| The Old Prescotian presented a
series of individual memories. |
Alan Jones [1938 to 1944]
|
- Bobby
Bolton's talks in the air-raid shelters
on making chemical water gardens
- The
tram from the Kings Arms to go to Dovecot
Baths,
- Winning
the Shield in 1944 but who did score the
four goals?
- The
long slide in the playground at the first
sign of frost.
- 'Juddy'
Hawthorne, often. "How many blue
beans make five ?
- School
meals - traditionally mocked -
considering the wartime restrictions were
splendid. Particularly the jam tart and
custard,
- Sadness
and remorse during an Assembly when Mr
Briggs announced that Mr Murray, a young
teacher who had been baited unmercifully
with all the cruelty of youth, had been
killed in action.
- Going
to watch the school football team on
Saturday mornings having first bought
some banana-split toffee from the little
shop in St. Helens Road. I still buy
banana-split simply to evoke memories of
those halcyon days.
- The
400th Anniversary Speech Day at the Lyme
House cinema. Having left school, I had
to beg a couple of hours off work to
receive my rather modest School
Certificate. The certificates were not
presented...
- Egg's
gown failing off one shoulder.
- The
expulsion of a boy caught stealing
souvenirs from an ME 109 on display
outside Prescot Council Offices during
Wings for Victory Week.
- Changing
into football gear in class.
- The
farm camp at Broughton, near Preston on
Farmer Bradley's duck farm. Stuking corn
was great fun but any offence, however
minor, was punished by one having to
clean out the duck sheds which contained
droppings at least six inches deep. We
cycled from home to the farm but about
ten miles from Preston we got a lift from
a lorry!
|
David Perkins [1934 to 1943]
|
- Charlie
Fennell, woodwork teacher, "If you
hold the chisel like this, it is
impossible to cut yourself.... Run for
the First Aid box, someone!"
- 'Drugs'
Drewry counting off the lengths or
Dovecot Baths as a clutch of hopefuls
struggled towards their 25 Lengths
Certificates.
- 'Richie',
gown billowing out behind him, galloping
across the yard to call the tricycled
Wall's ice-cream salesman to bring his
velocipede from the road onto the field
on Sports Day
- The
mad-cap Founder's Day football match, two
houses v two houses on a multi-pitch
ground with staff invigilators to count
the goals -PGS's answer to the Eton Wall
Game.
- Fondly,
Herbert Chant's parables of 'Empire
History. "I knew a man who went out
to Australia in the gold rush. He came
back a millionaire, ' He'd opened a fish
and chip shop at the diggings'.
- Stiff-backed
blue report books to take home, marks and
positions with incentive remarks by the
subject teachers upstaged by the form
masters comment and finally the
Headmaster's assessment. Mine often
bemoaned my predeliction for the field of
sport to the neglect of the academic.
- End of
term quizzes and general knowledge tests,
times of relaxation, anecdotes and bits
of fun which like so many time-honoured
idiosyncracies would soon be
discontinued.
- The
private competitions after the above to
see who could drink the most Tizer,
- Eddie
Wood's incomprehension that anyone might
not enjoy mathematics.
- The
end of term examination results pinned up
on the class notice board in the corridor
for all to see. The top and bottom three
in each case almost pre-ordained and
contentment.
- Struggling
under the netting and scaling the huge
wooden ramp liberally dusted with french
chalk in the Sports Day obstacle race.
- The
Swimming Gala, like Sports Day, a
celebration of athletic prowess; the long
dive, swimming under water, diving for
plates all alongside the traditional
races: an exercise in versatility which
gave everyone a chance.
- Scotty's
propensity with the board-duster. Chant's
unerring aim with a piece of chalk.
|
John Anthem [1939 to 1947]
|
- School
fees were £3. 9s. 4d. per term
(exclusive of books) for boys from
Liverpool.
- School
was open for juniors on Monday and
Tuesday mornings and Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday afternoons.
- Riley's
piano accordian in the air-raid shelter.
- Being
paranoid about the need to carry a gas
mask to school since the Germans would
use that weapon.
- initiation
into the Mole club and the Bat club which
met respectively in underfloor passages
and among the rafters.
- John
Waine and Noel Hawthorne were ordained.
- The
final of the Secondary Schools Shield
Competition versus Liverpool Institute
ending in a goal-less draw at Goodison
Park in 1944. And the replay there.
P.G.S. 4 Institue 0
- Mrs.
Carey's crispy pork and baked jam roll.
|
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