My Friend John Higgins’ Memories of KEGS Aston…
JOHN IS SECOND FROM THE LEFT ON THE FRONT ROW:
JOHN RABONE, JOHN HIGGINS, PHIL HESLINGTON, COLIN HILLITT...
KEGS ASTON…
In form 1B Jack Entwhistle was both the form master & French teacher. He ruled by fear, having a short fuse & irascible nature. All homework was literally learned by rote, without ever really understanding the content, so I used to score highly. When it came to the end of year exam, I couldn’t deal with the questions and only scored about 45%. He couldn’t believe it, as he’d estimated that I would get at least 70%. It was about the only time he was considerate, owing to his surprise and trying to work out what had happened.
Harry Tyson:
I think he was so proud that a pupil had once shoved a lit envelope through his letterbox to try and set fire to his house. He tried to rule by fear with tales of his toughness. At Longdon Hall, I think it was either on a Monday or a Tuesday that was all-day maths with him.
I was at Longdon for two terms, which although being an option, I don’t think anyone else ever took it up (Brian Kensit did too…) So it was the spring and summer terms for me. Of course, I didn’t really know anyone well in the group which arrived for the summer.
One day, Tyson set about 40 equations to be solved which he took away and marked, bringing the results back the following week. He spent ages lording it over the rest of 3A in mocking style as I had done the best of anyone, something like 34 out of 40 completed in the time and 32 of them were right.
It was, on the surface, a compliment to my ability. The reality was that it had a strong humiliating tone for me. Tyson kept on about how a boy in the B stream had shown up the mighty A streamers and how the others should be ashamed of themselves. (I bet John felt a little bit embarrassed too and I vaguely recall the incident…)
‘Elvis’ Pedley:
He was usually my maths teacher and was probably a reasonable bloke overall.
‘Puffer’ Hayden:
There were so many amusing incidents involving him. He was an intellectual I should imagine and a nice guy but such a poor teacher. He was responsible for the school’s cross country team and took a liking to me as I was always in his teams through the years at Aston.
Saturdays were spent trekking around the Midlands to run at various events. He knew I had a transistor radio and was I think rather big on the horses, so he always asked me to take it along so that he could listen to races whilst we ran! He used to give me sixpence every time towards the cost of batteries…
I’d often pass him on his bike, puffing up Trinity Rd as I raced past him on mine.
Two teachers in our later years were football fans. A tall, lanky one (Mr White?) and Dave Buttress, the deeply spoken one. I used to see them walking to West Bromwich Albion matches.
Like Pete, I also used to travel home from Longdon on Fridays for cricket. Mr Entwhistle dropped me from the team once for what he said was ‘messing about’. I wasn’t, I was just in good humour. We played a match at Bishop Vesey School in Sutton Coldfield, if I recall correctly and I was a sort of long-stop and lobbed the ball to Pete, the wicketkeeper but it hit the stumps directly and I laughed because the batsman was in anyway. Entwistle though saw that as as sin! My suspension was only for one match…
JOHN IS 4TH FROM THE RIGHT, STANDING.HE LOOKS UNHAPPY, HAVING TRAVELLED IN FROM LONGDON HALL JUST FOR A TEAM PHOTO.
I HAD TOO AND I AM BACK ROW, FAR LEFT. YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE THE GRASS STRAINS ON MY UNWASHED TROUSERS.
Scab Ward:
Mr Ward, the metalwork teacher was not a pleasant man at all. He did something to me that I have never forgotten because it hurt so much. Throughout the term we had been making a plant-pot holder, hexagonal with curved feet. At the end of each lesson they were placed in a cupboard beneath the bench you worked on. They were nearly completed after weeks of work but during one lesson I couldn’t find mine, only badly made bits owned by someone else. I was no expert but mine had been turning out well. Someone had stolen it as their own and had left their own rubbish behind.
Of course, it was impossible to identify mine as none of them were marked. Scab Ward didn’t want to know, almost blaming me for what should have been his responsibility. However, it was to be marked for the year’s work and he said in essence, that it was tough on me and that he would have to mark the bits I had been left with, which of course were useless. I never ever went to a metalwork lesson again. (It needed a Harry Tyson ‘investigation’, methinks…)
More...
The sixth form common room was inside the wood and glass buildings in the middle of the playground. The old toilets used to be in the playground too, perpendicular to the outer wall along Albert Rd. They were eventually demolished but lots of boys used to go in there for a smoke…
The old toilets in the playground area were demolished either at the end of our first year or shortly afterwards but that left the Albert Road side wall a little less stable. Clearly the mortar in the brickwork was not great. I don’t know how it started but someone led the way at trying to kick it down. This was 6 or 7 feet tall solid wall!
Lads in my year started launching flying kicks at it during one break-time or perhaps a lunchtime. As with all these things, it soon became the acceptable thing to do and became normalised, a bit of fun. The one with the most powerful kick was one of the biggest lads, Nigel Welch (see Pete’s comments about Welch.) So he was the one caught doing it, although many of the rest of us were watching.
The wall had actually started to move as the mortar came away. One wonders why we thought it OK, because really it was criminal damage. Welch got into serious trouble although I can’t remember what happened to him, as Headteacher Brandon was none too pleased. I’m not even sure whether Welch’s family had to pay something towards the repairs.
Free, small milk bottles were left in crates under the cloisters every day and also there was a tuck-shop, operated from a window in the porter's accommodation, facing the playground behind the common room.
Three female teachers arrived too: Miss Hoyle (Olive), Miss Smith and one other. Hoyle taught religion, whilst Smith took French I think. She never taught me but I think there was one famously outrageous incident involving ‘Sam’ Davies, the mad professor lookalike boy. He bet someone he could masturbate under the desk whilst she stood out at the front teaching. She was to young boys quite sexy in her walk. He began to carry out his bet but she caught him at it and threw him out of the class…
SAM, RIGHT, WITH PETE ALLCOCK...
Longdon Hall:
At Longdon, there were three dormitories. Two of them occupied eight lads I think and one of them only four. One was by the garden, the other two upstairs. I think lights-out was at 9pm, although I’m not 100% sure. Nigel Oakes was one of the eight I was with during the first term. He always had a transistor radio on under the bedsheets and he loved Marianne Faithfull’s big hit at the time: 'As Tears Go By’.
LONGDON HALL...
I also had a radio and we both came very close to being caught during spot checks, which meant confiscation! One of the terms I was there, perhaps the first, we had to catch the six month old lambs to have awful elastic bands attached to their private parts to stop them developing any further.
We also saw the boar brought in to service the sows… We witnessed the births too and experienced the sows’ tempers at the pain of having several to a dozen piglets, as she bit one in half… That was normal apparently! Collecting eggs each day and cleaning the chickens out was another task which confronted us.
The prefabricated games rooms provided table-tennis which was something fun to do. There were some dreadful toilets I recall in the outbuildings with those fixed, wooden curves on either side of the bowl to sit on.
Owen Tudor was another teacher who could be great company or turn nasty. He loved giving out punishments which were to copy out chapters of a book called ‘A Year With Nature’. It would take up all your spare time every day for at least a week.
Some other boys felt sorry for whoever received the punishment, so they would help out, attempting to write in a similar style which was ridiculous of course but at least Tudor always let that pass. He was a big fan of the Kinks and together with Nigel Oakes and a lad who might have been called Abbott, would play air-guitar to Kinks records in the games room at night, long before air-guitar was a thing! So those two lads became favourites of his…
The other resident teacher who never taught in the main school at Aston was a guy called Barry, who drove an MG Midget and came from Swindon. He went home every Friday until Sunday night, he wore glasses, had dark hair and spoke with a rural burr. He also played snooker with each day’s visiting teacher, after lunch.
Headteacher Brandon taught religious education & history on Wednesday mornings, as it was sports on Wednesday afternoons. He was not a good teacher, nor was he tolerant. He had a short fuse if behaviour slipped below the impeccable, whilst his wife supervised the domestic activities.
HEADTEACHER BRANDON WITH HIS APPARENTLY TERRIFYING WIFE...
Staff were given time off on Sundays so we always had to wash up the mountain of items, probably why I was pleased that I never came back from cricket games until 4pm on Sundays…
It was trouble for anyone who ran water into the sink, for all washing up had to be done under a running tap, or else severe chastisement followed.
I rarely attended Longdon Church as I was at home on Sunday mornings but it was a Norman church, so quite interesting. I remember drawing the arch around the entrance. Friday afternoons were free times so we usually went into Lichfield on the bus.
ONE OF THOSE FARM JOBS...
Even more thoughts:
After Pete Ray’s recent articles, I looked some names up on Facebook. I found an old record for Cliff Hickman (but no details beyond school & university and no pics) but on his list of friends was Keith Thomas. I looked him up but I wouldn’t recognise him now if I saw him, for he’s changed so much.
I think he was the first lad to have a car (although Pete tells me that Brian Kensit drove his mum’s car at 17…) Keith passed his test at 17 and his parents bought him a Ford Anglia. My parents could only afford to buy me me a bike… I did over 10,000 miles on it, many of them incurred whilst cycling to school and back over seven years!
One of the more acceptable teachers who came in was Keith Hatter, the Moseley Rugby Club winger. There was also a physics teacher who came in called Mr Thurston but he had the worst smelly breath ever and you couldn’t stand near him when he spoke!
My only truly happy memory was in the last year. Bob Steele, an exceptional runner and his mate, Martin Watson, a good runner but not as fast, had left. They were good people and had always encouraged us in cross country races. So when the school mile race came round, a new winner was inevitable. Bob had won every previous year and he was within seconds of being a four-minute miler but actually stood down one year to let his mate Martin win it! At Trinity Rd, Don Checkland, my 6th form master asked me at the start where I thought I’d finish. Always lacking confidence, I said that I thought maybe second. He basically thought I was being a bit arrogant, although in a friendly way.
On the old grass track, I followed the younger (Joe) Patton around for 3.25 laps with Boulton, Hillitt and others behind us. For some reason the pace seemed too easy but despite lacking confidence in myself or possessing any tactical ‘nous’ as such, as we came around the top bend with about 300 yards to go, something changed. I felt the pace was too slow and although not being a sprinter, I felt good.
So almost without thought I launched myself around Joe and sprinted away, not daring to look round but awaiting the sound of pounding feet. It seems I had caught everyone else by surprise, or perhaps they were not looking forward. As I rounded the bottom bend I could see that I had a ridiculous lead, perhaps 50 yards… It gave me a previously unknown belief and confidence, so I fought uphill with lungs aching to the finish line.
Derek Boulton had left the others to try and catch me and was a better sprinter than me but he finished 20-30 yards behind. I had done something (my time was around 5 mins) I had never considered possible. Don Checkland made a kind comment that showed respect: “So not cocky at all, well done.”
Amazing what a few kind words will do! Of course, no one at home was interested so I didn’t tell them…
Amazing how individuals vary in ability so much. At our very first summer when it was athletics and cricket, I remember we were sort of tested out at Trinity Rd across various events. At 12, I could do the 440 yards in about 64 seconds but Cliff Hickman went round in 54 seconds, showing a real ability with a terrific time. Colin Hillitt could launch the javelin miles and a year or so later when we were allowed to do the triple jump, Robert Langstone could sail miles further than anyone else! Of course, Hickman was also a very good cricketer…
A cricket fanatic of sorts was a teacher called Dai Cole. He really encouraged me as it was found that I could bowl leg-spin. In fact the very first match in which I bowled it at Trinity Road I took two wickets and Pete Ray caught one batter and stumped another off my bowling!
JOHN IS ON THE BACK ROW, THIRD FROM THE RIGHT.
I AM STANDING, FAR LEFT...JOHN IS SEATED, FAR LEFT...
Sadly we played a match at an upmarket (or so they thought) school in Sutton (I can’t remember which one) and one of their batsmen decided to dance down the wicket and smash me around. I think I gave away around 23 or 26 runs in two overs. That was it for me, not because of that but because our own team found it funny and I felt mocked. I should have been supported, so it destroyed all my confidence. Worse was to follow as still feeling humiliated, we were then 9 wickets down with two balls left in the match, which we could have lost heavily and although I had not wanted to bat, I had to of course…
Despite every opposition fielder being within a couple of yards of the bat and their opening bowler on, I somehow survived what would have been another humiliation for me, being responsible for actually losing the game.
At Trinity Rd at the end of every school year there was a soccer match between the teachers and pupils, using the rugby pitch nearest the wall. I had always wanted to play in that with a big crowd present. Sadly in our last year, it was cancelled for some reason, which had been an opportunity to kick some teachers up into the air, albeit legitimately…
One teacher who’d had some stick one year was Mr Toogood. I remember he was quite fit and fast but not a soccer player. Chelsea’s Peter Osgood was in vogue so chants of “Toogood’s no good…” and some perhaps more positive comments rang around!
Watcyn Gwyn Thomas was a very old Welshman, a useless teacher, who had captained Wales at Rugby. (Pete Ray confirms that he scored a try for Wales v Scotland in 1931, although playing for 70 minutes with a broken collar bone and he skippered Wales to their first ever win over England at Twickenham in 1933…) He had a strong Welsh drawl and a head shaped like a kidney, which was how we referred to him. I think he once taught maths but although he was my form master one year, thank the gods he never taught me!
He used to watch the Villa and after one Villa match I had taken my mum to, we went into the Endwood pub on the way home (a school night) and he was in there. From memory, I think he was uncomfortable with it but basically said something like “I haven’t seen you, boy”.
Can’t remember his name but a couple or more years above us, the school had a fantastic swimmer (Pete Ray reckons it was a lad called Grove…) He really was a flier but was arrogant with it though. At one time there was a swimming gala/sports day at Woodcock St baths, an annual event. He won every race, all of the strokes, by tens of yards. No idea what happened to him as he was several years above us. I only remember going to the event once.
On one occasion, when they were at the top of their sport, ice-skaters Bernard Ford & Diane Towler paid an ‘honorary’ visit to school, as Bernard was an old boy. Makes you wonder how the school could claim to have played any part in that success, having no ice-rink and no skates. After all, rugby was all that mattered…
I wish I could remember who was responsible but one day all hell broke loose at morning assembly in the new building. The big hall had a grand piano at the front and as Headteacher Brandon made his glorious front-of-stage entrance, the first hymn was about to start. The music master, gown tails flapping backwards was about to strike up the music but suddenly this terrible clanking and tinkling sound was all that emerged from the acoustics… Someone had put brooms, dustpans and no doubt other items under the lid…
Of course there was uproar and Brandon wanted the culprit found. Again, I don’t know what happened afterwards but it was hilarious, with such pomposity reduced to slapstick.
Briefly, until the useless board looked for easy money, Aston Villa’s training ground was next to Trinity Rd playing fields. By the time we were about 14 it was a housing estate. If only it had stayed longer, for when we had more confidence, we could have encroached to watch…
On the corner of Nelson Rd/Trinity Rd was a cafe. Lots of Villa players went in after training for a snack lunch. In a somewhat close to petrified state, I used to take my sandwiches in, have one cup of tea and when my nerve rose sufficiently, I would ask ask players for autographs. Some were OK about it, one or two were not happy to be interrupted! Alan Deakin, Derek Dougan, George Graham, John Sleeuwenhoek, Harry Burrows were amongst those I remember but I soon I gave up doing it as the stress intensified…
BRIAN KENSIT, JOHN, MY MUM & ME AT VILLA PARK v ROCHDALE, 1971...
On a couple of occasions, we would sneak into the old zoo, just to see where they trained. You could see it was like a stone & brick stables area, with columns dividing the bays but opened up for weights, etc, but still not very big. If only I’d had a camera then…
One Asian teacher appeared at the school around our 4th year, Mr Lal. He had a very strong accent and was not well treated which made his life uncomfortable. He taught maths and was difficult to understand. When he was sufficiently annoyed by what probably amounted to the piss being taken, he’d lose it and hurl the blackboard duster (mainly wood with a padded front) at the annoying pupil.
He would really hurl it and then chastise the perpetrator. One or two lads took glancing blows but when you think about it in relation to how things are today, it was an awful thing for him to do, but the real guilt lay with the pupil behaving badly.
JOHN, MY FATHER, BRIAN IN THE BACKGROUND, ME, THEN FRANK AND STEVE GRIFFITHS...
TIES AT A LEAGUE CUP FINAL???
John Thierry, a large boy, also mentioned in one of Pete Ray’s articles, was of French parentage and he spoke French at home. But how fair was that? How could he not get top marks? Yet how stupid that the school didn’t let him learn an alternative language, as he was fluent in French already!
Another memory of Peter Alcock and Bernard Alsop: one week during the last months in 1969, they tried to drink 100 pints each. On a schoolday they would go to the Vine pub at lunchtime and have 5 or 6 pints then go out at night and have 7 or 8 more. At the weekend it was serious drinking all day… I popped into the White Lion, which I think was on the Bristol Rd, on the Saturday night to see how they were getting on. From memory they fell short, only making it into the 80s! At today's prices, that would be over £300!
Aston was supposed to offer education, not indoctrination…
John Higgins…
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