tended to live up to our reputation of being in the bottom set. For some one who was absolutely hopeless with my hands I was forced to do Woodwork and Technical Drawing rather than Economics and British Constitution. They were more akin to my interest in History and Geography. That plus my insatiable interest in all sporting activities led me to a school life of missed academic opportunities in exchange for representing the school at all levels of sport. In my first year however I was very interested in singing and theatricals. My first Christmas at Headlands culminated in me going carol singing with the choir around old town and ending up at Magson's house to serenade him and his family. I also participated in that year's school play which for some odd reason was set in the middle ages. Can't remember the plot but I was one of the crowd of peasants dressed in baggy tights. It was then decided that due to the period it was set in there would be Morris Dancing involved and I was press ganged into being a member much against my will. Not only did we have to perform this obscene and painful dance using wooden staffs but after the school play was over the idea was launched that the school set up a Morris Dancing club with us as the leading lights. This experience has left me with a lifetime hatred of anything to do with Morris Dancing or similar. It has also stretched to my hate of country dancing resulting from the enforced sessions in preparation for the annual school Christmas Soiree . Progressive Barn Dance and the Gay Gordon's always has stuck in my mind often danced with two boys due to a shortage of girls in my year. That together with the sight of 'Boss' Magson wafting through the school hall at morning assembly with his flowing gown hanging off one shoulder are etched forever in my memory . And they said that school days were the happiest years of your life.
Oh the joys of the Christmas Soiree...The girls would vie with each other to have the best "Swarry dress" and some precocious souls actually wore high heels...I've still got my dress - emerald green taffeta with white daisies round the edge. My mother made it...The girls lined up o one side of the hall, the boys on the other, and - well I used to quite enjoy the Dashing White Sergeant et al...held me in good stead for when you end up at a Barn Dance in your later years...
The 'swarries' were too socially excruciating for me to attend beyond the first year. But like you I remember the party dress - blue flocked -my mother bought for me along with some silvery slippery shoes. The first and last party dress I ever owned.
We were eleven years old playing grown ups and I hated it.
I remember there was some kind of hidden treasure game set up in the foyer where you stuck a pin in and the one nearest the treasure won some kind of prize. At least that was better than the dancing and compulsory social humiliation and rejection.