Bailey was quietly spoken, austere, and looking back probably a shy and private man.  He had a passion for History, teaching British History with a strong emphasis on the social and economic apsects of historical processes. Bailey was a tank of a man, solidly built and one had the feeling he could do serious damage if aroused.  Perhaps this, combined with his manner and demeanor meant that he rarely found it necessary to become angry.  Maybe once a year or even less one boy received a single wallop on the backside with the blackboard duster, the door to the corridor carefully opened first to receive the propelled body; the message was not lost on us.  Whereas others raised their voices, Bailey became quiet.  'Five lines' - pause- 'the next boy who talks;'  no one did!  Impossible to imagine anyone else saying that with such an effect.  For the last lesson of each term FAB would read aloud sections of humourous verse.  The incongruity of this intense man staring straight ahead without a hint of humour in his face while reading hilarious verse stays with me.

In the third form we frequently learned by having 'questions round the class' in which we took it in turns to address questions, and then took the place of the person who was unable to respond correctly.  He was a mine of information and was always careful in giving his assessments of events. The idea of serious debate and the stress on marshalling evidence seriously impressed me, and looking back it was my first experience of a genuine scholar at work.   Bailey took you seriously;  the issue was the important thing, not the age or the particularities of the person raising it.  He was an historian of note and a regular contributor to the professional journals.

Frank Bailey was interested in Local History.  For a person brought up in the era of Clapham and Ashton, social and economic history was happily focused on the North of England as the cradle of industrialisation. Throughout his teaching years Bailey pursued this interest in the local community with such topics as the Court Leet system of Prescot, the watch industry, and so on.  He created and ran the School Local History Society, and held a one class a week mini course in the subject without tests or exam. He was also a strong supporter and driving force of the Prescot Local Historical Society. Bailey was a driving force behind, and major contributor to the PGS Quatercentenerary volume of 1944.

The teachers who were at PGS in the late 30's and 40's were for the most part extremely able and well trained people.   Bailey had an MA from London University at a time when degrees, including higher degrees  were not given out with the breakfast cereal. They brought with them a culture of thought and learning which did not always sit easily with the down to earth orientations of Prescot, where practical matters were understandably far more real than 'airy-fairy notions.'  As do many like me I owe them and the School a great deal.   Frank Bailey, for ever 'FAB' in the minds of the boys now men he taught, provided me with a role model, and as the years have gone by I have come to appreciate his work and his influence enormously. Bailey died while still relatively young in the 1950s while at the height of his intellectual powers.  I wish I could tell him the difference he made.