Junior
School
to the end of Secondary Education
I started at
At the age of seven I moved to the Junior school.
Form 2a at
Enlarged view of me from the picture above, a bit vague.
Mr Fenton drummed into us tha spelling was important and the word ‘necessary’ always brings him to mind.
I was there up until 1949 when, having passed my eleven-plus, I went to Balshaw's School at the east end of Church road. We the boys were outnumbered by two to one. Lucky enough to be placed in the 'A' stream. I had no idea how lucky I was to be at a grammer school and in the 'A' stream until much later in my life. A mediocre student but I was always in the top half, near the top but not considered to have potential by any of my teachers, except my woodwork teacher. I was his 'pet' and could do no wrong. I was top of the class right through to the sixth year when we no longer did woodwork and metalwork. I was streamed into Latin and Geography, not doing Greek and history after the second year. I was good at maths and bottom of the class in English. We were further streamed into three French classes. I started off in the third class and was moved up into the second. Nine 'O' levels were achieved, much to everyone's surprise in the summer of 1954.
Form 5A at Balshaw's School (Grammer), again I'm on the back row and last on
the right.
I decided to stay on into the sixth form for a further two years taking Maths, Alternative C, Physics and Chemistry. Chemistry was hard work, too much rote learning to do. 'A' levels in Maths and Physics, did really poor in Chemistry, just wasn't interested – in love at the time.
This photo turned up at a Breathe Easy meeting. Margery Allison's brother brought it. Margery and I were in the sixth form together.
Click to see a larger version
At a Worden House party at school the senior boys dressed up as manikins to take part in a manikin parade as part of the evening's entertainment - c 1954-5
Winning the 100 yards, School Sports Day 1956. I came from behind in the last 20 yards.
It was as if someone had lifted me up and carried me to the front!
My biggest sporting achievement at school was to be in the School First Rugby Fifteen for three years, during which time I captained Preston Junior Schoolboys Fifteen at the Mid-Lancashire Schoolboys Trials. The following year I had been injured playing for Preston Grasshopper First Fifteen and missed the Schoolboy trials. I also ran in the school relay team, 4 x 220 yards, my best distance, and the school Athletics team, relay and discus. I had planned to spend another year in the sixth form to take Applied Mathematics, we had only done Pure Maths. Applied Maths was needed for Engineering degrees. In the summer I got a job as a Student Apprentice with Leyland Motors Limited, Commercial Vehicle Manufactures. I believed I was going to be placed on a degree course but it never materialised