"Mr
Chairman, Headmaster, Fellow Guests, Ladies and
Gentlemen; If you come to our house - and you
are very welcome, though not all at once - you
will see hanging in the hall, in pride of
place......a clock. It is not a very beautiful
clock, but wait...look at the face. The lettering
is clear, "L.N.W.R.* Prescot Clock Co.,
Prescot.' The clock keeps excellent time and
though I don't know how often each day we glance
at the clock and I can't say that every time I
look at it I think of you all it is frequently
enough to remind me of Prescot and, more
especially, of PGS. as I knew it.
So, it is a
pleasure and an honour for Rosemary and myself to
be invited to be your guests tonight; to turn our
clock-watching into something more tangible,
indeed edible. We are grateful. Equally, we value
the opportunity to meet old colleagues and
friends, not least Geoff Dixon. After reading the
latest copy of The Old Prescotian and seeing the
photograph of Geoff's presentation to Prince
Philip, I wonder whether we should now address
him, "H.R.H. Geoff Dixon". I should be
surprised if any of you know that, for a brief
period, Geoff experienced a sex change - merely
professionally, of course. It occurred when the
reorganisation of the School was under discussion
and working parties were convened, one for
Division 16 and one for Huyton. The Huyton body
lacked anyone who could be considered as
Headmistress of a Grammar School and Geoff Dixon
was invited to fill the role. He was not,
however, required to dress appropriately. Public
spirited as ever, Geoff accepted the invitation
though I believe that an additional motive was
his wish to add fire-power on the side of those
principles in which the then and now passionately
believed. One feels sympathy for all those
schools who have never been able to boast a Geoff
Dixon.
To my
title. In July, 1963, after a visit to the School
to meet the staff and to look round the buildings
(including, from R.S.B., a proud glance at the
football shield which the Queen of the Iceni
would have been proud to own) I stood on the
steps, saying thankyou and goodbye. "And
what," I asked, "about Comprehensive
education ?" to which Mr Briggs replied
firmly, "Not in your time, Brown."
Before I
reminisce further, I want to seize this moment to
pay tribute to the immense effort, both kindly
and efficient, made by two Old Prescotians in
particular. To Jim Taylor for organising this
annual Celebration and to Pat Bailie for his work
with the Register and the Magazine. All others
who help, please feel included, but these two men
are special and so is Bill Asbridge whose work
and devotion has ensured that the School will
always possess and display a War Memorial.
So, I hope
I can look back a little to what did happen 'in
my time'. I should like to think, as did
Wordsworth, that it was "emotion recollected
in tranquillity". Emotional, certainly, but
no one who has been in the educational process
over the last thirty years and more can remember
much tranquillity.
I have
discovered that there is more than one Michael
Brown. Two weeks ago, I received a letter
containing a highlighted extract from Hansard.
Apparently, on 15 December last year in the House
of Commons, I asked my Hon. Friend to clarify the
position with regard to VAT payable on charges
for donkey rides on Cleethorpes beach. The
accompanying letter from a resident of
Cleethorpes (without, unfortunately, the writer's
name and address) wished to reassure me that VAT
is not applicable until the annual income exceeds
the £46,000 mark and that even Cleethorpes
donkeys do not raise that amount of money. Here's
a very different letter, correctly sent to me in
1965 from R. Ball, then living in Craven Anns:
"I
thought you might be interested in some thoughts
of the Old School in High Street. I entered the
School in September, 1907 at the age of eight
years and started in Form I. We were in the room
towards the west. In January, 1908, that great
Headmaster CWH Richardson took over and by a
gradual progression I moved through various Forms
until I left in 1916. By that time I was in the
Vlth Form in the room nearest to Moss
Street". The-writer then describes the
Physics lessons. Experiments on "Light"
were confined to four boys at a time in the porch
of the middle room. Other experiments on gases
were performed in the cloakrooms. I distinctly
remember blowing ourselves up when making one
particular gas. Fees were one guinea and were
later raised to one pound ten shillings (£1.10
and £1.50 respectively)"
I guess a
good deal of my personal educational thinking was
formed or reinforced during my time at PGS. I
wonder whether you have heard the account of the
American teacher who heard from Britain about
pupils learning by experience rather than from
notes on the blackboard. Full of his new
discovery, he called his Physics class together
next morning and explained that he required them
to determine the height of the high-rise building
in which the school was housed. Their only aid
was to be a barometer. He divided the class into
three sections and to each group he gave a new
barometer. When the first group returned, they
handed back their barometer together with their
result "How did you do it?" he asked.
"We took a barometric reading at roof level
and another on the ground. From the readings, we
calculated the height". "Good try"
said the teacher, but looking at the result he
had to tell them that it was far from accurate.
The second group returned with a very battered
barometer. "We went to the roof," they
said, "and dropped the barometer over the
side. We timed how long it took to reach the
ground and with our knowledge of velocity and
acceleration we can give you the answer."
"Another good try," commented the
teacher, "but the result, though better than
the first, is disappointingly far from the
truth." The third group returned with their
result but without their barometer. The teacher
looked at the result and was astonished.
"Why?", he exclaimed, "your result
is exactly correct. How did you arrive at
it?" "We went down to the
basement" they told him, "and we said
to the janitor, 'If you will tell us the height
of the building we will give you a barometer
!'."
I am
neither psychic nor a spiritualist but
recollections of the School as I knew it bring
many people to mind and some of them are very
vivid recollections. So clear are some that they
may have occurred only months ago. I hope that
you find some of them will highlight certain
characteristics of the School - and, perhaps,
also of society at that time. On the subject of
discipline, I read in the History of the School
that the Report of 1865 commented that only 50%
of the Upper School attended on the days of the
Inspection. Furthermore, 'the behaviour and
demeanour of the pupils gave an unfavourable
impression of the discipline maintained by the
headmaster'. Not so in 1963. When an architect
from County Hall came to show me the plans of our
new buildings, I asked him to explain the thick
blue line which was drawn round the boundary of
the site. "We'll put up a fence there, round
the site" he said, "so that the pupils
won't be able to get in." "Not
necessary," I said rather portentously,
"I shall instruct the boys to keep out - and
they will." With but one exception, they
did.
Let me
remind you of the excellent standard of teaching.
Many of the Staff in my time had to make their
way through various difficulties, some caused by
the war and others by circumstances dating back
to the thirties. They had seized their
opportunities when they came and, above most,
knew the value of education. They could teach
because their experience and values were
self-evident They taught me as well as teaching
the pupils. For instance, I remember how
carefully and with what originality more than one
teacher examined the many boys who wanted to join
the School at twelve and thirteen years of age.
Another example reflects on both teacher and
pupil. A master came to me one day and said,
"I have a boy who ought to go to Oxford but
he is a late developer. He came up by the Lower
stream and so he has no Latin." So we gave
him a couple of lessons and the text-book used by
the First Year. After a week or two, the boy
brought me all the exercises in the book with
hardly a mistake. A year or so later, I called to
see him at his Oxford college.
One day, a
parent telephoned me in some anxiety. Was I
justified in suggesting that her son should try
for Oxford ? She didn't want anyone to know that
she was consulting me so could she come after
dark to see me ? Was I upsetting things, she
said, when she came, to give such hope to a boy
from an ordinary background ? So I explained that
he was one of the two most brilliant pupils I had
ever taught: He went on to a brilliant career -
taught first at PGS.
I learnt a
new level of compassion here when a pupil died
tragically and the Chairman of the Governors
chided me on my failure to control my emotions.
There were other funerals, too. John Hawthorne's
soon after I arrived and, not much later, that of
Mr Briggs himself. He always seemed to me a very
senior sort of person and so it is a very
sobering thought that I am already older than he
was when he died. There are many more to whom I
should like to pay tribute if there were time.
One major
difference between Mr Briggs and myself was the
presence of a young wife and young children; and
I want to say something to emphasize how
dependent I was, and still am, as are we all, on
our partners (for, among other things, putting
this speech on the word-processor. Furthermore, I
believe that I was the first Headmaster of the
School in its first four hundred and twenty years
who could change a baby's nappy!
Unexpected
things happened too. On the very first day of
term at about 4.30 pro, I was secretly priding
myself on having got through the day successfully
when there was a loud knock on my door. Outside
stood the Caretaker and two very angry
lady-cleaners. These two had nearly, or actually,
come to blows because one accused the other of
having the Caretaker as her 'fancy man' and would
I settle it. No amount of reading The Times
Educational Supplement had prepared me for this.
Spencer
Briggs, as many of your will know, was a very
orderly man. All detentions were noted in a book
like the one I have here and all morning prayers
were arranged in a book also, like this. Half-way
through Assembly one morning, I suddenly realised
that I had brought with me the wrong book. No one
enjoys admitting to having made a mistake, so I
was faced with the choice - either "Let us
pray. The following boys are in detention
tonight", or "The following boys are in
detention tonight - Our Father who art in
Heaven".
Who
remembers the Mole Club? For those who dont,
membership was restricted to those who had hidden
under the classroom floor, without being missed,
for the whole of a lesson period, of course,
those trap-doors were also used by workmen
needing to go below to see to pipes and cables.
One lunch-time, a man emerged covered in dust
after working down there. A group of Vth-formers
was standing round the hole watching. As the man
emerged, one of them said, in that dead-pan way
they have, "It's no good, mister, you're
still in East Germany".
Inevitably,
things change. Nowadays the buzz word seems to be
'Management'. Perhaps we have to keep this
blessed concept in its place and to that end here
is a little story. In a large and successful
company, a ritual took place at. the end of every
month. The Chief Accountant went up to the office
of the Managing Director, placed upon his desk
the current monthly balance sheet and then
retreated a few respectful steps. After a brief
look at the document the M.D. opened the middle
right-hand drawer of his desk, consulted
something inside and went back to give the
balance sheet his further attention. After a
little time he would say, "Very good, Mr
Wilkins, thankyou very much." Naturally, Mr
Wilkins became more and more curious to know what
was in that drawer. Eventually, one day when the
Managing Director was away, the accountant
persuaded the secretary to let him into the
M.D.'s office. Trembling, 'he opened the middle
drawer. Inside, there lay a single card. On the
card were the words, "The Credit balance is
on the same side as the window."
Why should
we not be nostalgic on an occasion like this?
..... .but our motto reminds us that the future
is also our concern and I have been pleased to
read in The Old Prescotian and in the School
prospectus that new developments continue to take
place and that the School flourishes. My time in
education has demonstrated the truth of Bertrand
Russell's adage (adapted here) that perhaps it's
a good thing we cannot remember the future. What
would Gilbert Lathum have thought if he could
have dipped into the future - even further than
human eye can see it's the anniversary of
Tennyson's death, today ? Had he been looking for
a metaphor, he would have pointed to the image of
the phoenix because as you read the history of
the School, nothing is more clear than the
ability of the School to re-create itself -
literally sometimes from its own ashes. Long may
it continue and 'To the wall with political
correctness'. As for myself, I quote W.B. Yeats
on behalf of us all,
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