| I
started very soon after the end
of the 1914-18 unpleasantness, my
father having been invalided out
just before the Armistice and I
have a quite vivid memory of my
interview with the formidable
'Richie'. My elementary education
had been purely and simply the
3R's and, although I was
completely unable to point out
Hull on that wall map behind his
desk, my high speed reading
turned the scale and I was 'in'.
He was, of course, a native of
Hull but was born for PGS of
which he was very proud - and he
made us proud of it, too. Woe
betide any boy going without his
school cap and tie in or out of
school hours, including weekends.
He did his best to persuade us to
call him 'Red lamp' but we stuck
rigidly to 'Richie' or, very
occasionally, 'Dick'.
His
Staff was all female. Dorothy
Huckle was a member of a local
family with a house in the middle
of Khowsley Park where Sunday
Tennis Parties were a feature.
Dora Hilburn was a pink and white
Durham graduate with a marked
tendency to blush at the
slightest embarrassment, e.g.
when Richie came into the room.
These two ladies stayed for quite
a long time after the men
appeared and Dora later married
Frank Bailey. After his death,
years later, she started a
private school which was very
much better than most of its
type. Miss EM Button, I remember
in the Assembly Rooms and
possibly in Harland's chip shop
next door to the pub at the
corner of Hope Street. The
remainder of the staff were the
Misses Dalglish and Gladys Ainge
who taught the classes from IVa
upwards - much to the delight of
the lecherous lot in Vb in the
case of the latter!
Physical
Training was taken by a tough but
pleasant type named, I think,
Jones who used to appear in a
blue and white soccer jersey
which, when asked, he said was
Reading strip. The Central Hall
in Chapel St was used for music
when Fred Stevenson came,
although his speciality was
Geography. 1 do not remember ever
doing the geography of England
but I was able to tell the
Americans quite a lot about the
USA when I went there in 1968.
'Wee Willie' Whitworth came back
from the War and is well
remembered for his oft-repeated
joke about the man who went to
Paris and complained bitterly
that he was never allowed to
board a tram going to COMPLET.
Herbert Chant was an early
arrival after the War and Dora
Milburn greeted him with a
tremendous blush when he cane for
his interview. I worked in London
for fifteen years and met his
son, John, on the tube but there
was not much time to talk. C L
Soar also arrived but I have a
feeling he died young. He was
different from the rest of the
staff in same ways and was very
popular with the boys. Joe
Hammond was a classical scholar
of the first order and a firm but
fair disciplinarian (although I
still do not know why he sent me
off the field when I stopped the
ball with my hand in a Founders'
Day match) incidentally, did PGS
invent Six-a-Side Soccer - do you
remember Soccer sixes?
Everyone
remembers Ernest Croft Wood - and
no wonder! He was understood to
have been on Bolton Wanderers
books as an amateur but, fact or
not, the older boys - even those
from rugby families took him to
their hearts. (ECW was, I think,
a Balliol man. Ed). JJ Robinson
was another pleasant type who
went to Tower College when he
retired. Others who arrived in my
time were Fred Bailey, JE
Hawthorne and George Drewry who
started swimming lessons and had
such to do with the establishment
of Sports Day.
I
could go on at length about my
particular friends and our fight
to have Rugby added to the sports
available, but I feel that I have
taken up enough of your tune, so
may I please plagiarise Lady
Godiva's words at the end of her
famous ride when she said,
"Thank God I have reached my
close."
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