Summer Times 2002-05.pub - Old Scarborians

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Summer.Times
Summer Times is the
Journal
of the
Old
Scarborians
Association
Members of the Association are
former pupils and members of
staff of
Scarborough High School for
Boys
Volume
No. 41
May 2002
Old Scarborians Association
Web address: http://www.oldscarborians.org.uk

CONTACTS
PRESIDENT:
Ron H Gledhill, 2 Derwent Close, Newby,
Scarborough. North Yorkshire YO12 6EF.
Tel: +44 (0)1723 362644
SECRETARY/MEMBERSHIP
Peter Robson, Forge Villa, High Street,
Ebberston, North Yorkshire YO13 9PA.
Tel: +44 (0)1723 859335
e-mail: Peter.Robson@btinternet.com
FINANCIAL, SPORT &
MAGAZINE ADVERTISING
Chris Found, Pinewood Cottage, Silpho,
Scarborough YO13 0JP.
Tel: +44 (0)1723 882343
E-mail: DFound@ukf.net
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SUMMER TIMES
Send all items for Summer Times, (by e-mail if
possible) to:
David Fowler,
‘Farthings’,
56 Prince of Wales Apartments, Esplanade,
Scarborough, North Yorkshire YO11 2BB.
Tel: +44 (0)1723 365448
e-mail osa@farthings.org.uk
PUBLICITY
Send photographs for scanning for the web
site, from UK addresses, to:
Mick Bowman,
9 Ilkley Grove, Guisborough,
Cleveland TS14 8LL
Tel: +44 (0)1287 634650
E-mail: mjwb@supanet.com
OSA WEB SITE
http://www.oldscarborians.org.uk
Send all items for the web site, (except
UK photos for scanning) to:
Bill Potts
1848 Hidden Hills Drive
Roseville, CA 95661-5804, USA
Telephone: +1 916 773-3865
E-mail: osa@wfpconsulting.com
CONTENTS
3 Contact details
4 Editorial
4 Presidential
5 Secretarial
6 Treasurial
6 Sporting—Golf
7 Web Report
8 Missing Members
8 From here and There
26 Obituaries
34 School Camp—Chamonix
34 Full Circle
35 Speeches—Geoff Nalton
38 Speeches—Bob Watson
40 Famous pupils
42 Pirates of Penzance
43 Bon Clarke
44 Memories
44 40 Years On
45 50 Years On
46 The Westwood School
65 The Class of ‘51
66 New Books
66 The Music Master
67 The ATC
68 1947—A Misspent Summer
70 Gerry Hovington Appeal
71 Some o’ Me Memories
74 Prize Crossword
76 A Falsgrave Worthy
78 Events Diary
SUBMISSION OF ITEMS
FOR SUMMER TIMES
Please send your items for the next
edition of Summer Times to reach
David Fowler by 15th August 2002. If
possible please use e-mail or a floppy
disk. Otherwise, please type or write
legibly, on one side of each sheet.
Many thanks!

EDITORIAL
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Welcome to the largest
ever edition of
Summer Times, to
celebrate the centenary
of The Westwood
School.
In this edition there
are a few layout
changes; also, the
text size has been
reduced in an attempt
to include as much content as possible.
If you feel it is now too small for easy reading
please let me know.
I mentioned in my last Editorial that, having
only joined the Association some 10 years
ago I had some catching up to do; producing
Summer Times lets me put something back
into the Association. I also blamed Gerald
Hinchliffe for planting the seeds which, years
later, led to me agreeing to take over production
of Summer Times when Frank Bamforth
felt it was time to retire.
50 years ago Gerald encouraged members of
form 3L to produce their own magazine The
Third Former. Many thanks to John Corradine,
for lending me his copy.
The Third Former was published in 1952, the
year of the School’s Jubilee; Volume 41 of
Summer Times which you are now reading, is
published in the year of the School’s Centenary.
On page 45 we reproduce two short articles
from the Third Former, and on page 46 the
majority of the 1952 Jubilee publication
‘written by HM Marsden and available from
Mr H Richardson at the school, 3/6d or 3/9d
post free.’
Many thanks to the many who have contributed
to this centenary edition; and also to all
those who have sent in their copy by e-mail
or on floppy disk. The magazine does take
many hours to produce and where these
means are available, my workload is greatly
reduced.
However, I don’t wish to deter those whose
items can only come in handwritten form.
For them I am experimenting with a computer
speech recognition program which
transposes the spoken word to the written
word. Results so far are impressive with initial
accuracy of around 90%.
May I thank Mick Bowman who took over
responsibility for publicity from me some
months ago, and has now also taken on the
job of scanning photographs from UK members
for the web site. This enables me to concentrate
my time on the magazine. Thanks
also to Peter Robson who always manages to
make time to do a final proof-read for me; a
somewhat boring but vital task—although
Peter does see a preview of what is to appear!
Finally, thanks to all of you for your continuing
substantial support, and, most importantly
for your contributions. Please keep
them flowing.
I say it each time, but without you all there
couldn’t be a Summer Times.
David Fowler (1949-55)
Editor
PRESIDENTIAL
Since my last
‘report’ we have
had ‘Christmas’
Dinner (30 th November
2001) held
at the Palm Court
Hotel. It was well
attended and enjoyed
by all.
We then had the Centenary Dinner—also at

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the Palm Court—which took place on 5th
January 2002. This also was well attended
and it was interesting to see that, although
some of the regulars were missing, quite a
large number of members who do not normally
attend these functions were present.
We, of course, hope that they will make a
habit of this. The Mayor of Scarborough ,
Councillor Lucy Haycock, and her consort,
Ted, were also welcome guests.
On Sunday 6th January 2002, a contingent of
Old Scabs attended morning service at St.
Mary’s Church. We were made most welcome
and were ‘mentioned in dispatches’.
The London Lunch took place on 16 th March
(with an attendance of 57) at the Howard
hotel. Thanks to Peter Robson and Maurice
Johnson for making the arrangements. This
year we had two ’cabaret’ acts instead of the
customary speeches. Stuart Bennett did an
excellent Stanley Holloway monologue
about Yorkshire Puddings, and Mike Elvy
gave a hilarious presentation of ’The Death
of Nelson’. Comments from those present
would indicate that they much prefer this
type of entertainment to speeches. Do we
have any more latent talent for future occasions
I have received a letter from John Leefe in
which he suggested that the Old Scabs donate
a trophy to the 739 Squadron ATC
(which in its early days was the High School
unit—it is now the town unit).
The trophy would be presented annually to
the best cadet. However, during subsequent
discussions and a the request of the Squadron
CO, we are now considering presenting
the Squadron with a ‘carrier’ for the standard,
consisting of a brass bucket, a leather
sling, and a presentation plate. This is to be
considered at the next committee meeting.
Elsewhere in Summer Times is an obituary to
Professor J W Christian, FRS. Jack and I,
(together with several others) were new boys
in 1A in September, 1936. He was a quiet,
friendly boy and he went on to win a State
Scholarship to Oxford, where he spent the
rest of his working life on research. He was
one of the most brilliant men that the school
ever produced. Incidentally, his wife Maureen
is the present Sheriff of Oxford.
We are hoping to hold a Cheese and Wine
party in May, and then the second part of the
centenary events in June.
I look forward to seeing you at these functions.
Ron Gledhill (1936-44)
President
SECRETARIAL
up the good work.
As of March 21 st
2002 we have 603
members on our
books, an increase of
42 from my last report
in Sept 2001.
This is due to the
recruiting efforts of
many members.
Well done and keep
Sadly in the past 6 months we have had the
deaths of 6 members reported to us; Ken
Cooper, John Rayner, John Edwards, Bill
Swinney (who sold most of us our School
uniform), Roy Downham and Eddie Lancaster.
We also received notice of the deaths in
earlier years of Eric Sigston, Cecil Cox and
Prof. THB Hollins.
We continue to lose track of people who
don’t report their change of address to us.
Please check the list of missing members in
this issue in case you can supply the missing
information.
Since my last report, we have held the Scarborough
dinner on 30th November 2001,
when a record number of members (88) were
present and the Centenary Dinner on Janu-

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ary 5 th 2002 when 56 members attended and
when we had the Mayor of Scarborough and
June Blakemore as our principal guests. Finally,
we held the London luncheon on March
16 th 2002 with 57 attendees. The attendance at
the last 2 events was disappointing, though I
recognise that many local Old Scarborians
made up their minds to attend only one of the
two functions in late 2001/early 2002. Further,
I believe the low attendance at the London
luncheon was due to the increasing problems
members are encountering when they travel
to our events. Last year, for example, we had
6 no-shows at the London Luncheon. This
year everybody turned up, but if their journey
to London was anything like mine, they have
my profound sympathy!
However, your Committee has no wish to
organise events that the membership does not
want, so please let me have your point of
view about the functions we do organise and
what if anything you would prefer. Should
we have regional lunches/dinners for example
The Committee held a very informal reception
for the out of town members, the
night before the Centenary Dinner. This was
very successful. Should we hold similar receptions
rather than formal dinners
Meanwhile, we have the Centenary weekend
coming up in early June. I hope many of you
will support these events and bring your
spouses and partners along. I look forward to
hearing from you and seeing you at the weekend.
Peter Robson (1945-53)
Secretary
TREASURIAL
Subscriptions are still dribbling in and our
financial position is fairly reasonable. The
accounts for the year ended 31 st October 2001
show a small loss of £91 which is very satisfactory
bearing in mind the cost of Summer
Times. At the year end we had unencumbered
cash in the bank of £2106.
I have recently taken a new
delivery of striped ties and
these will be available for
purchase at all the Centenary
events for anybody
wishing to buy one. The
price is being held at £5 per
tie which leaves us with a small profit after
covering postage.
On my way home on foot from the Association’s
Centenary Dinner in January I was
stopped by a passing Police car at 1.45 a.m. on
Silpho Moor and quizzed about what was in
the polythene bag I was carrying (my shoes)
and where I was going. When I informed
them that I had been to the Centenary Dinner
of the Old Scarborians Association which was
a reunion of former pupils of the Scarborough
Boys’ High School they professed to have
heard of neither of these. I suppose that this is
an indication of the comparative youth of
policemen these days or maybe it is the sign
of our own extreme age. Let us not dwell
upon this but let us enjoy our Centenary celebrations
in good style !
Before I finish I wish to congratulate Peter
Robson, David Fowler and Bill Potts, for their
ongoing and dedicated work on behalf of the
Association. The small amount of work I need
to do as Treasurer is minute compared to their
herculean efforts and we should all be very
grateful.
Chris Found (1951- 59)
Treasurer
SPORTING—GOLF
GOLF TOURNAMENTS 2002
The reports of the 2001 competitions were
carried in the November edition.
This year the events will be held at North Cliff
Golf Club as follows:

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Dr. Meadley Stroke Play Cup, Thurs 6 th June
TA Smith Cup Friday 12 th July
There will be the usual Dinner in the Clubhouse
after the second competition and I hope
that members will continue to support this as
they have in the past. The TA Smith Cup will
again be run as a Stableford as most participants
seem to prefer this to a Bogy competition.
I will be sending a circular to all members
on my list at the end of April giving details of
the first event. It is intended that a small entry
fee of £5 be charged for each tournament this
year and this will mainly be used to improve
prizes and generally upgrade the standard of
the outings.
I have a problem this year in that, having fixed
the date for the July event, my daughter informed
me that she was planning to celebrate
her wedding on the following day. As the
wedding is taking place away from Scarborough
and as I am in charge of organising it I
am going to need help in running both the
tournament and the dinner in the evening as I
may have to be absent from one or the other or
even both. If anybody is willing and able to
help me on that day I shall be grateful to hear
from them in the near future.
Chris Found (1951- 59)
Golf Secretary
WEB SITE REPORT
OSA Committee.
First, let me apologise
for the perfunctory
and technically
slanted style of my
last report (November
2001). I yielded to my
innate laziness and
simply asked David
Fowler to copy my
latest report to the
Within this report, I’d like to draw special attention
to the list, at the end, of those we can
no longer reach via email. If your name is on
the list, could you please provide us with the
corrected information (using the Update form
on the web site).
Photographs
In the last six months, I’ve added a fair number
of photographs to the site, although not as
many as I would have liked. For those who
have submitted photographs and are waiting
to see them, I promise you that I’ll be working
on the backlog, even as more photographs
arrive, thus ensuring that it will be a neverending
task. In addition to the usual sports
photographs, I’ve added quite a few in several
other categories. I also managed to complete
the Westwood and Woodlands pages in the
Architecture section.
Photograph Contributors
Let me digress, here, to acknowledge the
many contributors of photographs (with
apologies to any I may have inadvertently
missed and to those whose contributions
have yet to appear). They are: David Bates,
Mick Bowman, John Brinkler, Mick Ellam,
John Forster, John Found, David Fowler,
John Hall, Derek Hargrave, Brian Hoggarth,
Paul Hudson, Julian Johnson, Tom Jones,
Harold Jordan, Barrie Jubb, John Kennedy,
Michael Lester, Mike Lewins, John Mann,
Geoff Nalton, Carl Olsen, Len Plaxton, Andy
Porter, Peter Robson, Eric Rushforth, Brian
Schofield, Frank Vokes, Peter Wellburn, and
Geoff Winn. Jane Sleightholme (former
SGHS) also contributed a seven-a-side photograph
that has yet to appear. To avoid the
appearance of false modesty, I must also
acknowledge my own photographs and digital
video stills from some of the events (1999
Dinner, 2000 Luncheon, Millennium Dinner
and 2001 Dinner).
Special Contributions
I must also give special mention to Charles
Hall, who provided David Fowler with the
opportunity to photograph the four surviving

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honours boards. The School Captains and the
Open Scholarships (1930-53) boards are now
in the Documentary subsection of the Miscellaneous
Photographs section. I’ll be adding
the remaining ones (County Major Scholarships
and Open University Scholarships
[1953-62]) in the next month or two. Unfortunately,
the County Major Scholarships board
is in quite bad shape.
Web Site Bulletins
Since last August, I’ve been sending OSA
Web Site Bulletins (ten, as of the end of
March) to all members with known email
addresses. In those Bulletins, I have announced
significant changes or additions to
the web site and have provided reminders of
upcoming events. As the feedback I’ve had
includes no actual complaints and would
seem to validate the usefulness of the Bulletins,
they will, of course, continue.
Email Addresses Needed
A useful byproduct of sending out the Bulletins
has been the error messages (shown parenthetically
in the list below), indicating unreachable
email addresses. The following
members need to visit the web site and use
the Update form to give us their correct email
addresses: James Agar (couldn’t find host
named comus.new.labour.org.uk), Geoff
Burroughs (home.com no longer a valid domain
name), Mick Cammish (administratively disabled),
Don Caskie (not a valid mailbox), Kevin
Channers (receiver not found), Clive Cooper
(user unknown), Bob Edwards (couldn’t find
host named sunnyfield11.freeserve.co.uk), Ken
Gofton (couldn’t find host named sky.now.net),
Tim Lazenby (administratively disabled), Kenneth
John Mills (no specific reason given),
Mike Nellis (user unknown), John Richard
Outhwaite (inactive account), David Pottage
(inactive account), Ron Quaife (mailbox suspended),
Martin Reed (mailbox not found), Fred
Scott (couldn’t find any host named jscott42.
freeserve.co.uk), Raymond Scott (couldn’t find
any host named braunston2570.freeserve.co.uk),
and Eaglen Sheen (recipient name not recognized).
Best wishes to all my fellow Old Scabs,
Bill Potts (1946-55)
Webmaster
MISSING MEMBERS
If you have contact details for any of the
following, please let Secretary Peter Robson
know.
D Abram, Lichfield,
Trevor Edward Almack, Scarborough,
MJ Anderton, Scarborough,
D Booth, Reading,
Dr. BS Cartwright, Keighley,
HW Cassel, Edmonton, Canada,
F Charlton, Scarborough,
Anthony Dewdney, Scarborough,
Martin Dickinson, Scarborough,
Jeff Dowson, Nottingham,
DC Eade, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
Christopher John Garner, College Town,
Stephen Glaves, Scarborough,
D Hepworth, Grantham,
David Horsley, Scarborough,
Peter Johnson, Scarborough,
Terry McKinley, Scarborough,
John Stanley Nockels, Scarborough,
BD Poole, Haslemere,
JR Poole, Scarborough,
A Scales, Scarborough,
Gordon Ward, Scarborough,
DJ Welburn, Pontefract,
Col JB Wilkinson, Leyburn,
Martin Woolley, Halifax.
FROM HERE AND THERE
John Stirling writes
from Askrigg (1942-52)
I was known as ‘Bomber’ at school.
After Cambridge, I taught at an Agricultural
College, then decided to go for ‘proper’ teaching,
so taught at Northallerton Grammar

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School, and then came to Wensleydale to
teach Maths at Yorebridge Grammar School
and at its successor, The Wensleydale School.
I was allowed early retirement in 1987—
without ever regretting retiring!!
I have become a fairly competent Woodturner
in retirement, but am slowing down now that
I’m a ‘proper’ pensioner. I’ve much enjoyed
briefly browsing the Old Scabs’ website—but
have great difficulty recognising any of the
current photos of people whose names I do
remember. Still, I suppose it's about 50 years
since I've seen any of you!!
John Dobson writes from
Pickering (1938-47)
I was speaking with a pal today (Carl
Wiffen—we were in the same classes together—’U’)
and he mentioned he received
the SBHS ‘Journals’. I couldn't understand
why I didn't. It must be that I'd never paid a
sub!
However I’d very much like to become a
member at this late stage especially after
reading the May 2001 Journal. There are
many names in there I remember plus I have
to say with a laugh and possibly a blush, ask
Ron Gledhill to ask his wife Eileen if she remembers
when we were about 6 or 7 years of
age playing on the steps of a building
(possibly a church) with another lad called
Drummond—(wasn’t Len Plaxton another)!
Wow, have I started something! I’ll be very
pleased to send you the necessary subs.
John Forster writes from
Daventry (1955-60)
I recently went online and, as an Old Scarborian
member, logged onto the website—
brilliant!
I was sufficiently inspired to look through
my cache of old photos which seem to fill in a
few gaps—they date from 1956 to 1960 (I arrived
in January 1955, having previously been
at Leeds Grammar School) and are mostly of
cricket XIs and school plays.
My classmate Adrian Casey was a bit of a
joker. The Tory MP for a number of years—
and certainly at the time of the 1959 election—was
Sir Alexander Spearman, a Tory
grandee of sorts. I recall Adrian going to an
election meeting with me and others from
SBHS, standing up & asking, deliberately,
“Please can Mr. Spearmint tell us …” Mind
you, Adrian’s sense of humour got him into
trouble once with the French
‘assistant’. Adrian’s colloquial French was
pretty good ’cos he’d been there for a holiday.
We went into a classroom which had
only just been vacated on a hot day by a lot of
lads. Adrian thought he’d show off by remarking,
knowingly, “Ça pue” [This stinks].
The assistant promptly threw him out of the
room for rudeness.
Phoebe Hawson (née Fowler)
writes from Las Vegas
I’m not an old boy but am a member of the
SGHS Old Girls’ Association!
I was browsing online in Scarborough Today
(the new name for the Scarborough Evening
News web site) and went into the Ex-Pats
section. There was one of your Old Boys,
Andy Baxter from Calgary, Alberta, who had
lost touch with everyone.
I left the OSA web address on the Ex-Pats
section for Andy and hope he may join you.
Editor: Many thanks Phoebe—alias ‘little
sister’. Andy did subsequently join us—see
below; and you’re also remembered by Richard
Willcox—see page 10.
Andrew Baxter writes
from Calgary, Canada
(1969-73)
My name is Andrew Baxter. I attended The
Scarborough Boys High School from 1969 to
when it formally folded in what would have
been the summer of 1974. Most of the kids
would have known me better with my nick-

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name—Biddy. It was a great school. Simply
the best spirit of any place of education I have
ever been involved with bar none. In retrospect
it was a true privilege to have attended
and I am a better person today for having
lived the SBHS experience even though my
allegiances are with Canada now.
In September of 1974 I attended the Scarborough
6th Form College for about 3 months
after which I moved with my family to Canada
to begin a new and exciting life. I fondly
remember those 5 years at the SBHS. I actually
still have some memorabilia that I have
kept including what we in North America
would call a Yearbook. I also have some
rugby and cricket photos and take them out
once in a while to reminisce about those days.
Names I remember on the faculty side include
Gardiner, Speight, Ellis, Hopkins. Of particular
note was Barry Beanland, the P.E. Teacher.
Playing school rugby, cricket, soccer and even
swimming once I think, I used to see a lot of
Mr. Beanland—he was a great guy.
Friends at the school who I have all lost contact
with included Ronald Jaconelli (does his
uncle still sell ice cream), Keith Richardson,
Stephen Gash (I think he married Sally
Shales), Andrew Heald, Nick Dudding (his
dad taught industrial arts at the school), Jonathan
Gray, and Carl Wood.
We were the core of most of the sports teams
although I also remember Brian Poole and
David Clark being exceptional cricket players.
David was a bowler who could generate unbelievable
pace and movement from a new
ball. He used to scare me and I was the
wicketkeeper!!
I was advised to visit your site after leaving a
message on the Scarborough Evening News
web site. (Editor: See previous item). I think
it is a terrific forum for the Old Boys especially
the ones who went overseas and have
lost contact. Do you have a membership list
that can be referenced I would love to reestablish
contact with some of the old crew or
just simply get up to speed on what has been
happening to them. I am seriously considering
a visit back to the old stomping grounds
next summer and meeting some of the guys
would be very special for me as well as my
wife and children.
As for me, I am now 44 years old and have
been married for 18 years and have a 15 year
old daughter and a 10 year old son. We live in
Calgary, Alberta which was the site of the
1988 Olympic Winter Games. It is a beautiful,
thriving City of almost 1 million people just
an hour’s drive from the mountains. Many
people come here from the UK to go downhill
skiing as it is better and less expensive than
the Alps. I work for Sun Life Financial in
what we call the real estate department. I look
after all our commercial buildings in Western
Canada.
I have no regrets about moving to Canada
but often wish my kids could experience the
true meaning of kinship and camaraderie that
I experienced in those 5 wonderful years at
the Scarborough Boys High School.
Richard Willcox writes
from Wellington Heath
(1951-59)
Thanks for contacting me. I am indeed son of
Maurice Willcox, now 89. I went to SBHS
from 1951-1959. Thanks for the Old Scarborians
website details—I dropped a line to Chris
Found, one of my contemporaries. I have an
Old Scarborians membership card from January
1971, when the annual sub was £1, signed
by Geoff Nalton. I'll be in touch after Christmas
and intend also to rejoin. I am interested
in the Centenary events and may manage the
Summer one as we come up from time to time
to visit Dad, now in a residential nursing
home in Thornton-le-dale. I am not the Willcox
in the Choir photo. Do you have a sister,
Phoebe Phoebe Fowler was in my class at
Gladstone Road Juniors Hope to hear from
you again sometime.

11
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Editor: I do have a sister, Richard. She’s in print on page 9!

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Michael Kemp writes from
Wellesley, USA (1954-62)
Congratulations David, on yet another engaging
Summer Times.
No contact name is given for responding to
the request for information about missing
members, so I will reply through you. Rev. Dr
Paul F Bradshaw is a professor of theology at
the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and
an internationally-respected authority on
Christian liturgical history. I think that for the
last few years he has been located at Notre
Dame's London campus.
Ray Bloom, sometime SBHS and Scarborough
cricketer of renown, is teaching somewhere in
Africa, I think—or at least was about a year
ago. Zambia or Zimbabwe, I think I was told.
The source of my information was Roy (& his
wife Jen) Pepper—also an SBHS alumnus and
younger brother of Ken—who were apparently
in email contact with Ray. They live in
West Ayton, and are listed in the phone book.
I think Ray's older brother Alan also still lives
somewhere in the Scarborough area.
John Hall writes from Notre
Dame de Cenilly, France
I was particularly interested in Mike O'Neil's
and Bob Edwards' contributions re
Binder. Mike may remember that he was
actually given two copies of Journey In England,
one of which he gave to me. Years later I
in turn gave it to someone equally influential
in my own intellectual and professional development,
the late Prof. Angus Campbell,
Director of the prestigious Institute for Social
Research at the University of Michigan at
Ann Arbor, who spent a sabbatical year with
the Survey Unit of the then Social Science
Research Council (where I was a Senior Research
Fellow).
Frank “Billy” Binder started me off on Ancient
Greek on a one-to-one basis in the little
room in the basement that was used for medical
inspections. I remember we started with
Xenophon's Amnabasis and he actually used
to sing the text following all the accents! He
also once recounted how he taught himself
Polish by listening to the radio. Once, on a
wet Friday afternoon in 1951-52, and, much to
the amusement of his young protégés, he was
walking round with his flies open. Eventually,
Leonard Norton-Wayne, sitting at the
front as usual, and unable to contain himself
any longer, drew attention to the offending
ventilation, whereat Binder exclaimed, “Ah!
Flying without a licence again, hmmm,
hmmm!” On his retirement in 1960 I wrote a
short tribute in Old Scarborian containing the
phrase, “...no longer from those lyrical lips
the lingering lilt of long Vergilian lines
…” Well, he taught me about alliteration!
Incidentally, it's the one copy of OS that
I can't find.
Les Brown taught me virtually all the French I
now use. Although I took O level in 1956, his
basis of vocabulary (remember those blackboard-sized
folding pictures), pronunciation
(the 4 x 4 table), grammar and syntax stood
me in good stead when I retired to Normandy
in 1994, but was a bit short on technical vocabulary
(tools, building materials, plants etc)
and local patois, but these were quickly acquired
through intercourse (commerce, remember)
with local French people. Recollections
of Room 17 and M6B (home of table
tennis with desks moved to the centre and
played with 6th form hard-backed hymnbooks)
reminded me of a wheeze pulled on
Les who was wont to explain the precedence
of French pronouns as a soccer team arranged
from left to right in a 5-3-2 formation on the
blackboard, the whole finished with a heavy
chalk flourish from top left to right extremity
and back to bottom left. During one such
demonstration, Les suddenly shrieked and
leapt back (insofar as space permitted) as the
chevron burst into flame as it was being written
and was left smoking for several seconds.
As John Found later put it, “Cluckles of
goon-like glee” emanated from the assembled

13
throng. The culprit was never found as he
was not present and did not even take A-level
French. Now all can be revealed, it was I
(having carefully drilled a small hole in the
business end of the only piece of chalk and
inserted a match-head about 2mm down): the
timing was purely fortuitous!
Many old boys (and girls) will have enjoyed
Heartbeat with the steam train on the
Pickering-Whitby line, and with old rascal
Claud Greengrass, played by Bill Maynard. I
remember that Mike O'Neil and I hired the
Spa Ballroom at Easter 1961 for a Wardance to
raise funds for War on Want: he and Malcolm
Trott organised the band and most of the
ticket sales were arranged through SHBS and
the Girls' High School. On the afternoon of
the dance we went backstage to the Floral
Hall where Bill Maynard was doing a summer
show and asked him if he would present
raffle prizes for us. We didn't quite get the
bums' rush, but the offer was politely declined.
Imagine our delight when, after his
show, he turned up at the Spa and not only
did the raffle, but sang a couple of numbers
as well! Bless the old rascal, even if he did get
his picture in the Evening News.
I remember a 3L Maths class with “Pike”
Richardson in which pupils were firing small
paper pellets by means of elastic band catapults
stretched between thumb and forefinger.
Richardson requested all boys indulging
in this to come down and relinquish their
equipment to him. Practically the whole class
surged forward and I have never seen so
many elastic bands and unused pellets
cupped in a pair of (quite small) hands.
Or about how the time I was robbed of the 4L
year prize when my 360/400 mark for Latin
was down-graded to 320/400, the same as Jack
Holmes' mark for German, thus giving John
Moorhouse a greater total mark than me, and
with it the prize I still think I was better at
Latin than Jack was at German!
Or the time in 5L when Wes Newport managed
to fire a 0.22 bullet with a compass-point
from a hole or notch in the rim of his desk on
the back row into the wall behind the blackboard,
just before Les Brown walked in for a
French lesson straight into a cloud of cordite
smoke.
Or, again in 5L, Jack Ellis' less than enthusiastic
response to Les Phillips' lurid fluorescent
lime green socks in his Latin class.
Or how, still in 5L, Ray Armitage, who was
wont to copy my Latin homework 10 minutes
before the class started, once copied out a
whole set of deliberately incorrect translations
whilst I simultaneously wrote out the correct
version for myself. Sorry, Ray!
Or the origami experts in M6B who folded
and filled paper “kettles” with water and
launched them from Room 17 directly on to
the head of some unsuspecting pupil in the
bottom playground, at which Eddie Colenutt,
who got splashed by the impact, stepped out
from the bottom doorway and stared up at
the source of the missiles. Needless to say, by
the time he arrived, Room 17 was deserted.
Seriously, is there a plan for getting all these
memories and documents into some sort of
indexed data-base (don't look at me!) (Editor:
Nor me! But if any member wishes to offer, I
can supply digital copies of Summer Times
from November 1999) even if they aren't published.
Indexation by name and date crucial
for future historians. Are the girls doing anything
similar
Sorry I missed the mixed dinner: much prefer
these to all-male occasions. Glad it was a success
and that Pete Taylor went down
well. Found a letter from Jack Ellis to me at
Caius saying Pete was developing well and
was applying to Cambridge. (He got into
Pembroke and wisely changed from Classics
to History). Perhaps there should be more of
the same, not necessarily with a speaker.
Has anyone ever thought of an Old Boys /
Old Girls cross-channel trip UK catering so

14
Maritime Motifs
Southley Road
South Molton
North Devon EX36 4BL
Tel / Fax +44 (0)1769 572727
We are pleased provide
quality Sweaters/ Pullovers
in 100% Lambswool or
Wool/Acrylic to members of
the Old Scarborians
Association worldwide.
Please see loose insert and
order form, in this copy of
Summer Times.
expensive, and French cuisine cheaper and so
superior this could well work out reasonable
on a deal with P&O or Brittany Ferries.
There's a small bar in Hambye near here
that does amazing value lunches during the
week (except Wed): wide range self-service
cold buffet for starters, choice of two main
courses, cheese, dessert, coffee, wine/cider
included for 65F (c. £6.50). We're 60 miles
(Ooops! 100 km) from both Cherbourg
(Ruddle's County £13.49 and Morland Old
Speckled Hen £12.99 for 24 x 500cl cans, not to
mention the price of wine in hypermarkets or
fags in the tabacs) and Caen-Ouistreham and
close to the Normandy landing beaches
(Chris Found has stayed here twice) and other
tourist attractions. Worth thinking about anyway.
I remember on one of my patrols to the new
school at Woodlands a huge earth-moving
trailer completely disappeared (up to the end
of the tow-bar) into the lake of mud which
was later to become the main rugger pitch. It
took a digger and two bulldozers to pull it
out. After the school moved in, it was still a
quagmire after rain …
... Re-reading OS 1961 and review of As You
Like It, I suppose Eric Rice was indirectly responsible
for my first marriage to Jennifer
Lincoln, who played Rosalind opposite Frank
Stack (for which she got an unprecedented
Drama Prize, as a girl, at the 1961 Speech
Day), but whom I first noticed as Titania in
Midsummer Night's Dream when Richard Willcox
played Puck and brother Charles played
Bottom (and got ticked off by “Sam Rockinghorse”
for improvising one of his exits after
losing the ass's ears by feeling the air with
each hand above non-existent ears, descending
in three gripping gestures followed by a
Gallic shrug: brought the house down, but
EHR disapproved).
Pete Waggitt writes from
Cambridge (1967-72)
Having received a number of Journals I
thought it was time to update you and perhaps
make contact with some Old Scarborians
and perhaps some guys from my year.
I have worked for Barclays Bank for 27 years
and am presently an Area Retail Sales Man-

15
ager. I have been married to June (Anderson)
for 26 years. June recently graduated with a
2:1 B.A. Hons in English and History and
started a PGCE (Primary). Our daughter,
Lindsay, attended Sheffield University and
graduated with a 2:1 in Sociology this year
and hopes to travel the world soon. Our son,
Paul, has also opted to study ‘up North’ at
Sheffield Hallam University and is studying
for a degree in Construction Management.
Over the last 20 years, we have lived in Louth
in Lincs., Market Deeping near Stamford,
March in Cambs. and have spent 12 happy
years in Cambridge.
Hobbies are playing golf and going to the
theatre.
John Knighton writes
from Harrogate (1935-45)
Just to let you know that I now have an e-mail
address, having been seriously computerised!
It is: KnightonJB@aol.com Bill Potts apparently
already knows as I e-mailed to identify
one of the “unknowns” on the net at the Dinner
last September—back came a reply from
deepest California! Latest copy of Summer
Times again simply first-rate. Bill Potts says
that there is not much on the net about the
SGHS—Pam was hoping to read quite a bit,
but when we got it up on the screen there
certainly wasn't much—any hope of an improvement
soon
Editor: Sorry John, but I think you may be
addressing your query to the wrong Association
Brian Millington writes from
Weggis, Switzerland
(1948-55)
With regard to the photo on p58 of Volume 40
I could of course be wrong, but nevertheless I
am certain that the ‘U’ person standing 7th
from the left in the back row between Stan
Halliday and Dave Howden is David
(“Stevo”) Stephenson (1947-1955/56), who
lived, as did Roy Cass, Glyn Bower and I, in
Murchison Street. The boy on the photo looks
very much like Dave as I recollect him. He
was a good rugby centre/winger, as I recall.
Ashley Leng writes from
Aberdeen (1970-75)
Thanks again to all you dedicated fellows that
keep the Summer Times going. It is much appreciated,
I do hope to join you all at an event
soon.
Pete Young writes (1960-66)
I was born in 1946. I went through the school
from 1960 to 1966, with Mike Fewster, John
Showers, Spud Speight, Harvey Procter, etc.
Undergraduate education: BA Psych Dunelm,
MSc/CANTAB Working History: Lecturer
in Anatomy and Physiology University
of Adelaide, Visiting Professor University
Louis Pasteur, Institute of Biochemistry, University
of Strasbourg, Visitor, University of
Bristol Dept of Experimental Pathology, visitor,
University Of St Andrews Anatomy and
Pathology. Head of Psychology University of
Central Lancashire, Dean of Faculty of Science,
University of Central Lancashire. Member
of numerous committees including Parliamentary
and Scientific Committee. Now living
in Preston, Lancashire and married to Joy
(nee Chapman) who attended SGHS Scarborough
from 199dot to 1966. Two daughters
born in Australia, Emma (currently senior
reporter with New Scientist on Line) and
Clare now a lawyer based also in London.
Pierre Renier writes
Whilst not one being an ex-pupil of your
school, I was wondering if you could put me
in touch with a gentleman by the name of
William (Bill) Johnson, who I picked up from
a web search, and who has an entry in your
November Issue (Vol. 40), of the Summer
Times journal, on page 12.

16
My interest stems from research I have been
conducting over the past four years, in the
history of Photographic Reconnaissance (PR),
over the Channel Islands during 1940-45. As
part of my on-going research, I hope to contact
as many of the pilots who are still with
us, as is possible, as many of these gents are
now 75+. Whilst the gentleman may not have
been involved in a sortie to the islands, I
would still be interested to learn if he remembers
any of the other pilots from his PRU
days, and indeed if he still maintains contacts
with them.
As a gesture to show that I am quite genuine
about my researches, I note from the journal
that William Johnson became a POW in 1943.
If I am correct, as my notes on the PRU show,
there were a number of Johnsons. These are
the events as recorded by his squadron:
‘On the 13th June 1943, flying Spitfire PR.XI
BS490, Sgt. W. Johnson of 'B' Flight 541
Squadron RAF, took off from RAF Benson at
06.00 hrs on sortie D.671, to take coverage of
the Dortmund Ems Canal—failing to return.
The unit’s ORB states that it was believed he
was shot down at 08.03 hrs in the Rhudenall
area. An entry the following day records a
promotion of Sgt. W. Johnson (1205901) to F/
Sgt. w.e.f. 1.5.1943.’
Cover from previous sorties may still exist at
the Air Photo Archive at Keele University,
Staffordshire.
I trust you will find the above of interest. If
you are able to put me in contact with William
Johnson, then I would be most grateful.
Editor: We arranged for Bill Johnson to get
in touch with Pierre. Sadly, we heard of
Bill’s death as we went to press. An obituary
will be provided in our next issue.
Roger Steel writes from
Surrey
My daughter came across the web site. I was
School Captain in 69-70—just about the last I
guess. Now living in Surrey and a partner in
the London office of Eversheds, solicitors. I
can identify a number of people in the Alchemist
photo. You should know Richard White
standing on the stairs wearing a dark shirt.
Doesn't he/his parents own the Palm Court
Next to him is Andrew Lockwood. The very
tall boy on the far right was called Stevens. In
the DJ in the middle is Chris Garner, School
Captain before me. Two to his left is Ian Scott
and 2 to his left is, I think D Poole. Over towards
the left with the Astrakhan hat is a boy
called Richard Potts and next to him holding
the skull is Southwick (he played in the
Mandrakes, the school band which launched
the career of rock star/tax exile Alan Palmer).
I have various school photos of SBHS including
the production of Caucasian Chalk Circle
in 70 I think, Prize Day in 70, and rugby colts
or 2nd XV photos in 67/68, 68/69 and 69/70
and two earlier years I'm not certain of.
Dug Harris writes from
Northwich (1951-57)
Upon reflection I am not sure whether I am
updating my details or applying for membership!
I am fairly sure that I joined the Old
Scarborians shortly after I left school in 1957
but as I haven't heard anything from the association
for many years and my name doesn't
appear as a lost member in the downloaded
November edition of Summer Times, I suspect
that I may be a new member as far as
you are concerned! Perhaps you had better
send me an invoice for £15, membership and
an OSA tie.
I much enjoyed reading Summer Times, even
though it took quite a time to print all 64
pages. Reading through members' letters and
the other articles brought back a lot of names
I had half or completely forgotten. I was particularly
intrigued by the item from John
Harker. I remember a great Scottish cycling
holiday with John Harker and Neil Hunter in
1954, but is my John Harker the same as your
correspondent His dates at the school don't

17
seem quite to fit so maybe there were two
boys of the same name!
I should be happy to write a short personal
piece for the next Summer Times edition outlining
what has happened to me in the 44
years since I left Scarborough for universityand
didn't come back as my mother moved to
Kent at the same time.
The only old boy with whom I am still in
contact is Chris Woodland, who went into
teaching and eventually became a master at
Eton College.
John Larbalestier writes from
Wetherby (1951-59)
Just for the record, my father was manager at
the Grand when it was in its prime! We went
there in 1947 (when I was 12) and it took
about a year to get it refurbished as it had
been requisitioned for use by troops during
the war. My father was 95 in April this year
and is still in touch with many old employees
who worked there at one time or another.
I shall be unable to join you for the Centennial
Dinner at the Palm Court; we are both
down in Cambridge on that day for examination
meetings and sadly there is no way I
could be back in time. Fortunately, the OSA
seems to arrange regular get-togethers so I
shall catch up with you all at some stage for a
nostalgic natter!
Summer Times has revived many long buried
memories, names and events. The recollections
of ‘Bon’ have been of great interest; we
kept in touch with him for many years as he
had been very kind to both of us. I remember
him telling us one day that he had decided to
change his Christian name. The ‘F’ stood for
‘Firstbrook’ which he now considered a ‘daft’
name and he would henceforth be known as
‘Frank’ which from then on, he was!
My last visit to him was at his home in Cartmel
to where he and Kathleen had retired. He
was then in his late 80’s and was temporally
confined to bed, not from any illness but because
he had fallen off his bike! An indomitable
character!
Steve Harvey writes from
Cheltenham (1973-73)
I spotted the OSA link on the friendsreunited.
co.uk web pages. I agree with you that’s it’s a
pity more of the Woodlands generation don’t
get involved. Perhaps 20 years on we will be
saying the same of this generation.
I am absolutely delighted to have ‘discovered’
the OSA site because I think I can lay claim to
be the last Old Scarborian. I joined 3Z under
Graham Soles in 1973 and two weeks later we
joined up with the Girls High School to become
the Graham School, but stayed in our
High School uniforms until we left. In 1975, I
went up to the Sixth Form College and returned
to Cheltenham in 1977.
So, I stake my claim to be the last Old Scarborian
to join the SHBS before it went Comprehensive
and became the Graham School.
Nicholas Martin writes from
Orpington (1972-72)
I was in the last year of the Boys High School
before the change to Graham School. Living
in the south east for 19 years. Married to Kate
for 12 years. 3 children, Charlie 10, Jacob 8,
Lucy 4, and one on the way.
Paul Mowatt writes from
Gloucester (1964-1971)
I moved house several years ago & lost touch
until I found your website via www.
friendsreunited.co.uk
Edward Baines writes from
Scarborough (1946-51)
I’m just testing out all my newly acquired
(computer) equipment. I was so very sorry to
hear that Gerry Hovington had passed away.
He was my Form master 5 upper in 1951 just

18
prior to the start of my fifty year seafaring in
an exciting lifetime’s adventure.
The Christmas Dinner was memorable and
the food was excellent. It was good to see
people again after so long. What ever happened
to Derek Price (biology); he was a
Lieutenant Commander in the Fleet air arm
Bill Potts responded: Gerry Hovington was
also my form master—4L, I think (which
would be 1949-50). We have not been able to
trace Derek Price. I was fond of him, but had
mixed feelings about Hov (as he did about
me; he regarded me as immature for my age,
which I undoubtedly was).
Philip Austin writes from
Watnall (1958-64)
My name was commonly Ozzo or Pip (to
close friends). I hated school and couldn't
wait to leave. I am now a Headteacher in the
Primary sector with (almost) grown-up children
of my own.
I remember particularly, John Fielder, Derek
Houghton, John Kitson and Trevor Pepper,
the latter two with whom I am still in contact.
Also Master Strachan who I met on a recent
reunion at the old school, Mick Bassett , John
Toddington, et al.
To all those millions who won't remember me
and to the very few who do—I am still waking
each day wondering what I shall be when
I grow up.
Ian Copley writes from St.
Agnant, France (1963-68)
John Oxley was my rugby teacher at SBHS,
1964 to 68. He did his teacher training
(Sports) at Carnegie in Leeds.
He played rugby for Scarborough at the time
and was responsible for getting me into the
Scarborough colts team in 67 because I ended
up being suspended from the school second
XV following a despicable foul, whilst playing
Acklam Hall, Middlesborough. John decided
that Scarborough colts could use me for
the weekends of my suspension from school
rugby. I went on to play for Durham Police,
Lancashire Police and Lancashire Fire Brigade
but gave up at the age of 26; the knocks during
the games lingered far too long.
I think SBHS was John Oxley’s first teaching
post.
Mike Rines writes from
Nacton, Ipswich (1941-52)
I am sending Hov's war memoirs, as received
from the typing agency. There will therefore
be a number of errors in the copy, but I felt
that I ought to lodge a copy with you for safe
keeping.
I do intend to do a full edit on the copy before
going any further with the idea of trying to
get it published in some form, as well as offering
it to OSA members, and I have the family's
approval for this. Also, as you know, I
am seeking ways of expanding the story.
Barrie Pawson writes from
York (1950-51)
Having just finished my latest copy of the
magazine, one word prompts me to try and
send you some photos. That word,
WENSLEYDALE awoke memories and got
me looking for long forgotten photos, which I
am trying to scan and send to you.
Roy Cass writes from
Scarborough (1950-58)
In response to a request in Summer Times I
have obtained details of GR (Ray) Bloom from
mutual friends. He lives in St. Albans. Do you
have details of Terence (Tess) Vokes, late of
Franklin Street
In respect of Graham Burnett—I have not
seen or heard of him since I left school—so
sorry cannot help.

19
Simon Schmuck writes
from Scarborough (1970-75)
I am hoping to attend the Christmas Dinner
and also trying to raise additional interest;
could you please forward to me the contact
details for my contemporary John Dean (1969-
74) who contributed an article to the latest
newsletter.
Chris Wiseman writes from
Calgary Canada (1944-46)
It was delightful to meet you at last in Scarborough,
and I really enjoyed talking to you.
Will do so again in future, I hope.
Good journey home, in spite of the always
ghastly Heathrow. Same weather here,
though without the snow that I had in Scarborough!
Ron Dean writes from
Winchburgh (1968-72)
After school I served 25 years as an Ammunition
Technician in the Armed Forces. Whilst
serving, Andy Warris, another old boy joined
as an Ammo Tech. Since being discharged I
have been employed as the manager of a
Landfill site on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
I have been married for 18 years and have 2
daughters, 17 and 11.
John Dobson writes from
Pickering (1938-47)
Unknown (4) on the web site January 2002
Centenary Dinner is me—John Dobson!
Thanks for a first meeting and a good one at
that. Geoff Nalton's talk was excellent; a well
liked and respected gentleman …
Editor: We reproduce Geoff Nalton’s speech
on page 35.
Chris Dickens writes from
West Malling (1970-73)
I have just found the OSA website and must
send you my appreciation—it's great! I'm an
old boy (DOB 1957—then went to the 6th
Form College.) Looking for Tom Pollock,
Matthew George, Andy Pindar (son of
printer) and Ian Finnegan (who may still be in
business in Scarborough).
Alan Bridgewater writes from
Pocklington (1933-40)
I will certainly do my best to supply a crossword
for each of the issues of Summer Times.
In the crosswords I will try to put as many
Scarborough clues in as possible. It would
certainly give an “edge” if you can ‘fix’ some
little prize, and including the crosswords will
help diversify the magazine.
I only use the computer, and now the crossword
compiler, as a means of keeping my
brain active and, hopefully, keeping Alzheimers
at bay!!! I shall be 80 next birthday so feel
that I need to take precautions!!! Doing a
crossword twice a year will give me an objective,
for which I am very pleased.
The computer keeps me busy now that I cannot
get around very well. My driving days
ended three years ago and going around on
an electric buggy is not the same, although I
remain cheerful and I have learned to accept
the onset of old age !!!
Editor: Alan’s first crossword appears on
page 74.
Keith Dawson writes from
Sidmouth (1947-49)
(Principal of the Sixth Form College
1979-84).
Many thanks for the reminder about the Centenary
Dinner. Sadly, I shan't be able to be
with you all but I wish everyone, and the Association,
a very happy and successful eve-

20
ning. I shall be thinking of you and will raise
a glass.
Gary Watson writes from
Wakari, New Zealand
(1948-53)
gjmwatson@hotmail.com
John and Anne (Mann) left us yesterday
morning, Saturday the 9th our time, and will
be in Christchurch until tomorrow, when they
move on to Oz. I will forward your message
on to them to their temporary e-mail address,
which they are using until their return to the
U.K.
Alas, I've been unsuccessful in my efforts to
contact any of my old friends and I would
appreciate another try in the next Summer
Times. I'm mainly interested in two class
mates, namely Johnny Harris and David
Fewtrell. I suppose after such a long time
both could have passed on; however until I
am 100% certain I will live in hope. My wife
June and I will attend the June centenary celebrations,
so will see you there.
Martin Reed writes from
Hatfield (1967-74)
Last autumn I had occasion to make contact
in my professional capacity with Howard
Acklam and it soon became clear that we
were both old boys. We spent about 5 minutes
on ‘official’ business, and something like
20 minutes chewing the OSA fat!
He very kindly sent me details of the Association.
God knows why I have been dithering
for so long before contacting you, but I suppose
better late than never! To a large extent, I
have been prompted by seeing on the website
a picture of someone whom I seem to recall as
one of my contemporaries, namely David
Burnley. I have had no contact with anyone
from my era for about 20 years, maybe longer,
so it will be interesting to find out who is still
around. The shot of June Blakemore at the
recent dinner is amazing—she really looks
very little different from how I remember her
all those years ago.
So could I please apply to join the OSA I
enclose a cheque for £20 which should be
enough to cover my subscription, the cost of a
tie, and a little bit over for the kitty. I have
made the cheque payable to the Association
but do let me know if this needs changing.
I started at the High School in Woodlands
Drive on 13 September 1967. I was one of
those there during the transitional period—I
had one year of the Lower Sixth at Woodlands
Drive before we all trooped up Stepney
Drive to the old Girls' High School as part of
the new Sixth Form College. I left there in
1974.
One thing I ought to do is have a search
through my loft. I was instrumental in having
photographs taken of the Upper Sixth towards
the end of our final term and there is
just a chance I might have an odd one around.
If I can find it, I am sure it would make an
interesting addition to the website.
John Corradine writes from
Wroxham (1949-54)
Thank you for the copy of Summer Times
Vol. 39. I have been able to download copies
of the earlier Summer Times from the web
site, although the printer struggled a bit with
Volume 38 at 60 plus pages.
I have been very pleased to make contact with
the Old Scarborians Association after so many
years, and enclose my cheque for the subscription.
On a visit to Scarborough I read in the Scarborough
Evening News a letter from Peter
Wellburn, which made reference to the web
site. On return home, after a bit of exploring
on the internet, I found the site.
I have been fascinated to read contributions to
Summer Times, and remember many of the
names. In particular, the photograph of
School Staff in 1953 brought back many

21
memories, and I was pleased to read Gerry
Hinchliffe's letters in the magazine.
I still have a copy of The Third Former—The
Magazine of Form 3L dated July 1952, which
was produced under Gerry’s guidance, and to
which he contributed under the pseudonym
'Senex'.
The Editor was Keith T Bowes; the Assistant
Editor Michael Lester, and literary contributors
included Bransby Croft, John Pitts, John
Wheelhouse, Christopher Yates, Tony Calcraft,
Shaun Ireland, Richard Toft, David
Shannon, Peter G Robson, Michael Lester,
Peter Bortoft, Arthur White, David Fowler(!),
Stephen Gill and Stephen Williamson. Geoff
Winn is listed as a typist, and John Found as a
binder.
I also have copies of The Scarborian, editions
35 to 39, November 1949/50/51/52/53, and a
copy of The Westwood School at Scarborough
1902-1952 produced for the 50 th Jubilee. My
computer skills are not up to scanning these
but if you would like to borrow them I will be
happy to send them to you.
I am glad to have regained contact with the
Old Scarborians after so many years.
Dennis White writes from
Chesham (1939-1944)
I have just finished reading the November,
2001 edition of Summer Times. As a new
member, I send my congratulations to all involved
in its publication.
I enclose a contribution for the next edition.
Please scrap it if you consider it to be of limited
interest.
Editor: Dennis’ item appears on page 43.
Ray Muir writes from
Cayton (1936-41)
First of all my congratulations on the May
edition of Summer Times. It made very enjoyable
reading.
I am enclosing a piece on the SBHS ATC
Squadron. It may stir up a few memories for
some of my generation.
Incidentally, during the summer, I met up
with Peter Scott (page 44 Vol. 39). He was
visiting his mother who is a member of our
bowling club. I passed on Summer Times to
him and he may well be joining us.
Editor: Ray’s article appears on page 67.
Stan Todd writes from
Derby (1959-66)
To my shame I only came across the Old Scarborians
site recently … almost unforgiveable I
know, but I was at school 1959 to 66 and see
in Summer Times I got a mention. I am indeed
at Rolls Royce. My e-mail: stan.todd@rollsroyce.com
I came here in 1966 as a pre-university apprentice,
subsequently Engineering at Imperial
College, 1967 to 70, MBA at Manchester
Business School, 1972 to 74 and with RR,
thereafter with the company in Derby, Glasgow,
New York, Toronto, but presently in
Derby working in Civil Aerospace. So Andy
Claughton wasn't a mile out. You'll now tell
me I ought to join the Old Scarborians and
you’re right! If you could mail me a form at
Rolls Royce, PO Box 31 in Derby or e mail I'll
start my atonement.
Rick Ware writes from
Marlborough (1957-62)
If Frank Thompson manages to find Adrian
Casey (p.17) for the '51 re-union, don’t let him
anywhere near a machine-gun! I remember
the tall, gangling and bespectacled corporal
Casey from 739 Squadron ATC. At one summer
camp he ‘froze’ on the trigger of a bren
gun—which he’d failed to set to ‘single
shot’—sending a whole magazine of bullets
spraying all over the range. As there was a
Chipmunk on finals just beyond the parapet
he was quickly leaped upon by the range sergeant.

22
Mike O’Neil remembers playing in a band
with Mal Trott (p. 30). I'm sure Mal had a
younger brother called Howard with whom I
played in a trio whilst at school; myself on
drums and Steve Male on saxophone. Trott
was a brilliant pianist whilst Steve and I were
pretty dire, so bookings were nil. My first
public appearance had to wait a year until I
joined the Musketeers in which Dennis Hitch,
also mentioned in Mike O'Neil's piece, played
guitar and clarinet. Not at Mac's I regret to
say, but at the former roller skating rink!
One last thought; when I read in Summer
Times of the immensely talented and hugely
intellectual teaching staff I was apparently
surrounded by—how, I wonder, did I alone
managed to avoid becoming educated
Dick Hartley writes from
Hindhead (1950-58)
I have been meaning to send you the enclosed
sports photos for months but it has taken me
an eternity to move “ass”.
As you can see, I have struggled with some of
the names, but given the passage of time,
maybe I can award myself 8/10.
I have been looking at some of the photos on
the web site and have two points to make on
the Production Staff photograph from The
Tempest. Unknown (7), next to me, is a guy
called Fred Duggleby, who, if memory serves
me correctly, emigrated to Canada with his
parents not long after that. I would also question
whether the guy next to Fred Drabble is
Leonard Norton-Wayne. I cannot for the life
of me remember his name but I am sure it is
not Leonard. If it is, then his latest photos on
the web site indicate a radical change from his
youth!
Good luck with your endeavours. I enjoy
Summer Times and browsing the web site
greatly. It brings back many memories. Hopefully
I will be at the Centenary weekend.

23
Steve Taylor writes from
East Ayton (1957-64)
Referring to Summer Times Vol. 40 ‘Missing
Members’, M Dickinson left Grosvenor Road
around 1962 and now lives elsewhere in Scarborough.
On page 56 (2 nd para.) Allan Willson was ex-
Queen’s College Oxford where he gained a
BA (Hons) and Dip. of Ed. (Oxford). I believe
I’m correct in saying the first interview between
Mr Marsden and Allan Willson took
place in the waiting room of Leeds City Station!!
He joined us at SBHS in 1956 to teach
Modern Languages. He was Head of German
but left December 1962 to become Head of
Modern Languages at Theale Grammar
School, Reading.
Editor: We still haven’t tracked down M
Dickinson, Steve.
Gwyneth Foster (nee Jones)
writes from Abingdon
(daughter of the late AE Jones MA—past History
master)
Micky Herman kindly lent me a copy of Summer
Times May 2000 which I fully enjoyed,
likewise to editions later, especially as they
covered the period when my father AE Jones
MA taught history at SBHS. John Knighton’s
‘Memories’ went into even more detail and I
wrote to him congratulating him and purchased
a copy for myself. He suggested you
might be interested in some of the anecdotes
mentioned in my letter. Accordingly I’m enclosing
a photocopy.
If you can read it you are welcome to use any
passages for a future Summer Times. Just edit
out the bits which are too personal. (“Don’t
want to offend anybodee!”—one of Dad’s
phrases.)
Perhaps some other girls from SGHS might
like to add a few memories. There were a few,
a very few joint occasions, official or unofficial
they may care to relate…
Editor: Thank you Gwyneth. We hope to be
able to include some of your passages in the
next edition.
The Sheriff of Oxford,
Councillor Maureen Christian,
writes
We received a copy of the Old Scarborian
magazine addressed to my husband Professor
JW Christian and I realised you must not
know that Jack had died at the end of February
2001. There were obituaries in the Times,
the Guardian and the Independent among
other places.
Jack travelled to Japan not long before he died
to receive a Gold Medal from the Japanese—
the highest award they had for Materials science.
The night before he died, he accompanied me
to the Town Hall to see me convey the Freedom
of the City of Oxford on Colin Dexter—
the author of the Inspector Morse novels, and
he enjoyed the reception afterwards.
We have a wonderful photograph taken at
that occasion. He died in the Department he
helped to create less than 24 hours later.
Editor: An obituary appears on page 33.
Alan Green writes from
Letchworth (1937-44)
Sorry to have let you—and Chris—down in
responding to your request for an obituary
for dear old Jack (Chris) Christian. He was
one of the brightest and kindest people you
could ever wish to meet. A world figure in his
field.
Congratulations to all involved on the quality
of the ‘Journals’. I read them from cover to
cover within 2 or 3 days of their arrival (in the
comfort of my own bed I should add, with the
‘Times’ relegated to second place). A decent
dose of nostalgia is no bad thing, once in a

24
while. No evidence of too many memory
lapses among Old Scarborians apart from a
few understandable errors. E.g. HW Marsden
was at Wadham College Oxford, not Cambridge
and certainly not Brasenose, Oxford.
He went up in 1914, spent the war, (as he put
it) up a telegraph pole in Flanders, and went
back up in 1919. It was thanks to Joe Boss that
I scraped into Wadham (1948-52) myself. He
knew the Warden was born in China and had
a 100 year family connection with China.
Anybody who wanted to read Classical Chinese
was simply nodded in. Well, that’s my
story anyway!
‘Bon’ would have died if an errant pupil said
‘Zero, Herr Clarke’, unless it was a French
class. It was always ‘Null, Herr Clarke’ and a
smack round your ear for your pains. Incidentally,
Bon was a sergeant, with a Military
Medal, never a Military Cross and never a
conscientious objector. Who invented that
one
I thought the item on the 1940 Bromsgrove
camp very penetrating. The Boy Scout contingent
was allowed to sleep out in tents for a
week or two. When Birmingham, 12 miles
away, was heavily bombed 3 nights in succession
the ground shook continuously.
Well remembered Ron Gledhill and Jack
Layton.
Chris Beck writes from
Sheffield (1945-52)
Thank you and those concerned for a most
enjoyable January weekend in Scarborough
including the Friday Reception for us ‘out-oftowners’.
Strange to say that on these occasions
you have more things to say than there
is time available.
We were quite surprised at the number of
changes to the town—e.g., no Greensmith and
Thackeray, James Beal, Marshall and Snelgrove,
Balmoral Hotel, etc.
John Found writes from
Woodchurch (1949-57)
I was interested to read John Rice’s reminiscences
of Les Brown, that excellent teacher of
French. (Volume 40, page 48) He is quite
right, in essence, about the incident regarding
the ringing of a bicycle bell in a class lesson.
I should say bicycle bells and I am quite certain
of the facts because the perpetrating miscreant
who was none other than my cousin
Dennis. I remember him telling my mother
about the incident nearly 40 years ago, but as
I now live close to him in Kent, I thought I
would check up with him as to the details.
Cousin Dennis is Dennis Atkinson who attended
SBHS from 1930 to 1937. The jape took
place more or less as related by John Rice.
Dennis had earlier drilled a hole through the
floor of the classroom, tied a string to several
cycle bells and the other end to his foot. The
lesson was underway and the academic calm
was shattered by the all too audible sound of
bells being rung below. Sadly for Master Atkinson,
30 pairs of eyes fixed upon him and
the teacher soon became aware of the guilty
party. “Come here Atkinson”, said he. “I
can’t”, said Dennis, “my foot’s tied!”
Dennis was duly punished but not by Les
Brown, for this is the twist in the tale as the
class teacher was none other than Eric Rice,
John Rice’s illustrious father!
Since leaving the High School in 1957, after
two years National Service and two years at
St. John’s College York, I spent all my years as
a teacher in Yorkshire. My last 14 years were
as head of Ganton Primary School until it
closed in 1988.
Until now I have never subscribed to the Old
Scarborians Association but the magazine
graphically illustrates just what I have
missed. I was particularly delighted to read
the contributions by ‘Hinch’, Gerald Hinchliffe.
He would be my role model as a teacher.
He was fair, erudite, always interesting and

25
progressive in his methods and his attitudes.
It was great to see him again in 1992 when I
organized a year reunion at Scarborough
Cricket Club.
I think some of the names on the photo of the
SBHS choir (vol. 40 p.58—and on the web
site) are, between Hunt and Halliday, David
Stevenson, Bob Burnard, and, (on the front) it
is not Jack Fletcher but John Moore, Ron Holland,
and Alan Wilcox.
As I hope to be returning to Scarborough with
my wife, Judith, later this year, I look forward
to being part of this vibrant association.
Gerald Hinchliffe writes from
Nottingham (Staff 1947-55)
Your mention of The Third Former prompted a
search of box files but so far to no avail. I saw
it a few months ago and so I shall keep looking.
Perhaps you remember the cover. It was
done by my brother who used to be in the
printing trade. By unusual coincidence a few
days after you wrote I received a letter passed
on to me by Peter Robson. It came from John
Corradine who had just joined the Scarborians.
You will remember him.
In his letter he mentioned the Third Former to
which he had contributed. He mentioned all
those who had pieces in the magazine including
one David Fowler and some old geezer
who described himself as ‘Senex’. I wonder
what he wrote! The name is more appropriate
to his present state than that of long ago.
You mentioned Joey’s reaction to my ‘History
of Education in Scarborough and District before
1870’. It was a thesis I did for the University
of Leeds. They have a bound copy; I have
another. I gave a paper back copy to the
school, another to Scarborough Library and a
third to the then Scarborough Divisional Executive
(i.e., the then local education authority).
Some years ago I inquired about the
health of the library copy and I was informed
that it had been stolen!! (Probably raised a
fortune at Sotheby’s!)
The work runs for about 100,000 words. It is
my intention to give my bound copy to Scarborough
Library in the hope and they can
guard it better than they did the earlier one. It
needs some renovating but I shall attend to
that soon. You will realize that it is a solid ()
work and hardly lends itself to reprinting by
the OSA. It was almost entirely an original
piece of research and it should have a place
somewhere in Scarborough.
I shall look forward to reading Hov’s Green
Howard reminisces. In all the time I knew
him he never mentioned them to me, but then
again we hardly ever discussed the war…
… Last week I met a distinguished Old Scarborian—now
an American citizen. Despite
over half a century having elapsed since we
last saw each other, I recognized him instantly
as he emerged from the platform of
Nottingham Station! He grinned and with a
twinkling irony shook me by the hand and
said, “Stoddard, I presume!” I took the opportunity
to ask him whether he had brought
that essay he owed me on Sassoon’s ‘Fox
Hunting Man’. Crestfallen, he made the usual
excuses—hadn’t been well, had to go to see
his grandmother, fell asleep doing his maths.
When I told him I’d seen him in the Futurist
he ate humble pie and said he would send
this essay to me sometime in the next decade!
Who was this REVAN TRANTER!
He was over here for a week or so and very
kindly came up from his London base to see
me. We had a great time reminiscing over
coffee, lunch and beyond until he took an
early train back. It was a misty, grey day
which I suppose enhanced the unreality.
What a train of events your Scarborian Revival
Movement has initiated! There are some
Scarborians in darkest Africa who never cease
tapping out e-mails! Scarborough has become
a larger place since the rest of the world
contracted …

OBITUARIES
FURTHER
REFLECTIONS ON HOV
who died 8 th September 2002, aged 87
years.
by Bill Redman (1946-54)
26
Hov was educated at
Coatham School, Redcar,
where his Head teacher
would summon Sixth
Form Boys to his study to
learn how to smoke a
pipe—a habit which Hov
intermittently tried to
forgo for the rest of his life, without any success.
After reading English at Oxford University,
where he played soccer, he was appointed to
teach at the Scarborough Boys’ High School,
an appointment which was quickly interrupted
by the war. Major Gerry Hovington
served with The Green Howards in India and
in Italy where he certainly had an active war,
before returning to the High School.
As an English teacher he had a matter of fact,
no nonsense approach to his subject which
combined with a sharp ready wit made him
popular with his pupils who were at the
same time careful not to be the recipient of
his comments—a similar attitude taken up by
his teaching staff when he was a Head Master.
Hov established a relaxed comfortable atmosphere
in the classroom but many Old
Boys will remember him best for his out of
school contributions to the life of the
school—the Boxing Club and notably the
coaching of the 1 st XV Rugby team. His approach
was typically cerebral. Tactics were
discussed, line out ploys rehearsed and team
performances were analysed. A victory
against his old school, Coatham, was a source
of great satisfaction. The bond between Hov
and his teams was fierce and it gave him
great pleasure to meet in Mansfield recently,
members of his early 1950 teams—Geoff Lee,
Peter Midgley, Peter Robson, Tom Jones,
Derek Hargrave and Alan Hodgkinson.
At the end of 1953, Hov left the High School
to become the Deputy Head at Easingwold.
He recalled that when he told Henry Marsden
that he had secured an appointment elsewhere,
Henry did not speak to him for several
weeks until he had secured a successor
for rugby, the equally formidable Jack Ellis.
After which, Henry broke his silence and
Hov was told, “You can go now”. Normal
conversation was resumed.
His tenure at Easingwold was brief. He became
Head of a grammar school on the Isle
of Man, where Hov the confirmed bachelor
(or so we thought) married Jean his secretary.
As an established Head in a salubrious area,
Hov made a challenging career decision. He
started from scratch to establish a new grammar
school in Mansfield Woodhouse, a small
mining town in Nottinghamshire, which in
time became one of the most successful
grammar schools in the country in terms of
both sporting and academic achievements.
Contacts with Scarborough were maintained.
Barry Beanland visited with an SBHS rugby
team. Old Scarborians, Ron Hutchinson and
Graham Thornton were, in turn, Heads of
History. I remember my first day as Deputy
Head to Hov. Charged with curriculum innovation,
I went to his office to be told to make
sure that all haircuts were above the neck. He
was talking about the staff! Green Howard
standards will apply.
Such were the qualities of Hov that the higher
up the educational ladder he went, the easier
the task appeared. As a Head Teacher he led
effortlessly by his ready wit and clear intellect
and it was these qualities that made him so
respected and admired as a teacher at the
Scarborough Boys’ High School. On a personal
level, I have lost a friend and mentor.

27
by Nigel Johnson (1946-54)
It was a very great shock and surprise to me
to learn from Gerald Hinchliffe in the last
issue of Summer Times that Hov had died,
since I had been speaking to him on the telephone
about a week before his death, when
he was his usual lively, amusing and perceptive
self.
In a previous edition of Summer Times, I had
asked if it was possible to get in touch with
him through the Old Scarborians, since I had
not communicated with him for many years;
we had chatted in the Rosette, in Newby, not
more than two or three times since I had left
the High School in 1954. However, Hov had
taken the trouble to phone me last August,
when I was away on one of my sailing trips
to Brittany from my home in Cornwall. Hov
spoke to my wife, Ann, complimenting her
on being unusually tolerant and longsuffering!
Shortly afterwards I had been in
touch with him for a lengthy chat and he
subsequently phoned me to tell me whom he
had met recently of the Old Scarborians at a
rendezvous near his home. To talk to him on
the telephone, one had no idea of his age,
and he remembered me as if we had met
only recently.
Hov was the master who influenced me most
profoundly at the High School. His approach
to life was infectious. One could not help but
be impressed by him, so that whatever he
said, whether about English Language and
Literature or about life was interesting, and
one was fully engaged. Hov taught me English
in the fourth and fifth years. Until then, I
have to confess that, although I had found
school enjoyable on the whole, my interest
had been peripheral; life began at 4.00pm
each day!
Hov would tease me about girlfriends in
front of the class, much to my embarrassment,
but he also got through to me that it
was time to get down to some hard work and
to take life more seriously. I began to become
aware of intellectual pleasures hitherto unknown,
and also of the depths of my own
ignorance.
My renaissance really began in the Lower VI
Arts, with the enlightenment of Charlie Rice
in English Literature and Biff Smith in History,
though we still saw Hov for a couple of
periods of English Literature per week. He
also taught a small group of us Latin up to
‘O’ level from scratch in one year, which I
just managed to pass. My love of English and
History deepened and matured, so that after
National Service in the Royal Navy and four
years at Durham (University College), I became
an English teacher for 30 years in five
different schools, Head of Department in all
but the first.
So I have much to thank Hov for, particularly
for his continued interest in me at the very
end of his distinguished life. I find it hard to
believe he is no longer with us.
THOMAS MARSDEN ('Trot')
WALKER—A REMINISCENCE
by Gordon Medd (1932-39)
I think it was 1929 when the paths of Trot
and myself crossed for the first time. He was
a red-haired 'boat boy', carrying the reserve
supplies of incense for the Thurifer at St.
Martins on the Hill, and I was a choirboy. He
graduated later to the position of Thurifer
and brought excitement to the role with his
ability to swing the censer, not only in pendulum
fashion, but in widening circles round
his head, raising an enormous amount of
smoke. I often used to think that Sunday
morning processions moving slowly down
the nave to the chancel, with Trot raising
fragrant fumes at the front, and the rest of us
trailing behind, must have looked to the congregation
like an old and smokey goods train
puffing its way heavenwards. It was also
about this time that he negotiated a contract
with the verger to make periodic culls of the
pigeons in the belfry, using his air rifle. He

28
sold the birds to Lands, the game merchants,
at 6d each. Looking back, I can see now the
burgeoning of the ‘entrepreneurial flair’
which carried him through the rest of his life.
He came to the High School in 1931 and soon
made his mark in the Junior Soccer sides, and
later in the Rugby Fifteens where he perfected
a peculiarly erratic jinking run which made
him difficult to stop. It's been said that this
was the origin of his sobriquet, but I believe
we called him Trotter (or Trot) long before
this, from his habit of trotting everywhere—
more often than not because he was late—and
because, of course, schoolboys' logic decrees a
'Trotter' is one step up on a 'Walker'.
School camps, particularly the German ones,
were fertile ground for Trot's adventurous
streak, although things sometimes went awry.
In Mittenwald, for instance, where his attempt
to supply the camp with fish from the
lake went sadly wrong when he hooked himself
in the leg. Two of us were detailed to
push him on a bicycle down the narrow track
to Mittenwald's doctor where he was dehooked
and stitched up. The long push back
uphill was enlivened by an account of his
new plan to switch from hooking to netting to
obtain future supplies of fish.
The visit to Hinterzarten brings me another
memory of Trot. We had camped at the foot
of a ski-jump (no snow of course!) and the
only washing facility for tin mugs and plates
and other utensils, was a deep pond near the
tents. Trot and I were on fatigue duty which
included washing the utensils of the ‘top
brass’. To while away the time, we developed
a sort of boat-race—floating suitably ballasted
tin mugs across the pond, and impelling them
with gentle waves, made by hand at the water's
edge. Tiring of this, Trot suggested a
game of Ducks and Drakes, skimming the
metal plates across the pond and onto the
opposite bank where they ended up surprisingly
clean. It was great fun until one overenthusiastically
delivered plate hit the water
‘edge-on’ and sank to its watery grave. It was
no fun at all when we realised it was Brad's
plate. Our subsequent account of how it ‘just
floated away and sank’, was greeted with a
snort of obvious disbelief, followed by a sentence
of extra fatigues. (Perhaps the dreaded
‘double-beater’ had been surrendered at the
border!).
All this, I hope, gives some idea of the free
(and slightly rebellious) spirit which lurked
under that shock of red hair—a spirit which
relished the teasing and testing of authority's
boundaries.
Mentally, he was very bright, but the thought
of an academic career made little appeal to
him, and he eventually left school in 1938 to
become, through his father's good offices, a
Pupil Brewer at Sam Smith's Tadcaster Brewery.
The war years saw him in the Royal Artillery
where he served in Europe, and, for a period
immediately after the war, he was involved in
searching for missing soldiers. He was always
reluctant to talk about this experience, but it
no doubt resulted in his first contacts within
what were to become ‘Iron Curtain’ countries—indeed,
for a short spell he was in
charge of a prison camp in Yugoslavia.
On leaving the Army, he set up as a Wine
Merchant, running small businesses in Pocklington,
York, and then London, and it was
from his London addresses in Stafford Place
and then Queensgate that he started to operate
as a consultant. He concentrated particularly
on the development of trading arrangements,
largely in wine, between British companies
and Eastern European countries
(where he had many contacts at ‘apparatchik’
level). He was involved in the successful negotiation
of such deals on behalf of a number
of large organisations, including DuPont,
Pepsi Cola, and ABM, as well as with many
smaller companies.
His enthusiasm for ‘dealing’ never deserted
him. Indeed, I well remember when, one
night in Dubrovnik, he attempted to persuade

29
two of the local Polizei that the driver of the
car they had stopped going down a one-way
street, was indeed the Chinese Ambassador. It
came to naught when a light was shone into
my very unoriental face. Not a whit abashed,
Trot quickly switched to a negotiation
through the passenger window on the size of
the fine. I don't think he got it reduced for me,
but at least he didn't attempt to charge me his
usual ‘negotiating fee’!
He was certainly a tough egg in a deal, but he
did possess a well-concealed sentimental
streak. I have seen him cross the road to put a
coin in a beggar's tin—and seen him moisteyed
when visiting the site of an old boyhood
camp at Langdale End. He treated his life
very much as he treated his school days—as a
game, to seek best advantage at minimum
cost and maximum fun.
I shall miss the regular phone calls from outlandish
places which always started, “Medd,
have you heard this one” I shall miss Bette's
mildly reproving (but often secretly amused)
rebukes to him … “MICHAEL! You can't DO
that!”
I shall miss him as a staunch and life-long
friend.
WILLIAM (BILL) WATSON
December 30, 1939 - October 27 2001
Bill was born in Scarborough, in 1939 and was
the best sort of Yorkshireman—a man of few
words, deep feelings, and compassion towards
most living things with the notable
exception of spiders. Like the Goons and the
Monty Python gang, in whose humour he
revelled, he could see a joke lurking in most
things—but not in spiders.
He was the elder son of Charles and Winifred
Watson. Because his father was in a ‘protected
occupation’, Bill spent the war years in Stratford-on-Avon.
Life in Stratford so imprinted
the smell of hops on him that Bill liked to say
that there was never a time in his life he did
not like the odour and taste of English ale.
He attended Scarborough High School for
Boys’ and was in the third form when his
younger brother Philip was born. At Grammar
School, his closest friend was Jack
Holmes and they were inevitably ‘Holmes
and Watson’ first at school and then at Leeds
University. Learning that he had applied to
read for a degree in Aeronautical Engineering,
one of his masters at the High school
said, “Watson, you’re far too bright to be an
engineer, you ought to be an accountant.”
Bill only ever had momentary, monetary regrets
that he never became an accountant; he
had been fascinated by aeroplanes since
childhood and had always wanted to design
them. After graduation, he went to live in
Saint Albans and work for British Aerospace
in Hertfordshire. There he worked on the
Trident, Airbus A-300 and the BA 146, the
first of the ‘whisper’ jets.
The only thing he ever wanted to do more
than help design aircraft was to play saxophone
in a jazz band, preferably like Johnny
Hodges, preferably with Duke Ellington. Bill
didn’t have the talent to be a player but he
was a superb listener and the ‘perk’ he enjoyed
most in his job at British Aerospace was
travelling to France on business and staying
over the weekend at his own expense so that
he could listen to visiting American jazzmen
such as Dexter Gordon in Paris nightclubs. So
far as anyone knows, there's only one recorded
instance of his own musical ability,
such as it was, but it’s a dandy. When Billy
Liar was being filmed in Leeds with Tom
Courtney as Billy in 1960, Bill signed on as an
extra. He's one of the young men beating a
drum in the final scene.
It was in Saint Albans in 1978 that Bill met
Christine. He was ‘the boyfriend’ her girlfriend
brought to dinner one night. He and
Chris were ‘just friends’ for a time, became
‘best friends’ in a difficult period in her life,
and then partners for life. They were married
on 29 April 1988.

30
By 1988, he was British Aerospace's ‘specialist
in environmental control systems’—the person
people at Canadair phoned so often for
technical help that when they looked at their
trans-Atlantic phone bills, they decided they
had better offer him a job. In March 1988,
Canadair brought Bill and Chris to Montreal.
Montreal was far from its best in that month,
and neither of them took to the city, but
Canadair offered him a job that was everything
he ever wanted in a job. To this day,
Chris remembers seeing him brighten at its
possibilities in a way she'd never before seen
him glow. Family matters forced Bill to resign
this ‘job of a lifetime’ and to return to England
in 1990. After eleven months, it was possible
to come back to Montreal and Canadair
and to the work he loved.
He found immense joy and intellectual satisfaction
in finding the right way of bringing a
design to fruition. Away from work, his work
was never far from his thoughts: it was the
stuff of his dreams. Everyone who knew him
in the last years of his working life (when he
travelled endlessly back and forth between
Montreal and the test centre in Wichita) knew
how dedicated he was to the production of
the new airplane and how proud he was of
the first rate work done by his team at
Canadair.
His team. Bill loved to see people working
well together towards a common end. He'd
learned to play football on the sands at Scarborough,
and Leeds United was his team in
good years and lean years and the in-between
years. As a young man he travelled to some of
LUFC's most important matches, home and
away. One time, he and a mate from work
who was a despised Arsenal supporter travelled
together by road to Old Trafford in
Manchester to watch Leeds and Arsenal clash
on neutral ground. Leeds lost. Not only did
he have to drive a triumphant, crowing opposition
fan home but he had to drive through
such thick fog that all he could do was follow
the tail lights in front of him. He followed
them right off the main road and up to a
farmhouse door. It took him all night to complete
what was normally a two hour trip. He
came very close to losing his temper. But he
didn’t. He turned it into a wry tale against
himself. (His funniest stories were all like
that—self-deprecating.)
In football, as in so many areas of life, he had
a highly retentive memory not just for the
‘results’ and the ‘scorers’ but for the pattern
and development of a match. He also had an
extraordinary grasp of English cricket in the
twentieth century and a wide-ranging knowledge
of British and European social history.
When he visited Russia with Chris and stood
in Moscow's Red Square, the stories embedded
in those stones almost overwhelmed him.
Bill loved being out of doors in open spaces.
No place on earth was more attractive to him
than his beloved Lake District of England.
From boyhood onwards, he walked, hiked,
climbed in the Lakes and the Peaks with various
companions, including his brother, until
Chris became his constant partner there as
elsewhere. Physically, he was a bit of a daredevil,
taking risks others might not take. He
hated to follow the well-trodden path A to
B—he loved to explore. At home, in the
kitchen, things were different. He enjoyed
flipping through cookery books, spotting
‘good nosh’, and was a marvellous cook (with
a passion for Indian dishes) despite the fact
that he treated recipes like science experiments:
measurements had to be precise, instructions
followed to the letter, and substitutes
were not acceptable. A dish worth making
was worthy of whatever rare ingredients
it took to make it the right way, even if it
made a massive hole in the week’s food
budget.
Bill was a quiet man, such a good listener, so
unassuming and so reluctant to ‘show off'
that no one who knew him well ever assumed
that they knew ‘the full Bill Watson’. These
are just a few hints at who he was, but all who
knew him did know this about him—he was
the kindest, most gentle, honest, and straight-

31
forward of companions. He faced his final
illness with patience, quiet courage, great
dignity. He was a gentle man. He will be
missed. He will be mourned. He will be remembered.
KENNETH H COOPER
who died 23 rd September 2001
by Geoff Nalton
(1930-35)
Kenneth Cooper was born in Scarborough on
16 th March 1914, and attended Central School
and Scarborough Boys’ High School. He was
the Troop Leader of the ELO Scouts and a
leading chorister at St Columba’s Church.
After leaving school, he was employed in the
Town Hall as a Committee Clerk.
Ken played a big part reforming the OSA and
was Secretary for many years during which
he did stalwart work for the Association.
He served through the war in the 1 st Survey
Regiment RA and was in India and Berlin. He
returned to Scarborough for some time and
then went to the Birmingham Council and
eventually the Telford Development Corporation.
Ken had just been retired 25 years when
he died and he leaves a widow, Joan, and a
daughter. His son died some years ago in a
climbing accident.
ERIC SIGSTON
A number of members have enquired into
the whereabouts of Eric Sigston. Sadly it
seems Eric died in the late 1960’s)
by John Mann (1950-56)
I think that it was Eric who got me the job in
the kitchens of the Grand Hotel, for a short
time one school holiday. The Grand, in those
days was run by John Larbalestier’s father.
I was in regular contact with Eric until the
mid-sixties when he was Head of Marine Biology
at King George VI School, Honiara,
Solomon Islands. I last saw Eric in 1963 or
1964, in Scarborough, before he returned to
the South Pacific. I had one or perhaps two
further letters from him over the next year or
so and then the line went dead. I wrote to the
Principal at King George VI, probably in 1965
or 66, but never received a reply.
Since then, at intervals, I have tried to find his
sister, but believe her to be dead also and two
years ago made the acquaintance of an Australian
who visited The Solomons on a regular
basis, but he was unable to unearth any clues
for me.
Eric was a good friend, older than I and much
more clever, but he had an enviable quality of
being able to communicate with anyone, particularly
if they shared his love of the theatre
and literature, as I did. I fondly remember
the early days of the Stephen Joseph Theatre
in the Round, when performances were held
at the Library.
This news has come as a tremendous
shock. It does not help knowing that Eric has
been dead for over 30 years. To me he died
yesterday.
by John Larbalestier
(1947-52)
Eric was in the Army (Education Corps) and
I think did a spell of teaching in Yarmouth
(producing some Shakespeare plays) before
going out to Fiji where he settled very happily
in a school there. We saw him on a couple of
his trips back to Scarborough in the sixties
before learning of his death in Fiji which
would be in the late sixties. We have never
known the cause and did not have a family
address.
by Bill Potts (1946-55)
One of my most enjoyable memories of Eric is
from the time he played Lancelot Gobbo in
the Merchant of Venice.
It was during a dress rehearsal. We were outside
the end lunchroom in the lower corridor.
Apparently, Eric was contemplating the similarity
of his tunic to a little girl's dress. Unan-

32
nounced, he started to sing, “Every little girl
would like to be The FAIRY ...” at which
point he raised his arms, thus raising by quite
a bit the hem of the tunic and revealing the
undergarment. In feigned embarrassment, he
pulled the hem down, doing a little wiggle as
he did so, and finished the song, “... on the
Christmas tree.”
MATT PATEMAN
by John Dobson (1938-47)
I ask if Matt Pateman, of Brompton was a
member of the Association Matt died a couple
of weeks ago. He was in our class and
was a very well-respected character. Matt was
a gamekeeper’s son and I recall one day he
brought a pet Jackdaw hidden in his school
uniform to school. How he kept it hidden I
don't recall because he had taught it to say the
odd word!
PROFESSOR
JACK CHRISTIAN
An eminent metallurgist, Jack Christian was
the son of a trawler skipper who had been
through hard times, in the 1930s, but who
ensured that his children were given the best
opportunities.
He was educated at Scarborough Boys’ High
School and The Queen's College, Oxford,
where he read physics and then joined W.
Hume-Rothery in the metallurgical laboratory
of the inorganic chemistry department. He
took his MA and DPhil in 1949. After holding
some temporary positions, in 1955 he was
appointed lecturer in metallurgy and, in 1958,
he was elected to the George Kelley Readership
in Metallurgy. He became a Fellow of St.
Edmund Hall in 1963 and was elected to an ad
hominem Professorship in Physical Metallurgy
in 1967.
After his early work on alloy constitution he
collaborated with Hume-Rothery and with W.
B. Pearson in the production of a book entitled
Metallurgic & Equilibriurn Diagrams. But
his principal interest soon became the study
of the crystallography and mechanisms of
martensitic transformations, a subject in
which he rapidly established hirnself internationally
as a leading authority.
At the age of 25 he published in the Proceedings
of the Royal Society a seminal paper on the
cobalt transformation.
While producing numerous original papers
and review articles, he worked simultaneously
on a major book called The Theory of
C. H. MUNDAY LIMITED
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33
Transformations in Metals and Alloys, which
first appeared in 1965 and at once became the
authoritative work in its field.
Part one of a revised edition appeared in
1975, the year he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society.
Following some early pioneering experiments
with Basinski on the flow stress of body centred
cubic metals and alloys over a wide
range of temperatures, with the aim of elucidating
the nature of this resisitenace of the
crystal lattice to plastic deformation.
Christian’s international reputation brought
him many, invitations to conferences and
other institutions; among his overseas visiting
professorships were spells at MIT and Stanford
and he was awarded medals by numerous
British and foreign scientific societies.
For many years he was editor or associate
editor of Acta Mettallurgica. And editor of
Progress in Materials Science, the Journal of the
Less Common Metals, and Physics of Metals and
Metallography.
A modest and unassuming man Christian
nevertheless played a key role in his department
at its inception and during a time of
rapid growth. In discussions he was more
than fair to those who held views differing
from his own, but he never failed to expose
weak points in any argument. Flaws in a scientific
argument were often exposed by the
innocent question, “are we talking about the
same thing” He combined a capacity for
hard work with a sense of humour and an
exceptional critical faculty.
He married Maureen Lena Smith in 1949 and
had two sons and one daughter. Theirs was a
very happy marriage and they supported
each other through good and bad times, including
the tragic loss of their youngest son in
1999.
In the late 1970’s Christian began to suffer
from Parkinson’s disease, and although it
affected him increasingly physically he bore
his illness with the greatest courage and did
not allow it to interfere with his work in any
way. He managed to finish the manufacture
of the second volume of his book on Phase
Transformations, but sadly did not live to see it
published. He was very proud when his wife
became Lord Mayor of Oxford in 2000, and in
spite of his physical disability he escorted her
to many of her functions.
He is survived by his wife and by a son and a
daughter.
JOHN RAYNER
1924-2001
by Doug Owen (1935-40)
John Rayner, who has died aged 77 years,
attended Scarborough High School for Boys
from 1936 to 1940.
After obtaining his school certificate he
started work in the Scarborough Weights and
Measures Department, and later in the Inland
Revenue, where he worked with his old
school contemporary, Bill Cross, sharing a
friendship which lasted until Bill’s death earlier
this year.
In 1951 John founded Rayner & Co., Accountants.
From his early school days John had always
been a keen cricketer and it was a delight to
him when the family moved to Woodall Avenue.
Big hits over the concrete stand from the
South African touring team landed in the
Rayner’s back garden! John played for the
Scarborough 2 nd XI and Legg’s XI charity
team. In later life he was much in demand as
an umpire.
A long term diabetic, John did a great deal of
charitable work for the British Diabetic Assocition
and in 1995 was honoured by the Association
with a special award.
For the past 13 years John served on the Scarborough
Town Council, representing West
Ayton ward.

34
He was Deputy Mayor in 1995-96.
EDWARD LANCASTER
by Maurice Johnson
Edward Lancaster died in Hospital in Scarborough
at the age of 91, having worked all
his adult life in the legal profession.
He attended the Scarborough High School for
Boys’ between 1921 and 1926 and joined Bedwell
& Hoyle, Solicitors, in 1927, qualifying as
a solicitor in 1937. He retired in the late 1970s
as Senior Partner after a distinguished career.
During WWII, he served in the RAF as a Sergeant
Armourer despite being blind in one
eye following a childhood accident.
Edward Lancaster had a lifetime’s interest in
Country pursuits, and enjoyed walking,
camping and sailing.
He leaves a widow Georgina (Ina) to whom
he was married for over 60 years. He will be
sadly missed.
THE SCHOOL CAMP
CHAMONIX, FRANCE
1938
by Les Hartzig (1936-41)
Alistair McKim and I
were shopping in
Chamonix when we
were stopped by a boy
of about 17/18 years on a
BMW motorbike.
He asked us if we were
camping in the area and
when we said we were he asked he us if it
would be possible for him to join us. We said
it would be up to the masters but he could
ask them. He then asked us the whereabouts
of our site and offered one of us a lift on his
motorcycle if we would show him. Alistair
and I tossed a coin to see who would go and I
won. We duly arrived at the site and he asked
Mr. Bradley who was in charge if he could
stay a couple of nights and Mr. Bradley
agreed. He had his own tent and he was a
very nice boy in the best possible way.
It transpired that he was a member of the
Hitler Youth!! I cannot remember his name
but I often wonder what happened to him.
FULL CIRCLE
by Frank Thompson
(1951-57)
After six years at the High
School I decided that
banking would be my
career. In August ‘57 I left
to join Westminster Bank
in Helmsley, now part of
HBOS. Three years
behind the till changed
things somewhat—
banking was not for me. I applied for a three
year teaching course at Kingston upon Hull
Training College, which I entered in 1961
after a year and a half ‘student-teaching’ in
Hull. I studied two main subjects, Biology
and Art with 3D crafts. For the future I chose
to teach biology and spent 7 terms in York, at
Ashfield Secondary Modern on Tadcaster
Road before my wife, Kathleen, and I flew off
to East Africa where I taught biology in an 11-
(Some students were in their early
twenties), school.
On completion of a tour of duty of 21-27
months, Civil Servants and teachers on
contract in East Africa, during the 60/70's, had
the option of flying or sailing home, the fares
etc., paid for by the appropriate Government.
In the summer of 1968 my wife and I
commenced arrangements for our return to
the UK hoping to sail in November arriving
in England just before Christmas.
In early November our personal items were
crated and shipped to Mombassa to await our

35
arrival later in the month. On the 19th we
were collected from our home at Kabalega
High School, Masindi, Uganda, by
Government taxi and taken to Kampala, the
capital, so that we could complete certain
formalities before departure.
During our stay in Uganda I had not had the
opportunity to see a copy of the Times
Educational Supplement, but during our
short stay in Kampala I was fortunate in
being able to obtain a copy which was only a
few days old. In it I found an advert for the
post of Teacher of Science (Biology) at
Westwood School, Scarborough.
On November 21st we caught the train in
Kampala for the journey across Kenya to
Nairobi (22 nd ) then to Mombassa (23 rd ). Due
to a dock-strike the ship, the SS Kenya was
anchored offshore so we were ferried out to
it and back each time we wished to visit the
town. Eventually the ship entered port, was
loaded and sailed from Mombassa early in
the morning of the 27th, travelling to
Durban, round the Cape to Tenerife, arriving
at Tilbury on the 19th December. During the
four days we were in Mombassa I was able
to complete an application and airmail it to
Westwood School.
On arriving in Scarborough a letter awaited,
inviting me to an interview at the
Headmaster’s home, over a cup of tea.
I commenced teaching at Westwood in
January 1969, in the same lab. I had spent 5/6
years learning Biology under the watchful
eye of Derek Price.
SPEECHES
2001 Christmas Dinner
by Geoff Nalton
This story is encouragement for old boys of
the Scarborough Boys High School to become
members of the Old Scarborians Association.
too skinny.
In the 1930’s my
friend Ken Williamson
and I were very
keen to join the police.
Unfortunately he
turned out to be ½
inch too short and I
was two years too
young and also far
Ken joined the Royal Artillery for three years
to gain the extra height he needed. Shortly
afterwards the Old Scarborians were given a
talk by Captain Herbert Dennis, commanding
officer of the local battalion 5 th Green
Howards, and as a result a number of us
joined.
We were all called to the colours in August
1939. Ken Williamson, who joined as a regular,
found his 3 years, which was to end in
1940, suddenly extended; we moved down
to the south coast of England where we continued
training.
In January 1940, we were posted to France
and, in May 1940, the Germans attacked Belgium.
During the ensuing battle, lots of local
boys and others who were in my platoon
were lost. On one occasion I was posted on a
road block, a unit of Royal Artillery was
passing through and amongst them was,
now Sergeant Ken Williamson. “Hey Geoff,”
he shouted, “Do you want to come and join
us We’re on our way to England. We’re
going back home from Dunkirk.”
At that time we had no idea of the evacuation
of Dunkirk but a few days later we arrived
on the beach after the official evacuation
was over. We were told that if we could
keep the Germans out of Dunkirk for a further
night the Navy would come in and take
a few more of our lads off. This they did, by
bringing another destroyer in. Unfortunately,
afterwards, there were still a number
of Green Howards left on the beach. Wandering
around I met another Old Scarborian

36
and friend, George Dowd who still lives in
Scarborough.
Eventually we found a small fishing coble
which we fuelled and we made our way across
to England and were picked up in the Thames
Estuary and taken to Ramsgate. After staying
there for some days, I was given 48 hours leave
to return to Scarborough, which gave me time
to have a pint with my father and to rejoin my
Regiment. By this time, Ken Williamson had
been posted to the Middle East. After some
months on the South Coast, our battalion was
also posted to the Middle East and we then
went into action in the desert, at one time attacking
and pushing the Germans up the desert,
then retreating and being pushed back.
This went on between 1941 and 1942.
Part of our job, when not in main combat with
the German forces, was to raid coastal aerodromes
when convoys were leaving Alexandria
to supply Malta. After these raids, we
used to pull back south into the desert to rest.
On one such occasion a Royal Artillery unit
joined us and, low and behold, my friend Ken
Williamson was one of the artillery lads, Before
they left he said, “You ought to be coming
with us. We’re going to Cairo.” Unfortunately
he was captured on his way and he became a
Prisoner of War in Italy.
During the next few weeks in the desert, things
were hectic and we were in and out of action
the whole of the time. On one occasion, in my
capacity as Signals Sergeant, I was called to the
Colonel’s dugout for a meeting with an MI5
officer who wished to intercept German signals
and to locate some of their lines of communication.
On attending this meeting, the
officer turned out to be Captain M Cornish
(Pete), the German master from school and one
of our rugby stalwarts. We went on this particular
patrol behind enemy lines and with our
help he was able to carry out the job for which
he had come.
After the operation, he then told me he had
only come up the desert to find the Green
Howards because he knew such a lot of the
Old Scarborians were with them! He also told
us he should have been on a fortnight’s leave!
After the raid, we went to rest, so I asked Pete
Cornish if he and his driver had plenty of provisions.
He said, “Oh yes. You can come and
join us,” which I did with my driver. When he
opened the back of his wagon it disclosed only
4 or 5 crates of beer and I didn’t see any food,
but if you knew Pete well enough and went on
school camps with him you knew that this was
really his food. He was a great guy. I believe
he was captured on his way back to Cairo as
German patrols were very active. He ended
the war in charge of the War Crimes Court
which found Goering and others guilty of various
offences.
In June 1942, I was captured and was transferred
to a prison camp in Italy.
After the Italians surrendered, I and a friend
escaped, but were eventually recaptured on
the Yugoslavia border and, after further experiences,
we ended up in a Prisoner of War
camp in Austria in a place called Spittal an der
Drau. I had been in the camp about two weeks
when I was sought out by a German officer
who handed me a letter personally addressed.
“Dear Geoff, You won’t know me but I am Ted
Appleton of Scarborough and I know your
dad, Police Sergeant Nalton. I was in the 5 th
form at the Scarborough Boys’ High School
when I believe you were in the third. I am now
in charge of Red Cross parcels and supplies at
Graz and if there is anything you need in the
way of supplies then let this officer know and I
will try to supply.” Within a short time I received
a new uniform, shirts, underclothes,
boots, 200 cigarettes and some chocolate from
Ted, fellow Old Scarborian!
I was then transferred to a camp in Fallingbostel
in Germany and, one day, a German officer
and two RAF pilots came to my hut. One of the
pilots, Bill Johnson of Cayton, knew there were
a few Green Howards in the camp and located
me. He had only been shot down a couple of

37
days before
and I was
able to help
Bill and his
friend by
getting a
delay to
their move
to a camp in
Poland as
they were
not in good
health. I
only saw
Bill for a
few hours
and I was
able to help
him. It
shows what
a few cigarettes
could do in the way of an odd bribe.
In November 2001, I received a letter from
Vancouver from Bill, sending me a photo of
himself and myself taken in this prison camp
by the German Officer. It is hard to believe
that we had not heard of each other for 60
years. He had got my name and address
through the Old Scarborians web site—
further evidence of the need to continue this
Association.
I was then transferred to a Polish camp and
arrived in the middle of the night. I was
shown to a particular hut where there was
one vacancy. The German soldier
shone his torch on to the top bunk of a
3-tier bed and said, “That is your bunk
Sergeant.” I clambered into the bunk,
exhausted, only to crash through to the
fellow below, and amid many curses,
the occupant of the second bunk
picked himself up, swearing profusely
and bleeding very heavily from his
head and cheek. It was my long lost
friend and neighbour Ken Williamson. It’s a
small world, isn’t it He was really badly cut
up and he still carries the scars.
Some three years ago, I went to Toronto and
called to see him and we got together in a
local hotel, he bringing all his family. His
grandson, a fine young man of 18 or 19, came
to me and said, “Geoff, Grandad tells me you
will explain to us how he got his war wound
scars on his face and cheek. We wondered
whether it was a bullet or a bayonet wound
but he will only say ‘Geoff was there and
will tell you all about it’.”
I asked Ken, “Can I tell them the truth or
what do you want me to tell them” He told
me to tell them the truth, so I explained that
Ken’s wound on his face and cheek was
caused by me, and was not a bullet or bayonet
wound, but was caused by a sliver of
wood from a bed board which had been cut
too short. If you could have seen the disappointment
on their faces! To have such an
uninteresting end to something which had
been a family secret for so many years was
something to observe.
Membership of the Old Scarborians is well
worth while and it is up to all you youngsters
to keep the Association going.
JANUARY 2002
CENTENARY DINNER
SPEECH
by Bob Watson
(Staff 1956-73)
My first contact with
the Boys’ High school
was in October 1954,
when I came for interview
for the post
of second English
Master. My career
had been delayed by
the war. On going for
interview for a place
at John’s, Cambridge to read English in 1941,
the admissions tutor asked when I was due

38
to be called up. On hearing I had had my
medical, he closed my file, and told me to
come back after the war. I then spent until 1947
playing at soldiers in England, North Africa
and Italy, then went to Durham to read English,
and then to teach English at Redditch
County High School in 1951. By 1954 I needed
promotion, as I had a wife and three children
to support, so I applied to come to Scarborough
as I wanted to return North and Scarborough
Boys’ High School had a good reputation—even
in Worcestershire!
I was called for interview at York Station Hotel
in the October half-term where I presumed I’d
meet the interviewing panel, as York was
clearly handy for travelling applicants. To my
surprise, there was no notice in the hotel, but
the receptionist, on hearing my name, said,
‘that gentleman over there’ was expecting me.
I saw a little chap in an armchair and thought
the interviews must have been cancelled. I
soon discovered it was Mr Marsden, who offered
tea and cakes, asked the usual questions,
and said he had hoped to bring the Head of
English to meet me, but he was too ill to
come—“A grand chap—been with me for
ages—since before the war—great drama producer—doing
‘Hamlet’ for Christmas, though I
doubt if he’ll manage it.” The thought of being
second to an old chap obviously on his last
legs made the job even more attractive! When I
met Eric Rice in December, I was surprised to
find a young, healthy chap in his forties—
almost as surprised as he was when I inquired
about his health last term—he’d had a bad cold
at half term but nothing else. I worked happily
with Eric for the next 20 years!
I spent about 5 years at Westwood, 15 at
Woodlands, and then 10 at the Sixth Form College.
Being on the staff for that length of time
gives a rather different perspective to that of
the ordinary pupil, though it does not rank
with the years spent by Frank Bamforth, Geoff
Nalton, Jack Layton and others perhaps less
well-known in running the OSA with such
dedication.
In 1955, I found academic standards were high,
with the school on the Hastings Scholarship
list, and also good numbers getting County
Major and State Scholarships to Oxbridge and
other universities. Games were exceptionally
impressive, particularly to a newcomer. I can
still remember the names of the 1 st XV under
Jack Ellis—though I try to forget my first trip
with them training on the beach in January
when I had to join them in running () back up
approximately a thousand steps! Cricket was
also outstandingly good, but I won’t name any
as I’m bound to omit others equally as good.
The main drawback was the building; I soon
realised why I had been interviewed in York,
and Alan Wilson, the German teacher, apparently
on a porter’s trolley on Thirsk Station, as
it would have put off anyone used to a school
built after World War I. Besides other faults,
the lack of a staff room was crucial. There was
a small marking-room upstairs which a few
people used, but I rarely had any worthwhile
contact with staff other than those helping
with games like Keith Dutton and Jack
Speight. Famous personalities like Billy Binder,
Tich Richardson, and Bon Clarke were really
unknown to me. Billy Binder was a nice old
chap who smiled and said, ‘Good Morning’
when we passed in the corridor; Bon Clarke
apparently carried out human sacrifices in his
room but I can’t remember ever speaking to
him—certainly no conversation. Of course I
worked only 5 years with them!
The move to Woodlands was a revelation. People
tend to forget that all the boys except normal
school leavers went up to Woodlands;
certainly some of the older staff left, but at
least some of them would have retired anyway,
and Mr Marsden led the great majority of
the staff up with him. Besides many other advantages
we had a large staff room, and I got
to know for the first time a number I had
‘worked with’ for years—Jack Liddicott, a first
class chemist, bilingual, an authority on classical
music; ‘Zenna Podds’ still taking trips to
Arosa (I discovered for the first time his assistant
in the invention of degaussing ships was

39
my brother-in-law); Hap Taylor, Ferdie Freeman,
the new deputy-head, and Norman
Stoddard and Jack Wilmot, who had not been
at Westwood in my time, but returned to
Woodlands from elsewhere. We had lost some
‘characters’ but gained others like John Oxley
and Roy James (who revealed his Welsh origins
by designing the 400 track round the
original cricket square), and Gordon Whalley,
a brilliant teacher who organised midnight
hikes and trips to Shetland. Old Boys came
back to teach—Bill Redman, Donald Hellmuth,
John Rice and later Barry Beanland and
Cedric Gillings. Certainly the old traditions
travelled to Woodlands.
Most importantly perhaps, Alec Gardiner
came in to replace Mr Marsden when he retired,
and he was the right man for the job. He
did not change old traditions but developed
them to suit the new era when entry to University
did not depend on highly competitive
exams for a few major scholarships, but obtaining
a grant by reaching the necessary standards
for entry. He transfigured the 11+ system
for grammar school selection in Scarborough
by refusing to accept empty seats in
classrooms, and used 12+ and later exams for
pupils recommended by secondary modern
headmasters to fill them.
Sports remained at a high level. Rugby produced
the England 18 Schools Captain, finalists
in the Ilkley Sevens, and a highly successful
Welsh Tour, and cricket and athletics also
prospered. Academic standards were maintained—Oxbridge
entrants, as well as many
more University entrants, because of the new
grant system. We all know a good education
should not be judged simply on university
entrants, but how the best is brought out in as
many students as possible, and that remained
a priority.
I found the school I joined in 1955 was essentially
the same when it moved to Woodlands,
and remained so in its years there. I was lucky
enough to serve under three fine headmasters—Marsden,
Gardiner and Keith Dawson,
who later took over at the Sixth Form College.
Of course, the change to the Sixth Form College
was a much more fundamental one than
to Woodlands; the Boys’ High School closed
in 1974, but it did not die. Much of what mattered
went on to the Sixth Form College. To
ease the transfer, potential girl students for A
level courses at SFC, with some women teachers,
came for a year to Woodlands; when the
transfer took place, all the boys starting ‘O’
level courses and above went to SFC with
Alec Gardiner and many senior staff including
women teachers with at least a year’s experience
of working at the Boys’ High School.
I firmly believe that, though the school closed
in 1974, its spirit and ethos did not disappear.
Of course, I can speak only for the time until I
left, but I am sure it lived on as many of the
staff remained.
That is why I am impressed by the work of
the present committee. I am sure that those
dedicated people whose sterling and incessant
work kept OSA alive for many years since it
was revived after the war are proud of the
growth that has happened recently under
largely new management. They have used
new technology to increase membership and
spread information more widely so more people
are kept in touch. They’ve done an Alec
Gardiner on the OSA—developed traditions
to suit a new era. Oddly enough, their invitations
to members of the Girls’ High School
and the Convent Old Girls to join some of our
functions seems, to me at least, a good idea, as
it recalls the days at the old Muni before the
girls departed.
Finally, on a more personal note. I came to
Scarborough in 1955 for two years before
seeking further promotion. That I am still here
almost 50 years later is largely due to the
people I have worked with—students and
staff.
Thank you all for making my stay so enjoyable.

40
Top table party Centenary Dinner: L to R: Peter Robson, Mayor’s Consort, OSA President
Ron Gledhill, Mayor of Scarborough Councillor Lucy Haycock, Chris Found, Tom Pindar,
Bob Watson, Alan Elliott.
FAMOUS PUPILS—
BILL NICHOLSON
(1929—35)
by John Bolton (1933-40)
‘Bill-Nick’ would be in the fourth year when
I entered the first year of SBHS in 1933.
We were a soccer school then with five teams
playing each week in the Autumn and
Spring terms—1 st , 2 nd , and 3 rd XIs, Under 14s,
and Under 12s.
I played for three years in the under twelves
and one year in the under fourteens. We
then moved from soccer to Rugby Union. In
the Soccer days all games were with the
nearby North Riding schools Malton,
Pickering, Whitby. It was easy to reach these
schools by train, as it was to play Hull Grammar
School. In my first year (1933-34) all five
teams played and beat Hull Grammar so the
school was awarded an extra half day holiday!
‘Joe Boss’ was a very keen rugger man, but
the change from soccer to rugby was never
explained, although it coincided with a similar
change at Scarborough College. It also
meant that we met more difficult schools on
the playing field—e.g. Hymers College, Hull,
Sir W Turner, Redcar, Bridlington, and so on.
This will only be of interest to a minority of
the old scholars but I thought I would pass it
on to …
Editor: John’s letter led to some research
and the following article emerged.
BILL NICHOLSON
by David Fowler (1949-55)
Bill Nicholson, now 82, was one of 9 children.
He was born at Vine Street and the
family then moved to Quarry Mount. He
played football for Central School, Falsgrave
School, and SBHS. When he left school at 16,
he worked for Alexandra Laundry and
played soccer in the Minor League for Scarborough
Central, and then in the District

41
League for Club & Institute Juniors. They
played from a pitch off Stepney Road on
which is now built Combe Hay Residential
Home.
Bill Nicholson after receiving
his OBE in 1975.
Shortly afterwards, Albert Holloway, who
originally came from Tottenham and who
was then a Scarborough dental technician
and secretary of Scarborough Football Club,
arranged for a scout from Tottenham, Ben
Ives, to
come and
look at Bill.
Two visits
were made
and Bill
Nicholson
was offered
a month’s
trial with
Tottenham.
He became
a Tottenham
apprentice
in
1936 under
manager
Jack Tresadern.
Club & Institute Juniors, who had by then
changed their name to Young Liberals, subsequently
received the then princely sum of
£25 from Tottenham—possibly their one and
only transfer fee!
Bill signed as a professional for Spurs in 1938
and his Football League debut was on October
22nd 1938 against Blackburn Rovers.
Spurs lost 3-1. He played a handful of games
for Spurs first team before the outbreak of
the Second World War and was called up for
the army where he was a sergeant-instructor
in the Durham Light Infantry. During the
war he played for Tottenham once and was
an occasional guest player for Sunderland,
Newcastle United and Darlington.
After demob, Nicholson returned to Spurs
playing for them from 1946-54 and was part
of the team which won the championship in
1950-51.
He made 345 League and Cup appearances
for Spurs before retiring as a player in 1954.
As a player he won 1 England cap, 3 ’B’ international
caps, and 1 Football League representative
game.
In 1955 he was appointed Tottenham coach;
made Assistant Manager in 1957; manager
1958 until August 1974; consultant to West
Ham 1975; then returned to Spurs 1976 as
chief advisor and scout.
With Bill as manager, the club achieved:
League Champions 1951, 1961; FA Cup winners,
1961, 1962, 1967; Football League Cup
winners, 1971, 1973; European Cup Winners’
Cup, 1963; UEFA Cup winners 1971, runners-up,
1974.
‘Bill-Nick’ was awarded the OBE in 1975 and
Freedom of the Borough of Haringey in 1998.
He and his wife have two daughters. Bill still
holds the title of Club President and lives
close to Tottenham’s White Hart Lane
ground—in a home he calls ‘Peasholm’.
(Acknowledgements to Geoff and Judy
Hillarby; Phil Soar for extracts from ‘And
the Spurs go marching on’; ‘Haringey People’;
Chris Nixon at the Scarborough Evening
News; The Guardian; The Yorkshire
Evening Press—not forgetting John Bolton
[1933-40], who prompted this article.)
MEMORIES OF
THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE
by John Rice (1947-56)
It wasn’t Shakespeare
every year. After his return
from war service,
Samuel Rockinghorse
produced Macbeth in 1946
and Julius Caesar in 1947,
but the following year

42
Arthur Costain wanted to do a Gilbert and
Sullivan. He knew he had some of the necessary
singers at his disposal, but a few of the
parts were hard to cast. His auditioning technique
was, let’s say, individual. During the first
few days of the autumn term he let it be known
that The Pirates of Penzance was to be staged.
Then he would hang around in the Hall during
the lunch-hour and wait for potential members
of the cast to happen to walk through. When he
had rounded up two or three likely suspects, he
would take them up to the Lecture Theatre on
the top floor and get them to sight-read a number
or two. Performance in this audition didn’t
seem to count for much, if my own experience
is anything to go by. I couldn’t sight-read, and
anyway Mr Costain had chosen one of the
hardest numbers in the whole piece for us to
attempt to sing. So it was a bit of a surprise to
be told, “Yes, you'll do!”—and then to discover
that I had been cast, at the age of 11, as one of
Major General Stanley’s daughters, “all of
whom are beauties”, as the text has it.
There were certainly some good singers for the
main parts, and if I can’t remember all of them
accurately, I offer apologies to those whose
names now escape me, even though their performances
are still clear in the mind. Jim Bland
was the Pirate King, and mightily impressive
he was too, in both voice and stature. His sidekick,
the Lieutenant, was sung by John Perry,
the metalwork teacher with a pleasant if not
very robust tenor voice. Geoff Lee sang Frederick,
the young man who, through a misunderstanding,
had been apprenticed to a Pirate instead
of to a Pilot, for what he thought would
be until the age of 21, only to discover in the
course of the opera that as his birthday was on
29th February he would not be 21 until the age
of 84. The part of his betrothed, Mabel, was
played by a fourth-former, Benny Cook.
Other soprano and alto parts went to second-formers
David Renshaw, as Edith, and
Ralph Seymour, as Ruth. The Major-General
was played by Roy Ffoulkes.
For a time it was not clear who would direct the
show. Arthur Costain’s role was that of repetiteur,
so he had to find someone else as Producer.
It wasn’t Sam Rockinghorse’s cup of tea.
Eventually, some way into the term, Gerry
Hovington took the job on. Gerry also played
one of the policemen, coming on stage looking
unbelievably scruffy, with his braces trailing
behind him. This gives some idea of the flavour
of the show. The audience loved it, and were
generously indulgent towards those of us in the
cast who couldn’t really cope with the singing
but who were made up to look convincing. The
Pirates is full of good tunes, of the sort that stick
in the memory, as this performance has in
mine, for well over 50 years. It would be good
to hear from other members of the cast with
recollections of it.
BON CLARKE
by Edgar Boyes (1932-39)
Recently in Summer Times there have been
several references to Mr. F Clarke whom we
used to know as Herr Bon. These have
tended to emphasise his severe and even
threatening nature. I think that readers may
perhaps be interested in a more friendly and
lighter side of his character . It was his custom
to invite a number of boys round to his
lodgings in Prospect Road on Saturdays for
a recreational evening. Living as I did in
Ramsey Street, a few minutes walk away, I
was one of the lads whom he befriended. I
cannot remember the names of the others
apart from one, who I believe was called
Parker and is the only person whom I have
met who bred salamanders.
The evenings proceeded according to a constant
pattern. First we were invited to dip
into his bound volumes of "Punch" and other
books, especially the Conan Doyle Sherlock

43
Holmes stories. It was there that I was first
introduced to the great detective and I have
been a fan of his ever since. Later on, we
were introduced to more modern crime stories
in paper-back editions and it was in this
way that I became addicted to them. This
was in the 1930s, the Golden Age of the detective
novel.
After this we had a simple supper of biscuits
and milk, or since I had an aversion to milk,
to lime juice in my case. We then played the
game of spillikins in which one had to separate
a slender rod-like object from a pile
without disturbing the rest—a job for a
steady hand! Alternatively we played the
card game of "Lexicon", presumably to develop
our word power.
I never knew why we boys had been selected
for this treatment but it did show me
another side of what most people thought of
as an austere man. Even 70 years on I remember
his friendship and kindness and
feel that it is right to put it on record.
This said I would also like to express my
appreciation of Summer Times in its new
format. With each edition I discover something
new about the High School and its
former members. Alas there do not seem to
be many left of my generation
by Dennis White (1939-44)
In the November, 2001 edition of Summer
Times I notice that Mr (Bon) Clarke is
mentioned about 15 times, mostly to
emphasise just how much we dreaded his
lessons. However, in this regard I would like
to record that on Saturday evenings, during
the dark days of 1942-1943, Ray Hebdige,
Roy Hall and I would assemble at Bon's
house in Oak Road (off Seamer Road) for an
evening of table tennis (Bon was quite a
keen player). When we were all thoroughly
exhausted, Mrs Clarke would join us with a
tray of sandwiches, biscuits and a drink. Of
course, I am referring to something that
happened almost 60 years ago, so that I am
unsure about over how long a period we
met, but it was certainly several months. I
assume we were selected for invitation
because we all lived relatively close to his
house.
This was an experience similar to that
recorded by Gerald Hinchliffe (Summer
Times, November, 2001 Vol. 40c, p. 47),
demonstrating the more sociable side of
Bons character.
Derrick Craven's recollection of being called
out to the front of class by Bon, to
demonstrate his ‘straight left’, during a
German lesson (Summer Times, November,
2001, Vol. 40. p. 20) is an example of one of
Bon’s rare lighthearted moments. Another is
the occasion when a group of us were
walking to school down Westwood, when
Bon came up behind us, with a briefcase in
one hand, and a rolled umbrella in the other.
Without a word he pushed the pointed end
of his umbrella into the small of Ray
Hebdige's back and proceeded to march him
down Westwood and down the slope to the
front of the school where the cheering of the
lads was positively deafening. Here he
disengaged his umbrella and, still without a
word or change of facial expression, he
disappeared into school. Even after 60 years,
I can still see the look of extreme
embarrassment on Ray's face. Happy days
MEMORIES
by Don Barnes (1946-1953)
I am really delighted to have joined the
OSA. Summer Times has reawakened for me
happy memories of events and friends long
ago Retirement at last gives time for reflection.
The many tributes to and stories about Les
Brown have reminded me of the huge debt
of gratitude I owe him. Single-handedly and
enthusiastically he shouldered the considerable
task of teaching me Spanish from
scratch to Open Scholarship Level in the 2

44
years and 1 term of my Sixth Form career. It was
really only my later experience of teaching Modern
Languages that brought home to me what
that must have cost Les in extra time and effort—courses
in Spain, lessons in the holidays,
reading and preparation. I do hope that this
wasn't the reason why he tried so often to discourage
me from becoming a schoolmaster!
Thank goodness he failed in that at least and I
was able to go on and use and adapt many of
Les's ‘tricks of the trade’ in the subsequent
years!
Since the memorable Hospital Cup evening at
North Marine Road in 1953, recalled by David
Groombridge (where could you field, David),
there has been Caius College, Cambridge, destination
of quite a few Scarborian linguists, then
National Service in Malaya, and schoolmastering
at Tiffin's, Kingston-upon-Thames (French,
Spanish, cricket and rugby), at Groton School,
Massachussetts (French, baseball and American
football—meet "Coach Barnes"!), at Hampton
Grammar School and Cheltenham College, before
a final stint back at Groton (French, Spanish
and some soccer!). Now it's retirement in
Bishop's Cleeve, near Cheltenham.
There have been many cricket clubs along the
way but now it's mainly golf (Lilley Brook G.C.
and Pedagogues G.S.), travel, gardening, reading,
choral singing, bridge and Rotary
(Cheltenham Cleeve Vale R.C.). My wife, Barbara,
and I have a son at present living in
Greece, one daughter in London and another
living in Saltaire and working in Bradford, providing
a welcome opportunity to get back to
Yorkshire from time to time and a staging post
for some OS functions in Scarborough. I did get
as far as the North Cliff Golf Club on the 19 th
July with hopes of playing in the TA Smith
Competition but opted for the warmth of the
Club House and the good company of the Secretary
rather than the horrendous playing conditions—clearly,
living in Gloucestershire has
made me soft! I look forward to meeting many
old friends in 2002.
FORTY YEARS ON
by Peter Newham (1954-61)
‘Forty Years On’ may be
expropriated from the
Harrow School song,
but it is perhaps an appropriate
beginning for
me, as it has taken me
that period of time to
join the Association,
and receipt of last November’s
Summer Times
has demonstrated to me that nostalgia really is
all that it used to be!
Long forgotten memories came flooding (or at
least seeping) back, and Jack Thompson’s note
about the ‘refugees’ from Newby County Primary
School in 1954, including Michael Kemp,
Andy Wyvill, himself and myself reminds me
that I still have Christmas play photographs
from that school of us all dressed in pyjamas as
the Lost Boys in Peter Pan (apart from a rather
dashing Michael Kemp as Captain Hook) which
are retrospectively enough to make anyone
cringe!
Michael’s Summer Times jottings stand up well
with my own recollections of my time at school,
though I can perhaps add the rendition of ‘Dai
has got a head like a ping pong ball’ to the music,
I believe, of Swedish Rhapsody to the more
familiar anthems celebrating Biff Smith’s acquaintanceship
with all our fathers. I also note
various attributions of the nickname “Oiseau”,
though my somewhat imperfect memory links
this also to Michael Kemp as at least one candidate.
On the subject of School Plays I do have a photo
and programme of Macbeth in 1959 at which I
prompted, with Donald Helmuth as Macbeth,
and subsequently a photograph of As You Like It,
which I believe to be 1961, my first (and I hasten
to add) only experience of wearing tights, albeit
as a walk-on part.
Biographically, after leaving in 1961 to take a

45
Law Degree at Leeds University, I qualified
as a Solicitor and moved down south
(without ever having forsaken Yorkshire nationality)
moving into local authority Legal
work and currently being the Borough Solicitor
to Northampton Borough Council.
Oddly, fate has never yet subsequently
brought me into contact with other old Scarborians
(beyond occasionally seeing Peter
Taylor on television) and although I have not
been in the Scarborough area for a considerable
period of time I appreciate now that I
should have joined the Association earlier.
Seeing the photographs and the information
on the Website (for which Bill Potts must be
congratulated for its excellence) is also an
interesting, if salutary, experience although it
perhaps makes us realise how long ago it all
was, and that some of us have worn better
than others—as Jack Ellis might have said, or
at least salivated over the front row of his
unenthusiastic Latin class, “sic transit gloria
mundi”—perhaps an over philosophical end
to this note!
50 YEARS ON
Extracts from
The Third Former 1952
JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS
by Christopher Yates
(Form 3L—1952)
In the fiftieth year of our school’s history,
Jubilee celebrations were held to commemorate
the occasion.
The week in which they were held, May 19th
to 25th, was the schoolboys’ delight. No
homework! Few lessons!
The service was a great success, with a dignified
atmosphere and exhuberant singing. At
Speech Day the speeches were excellent, that
of Sir James Duff being most witty and entertaining.
Open Day was enjoyed by parents
and Old Scholars.
Although we cannot say that our school has
an ancient foundation as some of our grammar
schools can claim, nevertheless it makes
up for its comparative shortness of life by
having turned our promising pupils who
have done well at university and at sport.
The name of the school is good and those expupils
should be proud to be called ‘Old
Scarborians’.
GREAT MEN
by Stephen Williamson
(Form 3L—1952)
Great men have watched over our great
school. Such men as Bevan, Tetley and King.
These men have brought out in the boys the
qualities of courage, grace and charm.
The two large plaques in the Hall tell a story
of courage; the courage of the men who died
in two world wars for loved ones at home
and their country.
Perhaps thoughts of their old school came to
them in dangerous places.
Great demands may be made of us. Let us
hope that we, the rising generation, who
seem to be much under discussion these
days, will show ourselves brave in the time of
danger, honest in the time of peace, and
ready for the school’s centenary in another
fifty years!
Instead, we had on the Wednesday a service
in St. Mary’s Church, on the Thursday the
Speech Day in the Queen Street Central Hall,
and on the Friday, Open Day, when the parents
could see their boys’ work on display.

46
Extracts from
THE WESTWOOD SCHOOL
AT SCARBOROUGH
1902-1952
by the late HW Marsden
The Foundation
The School Board
There was no revival
of the ancient
Grammar School in
Scarborough. In many
other places in the
later nineteenth
century grammar
schools had been
revived through the
reorganisation of
endowments and charities which followed
the passing of the Endowed Schools Act of
1869. The ancient Scarborough
endowments, known as the Scarborough
Grammar School and the Falsgrave Town
Trust, were amalgamated in 1888 to form
the Scarborough United Scholarships
Foundation. The joint revenue was
applicable in grants and university
exhibitions. These exhibitions have been, in
effect, our only closed scholarships and are
our sole link with the remote past.
Those fragments of history, which are so
interesting in the annals of a school, are
missing from our story. No doubt, had the
endowments been somewhat larger, there
would have been a re-foundation of the
Grammar School, as happened at
Bridlington in 1899 with County Council
assistance, and at Pickering in 1905. Our
part of Yorkshire was singularly barren of
schools for higher education in the years
before 1900. At Scarborough there was the
small Grammar School of St. Martins,
founded in 1874; at Bridlington there was
no school, and none at Whitby before the
County School was opened in 1912.
Our School was built by the Scarborough
School Board. The School Boards came into
being after the passing of the Elementary
Education Act of 1870. In districts where
school accommodation for elementary
education was insufficient, the Act allowed
School Boards to be formed, with powers to
build and to maintain schools and to levy
rates for the purpose. In Scarborough, a
survey showed that in 1871 there was .
accommodation for 2,525 children and that
provision for about 1,500 more was needed.
The Board began to build schools. Falsgrave
Infants' School and the Central School were
opened in 1873. The Longwestgate School
was completed in 1874 and in the same year
the existing Lancasterian School was
handed over to the control of the Board.
These two schools were later amalgamated
and became the Friarage School (1895).
Mr. Whittaker was Chairman of the
Scarborough School Board from 1882 to
1895. He was a strong advocate of a
progressive policy in education. We may
safely assume that in 1890, he and other
members of the Board had already in mind
the building of a new school to provide
advanced instruction for the older children.
The Act of 1870 had not aimed at teaching
much beyond the "3 R's" but it had long
been apparent that much more was needed.
The project was discussed in 1893 but the
opposition of the members of the Board
who were associated with the Church
Schools delayed action for two years.
A new School Board was elected in 1895
and a newcorner, Mr WS Rowntree, was
appointed Chairman of the General
Purposes Committee. He proposed at the
new Board's first meeting (April) "that the
question of a Higher Grade School be
referred to the General Purposes Committee
with directions to enquire and report as to
how far the erection of such a school will
relieve the congested state in the

47
accommodation of the Board Schools and with
authority to appoint a Sub-Committee to visit
a number of selected schools, to enquire
respecting organisations, apparatus,
management, cost, etc." The resolution was
carried and in the following month (May)
arrangements were made for visits by the
sub-committee to Hull and Grimsby. Later
visits were paid to Stockton and London.
The Building of the Westwood
School
The Board now applied themselves to the task
of building the school. Negotiations were
begun in January 1896 for the purchase of
18,000 square yards of land in Westwood from
the North Eastern Railway. On March 19th,
the Board recommended the purchase (for
£5,000) and applied to the Education
Department in London for permission to raise
a loan and to erect a school 'for upper
standards'. A favourable reply was received
on April 9th. In September a consulting
engineer was appointed and in October, the
"Conditions of Competition for the building of
Westwood School" were approved. The Board
then let it be known what their ideas of a
school were and how they wanted it to be
built.
The School was to be erected on the sloping
hillside of Westwood. The principal
classrooms and the Hall were to be on the
same floor and the approach road was to be
connected with entrances to the principal floor
by bridges. In the basement there were to be a
gymnasium, a swimming bath, a laundry, two
dining rooms and a joiner's shop with 40
benches ; on the principal floor 12 classrooms,
and a Hall 3,600 ft. square, a Head Master's
room and ante room, a Library, 360 ft. square;
on the upper floor, a chemistry laboratory, a
physics laboratory, a lecture room, a
preparation room, an art room and two
teachers' rooms. "The design should be
serious, of good proportions, outline and
detail and expressive of its purpose. Being
intended for public education and from its
size and position ranking among the more
important buildings of the town, it should in
every way be worthy". A caretaker's house
was to be built to the north east of the site.
With the exception of the swimming bath and
the caretaker's house, the plan was faithfully
carried out.
It was the Scarborough firm of Messrs. Hall,
Cooper and Davis whose plans for the
building were accepted. We shall probably
never know which of the three partners was
responsible for the plans nor how far they
co-operated. What we do know for certain is
that Mr. Cooper, at that time a very young
man, was an architect of genius. He came from
a poor home and had attended as a scholar at
the Scarborough Central School. After
qualifying as an architect in Mr. Hall's office,
he served for a few years as his partner, then
went to London where he became one of the
foremost architects of his time. In turn he built
the Star and Garter House at Richmond, the
Bio-Chemistry Laboratory at Cambridge, the
new Lloyds Building, the Belgian Bank and
the Port of London Authority Building. He
became Sir Edwin Cooper before he died.
In June, 1897, the plans were approved by the
Education Department. A week later the
Committee were on the site, consulting with
the architects. A quantitative surveyor was
then appointed and some tenders were
considered. The bricklayer and mason was Mr.
J. Oates; the joiner, Mr. T. Scales; the painter,
Mr. T. Fiddler; the plasterer, Mr. H. Procter;
the plumbers, Messrs. Tindall and Williams;
the slater, Mr. H. J. Hardgrave and the iron
master, Mr. H. Pickup.
In October, the forms of contract were
approved and the Clerk was authorised "to fix
the Common Seal of the School Board to the
forms of agreement signed by the various contractors
for the erection of the Higher Grade
School for the sum of £13,585 4s. 3d.".
The mason, for one, was to rue the day he
signed the contract, for he was bankrupt

48
before the building was finished. There was
no ceremony for the laying of the foundation
stone but the first excavations must have been
begun soon after October 26th, 1897, when
Mr. John Soule was appointed Clerk of
Works. The Board then made themselves into
a Buildings Sub-Committee which was to
meet weekly on the site "on Tuesdays, 1 p.m."
The work went on apace throughout 1898.
Further tenders were accepted for flooring,
and consultations began about laboratories
and equipment. There was a review of
progress in April and the Clerk was
instructed to prepare a return showing the
total expenditure to date and the liabilities
incurred. He was also asked to obtain
information about the cost of Higher Grade
Schools in other towns. He reported that it
was £26 per child in Birmingham, £31 in
Scarborough. £35 in Manchester, and £36 in
Sheffield. The costs and liabilities had now
risen to £18,807 4s. 1d. By the middle of 1899,
the laboratories were being fitted up and Mr.
Albert Strange of the Art School was advising
on Art equipment.
The Cockerton Judgement
As the building was nearly finished, the Fates
intervened to upset the plans of the School
Board. Having built and equipped on most
up-to-date lines a school for advanced
scientific and technical instruction with the
approval and encouragement of the
Education Department, the Board were now
informed by the same Education Department
that they would have no power to open it
except as an elementary school. It is no part of
our account to explain at length the crisis in
the educational world during these years.
That changes were at hand was known to the
School Board as it was to everyone else.
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49
Educational re-organisation was long
overdue. Some School Boards were efficient,
but the system as a whole was unsatisfactory.
It was generally successful in the towns.
rarely so in the countryside. The 14,000
Voluntary Schools, which included all the
Church schools, were without rate aid and in
serious financial plight. There was no
legislation dealing with Secondary Education.
The Act of 1870 was concerned solely with
Elementary Education yet its inevitable
consequence was to create a demand for
higher education. Successive Governments
had failed to grapple with the problem, but
the School Boards, forced to deal with it,
were, by establishing Higher Grade Schools,
in process of creating a new secondary system
for which there was no sanction in law. The
crisis came in 1899 when Mr. T. B. Cockerton,
the Auditor of the Local Government Board,
surcharged the London School Board for
having spent rate money illegally on
educating children on lines not provided in
the elementary code. As the Courts upheld
the Auditor's decision, the position of the
Boards was seriously affected. Pending the
result of the appeal to the House of Lords,
educational development was at a standstill.
Legislation had become an urgent necessity.
The problem of the School Board was now
how to preserve their school for higher
education. They soon found a way out of the
impasse for there was one possible course
open to them. They could hand over the
building to the Town Council, who could, if
they were so minded, set up a Technical
Instruction Committee which could establish
a School of Science and levy rates for its
maintenance by virtue of the Technical
Instruction Act of 1889. The request was
made to the Town Council in July 1900 in a
Circular in which the Board explained for
what purpose the Westwood School had been
built and equipped with the sanction and
approval of the Education Department. "The
(new) Board of Education", the Circular
continued, "has, however, questioned the
legality of expenditure from the education
rates upon Science and Art instruction and
now refuses to sanction any new Schools of
Science under School Board management,
only allowing School Boards to establish what
is known as Higher Elementary Schools. It is
now proposed, therefore, that, as in many
other towns, the School of Science should be
carried on by the Town Council".
The Town Council took a very long time,
almost a year, to reach a decision, and the
consequent delay added greatly to the School
Board's difficulties. They then decided to put
the school to immediate use, and the
architects were given orders that all work was
to be completed by the end of October (1900).
Early in November they made a tour of
inspection of the building in company with
the architects. They must have felt immense
pride in their creation but there was an
unexpected touch of foreboding in the next
instruction they laid on their Clerk. He was
told "to order 1,000 copies of Major Baden
Powell's letter to boys on Juvenile Smoking
(at a cost of £l) for distribution to the senior
boys".
The Higher Grade School
At last, on November 26th, 1900, the children
trooped in, 336 of them, with Mr. D. W. Bevan
in charge. They were the boys of the Pupil
Teachers' Classes at Gladstone Road and all
the children of Standards VI and VII from all
the Board's Schools. The first entry in the Log
Book (it has its lock and key) states that
"pending decision as to whether this is to be a
School of Science or a Higher Elementary
School, it is merely an elementary school for
elder scholars. Till this decision—also till
decided whether Town Council or School
Board shall control it, all arrangements are
temporary". Mr. Bevan was temporary Head
Master and his temporary staff were Mr. T. S.
Hudson, Mr. J. W. Estill, Mr. H. Norwood,
Mr. Walter Willings, Mr. A. Myers, Miss A.
Ascough, Miss E. Horn and Miss G. Horsley.
Members of the Board attended on the first

50
morning, Captain Bower, the Chairman, the
Ven. Archdeacon Mackarness, Mr. John
Stephenson, Mr. W. S. Rowntree and Mr. S. P.
Turnbull. The Morning Hymn was sung and
the Lord's Prayer repeated, a passage from
the Scripture was read. The Chairman and
other members of the Board addressed the
scholars.
The beginnings were confused enough. Mr.
Bevan had difficulty in getting the last
workmen out of the building, especially Mr.
Wells, the electrician, "who had lit the school
with one man and an apprentice" , he had
difficulty with the most stupid of caretakers,
who kept nothing clean, could not
understand the electric switches or the
working of the heating apparatus, lost his
keys, including the 'grand master key'. He
had troubles with supplies, materials
expected but not forthcoming, and with
transferred Penny Bank accounts which
would not balance. On January 23rd, 1901, the
new flag was flying at half-mast over the
school for the death of Queen Victoria.
There was what Mr. Bevan calls a 'public
opening' in February, 1901, but it was neither
official nor ceremonial, not to be compared
with the fanfare of the Gladstone Road School
opening. Mr. Bevan records that "the two
opening days, February 22nd and 23rd,
brought thousands of visitors to the school".
The scholars soon settled down and some
activities were begun. The girls formed a
hockey club to play on the sands
"subscriptions 6d. including use of sticks". Mr.
J. H. Milbourn joined the staff as monitor 'at a
payment of 10/- per month, the engagement
to be terminable by one week's notice on
either side". In the summer the Clerk was
instructed to see the Chief Constable
"respecting the nuisance caused by the
vendors of ice cream and by barrel organs in
the Park". To the Chief Constable's request
that the playgrounds should be open for play
after school hours, the Board gladly gave
permission "provided that the Watch
Committee will arrange for supervision by a
competent adult and be responsible for
damage".
In June, 1901, the long awaited reply from the
Town Council was received. The Council
agreed to the Board's request. A Technical
Instruction Committee was formed consisting
of 9 members of the Town Council and 9
members of the School Board. At its first
meeting, held on July 16th, 1901, there were
eleven members present, of whom ten were
either present or past members of the Board.
Steps were now taken to open the School of
Science. On November 2nd, Mr. Alfred
Samuel Tetley, M.A., was appointed Principal
of the Scarborough School of Science and
Secondary School. The Staff to assist Mr.
Tetley were also appointed. Some were from
the Higher Grade School, already in the
building, and there were newcomers, Mr.
Herbert King, M.Sc., Mr. E. G. Highfield, B.
Sc., Mr. H. L. Smith, B.Sc., Mr. W. R. Grist, B.
Sc., Miss E. Moore and Miss Tindall. Mr. W.
P. Rudsdale joined the Staff a few months
later.
The New Local Education Authority
The Scarborough Technical Instruction
Committee remained in control until August,
1903, that is, until the new authorities
constituted by the 1902 Act came into being.
The Committee had served the useful
purpose of enabling the School Board to open
the School of Science, thus establishing in
Scarborough a Secondary School twelve
months ahead of the 1902 Act. The Act was
passed late in 1902, and early in 1903
negotiations began between the Town
Council and the County Council respecting
their concurrent powers as to secondary
education in the Borough. Under the new Act
the County Council was the Local Education
Authority for Secondary Education, the
Borough having powers to administer
Elementary Education only. In February, a
number of town representatives, including
County Alderman J. Stephenson, Councillor
W. S. Rowntree, Mr. D. A. Nicholl (Town

51
Clerk) and Mr. William Ascough (Clerk of the
School Board. now Secretary of the new
Scarborough Education Committee), attended
a meeting of the newly-formed County
Education Committee. At its meeting in June
1903, the County Education Committee
passed the following resolution,
"That a Sub-Committee be appointed for
Education other than Elementary for the
Borough of Searborough under Section 6 of
the First Schedule Part A of the Education Act
1902".
This meant that the County Council had
decided to delegate to the Sub-Committee
powers to control the Municipal School, the
St. Martin's Grammar School, the School of
Art and the Evening Continuation Classes.
There was a further delegation of powers in
respect of the Municipal School, for the
Sub-Committee vested the control in a
Governing Body which was a Sub-Committee
of the Scarborough Education Committee and
consisted of 15 members (10 from the
Scarborough Education Committee, 5
nominated by the North Riding County
Council).
Thus the County Council had gone to the
utmost limit in devolving its powers,
allowing Scarborough complete control of the
Municipal School. As the members of the
School Board had mostly transferred
themselves to the Scarborough Education
Committee, the school was now managed by
the men who had built it. They had been
remarkably skilful in meeting every difficulty
which had arisen, establishing harmonious
action first with the Town Council, then with
the County Committee. The control they
exercised was real because at that time the
Borough alone rated itself for higher education
(a penny rate). The only contribution
from the County Council to the cost of Higher
Education in the Borough was a grant of
£1,100, and as this was part of a Treasury
Grant to the County Councils (the Whisky
Money) the contribution was an entirely
painless process for the county ratepayers.
These initial arrangements were satisfactory
to both Town and County. A great measure of
independence had been left to Scarborough,
"the beacon light in the rural darkness", as
Colonel Legard, with some slight irony but
with much sincerity, had expressed it. The
task lay before Colonel Legard and his
colleagues on the Education Committee to
probe and survey 'the rural darkness', to
draw up the County's programme of
development and to build the much needed
schools. While this was in progress, its largest
town could safely be left to look after its own
affairs.
Harmonious action was further guaranteed
by the appointment as Chairman of the
Higher Education SubCommittee of the Rt.
Hon. Arthur H. Dyke-Acland, who, a few
years previously, as a member of Mr.
Gladstone's Government, had been in control
of education. During Mr. Gladstone's Fourth
Ministry (1892-95) he had held the office of
Vice-President of the Committee of Council
on Education. The office of Vice-President
became later that of President of the Board of
Education when the Board of Education was
established in 1899. Mr. Acland had attained
his high office as much for his knowledge and
authority in educational matters as for his
political services. His tenure of office was
noteworthy for some important
administrative reforms and for the
appointment of the Royal Commission on
Secondary Education (the Bryce
Commission). This Commission, by its
recommendations favouring the setting up of
Local Authorities in place of the School
Boards, determined the future of educational
administration in England. Since his
retirement from political life Mr. Acland had
become resident in Scarborough. He took a
great interest in the School's affairs until he
left the town in 1908. Such a man could
command respect and his advice was decisive
in the negotiations between Town and
County.

52
THE MUNICIPAL SCHOOL
The Head Master
On January 6th, 1902, the Municipal School
began. All scholars above Standard VI in the
Higher Grade School from that day
constituted the new school together with the
junior pupils of the Pupil Teacher Centre.
There were thus three separate schools in the
building. The Higher Grade School occupied
two or three classrooms, the Pupil Teachers
occupied a classroom on the upper floor. Each
had its own headmaster, Mr. Bevan resumed
control of the Pupil Teacher Centre and Mr. T.
S. Hudson became Head Master of the Higher
Grade School. In spite of this division, which
might have been the source of much friction,
a determined effort at co-operation was made
at once. "I arranged with Mr. Tetley to treat
the school as one", wrote Mr. Bevan on the
day the new Head Master arrived. The
tripartite arrangement lasted only a few
years. Under a new scheme for the training of
teachers, the pupil teachers became bursars,
no longer taught apart, but incorporated as
ordinary pupils following the full school
course. By careful selection of entrants, the
Higher Grade School became the Lower
School or Junior Department, whose pupils at
the age of 12 years, passed into the Main
School.
Mr. Tetley was well qualified for his post. He
was a graduate of St. John's College,
Cambridge. Before coming to Scarborough he
had had nine years teaching in co-educational
schools and had for seven years been Head
Master of the Newtown County School,
North Wales. The County Intermediate
schools in Wales formed a link between the
elementary schools and the university
colleges. Their success under County
administration was not without influence on
the framing of the 1902 Act. Mr. Tetley was a
scholar—he had obtained First Class Honours
in the Classical Tripos at Cambridge—and a
man of wide interests, a good musician, a
keen field naturalist, a lover of the
countryside and of mountain climbing. There
was no mistaking the happy spirit which
prevailed in the school under his regime. All
who were scholars or teachers testify to it and
there is ample proof of it in the pages of the
Magazine which, first published in April,
1903, has appeared without interruption ever
since.
Speech Days
One of the chief problems which confronted
Mr. Tetley was to convince parents that the
full benefit of the school course could only be
obtained if their children remained as pupils
over a number of years. In the early days an
obstacle to the longer school life was the high
age of entry. When in 1906, the Board of
Education recognised as grant earners
children of 10 years of age, things improved
and there was a big increase in the number of
scholars. But for many years the average
length of school life remained too short, little
over 2 years. The average length of school life
at the present time is nearly 6 years.
Mr. Tetley did his best to educate the parents.
In his first year he instituted Speech Days and
at these ceremonies he regularly pleaded his
cause, opened his school to the public view,
and, with the support of the Governors, set
forth the school's aims and the benefits it
could offer. At the first Speech Day, held in
January, 1903, a few weeks after the passing
of the 1902 Act and before it had become
operative, the Rt. Hon. A. H. Dyke-Acland
gave away the prizes and made a speech
which had decisive influence on subsequent
relations between Town and County. To the
request made by Colonel Legard that the
Borough should surrender its rights in the
matter of elementary education to the County
Council, Mr. Acland pronounced himself in
favour of the town retaining its rights over
the schools it had built. Among the Governors
usually present at Speech Day were the
former members of the School Board, Mr.
Whittaker, Mr. W. S. Rowntree, Mr.
Sanderson and Mr. Ascough. Sir William

53
Worsley, Colonel Legard, Mr. F. A. Tugwell
and Mr. S. P. Turnbull attended as members
of the North Riding Education Committee.
Among the speakers who came as chief
guests were Canon Garrod, Chairman of the
North Riding Higher Education Committee
and Principal of Ripon Training College, Sir
Michael Sadler, Sir Alfred Dale, Vice-
Chancellor of Liverpool University, and Mr. J.
L Paton, High Master of Manchester
Grammar School. The School would be 'open'
to parents and friends in the evening from 6
p.m.; books and drawings would be exhibited
in the classrooms, and parties of boys and
girls busy with experimental work in the
laboratories, in Laundry Work, in Cookery
and in Woodwork. At 7-30 p.m. the
proceedings began in the crowded Hall; the
head boy and the head girl would deliver
their reports, the Head Master and the Guest
Speaker would follow, all very much, 50
years ago, as it is today.
It was not long before Mr. Tetley could report
successes of his pupils and of his past pupils.
The first head girl (Rita Hankinson) led the
way to the universities; David Gilchrist won
the first university scholarship, an S.U.S.F.
Exhibition, and the honour of being the first
holder of a County Major Scholarship fell to
Isabella Little. Of the first six County Major
Scholarships won, four were awarded to girls.
The girls stayed longer at school and usually
outnumbered the boys, especially in the Sixth
Form. Throughout the period of the
Municipal School the girls maintained an
advantage over the boys in the competition
for the County Major Scholarships, gaining 13
as against 9 obtained by the boys.
The Magazine began to report news of Old
Scholars. Year by year the story was added to
as news was received from universities, from
overseas, from every part of the world of the
progress of former pupils in their varied
careers. It is a wonderful story, now covering
50 years, but it is clearly too vast to relate or
to summarise. There are doctors and lawyers.
engineers and scientists, writers and scholars,
lecturers and schoolteachers, emigrants and
colonial officers, some achieving great things,
some gaining more modest success, others
ordinary folk carrying on life's business.
At the first Speech Day Mr. Acland said, "We
trust that many boys and girls may come
forth from this great building endowed with
gifts of intelligence, manliness, courtesy,
honesty, self-respect, determined to play a
strenuous part as good citizens, not forgetting
what has been done for them here".
What the Old Scholars have done is the
sequel.
The Societies
There is little that is eventful in the ordinary
happenings of school life, little that is worthy
of permanent record. Life follows the usual
pattern of work and play, terms and holidays,
a routine and a rhythm interspersed with a
few special events, few special successes. We
can, however, say something about the
character of that community to which many
look back with such pleasure. All good
schools create for themselves a happy family
spirit, promoting activities of their own,
which encourage talent and leadership, put
leisure time to excellent use and make school
life more rich and varied.
In the Report on the School after the
Inspection of 1910, we read, "Among the
various activities which help to develop a
good tone and a vigorous school life are the
Literary and Debating Society which has been
in existence for many years and is very
successful ; a French Club of some 35 of the
senior pupils who meet fortnightly and have
discussions on various topics in French ; the
Natural History Society, which not only holds
meetings and excursions but arranges a series
of public lectures each winter which are much
appreciated in the town, the Dramatic Society,
the Rambling Club, the School Magazine,
issued twice or three times a year; the Old
Scholars Club, a flourishing institution which
meets frequently and does much to keep up

54
the interests of old pupils in the welfare of the
school".
It is evident that the Municipal School was a
happy school in these early years. Any school
might have been proud of this testimony to
the vigour of its community life and would
have reason to be proud of thp, same report
today.
The Natural History Society was the first to
be started, perhaps because the equipment for
the 'School of Science' gave special
prominence to scientific studies. There were
some good field naturalists among the
masters, men who knew their countryside
well and loved every inch of it. This close
touch with the countryside has to some extent
been lost in modern days, when there are
fewer field naturalists on the staff, and fewer
local men. Perhaps the children of 50 years
ago found pleasure more readily in country
pursuits than in our modern age when the
cinema, the wireless and television are such
distractions. The members of the Rambling
Club ranged far afield. We read of one
expedition in the Magazine:
"The main party followed the undercliff to
Ravenscar and we all returned to Stainton
Dale where we had tea at Mrs. Emmerson's.
We then set forth by the bridle path to the
waters' meet. The full moon was just rising
over the hill tops and it was very thrilling in
the dark woods. The path was narrow and
difficult to find and a false step might mean
disaster. However we got through without
serious consequences and we set out at a
quick pace when we reached the hard frosty
road at Hayburn Wyke".
There seem to have been many hospitable
places like Mrs. Emmerson's, farm houses and
cottages where the children were
welcome- Mrs. Coverdale's of Langdale End,
Mrs. Gamble's of Whisper Dale, Mrs.
Stockill's in Low Dale . . "we tea'd off at Mrs.
Farrow's" All the delightful country names
appear, High Dale and Low Dale, Whisper
Dale and Yedmandale, Silpho, 'over the moor
to Wrench Green', Beast Cliff, the Raincliffe
Woods, the Bride Stones. It is scarcely
surprising that one of these early scholars
(Oswald Harland) was later to be the author
of the book on the North Riding in the
English County series.
As well as rambles in the country, there were
lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions in
school. The lectures were sometimes given by
members of the staff or by pupils, at other
times by speakers from outside. The busy
head master seems to have had some
difficulty in keeping pace with all these
experts. The Secretary notes. a trifle severely,
"As Mr. Tetley had been unable to prepare his
paper (Variation on Moths and Butterflies), he
gave us a short lecture on Beverley Minster!"
Mr. S. P. Turnbull gave an annual prize for
botanical collections and Mrs. Dyke Acland
encouraged the gardeners by gifts of seeds.
The gardens had been early formed by Mr.
Bevan from the waste land in front of the
school. There were some who took their
gardening seriously and we find it recorded
in 1905, that one of the scholars, Sydney
Harland, "gave a delightful, paper on
Gardens". The note is interesting for it must
have been the first of many papers that
Sydney wrote, each adding to his reputation,
until they earned for him the Fellowship of
the Royal Society.
The Literary and Debating Society dates from
1904, formed a few months later than the
Natural History Society. The two societies
had their constitution, appointed their officers
and kept minutes of their proceedings. The
Literary and Debating Society was of no less
importance than the other. Boys and girls
took part and for the girls who were not
interested in science, it was of special
importance. There were debates and readings,
impromptu speeches, papers, discussions,
mock elections, municipal and parliamentary.
The future Town Coroner (C. Royle) first
practised his eloquence at these meetings,
though the Magazine leaves no doubt that he

55
regarded steeplechasing, football and all
forms of sport as of prime importance. The
head girl at the Speech Day of 1908 was much
applauded `for the able manner in which she
reported on the Natural History and the
Debating Societies and the Girls' Swimming
Club’. She wrote the proceedings of the
Debating Society in a business-like manner,
did well in her examinations, won her County
Major Scholarship and wrote a story for the
Magazine to which she gave the title ‘The
Scourge of the Gods’. We may search through
all the volumes of the Magazine which cover
the last fifty years without finding anything
to equal in literary promise this first
published story of Storm Jameson. She came
to school on the Whitby train in the days
before there was a secondary school at
Whitby. Some remarkable pupils travelled
long distances to Scarborough School by this
train. The small boy (Maurice Harland), who
came for one year before his father left Lythe
Vicarage, is now the Bishop of Lincoln.
George Miller is Head Master of the largest
grammar school in Southern Rhodesia. A
little later Leo Walmsley travelled to School
from Robin Hood's Bay, perhaps rather
unwillingly, for no boy ever prized freedom
from restraint of any kind more than he, or
took greater delight in devoting all his time to
exploring the rocks of the sea-shore, to fishing
in the becks and pools near his home. He has
delighted his thousands of readers with the
tales of his boyhood.
The Dramatic Society dates from the earliest
days. The difficulty it faced was the lack of a
stage. Though the School Board had provided
almost everything a school could require,
they had not considered a stage as essential to
a school, and would probably have been
much surprised had it been suggested. A
make-shift stage was set up in the Hall, its
flooring consisting of tables, and on this many
numerable concerts were given. It was not
until the school's third decade that the
difficulties of the stage were successfully
overcome.
Shakespeare was acted first in the Concert of
1903, and the success achieved emboldened
the Dramatic Society to hire the
Londesborough Theatre for the Concert of
1904. There were Grecian Dances, an
adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and
Scenes from Midsummer Night's Dream.
"It was first proposed to devote the proceeds
to the Sports of the School, a very worthy
object our readers will say. So we thought,
but as time went on and we realised how
much actual want was being suffered in the
town, especially among the little ones, the
feeling came that we ought to try and help.
Mr. Tetley put the matter before us plainly,
and probably there was no-one who did not
readily respond and decide heartily that the
proceeds of our Concert be given, not to our
Games Fund, but to the Amicable Society's
Special Fund for the Relief of Poor Children.
We were able to hand over the sum of £38
14s. 6d. to the Society". Tennyson's Princess,
sketches from Adam Bede and Rip Van Winkle,
scenes from Twelfth Night, Henry V, Alcestes,
fairy plays, the school orchestra, a production
of The Mikado all appear on the Society's
programmes during the first ten years.
The Old Scholar's Club was founded in 1906,
holding its first meeting on November 23rd,
1906. In its first year the Club had 150
members and its activities included re-unions,
dances, rambles, sports, cycling and later,
dramatics. In 1911 there is the following note
in the Magazine. "The Old Scholars' Club has
entered on its sixth year of life. Its list of
members contains the names of some of the
best representatives of each year since the
opening of the school. The next development
which the members have in mind is the
opening of a Club Room, but there are
difficulties, financial and otherwise, yet to be
overcome before this object can be attained".
The difficulties, financial and otherwise, are
unfortunately with us still in 1952 but the
Club Room still forms a grand topic for
debate in the councils of the Club.

56
The Old Scholars' Club could not survive the
shock of the separation of 1922, though it
lingered on for some years. In 1935 a new
Club was formed, the Old Scarborians'
Association, amalgamating the Old Scholars'
Club and the High School Old Boys'
Association. The Association forms a link
with the school's foundation. Some of its most
loyal members are those who were at the
Municipal School, and it is to be hoped that
the Jubilee Celebrations will greatly increase
its membership.
The First War
On December 16th, 1914, Scarborough was
bombarded by German warships which fired
500 shells into the town. The shelling began at
8-15 a.m. at the time when some of the children
were setting out for school. George H.
Taylor, a Fourth Form boy, about to go on
duty as a Boy Scout, was struck by a piece of
shell near the corner of Albion Street and
Victoria Road, receiving injuries from which
he died immediately. Millie Sharpe, of the
Fifth Form. was wounded in Norwood Street,
having an arm broken and receiving other
injuries. The few scholars who had arrived by
early trains were conducted by the Caretaker
'to a place of safety underground'.
About 100 yards away, at Wood End, on the
other side of the Valley Bridge, Sir George
Sitwell also retired to a place of safety
underground when pieces of shell struck his
house. The incident is described by Sir Osbert
Sitwell. in the fourth volume of his
Autobiography. The school building suffered
no greater damage than a few broken panes
of glass. It was to escape without harm in the
Second War, though incendiaries pitted the
grounds and a bomb demolished the Art
School not very far away.
School life was affected by the departure of
masters for military service and school
activities were more and more curtailed. The
girls sewed and knitted for the Forces, a
Cadet Corps was formed, and the boys spent
much time in picking sphagnum moss
brought from the Moors to make dressings.
The Old Boys volunteered for active service
and early the lists of those who had bravely
fought and died began to appear.
In the midst of the War, on September 4th,
1916, Mr. Tetley died suddenly, his death
coming as a profound shock to the school to
which he had devoted himself heart and soul.
He had performed his task well,
understanding his school's needs, and
guiding it at its strange beginnings with great
wisdom. As a mark of their esteem, the Old
Scholars founded the Tetley Memorial
Scholarship and the Tetley Memorial Prizes.
The Prizes, of which two are given annually,
one for a boy and one for a girl, are awarded
by ballot of the Upper School to the scholar
who is considered "to have best played the
game in the truest sense" during his time at
school. "To play the game" was the favourite
exhortation of the late Head Master. The prize
is considered the greatest honour a boy can
receive, the verdict of his contemporaries on
his character and conduct. One quality he
must have if he is to win the Tetley-a true
modesty about his own achievements. A
braggart never reaches the final ballot for the
prize.
Just before Mr. Tetley died, Mr. Duncan
Fairley was killed in action. He was a
promising young master who had made his
influence strongly felt during the four years
he was in Scarborough. He had written the
verses of the School song, "Forward", the title
being the motto of the Municipal School.
It fell to Mr. Bevan to lead the School after
Mr. Tetley's death. This he did successfully
for the next seven years.
In 1922 the School ceased to be
co-educational. The girls departed and. with
Miss E. Glauert as their Headmistress,
established themselves as the Girls' High
School at Westlands where they remained
until their new school was built just before
the Second War.

57
The Municipal School had been a happy and
successful co-educational school and there
was keen regret and genuine sadness at the
change. The separation was, however,
inevitable. The demand for secondary
education was growing ; the accommodation
which the building could provide was becoming
inadequate to meet the demand. As early
as 1904, His Majesty's Inspectors had noted
that in a town the size of Scarborough, it
would have been more usual to find separate
schools for boys and girls. There were many
people in the town who favoured the change
and some members of the Governing Body
shared this view.
When the two schools were formed, the St.
Martin's Grammar School was closed. The
two boys' schools were merged and became
the High School for Boys. With the pupils
came the staff of St. Martin's-The Head
Master, Mr. C. F. Turnbull, Mr. A. E. Tweedy
and Mr. S. H. Francis. Commenting on the
changes Mr. Bevan wrote, "The rapid
amalgamation of the two schools has been
greatly assisted by Mr. Turnbull whose
sympathetic co-operation has been so heartily
followed by his old pupils that all distinctions
are gone". Mr. Turnbull, as Second Master,
gave to the new school his unswerving
loyalty until his retirement in 1946.
The year 1922 was thus one of revolutionary
changes in the Scarborough Secondary
Schools, changes which, though disturbing
upheavals at the time, have proved to be for
the best educationally. Both the Girls' High
School and the High School for Boys became
firmly established and increased rapidly in
numbers so that within a few years there
were over 800 children receiving secondary
education, more than twice as many as
before. The proportion of Scarborough
children receiving grammar school education
has been considerably higher than the
average for the country as a whole.
On returning after the Summer holidays in
1922, the boys found a half-empty school and
a rather disconsolate Head Master. Mr. Bevan
felt keenly the departure of the girls from the
school which they had so long graced by their
presence. He expressed his feelings at the
time in the pages of the Magazine.
"For over twenty years", he wrote, "we have
been a dual school. Working in separate
classes, boys and girls have met daily in the
Hall in morning and evening assembly.
There, in our simple, united act of worship
we have realised, perhaps more than in any
other way, the one-ness of the school as the
voices of young manhood and womanhood
have mingled with those of the juniors in
hymn and prayer.
"The School Societies were a common meeting
ground. What the Musical Society will be
without the girls' voices, what the Band
without their 'stringed instruments', remains
to be seen. We have long suspected that with
the boys, whether in debate in the Literary
Society, or in feats of prowess at the Sports
Day, the applause from the sister side of the
School was not exactly negligible.
"In the Senior forms, the pertinacity and
patience of the girls has been an example.to
the boys; in our Concerts their presence on
the stage has been half the battle. Our Christmas
break-up parties will now only be happy
memories of young life at its best.
"The St. Martin's boys will soon be welcomed
here to fill the places of the girls. And now we
must build up a strong school, the High
School for Boys. There rests on the boys who
are returning, especially the senior boys, the
responsibility of setting the right pace for the
future. We have a record of which we have no
cause to be ashamed. 'Forward' be our
watchword. To the Scarborough Girls' High
School we wish a long and brilliant career
and to its distinguished Headmistress, Miss
Glauert, we offer a right hearty Yorkshire
welcome and every good wish".
To help him in his task Mr. Bevan had men of
character who took to the new school what

58
“SOLICITORS ARE A MEANDERING AND
LEISURELY PROFESSION WHOSE LAST
CONCERN IS THAT OF THEIR CLIENTS”
Judge James Pickles
(Prematurely retired at the request of the Lord Chancellor)
Try to prove the Judge wrong by contacting
DRABBLE & CO.
Solicitors and Commissioners of Oaths
50, Albemarle Crescent, SCARBOROUGH
Principal: Freddie Drabble (1951/58)
Half price swearing for Old Boys
was best in the old—W P Rudsdale, H
Halliday, Robert King, Amos Burnley, G B
Walsh, C A Shires, W F Allen.
THE HIGH SCHOOL FOR BOYS
The Head Masters
Mr. Bevan resigned in 1923 having served in
Scarborough schools for 33 years. In his early
years he was in charge of the Pupil Teacher
centre which was quoted more than once in
the publications of the Board of Education as
a model of its kind. He was entrusted with
the task of opening the school in 1900 and the
measure of the confidence reposed in him
was his appointment as successor to Mr.
Tetley. In taking his farewell of the school he
had served so faithfully he expressed his
confidence in the future and his faith that "the
best is yet to be".
Mr. F. Mayor who followed him, had the task
of adapting the School to the changed
conditions and of setting it on its new course.
He did his work thoroughly and won the
respect of all under his guidance for his fine
intellect. his simplicity of manner, his lack of
affectation and for his broad human
sympathy. In 1926 he was appointed Head
Master of the Hull Grammar School.
The next Head Master, Mr. H. R. King, had to
deal with the problems of a rapidly
expanding school. He did much to make the
work and the aims of the School better known
to the parents and to the public and he strove
constantly after high standards and high
ideals. The advanced courses in the
Sixth Form were established in his time.
There is in the Hall a finely wrought silver
shield to commemorate his headmastership.
The Raymond King Trophy is awarded
annually to the House with the best record in
work and games. The value of many of Mr.
King's reforms has been proved by their

59
permanence in the School's organisation. In
1930, he became Head Master of the Forest
Hill School, London.
The School's Growth
When Mr. Mayor took up his post in 1923,
there were 263 pupils in the School. There was
a good deal of controversy about 'wasted
classroom space', and the town authorities,
who were of opinion that the building might
more fittingly be used as a Central School or
Senior Elementary School, made strenuous,
but unsuccessful, efforts to regain for their
own use the premises which they still owned.
It was not long, however, before the
classrooms began to fill again and within 10
years the numbers had risen to 450 , in 1937
they passed beyond 500. The rapid increase
was helped by the new Instrument of
Government, approved by the Board of
Education in 1926. This allowed scholarships
to be awarded each year at the rate of 50% of
the total number of pupils admitted in the
previous year (instead of the usual 25%). The
establishment of a Preparatory Department in
1927, when Mr. King was Head Master, still
further increased the upward trend. Most of
the pupils admitted to the Preparatory
Department at 8 years of age passed later into
the Main School and remained as pupils as
long as ten years. During this period
secondary schools everywhere were rapidly
expanding.
The numbers became stable at about 500, large
enough for the school to be organised as a
three form entry school. With the appointment
of additional masters it was possible to bring
new subjects into the curriculum. German was
introduced as a Main School subject in 1931;
Biology was re-introduced two years later. In
1941, Geometrical and Machine Drawing was
taught for the first time, though the subject
had had its place in the Prospectus of the
School Board's 'School of Science'. The
Metalshop was put to use for school purposes
in 1946 and was re-equipped with modern
machinery in 1950. In 1946 Latin was once
more taught in the Main School. There is at
present a small nucleus for a Classical Sixth
Form. There is thus a very wide range of
subjects in the curriculum ; in the Modern
Sixth Form, English, History. Geography,
Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, Music
and Art; in the Science Sixth Form,
Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology
(Zoology and Botany), Geometrical and
Machine Drawing. Woodwork and
Metalwork.
UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS
After some years there was evidence of
academic progress. The Sixth Form steadily
increased in size, from 30 in 1930 to 70 in 1950.
In 1935 the first open scholarship at the older
universities was won by John Eric Tinkler who
was awarded an Open Major Scholarship in
Natural Sciences at St. John's College,
Cambridge. There followed in quick
succession a series of successes in the
Cambridge Scholarship Examinations. The
school owes much to these successful pupils, J.
E. Tinkler, A. N. Wright, K. Fearnside, D. J. I.
West, and P. F. Watts, whose meritorious work
earned for it a very high distinction. On
February 26th, 1939, the following letter was
received from the Provost of Queen's College,
Oxford, Mr. R. H. Hodgkin:
"The Foundation of the Lady Elizabeth
Hastings provides that certain numbers of
schools in Yorkshire, Cumberland and
Westmorland, should have the right to send
candidates for election at Queen's College. It
also provides that if any school should fail for
twenty years to send in a candidate deemed to
be meritorious, it should forfeit this right.
Owing to this clause there is now a vacancy in
the list of "Hastings Schools" for Yorkshire.
The College has made various enquiries with a
view to filling this vacancy, and after
considering the evidence supplied to it, has
decided to offer to place your school on the list
of "Hastings Schools". 1 am now writing to
inform you of this offer, and to ask whether

60
the authorities of Scarborough High School
for Boys wish to accept it".
The Provost himself came to the Speech Day
of 1939. The Hastings Schools are twenty in
number. The Yorkshire Schools are Bradford
Grammar School, Leeds Grammar School,
King Edward VII School, Sheffield, Wakefield
Grammar School, Sedbergh, Giggleswick,
Heath School, Halifax, Doncaster Grammar
School, Ripon Grammar School, Bridlington
School, Coatham School, Hymer's College,
Hull, Bootham School, York and Scarborough
High School.
There are over 100 other schools in the cities
and towns of the three Ridings eligible for
this honour, grammar schools, public schools,
boarding schools. direct grant schools and
maintained schools. That we should have
been chosen by the College to receive it is
something of which we can be proud.
Our first Hastings Scholarship was won by D.
J. Bradley in 1942, and three more successes
followed in the next four years. It is
interesting to note that in wartime, when
every encouragement was given to science
studies, the School's Hastings successes were
all in Arts subjects! D. J. Bradley and D.
Hellmuth were Modern Language Scholars,
H. McGregor and M. E. Herman, History
Scholars.
The Second War
The War came suddenly in 1939 to disrupt
our lives. Before the Autumn Term began,
two headmasters were planning to share the
same building. Our temporary guests were
the pupils and staff of the Kingston High
School, Hull, a large co-educational school,
some of whose scholars were evacuated to
Scarborough. During the time they were with
us, rather more than a term, they won our
admiration by the way they adapted
themselves to difficult conditions, the manner
in which they kept their unity and organised
their corporate life and by the gratitude they
showed for the little we could do for them. A
period which might have been one of trials
and difficulties has left nothing but happy
memories.
There was surprisingly little interruption of
work during the war years. In spite of alerts
and bombings, fire-watching and black-outs,
examination results showed that standards
had been more than maintained. The younger
members of the staff departed, but the ladies
who replaced them proved themselves
worthy and rendered the most valuable
services.
The Air Training Corps came into being
overnight. Like the Home Guard, its
tormation was announced on the wireless.
The response was immediate and the day
following the broadcast, application was
made to the Air Ministry for permission to
form a squadron. Squadron 739 is still in
existence and has undertaken the
responsibility of training cadets of the town
as well as pupils of the school. It was at its
maximum strength in 1942-about 200, at the
time when 100 students of the Leeds Training
College, evacuated to Scarborough, formed
part of it. The Army Cadet Company was
formed at a later period of the War. Like the
A.T.C. Squadron, it has an excellent record of
service.
As in the previous War, the gardeners were
busy with the production of food. But in 1939,
led by Mr. Turnbull, they went into action at
once, dug up the school plots, then the garden
at the White House, then more land at the
Girls' High School. They kept pigs and hens,
formed Youth Squads for the salvaging of
waste food. The energies of the campers were
transferred to agricultural work. Before the
Government had provided assistance for
Harvest Camps, the School had sent a party
of 100 pupils to work for the greater part of
the summer holidays in the orchards of
Worcestershire. In subsequent years,
agricultural camps were held at Boston in
Lincolnshire and at Myton-on-Swale in the
North Riding. Girls from the Girls' High
School worked at the Myton Camp.

61
In various ways the School raised many
hundreds of pounds for war purposes, for the
Merchant Navy and for the supply of food
parcels for Old Boys who were Prisoners-of-
War. There was a great purposefulness in all
school activity in wartime.
The casualities among Old Boys were
grievous, as in the previous War. There are 75
names on the Roll of Honour and they
include some of our very best pupils. Their
names are inscribed on the memorial plaque
on the east wall of the School Hall, facing the
memorial of the previous war which is on the
west wall. The Bishop of Lincoln (Maurice
Harland) performed the Unveiling Ceremony
on October lst, 1948.
The War created a demand for scientists and
trained technicians. This had a marked effect
on the work in the schools, stimulating in
particular the work of the Science V1 Forms.
State Bursaries and Engineering Cadetships,
granted to holders of the Higher School
Certificate, enabled pupils to proceed to the
Science departments of Universities and Technical
Colleges. It was not unusual for almost
the whole of the Science VI Form to pass from
school to universities. Later when the War
ended, those whose studies had been
interrupted by military service could avail
themselves of Further Training grants offered
by the Government to ex-servicemen. These
grants ceased in 1947, after which the Local
Education Authorities introduced schemes for
major awards of their own. In addition to
Major Scholarships, Major Bursaries were
offered, the basis of award being the
possession of a Higher School Certificate and
acceptance for admission to a university. The
schemes have been almost too successful. The
expense of maintaining a far larger number of
university students than had been expected
has led to restrictions in the number of local
awards. Even so, the number of university
scholarships now available is many times the
number available before the war, when the
scholarships offered by the Local Education
Authority (the County Major Scholarship)
demanded so high a standard that very few
could hope to qualify for them.
The Societies
The boys' school has maintained the vigorous
community spirit which characterised the
Municipal School. Some features of the old
school are missing, some are much the same
and there are new activities which are worthy
of note. In the 1910 Report on the Municipal
School we read-
"A very large part of the interest taken in the
School activities is due to the various
members of the Staff who undertake the
responsibility for them and are untiring in
their efforts to make them successful".
How true this is, and how deserving the
tribute! It is as true today as it was 40 years
ago. If there is any special excellence in
aschool, in scholarship, in creative or social
activity, it represents some excellent work by
members of the staff. The School has been
fortunate in the men who have served it
during the past 50 years and who have
devoted themselves wholeheartedly to its
interests, each contributing according to his
gifts and talents something which makes
school life richer and happier. The influence
of the stall has extended beyond the School
and the town has benefitted from the work of
many of its members in social and cultural
activities. Perhaps someone writing about the
centenary of the School may enliven his
account with more personal sketches than can
appear in this account. The temptation to do
so now is very great, but where would the
story end if once begun For each of us,
memories of school days are dominated by
memories of our teachers. How small we
seem to grow as we recall them and how they
loom up as giants before us ! How well we
remember their voices, their mannerisms,
their humour or their complete lack of it, their
fine qualities and their failings ! We must
therefore reluctantly refrain from writing of
the staff individually. The list of the teachers
who have served in the school is given on

62
another page. Any name on it will be quite
enough to start a flood of reminiscences and
to provide a lively and fascinating topic
whenever old scholars come together in, any
part of the world.
The Literary and Debating Society no longer
exists. Debates are held from time to time,
sometimes jointly with the Girls' High School
or with other schools, but the formal school
debate is no longer popular. The Society's
successor is the Sixth Form Discussion Group,
an admirable society sustained by the
enthusiasm of the Sixth Form without a great
deal of notice by the Staff. It gives
opportunity for discussion on current
political and economic problems. A
Discussion period is also included in the Sixth
Form TimeTable.
The Natural History Society works in
conjunction. with the Science Society. It is
conducted with less formality than formerly,
but from time to time it includes in its
programme interesting lectures,
demonstrations and excursions. We are
fortunate in having so near to us the North
Riding Wrea Head College, at which courses
on a widevariety of cultural subjects are held
continually throughout the year. Our senior
pupils are made welcome and many have
attended. The courses are residential, held
usually during the weekends, but sometimes
during the week. The opportunity for talks
and discussions between interested students
and acknowledged experts who become well
acquainted with each other, is perhaps the
most valuable feature of these courses.
There are other clubs and societies ; the Chess
Club (encouraged by the inclusion of one
Chess period in the lst year Time-Table), a
Film Society, which makes good use of the
School's projector, and other minor clubs. The
School Choir has given public concerts in
conjunction with the Girls' High School Choir.
It takes part in the Eskdale Tournament of
Song and it has also given performances of
Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
The successor to the Rambling Club is the
Camping Club. The modern club now goes
farther afield, pitching its tents among the
high mountains of the Lake District, Wales,
Scotland or the Alps. Its journeys are no easy
conducted tours but are strenuous holidays in
which camp duties and climbing in the
mountains occupy the whole time. A camp
holiday before the War, in which nearly a
hundred boys spent three weeks in the
Chamonix Valley, cost no more than
£7 10s. 0d. The increased cost of post-war
travel has led us to hold a Whitsuntide camp
as well as a summer camp abroad. For the
past two years we have spent our
Whitsuntide holiday camping at a beautiful
site in the National Park at Glenmore at the
foot of the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland.
The juniors gain experience at the North
Riding Education Committee's camp in
Wensleydale. Each year over a hundred boys
from school spend part of their holidays
together in camp. It is a valuable part of the
school's training. Camp life teaches self
reliance, confidence and unselfishness; it
widens experience of places and people; it
fosters a love of life in the mountains, a love
which many campers never lose. In turn we
have climbed Scawfell, Snowdon, Ben Nevis,
the Zugspitze and Mont Blanc, the highest
mountains of the countries we have visited.
Of all the school societies none has greater
claim to distinction than the Dramatic Society,
which produces each year a play of
Shakespeare. The play dominates the Autumn
term. Readings are begun in the first week
and before halfterm, the trestles, floor-boards
and uprights are dragged from the cellar,
fitted and bolted together and the electricians
begin their assembling of floods, dimmers,
spots. The carpenters are at work and much
painting has to be done. Gradually the decor
is completed, a progress parallel with the
progress of rehearsals. At length the costumes
arrive and the dress rehearsal takes place—a
quiet, uninterrupted affair, for by that time
the mise en scene is so complete, that any

63
modification is usually found to be
unnecessary.
Our stage is small, its opening 20 feet wide
and 8 feet high, its acting area shallow, its
wing space almost nil. Representational
scenery on such a stage is impossible
(practically and artistically), therefore poetic
drama is the first choice. Blocks of wood and
screens make up the scenery, with perhaps a
trellis for a garden, a tree or a canopy. The
small stretched backcloth, between parted
back curtains and illuminated after the style
of a cyclorama. gives the illusion of depth.
The arrangement of the wooden blocks can
give different levels of acting.
The plays are "speeded up". There is no pause
between scenes, only two intervals at most.
The small forestage helps the quick
succession of scenes and steps from the
auditorium gives entrances from the Hall and
the sides. The productions depend on good
speech and sincerity of acting, both of which
have in large measure been achieved. For the
last few years members of the Girls' High
School have played the female parts, and, as
Mr. Bevan found, "their presence on the stage
has been half the battle". Among the plays we
have produced are Twelfth Night, Henry IV,
Part I, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of
Venice, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's
Dream.
Perhaps the best proof of the Society's success
is the support given by other schools, for each
year about 1,000 pupils from other schools
come to see the production. To anyone seeing
it for the first time, the surprise equals the
delight at seeing so polished a performance
given at a school play. , The skilful use of
coloured lighting, the artistic care of detail,
the freshness of the highly trained young
actors reveal, as no lessons can, the beauty of
the poetic drama of Shakespeare.
Sports
One problem which is incapable of a perfect
solution when a school enjoys the advantage
of being in the centre of a town, is that of the
playing fields. In the early days lack of a
ground was a handicap to games. For a time
the sands were looked upon as the natural
battle ground for both hockey and football
matches. But soccer players soon tired of the
sands. Fields were hired at Newby, the
Athletic Ground and Oriel Crescent were
used for a few seasons, and later, the St.
Martin's ground. All these arrangements were
unsatisfactory either because of restrictions or
inadequate area. The problem was solved as
well as it perhaps could be solved by Mr.
King who in 1927 induced the Governors to
rent a field of 15 acres, belonging to the
Corporation, on the top of Oliver's Mount. At
last we had all the space we could possibly
want, freedom from interference, a good half
hour's walk to loosen the joints before play, a
magnificent view of the Wolds, and the vast
expanse of the Vale of Pickering for the west
winds to rush along. In spite of distance and
the climb of a few hundred feet, 'Field' is
always preferred to afternoon school.
In the early days girls played hockey on the
sands, netball and tennis ; the boys, cricket,
hockey and soccer. The members of the 1902
School soccer team were H. Brown,
Leadbeater, J. D. Smith, R. W. Petch, B.
Appleyard, C. Royle, S. Horsman, Wilson,
Donbavand, W. Barklay and A. B. Smith. The
great days of hockey were after the First War
when the school produced many players of
international and county class :-P Sargant, W
Brining, F Elliott, F Thackeray, B Harland, F
Harper, F Williams, J H Dyde, K Williams, P
Surtees-Hornby and F Smith.
Rugby was first played in the Autumn Term
of 1935, followed by soccer in the Spring
Term. Two seasons later it became the only
game for seniors. In 1948 Rugby was played
throughout the school with inter-school
games for the Ist, 2nd, Colts and under 14
teams a regular feature.. The present school
side is strong and has won the majority of its
matches this season. Our usual opponents are
Bridlington, Coatham, Archbishop Holgate's,

64
York, Middlesbrough High School, Acklam
Hall School, Hull Grammar School and Goole
Grammar School.
Two outstanding athletes are WE Nicholson,
and DF Saunders. Nicholson, playing for the
Tottenham Hotspur Club was selected to play
for England in 1951. Saunders was Captain of
the Oxford University Association Football
Club, and of the combined Oxford and
Cambridge Pegasus team which won the
Amateur Association Football Cup at
Wembley in 1951. In the same year he was
'capped' for England.
Cricket has from the earliest days benefitted
from the help of the Scarborough Cricket
Club who have been generous in offering
facilities for practice and for matches on the
Festival Ground. Outstanding among many
fine cricketers are E. Lester, J. H. Pearson, C.
W. Foord and H. Dennis, all of whom have
played for Yorkshire.
The oldest Sports Cup is the Staff Cup for the
Athletics Championship. The first winner was
A. Wilson in 1907. It was won by F. Elliott in
the years 1925-6-7. Recently J. G. Lee
established a record which is likely to be
permanent. He was Victor Ludorum for four
years, 1947-1950.
We now bring to an end this brief account of
the school's story during the past fifty years.
We have outlined its progress from the fresh
endeavour of the early days to the maturity it
may now claim. We have written of its
successes and of its community spirit, the
vital part of any school. Though the story is of
two schools there is a unity and a continuity
which few will fail to discern. The continuity
is above all in the building, built by the
School Board, who gave it the pleasant name
of Westwood School, a name which was
unhappily lost in the perplexing changes of
the early days. In the same building have
been taught fathers and their sons, mothers
and their sons. The masters who served in the
two schools preserved the continuity of
tradition and each generation has made its
contribution to the school's progress.
The School has its roots in the town. Its
foundation was the work of Scarborough men
who had a noble conception of their duties as
responsible leaders and whose labours have
been to the benefit of the children coming
after them. They gave striking proof of the
vitality there is in English civic life and of the
capacity of the English for governing
themselves. To the enterprise and
determination of Sir Meredith Whittaker we
owe in large measure our origin. A man of
forceful character, a firm believer in the
importance of good schools, he was the
town's leader in its many undertakings
during a period of rapid growth, change and
development. The task of building the School
fell to the Quaker, William Stickney
Rowntree, who, as Chairman of the General
Purposes Committee of the School Board was
responsible for the planning, building, costs
and equipment. He had the ardent zeal of the
Rowntree family for social service, and, no
less than Sir Meredith, he believed in the
value of education in the life of the
community.
A still greater figure in our local education
history is William Ascough, Clerk to the
School Board from 1878 to 1903 and
Chairman of the Scarborough Education
Committee from 1906 until his death in 1926.
He was the sole administrative officer
employed by the School Board, the executive
for their plans and their adviser. The Minute
Books of the Board, kept in his own
handwriting, are the record of his work, the
Schools are his memorial.
Though he rejoiced in the early success of the
Municipal School, his public utterances
showed that he was not happy about the
consequences of the 1902 Act. The School had
been built for "upper standards" of the
elementary schools. It represented a stage
forward in the advance which the School
Boards were making into the field of higher
education, an advance which, had it been

65
needs. has shown sympathy and an anxiety
to help in all difficulties, an Authority which
has not interfered with the School's inner life,
allowing this to develop in complete
Freedom.
THE CLASS OF ’51
by Chris Found (1951-59)
and Frank Thompson
(1951-57)
Foundation Meeting of the Old Scarborians Club.
Left to right:
H Richardson, Geoff Nalton; ; HW Marsden
allowed to continue, would have led to
secondary education for all. Ascough was
very critical of the separate codes for
elementary and secondary education. Less
than twenty years after his death the 1944
Act began a new era in English education.
The separate codes were abolished and a
unified system of secondary education for all
children became the aim of national policy.
For fifty years we have been a school under
the control of the North Riding Education
Committee. For the first half of this 'period
the hand of control was light. Gradually the
power exercised by the central authority has
increased as the authority's responsibilities
have increased. New schools, medical and
dental services, school meals, transport,
maintenance grants, further education are all
matters now planned for the County as a
whole and educational administration is
vastly more, complicated than it was fifty
years ago. As far as our own school is
concerned, our account has shown that in its
second phase since 1922, it has lost none of
its vitality. The High School for Boys has
flourished under an authority which has
supplied its wants and administered to its
After our first attempt to
trace those members of
'Class of 51' through the
pages of Summer Times,
May 2001, we are pleased
to report that to date we
have managed to contact
some 35 of the 77 known
members of that year.
Each has been informed
of the forth-coming
events in June and that
we hope to organise a
get-together at that time.
We have also sent a full
list of names and
addresses to each in the
hope that they may
know the
whereabouts of
others or may wish
to get in touch
with old friends
they had lost
contact with.
Above: Three members
of “The Class of ‘51
Left to right:
Paul Ridley;
David Corfield; Barry
Starling.
There are however
some 32 names we
have not yet traced
and we list them
below in the hope
that someone’s
memory may be
jogged.
Mel Brown; Roger

66
Carr; Adrian Casey; David Corfield; Robert
Cross; Peter Dennis; Ces Dewdney; John
Fenwick; Peter Firth; Colin Gibson; Clive
Grant; Pete Groombridge; David Groves; Les
Johnson; Bernard Lake; John Lintern; Pete
Lonsdale; Roger Lyle; Gerry McConville; Nev
Moody; Ian Parkinson; John Ransome; Robin
Shaw; Pete Simpkin; Alan Simmonds; Roger
Smith; Graham Stubbs; Charles Turnbull; Jim
Turnbull; John Wigg; George Wray.
NEW BOOKS
Michael Herman (1937-47)
has just produced another
book about intelligence,
Intelligence Services in the
Information Age: Theory and
Practice (Cass, £45 or
£18.50), as a sequel to his
textbook published in
1996. Officially cleared; it is not an exciting,
autobiographical work of whistle-blowing and
revelations. But he suggests that you recommend
it for the local library even if you don't
want to buy it yourself.
THE MUSIC MASTER
Last December Old Scarborian-cum-organist
Michael Lester was swotting up on carols as
he prepared for his first Christmas in the
organist's seat at St Mary's Church,
Cloughton—45 years after first sitting in front
of the bellows.
Michael had his first stint as church organist
as a 17year-old boy in 1955, following in the
tradition of his grandfather who had been a
parish organist at the same age.
Now, after four decades honing his talent as a
music and piano teacher and stints as organist
in other parishes, he is back at Cloughton.
"The previous organist had a heart by-pass
operation so I filled in while she was off and
then did alternate weeks," said Michael. "She
left and I took over full time. I have been
playing ever since I was in short trousers and
when I was at music college, organ was my
first study.
"I spent a lot of time deputising at Cloughton
and whenever I wasn't anywhere else I would
attend Cloughton church so when the
previous organist left it was an obvious thing
for me to take over."
Born in Scarborough, Michael moved to
Cloughton aged 14. He joined the village band
and became assistant organist to Parkes
Hunter at St Mary's.
In 1955 he took over the post and stayed two
years before moving on to the Trinity College
of Music where he stayed for three years,
followed by a post-graduate year at London
University.
Michael’s first teaching post was at Eskdale
secondary school in Whitby before, he moved
on to Scarborough's Westwood County
Modern for Boys in 1968.
In 1973 he was appointed head of music at
Raincliffe School until taking early retirement
13 years later. He spent five years teaching
piano part time at Hunmanhy Hall School and
since then has breen a private piano, keyboard
and organ teacher. He currently has 26 pupils
of all ages.
At various times during the 70s and 80s, he
was accompanist and musical director of
Scarborough Choral Society, the Scarborough

67
and District Light Opera Society,
Scarborough Amateur Operatic Society,
Malton Amateur Operatic Society, and
Pickering Musical Society. At St Mary's the
organ was rebuilt in the 1960s although the
original outer casing was retained.
Michael says he prefers pipe organs to their
electric counterparts. He says his favourite
organ to listen to is in St Paul's Cathedral and
counts music by JS Bach among his favourite
pieces.
"A sound of a good organ in a resonent
building is something you can’t beat!”
Adapted from an article and photograph,
courtesy of the Scarborough Evening News.
THE AIR TRAINING
CORPS
by Ray Muir (1936-41)
Reading John Knighton's "Upper School
Memories" in the May
edition of Summer
Times rekindled a few
memories for me. I
well remember the
aircraft recognition
room adjacent to the
Physics Lab., with its
walls painted with
aircraft and the models suspended from the
ceiling.
I wonder how many Old Boys realised that
the year 2001 was the 60th anniversary of the
formation of the Air Training Corps. This
gave Mr. Marsden the opportunity to
institute a cadet organisation within the
SBHS. in February 1941 he invited all eligible
pupils and immediate past pupils to ‘sign
up'. H.W. Marsden was the C.O., ably
supported by Messrs. Taylor, Isherwood and
Johnson as fellow officers. Harry Johnson, the
school caretaker, was appointed as the
Squadron Warrant Officer. Initially there
were no uniforms but that did not deter the
enthusiasm, and instruction was given in
navigation, signalling, engines etc. We were
put through our paces in both foot and arms
drill by Harry Johnson, passing on the
experience he had gained in 1914-18.
Our C.O. soon showed his prowess and
quickly established a relationship with RAF
Station Driffield which was a bomber station
at that time. His initiative soon bore fruit and
in June 1941 he had organised a visit by the
High School cadets to Driffield. We were
shown round the airfield, but the highlight of
the visit was when 18 of us were given a
flight in a Wellington bomber. This lasted
some 40-45 minutes and we were treated to
flying over Scarborough. I remember that

68
Denis Saunders was in our aircraft but time
has eroded any memories of others. The
pilot was a Flt. Lt. Harry Budden DFC, who
was already on his second tour of
operations. He was later shot down as a
Squadron Leader, having collected a DSO in
the meantime, and spent the rest of the war
as a P.O.W. Strangely he retired to
Scarborough after leaving the RAF as a
Wing Commander in 1955, and I had the
pleasure of renewing our earlier acqaintance
when he was the Chairman of 739 Squadron
ATC and I was an instructor and later with
the local branch of the Aircrew Association.
With the the Head's encouragement I
volunteered for aircrew duties and I think I
was one of the first ex-cadet to pass out as a
Pilot and gain the coveted pilot's wings.
I wonder if any of the boys who went on
that trip to Driffield remember the day when
a formation of 3 Wellington bombers flew in
quite low formation over the town.
1947—A MIS-SPENT
SUMMER
by Michael Herman
(1937-46)
I was more moved
than I expected when
Mike Rines allowed
me to read Gerry
Hovington's account
of his war service
with the Green
Howards. My association
with Gerry in
1946-47 was only
through rugby and cricket, but I remember
him with affection and admiration. I wonder
how much his easy relationships with us
owed to his tough war in the infantry.
His memoir unlocks recollection of the
golden summer of 1947, the Edrich-
Compton summer. I had got the Hastings
scholarship in November 1946 and was due
to be called up for national service the following
year. I should have tried to take the
H.S.C. again in some other subjects, but didn't.
The winter was spent in desultory attempts
to learn Russian and later going to
live with a French family, which seemed
quite an adventurous thing to do in those
days, but I was back for the cricket season.
The school XI of 1947 was a good one but
my memories of it are rather dim. I had
handed over my captaincy of the previous
year to Bill Hume, a good friend, and it was
not a memorable term of school cricket.
(Does anyone have news of Bill, I wonder)
Editor: Michael: He is a member and lives
in Scarborough.)
My sharpest cricketing memory is of regularly
making up the Old Scarborians' side in
the evening league. Matches were all 20
overs. 1947 still had the long, light evenings
provided by continuation of wartime double
summer time. (Perhaps one of the arguments
for now 'joining Europe' is that it
might provide longer evenings for cricket).
The games I remember are the village ones;
serious, but on primitive grounds, and full
of character. My recollection is that the Old
Scarborians were rather fluid with occasional
difficulty in making up the numbers,
but they had the unique asset of having two
current county players sometimes available
for them. Ted Lester was still not fully established
in the regular Yorkshire side in the
first part of that summer, and though Bill
Foord was also getting some county games
these were still occasional.
So there were times when both were available.
I recall the massacre of an army attack
at Burniston barracks with Ted scoring 136
(out) in a total of (I think) 225 in the twenty
overs, though this might have been the previous
summer. I also have a recollection of a
game with some needle in it against the
South Cliff Methodist side, and of Bill bowl-

69
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ing short at their captain, who was said not to
be wearing a box. (Boxes must have been a
standard part of the communal team bag in
those days. I never owned one until some
years later). I believe that because of the Lester-Foord
combination the competition rules
were amended to limit the number of country
players allowed to play in any game. People
must wonder what caused such a rule came
to be passed by the local league, if it still exists.
The Old Scarborians usually won both
the knock-out Hospital Cup and the league.
Joe Marsden wrote an account in the school
magazine of one of the finals; I am not sure
which year.
My memories are of long evenings and great
happiness. The side was captained by Cyril
Rossington, and other members of the staff
were Gerry Hovington, Lewis Morehouse and
Norman Stoddard. I remember Paddy Waterhouse
as the wicket-keeper. Sam Brooke-
Dyde was the archetypal number 9, 10 or 11
and the butt of Rossington's witticisms. Mac
McKinley was a regular player, though I do
not know whether he was a Scarborian. Did
Gordon Bowland also play
There was also a younger element. I had the
use of the family car—it was before L plates
and post-war driving tests were reintroduced—and
I recall transporting Stan
Lewsey, Geoff Dennis and their girl friends to
some games; a crammed but congenial carload.
I rarely batted and did not expect to; this
was serious league stuff and Rossington did
not fiddle with the batting order. It was
enough to be playing club cricket for the first
time, and to be made unobtrusively welcome
in a happy side. Perhaps I learned for the first
time that cricket could be fun. This may be
romanticising the Old Scarborians. Winning
sides tend to be happy ones anyway. Nevertheless
this is my memory as it is.
My recollection of school cricket suffers
slightly by comparison. By that summer I

70
was going round the circuit of school fixtures
for the third time, and compared with the Old
Scarborians these were deeply serious occasions
without much light and shade. Yet they
also ended on a high note. A school camp at
the end of term was arranged by Brad in the
Yorkshire dales, and someone had the inspiration
of combining it with a cricket tour. I
was, amazingly, given a fortnight's compassionate
deferment from national service to go
on it. So we played a school match at Harrogate,
followed by club games at a place I have
forgotten (could it have been Richmond
They were a good side and despite reinforcement
from Hovington and Morehouse we
were badly beaten in an evening match); and
then at Thirsk and Hawes. We also travelled
in the tour van to see the marvellous final day
of the Fourth Test at Headingly. Edrich
opened the bowling, bowling fast; Compton
took a magnificent catch at cover; Hutton
scored the winning run. I wonder how many
of the school side of that year are now in
touch with the Association.
Of course the sun shone, and the call-up papers
waiting for 6 August intensified the
school-leaving feeling of 'never again'.
Probably we had been brought up on too
much Siegfried Sassoon and the other First
World War literature of the 1920s about the
horrors of war, and had subliminally convinced
ourselves that we were going off to
some great sacrifice. In the event, of course,
apart from those with the infantry in Malaya,
we had a safe, interesting and relatively comfortable
two years, an equivalent of modern
youth's pre-university Gap Year. But that is
another story.
A wasted summer Think of the academic
work a genuine scholar would have done that
term. Would I spend it the same way again
I fear that I might. And one result of the
school XI tour was that, though I subsequently
gave up regular club cricket quite
early for another sport, I got a taste for cricket
tours and was involved in one for fifty years
afterwards, and to some extent still am. (Last
game played about six years ago; run out 1.
Bill Hume as my school opening partner may
feel that this was justice delayed).
But I recall no further involvement with an
Old Scarborians XI. I wonder if anyone has
tried to write up its history and, as a companion
piece, one on the rise and fall of the Old
Scarborians' Rugby XV Perhaps someone
has already produced these. If not, the present
committee among all its other good work
might commission something, while there is
still time.
GERRY HOVINGTON
APPEAL
Michael Rines, a former
pupil at
Scarborough High
School for Boys is
searching for
information about
one of his old
teachers after
uncovering an 18,000
word memoir of the
school master's wartime experiences.
Scarborough-born Michael, who attended the
school in the 1940s and early 50s, wants to
find out more about his former teacher Gerry
Hovington, who died recently aged 87.
Michael, who was once twelfth man for the
Australian cricket team, has recently
discovered the 18,000 word document of Mr
Hovington' World War Two experiences with
the 1st Battalion The Green Howards.
He also has a photograph taken of Mr
Hovington with fellow Green Howards
battalion members—including former
England and Yorkshire cricket captain
Norman Yardley—and Mr Hovington's
girlfriend at the time, whom Mr Rines is also
keen to trace.
He hopes that if she is still alive she may have

71
SOME O’ ME
MEMORIES
by Ted Lancaster
1949-1954
letters written by Mr Hovington which could
shed more light on his war experiences.
Michael who lives in Nacton, Ipswich said:
“What I need is more information to add to
what I already have. In particular, I would
like to trace the girlfriend he had during the
war because she might still have letters he
wrote to her. She would probably be in her
80s by now, and I do not know her name so
it's a bit of a long shot.”
The photograph shows the group in
light-hearted mood with cricket star Norman
Yardley appearing to have lilies sprouting
from his head.
Mr Rines has already successfully obtained
information about one of his former teachers
Frank Binder, whose work is set to be turned
into a novel.
Anyone who has any more information
about Mr Hovington or the people pictured
should ring Mr Rines in Ipswich on (01473)
659616
(Adapted from, and with acknowledgements
to the Scarborough Evening News)
When David first emailed me welcoming me
to the Association and suggesting I might
write something for the Summer Times my
first panic-struck reaction was, "What me,
write, but I'm a scientist."
Notwithstanding I have now calmed down,
given the matter some serious thought and
decided to apply the advice I have given to
so many of my clients during the time I
spent running psychotherapy, counselling
and hypnotherapy clinics in the West Midlands.
“Now just close your eyes, relax deeply and
let your thoughts roam freely. Tell me anything
that comes into your mind.”
The first thoughts that come to me concerning
SBHS are of lying in bed half awake just
before my eleventh birthday; of my excited
mum running up the stairs, official letter in
hand, shouting, “You clever boy, you've
passed the eleven plus. You're going to the
High School.”
And of my feelings of horror at that prospect.
For several years I'd had my heart and ambition
set on going to the Graham Sea Training
School and from there to the Merchant Navy
as a navigation officer. How could I now
disappoint my delirious parent by declining

72
the impending classical, grammar school
education So it was that I duly arrived in
September 1949 with a totally wrong attitude
and a chip set firmly on my shoulder that
stubbornly persisted almost till the end. Nobody
was going to educate ME and get away
with it.
It seems that almost every morning saw my
arrival, cycling down the slope, dismounting
at the appointed invisible barrier that no
mounted cyclist shall pass and walking to the
cycle stands which lined the fence along the
drive under the resigned but disappointed
gaze of Chris Francis, the prefect in charge of
the Late Register, having my name entered
yet again in the detention book and of listening
to the muted strains of the bulk of the
school once more "Ploughing and scattering
the good seed on the land," before being ushered
into the half completed assembly. I
think I must have spent more time in Brad's
geography cum detention room than in any
other single activity during my entire stay at
the school, pretending to copy from some
text book while in reality writing out "The
Owl and the Pussycat" from memory because
it was marginally less excruciating.
I did plot to avoid this daily indignity by
sneaking down the Woodend side of the
bridge, hiding my bike in the bushes and
weaselling my way into school through the
lower back entrances. I still feel it had a
chance of working but I've never mustered
up the bottle.
My thoughts drift to and fro amongst the
years to a memory of my very first day on
which, for once I was in fact early; of discovering
the impending horror of being welcomed
to the school by the older boys by
being hurled into a gorse bush; of peeping
around the corner of the building nearest the
Valley Bridge to observe if this was in fact
true and looking to the very end of the path
that slopes down into the lower playground
then up again over the top of the gorse
bushes at the far end just in time to see some
unfortunate individual who had been rather
enthusiastically propelled go sailing over the
top of the bushes, missing them completely,
to land on his rear end on the asphalt of the
lower playground some twelve feet or so
below with a force that suggested that he
might be ruined for life; of trying to avoid
this unappealing ceremonial ritual by hanging
about by the cycle shed at the other end
of the school and noticing another small,
frail, scared looking individual whom I assumed
was plying the same avoidance tactic
as myself. "Been bushed yet" I enquired.
Drawing himself resentfully up to his full 3
foot 9 inches he declared with a slight curl to
his lip, "I'm a second former."
This was not to be my last big mistake.
A few weeks into school life in 1A, the room
above the cycle shed, during Mr Costain's
English lesson I recall causing him a great
deal of amusement as he read out from my
essay "What I want to Be". I had written that I
had an ambition to follow a navel career. He
sniggered, then guffawed and blurted,
" There's a lad here wants to be a belly button."
He kept sniggering for the rest of the
lesson. Oh, the shame.
Then there was the weird looking object
loosely referred to as a toothbrush rack. Mine
more closely resembled a catapult. I seemed
to have some difficulty grasping the basics of
a tenon saw. Following this, most of my time
in the woodwork lessons was spent making
model boats to sail on the small pond under
the bridge. These were hidden during the
course of their construction down a hole in
the floor at the far, playground end of the
woodwork room which housed the stopcocks
for the central heating pipes and which was
covered by a wooden lid. This eventually
became quite full of vessels under construction
as more shipbuilders joined the society.
The cache was, of course, eventually discovered
by Harry Wallhead and Mr Perry, the
handicraft masters, declared to be a fire risk

73
to the endangerment of the entire school and
the ringleader appropriately dealt with. This
was the first time, but not the last, that I was
required to admire the seat of a chair In Joe's
study by firmly grasping it while leaning
over its back. Joey was meanwhile administering
his own brand of central heating. One
stroke for a first former, two for a second
former, three if you were in the third form
and so on, or so it appeared as I visited him
from time to time during my sadly misspent
school career.
Following such a visit it was traditional to
then race down to the underground toilets to
prove your story of having had the "cosh" by
dropping your trousers before the entire admiring
retinue to display the rapidly blackening
welts.
A more poignant memory of Harry Wallhead
was the day that he left the school. We all
assembled in the hall, Joe made a fitting tribute
to Harry and presented him with a leaving
present to which I think we had all made
some small contribution. It was all a bit too
much for Harry who was unable to speak
and left the room in tears to return very
apologetically a few moments later to offer
his thanks.
In those days the back entrance to the school
from the lower playground, the one that
leads via the internal steps past the tuck
shop, was surrounded up the sides and over
the top of the door by a thick growth of ivy.
Above the door and deeply covered by leaves
was the electric bell that summoned the boys
into school at the end of morning and lunchtime
break. It was fashionable at this time to
spend every available spare minute tearing
headlong around the lower playground in
two vast mobs playing a rough and ready
game vaguely resembling soccer, booting and
hacking at a tennis ball. I could never quite
get the hang of this pastime so never participated.
One lunch time about fifteen minutes
before the end of the break I scaled the ivy
covered walls, traversed above the door to
the location of the bell and deep into the ivy
placed an old fashioned wind up alarm clock,
the kind with bells on the top, set to sound its
alarm within the next few minutes. Hastily
descending I awaited the inevitable. About
twelve minutes before time the clock went
off, the footballers et al abandoned their
games and trooped en masse into school only
to be rapidly ejected by irate staff annoyed at
having their break equally curtailed. Meanwhile
I was trembling in the bushes just outside
the gate leading from the playground
toward the bridge reluctant to be seen as the
only one who had not gone through the door.
Picking my moment to retrieve the clock was
not easy.
It was a common sight to see boys coming
out through that same door clutching a
wooden ruler (It's a RULE, boy, a RULE.
King George VI is a RULER.) abundantly
threaded with ring doughnuts. They were
fresh and still warm, supplied at the tuck
shop, which was run by Stodd, and Mr Freeman
donating their break times to raise cash
which I think went to help spastic kids. I recall
them saying somewhat irreverently,
"Please help the spastics. They can't do gymnastics."
I also recall Norman Stoddard picking me up
in his arms when I injured my foot down in
the valley as a large boulder on which I was
balancing rolled over and crushed it, carrying
me to his little black car, transporting me
home and depositing me in the arms of my
startled mother.
The corridor, which ran from the woodwork
room to the dining hall, had windows, which
would have looked down into the gym. They
were, however, obscured by paper, which
had been stuck onto the panes. Only in very
small patches had this paper been scratched
away presumably by some miscreant scaling
the wall bars to reach them. Through these
woefully inadequate spy holes it was just
possible to squint fuzzily down into the gym
after scrambling up onto the heating pipes.

74
From this vantage point it happened on one
occasion that a few of us had the fortune to be
gazing very admiringly down at a team of
long legged curvy creatures in white blouses
and navy blue knickers performing some activity
down below. We never got to know
exactly who they were or what they were
about as we were hastily scraped off the window
and moved on by a worried looking Pike
Richardson.
On the other side of the same corridor was the
small dining room. It happened that during
my first year at the school we didn't break up
for the summer holiday till the 29th of July,
which happened to be the joint birthday of
classmate, Jack Fletcher, and myself. We decided
that a DO was in order and set about
organising. For eleven and twelve year olds it
was a work of art. Almost everyone in the
first year agreed to bring their appointed delicacy
and on the due date we had amassed
pop, cakes, sandwiches, crisps, fruit, biscuits,
jelly and the crockery and cutlery to accommodate
it all. It was all set out in glory in the
small dining room at four o'clock and the revels
due to begin. As we were about to descend
ravenously upon the feast the door slowly
opened to reveal a gobsmacked Mr Haigh, the
French teacher, just standing there open
mouthed No blind eye was to be turned. We
were ejected with haste without a mouthful.
Our enthusiasm shattered we simply skulked
off home muttering at the injustice of it all.
Most of my High School days seem to have
been beset by pranks, resulting action taken
by staff and ensuing resentment on my part.
However there remain in my thoughts a couple
of memories which have proved invaluable
in helping me straighten out, take the
whole concept of education seriously and to
some extent make amends. These are memories
of a couple of the boys who though not
particularly in my close circle of friends, evidently
cared and showed it. One was Howard
Frost who walked up the stairs with me one
day and, although we were the same age,
explained in a quite fatherly way that if I were
to try a little bit harder I could be good at
maths and science and stuff. It was a simple
act of concern, which came across with such
sincerity that it has stuck with me to this day
and was influential in my starting to grow up
and take things more seriously. The other was
Colin Leppington, by no means a goodygoody
but a lad who took spirituality seriously
and recommended that I try a couple of
books, which he loaned to me. One was C S
Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. I returned it to
him but still have my own copy. It was these
kindnesses, which influenced my change of
policy more than anything else, and which
helped create in me the ambition to become a
teacher of emotional and behaviour disordered
children, a function with which, though
semi-retired, I am still involved.
PRIZE CROSSWORD
by Alan Bridgewater
(1933-40)
Editor: Following my appeal for a Crossword,
Alan kindly responded. There will be
a small prize for the first correct answer
opened on 30th May 2002. Entries to me
please. Photocopied or e-mailed entries accepted.
Please include your name and address.
Editor’s decision final! Contact details
page 3.
ACROSS
7 Many old boys fought them in Kenya (6)
8 His book "Journey in England" is in the
Scarborough Reference Library. He also ran
the Chess Club. (7)
9 See 10 across (8)
10 Name of the prize awarded annually to
the boy who had done most for the School the
previous year. (6)
11 The Cross Country run passed near this
gaseous location. (8)
12 Those who did not hear were often accused
of having too much of this! (6)

75
13 The last School Captain recorded on the Honours Board might have been handier in the
ides of March! (11)
17 He might have been the son of Johnny Weismuller! (6)
19 "Hinch" records that not a word of English was spoken in his lessons. (8)
21 Peter became School Captain in 1952. (6)
23 It told of the passage of each 40 minute period. (4)
24 Joey’s initials were (3)
26 They come and go on the beaches. (5)
27 His remarks on reports were always short and fair, but one could have expected them to
be good. (6)
DOWN
1 Joey Marsden's middle name. (7)
2 We slogged our guts out in this strenuous sports event! (8)
3 At Westwood, which corridor contained rooms 2 to 6 (later 1 to 5) (6)
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8
9 10
11 12
13 14 15
16
17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24
25
26 27

76
4 Miss Andrews was the first. (8)
5 Has David Fowler rioted in his work with
Summer Times (6)
6 We called him “Ferdie” but he had no relationship
with a bull of that name! (7)
8 Homework made this accessory for the
cycle very heavy! (13)
14 This creeps up on all of us like a dense gas.
(8)
15 We read the Summer Times avidly. (4)
16 This type of pupil was not at ease with
others. (7)
18 At Westwood we were not allowed here
until 8:40 am. (6)
20 H.W.Marsden's memorial seat overlooks
this part of Scarborough. (6)
22 We did not have to swear this to attend
SBHS—just pass the exam! (4)
25 There was plenty of this type of wood in
the Woodwork department. (3)
A FALSGRAVE WORTHY
In our May 2000 edition we included an article
about OSA member Frank Stephenson
(1931-36) who had built a scale model Lancaster
bomber—a replica of the one he flew in
as navigator during WWII.
Frank’s model Lancaster took 8 months to
build but its maiden flight was very successful
and the photo we reproduced, showing
the model in flight could well have been the
real plane.
His next plan was to build a model of a
Desoutter; the plane in which a young Frank
watched his 92 year old grandfather’s flight
from the Racecourse. Frank says, “I can recall
these gatherings on the old racecourse. The
Grandstand had been partly demolished but
the Enclosure was still there and there was a
red telephone box still in operation. I can remember,
possibly on the occasion of grandfather’s
flight, when the pilot telephoned for a
taxi and, when it arrived, charged me with the
task of looking after his aeroplane while he
went into town. He locked it up and I sat on
the starboard wheel for hours on guard duty.
I was 9 years old.”
More recently Frank identified the machine
with help from the Shuttleworth Trust at Old
Warden. They sent him plans and photographs
and he hand made all the individual
components. Unfortunately, this model
crashed on its maiden flight, and whilst poor
health has delayed matters Frank is rebuilding
it as a Desoutter Mark2.
Rick Ware, (1957-62) on hearing about Frank’s
Desoutter research, sent a photo of the
Desoutter Mk1 in which his mother flew from
the Racecourse in 1930. His mother was 17 at
the time of this flight and the family owned
the Geldenhuis Hotel on Queen’s Parade. Her
maiden name was Edna Beardshall and she
died on 10th December 2000.
Frank’s grandfather, William Stephenson was,
from his 1933 obituary in the Scarborough
Mercury, quite a character who had lived in
Falsgrave for 80 years, and who died at 170
Falsgrave Road in his 94th year.
The detailed press cutting reporting his death
described him as ‘A Falsgrave Worthy’, and
mentioned how he remembered open land
‘between Falsgrave and Scarborough’. During
his working life he had been ‘a Farmer and
the son of a farmer, for his father had tenanted
land from Scarborough Corporation
and Mr Geo. Nesfield, solicitor. He took over
the land on his fathers’ death but gave up
farming in 1920.’ He was ‘one of the last
Falsgrave constables and when on duty, he
‘carried a stave and handcuffs but it had
never been his experience to have occasion to
use them.’
‘Over 90 years of age, he made an aeroplane
flight from the Racecourse, having always

77
Clockwise from top: The original
(restored) Desoutter owned
by the Shuttleworth Trust;
Frank’s grandfather, 92 year old
Willliam Stephenson with his
pilot and the Desoutter; The
Desoutter in which Rick Ware’s
flew.
had a desire since flight was discovered to have
the experience, and he reported that he had
enjoyed it very much.’
The article goes on, ‘No persuasion was needed
to get Mr Stephenson to talk of the Falsgrave of
his early days. He prided himself on his wonderful
memory, and it was really remarkable to
hear him talk about when this street or that
street of houses was built. He talked of the time
when a white-washed house near the first brickyard
and the bone mill with a little house near
it, was all there was down Seamer Lane until
you got to the White Horse in Falsgrave. Then
there was the school kept by a John Payley who
rang his school bell at 8, 9, 12 and 1 o’clock each
day except Sunday that people round about had
scarce the need for a clock.’
In another passage we read, ‘Going to a shelf he
produced a copybook of his own work when a
boy at school between 9 and 10 years old (1848).
What paper, what ink, what masters, and what
boys they must have had in those days! On each

78
page there were beautiful script and figures;
long sums with never a mistake, page after
page with never a blot.’
Another interesting relic of schooldays long
past was a painting of a true lover’s knot.
“We did those on Valentine’s day and gave
them to the girls, “ said Mr Stephenson with a
merry twinkle in his eyes.
A Falsgrave worthy indeed!
EVENTS DIARY
Booking forms for certain events may be included
in this copy. All members living at
addresses other than North or East Yorkshire
have had details of the Centenary events.
Booking forms for members with local addresses
are enclosed. Please contact Secretary
Peter Robson with any queries. Contact details
page 3.
CENTENARY WEEKEND
7th-9th June 2002. Details Vol. 40, p. 61, or
from Secretary, or Web site. See also above.
AGM
Tuesday November 26th, 7.15pm Stephen
Joseph Theatre, Westborough (provisional—
please check with Secretary)
CHRISTMAS DINNER
Friday November 29th, 7.30pm for 8.00pm
Palm Court Hotel, Scarborough.
Summer Times is posted to all members
with known addresses. The online
version is available at
http://www.oldscarborians.org.uk
Additionally, we can now provide a
CD-ROM which contains ALL issues of
Summer Times since November 1999.
This includes colour photographs and a
free program to enable most computers
to read the files. The cost including
p&p is £2 (overseas £3) and CD-ROMs
can be obtained from David Fowler, to
whom cheques should be made
payable. Profits will go to the
Association.
Contact details are on page 3.

79
David Pottage Golf
Golf Course Architects
A Complete Service
from
Project Appraisal
through
Detailed Design
to
Turnkey Development
70 Whitesmead Road
Old Town
Stevenage
Herts. SG1 3JZ
Tel/Fax 01438 221026
e-mail davidpottage@hotmail.com
Members European Institute of Golf Course Architects

80
Published by The Old Scarborians Association
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Telephone 01723 367715