King Henry VIII Grammar School

Hi Everyone It's a rather scary thought, but almost fifty years after I left the school, I get a mention in the latest newsletter - Octavian Droobers article

Its lovely that you are still remembered in a nice way too. John.

Friday night I am going to a meeting at Albany Social Club which should be attended by several members of the KHVIII 1965 input ~ The free prescription club as we will all have turned 60 this year.

Good grief - I left two years before then, and they're all turned 60 now - OMG

This is my father Colin Winder's admission form from 1941 until he left KHVIII in 1950 to join Lustre Fibres (Courtaulds) where he worked until his untimely death in 1993. I recently visited the school and saw the brand new archive centre.

And did you see my old school blazer in the cabinet? I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed into dust!

Yes, Nick became an architect - and I remember those gigs at the pilot with Franc Buxton on the mixer desk...

I came across this thread by accident last night, although I've been on the website before when I was looking for pictures of Gosford Park Pool. We were watching the program about Harrow and a rendition of their 40 Years On reminded me of our KHVIII school song and I startled my wife by singing the last verse, probably for the first time in 50 years I remembered the first verse pretty well too, but not the 2nd so googled and found myself here and then stayed up into the early hours reading all 25 pages with memories flooding back. I was a pretty unremarkable pupil, started in 1958 at barely 11 in 2D I think and moved up to the 3C (or was it 2E to 3D?) and stayed there until O levels and then A levels in maths, physics and chemistry, getting 2Ds and an E which was enough to get me into Newcastle amazingly. I didn't do well there though and as all I wanted to was fly and already had a PPL from a ATC/RAF Flying Scholarship and an RAF University Scholarship, I quit and joined the RAF full time and got quite a long way through my training, including 90 hours or so on jets, before failing my Instrument Rating and leaving after several months of them trying to persuade me stay in as a Navigator. I was always very good at that, but since one of my main problems was air sickness was the last thing I wanted to do ! I then joined Rolls Royce Bristol Engines Division as a trainee Computer Programmer and finally made a success of IT, retiring early 10 years ago and moving to Italy full time which we both really love. Anyway, that's enough for a first post and has rather gone off topic, so I'll come back to memories of KHVIII in a minute.

Hello & welcome to you, RogerTil Thank you for your post.

It's interesting reading the different recollections. Mine were that it was a good but unremarkable school (what else did I know ?), but brother Jon (4 years after me) didn't enjoy it at all I think although he did much better than me both academically and with the 1st XV. That brings me to my first memory of school. My Dad was a pretty well known Coventry forward and had also played for RAF, Combined Services and had England Trials. At the first rugby lesson Mr. McGawley looked at me, said something like "You're too small to be a prop like your Dad" and put me in as hooker. The first scrum collapsed with my arms bent behind me and I refused to go back in and that was the end of my school rugby career. Quite right too, I was not gifted at sports like Dad and brother. My favourite teacher was FRC Dunn - the gold initials on his briefcase having been altered to give rise to his nickname of Fred. He was the reason I passed A level maths, but I was really at my limit there and should never have attempted a degree in it. I really struggled with calculus and only briefly understood it when I read a description years later of how Babbage's Differentiation Engine worked. I also remember Alfie Crocker who was a good teacher and a nice bloke as I found out later watching school rugby games featuring brother after I'd left. My best friend at that time was Derek Earl who was a whizz at chemistry and could work out what the substance we were analysing in practicals in about 2 minutes (it took the rest of us 2 hours). He'd write it up as if he'd done all the experiments and then spend the rest of the afternoon doing experiments of his own, blowing out bunsen burners and silver plating coins. Once as a punishment we were told to clean the chemistry store room but that just gave Derek access to auric salts and so he gold plated pennies ! We also regularly "borrowed" 20 ccs of ethanol which we added to a bottle of Corona and consumed over the fields by the London Rd cemetery. Hic ! We also used to skive off on free lessons and cycle down to town for a coffee at the Kongoni where Derek had a Saturday job. Unfortunately one day we were spotted by Pop and told to report to the Deputy Head. We had to face away from each other while facing Piggy so we didn't set ourselves off giggling, but we managed it and escaped with just an hour of litter picking after school as punishment. Apart from that I just had a few detentions, never on a Saturday, and no physical punishment at all, but I do remember Geoff Courtois beating someone with one of the hanging ropes in the gym. I didn't have Pop for physics - can't remember the teacher we did have, but we were definitely the B stream and we were all delighted when we did better than his class at A levels. Earlier I was taught by Chubby Boyle and remember an incident in the old GS labs when he was doing an experiment to demonstrate Charles' Law or something and we were all gathered round the apparatus. He'd warned us a couple of times about behaviour and on the 3rd time he grabbed a bit of rubber tube to exact retribution but unfortunately it was attached and he brought everything crashing down round his head, mercury, hot water, broken glass everywhere. Hysterical. Didn't do much biology, possibly because an abiding memory is of Slug burning urea or blood or something and filling the lab. with a disgusting smell and relishing the looks on our faces. Nasty man. To my shame I was one of the many pupils who made that French teacher's life hell, and I also had Mona Lidiard - I'm sure it was that spelling as istr that it was his looks as well as the moaning that gave rise to the name. I think he bought a cushion into class a lot, so maybe his piles were causing him distress apart from my French. I wasn't very good at it at school although I did do French Reading as a 6th form subsid. subject,but that was mainly because it was a good skive. Funnily enough though I fell in love with Nice after a 2 month assignment there and eventually persuaded Texas Instruments to send me back and this time we stayed for 5 years so my French was and still is pretty fluent. Now we live in Italy I get by in Italian too. I had Pip for Latin and he was always falling asleep in class too and having things pinned to his back. Another trick was for a boy under a desk on one side of the room to emit a high-pitched "PIP". Once he'd wandered over there another boy would do the same from the other side. Repeat ad nauseam. So many other incidents and faces come to mind with names of boys and masters long forgotten. Happy days (mainly).

Greetings, I attended Henry VIII School from 1966, arriving full of England's World Cup victory euphoria, and departed in 1972, equally euphoric, but this time for having walked out of the gates of the place for the final occasion. I failed all my 'O' levels at the first sitting in 1971, placing me, I believe, in a very elite group and stayed on for another year, warming my back on radiators whenever possible, whilst pretending to listen to the droning voices emanating from the front of the classroom. Soccer, of course, was not on the list of approved school sports, so fans of the game had to content themselves with kicking small, holed, plastic versions around during break time. This was until reaching puberty, when the self-appointed vigilantes of adulthood, amongst our contempories, took it upon the themselves to castigate those who wished to continue the practice as being 'immature'. I never quite grasped what 'maturity' meant in my time there. I think it was alcohol and girl related. In the latter instance, probably redefining what it meant to have 'ball control'. What it looked like to me was another assault on 'fun'. And, heaven knows, fun was in short supply as it was. "Laughter in the classroom? My, whatever next? Anarchy, if I'm not mistaken." seemed to be the attitude of the teachers. Not that alcohol and girls aren't fun. It was the sense of enforcement of priorities, as if all attention must be now devoted to these matters, if one is deemed to be 'normal'. Henry VIII was run on a military model. The first day, when we were lined up and marched off to the classrooms, in our respective companies of A, Alpha, B and Beta, (with the Houses, presumably, constituting Battalions), I knew that this was going to be anything but fun. School meals were a perfect encapsulation of the 'no fun' ethos. The only chip I ever encountered was the one on my shoulder. Mondays, I think I'm correct, saw the serving of 'Splodge' or 'Mud', which was some kind of meat pieces abomination. Here again, the miltary system was to the fore. The captain at the head of the table, with first lieutenants on each side of him constituting the servers, and the rest of us waiting to see what paltry scraps would make it down to the end of the line. Except on a Monday. You could pretty much eat your full on that day, if you were a masochist. Everything was so ludicrously formal. You were 'the pupil' in the school and 'the real human being', with your own thoughts and emotions, outside of it, for the most part. Okay, there were pranks. Ink flicking. Ear flicking. Comb flicking. There was a lot of flicking going on, usually aimed at fuzzers and scrubbers, if you were that way inclined. But you were never asked by teachers; you were always told. For example, "You are selected to represent the school at rugby, cross-country, etc." No one ever asked you whether you would like to do it. Presumably, one was meant to be honoured. You think? Saturdays sacrificed to play for the school, which in my case meant standing around, hardly touching the ball, whilst the 'in-group' threw it amongst themselves. I was a spectator - in kit. I still have no idea why I ever got selected. I think it was a form of punishment for crimes unwittingly committed. What stays in my memory is a sense of alienation, combined with diminished confidence in oneself.. Of course, one gets over it. However, the scar remains, but it never heals. You just stop looking at it. What baffles me is why school had to be structured in such in such a dispassionate, fun-lacking, manner. You had to sneak your fun, in the same way that you had to sneak a Trebor mint during classes. Disguised, with a cough and a hand to the mouth. The stifled chuckle during morning assembly. (Did we really sing hymns? How come no one asked us if we were atheists, so that we could sit it out, if desired?) The occasional paroxysms of laughter during classes, due to some non-lesson related event, usually involving toxic acid or bunsen burners. I suspect that they were preparing us for the world of work. If so, job done. If they were preparing us for life - well, you at the front of the class, see me afterwards..

Hello & welcome to you, "Last of the Inkers" My great academic achievement was to be "Ink well monitor"! We hope you enjoy your time with us on our Coventry forum.

I'd like to continue my deliberations about the Henry VIII style of education as I perceived it to be in my time there. When reflecting back on the experience, what I felt to be the case was that the educational methods, across every subject, constituted a form of torture, if that is not too strong a word. I cannot readily think of an exception to this. There was not one class which would give rise to a tick in a box marked "Enjoyable". Even for those amongst us who found pleasure in exercise, outside of school, the prospect of P.E. was not something to look forward to. I can remember ropes and other gymnastic items being used for purposes of torture, rather than enjoyment, followed by the naked procession through cold showers to finish it off. Thinking about it, the compulsory gym kit was similar in appearance to that used by the military, in old footage that I have seen. It seemed to me that this was not accidental, but deliberate, and this is rather disturbing, if true. Everything seemed designed to sap the enjoyment out of learning and, what is equally alarming, is that I cannot recall a single teacher feeling the need to explain the relevance of the information to our lives. Whether it was having to learn symbols of chemical elements, or pulleys, or Newtonian laws of motion, or electro-magnetism - I don't think I have deemed it necessary to refer to this knowledge once since that time and, thus, to feel grateful that it had been imparted to me in my youth. English Literature. I enjoyed reading and had nothing against novels and plays until I studied the thing at school. Of course, we were going to get Shakespeare. "Here is something that was written 350 years ago, meaning the language is archaic. Have some fun with this. What is wrong? Dost thou think is has nought but trouble for thee, perchance?" I had to learn "Twelfth Night" for 'O' Level. A comedy, apparently. If so, it must be the only comedy ever written where no one laughed at the jokes. What jokes? I think I recall Rowan Atkinson having a pop at it, along the lines of "It contains the joke of two people looking like each other. Twice." Which is funnier than the entire content of the play, methinks. It seems incredible to me that it was never felt necessary, or of significance, to provide some sort of justification for what we were being taught, other than that it was necessary for the purposes of passing examinations and obtaining certificates. This is an old gripe, I know. But why, why, why? And isn't asking questions important for purposes of learning? For heaven's sake, asking 'Why' is what leads determined individuals to make breakthrough discoveries in science, or in all aspects of life, come to think of it. It is a process of acknowledging problems and trying to find answers that satisfactorily resolve them. It is learning how to do this effectively that matters, rather than taking in knowledge as 'fact' and being able to regurgitate this for exam purposes. Talking of relating, I could relate to the film "Dead Poets Society", in which a contrast was made between learning as fun, contrasted with learning by rote. Okay, it did present a Shakespeare play in a favourable light, but I'll forgive the scriptwriter for that particular error. After all, Robin Goodfellow was such a prankster. Who wouldn't laugh at him? I bet he transformed Bottom into a donkey so that he could better flick his ears.

Last of the Inkers, you must have been almost a contemporary of mine at KHVIII, I was there from 1964-71. I agree wholeheartedly with many of your sentiments. The regime of casual violence by many members of staff made the lives of some boys a misery. I enjoyed very little of my time there, mainly due to this regime and the poor teaching of some of the old retainers who were coming up to retirement. I have mentioned in previous posts about being expected to take part in sport. I hated rugby, being a confirmed City fan at the age of 9. I could not afford to be selected for any teams as it would have affected my trips to Highfield Road. However, I was a big lad and in danger of being selected for some rugby team or other. Therefore I was deliberately hopeless. By the sixth form I was a qualified football referee which was a major part of my income then, so I was very particular to avoid sport there. Shame, as I enjoyed basketball and would have walked into the school team but couldn't afford to be selected on a Saturday. When I left school I played in the local league from age 18 to over 40.

I originally subscribed to this website to research an article about bicycle shops in Coventry during the 1960's and 1970's. Now based in Bristol, I lived in Coventry from 1968 to 1988 and attended KHVIII from 1968 to 1975. Having spent a thoroughly entertaining day reading through all the posts, can I add my views on time spent at the school? Like many of you, my memories are both positive and negative. I know I benefited enormously from a good all round education, but my main feeling is that they were only really interested in the higher achievers, as university placings and sporting results added bragging rights and prestige. Also, what a variety and number of staff that I can recall from my time there, more than 30 - and how pithy and accurate some of the nick names were. Regarding the teachers, some were great. Pete Jones taught me economics and was always an approachable person without it stopping getting his teaching message across. Alfie Crocker was in some ways quite intimidating - but I found him incredibly helpful in my O-Level year. I liked 'Bunny' Burrows too. I remember in the first year we had to write a short poem. One boy aped 'Joe Soap' Stevenson's phrases such as 'Hey you boy - what do you think you're doing boy - see me at 4 o'clock boy'. It went something like 'Hey you boy - boy you hey - hey 4 o'clock boy you hey - see me later boy' etc etc. With a class of 11 to 12 year-olds in near hysterics at the nerve of it all, Mr Burrows calmed the situation quite adeptly by saying something like 'while amusing, this is out of place and should not be repeated'. He was also equally cool when dealing with some of the very fruity language from the Canterbury Tales we studied at A Level. We wondered how he would handle them but he kept his nerve and spoke them as written - done deal - no giggles. Other teachers were characters. I will never forget the initial look of abject shock on my parents faces when Bert 'Foghorn' Tompkins told them at a parent's evening that 'quite frankly Mr & Mrs C your son is not university material'. Their initial horror that they had not managed to sire Einstein's successor was quickly replaced by more relieved looks as they realised they would not have to supplement any student grant I might have got! Others would probably never be allowed to remain in teaching these days. When holding five-a-side football in the gym, Killer Kench would always put me (the smallest) in goal, play centre forward to the other side and take great delight in shooting directly at me from about six feet - the bruises! I also remember he and 'Kitty' Fisher once telling me I was a natural high jumper and suffering a gruelling half hour of coaching/training in a pre sports-day trial. After never clearing anything over about three feet they finally gave up, letting their disgust be known to all. Of Fisher - for a short time he actually dated the daughter of the people who lived next door to us. Disbelief all round when I told this to some classmates. Ted 'Droob' Norrish gets mixed reports - I always thought that he was unhinged. If teachers were late for class everything would frequently get very rowdy. On one occasion a lookout shouted 'Droobs's coming'. He heard this, asked the boy to own up, step out to the front of the class and promptly slapped him round the face with such force he almost fell over. Another time his after-school cross-country running class came down our road. To avoid trouble from other boys I would always take my cap off when near home - about a mile from the school. Two doors away from safety our paths crossed and his only words were 'Where's Your Cap!' I can't be certain, but I'm sure a detention followed.