The Prescotian

One of my favourite masters was “Eddie” Wood (whose son was in my form) and he performed his “party piece” towards the end of the Summer Term.You may be aware, that young schoolboys at that time wore under the blazer either a jersey or waistcoat or both. “Eddies” act was to remove the waistcoat from the selected schoolboy stood in front of the class, without taking off the boy’s blazer first. With much rolling up inside sleeves and rolling down inside sleeves, “Eddie”, with a flourish, would whip out the waistcoat from the amazed boy. The form, was suitably impressed, much to showman “Eddies” satisfaction but the main cause of satisfaction was that we had negotiated another period without pain or boredom and were a little nearer to the end of the school year.

As a little digression, I remember one of my brothers, who was 2 or 3 years ahead of me, passing to me a story that one mid afternoon, Les Oakes was called to the front of the form and told he should go home now as his house was on fire. He lived at the Wellington (the present one replaced it) and the conflagration could be observed from several windows on the playing fields side of the school. The incident took place in either 1934 or 1935.

Sports Day also springs to mind. In 1937, when I was fortunate enough to win the Victor Minorum, I recall with, some horror now, the Old Boys races. They simple stripped to their braces and with a little rudimentary handicapping for age, they went tearing down the straight. The race was won by Alan Welsby, who I think was then headmaster of St. Sylvesters in Huyton.

My horror referred to above, was because of all we have read in the intervening years about the inadvisability of 30, 40 and 50 year-olds putting themselves under such stress. Talking of Sports, one of the most enjoyable cricket fixtures we had when I eventually played in the School 1^st XI won the one with a team called Prescot Thursday. It comprised shopkeepers and other business people who were available on Thursday afternoons. They were affiliated to Prescot Cricket Club, which in those days, was sited along Warrington Road opposite the BICC canteen (now called the Prescot Leisure Centre) and backed on to the Railway.

One could only admire their approach to the game for a number of them were in their forties or fifties. Their attack was largely spin of one sort or another in which they were able to demonstrate their guile. Similarly, in their field if a ball was hit past the fielder there was no diving or dashing after it. If it became a boundary – “C’est le guerre” and the outcome would be a tweaking of the field placing.

Finally, another sporting memory refers to some years later when I played for the Old Boys soccer team. We had a fixture with the school and on this occasion, “Scotty” was keeping goal for the school. For the life of me I cannot conceive why H.M.S. was in goal for the school, but he was. During the game, I let fly from outside the area. The ball just missed “Scotties” head and he came charging up the field, not to compliment me on my shot, but to admonish me for kicking the ball so hard that he could have been injured. I stood there and took this uncalled for dressing down and it was only later that I realised that it was some years previously that I had been a pupil and was now an Old Boy of some years standing and could thus have given him a quick riposte!