I've never been sure why Heywood was known as 'Monkey Town' ... it just was. Some apparently related it to local pub stools having holes in the seats (so that Heywoodites had somewhere to stow their tails) while other, kinder, folk reckon that it may have been a consequence of dialect in that a then well known Heywood feature 'Heap Bridge' would have been pronounced "Ape Bridge" in the mid Nineteenth Century. In any event, Monkeytown it was and I found myself at its esteemed (?) seat of learning, Heywood Grammar School, in the Autumn of 1960.
It's a sad fact that HGS is easily forgotten. The building itself, of no great architectural merit it must be conceded, was demolished years ago, the honour board for Nobel Prize winning alumni must have escaped my attention, and in hindsight the school's complete lack of interest in conventional memory aids like school or class photographs boded ill for posterity in general and we of the Alzheimer generation in particular.
Official photography was not the only sacred cow to be condemned to the abattoir at HGS; school uniforms, teachers gowns (with one notable exception!), organised sports - all could muster only lukewarm support at best. This is not to say that any of this appeared to be the intended result of a consciously progressive policy. Rather, the appearance was of a somewhat resigned air of indifference to anything that smacked of extra effort or a need to 'organise'.
And yet it would be quite wrong to suppose that HGS did not achieve results. There's a thesis in this for someone but, for all its lack of structure, somehow or other HGS constantly put into the world well rounded, high achieving and - critically - upbeat young men and women. Even those of shall we say 'modest' academic achievement seemed to benefit from the immersion and very few, I would suggest, left HGS with any serious feeling of relief or animosity. To the teaching staff - little appreciated and often demeaned at the time - must go enormous credit.
But this little essay is not meant to be an institutional hagiography or history; the intent is to reflect on the life and times of one insignificant particle in this strange admix of anarchy and academics. I could, and probably shall, grab at random fleeting memories as they come to mind, but I'll at least attempt to give the ramble a little structure by looking at my remembered experience year by year. I've recently come across two dust-covered compilations of term-by-term School Reports. I'll only use selected extracts below but if anyone wants a laugh the complete reports can be accessed by clicking on the extract.
The photograph above is of significance in at least two respects. On an early visit to Rochdale Police Headquarters I was obviously singled out as 'the pupil most likely' and though I can't begin to remember what the Officer applying the 'cuffs was saying to me, I fear it may have been along the lines of "You might want to get used to this, you little bastard". So far so good, incidentally, but equally significant is the fact that this is the only picture I can find, from literally thousands held by the family, that show any vestige of the HGS School Uniform! Now this is most unfair on my dear late Mother. I well remember the shared pride on the day we went out to buy that potentially splendid apparel. There was this tailor's or outfitter's shop at the crest of a hill in Littleborough and I've no doubt my little heart must have been fair thumping with excitement at getting a fitting for the black and red blazer and matching cap. We may even have bought a pair of long pants at the same time .... but I think I would have remembered wetting myself with glee had that been the case. Sadly as already related, on Day One at HGS, uniform stood out like a burqua at a nudist camp and by the time I'd convinced Mum to let me rejoin main-stream HGS society there was still a lot of wear left in it.
Reverse sartorial elegance was not the only challenge in the step-change from Primary to High School. Even endurance came into it. New arrivals were first sorted by age and, as was to be my fate throughout life, the timing of my birthday (later trumped by the tyranny of the alphabet) saw me assigned to Class 1A - the youngest. This in turn condemned me to a year in 'The Outer Hebrides', as the overflow demountable classrooms about a quarter of a mile from the main school building were known. I can't honestly remember a lot from that first year, except for our teacher as he heroically sallied forth one day, half-brick in hand and ears steaming, to do battle with a group of louts from a rival school nearby, whose taunting had gradually escalated to stone throwing. Not after this human battle tank had shown his true colours.
One truly life-changing event to flow from my time in Class 1A, however, was the assumption of a new identity. I've been known as "Wally" Warrington for so long now that its origin is clouded by the mists of time but I've always said that it stemmed back to Year One at HGS. I even have a name for the bestower of my new moniker: Alan Booth. The mental image I have is of Alan being asked one day "Who's that lad sat next to you?" and he would have answered "Warri". At least, he would have answered "Warri" had he not had a slight speech impediment, so instead he answered "Wally" and 'Wally' it's been ever since. I guess it beats "Dickhead".
Second Form - funnily enough - followed the First. Followed in the sense that my specific memories of it are few but a number of events happened around this time, and quite probably during 'Second Form'. One is that we started learning French. I've always wished I had a greater natural talent for languages, not least in agreeing with von Goethe that "Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own". Sadly it wasn't to be and the warning signs were there early when I misread a word and brought the Class to its collective knees with the insight that "The cleaner needed a long pole to open the widow". I probably enhanced my seminal reputation as the Class comic by claiming to have done it on purpose .... but the truth is less palatable.
Also, whilst still on the subject of palatability, it must have been around this time that I finally convinced Mum that she'd soon be burying a skeleton if I didn't get off 'School Dinners'. I think we'd probably both been a bit apprehensive about the nutritional consequences of the change in schools. At Dearnley I'd always either run home for lunch ("Dinner" in the vernacular) or, more often, nipped down to Aunty Olive's place. Neither of these were options when I graduated to HGS so the default was the dreaded 'School Dinners'. I'm sure I've tried very hard to forget everything about those dreaded hours spent on long wooden benches at bare trestle tables, staring at the powdered mashed potato, loosely disguised entrails and stewed 'stuff' (that turned out to be things called 'vegetables' - though being outside my sole experience to that time of baked beans, mushy peas, or the occasional half carrot, I couldn't quickly see the connection). If so I've largely succeeded but, in fairness to the 'caterers' (surely on a pre-release work experience scheme from some local nick) I do have slightly fond memories of some of the 'Puddings'. That's what probably kept me alive, albeit with my growth stunted to the point where an alternative to "Wally" for a while was "Titch". I'm sure the discussion with Mum would have been as strained as the family budget, and serious though must have been given to the price of a funeral as opposed to 'Dinner Money', but somehow or other we settled on Half-A-Crown a day (to include the two-way busfares). Elsewhere I make mention of the doors later opened by this unprecedented turn of fortune.
The Third Form wrought many changes. By this time we erstwhile denizens of the Outer Hebrides, were definitely elevated to 'main school' status and choices had to made; Arts or Science, Woodwork or 'Painting'? Actually, with regard to the latter choice, there was a further option - 'Domestic Science' but throughout the annals human history to this time 'Domski' had been of relevance only to the Girls. I suppose it's testament to the progressive outlook of HGS that when one male (I believe his name was Mark Thompson) surprisingly expressed a first preference for 'Domski' he was interviewed by the cognisant Domski Teacher and accepted. His example was quickly followed by two more of the Y chromosome persuasion, me being one of them. It wasn't that I yearned to cook or sew, nor even that I harboured designs on the prospective class mates (especially not Mark), no, the attraction of 'Domski' was that it would save us from the tender ministrations of Mr 'Chisel' Halstead. Not that there was anything untoward about Chisel, it's simply that he was not renowned for his sense of humour and after I'd been (quite rightly) knocked back as a prospective domestic God(ess) my bruised knuckles soon bore graphic witness to the belated welcome he gave my fellow would-be escapee and me. One of Chisel's habits was to walk up and down between the serried ranks of woodwork benches, twirling a short piece of 'Two-by-One' and if the all-seeing eyes in the back of his head caught you having a bit of a smirk with a mate he'd casually rap you across the knuckles with a backhanded flip of his bit of wood as he sauntered back past. Following in these particular footsteps of Jesus, my carpentry skills turned out to be not too bad after all. I soon learned not to beggar about in class and I ended up with a quite presentable book trough and foot stool. I'm not sure what Mark got out of his Domski apart from a reputation as someone destined to favour pastel colours and collect Judy Garland records.
It would also have been about now that I had my first brush with the darker side of life. For a start, a small clique of us somehow or other found ourselves in the grip - mentally and often physically - of a couple of bullies. I may be doing someone a disservice if I say that I recall names like 'Entwhistle' and 'Marshall' but in any event this ugly twosome gained ascendancy over our souls and for a time made life a bit miserable. I personally was never physically harmed, and neither to the best of my knowledge were the other two or three, but the perpetrators were older and bigger than us and threat was always certainly there if we didn't do as we were told. Looking back 'doing as we were told' seems mildly ridiculous and generally consisted of taking time off class to go down to Queens' Park a couple of miles away, there to while away an hour or so doing things like fishing in the lake or hiring a canoe. This manipulation ended either of its own accord or when one of my mates (possibly Harry Statham - a tough little rooster) made to knock the block off the less imposing of the evil duo.
Another curious episode, with lasting effects, occurred during that school year. The class was beggaring about, prior to a lesson in the basement Biology Lab and I was silly enough to be wearing a school scarf. Before I knew it, the ends of the scarf had been grabbed and pulled hard in opposite directions by a couple of classmates. The natural consequence was that I quickly found myself choking to death. My attempts to signal the extent of my distress (I couldn't make a sound, other than a strained gurgle, of course) were treated as all part of the fun. I literally passed out and perhaps it's just good fortune that someone must have realised that I wasn't joking and they released me. I don't know for how long I was unconscious - probably not long - but I have never, to this day, forgotten the horrible helpless feeling of being strangled.
Fourth Form, in remote hindsight, seems very much like an 'inbetween year'. At age 14 you're sort of growing out of being a true 'kid' but the hormones haven't really kicked in with a vengeance yet. I suspect I was beginning to feel a bit left behind in the growing up stakes compared with some of my classmates but the fact that you could get cigarettes in packs of five meant more to me in terms of the opportunity for a little erotic origami than any desire to be part of the 'in crowd' puffing away in the dark recesses of the bike shed. A few minutes of well placed tearing and folding of the empty packet and you had a little cardboard bloke who sprang a raging erection when you tugged at his heels and his head. I guess some folk still do.
I think it might have been in Fourth Form when my long suffering knuckles received another hardening up, this time from our Latin teacher, "Lulu". Lulu was 'nicely built' and was one day sporting a dress with a rather daring vertical split at the decolletage. A rare burst of sunlight that day happened to be falling on my left wrist and thus on my watch face and in a literally dazzling display of hand-eye co-ordination I found I could manoeuvre the spot of reflected sunlight quite well. Too well for Lulu's liking, and the next time she sauntered past my desk she showed off her own dexterity, and chaste leanings, by cracking me over the offending phalanges with her 12 inch ruler.
Not a lot else stirs in the memory from 1964 but I note in passing that the progression from Third Form to Fourth also saw a regression from a heady third place in the class to a much less impressive 24th. Maybe the dilemma of the 'between years' was having more effect than I'd first thought.
Now Fifth Form in the nineteen sixties is where school got a bit serious. Fifth Form was the year of the make-or-break 'O Levels'. Students typically didn't 'repeat' and so, depending upon how you did in your 'O Levels', so depended to a large extent the course of the rest of your life. Not that many of us took much notice. Life was full of assumptions and in the absence of any particular near term passion or ambition career wise, my own assumption was that such decisions could safely be deferred for a few years whilst I drifted casually into the Sixth Form and thence inevitably to University. I brooked no misgivings on this score, unimpressive academic results notwithstanding, until one moment which I have evermore recalled with startling clarity. It was coming to the end of Fifth Form and I was, as usual, beggaring about in class when the Geography teacher, 'Hitler' Hargreaves (on a dark night he could have been mistaken for Adolph's twin), erupted in frustration: "Warrington, if you don't knuckle down (sic) you won't get your five O Levels". I laughed it off at the moment but inwardly I was in deep shock. Five O Levels? What? One more of my many assumptions is that I would get all nine that I was due to take in a couple of months. Fair enough, I had few runs on the board and I'd not done any work to speak of but, hey, surely it's some sort of birthright isn't it? After all I'd never failed an exam in my life - except, come to think of it, the entrance exams for first Manchester Grammar School (excuse: didn't fancy the travel) and Then Bury Grammar School (excuse: place looks shabby). In fact, come to think of it, my 'strike rate' wasn't much better than 50/50. In any event, those few words from Mr Hargreaves really struck home and I'm sure I did indeed 'knuckle down' at that point.
In due course the O Level exams came and went and I did find that I had indeed achieved some sort of pass in all nine. It was a relief .... but not as much of a relief as the fact that I was still alive. You see I'd seriously jeopardised this fundamental when I'd accidently whacked in the mouth with a tennis racquet one of the biggest and meanest blokes in the whole school. Let's just call him 'Mac'. Mac and I had been playing a favourite schoolyard game which was much like a crude game of 'Squash' but played with tennis gear against a big brick boundary wall. At a fateful moment I heaved my racquet back for a cataclysmic thunderbolt, just as Mac chose that exact moment to position his front teeth right at the top of my backswing arc. No contest. I can't remember if the teeth followed the blood or vice versa. Either way I'd have needed eyes in the back of my head because , after a hasty "Sorry" and one glance at the look in his eyes as the initial shock wore off, I was doing a presentable impression of a hare. I doubt that I'd have made it to a safe burrow, however, had it not been for the fact that Mac ran slap bang into the edge of the door I'd flung shut behind me as I bolted indoors seeking sanctuary or at least a teacher to save me. As it was Mac ended up in hospital and by the time he got out (which may well have been days later - the lock of the door had gouged a fair chunk out of his upper arm) somehow or other, miraculously, I was no longer under sentence of death.
In closing, it must have been around Fifth Form when, scandal of scandals, we suddenly noticed that one of our girls was no longer attending school. I'd put her burgeoning waistline down to too much cake but it was of course a bun of a completely different nature that occasioned her withdrawal. Oh how the poor unprepared father no doubt reflected on that same word.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Dilemma. I don't know about you but, to some extent, I can stand detached from the years up to 'Sixth Form'. To the extent that in my ramblings to date I may have embarrassed anyone - not least of all myself - it was after all the strange goings on of a planet far far away. I'm not sure the same can be said for the Sixth Form years. We were all beginning to emerge from the crucible and assume shapes and traits that would be identifiable today. The responsibility of a commentator, therefore, is certainly more weighty, and unreliable memories need to be treated with extra caution.
I think I'll leave it to another day!
(To Be Continued)
