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| The
Old Prescotian presented a series of
individual memories. |
| Alan Jones [1938
to 1944] |
- Bobby
Bolton's talks in the air-raid
shelters on making chemical water
gardens
- The
tram from the Kings Arms to go to
Dovecot Baths,
- Winning
the Shield in 1944 but who did
score the four goals?
- The
long slide in the playground at
the first sign of frost.
- 'Juddy'
Hawthorne, often. "How many
blue beans make five ?
- School
meals - traditionally mocked -
considering the wartime
restrictions were splendid.
Particularly the jam tart and
custard,
- Sadness
and remorse during an Assembly
when Mr Briggs announced that Mr
Murray, a young teacher who had
been baited unmercifully with all
the cruelty of youth, had been
killed in action.
- Going
to watch the school football team
on Saturday mornings having first
bought some banana-split toffee
from the little shop in St.
Helens Road. I still buy
banana-split simply to evoke
memories of those halcyon days.
- The
400th Anniversary Speech Day at
the Lyme House cinema. Having
left school, I had to beg a
couple of hours off work to
receive my rather modest School
Certificate. The certificates
were not presented...
- Egg's
gown failing off one shoulder.
- The
expulsion of a boy caught
stealing souvenirs from an ME 109
on display outside Prescot
Council Offices during Wings for
Victory Week.
- Changing
into football gear in class.
- The
farm camp at Broughton, near
Preston on Farmer Bradley's duck
farm. Stuking corn was great fun
but any offence, however minor,
was punished by one having to
clean out the duck sheds which
contained droppings at least six
inches deep. We cycled from home
to the farm but about ten miles
from Preston we got a lift from a
lorry!
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| David Perkins
[1934 to 1943] |
- Charlie
Fennell, woodwork teacher,
"If you hold the chisel like
this, it is impossible to cut
yourself.... Run for the First
Aid box, someone!"
- 'Drugs'
Drewry counting off the lengths
or Dovecot Baths as a clutch of
hopefuls struggled towards their
25 Lengths Certificates.
- 'Richie',
gown billowing out behind him,
galloping across the yard to call
the tricycled Wall's ice-cream
salesman to bring his velocipede
from the road onto the field on
Sports Day
- The
mad-cap Founder's Day football
match, two houses v two houses on
a multi-pitch ground with staff
invigilators to count the goals
-PGS's answer to the Eton Wall
Game.
- Fondly,
Herbert Chant's parables of
'Empire History. "I knew a
man who went out to Australia in
the gold rush. He came back a
millionaire, ' He'd opened a fish
and chip shop at the diggings'.
- Stiff-backed
blue report books to take home,
marks and positions with
incentive remarks by the subject
teachers upstaged by the form
masters comment and finally the
Headmaster's assessment. Mine
often bemoaned my predeliction
for the field of sport to the
neglect of the academic.
- End
of term quizzes and general
knowledge tests, times of
relaxation, anecdotes and bits of
fun which like so many
time-honoured idiosyncracies
would soon be discontinued.
- The
private competitions after the
above to see who could drink the
most Tizer,
- Eddie
Wood's incomprehension that
anyone might not enjoy
mathematics.
- The
end of term examination results
pinned up on the class notice
board in the corridor for all to
see. The top and bottom three in
each case almost pre-ordained and
contentment.
- Struggling
under the netting and scaling the
huge wooden ramp liberally dusted
with french chalk in the Sports
Day obstacle race.
- The
Swimming Gala, like Sports Day, a
celebration of athletic prowess;
the long dive, swimming under
water, diving for plates all
alongside the traditional races:
an exercise in versatility which
gave everyone a chance.
- Scotty's
propensity with the board-duster.
Chant's unerring aim with a piece
of chalk.
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| John Anthem [1939
to 1947] |
- School
fees were £3. 9s. 4d. per term
(exclusive of books) for boys
from Liverpool.
- School
was open for juniors on Monday
and Tuesday mornings and
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
afternoons.
- Riley's
piano accordian in the air-raid
shelter.
- Being
paranoid about the need to carry
a gas mask to school since the
Germans would use that weapon.
- initiation
into the Mole club and the Bat
club which met respectively in
underfloor passages and among the
rafters.
- John
Waine and Noel Hawthorne were
ordained.
- The
final of the Secondary Schools
Shield Competition versus
Liverpool Institute ending in a
goal-less draw at Goodison Park
in 1944. And the replay there.
P.G.S. 4 Institue 0
- Mrs.
Carey's crispy pork and baked jam
roll.
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