Images of Portsmouth Grammar School
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Images of Portsmouth Grammar School Part Six: Surroundings & Travel The local scene The Cathedral Church of St. Thomas in the High Street served as the school ‘chapel’. Beginning- and end-of-term services were always held there. This is actually a ‘recent’ photograph, taken on Sunday 16 August 1981. (Runnacles’ photo). Looking towards the High Street from Broad Street, Old Portsmouth. Many a lunch hour walk was taken along this route, which PGS pupils were also obliged to traverse at speed en route to frigid swims at the Hot Walls during Summer Term PE classes. This picture dates from Tuesday 4 February 1964: three PGS boys, identities unknown, can be detected to the left of the bus shelter. Note also the fine array of motor vehicles and the tram rails, the latter disused for nearly 30 years at that time. (Runnacles’ photo). South Parade, Southsea, deserted under a pale winter sun, Saturday 6 January 1968. (Runnacles’ photo). Looking west to Pembroke Road in early spring, with crocus flowers in bloom. (Runnacles’ photo, Saturday 28 March 1965). Commercial Road before it became a pedestrian precinct. Although this picture dates from Wednesday 19 July 1972, it preserves much of the flavour of the 1960s, apart from a scattering of ‘modern’ vehicles. (Runnacles’ photo). This is the view of the southern end of Commercial Road, seen from the high-level platform of Portsmouth and Southsea Station on Wednesday 19 July 1972. The onion domes of the Palace Cinema are visible in this view. Many a PGS youth used to take a sneaky glance at the ‘stills’ displayed outside the Palace. Its most popular programme was a double- bill comprising Naked as Nature Intended and Around the World with Nothing On. (Runnacles’ photo). The Theatre Royal always led a fitful existence, sometimes functioning as a theatre, but more often than not as a wrestling ring. For generations of PGS boys who lived ‘over the hill’ this was where they waited beneath the colonnade for a homeward-bound Southdown bus. The picture dates from Monday 2 August 1971. (Runnacles’ photo). The Solent, seen from Southsea beach on Wednesday 27 January 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Looking across a choppy Solent to Ryde. This is another ‘recent’ picture, having been taken in August 1973. (Runnacles’ photo). A scene that was lost forever when the M27 was constructed; Portcreek, Hilsea, photographed at sunset on Wednesday 12 May 1965. Those of us who journeyed daily to and from Portsmouth by bus witnessed this scene thousands of times in the course of our schooldays. (Runnacles’ photo). Hayling beach under a cold winter sunset on Monday 3 January 1966. (Runnacles’ photo). The winter of 1962-63 was the coldest for hundreds of years: snow fell on Boxing Day 1962 and did not finally melt on Portsdown Hill until 5 March 1963. This view shows the snowy countryside between Clanfield and East Meon on Monday 7 January 1963. (Runnacles’ photo). Petersfield Heath Pond was always a pleasant place to visit, even on such a cold day as Saturday 6 March 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Not far from Petersfield was Stoner Hill, shown here virtually living up to its nickname of ‘Little Switzerland’ on Sunday 7 March 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). This is another view of Stoner Hill on Sunday 7 March 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Watering hole: the Red Lion at Chalton was a favourite destination in the summer of ’65. This picture was contemporary, being taken on Tuesday 3 August 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Watering hole: the Royal Oak at Langstone was also patronised by various former PGS pupils. This is another ‘recent’ view, dating from September 1970. (Runnacles’ photo). Getting there Most PGS pupils faced a lengthy walk to reach the school from the station, or the bus stops near the Theatre Royal. However, the pithily-named City of Portsmouth Passenger Transport Department (‘the Corporation’) operated three services which passed the school gates, namely the 5/6, 143 and 145. Here is a view from the (Old) School Hall of a trolleybus on the 6 at the Alexandra Road stop alongside the science laboratories. The view dates from mid-morning on Friday 26 July 1963. There was a prize giving ceremony at the Guildhall that afternoon, so pupils were released early to prepare themselves. John Odgers (Science Lower VIB) is the character leaning on the bus stop pole. Trolleybus services ceased in Portsmouth the following day, 27 July 1963. (Runnacles’ photo). Monday 4 February 1963 was marked by a heavy fall of wet snow in the early afternoon. In this bleak view a trolleybus on the 5 has just negotiated the roundabout at Cambridge Junction as the snow cascades from the sky. (Runnacles’ photo). This is a typical early 1960s view of Portsmouth and its transport: a 1936-vintage trolleybus on the 18 is passing an early post-war diesel bus on the 19 in Festing Road, Eastney. The picture dates from Friday 6 April 1962 and was the photographer’s first-ever colour photograph, taken on a primitive Brownie 127 camera. Given the notoriety of Agfa-Gevaert colour film, it is miracle that anything remained of this image at all 42 years later, when this digital scan was made. (Runnacles’ photo). New kids on the block in 1963 were the Corporation’s rear engined ‘Atlantean’ buses, the first examples of which were allocated to the 143. Here one such vehicle has just left the stop outside the Lower School on Monday 13 August 1963. Note the bomb site opposite the school and the lofty power station chimney in the background. (Runnacles’ photo). A familiar sight to all PGS boys was the group of bus stops at Hilsea Garage, where bus journeys ended and began on sports afternoons. In this scene a Corporation trolleybus on the 6 is overtaking a Southdown ‘Tin Front’ bus on the 45, which has come from Warsash and Fareham. The picture dates from Friday 19 April 1963. (Runnacles’ photo). A certain snobbery attached to one’s choice of bus operator in Portsmouth. Upwardly mobile parents regarded the Corporation buses as working class conveyances, to be shunned if at all possible. By contrast, the green and yellow buses of Southdown Motor Services were considered to be altogether more genteel because they carried a much nicer class of person. Be that as it may, here is a Southdown bus (a Leyland PD2 to the cognoscenti) heading north through Widley on a snowy Thursday 4 March 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Waterlooville on an August day in 1967, complete with a Southdown PD3 bus of the group that was exported en masse to Hong Kong a few years later; they served in Hong Kong until the mid-1980s. The Baptist Church had recently been demolished on the site screened by hoardings at the left of the picture. (Runnacles’ photo). PGS boys who travelled by train had no time for the petty jealousies of the bus riders, for they had an altogether superior mode of transport. Some came from as far away as Petersfield, where this classic Southern Electric train was observed on Saturday 6 March 1965. (Runnacles’ photo). Until November 1963 PGS pupils who lived in Hayling could use the ‘Hayling Billy’ train, which had the additional allure of being steam powered until the very end. The viaduct at Langston (spelled thus by the railway authorities) was weak, which is why very small engines dating from the 1870s were the only type allowed on the branch. But ultimately the viaduct was the line’s undoing, as the cost of rebuilding it could not be justified. In this view a train is heading towards Havant at sunset on Monday 22 July 1963. (Runnacles’ photo). All good things had to come an end, and so it was with the Hayling Branch. This view was taken from the viaduct on the morning of Saturday 2 November 1963, which was the last day of public train service on the line. (Runnacles’ photo). In the 1960s the railway was not just a means of transport but also something to be savoured for its own interest. Many a transport career was nurtured during a boy’s formative years by the innocent pleasures of trainspotting – in the days before participants were branded as ‘anoraks’ or could be confused with cinematic Scottish drug victims. Armed with a sandwich and a bottle of Tizer, what could be better than the reward of watching a magnificent steam train pass by? This picture, at Cosham station, dates from June 1967 and was taken just a few days before the Southern Region banished its last steam engines to Welsh scrapyards. Long before the days of Network Rail and Southwest Trains, this was an age when trains were trains and men were men! (Runnacles’ photo). Travel by sea was obligatory for those PGS pupils who lived in Gosport or the Isle of Wight. This rather poor picture has been included because it shows the Isle of Wight and the Gosport ferries, both coal-burning steamers and captured together on film on Sunday 31 May 1965. The Isle of Wight ferry is the PS Ryde, just repainted into British Rail corporate livery. The Gosport ferry is the small green vessel on the right; note how the Gosport ferry had no covered accommodation on its deck. (Runnacles’ photo). This is another view of the PS Ryde, taken in 1964 – before it was repainted. The paddle steamers Ryde and Sandown were latterly used in the summer only, and provided the sole regularly-scheduled services from Clarence Pier. In this scene the Ryde has backed away from the pier and is just picking up speed in the forward direction.