King Henry VIII Grammar School

The number of houses were being reduced from 5 to 4 and it was decided that which ever house finished bottom of the inter house league that year would be dropped. It was expected to be Sherwyns or Hollands - who apparently at that time were regularly bottom. It was Kings though. (I'd like to think this was a deliberate action by the members of Kings house, but I don't think that spirit was in the school any more). I always thought I was put in Hollands because I had bright red hair. Houses are not just about competition, they are supposed to provide an extra layer of support to pupils, with a house master looking after a smaller group that he could relate to. I saw little evidence of this at Henry's but I'm told it worked very well at Woodlands.

That sounds about right. A pal of mine used to teach at Woodlands, and despite not being sporty, he always talked of his house in glowing terms and seemed to be proud of it. There used to be 10 houses there when another old pal of mine was there, but then it was twice the size of KHVIII. As you say, little evidence of it at KHVIII. Housemasters were all of the old guard, waiting to retire, hardly knew anybody's name unless, say, a boy was captain of the school rugby team. I didn't get any support from being in White's house. The only words Pop ever spoke to me in my 7 years there was when Ron Hough was ill, Pop took our form for the one lesson, and he barked at me "That diagram's too small. Can't get accuracy with small diagrams!". It had been perfectly adequate for Ron Hough. Still not clear why they decided to scrap a house.

I believe it was decided to scrap one house to (mainly) make inter-house sports tournaments easier.

House System I thought this article interesting regarding the house system. I came across it when I was searching for information about why and when KHVIII house system was reduced in number.

Interesting yes... and surprising. But more importantly, disappointing. As a civilised human race (however you define that veneer), we are supposed to progress, aren't we, not go backwards? While they're at it, I can think of plenty of other things that could be reinstated: slavery; debtors' prisons; burning people at the stake; ordeal by fire; recriminalizing being of the other persuasion; steam trains to replace electric and diesel; and so on. So the little darlings now need to be "cared for and mentored". In my day you learnt to be nobody's fool because there are a lot of nasty people in the big wide world after you leave school. And to think the house system was once the preserve of the posh public schools. Looking at the source, I do wonder if they've got their dates wrong. April Fools' Day has been and gone this year. The lunatics end up in charge of everything. Sane, normal people don't need power trips. James P. Hogan

That's a thought! However, it may be the case that the human race is not designed to progress but to have a cyclic nature. This would explain the rise and fall of many, if not all, civilizations throughout history. Indeed some may survive longer than others but I can't immediately think of one that hast lasted and progressed throughout the whole of human history! It is debatable whether our present civilization is in a state of rise or fall, but one thing that appears certain is that the planet will survive longer than the human race, excepting major astronomical events of course. Your reference to Ron Hough reminds me of his little "Always Ask WHY" stickers.

EK, that's exactly the thought that went through my mind as I started to type - cycles. Everything goes in cycles. In business, they talk about the product life cycle (e.g. carburettors were the order of the day in motor vehicles for a century or so, but have now all but been consigned to the rubbish bin because of the development of more efficient fuel infection systems, and global pollution issues), but It occurred to me that everything has a product life cycle. I've believed for many years that the human race's days are numbered. We will die out one day just like the dodo and the dinosaurs, for whatever reason. Everything we do (and this applies to animals too) is to satisfy the software (operating system) which runs in our brains, whether that action be classed as good or evil, e.g. altruistic charity work versus being a serial killer. In the grand scheme (?) of the universe, there is no good or evil, bad or good. Things just exist; events happen. It is what it is. Good and evil are merely concepts in our brains that man has invented to suit his/her short existence on our little planet. Although if the news is anything to go by, one day we may be moving to other planets or moons! According to some writers, that's where we originally came form - another galaxy or something many eons ago. But's that's science fiction. Back to earth and the past. Despite being wide awake in Ron Hough's lessons, because they were interesting, I don't remember him ever saying "always ask why", or any such stickers. Perhaps that was after my time in the sixties. I do remember him rather unkindly referring to a lad as Four Eyes, simply because he couldn't remember his name. And he knew some German, unfortunately before I started German lessons in the lower fifth, so I didn't know a word, but he loved to come out with bits of his German to impress us, e.g. "Ausgezeichnet!" if someone had done well, or the occasional "Dummkopf!" Of course, he had to tell us the English afterwards, as none of us knew any German. If he liked something, and chose English, his favourite expression was "very smooth". Which was a bit puzzling when, as an exercise, we had to rough up the surface of a piece of material, to measure friction, and he then told it was very smooth...!

I was in Ron Houghs' class in the late 60's - see my post no.1071 on page 72 of this thread. I've also posted in the thread 'Stranger than Fiction' as it seems more appropriate than the KHVIII subject.

My elder brother was in the Kindergarten around 1937 and the next year evacuated with the rest of the school to Bridgwater. The conditions were not favourable, on my brother's sixth birthday my dad visited and found all the pupils had impetigo from bathing in the same water. He quickly removed him and brought him home. He then informed all the parents he knew of the situation. Was probably the shortest evacuation period of the last war with Germany! Edited by Midland Red, 13th Jul 2020 7:19 pm (This post has been copied into the 'Wartime evacuation' thread)

It seems half this forum went to this school, but entry was by fees, school uniforms extra, books and travel fares in my day, thus making most kids round where I lived, out of reach of the pocket to most parents. So the only reach was by just three boys from Foxford and I believe Windmill Road schools, to obtain qualification once a year. It was a tough order, out of over a hundred kids to be in the top three. Then the war came and that system got knocked on the head, and in 1944 there was an Education Act that allowed all kids access to the school, no fees for parents, as I understood it. But the big joke for me, having little education, in very early 1945 I was sent to a special training army camp, full of public school boys - Eton, Oxford, etc. I even found myself sleeping three beds away from Geoffrey Howe, who became the Chancellor years later. So in 1944 when I had my medical and tests in Coventry Drill Hall, what did they find that put this canary among the pigeons?

The number of free places had risen to 30 by the time I attended the senior school in 1965. Supplemented by 5 Governor's scholarships. Possibly my memory is letting me down on those numbers, but in the Alpha stream there were only 4 of us who did not bring in the little envelopes at start of term.

Quite a few of us in the beta stream

I don't remember this at all. I joined a year later, and as far as I was always aware, the vast majority of places were free, and most pupils got in via the 11 plus. Maybe my memory is letting me down too, but my recollection is that the only fee payers at that time were pupils who didn't get in through the 11 plus, but whose parents were prepared to pay for a place.

There was some education act in 1944 that changed the system completely all over the country. I'm certain of that because I had waited all my school life to go there. The war came, and then halfway through gave kids the chance to go there three years after I left school, and enlisted. I was livid.

That is my recollection too, from 1958