WELLINGTON BOYS’ GRAMMAR SCHOOL BY RHYS CLIFT

ellington Boys’ Grammar (to 1916) the picture is quite School (WBGS) opened different. Win 1940. And a further fifty years (1866) It had been built on agricultural the educational landscape is land off Golf Links Lane in completely unrecognisable with Wellington, Shropshire (now part accounts of ‘gutter children’ and of the conurbation of Telford), children withdrawn from school in having moved from a site winter or removed at fourteen, so originally shared with the Girls’ that their incomes could High School (WGHS) on King supplement strained household Street, at which time one half of the budgets. See: premises comprised Wellington http://www.british- Boys’ High School. Boys and girls, history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol11/pp2 were segragated, a situation 45-251 reflected in mutual antagonism Enormous strides have been RHYS CLIFT between the two head teachers. made to spread knowledge Rhys Clift (above age 11 and Strictly, the Boys’ Grammar throughout the population … and School came to an end in May 1974. in the latter years without regard to below at age 18 in 1976) is an There was then a joint Boys’ and the ability to pay. English solicitor based in Girls’ Grammar school ‘run-off’ Shortly before I went to WBGS London, specialising in (for First to Fifth year pupils) on in 1969, the UK embarked on the maritime law and marine the Golf Links Lane site, which path of joining the EEC (EU); insurance. subsequently continued as Ercall grammar schools were being Wood Technology College (EWTC) phased out at the same time (a He attended Wellington and operated there for about 35 policy then shared by both Boys’ Grammar School years. Conservative and Labour Parties). between 1969 and 1976 and The first year of my Sixth Form The UK is now on the verge of graduated in law (from (1974/75) was on the original site; a leaving the EU (about which there Aberystwyth University) in few girls were admitted. The is still a huge legal and political second year, Upper Sixth debate, and now a parallel debate 1979. (1975/76), was at the former about membership of the European He has been a partner with WGHS where boys and girls Economic Area, previously the Hill Dickinson LLP in combined to constitute a Sixth European Free Trade Association) London since 1989. Form College under the name New and there has been talk of College, Telford. expanding the number of grammar A small reunion (or site visit) for schools … a curious turn of events. WBGS Old Boys was held at the It is forty years this year since I Golf Links Lane school in July 2014, left the grammar school, and nearly shortly before the old buildings half a century since I first went were demolished to clear the there, which gives pause for ground for replacement premises thought. Temporal and physical and sports grounds for EWTC and distance lends perspective. a number of small housing estates. This article focusses on the final The history of schooling in days of WBGS, in particular 1969 to Wellington makes a fascinating 1974, and touches on aspects of read. historical and geographical Looking back fifty years (to context. In many ways it was an 1969) I was about to enter WBGS. astonishing time; and the school Looking back a further fifty years was, in many respects, remarkable.

© Rhys Clift, 2017 Published March 2017 THE ORIGINAL BUILDING I am looking first at the place and then at the time. This was the layout of the land and buildings as I remember them, described first as if standing in the middle of the Quadrangle and looking north, south, east and west. I also set out the location as if looking down from the air. There are some splendid photographs now readily accessible at libraries and on the Internet. The original school buildings, built nearly eighty years ago in 1940, were something of an architectural gem, beautifully aligned in a plot that sloped gently from south to north at the foot of Ercall Hill; largely symmetrical and built around a central quadrangle. It was probably modelled on a cloister; perhaps a subtle reference to the monasteries that had preserved education and learning in much more distant and unsettled times and where, among other things, Latin was spoken. Indeed, there was something monastic about the place in that there was hardly a woman to be seen, particularly in the early years. Standing in the Quad on the grass and looking to the north was a pitched-roof central block, containing the art room with a Top: View of the original school from the north-east, 1940s. huge glass-roof on the northern Centre: View of the school buildings (and allotments) from the south, 1940s. face, clearly visible in old Below: Mid 1960s aerial view showing 1959-1962 extensions and playing fields. photographs. The glass roof was sheltered from direct sunlight in the summer by the pitch of the roof, and still flooded with light in the winter when the sun is at its lowest. It was later tiled over. On each side of that northern block were two short flat-roofed sections. When I attended the school (1969 to 1975), there was a staff room and headmaster's study to the east and a music room (where Eric Cliffe would rapidly identify those who were tone deaf), a tuck shop and a small class room to the west. There were roughly symmetrical entrances either side of the main block, the eastern set for use by the headmaster and staff and the western set used by pupils (in earlier times, this situation was reversed). At break time the boys’

2 entrance would be piled knee high with satchels crammed with books, while we played soccer with a tennis ball on the play-ground which doubled as staff car park, or spot kick against the wall of the gym. To the south, backing onto Ercall Hill, one of the cluster of hills scattered around The Wrekin Hill, was a flat-roofed two-storey art deco-style block of class rooms. At that time the school grounds were not bounded to the south by the M54 which runs east-west from the M6 towards Shrewsbury. The external east-west corridors of the class room block, facing inwards into the Quad on the upper storey, were originally open to the weather. Although they were hardly exposed, they were enclosed by glass long after I left. There were symmetrical left- and right-handed open staircases at the east and west ends of the block, each end featuring an elegant, two-storey curved tower- like walls with windows. These curved walls faced due south, admitting sunlight into the stairwell all year round. The south- facing classroom windows (effectively all along the back of the building) were from shoulder- height to ceiling, whereas those on the Quad side were almost floor to Top: The new Assembly Hall, 1963, which replaced the original hall. ceiling in all rooms. Centre: The Engineering Workshop, part of the new Technical block, 1963. Someone had clearly thought Below: Playground and northern side of school buildings, late 1960s. very carefully about the proportions of the building and the use of light. The doors were painted dark blue. There were steps down onto the immaculate lawn which occupied the entire centre of the Quad with a few flower beds at the edges. No-one walked on the grass. Behind the class room block, to the south west, were two single storey structures initially used as common rooms for the Upper and Lower Sixth, one later used for Art (which I recall using for Art lessons); to the north-west of those small buildings were cycle racks, behind the hall. On the eastern side of the Quad was a two storey pitched-roof library (originally the gymnasium) with an elegant metal spiral

3 staircase and beautiful wooden nearly thirty years old. And under floors; crowded bookshelves floor the stage, at the south end of the to ceiling and a respectful silence hall, was what had also been the (but with few occupants). The Prefects Room which was relocated sports fields were further due east, elsewhere in the late 1950s behind the library and invisible following complaints about from the Quad. behaviour (such as excessive noise On the western side of the Quad disrupting music lessons was the original pitched-roof conducted in the hall, and the smell assembly hall, the external of cigarette smoke drifting through structure almost a mirror image of floorboards on the stage). the library though slightly longer, At one time the kitchens aligned north-south with a stage to experimented with reconstituted the south, and dining facilities on potato, no doubt some ludicrous the northern side (and kitchens to cost-saving idea, and only worth the west). This was cleared one mentioning here because it brings lunch time in something of a panic to mind ‘For Mash Get Smash’, the when mercury was spilled onto the most inspired piece of advertising floor by some miscreant, and of the era, with real potatoes drained through the floor boards mocked by convulsing Martian causing chemistry masters to arrive marionettes with the voices of in great urgency equipped with Daleks (the kitchens did not sulphur. necessarily use Smash, On the wall at the northern wall incidentally). The Martians had the of the hall were Honours Boards, jerky articulation of demented although I do not recall any entries descendants of The Flowerpot Men made on them in my time (and we (to which they had a vague passing had moved buildings anyway by resemblance, but no Weed, of the time I reached the Upper Sixth). course), rather than the smooth, There were also smaller boards faux American glamour of showing the Captains of particular Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, sports (cricket, rugby, etc.). They Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet in gave a glimpse of a time long which the main heroes seemed to passed; the institution was by 1969 have the look of James Garner or Sean Connery. CGI had not even been imagined at that time. In the centre of the Quad stood a white geometric statue in limestone (not Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth but rather by a student in the 1960s) standing about six or eight feet tall, made in a series of horizontal blocks, isolated and untouched in the manicured lawn. As I recall, the Upper Sixth (when I was in my Second or Third Year) removed it by some means after A Levels. Quite how, and where to, and how it was recovered was never explained but, at the start of the new term, there it was. Photographs taken from the air in the 1940s and 1950s show that the configuration of school Top: Captain of Cricket board which hung in the original Assembly Hall. buildings remained the same for Centre and bottom: corridors on the southern side of the Quad facing northwards, almost thirty years; the pictures 2014. All sides of the quad were open to the elements until the school became Ercall still breathe elegance, newness and Wood Technology College, presumably because post-Grammar children were less optimism. It is particularly striking hardy. The original Assembly Hall/Dining Room can be seen (centre right) from the how open the site seems. upper floor corridor in the bottom photo.

4 THE EXPANSION There then followed major extensions due east of the original buildings, disrupting the architectural harmony of the original but providing functional and essential amenities for an increasing intake and improved facilities for sports and subjects associated with science and technology. First, to the east, behind the library was a new small enclosed garden with paved pathways and bushes, surrounded by a two storey maths block to the south (at least one room set up theatre style) and a two storey science block to the east, always with a faint whiff of Bunsen burner gas (out of the upper windows of which (Biology) one in my year was ‘suspended’ by his ankles). There was then due south a single storey science classroom (used for Physics, which brings back sharp memories of the Van der Graf Generator and modest water battles over the ripple tanks); a technical block further south (in which was made a splendid working man-sized hovercraft, that later glided over what remained of the eastern sports fields) and a much larger new hall to the north, aligned east-west, with the stage due east and an elevated section the full length on the south side, on which sat a full sized grand piano. On one occasion, someone with a shaven head was summarily ejected from assembly in that hall

Right, top: Construction work on the new Assembly Hall and Gymnasium (in the background). On the right is an entrance to the new Science block, 1962. Centre: Building work on new classrooms and Technical block, 1962. Bottom: Shropshire Star report, 1973. A FLOATING SUCCESS Boys from Wellington Grammar School, whose light hovercraft (Atlast2) came second in the Hover Club of Great Britain Schools’ Hovercraft Contest, held in Gloucestershire at the weekend, talk to Mr. Ronald Philliskirk, industrial regional manager, BP Marketing Ltd. They are Laurie Cartwell (15), Stephen Woodland (16), Geoffrey Farnham (19) and Mike Liebman (15).

5 before proceedings could start and completed just before the Wellington in 1956) and which I obliged to stay at home until it had commencement of the latest first attended in 1965. regrown. Judging from where I was programme of railway cuts, We watched the eclipse of the sitting, I must have been in the following the publication of Dr sun through tinted glass (just as Second or Third Year at the time; he Richard Beeching’s first report in Macmillan had observed the world must have been in the Fourth or 1963, and shortly after the through rose-tinted spectacles a Fifth year, so some time in 1970- commencement of the new trunk few years earlier) when I was still 1972, say. road programme, now motorways, in the First Year at Albrighton in Shaven heads now grace some the first of which (M1) opened in 1965 or 1966. of the boardrooms of British 1959. That school was one of two, the business but at that time the school There had, of course, been huge Juniors’, then the Infants’, built in had certain standards: short hair cuts before Beeching but it seems Albrighton partly to complement was permitted, perhaps curious that the task of brutal the minute Victorian school (built encouraged, a legacy maybe of war rationalisation of the rail network in 1856, I believe) which I attended and conscription (we were not long had been allocated by the Minister between 1962 and 1965. My mother out of the era of ‘short back and of Transport to the chairman of ICI, was headmistress there in the early sides’, a standard instruction to a chemicals business. 1960s. barbers on Saturdays). There are, incidentally, SPORTS FIELDS However, shaven heads were magnificent photographs of the The new extensions constructed not. Skinheads were the new face testing of the E-Type Jaguar on the between 1959 and 1962 at WBGS of anarchy, as a DA and winkle M1, which was practically empty, had been built on part of the sports pickers had long since become old in 1961. The E-Type was tested fields to the east. There remained hat. However, completely bald there to see if it would, indeed, do only a rugby pitch on the higher heads amongst the staff passed 150 miles per hour, long before the ground behind the Physics lab and without comment (well without 70 mph speed limit was imposed. Technical block (aligned north- formal comment, let’s say). One Perhaps at this point the school south), and a football pitch behind had an uncanny resemblance to had hit its apogee, in the surge of the gym (aligned east-west) where Davros, the head of the Daleks. optimism that greeted the start of we would play Sag or soccer at Last, there was what seemed the 1960s, coinciding with the break time (and return somewhat like an enormous new sports hall, second post war baby boom. muddied). aligned north-south, due east of the This was notwithstanding the At breaks we went outside, new hall, with a zigzag roof, the effective post war collapse of largely whatever the weather (so verticals in glass (on the south side) Empire (most starkly illustrated by no opening the classroom door and the slopes to the north of what independence for India in 1947), locks with a set of dividers, then). was probably steel sheets. the ominous humiliation in the Looking at old photographs and It had a full length basket-ball Suez Crisis in 1956 (a devastating listening to Old Boys, the sports court (north-south) and several demonstration of Britain’s then fields were created to the north on badminton courts painted out military and economic weakness), land previously used as wartime laterally on the floor and was, for and the haste to de-colonialise allotments: a cricket and another sport, superior in every way to the (notably in Africa), substantially football pitch were first to appear original gymnasium it replaced in completed by the early 1960s; all of around 1953, and fenced tennis the early 1960s, which was which may have influenced the courts soon after. originally the large room on the decision to seek membership of the When I attended the school, a eastern side of the Quad, which EEC/EU. Indeed, there were first team soccer pitch lay to the became the library (i.e. opposite the several applications to join during north east on this lower lying old main hall/dining room). the 1960s, which might lend some ground (to the right, standing with This development programme, perspective on the present your back to the school) and rugby built over part of the upper sports intention to leave. pitch to the extreme north (dead fields, commenced in 1959 and The retractions from Empire ahead as it were) which I recall concluded in 1962 or thereabouts. were increasingly obvious (to being water logged (not that it You could see it in the architecture. adults) where I lived in Albrighton, mattered much) up to the gardens The new buildings were plain and by the military families repatriated of the houses abutting the functional but not ungenerous and, from abroad to RAF Cosford, Holyhead Road. although in some parts much notably from Yemen (Aden) in 1963 There was also a soccer pitch larger, were, in some subtle way, and Malta in 1974. immediately dead ahead due north not quite of the same grade as the Their children were enrolled in (abutting the car-park/playground original. Or is it my imagination? Albrighton County Junior School longitudinally), part of which The work commenced only five which was built on Newhouse doubled as cricket pitch and years after the ending of ten years Lane in 1952 (four years before athletics track in summer, not that of post-Second World War food Park Junior, now called Wrekin much used in my time (at least by rationing (in 1954/55). It was View, opened at North Road in me), unless you count vaulting the

6 (very solid) steeplechase fences crown in a velvet box. Crowns around 1965 the Board of Trade and crashing into the water. This were, strictly, no longer legal decided to metricate by 1975, about soccer pitch was divided from the tender. That church was originally the time I was due to leave school. playground by a row of trees, a built a few years before Richard the A Metrication Board was set duly kerb and a low fence (really only a Lionheart came to the throne in up in 1968; before accession to the white horizontal bar, rather like an 1189 (in other words, before Time EEC. extended scaffold pole) the full Immemorial), with further works The UK then finally joined the length of the playground and in the nineteenth century. For the EEC in 1973, previous applications supported by short curved-top first 400 years it must have been in 1963 and 1967 having been wooden or concrete posts about ringing to the Latin mass. vetoed by France. Some sort of eighteen inches high. This was a It is curious how the move to formal commitment to metricate comfortable but potentially metrication has become conflated weights and measures was hazardous place to sit. with membership of the EU in the certainly made then, on joining. To the north and west was the public mind. In fact, proposals to Metrication was to be taught in long jump pit and then, over on the metricate weights and measures in schools from 1974. far left, abutting Golf Links Lane, a the UK were initially wholly But the subsequent process was netted set of black (shale) tennis unrelated to membership of the muddled and slow. As a result, courts; again hardly used in my EEC/EU, going back to 1862. those from my era can probably time for tennis but rather for This was part of the Victorian visualise weights and measures far hockey, and falling into disrepair in urge to systematise and rationalise more easily in imperial rather than the mid 1970s with the odd tuft of which touched not only numbers metric units (and, for that matter, grass at the edges. Perhaps this was and counting but also on the outdoor temperatures in an early sign of decline and fall. structure of courts (in the great Fahrenheit, not Centigrade). This was the configuration of Judicature Acts), on the Decades later there were still the land and buildings when I first foundations of legal commerce (in prosecutions threatened in the UK arrived in September 1969. the laws regulating the sale of for those who wanted to sell NUMBERS, TEMPERATURE goods, bills of exchange and, bananas (it would be bananas, of AND CURRENCY latterly, insurance) and on the rule course, straight or otherwise) In 1969, England had yet to join the books of multiple sports (including solely by the pound, as some sort of European Union (EU, or the badminton, tennis, cricket, rugby protest against creeping European European Economic Community and football). integration. (EEC) as it then was). Outdoor Finally, after a struggle of one As to decimalisation of the temperature was always in hundred years and shortly before I currency, the UK was also a late Fahrenheit, not Centigrade (except went to the Grammar School, convert although proposals to for ice). We also still had at that point a baffling array of numbers and measures in multiple different bases (12 (inches/foot), 14 (pounds/stone), 16 (ounces/pound), 20 (shillings/pound), 21 (shillings/guinea)). We had (or had had) farthings, groats, pennies, threepenny bits, shillings, sixpences, florins, half crowns, crowns, pounds, guineas, inches, feet, yards, chains, poles, perches, rods, furlongs, miles, acres, ounces, pounds, stones, hundredweights, tons, gills, cups, pints, quarts, gallons. Perhaps this was why we chanted times tables up to 12 but, if so, why not 14 and 16 at least? In the period up to 1969 when I sang solos (usually Oh, for the wings An aerial view of the Grammar School grounds bounded by Ercall Hill in the of a dove) at Albrighton church distance at top centre, with Holyhead Road traversing from bottom to centre right. (built in beautiful Shropshire Golf Links Lane runs left off Holyhead Road towards Ercall Hill. School ground is sandstone and already nearly 800 shaded and shows the extent of playing fields. The photograph was taken in the years old) when married couples Spring of 1966, some seven years before work began on constructing the M54 which were signing the register after the had a devastating (some would say welcome) effect on the Junior Cross Country ceremony, I would be paid one route as the motorway cut through the northern foothill of Ercall Hill.

7 decimalise went back to the 1820s. stories with Tommys wearing The UK finally converted to mud-encrusted khaki outfits, their decimal currency on 15th February calves wrapped in puttees. Because 1971. By way of contrast, Russia of them, many schoolboys had a introduced decimal currency in smattering of German; for example 1704, the USA in 1792, France in ‘Achtung!’ and ‘Hände hoch!’ (and 1795 (as part of the earlier just a few more words, unlikely to Napoleonic fervour to modernise be useful in German lessons, nor in and rationalise), Sweden in 1855 modern business for that matter), and Austria-Hungary in 1857. but that was about it. But who knows? Latin may RULES, HOUSES AND LANGUAGE have been a pre-requisite for entry Life at school was, even by my time into the legal profession, part of the in 1969, still modelled on a minor arcana of Law, but I didn’t need it public school, presumably the ideal badge, blue blazer, cap and tie in 1981 when I entered the when it was first built but with (both of mine have been eaten by profession. One year’s Latin left perhaps less overt emphasis in the moths) and Latin (at least for those most with only ‘amo’ (a source of curriculum on sport. We had just whose misfortune it was to ‘pass’ huge amusement to many), ‘amas, one period (about twenty minutes) the linguistics test which I have a amat, amamus, amatis, amant’ to of PE in the week and an afternoon vague recollection of sitting). show for it, which we had learned of sport on Wednesdays. There was also a motto (above) by rote (incantation by rote really It was a different world: inevitably in Latin, extracted from works, as times tables prove); and a uniforms, a full sports kit, and four the poem De Rerum Natura by vague recollection of not only houses to instil some competition Roman poet Lucretius conjugating verbs (wholly (Ercall, Lawrence, Maddocks and (c.99BC–55BC). It means, ‘Like unrecognised by most of us in our Wrekin, named after nearby hills). runners, they pass on the torch of learning of English grammar) but In winter, often when the pitches life’. also declining nouns (something of were too icy or waterlogged to use There was no Greek, although a novelty: nominative, vocative, (the northern parts had previously one of my contemporaries can accusative, genitive, dative and been wartime allotments) we recall being offered the opportunity ablative have really stuck in my would shiver in striped house vests to study Greek. Like most, I was mind). (yellow, green, blue, red) running then oblivious to the many Those who managed two years cross-country, around the edge of thousands of Greek words that could regale others with the pitches, gasping up Ercall Hill, populate or contribute to the incomprehensible insults through the mud, trees and rock- enormous modern English (‘sordidus senex’ comes to mind) strewn paths on the hills, along vocabulary, with its complex and perhaps a stock phrase such as Limekiln Lane then back along the etymology (quite apart from the ‘radix malorum est cupiditas’; Holyhead Road, usually in the rain. catalogue of neologisms and the although on reflection that was The Holyhead Road was part of expansion of the language through from Chaucer (and from the King the ancient Watling Street, so we ‘linguistic miscegenation’). Not James version of The Bible). Who were running along the route used surprising for such a group of would think that such would be by Roman legionnaires 2,000 years Philistines, as we were. There was fixed in the memory? previously (which certainly did not no easy path to Greats at Oxbridge The Prologue was dull and occur to me at the time). Rugby from WBGS. A view had taken root impenetrable, but for some reason was compulsory, at least in the first at that time that there was little to there was quite a bit of interest in few years I was there, but be gained in the study of ‘dead The Wife of Bath, even for those of somewhat withered away in later languages’. How wrong we were. no academic inclination. What I do years. Those who ‘failed’ the remember is that, on account of his Incidentally, we had the same linguistics test (if, indeed, they did) passing resemblance to 1950s pop system of Houses in junior school were ‘relegated’ to German, which singer Adam Faith, the gentle and at Albrighton County Junior: might well have proved far more scholarly Latin master Ray Horton (Admiral) Rodney, (Sir Philip) useful in later life. Even in 1969 was nicknamed Adam. Sidney, (Charles) Darwin and Clive there was still some antipathy Talking of Chaucer and where (of India). It certainly never towards the Germans, real or the pilgrimage of The Canterbury occurred to me that any of these otherwise, nearly twenty-five years Tales begins, I now pass Southwalk might be a real person; looking at it after the Second World War ended. Cathedral every day, with a now they were a curious grouping. As I recall, comics such as glimpse of the roof from the At WBGS there was a strict rule Topper, Hotspur, Beano, Hornet and Victorian viaduct at London book, to be signed by pupils (I still Dandy were full of war stories. This Bridge. One can imagine the have mine somewhere, though included Second World War pilgrims gathering below. some of the stricter rules perhaps stories, such as I Flew with Braddock honoured in the breach), a school and, incredibly, First World War 8 ENTRANCE, COMPETITION by Liquid Natural Gas imported at the same ages), some three AND STREAMING from Qatar, Algeria and Nigeria), thousand boys must have passed I think we were streamed at the sat on the land immediately through the school, a fair number point of entry into WBGS, but this adjacent to the railway, also then of whom must still be alive. wasn’t the case for newcomers in nationalised. To protesting adults (I But, quite unlike ex-pupils of earlier years. First years were was blissfully unaware of it at the the Girls High School, who have divided into Forms 1X, 1Y and 1Z, time) there was incomprehension their own separate association, although I don’t recall academic that two (or perhaps three) there is no longer an ‘Old competition as such. Whichever nationalised bodies could not find Wellingtonians’ – the name of the named stream you were allocated a simple solution to the need for former WBGS Old Boys to on entry, you stayed there for 5 building land. The problem was Association; perhaps we are simply years. I entered in 1Y, by which even raised in Parliament, as a too far scattered to the breeze? time my brother was in 3X; I’ll quick look in Hansard will attest leave you to guess how the system (August 1965); quite remarkable TRAVEL TO SCHOOL worked; although we were later for a village with a population of I left WBGS 40 years ago this year, streamed by results, but only for just 4,000. but many memories are sharp and some subjects (certainly for Maths In fact, the village had grown clear. For a period, a small flood of but not, from memory, Chemistry substantially in two recent phases: pupils (like me) took the train due and Physics). firstly, because of the building of west from Albrighton (the most For my year, original streaming the adjacent Cosford airbase which easterly village in Shropshire), then on entry at 11, may have been done opened in 1938 (immediately Cosford, Shifnal, Oakengates, New according to pass mark in the 11- before the outbreak of war) and Hadley Halt (almost a bare Plus taken, without coaching or secondly in the construction of the assembly of railway sleepers preparation (nor, perhaps, much Bushfields estate in 1959-1962 or constructed on overgrown waste inkling of how important it was) in thereabouts. What was particularly land adjoining the line, with no the last year at junior school. In my noticeable in the 1960s and 1970s shelter) into Wellington. This was case this was at Albrighton County was that there were (or seemed to along the line built over 100 years Junior School in the spring of 1969, be) children everywhere. And, earlier (1849). Telford Central a little while before we had made a given the pressure on school places railway station was not papier maché model of Caernarfon at the time, this was real, not constructed until years later, in Castle, situated on the south side of imagined. 1986, adjacent to the new shopping the Menai Straits, to mark the After the 11-Plus results, those centre previously constructed in investiture of the Prince of Wales in who had passed were solemnly what seemed to be the middle of July of that year. gathered in the office of the nowhere, not far from the I can remember the day of the headmaster, Ron Mathias (who headquarters of the Telford test vividly: small desks originally with his wife Gwen was a stalwart Development Corporation at set in pairs were simply separated of the local Gilbert & Sullivan Priorslee. into lines of single desks facing the Society; my father was in The For some of us, this was early front. I think that there were about Pirates of Penzance), who advised of training in commuting. The trains forty in the class. There was a our good fortune. I can remember were also packed with pupils going magnificent elm tree in the school standing there, and can remember daily to Shifnal, to The Blessed grounds, on a ridge outside the his face, although nothing of Robert Johnson College, to windows to the left (now long exactly what was said; but we were Wellington Secondary Modern and gone), many years before the certainly told not to make a fuss to WGHS; and on one occasion, devastation of Dutch elm disease. about it. travelling back towards At that time, classes were still Wolverhampton (one afternoon oversubscribed by the post-war OLD BOYS after school), Enoch Powell, M.P baby boom which had led to a There were about 600 boys in total for Wolverhampton West, sitting in frenzied scramble to build a new in WBGS while I was there First Class. He was a well-known school on Shaw Lane in (including Sixth Form) and, if I Classics boffin; he of the infamous Albrighton, backing onto the recall well, the mysterious Fifth 1968 Rivers of blood speech, an railway line, after the planning or Remove (possibly the ‘victims’ of allusion to Virgil’s Aeneid, valuation battle between the local the increase in the school leaving unknown to other than a tiny authority and the then nationalised age from 15 to 16 in September minority at the time I suspect, the Gas Board. 1972 but more likely unfortunates majority may simply have taken The old grey and rusted required to retake failed him literally. gasometer, a feature in many examinations). So, in 34 years (1940 For five years (1962-1967), the villages, towns and cities at the to 1974, say), with School house where I originally lived in time before coal gas was replaced Certificates followed by Higher Albrighton was close by the by North Sea gas (which in turn is School Certificates at 16 and 18 embankment bringing the train up now being progressively replaced (and, later O, A and Special Levels the hill from Cosford going east to

9 COMMEMORATIVE PHOTOGRAPHS The quantity and variety of subject matter in 1969/70, such was the size of Forms that photographs of WBGS varies considerably from photographs had to be taken as panoramics, as in one decade to the next. the one for combined First Years below from Much seems to have depended on each March 1970. headmaster’s perception of what was absolutely Thereafter, again probably in view of the necessary and his attitude towards taking pupils growth in pupil numbers, 1972 panoramics away from important lessons, while at the same were taken for Lower, Middle and Upper School time acceding to a greater or lesser degree to the groups. wishes of parents and guardians. The final panoramic taken at WBGS was Few photographs from the Boys’ High School that for 1974/75 (above) showing the combined period at King Street survive (panoramics of the Wellington Grammar School, which included whole school in 1927 and mid 1930s, for both girls as well as boys. example). The 1940s saw the beginning of ‘regular’ Joint theatrical performances combining the panoramic photographs ... sometimes they were talents of WBGS and WGHS students had taken in adjacent years (as in 1946 and 1947) occurred many times from the late 1940s. Some but there was a tendency towards leaving a gap were operatic (The Gondoliers, 1965), of a few years: the 1960s saw full-school although many were performances of photographs in 1962 and 1965. Shakespeare’s plays, always popular with the Between 1969 and 1971, probably due to paying public. All presented opportunities for increased annual intakes, the one-Form-only public aoppearances and undoubtedly boosted photograph was reinstated; it had been popular confidence. Right: the cast of the 1972 during the late 1940s and early 1950s but, in production of Henry V.

10 11 Wolverhampton. I could hear the another legacy of the public school supervised the famous bulls steam trains labouring at night, the model, we would slink into the eyeballs test), note dropping and the rhythmic immense, dark snooker hall in our • Armstrong (Metalwork), pace of the steam being expelled uniforms and, in my case, shorts (in • Hughes (Geography, an slowing as the trains tackled the the First Year) to play at the tables enthusiast of Arthog field trips, incline. These would be freight before wending our way up the hill when I recall we ran up Cadair trains; steam had been phased out to school or down the hill to the Idris), for passengers from the early train. • Brown (Geography), 1960s. • Horton (Latin), Later, on journeys to school, we THE STAFF • Charles (History), Hartley would take diesel multiple units The headmaster in 1969 was Mr. J. (History), (DMUs) which must have been L. Morgan-Jones (the ‘Beak’ or the • Cliffe (Music, imprisoned by nearly new. These were ‘Morg(ue)’), a tall, rather gaunt, the Japanese during WWII), Brown anonymous and soulless, dignified, kindly but somehow (Chemistry), compared to steam trains which rather intimidating individual, • Dr Heath (French), have a certain life and vitality yet who wore a black university gown • Mrs. Marsden (French), still attracted a dedicated group of to daily assemblies which always • Frank Arkinstall (French and train spotters, gathered at the end had a religious component. The originator of the fabulous of the platforms at Wellington tone and atmosphere of the school exchanges with the Orleans Lycée), (who feverishly wrote down was set by his personality. • Collins (German, who also numbers in notebooks), several The names of many of the staff taught Russian to some in the Sixth from WBGS. are grafted into the memory: Form), Off the trains, we would stream • Kenny Cole (who preferred • Pierre Jackaman (French), through Wellington town centre, soccer; (PE), • ‘Kiri’ Kaye (Maths, lethal with up Tan Bank, past the record shop • Webster (who preferred rugby; the blackboard rubber), (in the window of which for years (PE), • Francis (English, and always sat an unsold Isley Brothers record • Powell (Chemistry, and rather the same tweed jacket), (Who’s that Lady?), past the cinema, fond of dictation, but left me • Broome (Maths), snooker hall and the police station, mystified by gram-moles), • Johnson (English), then up the fenced alley between • Bardsley (Physics), • Ackerley (Economics and Law, the houses and the allotments on • Bloom (Physics, the magician but new at the start of 1975), the right and up to Holyhead Road. of the Van Der Graaf Generator), Hammond (RE), This was the same alley that we • Phelps (Biology, not Mission • Stephenson (who taught then ran back down on days that Impossible), Physics in his first year, but had we had swimming at the 1910 town • Williamson (Biology, who joined as the new Head in about baths, demolished in 1981. Then we crossed the horrendously busy Holyhead Road (before the M54 1973 was constructed) into Golf Links Lane to the school, joshing and joking, frequently getting soaked in the rain. The road layout at the southern end of the Tan Bank is traversed by part of the 1970s ring road. Much of the rest is just as it was. In the crowd going to school one day in Lower Sixth, my group of friends followed a girl, a recently converted self-avowed bible basher (newly admitted in Lower Sixth) up the alley; we were absolutely staggered by the range, depth and filth of her slang. She was taken to task by one, who later became a famous journalist and author: how could she say such things? ‘It’s my day off,’ she replied, lifting her snub nose indignantly. On half days at the start or the end of each new term (or year),

12 1973 to lead the new Sixth Form muscular Brazilian, Roberto beyond recognition, probably by College, New College, Telford) Rivelino, to bend the flight of the lightening the ball, making it and, of course, ball, especially at free kicks. waterproof, including a whole • Roger Sykes (English and At the time, the ball I had at range of plastic and foam History, the highly regarded home was a case ball, a leather ball technology and converting the Deputy Head). To many of these containing an inflatable bladder, pitches to the condition of we owe a huge debt of gratitude. sealed with a six inch laced seam. It manicured lawns. When struck Few were known by their real would inevitably absorb water. In now, the ball will not only curve names, needless to say. 1969 a size five ball would come predictably but also seem to dip There was a notable change of half way up my shin. and swerve unpredictably like a atmosphere when Stephenson took If waterlogged, it was barely balloon, and skim across the over as head and, in my brother’s possible to hit the ball hard enough perfect surface like a stone year, a prefects’ strike (1973/74); to lift it off the ground. When dry skimmed on water. the two were connected in some (or dried out) it could be as hard as And the ball struck by Rivelino way, I think. stone. When kicked it went dead was not the historical pebble but Maths was not my forte, straight. It was lethal to head the the new Adidas Telstar (named although I did find myself in the ball and, if you were unlucky, it left after the satellites) first introduced Advanced Maths group, by some a red welt in the shape of the seam for the 1970 World Cup; there was odd quirk of fate, with the and lace on your forehead. certainly strength, art and skill in awesome Kiri Kaye and driven to Little wonder that some abundance, but the underlying understand Differentiation and professional footballers of that era, change was scientific. Integration. Homework was, in my whose heading of the ball would recollection, relentlessly tough. I sound like the crack of a cricket ball COMPUTERS AND CONNECTIVITY became very familiar with the on willow, now say (or their As to computers, at school in 1969 letter E in end of term reports. relatives now say) that this has and indeed up to 1974 there were Kiri would mark books and caused brain damage. none. It is now said that the throw them with astonishing In the first few years of WBGS I computing power of an iPhone 6 is accuracy at each pupil (at about played not only for the school (that greater than all the computing head height) the following day, year group had a strong team) but power available to NASA in the having first shouted out the result. also for Hartshill Park Rangers (as Apollo11 project which put a man Having ground through one set of they were then called) in on the moon in 1969; the hardware questions at home and obtained a Oakengates. The coach used to dry superior to the Apollo Guidance rare, genuine and rather good the ball out in the oven in his Computer designed by MIT, using result he threw my book at me with kitchen before games. As a result it built in code operated using a something of a theatrical sneer: was hard as a pebble at the start compiler called Luminary ‘Clift, I see your brother is home for and waterlogged later while we (apparently). the weekend’. churned through the usual But it was not just a matter of Mr. Geography Brown ran the quagmire. computing power; it was the rocket soccer team (in the Fourth Year) he All pitches we played on were power that launched Apollo 11 into would walk round the silent class mud-baths by mid-season (some at the atmosphere and beyond. I do looking at books as we worked, the start of the season), as were the not recall that it was ever discussed occasionally offering comment or pitches of First Division teams and at the time that NASA was constructive guidance (‘excellent, Wembley. The 1969 League Cup launching Apollo 11 with the Griffiths’, he would say). He would Final was one where the pitch was Saturn V rocket developed with the stop by me: ‘Fit for Saturday, Clift?’ effectively a ploughed field, the knowledge and expertise of Werner he said, ignoring my hopeless appalling playing surface blamed von Braun and his team; the same drawing of some unrecognisable on the fact that the Horse of the team who had designed V2 rockets escarpment. Year Show had been held there just at Peenemunde which had rained one week earlier; incredible. havoc on London in 1944. They FOOTBALL AND GRASS Imagine dressage or, worse, show- were captured by the Americans at I can hardly remember England’s jumping at Stamford Bridge today. the end of the Second World War in victory in the 1966 World Cup but, I played one game where I recall Operation Paperclip. having won, expectation at school chipping the goalkeeper only for The Russians captured another was high for Mexico 1970. the ball to fall in the muddy pool part of the team and a large part of Needless to say England lost, behind him and stop dead before the equipment. I am not sure that eliminated by the Germans (who crossing the line. Typical of club this was well known in the UK or else?). football maybe, but the same at least not much discussed until But that was not the most quality of pitch could be seen Tom Bower’s expose in 1987, but memorable part of that everywhere in professional all the Allies were seeking to tournament. That was the leagues. capture German technology. astonishing ability of the squat, The game has been transformed Modern computing power

13 would have seemed impossible to can now carry more computing We can now access, at the touch believe in 1969. At WBGS we saw power around in a pocket. of a button, knowledge previously the first primitive hand calculators And as to phones and locked up in dusty tomes or piles of that could add, subtract, multiply telecommunications, the change is unread scientific journals. We can and divide, but nothing else. Using equally stunning. When my even look at the Dead Sea Scrolls calculators in exams would have parents moved house in 1967, even on line; the arcane has become been treated as cheating; modern though we remained in the same freely accessible. Perhaps it is no open book exams would have been village and wanted to keep the longer a matter of learning much at considered bizarre. same number, they were obliged to school (and fixing it in the mind We had slide rules for Maths wait six weeks for a line to be learning by rote, chanting tables, (for, I am told, roots, logarithms installed and a grey-green circular reciting conjugations, memorising and trigonometry). These were dial telephone delivered. Not much formulae) but rather learning made obsolete by the first hand had changed by 1969. Unthinkable where and how to find held scientific electronic calculators today when one can order a information, on line. in 1972. We also had Napier’s Samsung 7 Edge for delivery But perhaps we are also now Bones (designed by John Napier overnight by courier. However, in living precisely the dystopian about 400 hundred years ago and getting the new line we no longer nightmare predicted by Alvin used for similar purposes to slide had to share it with our next door Toffler in Future Shock (1970), rules). My brother made a set but I neighbours. Party lines at that time where inanities can be re-tweeted, cannot ever remember using them. were still quite common. Who frenetically, into the ether and the These would be practically would share today? most unpleasant cyber bullying unrecognisable to a modern eye. The capacities of the iPhone 6 sent invisibly across a classroom I visited my brother at would, in 1969, have seemed as without the need to throw a rubber, Manchester University in 1974. At improbable as the handheld pencil or punch. The existence of that time Manchester had one of communicators seen on Star Trek, mobile phones has also made the the very few supercomputers in the first shown on BBC in July 1969. plots of thrillers incomprehensible UK. I went with him to see it. It was Star Trek was a mythological and taken the bite out of isolation vast, filling a whole room; and concept, each programme as a literary device, precisely the noisy. Looking back, I see that the something of a morality play, with mechanism artificially engineered very first Computer Science cardboard sets, generally a poor and then resolved in many students were admitted by script (‘It’s life, Jim, but not as we episodes of Star Trek. Manchester in 1968, shortly before I know it’) and concluding with The disadvantage of the lack of went to the grammar school. One some quaint homily or worn out mobile phones is also obvious, the cliché, but absolutely compelling inability to contact anyone if you nonetheless. This is what filled our wanted to unless at home in a TV viewing, along with such gems house that had a phone (and many as The Magic Roundabout, a French did not), or unless you could find a children’s programme created by red phone box that had not been Serge Danot which, when vandalised, and had the right coins converted (rather than translated) to make it work. into English, attracted a huge adult The iconic red phone boxes, cult following, just before the Six incidentally, were designed by Sir O’clock News. My father was a Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1920s, devotee. grandson of Sir George Gilbert The prevalence of mobile Scott who designed the Albert phones has utterly changed society. Memorial and the magnificent One of the great advantages of not Midland Hotel at St Pancras Station having a mobile phone when I was (a masterpiece of Victorian neo- at WBGS was that no one knew gothic later refurbished with the Harry Parr had been a gifted pupil at where you were at any given time station a vast expense as the new WBGS who courageously fought a and no one fretted about it. No one terminus of Eurostar). Perhaps crippling illness which resulted in his walked in the street reading their these two were an illustration of premature death in December 1971. phone. No one played a tasteless the theory that genius might run in A Memorial Cup was awarded to ring tone at 100 decibels. No one families. Design of genius or not, the Sixth Former who made a listened to tuneless music, played the routine experience with the significant contribution to the life of at full volume. No one could hear black phone in the red box would the Senior school. The first recipient, just the bass line or drums ‘leaking’ be bent coins, or whatever, stuck in seen receiving the trophy in June from headphones without the the slot making it impossible to get 1973 from Headmaster Robert ‘pleasure’ of the rest of the band, the coins to drop for a call by Stephenson and Latin master Ray the melody, the voice and the pressing button A, or to get the Horton, was Geoffrey Farnham. words. cash back by pressing button B.

14 Even if there was a phone, it might penny round collars, Doc Martens, Munich Massacre (1972), the not work and you were on your Oxford bags, huge ghastly trousers expulsion of the Ugandan Asians own. with side pockets and six button (1972), the Six Days War (1973), the waists, long hair, centre partings, assassination of Salvador Allende THE ATMOSPHERE IN SCHOOL the scent of Brut (‘Splash it on all (1973), and the invasion of Cyprus AND SOCIAL CHANGE over’, said Henry Cooper) and the (1974). But for the most part we Single sex grammar schools were sound of T Rex, The Eagles (One of hardly noticed domestic or foreign (at least between 1969 and 1974) these Nights), Motown, Cat Stevens, problems. We were having a great the accepted model, if WBGS was Jethro Tull (Acqualung), Creedence time: the heedlessness of youth. any indication. Clearwater Revival (Proud Mary), Indeed, things we may forget in Some recall that there was, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, adulthood are the huge exuberance perhaps, a hidden undercurrent of Lindisfarne (Lady Eleanor), Marvin and joy of youth, particularly in the thuggery, but I saw hardly any sign Gaye (Grapevine), Diana Ross, pleasure of jokes (heard for the first of physical bullying. Although, in James Taylor, Mud, The Sweet, time). We would laugh until our retrospect, some people were David Bowie (Jean Genie), Cream, ribs ached and we couldn’t breathe. wincingly cruel, verbally, to Blind Faith and the first emergence We also forget the staggering anyone who was small, weedy, of Elton John (Your Song); few of strength, vitality and optimism of didn’t play sport, liked art, which were seen (or heard) in youth. We could shin up trees (Classical) music, literature and school; and just before the dreadful without difficulty (my brother used was not obviously heterosexual cacophony of Punk Rock. to hang in the dangerous upper (political correctness was then In a sense, my time there began branches on Kingswood Common) unheard of, quite apart from any with the end of the optimism of the and easily pull ourselves up onto change in the law which may since 1960s (we were not of the the garage roof at home to recover have proscribed such behaviour). Woodstock generation), a shuttlecock or tennis ball. We Participation in sport, and immediately after the so-called walked, ran and cycled membership of school soccer Year of Revolutions, the everywhere. Few, if any, were teams, granted some sort of assassination of Bobby Kennedy ferried to school or to sports immunity. and the explosion of the Troubles in events. We found our own way. For the most part, the Northern Ireland (all in 1968); the It was obviously a time of atmosphere was (at least on school Beatles split, the convulsions of the considerable industrial unrest. grounds) reasonably respectful and progressive dismemberment of With frequent strikes, trade union (self) disciplined, in a somewhat heavy industry and mass leaders were often on the evening relaxed way, if you discount the employment (shipyards, mines, news and seemed to go in and out throwing of bulls’ eyeballs at the railways, steelworks), the 1972 of 10 Downing Street with what blackboard in History (brought in dock strike (the consequence of now seems astonishing regularity. for weight testing (don’t ask) in containerisation), endless other One such was Len Murray, an Old Biology – they would stick to the strikes, the 1973 OPEC crisis (the Boy of WBGS, born in Hadley to a blackboard and slide down first major peace-time shock at the single mother in 1922 (which slowly); the mercury incident; the loss of cheap power, which had probably carried quite a stigma at window hanging; fags (cigarettes) been the foundation of the that time). behind the gym; the disappearing Industrial Revolution, later He took part in the D-Day statue; the heavy wood-and-felt alleviated by the discovery of landings, was injured and blackboard rubber that would hit North Sea Oil), the shock of invalided out. He was a man of the odd chest in an explosion of rampant inflation triggered by that very considerable ability; he later chalk (and the skull of a fellow crisis, power cuts and the three day went up to Oxford to read commuter in my year with a dull week in the miners’ strike (long Philosophy, Politics and thud); and the odd thick ear before the 1984 Battle of Orgreave), Economics, something about which administered in History to one homework by candle light (nearly he said very little in the mid 1970s with a spectacular cascade of curls 100 years after Edison invented the when, for the most part, trade (who is now a train driver, if he has electric light bulb), the shock of union leaders spoke with strong not retired, and was then a great elimination by Poland from the regional accents (think Derek motorbike mechanic; we used to 1974 World Cup (after the drama of Robinson at the height of the drive his ancient BSA 250 and AJS Mexico 1970 and the arrest of British Leyland strikes), while BBC 350 round the deserted railways Bobby Moore), the slow-motion car reporters spoke in Received sidings in Albrighton). True, in crash of the car industry; later Pronunciation (RP; about 3% of the some lessons there was relative plunging into the Winter of population spoke in RP in 1974). chaos but there were relatively few Discontent in 1978, following the Listening now to the narrators on fights. humiliation of the IMF bailout. Listen With Mother, Watch With It was the era of platform shoes At home, there was a catalogue Mother or Andy Pandy, the piercing (for boys), Ben Sherman shirts, of IRA bombs on the British tones and strangled vowels we cheese cloth shirts, tank tops, mainland. Abroad, there was the heard in childhood would be hard

15 to believe. RP has since somewhat to see (the first news of the between these latter two and the evolved into so-called Estuary notorious 1968 My Lai massacre gentle and whimsical Dad’s Army English, which would have been emerged in late 1969). (commencing in 1968) is ridiculed at WBGS in 1969. Going backwards and forwards remarkable. Indeed, there has been a huge on the train, attending school or As to The World at War, the change in pronunciation since the watching the news at night, Second World War seemed distant end of the 1960s, as is apparent Vietnam seemed distant and and somehow unimaginable but in even in The Queen’s Christmas almost an irrelevance to us. We did 1969 in Albrighton and Wellington Address. And, going further back not realise at the time that the and, indeed, all over England and to 1945 (almost to the building of Wilson Government had Wales, many in their forties or the school), the language is almost apparently resisted the many fifties (hardly old I would now say) unrecognisable. For example, Celia demands and entreaties of the US would have fought in that war or Johnson and Trevor Howard in Government for armed support lived through it as adults and many Brief Encounter: did anyone ever (whereas New Zealand and more, of course, as children. For really speak like that? There was Australia had complied, just as them Dad’s Army would have had a certainly no elocution at WBGS. they had for the Korean War). My particular resonance. It was almost contemporaries and I might certainly true of many staff at MILITARY CONFLICT, WAR otherwise have been eligible for school. And a period of twenty-five AND CONSCRIPTION conscription to fight in the mud of years now seems a very long time The twentieth century was also a Vietnam, bombed into a quagmire, … but also curiously a short time. period of widespread military its foliage stripped by Agent We barged along the Shropshire conflict, and of conscription in the Orange. Union canal in the summer of 1972, UK for much of the duration of the In the event, US direct military with my parents and French and First and Second World Wars. But it involvement ended in 1973, the German exchange partners on lasted far longer than that. war only finally ending in 1975 board. Conscription initially for the (twenty years after the defeat of the We turned west into the Second World War continued right French in what was then called Llangollen canal where there was a up until 1960, and conscripts Indo-China). This latter phase took short flight of locks and a lock served until 1963, including in the place against the backdrop of keeper’s cottage. The lock keeper, Cyprus emergency (EOKA and the Nixon’s impeachment in the who seemed to teenage eyes to be struggle for enosis), at Suez, in Watergate scandal and, before that quite ancient but might have been Kenya, in Malaya and, perhaps process was concluded, his about 55, seemed particularly more controversially, in Korea. resignation in August 1974 interested in our boat for some Throughout my time in WBGS, (following his 1973 appearance on reason … and suddenly addressed the war grumbled on in Vietnam. US TV: ‘There can be no whitewash us in perfect, fluent German, Colour TV was almost completely at the White House’). directed to our German passenger, implemented for BBC1 and BBC2 There were documentaries of Burghart. He was greeted with by 1969 (although at home we war on TV, especially All our incomprehension and a stuttering watched the moon landing on a Yesterdays (shown in black and response in English, The lock small, portable, grainy black and white) and most particularly The keeper persisted, several times, white TV in the summer of 1969). World at War (1973/74), in colour. and then, finally, in accented By 1969 the horror of Vietnam was In retrospect, the juxtaposition English said: ‘But, my boy, I AM there in colour on the news for all

16 German’. He had been a German By contrast in the 1970s, we March 1972. It includes Prisoner of War who had decided hardly ever saw death nor photographs of sandstone in to stay in England. anything on that scale. Death was Scotland that had clearly There were many such men all somewhat hidden away. Certainly originated as an enormous sand over the UK and in Wellington for we saw little or nothing of the dune in some great desert. whom the war must have seemed catalogue of deaths in childhood, The Severn Gorge is cut through quite close and immediate (in the youth and young adulthood that a similar antediluvian sand dune of way that 1990 seems to me now). my mother’s generation witnessed great depth, dating back to the The First World War, by on the South Wales coalfields; Triassic Period (250 million years contrast, was impossibly distant, deaths underground and death by old). Many of the churches along something for museums. Yet in illness or injury, when some the Severn Valley in that part of towns and villages all over the UK, inoculations were in their relative Shropshire, for example at the certainly in Albrighton and no infancy and before the villages of Albrighton and doubt in Wellington, there were development of antibiotics. When Beckbury, are also cut from stone still widows who regularly wore death did occur in my youth, it was made from a great Triassic desert. black (and spinsters who had never shocking. The sandstone is a deep dark red, married). In post-Edwardian permeated and bound together by England, attitudes to mourning TV: SCIENCE AND ART iron oxide. It has a particularly were quite different to those which Some remarkable TV programmes familiar smell when wet in the rain. prevail today, but still quite strict, were shown on during that period. The second programme would even though not quite so rigid and Civilisation (Kenneth Clark, 1969), now be considered heretical. In restrictive as Victorian attitudes. the great art anthology and its later 1974, Calder suggested that the Rules on wearing black and science companion piece The Ascent direction of travel in the earth’s being excluded from society have of Man (Jacob Bronowski, 1973) are temperature was downwards and now disappeared. In the early two of the most remarkable. I have that we should be preparing for a 1970s, when we walked past them the books issued to accompany the new Ice Age. He was (deeply) unaware in our school uniforms, series. hostile to the so-called global they might have been in their mid- The science writer Nigel Calder warming consensus, now referred seventies or younger, hardly old, also created a whole series of to as climate change. Anyone who some never having married or programmes for the BBC. He made had lived through the winter of remarried having lost a husband or a remarkable contribution to 1962 might find this entirely sweetheart in the mud and blood of writing about science in an credible. the Somme or Passchendaele, more accessible manner (dying in 2014). When I first lived in Albrighton, than fifty years earlier. The memories of two made in 1972 Humphreston Brook (behind our I have looked at the statistics: and 1974 are particularly vivid, and house) froze so hard you could about 380,000 British military men both foreshadowed in New Scientist walk all along it, most of the way to were killed in the Second World (of which he was a co-founder). Donnington pond. That pond or War in contrast to about 880,000 in The first (1972) popularised the small lake was created by the the First World War, with a theory that the earth was divided installation of an earthwork dam devastating impact on the breeding into large ‘plates’ that moved and sluice gate between two population. Quite a contrast to around on the surface of the planet, churches. The sluice gate was built about 1,000 killed in Korea, 750 crashing into one another creating to create a head of water for a mill over twenty-one years of the mountains and causing race down to a mill (long gone) Troubles in Northern Ireland earthquakes and triggering located somewhere near (although, shockingly, more than tsunamis (supported by proof of Clockmills (the clock-making double that number of civilians) ocean floor spreading in the early works also now long gone), shortly and 250 in the Falklands War 1960s). ‘Plate tectonics’ seemed before the brook merges with (1982). It is no surprise that, in the then an astonishing if not Cosford Brook to form the 1920s or 1930s, for some there were ridiculous idea, but has headwater of the wandering River simply no men to marry, an subsequently gone through the Worfe. (The ultimate origin of the astonishing thought now. Instead, typical cycle for the acceptance of Worfe is said to rise at Watling their names are engraved in the new ideas: first ignored, then Street, just north of Shifnal). long lists of ‘Glorious Dead’ on treated with contempt and hostility The mill race, then much memorials up and down the and finally becoming part of overgrown, cut through the edge of country, great long lists in mainstream thinking. a paddock where I raked hay one alphabetical order, especially of The programme, looking back hot summer, opposite the land brothers and cousins. And their now, was transmitted on 16th where the local football club was bodies buried in huge cemeteries February 1972. I was fascinated by subsequently based. Views of some under serried ranks of white grave- it. I have the book on which the impending global freeze might, stones, such as those just off Vimy programme was based, transcribed however, have changed later after Ridge. by my father as a gift on 10th the long hot dry summer of 1976,

17 which exposed the sad remains of over the Menai Straits, the father was choirmaster, and my flooded villages at the bottom of Caledonian Canal in the Great Glen family and I all sang there in the dried out reservoirs. and St. Katherine’s Dock in London choir. At the time, we had no idea Perhaps there is now a greater (next to Tower Bridge and close by that our connections to the area body of scientific evidence where I have worked for the last were so strong, and so long available. In the early 1970s there thirty-five years). standing. was no discussion of ice cores or of Although at the time I suspect From school, we went on dendrochronology (Exodus to we hardly noticed that we were French exchanges taking two full Arthur was not published until sitting near the cradle of the days by train to get to Orleans at 1999). Shropshire had a warm Industrial Revolution. This is Easter. The older boys played temperate climate, largely cool and perhaps because the canal network three-card brag in the wet. largely to the east had fallen into compartments, my brother smoked But it was not always that way. decrepitude, filled with a briar pipe charged with Balkan Even when the Severn is swollen supermarket trolleys, dead dogs Sobranie (just as he did later on the by roiling brown flood water (and and plastic bags which would foul quayside at La Rochelle in a kaftan Shrewsbury and Tewkesbury are the prop-shaft (well before the and sombrero, sipping a Pastis on a flooded), it does not seem big or surge in leisure use, following school cruise to Ireland, France, powerful enough to cut the Severn pioneers like L.T.C. Rolt); the now Portugal, Madeira and Morocco in Gorge through sandstone. And it elegant Birmingham Gas Street 1973). wasn’t; the gorge was cut by melt- Basin was still black with the grime In a London gym, we slept water from the end of the last Ice of the Industrial Revolution. overnight on camp beds on metal Age, about 10,000 years ago. The Ironbridge Gorge museum frames supported by inverted What had previously been a at Blists Hill was muddy and washing-up bowls, one at each great desert, just a few miles south empty, except for the modern corner. Huge crowds of us arrived of the site of WBGS, was then cut archaeology of the blast furnaces late at night in Orleans, via Fleury by glaciers and melt-water; built into the hillside and the sad les Aubrais. probably the ice had advanced and relic of the Hay Inclined Plane. This Our spending money was retreated several times. One reason was before blast furnaces were restricted (or at least noted in our to go on school field trips to Arthog transferred there from Priorslee. In passports) because of foreign was to see Cadair Idris, not the seat the early 1970s, there was little sign exchange control (abolished in of King Arthur but a cwm or corrie, on Blists Hill of the eclectic 1979). Just a few years later (1975?) the root of just one of these glaciers. gathering of industrial Victoriana a bare handful of us went to Past extremes make the current and kitsch now located there, still Orleans by plane, to Charles De changes seem insignificant. less had the astonishing collection Gaulle airport, I think, which had of Ironbridge Gorge Museums, of just opened. The mass French TELFORD AND THE which it is now part, been exchanges seemed to have INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION recognised by UNESCO on its evaporated. The period 1969 to 1974 was also World Heritage List. We also went down by train to the beginning of major renewal, of The List also includes the the Science Museum in London in which the M54 was a key Pontcyscyllte, which opened in 1969. The Kensington museums component. The Telford 1805, by way of context ten years were also then still black with the Development Corporation was before the defeat of Napoleon at soot of the Industrial Revolution established in 1968 (just one year Waterloo. How were the great cast and dreadful London smogs of after Milton Keynes), named after iron troughs raised into place? unrestricted coal-burning fires. I the great Scottish engineer Thomas I walked the grounds of Blists thought that the Natural History Telford. Telford was appointed Hill in the 1970s with my brother Museum was black. Only very surveyor of public works in and my father (who had an much later, when it was cleaned, Shropshire in 1786 when he was enduring fascination with did the pink and blue Victorian just 30. industrial archaeology) and whose bricks emerge in all their glory, just His works still grace the British paternal family had moved from like the yellow bricks of Liverpool landscape, notably the majestic Wellington due east to Cannock in Street Station. Pontcysyllte aqueduct (the the eighteenth Century. My When I started work in London foundation of his international father’s maternal relatives (Wedges in 1981, that station (built right at reputation) due north-west on the and Griffiths) had also been living the eastern edge of the old Roman Llangollen canal, just 40 miles from in the villages of Tong, Pattingham, City) was also black. Taxi cabs WBGS (we took a boat over it with Patshull and Albrighton (all just a descended into the Stygian gloom, my father in the summer of 1972), few miles east of Wellington) for down a ramp at the front originally and the huge works built on top of nearly 300 years when I lived there. designed for Victorian carriages. the Roman remnants of Watling One Wedge was apparently But for the most part we didn’t, Street up to Anglesey. Among his even christened in Albrighton through school at least, go five, ten other achievements are the bridge church about 170 years before my or fifteen miles down the road to

18 look at the majesty of our industrial place before the imminent final THE FOCUS OF STUDIES past in Shropshire. It might have closure and demolition. In the Great fortunes had been made been mentioned in school, but if it 1970s the school gates, hung on close by during the Industrial was I don’t remember. substantial brick pillars, were Revolution, albeit it moved away We did, however, learn a bit always open and, even if they were as local coal and iron ore were about Egypt and the Romans, and not, in my recollection the footpath exhausted or difficult to extract, we were (vaguely) aware of ruins to the left of the gates was always just as my father’s family moved of Viroconium, the fourth largest open. However, by 2014 I was due east. town in Roman Britain, just seven saddened to see that the grounds But at school, those who were miles west down the road from were heavily fenced and the gates genuinely interested in making WBGS at Wroxeter. Viroconium locked with a code, perhaps things in wood or metal were (I was built on Watling Street, the because it was by then a building would guess) in the minority. Or ancient British road improved to site for the new school. perhaps that was just in my support the Roman conquest of In 2016 I went to see the site of experience. At home, by contrast, Britain, including the destruction the Infants School at Teagues my father was an assiduous of the druid stronghold on Bridge in Trench where my mother builder and serviced his own cars Anglesey (Ynys Mon). was headmistress from 1967 (I (a Thames van, a Ford Anglia, an Roman soldiers must have been think) to 1986. Throughout her Austin 1100, a series one Land going up and down Watling Street time there, the entrance was open Rover, an MG Midget, two Austin (passed the school grounds, visible with a drive sweeping down from 1800s and an Austin Maxi), as did perhaps from the top of Ercall Hill), the road, open playing fields on many others. first for consolidating the frontier either side. Now there are the same Cars were simpler then, but running from Gloucester (Glevum) green six- or eight-foot fences that I probably far less reliable. to Chester (Deva), and later for the saw at WBGS in 2014. Engines would turn over lamely initial attack on Anglesey which On the school trip to London in and cars would cough and choke was rapidly followed by the rush 1969 we also went to Downing on starting, especially on cold back to the Coventry area to quash Street. At that time you could walk winter days. A patch of oil under Boudicca’s revolt, and then along the street off Whitehall and the sump was a common site on returning to complete the final almost right up to the door of roads and drives. But at least if you conquest of Anglesey in 78AD. number 10. opened the bonnet you could By way of context, this would While we were there, a woman recognise (and moreover get access have been at about the same time came into the street in a cab, got out to) the spark plugs, carburettor, that Vespasian and Titus were and threw a tin of baked beans at coil, brake and clutch reservoirs, conquering Jerusalem (booty from the window. It just bounced off. fan belt and radiator. You could the raid on the Temple is carved on Perhaps the glass was bomb proof? bleed the brakes (if so inclined). the triumphal arch near the senate She was promptly arrested. You could grease the bearings (not in Rome: the Menorah is clearly Perhaps that’s why the railings that you need to now). There visible). were installed at the end of the would be no air-conditioning, of street (to the subsequent course; indeed, I recall my father SECURITY AND OPENNESS misfortune of a Tory Chief Whip?). had to pay extra for a heater to be I went back to see WBGS in early fitted in the Austin 1100 (in about 2014, one Saturday, to look at the 1963). Were others really driving round in the cold? Even though the school had been deliberately developed, ten years after it opened, apparently to give greater scope for science and technology, we were subtly directed away from Woodwork, Metalwork and Technical Drawing and towards purely academic subjects (though some certainly worked on the hovercraft or left school clutching lost wax castings of copper or brass poured into sand moulds or cuttlefish (as my brother did) or a bike chain link extractor). Later, Maths, Physics and Chemistry were the preferred course for the really clever ones (perhaps); Geography, History and

19 English for those who were least as undergraduates rather than The 11-Plus system perhaps considered less gifted (or as mature students). And after that undoubtedly favoured a small maybe not). Very few took modern there was state support for Law percentage of the population and languages after sixteen (we were School and then financial support afforded an enormous privilege. just four in French); vanishingly from the French State for And I enjoyed it enormously, most few took Latin A level (in fact, I postgraduate studies in Aix en of it, especially the football (other think none). Provence (with a good knowledge than when I put a ball through one of French-based on lessons at of the louvered windows in the CONCLUSION WBGS, but most especially learned Physics lab). The Jesuits may have said, ‘Give on French exchanges with I look back now on that time me the child until seven and I will Orleans). with enormous gratitude and great show you the man’. But for me it One of my close friends, also affection. was the period between 11 and 18 from Albrighton, had a family with in which I experienced greatest Rhys Clift a similar background. He took a change. It was a transformative March 2017 First at Oxford in Mathematics, experience and probably true for again after going through WBGS. many of my contemporaries, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Many others must have similar though I am sure that did not occur I should very much like to express experiences to relate. WBGS to any of us at the time. my thanks to Allan Frost for the undoubtedly opened the door to We were all enormously opportunities we would not illustrations and his assistance in fortunate. My mother had grown otherwise have had. It was, in the editing and finalisation of the up in South Wales, in a small house many respects, an astonishing time text, especially in the correction of on a street cut into the hillside on and, although we might not have some of the historical information the edge of a valley outside been aware of it, the school was in about the school which predates my Merthyr Tydfil, with no indoor many ways remarkable. toilet. Anyone who wanted a bath time there. would do so in an enormous tin bath in front of a cast iron range in the kitchen. We visited the house in the 1960s. The rooms were freezing in winter, the beds heated by bricks which had in turn been heated in the ovens of the range. The towns and villages all around cowered under the lowering shadows of the black/grey, flat-topped spoil heaps. This was six miles north up the valley from Aberfan, where collapse of one such spoil heap caused death and destruction in the village school in October 1966 (one of the survivors was later in my class at Aberystwyth University). My mother went to Cyfartha Grammar School in Merthyr and my father to Wednesbury Boys’ High School but, on the strength of High School buildings in King Street, 1975. Originally home to both Girls’ and schooling in Wellington, my Boys’High Schools until 1940 when the Boys’ Grammar School was created, both brother and I were the first in our combined to form Wellington Grammar School for a short time before becoming family to go up to university (at New College. This frontage has changed little over the 100 years of its existence.

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Please send correspondence to Rhys Clift at email address: [email protected]

20 Wellington Boys’ Grammar School