Summer Times is the Journal of the Old Scarborians Association

shire Evening News and the Sheffield Tele‐
graph, and later as a sub editor on the Daily
Mirror in Manchester and the Daily Express
and Daily Star in Fleet Street. And I always
managed to add up my expenses!
But back to school. Having avoided the
dreaded new boys’ bushing, I staggered into
the gym with all the other young hopefuls,
kitted out in crisp new gear, to be told tartly
by Jock Roxburgh: “Get those vests off. You
look like pansies.” (He later harassed me to
“get yer knees dirty” on the rugby field. And
who can forget those games of shinty he
brought down from the wilds of Scotland?)
Then there was kindly old Spike Jones, who
had a habit of giving his new class girls’ first
names, some of which stayed with people
throughout school. One only has to think of
poor old ‘Nancy’ Newiss and ‘Stella’ Steele.
And Les Brown gave us all French names as
an introduction to the language. I can’t re‐
member mine, but ginger‐haired Robin
Shaw’s M’sieur Le Fils de Carrot will always
stay with me.
Other masters whose names and habits linger
are Brad, who liked to say when someone’s
attention wandered “Boy, you remind me of
the man who would sometimes sit and think,
and sometimes just sit,” and who was an
early guide through the maze of English
grammar; Biff Smith whose hairy hands we
dared each other to pluck when he rested
them on the front desks; Billy Binder, of
course, with his quirky ways, insistence on
good manners and his chess detention; Zen‐
ner Potts with his laid‐back style (“That’s
your homework ‐ whether you do it or not is
up to you”) and his fund of stories of how he
helped to win the war at sea; affable Derek
Price with his rope’s end punishment in the
biology lab; and Hov, whose accuracy with a
piece of chalk thrown at an unruly boy was
fearsome. If I’d known then about his career
as a commando in WW2 I might have been
even more worried ‐ and quieter!
25
There are so many other characters who flit
across my memory…the sinister Bon, who
never taught me but was my tutor in Arnold
House. I remember he demanded total silence
before he would talk to us ‐ a remote and cold
figure, not to be trifled with. Although there
was the year when gleeful fifth‐formers got
their revenge by turning his classroom upside
down on their last day.
And the kindly, father‐like Joey Marsden,
who conducted his headship with no airs and
graces, just down‐to‐earth common sense. I’ll
never forget his greeting of “How do,” when
I bumped into him in town one day as a
lowly second‐former. His career guidance at
the end of the fifth form led me to stay on to
take my A‐levels, something I’ve never re‐
gretted.
By and large I enjoyed my time at the SBHS,
and like to think it has stood me in good
stead. I wasn’t terribly academic, but man‐
aged reasonable O and A levels. Highlights of
my school life were Junior Camp at Wensley‐
dale, Swiss Camp at Arosa in 1956, the ATC
with which I got my gliding badges, spear‐
chucker parts in the Christmas Shakespeare
plays, the senior choir and ball‐boying for the
Davis Cup at Filey Rd because I did tennis
instead of cricket.
Like most sixth‐formers I joined the Old Boys
(for five bob) when I left school and there
were some memorable boozy dinners at the
St Nicholas hotel. ( I really don’t know how I
drove home from one of them. I DO know my
little Austin 8 was festooned with singing
mates as I hurtled round St. Nicholas Cliff
trying to shake them off...). But when I
moved away in 1962 I let my membership
lapse. Chris Found roped me back into the
fold (this time for a tenner) in 2000. Since then
I’ve enjoyed London lunches at Anton Mossi‐
man’s and the East India Club and the Cen‐
tenary weekend in Scarborough. It’s been
great fun matching half‐forgotten names to
faces (and figures!) weathered by forty years,