On the first day at 9:00 I, and some 100 other bemused eleven year olds all stood
in the Quad for the first time. Several of the kids came from the same schools so
they had some friends, but the majority were on their own. Dressed in the school
uniform, with shorts and caps, we waited, eyeing everyone else, until our names
were called, when we joined one of four groups that were to become our
classmates for the next five years.
I was in Form 1B with Mr. Billington who was our Form teacher. He was a pleasant
man who, every Thursday, used to bring a copy of the Radio Times into the class
and during the morning break, would meticulously draw a ring around every TV
programme that he and his wife were to watch for the following week. Our
classroom was one of four wooden prefabricated huts that stood in the west field
adjacent to the football pitches across the road from the main school. Freezing in
winter and hot in summer.
Jo Thomas was our Latin teacher and try as hard as I might, I cannot think of a
good word to say about him. He, basically, was a sadist who had a habit of
grabbing boys’ hair just in front of the ear, twisting it and pulling the boy to his
feet. He also taught History and was in charge of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF)
with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel which apart from other things meant that he
would strut around the school every Friday in his army uniform with a piece of
camouflage netting doubling as a cravat around his neck. He also oversaw
detention which happened every Friday. Depending upon the mood of the masters,
you could be sent to detention for the most mildest of offences; my first was for
not knowing the French word for the accent that appears under the “ç”. It was
called a cedilla but I was ill and missed the previous class that taught it, but that, apparently, was no excuse…
From the 3rd Form upwards, all pupils were in the CCF. Each Friday we all dressed
in Squaddy uniforms, complete with British Army standard kit boots, which having
hard leather soles and uppers were murder to wear. The joke was that you didn’t
break in the boots, they broke you. After lunch we paraded in front of the school.
If you think of the TV programme Dad’s Army, you will get a pretty good idea of our
uniforms. The Senior Cadet Officers would occasionally inspect us and allocate
duties for the afternoon. If you were unlucky you did drill; if you were lucky you
went to the firing range to fire ·22s and the occasional Lee Enfield 303. Nowadays I
find it hard to believe that the school had an arsenal with Sterling submachine
guns, Brens, rifles, etc. as well as substantial stocks of ammunition. Even more
astounding was that the arsenal was managed by boys - some of whom gradually
dismantled weapons, smuggled them out and rebuilt them in their bedrooms! The
arsenal was removed by the army when the Irish troubles intensified.
Occasionally a small group of cadets were taken to the Royal Corps of Transport
(RCT) garrison in Aldershot to shoot and, on one occasion, to compete against
other cadet forces. We always won.
Our Friday parades were, essentially, a farce. It was late 60s/early 70s. No-one
really wanted to parade, we were into Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones, etc. And the
uniforms that we had been issued with were dirty, itchy and “one size fits all”.
During one afternoon parade, one the Senior Cadets (Trevor Finclair, who was
commissioned into the army when he left FGS) mimicked the way in which Dad’s
Army Captain Mainwaring taught his squad to salute - Longest way up, wiggle,
wiggle, shortest way down. My family knew the Finclairs well. Trevor’s father was
named “Celig” - I thought that it was a nordic name but he told me that his
parents just invented the name because they liked the sound.
Once you reached the 5th Form you could opt out of the CCF and do charity/community work.
Wednesday afternoons were devoted to sport. First formers started the afternoon
with a cross country run. I have no idea how long that run was but I think it was
between 50 and 75 miles! It certainly felt like that. This was followed by football,
rugby and/or athletics. In today’s ‘elf and safety’ directorate, it is surprising just
what we did - throwing metal javelins without any regard for others running
around the track springs to mind. And don’t get me started on those solid leather
instruments of torture called ‘medecine balls’!
And now… teachers. Alphabetically…
Attree - a geography teacher who managed to make a dull subject interesting. A
kindly man who was always sympathetic when pupils made mistakes and who never
raised his voice in anger. In about 1968 a second geography master joined the
staff. I forget his name but he was a short, young little so-and-so who always wore
his master’s cloak even when all of the other teachers stopped doing so. The
teacher managed to make a dull subject soporific. He had no control over the class
and consequently no authority. Geography lessons rapidly descended into battles
between him and the class - and the class always won. One one occasion, Mr. Attree,
who was holding a class in the adjoining classroom had to intervene. We
respected him and so quietened down.
Bradley - a maths teacher who was actually very intelligent and who inspired many
pupils to pursue maths to A Levels. Unfortunately Mr. Bradley had chronic bad
breath, magnified by the fact that he always had all of the classroom windows
closed. You could always tell when Mr. Bradley had held a lesson…
Bunting - my favourite teacher. He taught French and a number of other languages
and was always kind and patient. The prides of his life was the school’s Language
AV room and the Language Laboratory. The former was a room equipped with a
back screen onto which was projected stereotype cartoon still images of the
French in various situations. if those cartoon stills were used today they would
probably provoke an international incident. An accompanying tape spoke a French
phrase and we were required to repeat it (répéter après chaque fois). For each
lesson, a pupil was selected to sit next to the projector and turn a knob that
brought the next image to the screen. A ‘ping’ from the tape told him when to do
so. Yes, by today’s standards the technology is laughable but in the mid 1960s it was cutting edge.
The latter was a room equipped with desks separated by a screen and mainly used
to conduct aural language tests. Pupils donned headphones, listened to French
(and other languages) and replied. The replies were recorded and later, graded.
Again, cutting edge teaching technology.
Cotgrieve - A Maths teacher who, like Bradley, inspired many of us to pursue maths to A Levels.
Colleril - (I can’t vouch for the spelling), which probably reflects the impact that
he had on me. Each morning, all of the pupils sat on chairs in the main hall facing
the stage. On the stage sat some of the teachers. The headmaster would normally
enter the stage from a door at the rear of the stage, at which point all of the
pupils would stand. This new headmaster decided to enter the hall from the rear,
walking down the aisle to the stage. No-one knew who he was (we haven’t seen
him before) and because he walked down the aisle, no-one saw him until he
passed, so no-one stood up. This odious little man was furious. He climbed onto
the stage, turned and glared at us all and said “We will try that again”. before
stalking out and after a few minutes, returning through the normally used door.
Even the Masters sitting on the chairs on the stage couldn’t believe what had happened.
Dyer - an enthusiastic Physics teacher whose favourite experiment was to
demonstrate that heat makes things expand. He had a piece of equipment that
consisted of a large metal bar that was heated by flame. This bar was secured at
one end, the other end having a hole into which a smaller metal bar could be
inserted. This second bar was clamped into place and when the main bar was
heated and expanded, the pressure on the smaller was was sufficient to break it.
Jones - A Biology teacher who encouraged his classes to dissect small rodents.
Pleasant and impassioned but never a subject that my stomach could take. I recall that he received a promotion in the Cadets…
Mound - The music teacher who was extremely progressive. He worked with ‘on
the edge’ composers to create works for the choir to perform in county contests,
and his pride and joy was a Moog synthesiser that was issued to the school in the
early 70s. His son, Vernon, was a pupil and was due to take the lead role in a newly
commissioned piece for one of the annual concerts. Unfortunately his voice broke
about two weeks before the performance.
North - A very good chemistry teacher whom everyone thought was having an
affair with one of the female laboratory assistants. This was probably, but not
completely confirmed during one chemistry lesson when at the beginning of the
lesson the said lab assistant, probably after an argument between the two,
brought a large tray containing the equipment for the experiment to the
classroom, banged it down on the desk, glared at Mr. North and stalked out. To his
credit, Mr. North just looked at the class, rolled his eyes and smiled.
Pascoe - OIC woodwork, engineering and technical drawing - all subjects that had
little relevance in a school that focused on maths and sciences. (Yes I know that
FGS had excellent language results but there is no denying that more weight was
focused on the sciences). I think that Mr. Pascoe contracted polio as a child, but
although he could run hot and cold when it came to marking technical drawings
(the same drawing would rate a 95% on a good day and 45% on a bad day), he was a
passionate teacher who had an impressive repertoire of jokes that would,
nowadays, make your toes curl. Pascoe’s pride and joy was a new, purpose-built
workshop to the right of the school which housed lathes and other equipment.
West, Sports master when I was 15. He was an ardent fan of the Moody Blues and
was my 4th Form Master. He was so liked that we in the Form clubbed together to
buy him a Moody Blues LP for his Birthday.
Wilks - history teacher who followed West Ham United. Each Monday, depending
upon whether they had one or lost on Saturday, we would greet him with Cheers of
Jeers. After one ‘test’ he accessed one pupil of cheating because his written
answers were exactly the same as the history book that we used. The said pupil
the recited from memory the relevant text….To his credit, Mr. Wilks accepted the fact.
There are others, whose names I have forgotten - we are talking of 50 plus years here…
Dr. Colleril (?) was preceded by another headmaster who rejoiced in the name of
Dr. Badcock - a pleasant man who would join in classes for the 5th and 6th Forms. I
don’t need to list the nicknames that he was given!
Other memories include someone setting off one of the fire extinguishers on the
first floor in front of the art room, a prefect who asked the entire school to
assemble in the main hall for the morning break as he had some important news (it
was 1st April), the school rugby team that never won a match (during the morning
assemblies, the master giving us news and announcements stopping giving the
scores and simply stated that the rugby team had played and lost to so-and-so
team, the Prefects’ Room which was coveted by the Masters as it had a large
balcony, the prefects who, after the broadcast of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot
sketch, asked for some stuffed parrots only to find that one of the Masters had
inherited a collection that he was only to pleased to get rid of…
A young, bearded maths teacher who taught Pure Maths when I was in the sixth
Form studying for A Levels. I could not get my head around calculus no matter how
hard I tried. He used to lean over struggling students, look at their work and then
at them, and say “Problems? Hummm?”
Nowadays, people look at me in disbelief when I describe life in the 60’s and 70’s;
It was a different era. What was normal then would be completely unacceptable
now. Think of Benny Hill, Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii. Several Masters could hit
a moving target 20 feet away with a well aimed blackboard rubber! Detention,
which was served every Friday after school, involved standing facing a brick wall
with your nose an inch or so away from the wall for an hour.
In the 6th From we had interviews with a roving Careers Advisor. He was hopeless.
He advised me to become a Physics Teacher. He advised a friend, Graham Tuck, to
become a roving consultant for an oil company looking to exploit new land for oil
extraction! And I remember my violin teacher who was probably a pervert.
But being at FGS instilled in me a sense of discipline, behaviour and manners that have
remained with me all of my life - much of which is sadly lacking in today’s societies. I still
stand when a woman enters the room, I still open doors for women, and I still complement
women on their appearance. Nowadays, that is probably “sexist’, but you know what? Most women appreciate it!
So what about me?
I have two degrees - English and Photographic Arts. Weird, since my A Levels were Pure
Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Statistics. I spent my life writing - I ghost wrote four books
on Marcus Tullis Cicero (an ancient Roman senator), I was a small consultant on the HBO
series “Rome”, and I wrote numerous articles for the national press. I was one of the team
that produced the “Shake and Vac” commercial, believe it or not, Ringo Starr is my honorary God Father…
I have lived and worked in Spain and the US and now I have retired to live in the south of
France in a small town house in a town where I teach English.
I often think about my friends from FGS. Andrew Latty, John Jackson and especially
Graham Gunn. Where are you now?
Jeremy Biggs : March 2023