1974 - 79 Stoneham had changed by 1974! The 11+ had been made optional and, whilst I was keen to sit it to try to get into Reading Boys´, my mother feared that if I didn´t, I´d have to go to Meadway School!!! So Stoneham went down as first choice on the form so that I´d follow my elder brother. He´d gone into 1N. I got into 1O. After the first year exams I was put up into 2T. The sets were STONH.... I remained in the T stream until my 5th year. Only the S stream were permitted the luxury of O level English Literature. We had a racist French teacher (Mr Brown?) who picked on a Sikh boy mercilessly. I remember an Art teacher too. I was the only pupil doing O level Ceramics but I was timetabled amongst the lowest ability CSE Art pupils. One, destroyed all the pots in the drying-firing room. The same boy covered his arm in plaster of Paris to look as if he´d broken it. The Art teacher grabbed a broken chair leg and smashed the drying plaster - he probably avoided an amputation. I remember being taught Maths by Mr Keast. He slippered my friend for something and, after I grinned, he whacked me too! But he was a good teacher: clear and logical. My History teacher often lingered in the sixth form to avoid my class and so the punk fans did the pogo dance in class whilst waiting for him, until the Head, Mr Jenks, burst in and took them off for caning! Jenks was unpleasant but we barely saw him. He summoned me and a few others in the 5th form. We had to stand at his desk whilst he lectured us as to the benefits of staying on for the sixth form. He also told us what we would each be studying (History, Maths and Geography for me!). When we go out of his office we all looked at each other and said, "We´re definitely leaving now!".
I left to work in a bank, followed up my interest in History and got into Swansea University - to the surprise of the T streamers, of whom only one or two secured university places. I´ve since published academic research, done a masters at Oxford and I´m now doing a PhD, after teaching in Spain and Italy where I picked up the languages. I´m glad I mixed with most sorts at Stoneham as it taught me to rub along with people and value everyone equally but my years there were oppressive and I wouldn´t repeat it!
I must read all your blogs at home later Hello again, well I shouldn't be reading these at work, but memories are flooding back and I will be on 2 of those School photo's neither of which I own.
I doubt very much you will remember me, a very non-descript student who brieflly was in the top of 3 of most classes but contrived towards the bottom as a rebel without a clue student!
Rose tinted glasses - tinted from the blood splatters of corporal punishment. OK, perhaps not, but in todays world of headline grabbers.
I was there from 76 to 81 (ish)
I ended up back at OSH this weekend (Easter 2022) for a wedding reception being held in the great hall, and as one does, head straight for google as soon as work goes quiet.
Coming across your pictures first and then the article, it brought back many wonderful and terrifying memories.
You did teach me English for at least one year and I have always stated that you got me into the world of Science fiction novels, though whether this is true, I cannot be sure.
Interesting to hear your take on other teachers, because when one is 11 year old 'day boy' coming from a working class family, that school and all its teachers and senior students were fairly intimidating, including your goodself who I recall as reading to us, swaying to and fro from one foot to another (not forgetting those side burns).
I lived 2 doors down from ‘Pixie’ Price and would babysit his two boys (neither went to OSH) and I am pretty sure he was best drinking buddies with JCB who along with Laurie Benge you don't mention here (though I will read again to be sure after work).
In fact Laurie Benge is the one teacher I always wanted to meet again as he was my form master for all 5 years and it's not till afterwards you realise that you'd like the opportunity to thank various people you meet in your life (or tell the opposite sometimes).
I have been back to the Old Folyeans meals perhaps half a dozen times over the last 30 years (where have those years gone?), and thus met a few of the old teachers.
I understand that Len Krukowski has only just gone into a home, how old he is, one can only marvel given the story he would tell about how it’s a miracle he’s here at all and the line jumping saga of a concentration camp his parents did.
I adored Ben Kirton and had I of listened to his warnings about the idiot I was becoming, my life may have taken a different direction earlier than it did. I still recall his stories of being in the RAF and bombing of Peenemunde in WWII (whether true is another matter), shaming me for being seen over the park with a girl who was wearing my school scarf.
Pretty sure Haggett knew little about Mathemetics but was in fact a grocer as he would frequently talk about apples and oranges.
Too many of the Teachers there were bullies and or tired of teaching, frequently taking out their frustrations on the young vulnerable kids.
Stoneham remembered Kevin
Thanks for posting your Stoneham blog – you and I were contemporaries, I too went to Stoneham in 1963, from Norcot School in Tilehurst but left in October 1966 when my family moved away. The names you mention ring many bells, both staff and pupils and encouraged me to look out my old copies of the school magazine. Other names I recall include Beaumont, Bartlett and Burt, also Jenner and Jones. You are right about Paul Hodder, I played rugby with him and both he and Honey went on to be selected for England. As for Radley, he seemed to win everything and I have a picture of him leading the school athletics team with me two rows back. You mention a school trip to Europe. I think I was on the same trip and amongst the various photos I took I do have a couple of group pictures of various boys. Thanks again for reawakening memories from 60 years ago.
R.I.P Mike Saddend to hear the news about Mike. At Old Swinford 1975 to 1982. My last year was in Founders, I remember our study being on top floor right next to Mike's flat and him complaining about the cigarette smoke that used to seep into his bedroom. Fond memories a kind fair man who was taken far too soon. R.I.P Mike
I woz there I was there from Sept '62 until april '66. I was in 1C,2C,3C but because I was going to leave at Easter'66 I had to go into 4D to give someone else a chance. I remember most of the teachers you mention. Paul Hodder was a year below me, in the same class as my brother Don. Other teachers I remember was Mr Grinter P.E. Mr Archer aka Sturmey. (cycle gears) Mr Cooper History aka Hank because he wore glasses similar to Hank Marvin. He offered to teach me the clarinet after classes but all I wanted to do was play football. Fool! When I started school meals, I was put on the same table as Bingo and "fitzy" and became mates with them. They were a year older I was. Sadly Steve died in a cycling accident soon after leaving school. I only knew a couple of grammar boys. Steven Harvey who lived opposite me in Southcote Lane and Philip Baker. I really enjoyed reading your account of the school at that time. Excellent.
Frank Hello Kevin
Now living in Spain having just bought a hotel with my partner Jo its dia de todos los santos tomorrow and dia de los fieles difuntos on Tuesday and I was thinking about Neil amongst others whom I have 'lost' along the way.
Deciding to put Neil Skidmore into Google I discovered that there are many! I never realised it would be a common name. Amongst the strangers I found you blog from 2014.
I remember that 1990 night and the Bathams pub crawls very clearly. It was a fab night at Frank and Donna's England losing to Italy in the third and fourth place play off.
I'd known frank since we were 12 and I'll never forget coming back to school for o level results and he had a full beard - always way ahead of his time!. I remember going down to see him a couple of days after Donna died after 2 years surviving with Pancreatic Cancer and he seemed to be existing on merry down cider and cigarettes. He really was a supremely intelligent man and had planned his demise with great precision.
Anyway on that evening he was a charming to me as ever and played all the music he knew I'd love until finally he said to me. "right Ken you'd better go you've got people that need you" he was referring to my wife and two daughters. The implication was that now that Donna was dead there was no one that needed him. He was wrong of course.
His family asked me to speak at his funeral which I did, remembering a massively talented intelligent and practical man whom we knew as brother, friend husband, teacher, mathematician mechanic, solver of problems and merry down cider drinker.
On the brother front, I think that when Neil died, Fred inherited your albums. Fred and Jan still live in Stourbridge and Fred is carrying on the musical tradition and runs a music recording studio n ow as well as continuing to play with his amazing Hammond trio (Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Groove Holmes etc . )
Pleased to hear you're still going Kevin.
Neil myself and Chris Burton our fenomenal flute player had all played music together since we met at Ingestre Hall aged about 18. I last man standing now as the fenomenon that was Chris died from COVID Complications in the early part of the Pandemic.
Frank was one of the best and I miss him so much, especially the New Years Eve phone calls.
I once called him from a jazz club in Madrid where the band were playing some of the coolest John Coltrane covers that you could shut your eyes and dream that it really was McCoy Tyner on the piano. I just played it to him over the phone with no comment.
A few months later he and Donna decided to go to the self same club only to find a band playing his nightmare that was trad!! very funny!!
All my best to you Kevin
Ken
Happy Days Again happy memories of my childhood in Reading. I attended St Michael’s Primary School in Tilehurst Having been a border line11+ attended E.P Collier School in Caversham. Oh Happy Days! Thanks Kevin for the memories
Bringing back memories Thank you for your blog. What memories you brought back to me!? Thank you. I remember the Cadena well, shopping with my mother in Broad Street, Baylis supermarket and of course Green Shield stamps. Just one point, I remember going to Jackson’s outfitters for school uniform (EP Collier school) but remember being fascinated by the manual cash system of wires across the shop where transactions were put into a capsule but whizzed across the ceiling in a pulley system rather than pneumatic- maybe my memory is fading lol. Oh that malty smell coming from Courage Brewery as I waited for the No22 bus to Horncastle!! Thanks again for the memories
Mr. Stebbing This article brought back memories of my 3 years at BISC. Mr. Stebbing was my eng language teacher all 3 years. What has stayed with me about him is how beautifully he gifted us the English language… he made it artistic and robust at the same time. And his handwriting was classy! I’m pretty sure he joined us for a few badminton sessions after school where I saw a different relaxed , jovial side of him.
All in all I’m in gratitude of him and only wish the best in his soul journey!
The findings from a recent research complement well with your observations: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/poorer-australians-four-times-more-likely-to-die-of-covid-19/100448564
London Road Thanks so much for this. I stumbled across your blog looking for information on the London Street bookshop. It sounds like you have well and truly shaken the dust of Reading off your feet!
Bob Wood had a lasting effect on my life. Hello Kevin,
I really enjoyed your piece on Bob Wood. I remember him vividly as my English teacher at Oldswinford (1963-70). It's a peculiar fact that I have remembered him more than any other teacher, for good reasons. He created in me a lifetime's excitement with books, and also with the physical act of writing with a fountain pen. His reading aloud of 'King Solomon's Mines' had me enthralled. I couldn't wait to get to class to hear the next chapter. His love of Keats became my love of Keats too. I adored 'Cider with Rosie'. His odd facial twitching in class was endlessly parodied by the students, of whom he seemed only incidentally aware. He and Peter Mansell have remained with me all through my adult life, and fed my intentions of becoming an artist and musician. Bob had the most beautiful italic handwriting and would annotate our essays at length in his large red gorgeous characters, very carefully and slowly rendered. I loved to watch him write. He had a variety of pens for this, each yielding a different result. Peter Mansell introduced me to classical music. He played his record collection during art classes, and as a career artist, I do the same, thanks to him. He was also an excellent watercolor artist and that also became my medium. I was pushed out of the arts and into the sciences early at school, but my real education was already in place. As an aside: My daughter is a professional writer and artist, and in a way, thanks to those two characters.
Neighbours 1981 to 1983 Hello Kevin, we were neighbours to your mum from February 1981 to November 1983, having bought number 34 from the the son of Mrs Wiggins after she had passed away. We paid £17,250 for it and it was a stretch for us to obtain a mortgage for it.
Our house was a mirror image of yours, and when we moved in it was un-modernised- still having an outside toilet, and a small bathroom upstairs. Rather than build an extension to the rear to house a downstairs bathroom, we removed the dividing wall between the rooms above the kitchen and installed a full bathroom there, so we had just two bedrooms. We then knocked the outside loo into the kitchen, bricked up the door and installed a window in the end wall looking out into the garden- I say garden, but initially it would have looked out into the ramshackle lean-to shed that had been built up close up against your mum's bathroom wall. When we removed this shed, it exposed the wall of your mum's bathroom which was not in the best shape. We wondered if it had been built when the shed was already there as it had not been pointed properly on our side. We spoke to your mum about this, and our builder rendered it for her.
When we moved in there was a structure at the end of the garden made out of curved corrugated iron sheets that was being used as another shed. We wondered whether this had been an Anderson shelter. Anyway we cut that up and replaced it with a wooden shed. We can only remember there being one apple tree in our garden when we moved in and it produced a poor crop of not particularly nice apples, so we removed that too.
Your mum was very friendly to us from the start, and gave us her old washing machine when she upgraded to an automatic one. It was a hot tub with an agitator and used to jump across the kitchen floor when in use, and had an electric powered mangle on the top. It was a great boon to us at the time as it saved us going to the launderette at the bottom of the road.
We well remember your cat Monty as having a very powerful stare- when we first moved in he scared the life out of us when we opened the curtains to the rear sitting room to find him sitting on the window sill.
On the other side of your mum's house at the time we lived there was John Wyeth's motorcycle repair shop. He was a friendly guy and would give me advice and help with the various old bangers I drove when they refused to start. At weekends there would often be large number of bikers hanging around outside his premises, but they never bothered us.
We have fond memories of the first house we bought together in Hatherley Rd and my wife Tracy shed a few tears the day we left. Thank you for your interesting account of your early life "next door"
All the best
Paul
Thanks for message! I really enjoyed reading about your time in No. 34. I was living in Stourbridge in those days, returning during the school holidays (I was a teacher) to visit my mum. John Wyeth sold his workshop 3 years ago. All the best!
Old Swinford Blues ! You were my block master , Founders I think you also used to dole out our pocket money 25p a week ! Keep safe Mr Mulqueen you were ace ! ?loved the poem …but not quite Hardy
OSH ... I remember u well, Marcus! Thank u for your kind words. Have u heard me recite my blues on Youtube?
I am 69 now and semi-retired in Vietnam, which is having its worst time with Covid.
All the best, mate ...
I was a student Thank you for this write up of Mr. Stebbing. It occurred to me that I might find something about him on the internet. I was a student for part of a year at BISC and remember his dramatic retelling of the story of Gilgamesh and of Alexander's journey to Siwa to this day. It was really gripping stuff and I always imagined he was really a drama teacher. He didn't think much of my written efforts but I really did appreciate his classes! They say you never forget a good teacher - and it is true!
I've been teaching English for 48 years - in England, Egypt, Tanzania, Argentina, Venezuela, Ghana and now Vietnam. At 71, I'm still going strong and have no wish to retire. I enjoy my job, which gives me plenty of time to relax and travel. In toto, I've visited 68 countries. I'm married to a Vietnamese woman and have been living in Ho Chi Minh City since 2001.
Outside of work I am a chess fanatic (Tanzanian National Champion in 1991), devotee of blues and jazz music, imbiber of fine malt whiskies (especially from Islay), bibliophile (Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Brian Moore, Philip Larkin, Di... full info
Christopher Lillington-Martin
non-member comment
1974 - 79
Stoneham had changed by 1974! The 11+ had been made optional and, whilst I was keen to sit it to try to get into Reading Boys´, my mother feared that if I didn´t, I´d have to go to Meadway School!!! So Stoneham went down as first choice on the form so that I´d follow my elder brother. He´d gone into 1N. I got into 1O. After the first year exams I was put up into 2T. The sets were STONH.... I remained in the T stream until my 5th year. Only the S stream were permitted the luxury of O level English Literature. We had a racist French teacher (Mr Brown?) who picked on a Sikh boy mercilessly. I remember an Art teacher too. I was the only pupil doing O level Ceramics but I was timetabled amongst the lowest ability CSE Art pupils. One, destroyed all the pots in the drying-firing room. The same boy covered his arm in plaster of Paris to look as if he´d broken it. The Art teacher grabbed a broken chair leg and smashed the drying plaster - he probably avoided an amputation. I remember being taught Maths by Mr Keast. He slippered my friend for something and, after I grinned, he whacked me too! But he was a good teacher: clear and logical. My History teacher often lingered in the sixth form to avoid my class and so the punk fans did the pogo dance in class whilst waiting for him, until the Head, Mr Jenks, burst in and took them off for caning! Jenks was unpleasant but we barely saw him. He summoned me and a few others in the 5th form. We had to stand at his desk whilst he lectured us as to the benefits of staying on for the sixth form. He also told us what we would each be studying (History, Maths and Geography for me!). When we go out of his office we all looked at each other and said, "We´re definitely leaving now!". I left to work in a bank, followed up my interest in History and got into Swansea University - to the surprise of the T streamers, of whom only one or two secured university places. I´ve since published academic research, done a masters at Oxford and I´m now doing a PhD, after teaching in Spain and Italy where I picked up the languages. I´m glad I mixed with most sorts at Stoneham as it taught me to rub along with people and value everyone equally but my years there were oppressive and I wouldn´t repeat it!