KING EDWARD'S ASTON, YEAR 9 SUMMER TERM AT LONGDON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE...

 LONGDON HALL, Summer 1965…

(BOARDING IN STAFFORDSHIRE, FROM KING EDWARD'S ASTON IN BIRMINGHAM...)

AN OLD IMAGE OF THE HALL...

So, the summer term in 3A arrived and I was due to spend much of it at Longdon Hall, my headmaster’s home. I don’t really know how I felt about it in truth. I had never even stayed overnight at my Auntie Ivy’s house, despite her invitations and I invariably pulled out at the last minute.

THE HEADMASTER & HIS WIFE...

However, I wasn’t concerned about the stay in Staffordshire. The difficulty was that I, along with S.P. Smith (Steve), would have to travel back to Birmingham to play cricket for Aston on most Saturdays which certainly punctuated and disrupted our stays there.

Thus the mansion-type house with a feature-staircase was to become my home for one term. I certainly enjoyed a few games of football during occasional evenings and played snooker at Longdon for the first time ever, on a table we lads needed to book in advance. I had played football for Saltley in Year 6 but of course Aston only played rugby and that killed my natural progression in the game I loved. 

LONGDON HALL...

Beds had to be made with ‘hospital corners’ and they were inspected. The work rotas were posted on a board and I got to clean the dormitory and the snooker room during my time there.

I recall taking a bath soon after arriving and there was an investigation, for talcum powder had been left on the bathroom floor. I knew other boys had used talc on the same evening too but when those who had bathed were questioned, I owned up to having used some, despite the fact that I knew my sheddings had fallen upon my spread towel. Nobody else owned up and thus I was told to return to the bathroom and clear up the talcum powder lingering on the damp floor. My father had drilled me in shoving talc under my arms after baths for there were no deodorants available to me in those days.

The talc on the bathroom floor was a real pain to get rid of too, after I had been so meanly scolded but, learning a lesson, I never ever used talcum powder again, not even in my socks… 

The school days there were horrific for me. Harry Tyson turned up to teach maths, or should I say he sat back and snarled as we worked examples in silence. I know I hated the ‘lessons’ and I found the prescribed ‘homework’ periods tedious, almost as if we were in detention. I know now that my academic life at Aston had come to an end by the completion of the Longdon term, for never again were my achievements satisfactory.

Certainly my dearth of life experiences held me back, also my poor general knowledge of current affairs but mostly not having any real choices of subjects which I felt comfortable with. This situation certainly directed me to be lumbered with working in spheres I had no interest in, no feeling of enthusiasm about and thus, from Year 10 onwards, my achievements declined.

I failed to revise well enough at ‘O’ level, a predicament which I was unable to wrestle free from but without teachers who could explain stuff, engage me, or encourage me and coming from a home where I had no siblings, my mum couldn’t help me and my father was seemingly working much the time, I was left to my own devices. And I didn’t put in the effort…

In school I did not misbehave, despite lacking interest and going through the motions. I was always on the outside, looking on at situations, lacking confidence, lacking ideas and lacking knowledge. My rugby friends lived near each other and I never once met them for drinks, etc, in the city centre, although Cliff Hickman and his girlfriend turned up at my house on occasions and Brian Kensit perhaps became my mum’s adopted second son. He had his mum’s car, too, aged 17… 

Clearly there was simply nobody who might have helped me to discuss the work given to do at home, for nobody lived close enough for that to happen and I felt painfully isolated, something I have suffered acutely from ever since that time.  

Anyway, back at Longdon in the summer of 1965, the chores included table-laying and general cleaning, plus farm work. I didn’t have to deal with the hens or their eggs but I did have to look after the sties and the isolated sow, Bertha, which was housed in a stable-like part of the outbuildings.  

ONE OF THE STIES...

Workmate Rob Pulford wouldn’t go into the sty with Bertha, so I used to have to slip inside with pitchfork in hand, toss out the soiled straw, clean the filthy floor and spread a new bale, which would be dropped in by Pulford, who wished to be known as ‘Puff’. We all actually complied with that rather unusual nickname…

On one particular morning however, Bertha’s behaviour became very indifferent. She seemed wary, even threatening and as I forked out the used and fetid straw, she made moves towards my legs and I was forced to keep one eye on her as I worked. She became even angrier however and I called desperately to Pulford to get the new bale inside quickly, which he did.  

As I began to spread the straw, Bertha advanced towards me making audibly vicious noises. Subsequently I was forced to fend her off with the prongs of the pitchfork and soon decided that  a hasty retreat was the wisest tactic to adopt. I yelled at Pulford to open the half-door with the latch outside but he was finding my predicament thoroughly hilarious and was helplessly unable, or cruelly unwilling to oblige. 

Thanks, Puff…  

My decision was swift. I threw the pitchfork over the half-door as I turned and then dived over the wooden gate to land in a sprawling roll onto the farmyard floor… Puff was crying with laughter but finding the funny side of the situation was tough for me at first. The next day was the last day of looking after Bertha and I recall merely throwing a new bale of straw into the sty and leaving her to it. 

Sunday mornings meant clean white shirts and a church service in Longdon’s village church. I usually wore grey shirts however and was castigated at Longdon because I owned only one white shirt, which was laundered after each time I wore it, meaning that I would have to wear a grey one on the next Sunday. My white shirt was a hand-me-down from my cousin Steve. No change there… 

ST JAMES THE GREAT, LONGDON: THE ONLY TIME IN MY LIFE I HAVE EVER ATTENDED CHURCH ON SUNDAYS...

Several of the lads eyed up some of the local girls as they stepped forward towards the altar during the Sunday services but the only free time we really had was on Sunday afternoons and although we saw the girls sometimes, nothing came of the silly conversations between them and us, although I believe that one girl was fondled by a couple of the more disrespectful lads, I recall. 

I missed out on church a few times though, due to being in Birmingham playing cricket for the school team and not returning until Sunday afternoons, having slept at home on some Saturday nights.

There was a gardener in the Longdon grounds too, a weird chap who owned a dog. It was rather a large creature and we always shouted abusive responses at the guy, all in fun of course, when he mouthed his scowling comments at us. One night we all frightened each other to distraction with a lights-out catalogue of ghost stories. I’m pretty sure that the terrified Puff Pulford was in someone else’s bed at this point… 

LONGDON'S GARDENER...

After being told to settle down by Owen Tudor, the teacher in residence who slept in the next room to the dormitory and actually sprinkled sugar on his lettuce, I’m sure a couple of the lads were asleep when our door handle began to rattle quietly… A louder tapping then began on the door and it creaked open…  

It’s remarkable how talk can frighten the mind and I held my breath as something rushed into the room, skidded across the floor towards the window, disturbing the furniture. Hearts beat faster. What could it be? A light flashed on and there was the rugged and strangely grimacing gardener’s face in the doorway, apparently attempting to get his pain of a dog out of the room…

Next morning, we found some of our clothes had been thrown about the room, some had been tossed out of the window and onto the lawn below. We had been raided by another dormitory as well as having been disrupted by a gawping gardener and his shitty dog… 

I can’t say I really enjoyed my time at Longdon. I usually finished second or third in the regular cross-country runs, I got to know some of the other boys better but the regimentation was perhaps a little unacceptable to me. It was too much like the army, which my father had loved and I had always hated the thought of being subjected to. 

The journeys home to play cricket were awkward on buses but I usually got to see my parents for a few minutes, perhaps taking a sandwich with them before playing. One Saturday, S. P. Smith, who was also in the cricket team agreed that we would return to Longdon after the match but we both went home first for food. We agreed to meet on Sutton Coldfield’s Parade and travel  back to Longdon together. 

However, we missed one Lichfield-bound bus as we stepped out of the W. H. Smith store in Sutton Coldfield and weren’t able to reach the bus-stop in time. We missed another bus too after walking onwards, becoming marooned between stops, then unbelievably we missed a third when we momentarily slipped into a store in Shenstone to buy a bottle of pop to cool us down on a very warm afternoon. 

Finally, we stood sullenly at another stop and boarded the next bus into Lichfield and from there we caught one destined for Rugeley, which stopped at Longdon en route. We arrived too late for tea, unsurprisingly and we were not well received. However, there had been some kind of trouble at the Hall during the day and everyone else was in disgrace, confided to dormitories. It was a very awkward evening for the two of us, who had the run of the place…

MY DAD MUST HAVE DRIVEN ME TO LONGDON IN 1965, SOON AFTER HE HAD BOUGHT HIS FIRST CAR, A BLUE MINI.
OWEN TUDOR IS ON THE LEFT, I'M ON THE RIGHT...

After the summer holiday, I moved to Form 4S, for there was no A, B, or C streaming at Aston any longer but little happened at school of any real consequence, apart from being called up to play a game or two of cricket for the first team, despite only being a Y10 scholar, scoring 7 not out on my debut in a meagre team total of 28 and I  also took a couple of outfield catches. 

However, ‘O’ level year was approaching and I was confused about my life, my future and wary of my prospects…