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French for Beginners - 1963

" La famille Dupont est en salon."
BEEP! (or was it BONG!?)
" Voici Papa." BEEP!
" Voici Maman." BEEP!..........
...... " Mmmmmmm....J'aime le cafe chaud...."

1963 - SHOWERS!!!

1963 - Mid Sept. Monday afternoon. About 2.30 pm or thereabouts at the Harlequins sports ground. Around a hundred 11-year-old boys (including me) recently newly arrived at Cardiff High School from their former primary schools all over Cardiff now awaiting instruction in the playing of school rugby which they (we) would now be required to play there starting the following Monday afternoon for at least the duration of year one. A few boys, getting bored, explore the inside of one of the two changing rooms there. They spot - a large open room with lots of water pipes and other plumbing liberally distributed around this room, splashes of water on the floor and lots of tiles. The word spreads like wildfire around the rest of the assembled boys, repeated from boy to boy with mixtures of alarm, disbelief, resignation or anticipated mischievous delight - SHOWERS!!! - soon confirmed by a (then) unknown teacher's voice. " Yes boys, you've all got to have showers!"

My reaction?.......Wot, all of us, like?.......Together?.. .....At the same time?.......IN THE NUDDY? ....... But all the other boys will see my......! They'll all laugh at me......(It's not very b...)

" No, please sir! Not me sir! "

" Yes, you sah! "

My worst nightmare had arrived!!!

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Student teachers - Lynn Davies (1964) (Geography)

Was once told (allegedly) to 'go take a running jump', and duly did so - of 8.07 metres to be exact, and won an Olymic Gold medal doing it. Respect!

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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1964-68 - 'Jack' Hurley (Maths/ Engineering Science)

In the four years (64-68) we came into contact, he put me in detention for not doing my homework more times than all the other teachers put together ten times over. But I don't resent a single one of them! He was the most conscientious teacher there that I had dealings with, determined to make a very lazy me work by constantly prodding me into action, including the use of those detentions, 'cos he knew I, and others too in his class, were capable of much better things (and he didn't get the easy, brainy, hard-working pupils, did he.) I owe him a lot. I would never have passed my Maths and Engineering Science O levels without his work with me. A lesser teacher would have washed his hands of me and let me fail them, but not Jack. And he didn't belt me across the face once, unlike some other teachers we could all name, even though I must have given him cause to many times. He left the same year I did (68). Last I heard, he was teaching Art (of all things!) in Fitzalan High School. Apparently, from a girl I knew later who went there, he was quite a good amateur artist, and used to have his paintings exhibited. Now I bet that's a side of him many of you were unaware of. At least, that's what I was told, although I see a maths teacher called Mr Hurley turned up at my brother's old school, Bishop of Llandaff, in the mid 70s. Is this him, by any chance? A couple of descriptive memories tally, except the bit about him jumping up and down! I don't think Jack did much of that!

I'd love to meet him again, even if it's just to push him round in his wheelchair at some old folks home. Is he still around? Anyone know where? And if you're reading this, Jack, thanks, (and please get in touch.)

 

(Ray Aldridge)

Absent Friends - Clive Washington

Apparently, Clive Washington (entry year 1963) is no longer with us. I'd like to share this memory I have of him with you all, if I may. I can see him now, in that Portacabin-like classroom extension that we occupied in Form 1C of 63/64, leading what must have been at least half the class in breaktime, in a communal singsong and associated rhythmic 'stomp' with that sixties pop classic 'Bits and Pieces' by the Dave Clark 5. You know the one - "I'm in Pieces... Bits and Pieces..." Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! God, the noise that made! Must have been able to hear it in Bristol!

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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BANG!!!! - (1964)

Kids today have no idea of the mischief their parents (or grandparents!) got up to thirty, or forty, years ago, have they lads! Just as well! A case in point:

Confucius he say boy who plays with miniature replica antique cap-firing toy pistol at back of class (Form 1C of 63/64) instead of writing essay he was told to (or whatever it was that kept us all dead quiet that afternoon in Colin Richard's English lesson) should not be suprised if it goes BANG!!!! unexpectedly, and boy gets detention as a result! Ring a bell with anyone (especially a part-time farmer and bee-keeper now living in Abergavenny)?

 

(Ray Aldridge)

______________________________________________________________________________                1964 - "Let us pray."

Do you remember the first occasion you attended that annual church service the school held on the morning of 'Speech Day' at St John's Church in Cardiff City Centre?

I bet that most of you (I certainly did) spent a good ten minutes before the service started, as you sat in your pew, trying to figure out what that cushion thing was for, slotted on the back of the pew in front of you, before deciding that it must be for old ladies to rest their chilblained or arthritic feet on!

And then, a few minutes into the service, when the vicar said " Let us pray ", there was a strange rumbling sound, wasn't there, and before you could say " The 'Cowper-Temple' clause ", you were still sitting there, now on your tod, thinking " Where's everybody gone? ", before becoming aware that everyone else were now on 
their knees on the floor, so you joined them, somewhat bemused, and whispered to the boy next to you " What are we all looking for? Has 'arf a dollar dropped from the collection plate? "

(Ray Aldridge)_______________________________________________________________________   Rev. Roy Richards (R.I.) - 1964

" Please sir, what's a harlot? " he was once asked, straight up, by a rather naive and completely innocent (ignorant?) twelve-year-old, without a trace of irony or mischievous knowing malice, as the class studied the Old Testament version of the siege of Jericho. (read it up in Joshua chapters 2 and 6, if you don't know, or have forgotten, it. Like something out of an Alistair MacLean novel).

His rather hesitant reply , " Oh ... er... a woman of easy virtue. " left me none the wiser. (And who else could it be! I should have asked the couple of boys who I heard sniggering at the back of the class when I asked it. They seemed to know. Can't remember now who they were exactly, but have got a good idea. It wasn't just the staff that imparted important information to me in those days!)

(Ray Aldridge)

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Dr Green (Music) - 1964

During one music lesson, he gave me sixpence for correctly identifying the two different tunes he was playing simultaneously on the piano. I can't see teachers doing that sort of thing today. (They'd get arrested!)

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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Mrs Yeo - Chemistry

Too old when my year group first met her to exite any of us, but a lovely woman all the same.

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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I simply must challenge the view expressed elsewhere that he was 'boring'. No he wasn't. I think that other chronicler was confusing the message with the messenger. Yes, occasionally the SUBJECT MATTER could be boring, but many of us boys found an easy way around that, with, I suspect in hindsight, a little secret connivance from Doug himself. Doug was never a one to let the syllabus or topic for the day tie himself down too much, or cramp his style, so, with a little mischievious prompting from one or two of us when the subject matter did get somewhat uninspiring, (say Iron-Age forts), Collingwood's disposition of forces at the Battle of Trafalgar might suddenly appear on the blackboard, with Doug's suggestion that perhaps if the French fleet had had radar fitted, things might have been different! One very popular diversionary tactic such as this that never seemed to fail was anything about Henry VIII. Good for at least a 20 minute unscripted exposition from Doug, AJP Taylor style, with Henry's six wives offering six variations on a theme, with us lot of twelve/thirteen year-olds crossing our fingers in the hope of some 'News of the World' style content (a periodical my mum still wouldn't let me read!). Well, Henry's life story was about marital infidelity, after all. ("Please sir, what's 'non-consummation of marriage' mean?"). But on the syllabus or not, it was all history wasn't it, lads, so who exactly was actually getting the wool pulled over their eyes?

He had more hyperactive nervous energy than any three of us boys in his class combined. He didn't just enter a room; he charged in. He was merciful when assessing the marks obtained in his notorious fortnightly tests. (Remember them? 10 mins for a quick revision, something like 50 questions asked, marked, counted, and the - infrequent - punishments handed out all in about 45 minutes. Yes, I know lessons only lasted 40, but what's a few minutes overun between friendly staff!) You really had to score very low indeed - something like below 20% - before he'd put you in detention.

But he was more than just a history teacher to me. Doug's lessons were my first taste of the early sixties satire movement, with his telling comments on some recent political event or an aspect of British life in general, which, I thought, were as funny as anything that could have been heard at the time in 'Beyond the Fringe', or on 'TW3', or printed in 'Private Eye'. Halfway through our two year acquaintance (1963-65), the Conservative government was thrown out of office after '13 years of Tory misrule'. I recall that this enabled Doug to add a certain piquance to his observations, when he now frequently tacked on the end of them, the final remark " I suppose that is part of our new style of government " which became a sort of catch-phrase of his for a while.

He never talked down to us. To him, I'm sure we weren't just boys, or even his pupils, but a cross between first-year University undergraduates and an audience at the 'Establishment Club', the leading centre for sixties satire at the time. That he considered us intelligent enough to understand his satirical jokes by taking the trouble to make them in the first place gives an indication of how highly he must have regarded us all, even though most of us weren't even teenagers yet.

I, for one, hung on his every word, sometimes, admittedly, for dear life as he dictated notes (notoriously) almost as fast as he could speak.

Sadly, 'Doug' died very recently. (19th April 2002). I'm sure I speak for many of his former pupils when I say I will always treasure the memories of his entertaining classroom eccentricities which brightened up considerably what can otherwise be quite a dry and uninspiring subject. It was a pleasure being taught by him, and my life has been enriched by seeing him in action.

Thanks 'Doug', for an unforgettable, interesting and entertaining two years - sore wrists an' all!

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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I recall hanging from the wall bars, frequently, on Ivor Jones's orders. I was never quite sure whether this was a punishment or a misguided attempt on his part to make me grow a bit (well, I was the smallest boy in the school EVER), concluding with his own version of 'Capstan Drill' thrown in for good measure! After seeing me naked in the showers (do you remember that 'parade' he made all us boys do in our 'birthday suits' in front of him the first time we showered after gym?), he could well have thought I could do with all the help I could get!

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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The B.C.G - 1965

Having the B.C.G in the Balance Room. Remember that? Two teams, weren't there - one on the right using two hypodermic syringes, the team on the left using two skin-test type things like we were used to having in junior school occasionally, only slightly bigger.

None of us needed to be Dr Kildare to figure out which was likely to be the (much) more painful, as these were the days before the polio 'sugar lumps', and we all had painful memories of the polio jabs we had in junior school. And these hypodermics for the B.C.G were much bigger than them. GIA-bleedin'-NORMOUS, with needles to match!

Well I don't know about anyone else, but that morning I was promising God anything to be called over to the team on the left, rather than the right; that I'd be a good boy for my mum (an empty promise since wasn't I always? - stop laughing!); that I'd say my prayers again every night before I went to sleep (hadn't done that for ages); that I'd do 'Jack' Hurley's maths homework on time from now on (you drive a hard bargain, God, but I'm almost at the front of the queue now, so I'm not in a position to argue); that, for a while anyway, I'd lay off 'beating the meat' ....(now hang on. I'm getting ahead of myself here. At thirteen years old I knew nothing about that sort of thing yet, and certainly wasn't doing it then!).

Anyway, the last boy in front of me gets called over to the team on the left (lucky bugger!). I'm now at the head of the queue and have a perfect view of the poor sod getting his second jab with a hypodermic from the doctor on the right. It's Martin Dutt. And how do I know it's Martin's second injection?

'Cos the first hypodermic is still stuck in his arm! In fact, IT'S JUST STICKING OUT ON IT'S OWN NOW, HANGING THERE LOOSE, WITH NOBODY HOLDING THE OTHER END OF IT! Bloody hell!! How long's that thing been stuck in there like that? And how much longer is it going to be before the doctor takes hold of it again and pulls it out?

My schizophrenic legs suddenly acquire minds of their own and are now arguing between themselves as to what they should do. One wants to buckle under me, the other wants to turn round and flee! But I remain motionless as I need their unanimous agreement before I can do anything. And as for my bladder.........oh why didn't I have a 'slash' in breaktime.  I think I'm going to have a little 'accident'!

I see the needle in Martin's arm now bending and wobbling with the weight of the syringe. If it bends any more, it'll snap! And.....his poor flesh is bending and contorting with it! (Jesus, that looks painful!) And.....and.....that doctor's going to be doing that to me in a minute, 'cos I'm next!! And.....and.....and.... .OOOOOOOOOOOOH MUMMY, PLEASE COME AND TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS 'AWFUL PLACE'!!!

" Over here, lad. "

Wassat??!!

" Come on, we haven't got all day! "

It's the doctor on the left! And he's talking to me!! HE'S BECKONING ME OVER!!! My prayers have been answered!!!! I forgot the team on the left can do it much quicker with that skin-test thing than the hypodermics!

My legs stop arguing, and I step smartly over to him before someone else with an eye for the 'main chance' steals my place. Bleedin' 'ell! That was close!

Two quick stabs - OW! -  still bloody hurt mind, but not as much as those hypodermics, I'll be bound! Wonder who the poor git is who will be taking Martin's place. I hope it's #########. Serve him right for getting everyone to call me 'Stumpo'! Anyway, it ain't bloody me, that's the main thing. Ha Ha!

 

"Happy days are here again........"  Only got my O'Levels to worry about now, and that's a loooooong way off!


[Historical note. To this day I can't believe I saw that hypodermic just stuck in Martin's arm on its own like that, for, I guess, at least a minute, but I'm sure I did. Did anyone else see something similar when they were waiting in line? Martin tells me he has no memory of any of this, but he couldn't see what I could see! I still have nightmares about it. He was certainly a braver boy than I could ever have been. If that doctor had been a bit quicker and motioned me to take Martin's place, I think they both would have had to pick me up off the floor first! Apparently, one of our number - sadly no longer with us - DID faint. Perhaps he saw what I saw, but wasn't as lucky. It was no disgrace, Colin, honest!]

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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Does anyone in Form 2B of 64/65 (or was it Form 3B of the following year?) remember that extraordinary gym lesson we had with him when, arriving late and finding us all engaging in a mini-riot in the changing room, he decided to punish us all by making us each stand motionless in the gym with our arms outstretched for what remained of the lesson, while he berated us one by one, as our increasingly aching arms drooped and then fell to our sides with exhaustion? It's just as well the school inspectors didn't pay a sudden visit, or they would have wondered what on earth was going on! I don't think telling them we were pretending to be trees would have sufficed. We weren't in the infants anymore! Still, beats being whacked across the arse with a dap, something he appears to have done with an earlier class some years previously. Did he mellow in his old age, or was he warned off ? I suspect the latter.

 

I have fond memories of many of the teachers at the school, even of those that punished me on occasions. None, I'm afraid, of Ivor Jones. He gave 'short-arses' like me a bad name. A real nasty piece of work; a man whose blatant hostility to boys was genuine. Sorry, but that's the way I see it, and I bet I'm not alone.

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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Noyes Fludde - 1966 " Wot?! Ten bob to see 'Noyes Fludde'?! You've got to be joking!"

(Ray Aldridge)

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David Maland (headmaster - from 1966)

I wonder if he can pronounce 'Abertillery' correctly now? And the whacking he gave me in his study when I was in the fourth form didn't hurt much, nor, I think, did he intend it to. Nice man.

(Ray Aldridge)

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1966 - School satchels

Ah! - a fondly remembered icon from a golden age long passed. Very useful for carrying a small vacuum flask of hot tomato soup for your dinner, or the latest copy of 'OZ', or for smuggling past your mum when you got home that paperback edition of 'Male and Female Sexual Deviations' that was going the rounds of form 4 (?) in 66/67. (Yellow cover, black typeface I seem to recall. I think I got it from Andrew Vicary. I noticed that some of the pages were stuck together. Did it ever find its way back to its original owner, whoever he was?)

Useful also for transporting your exercise books from school to home and back again. In my case, the trip was usually just a one-off, and one way:-

" Where's your homework, Aldridge? "..... " I left it at home, sir! "..... " Detention next Tuesday, Aldridge! "....." Yes sir! " (and a happy Christmas to you and your good lady wife an' all, sir!).

But they also became a godsend during a certain period in an adolescent boy's development, didn't they, lads (don't be embarrassed - it was all perfectly natural and a part of growing-up!) when, pushing the satchel hanging from its strap from our side to the front of our body, we felt we could now safely get up from our bus seat and take that long walk past the other bus passengers facing us, down to the back of the bus to get off, confident that the shape of what now felt like a three-foot flagpole "down there" we had suddenly unwillingly acquired a few minutes earlier that we were parading was, in the interests of decency and to save our blushes, concealed from view, no one else any the wiser, we hoped!

I wonder how the few with briefcases rather than satchels coped with that problem?

 

[Historical note. It started happening to me from almost the first day past my fourteenth birthday, and always just as the bus got to the top of St Mary Street. It must have been the sight of the towers of Cardiff Castle, with their suggestive thrusting phallic overtones!]

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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1967 - Raymond Jones (Music)

Come on, own up. Who 'nicked' his Stockhausen LP from out the Music room? (And it wasn't me!)

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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One of the 'wallop across the face' brigade, as I can painfully recall. (Its two leading members, as everybody who was there knows, being Ivor Jones and Fletcher - and a right sadistic pair of bastards they were). There was a lot of that sort of thing going on at Cardiff High School at the time - almost a daily occurrence. All against the rules and highly illegal.

 

Mr Price was apparently known as 'Spiv'. I say 'apparently' as I never called him that, nor knew of anyone else calling him that while I was there. His idea of a 'history' lesson was to turn up fifteen minutes late, then say to us " Copy down what I'm writing on the board, " as he proceeded to chalk up on the blackboard some tome all in block capitals at a truly phenomenal rate (must have been the only person in the school who could have kept up with 'Doug' Riddell's dictation speed!) for about ten minutes, and then leaving us to copy it down in our notebooks while he went back to the staff room, presumably to resume his 'fag' (more likely a small cigar in his case, I think) and cup of tea.

 

Some years later, I underwent some training as a telegraphist. I ended up transcribing reams and reams of five letter code groups being sent at 20 'words' a minute in morse code, which is quite fast. I suddenly experienced a distinct case of 'deja vu' as I did so, as here I was, writing block capitals at a phenominal rate, just as Mr Price did! I found out later that he won a DFC in the war. I wonder if he was a radio operator on a bomber or similar at some stage? That might explain things!

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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1967 - School Medicals

The school medicals conducted in the 'Balance Room'. Remember them? My last one (aged almost 16) was really embarrassing. Already stripped to the waist, I was measured and weighed by the young(?) nurse. She then told me to take my trousers off now as well, ready to be examined, wearing just my underpants, by the (male) doctor (and we all remember what his examination included!). Quickly pulling my trousers down, I realised almost at once (but not quite quickly enough!) that something was wrong as my bum and a couple of other bits of me suddenly felt quite unexpectedly cold.....Er.. Unfortunately.... my underpants had decided to take the same downward trip as my trousers, (I'd underestimated what I was actually pulling down, hadn't I!), and for what seemed to me like an age before I was able to restore my modesty, the nurse got an eyeful of something I wouldn't let even my mum see anymore. Oh dear, and we hadn't even been introduced! (The doctor's subsequent examination of those same body parts of mine was quite cursory. He'd probably seen enough already!)

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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Vicomte di Villa - 1968. English

Rather a mysterious figure, I thought, who arrived almost at the end of my sojourn at the school. Claimed to be a member of the Portugese aristocracy fallen on hard times, and used to regale us with strange tales of everyday life under the then Portugese dictator, Dr Salazar, almost unknown outside Portugal at that time. I think I learnt more about that country from him than any geography teacher I had, and when things got very interesting politically there in the seventies, I hit the ground running.

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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1901 - 1970. Roath Branch Public Library

A round of appreciative applause, gentlemen, for the long-suffering staff at Roath Public Library for putting up with our boisterous, (and occasionally - dare I say it - rowdy) behaviour for all those years. (I wonder if they've still got those bound copies of 'Boys' Own Paper' on the shelf?)

[Historical note. Was I the only one that used its location as a very convenient explanation as to why I would be late home after doing yet another detention? " Er.... I'll be late home today, mum. I'll be ...er.... going over the library across the road from the school to do some research for my ...er... geography project. " It's a wonder I didn't end up with a nose 8 ft long, the times I used that lie! My mum never twigged! Just as well, otherwise my arse and the flat end of her wooden 'mixing' spoon (with her holding the other end of it) would have collided with considerable force at 200 miles an hour far more often than it otherwise did!

In fact, I was usually up on the detention deal when I played this 'underhand' card as my mum usually gave me some money to buy some pasties from that pasty shop in Clifton Street for me dinner. I'd spend half of it on that, and use the rest to buy pop in breaktime for the rest of the week! Nice one, Mr Hurley. Same time next week? (It usually was!)]

 

(Ray Aldridge)

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