Memories of Greenford County Grammar school 1957 to 1962 age 11 to 16 Geoff Marshall After passing my 11 plus my first day at Greenford duly arrived. I had to wear the regulation school uniform which was a green blazer with the Greenford County crest on it, the school tie, my cap, grey flannels, in my case they were short trousers, and black shoes. We also had gym clothes and football or cricket kit which we would take to school when necessary. For my first day we started later than the rest of the school. I left and had 3 buses to catch. The 79 to Hoovers, a 105 from Hoovers to Greenford Broadway, then a 97 from Greenford Broadway to the school front entrance. On arrival at Greenford Broadway there were 2 other new boys waiting at the bus stop. They too had shiny new satchels and sparkling clean uniforms. The 3 of us got on the 97 bus and duly arrived at the school. This was the only day ever we were allowed to go in the front entrance. In the future we would enter by the Boys or Girls entrance from that day on. We had the regulation Headmaster type chat. His name was Mr James but we soon learnt to call him (behind his back) Jumbo. Then we were allocated to our Form master. Mine was Mr White (nicknamed Chalkie) and we all followed him to our form room. He told us we would be friendly with our class mates for 5 years, then almost certainly never see each other again. He was almost correct with that statement, but there were some exceptions in my case. My first playtime I was consciously aware of the huge size of the older boys charging round the playground. They were the size of grown men and I was still a little 11 year old. I knew first formers had to be ducked at some time as part of the initiation ceremony and was warily looking out for possible boys who might grab me. Ducking consisted simply of forcing your head under a drinking fountain, so as far as initiation ceremonies went it wasnt too bad. I escaped the first day but was caught and duly ducked sometime in my first week. Meal time arrived and we first formers were allocated a friendly head of table. In my case her name was Veronica Exely. She was 15 and a 5th former. She seemed like an adult as far as we were concerned as we were little boys. She mothered us like a hen with chicks, but it seemed completely normal at the time. Now the system was as follows. There were 8 of you on a table plus one head of table, ie total 9. This would remain the same for the whole of the term. The whole school would stand behind their chairs without talking until the teachers followed by the headmaster came in. He would say grace, and sit down followed by the teachers sitting down, then we could sit and also then and only then, we could talk. The duty teachers would be walking round the tables in the hall at this point and if they caught you talking before time you were sent out the front to stand right behind the Head master. (Yes that did happen to me on more than one occasion but not my first day) The 8 of you would take it in turns to daily go and join the queue to the serving hatch and return to your table with all the food for the 9 of you. You gave it to the head of table, who dished it up fairly between the 9. You re-joined the queue later for afters. This was a well tried system and worked very well. After the meal was finished the Head and teachers left and the Duty Teachers would read out about 4 Heads of tables names and all the 8 people on that table had to stay behind and stack all the chairs and tables. Again that system worked quite well. The food was generally quite good. It was basically meat and 2 veg plus gravy. I remember mashed swede, but the salad was a bit disappointing. The roast was very popular. No chips ever, and I dont think anyone had even heard of pasta, or pizza. My favourite afters was chocolate popcorn which we probably had about once per term. There was always a jug of cold water on the table Time to go home and I noticed a few girls giggling at me when I left the school. What a plonker, I was going out the Girls exit! Well I only did that once. Discipline was very strict. Detentions were given and were either Blue (not serious, forgetting a book etc ) or Red which were serious (normally bad conduct) In both cases you had to stay behind after school in the Detention room with a teacher and you simply copied out from a book in your best hand writing for one hour. This was examined after the hour and if considered satisfactory you were allowed home. Well I got my first detention within a few weeks, I think I had forgotten a book, so I reported for my detention and much to my relief there was a boy who lived up the road from me, but very much older and in the 6th form (Ken Larkin) and he too was in detention. I knew him quite well and he was friendly with my older sister Joan so I thought I was really big having a detention with him. If you had 3 Red Detentions in one term you were placed on Conduct Report which was very serious as you had to get every teacher for every lesson and also dinner duty and break duty teachers to sign to the effect your conduct was satisfactory. I am pleased to say I did not get 3 Red detentions in one term. Details of other forms of discipline are detailed later. Overall the lessons were interesting enough. I found Latin boring. My maths wasnt bad and I did Applied Maths also, but did struggle with Calculus. After the 3rd year we had to choose between Geography and History. I chose History so my Geographical knowledge to this day is weak. History turned out to be my favourite subject and I loved learning about the Industrial Revolution and all the Poor laws and 1832 Reform Bill etc etc. We had quite a lot of general exercise and sport. We had the usual gym type horses and ropes, and played Basketball in the Gym, which I enjoyed. We had 3 football pitches and whilst I wasnt very good at it I did enjoy it. One pitch was on a very noticeable slope and you could see South Harrow gasometer from it. Every PT lesson finished with a shower. This was a communal shower behind a wall in the changing rooms and I think we always had cold water. There was no choice; you had a shower, end of. The girls had hockey pitches too on the same field which was pretty big. A new school was built on the field around 2010 ish. We did cross country runs outside the school. One was known as the Target run where you ran up to the Target roundabout on the Western Avenue and came back (The Target was a Pub but now a McDonalds) Another route was you went towards the Target but then joined the Canal and ran over the rubbish dump (this is now Northala Park) In the snow you ran UP the hills there and snowballed the rest of the boys as they came up. One summer we ran along the canal to what we called The Sunken Barges which were somewhere in Southall and one boy deliberately pushed another into the canal. He promptly got out of the canal and continued running with all his clothes off. Later he managed to push the other boy into the canal too. Happy days!! There were Tennis courts in the playground but only girls played tennis, never boys. Our PT teachers were never professional PT teachers. We had a Dave Segal who was an athlete. Then there was a Mr. Robinson who was a professional footballer playing for Brentford. One of my favourites was a Mike Reilly. He gave a lot of attention to those not so good at sports and encouraged the fatties to excel in things they could do. In team games he ensured the teams were fair resulting in all the boys enjoying themselves. In short, we all loved him. He was a free fall parachutist champion and on the 10th Jan 1962 he was killed while performing a parachute jump as stand in for Robert Wagner for the film The war lover. He parachuted into the sea but was unable to free his parachute and drowned. The headmaster announced his death in early morning assembly. Every morning began with assembly. The whole school assembled in their respective places and when the Headmaster arrived we all stood. There were prayers, at least one Hymn followed by notices. One thing he instilled into us was to give to the British Legion, ie the Poppy appeal. After the Headmaster left, the whole school would file out into their first period lesson. Each period lasted 40 minutes. Some lessons were double periods and of course if you were really lucky the last 2 of the day were sport. On snowy days we were allowed on the field after school for snowball fights and generally letting off steam. As a first former I have vague memories of being rolled in the snow. I was still in short trousers then and my thighs used to get very chapped where the trousers rubbed them in the cold and damp. One PT lesson we were supervised by a Maths teacher (not PT ) who had us running round the field in bare feet in the snow. When we all stood in line as requested apparently I was grinning, so was promptly smacked hard round the face by the teacher to stop me grinning. Other teachers had similar methods to enforce their authority. Some threw chalk at you, others hard wooden blackboard dusters. Both items could have resulted in serious injury. A clip round the head was quite common. On one occasion a Biology teacher struck a boy in my class round the head so hard he fell off his stool to the floor. Fortunately he was not seriously hurt but you could see the fear in the teachers face who knew he had gone too far. Any teacher would rap your knuckles with a ruler. One boy in my class was good at cricket and was asked (ordered) to play for the school on a Saturday. He refused as he had a Saturday job. He had to see the Headmaster and I think he was given the cane. Only the Headmaster could give you the cane, the Senior master could hit you with a slipper on your backside. I was lucky not to have experienced either. Our Science teacher had a reputation for being very strict and I was dreading being taught by him. He exuded authority and although a small man had a real presence about him in his black gown. He spoke quietly but to my surprise I got to enjoy his lessons which were extremely interesting. He never used any physical form of punishment, you just knew you had to do exactly what he said and we all did. We all learnt a lot from him. His name? Mr Coates. One day in the playground, probably when I was around 15 some of us saw what we believed (and I still believe) was a flying saucer. It was in the direction of London Airport but absolutely no way was it an air craft. It was white, sort of round maybe oval and stood still for some time then wings appeared from both sides of it and it travelled upwards and disappeared. With sightings of this nature there is very little official recognition of it, but I remember some so called experts said it was caused by sunlight on Venus or some such nonsense clearly to shut everybody up. As we grew older into the 4th and 5th forms, (15 and 16 years old) we became more aware of fashion, and of course girls Shoes were pointed toe, and to go out you wanted to wear an Italian pin stripe suit and slim Jim tie, shirts were generally white but with a stitching pattern on them. The suits in particular were out of our price range but most of us had pointed black shoes, and the shirts with stitching. Quite long hair with a quiff at the front was what all boys wanted like Elvis and Cliff Richard. Music was mainly Rock and Roll, and America dominated the pop music of the time. At school, all the boys would crowd round the large mirror in the locker rooms and try and train their hair into quiffs. When I started at Greenford in 1957 we were told that if any of us had a very short Tony Curtis hair cut we would be sent home. 3 or 4 years later fashion was exactly the opposite and we were told we would be sent home if our hair was too long. When I was in the 4th form (age 15) I was on a meal table with frankly a load of hoods! Also on the same table were a couple of first formers. After the meal had finished and the teachers had left their places the duty teachers were walking amongst the tables and immediately one had walked past our table, one member of our table picked up a piece of left over sponge pudding and lobbed it at the back of the teacher. It hit him square on the back of the head and disintegrated into a million pieces all over him. He turned round and knew it had come from our table and of course we were all given the first degree. My mate from my class was a bit of a lad, and there were 4 16 year olds (5th formers) who were real hoods, the first formers were pictures of innocence. We were all asked who threw it and we all denied any knowledge of it. Fortunately even the first formers. I am sure he suspected my mate (who was innocent) but he never really found out who did it. It was quite amazing how 8 boys can instantly join forces and stick together to deny all knowledge of something that each of them really knew. The teacher was not amused to say the least, but I dont think he ever found out who the culprit was. We did not have metal work classes but did have woodwork. It was not my strong subject but I did enjoy it, especially wood turning on the lathe. I made a few wooden bowls and also a lighthouse shaped electric lamp holder. The lathe was electric, and in those days there were no eye shields, ear defenders, or dust masks. The only safety items were some emergency stop buttons strategically sited around the room. Our woodwork teacher was named Charlie Sutcliffe and he was quite a character. He was always smoking roll ups, and boiled up his own glue which was a very sticky smelly substance. One day his glue was boiling away in the pot on a tripod like gas heater and he was teaching us when suddenly he pushed me very hard across the room. The glue pot was falling over in my direction and he pushed me out of the way. I would have been severely burnt by it. Another occasion I passed out in the woodwork room but this was after being struck by a cricket ball during the previous PT lesson. I remember the thick foggy pea soupers when we all struggled to get to and from school with the buses (if they were still running) going very slowly. Also the bus strike around 1958 when I and many others cycled to school for the first time. We cycled along Perivale Lane, and Ruislip Road between Perivale and Greenford Broadway along what was a lovely country road. Lovely, that is until it rained, then the River Brent flooded and was impassable in places. I cant remember specifically my last day at school. I would have been 16 and it would have been July 1962. It would have been in the gym sitting a GCE exam.