|
|
|
| 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!
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
|
