King Henry VIII Grammar School

I'm sure the school set great store by the morning assembly, but looking back 40+ years, they had a bit of a cheek herding all those boys into the hall and spoon-feeding them religion every morning. We had the same at Bablake, where the ritual was even more archaic. However, it was the era when these schools based their ethos on "God, Games and Discipline". The names of the staff are all very familiar, although I didn't go to the senior school. My dad was the headmaster, Herbert Walker, and understandably, he didn't want me at his school as it would just be a "can of worms". However, I often heard him talking about the staff along with their various foibles. Always referred to by surname only: Cork, Wrench, Liddiard, Vent, Leachman, Kolisch, Crocker, Young-Evans etc. etc. and of course the all important Shore. There was also ER Shaw, usually just ER, as there could only be one Shore. He didn't call him Piggy Shore because they didn't use first names. As noted in this thread, they were a bit of a double act, a bit like business partners. When CBS died quite suddenly at the end of 1972, my dad was genuinely upset, like he'd lost a close relative. I recall that he did the address at the funeral, and we nicknamed it the Millstone Grit Speech. I found a copy in some old files, so here are a couple of extracts which might interest those following this thread. Like most funeral speeches, it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and you have to read between the lines. "I shall not refer to him again by his full name, for he disapproved of the use of Christian names. I do not think that in more than 20 years I ever addressed him by his first name and he certainly never used mine! I first met him on the morning following my appointment in March 1950. To say that my reception was cool would be an understatement; it was icy in its formal politeness. Although I spent less than an hour with him, two things were abundantly clear: first, that in his care the school was in excellent hands (he had been acting head), and second, that I was confronted with a frustrated and disappointed man. (I did not know then that he had applied for the Headship and had not even got to the short list.) It was equally clear that whatever success I might have would depend on retaining his goodwill and service and removing his frustrations. The outcome was a proposition attached to my first report to the Governors, transferring to Mr Shore certain responsibilities which remained unchanged to the day of his death." (Presumably one of them was giving the boys a hard time!) There was also a highly picturesque character sketch of CBS: "We had an instinctive understanding of each other arising from our common West Riding background. We were sprung from the same soil. But, in his case, rock rather than soil would be a truer metaphor. For he was through and through his native millstone grit. That hard rock produces a landscape of uncompromising hills, of tough grass, of heather-covered moors, of lonely pools and reservoirs, sometimes calm, sometimes whipped by the wind, of clear tumbling becks, of dark stone-roofed farms, the landscape of "Wuthering Heights". This was the Pennine backcloth to his boyhood home in Huddersfield. To the stranger, coming on it for the first time, it is a landscape that may appear bleak, harsh, even forbidding. But to those who are native to it, it has a beauty that is untainted with the falsity of charm and has a quality that speaks of endurance and of integrity, even of homeliness. The character and personality of CBS was all of a piece with this. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, he was not to be known immediately. He was suspicious of charm. All his colleagues and most boys (possibly few boys!), however recognised behind the stern exterior of the firm disciplinarian was the kindly, transparently honest man who could be confidently turned to for sympathetic and wise counsel. There were no concealments in his life, he frankly spoke his mind. His opinions and prejudices were expressed with a terseness and "bite" that to some seemed to border on rudeness, but which those who knew him recognised as the bluntness of speech natural to the man and his forthright integrity." So there's another picture of Piggy Shore to upset all those folks cheerfully minding their own business.

Thanks for that, Hugh I hope that no member of the forum (myself included) has unwittingly said anything about H Walker Esq to offend or upset you

Hi Rootes66, You being an Old Wheatleyan rather than an Old Coventrian, I can tell you something you may not have known about Mr Walker ("Herbie" to us). The detention book (which was used to take roll call in room 10, the detention room, at around 16:00 hrs on Tuesday nights) was full of the names of the miscreants, and with the details of their alleged offences, for example, non-regulation uniform or running in the corridor or whatever. However, the offence listed against the name of any boy committed to detention by Mr Walker used to simply state "Crass Incompetence". Guilty as charged! Mods note : As there is a distinction between a Coventrian and an Old Coventrian, "Old" has been inserted twice in the first sentence

Rootes66, As your name is apparently Hugh, you must be the brother of Martin Walker who was in the same class as me in the Junior School, 1960-64. I remember him quite well, one of the brighter lads in the class as I recall. He never made anything of his father's position and was just one of the boys to us. Your stories about Piggy Shore are quite interesting. I recall when in the 6th form one of the younger teachers telling us off the record about him being passed over for the Head's position many years before, and he had harboured a grudge ever since, which explained his constantly miserable and vindictive demeanour. The "kindly, transparently honest man who could be confidently turned to for sympathetic and wise counsel" was a side that was kept very well hidden. Possibly a few staff may have seen that, but the boys just despised him. As the years went on, it seems so did many of the staff, especially the new generation that were replacing the old guard by the time I left in 1971. Some of the names of the teachers bring back some memories too. I shall be away for the next week or so but shall relate more on my return. This thread is getting quite interesting!

No need for anyone to apologise for earlier comments and absolutely no offence taken. It was all a very long time ago, and we're probably the few that remember anything about it. We should remember that Herbie and Piggy applied for these jobs because they wanted them and were no doubt gratified when they got the appointments. They earned a bit more money, but it was mostly about power and control. It you set yourself up in a position of authority, you will probably invite ridicule and hostility, particularly from teenage boys. No doubt my dad came across as a bit pompous and sanctimonious and Piggy Shore wanted to be a hard case, so folk responded accordingly. At the same time, they should be given credit for building the school up in the 50s and 60s. The Grammar School, as it used to be called, was at a pretty low ebb after the war. They were responsible for a lot of rebuilding and new building, recruited staff and raised academic standards so that by the end of their time the place had a pretty good reputation. It was elitist however, and I remember one of my dad's key measures of success was the number of boys that got into Oxbridge each year! Returning to the Millstone Grit Speech, it does seem my dad was guilty of giving an unduly golden glow to history, although he did mention in the speech the monumental rows they had in the early years. The picture of CBS he painted, reminded me very much of a Harry Enfield character years ago called George "Integrity" Whitebread - note the use of the word integrity! He were a plain speaking Yorkshireman whose catchphrase was "I say what I like, and I like what I bloody well say". You feel Enfield must have met Piggy Shore. One final thing I've remembered about CBS. He was trained in art and design and in the 50s and 60s they had the services of a very good cabinet maker and joiner at the school. I believe Piggy designed some customised furniture and it was made in-house. I think the staff room was kitted out this way and also my dad's office. I wonder if any of it is still there. Just before he retired in 1974, I took some photos of my dad in his study. This one shows the furniture that I'm sure was designed by CBS. Incidentally, the wall cupboard on the right was where he kept his CANES. I know this because on one occasion I nicked them and hid them behind a radiator, which was a bit of a "show-stopper" next time he wanted to use them. "Now, bend over please." Whacko, Sir. You can see the stool for the bending-over just to the left of the side-table. Bizarre! That's my prank story for what it's worth. Finally, note the ash trays. My dad didn't smoke but they were needed for CBS and some other staff who chain-smoked.

My brother attended Henry VIII leaving about 1970. Sometime in the late sixties I went with him to see a very good production by the school's drama department of Arthur Miller's play 'The Crucible'. Does anyone else remember it. I've seen a number of productions since that but none I liked better.

I found this site whilst looking for an obituary of LJ "Jack" Wrench, who I learnt today died last month. Jack taught me A Level Applied Maths from 1968 to 70 and was the only reason I (just) passed it. Clearly, the contributors to this site aren't a representative sample of students and their (and my) posts will be coloured by particular experiences. For what it's worth, I feel that most of the teachers in my time (64-71) were good educators in the widest sense of the word. Where they were expert they transmitted that expertise well, but I feel they recognised that they were equipping students with a much wider range of skills than a set of exam results. That's notwithstanding the correct view that Oxbridge admissions were a key performance indicator (a phrase certainly never heard by me at Henrys). There's no doubt that I struggled to acclimatise to the school coming from a primary where academic excellence was secondary to control. The first couple of years were particularly hard and some teachers in those early years seemed to have little enthusiasm either for their subject or for teaching it and certainly not for one struggling boy. However, once we started to specialise I felt both my own interest and the quality of teaching take a step up. As in the example of Jack Wrench above, my (relative) A level success was down to good teaching. The command and control regime undoubtedly was harsh and my own behaviour as a prefect reflected that, but it was of its time. However, for example, I saw increasingly human sides of both Herbert Walker and Piggy Shore as I moved through the school. I think at that time it was considered essential to maintain separation between the staff and student bodies, but it was easing off by the early seventies. I guess my attitude to the school can be summed up thus: forty years on, my sons had a significantly inferior school education to mine and that can't be right! Finally, for now, another Jeff Vent anecdote. This event took place early in September 1964, after the local authority schools had started their terms, but before the first day of my first year at Henrys. I went to the school with my cousin who was about to start his second year to watch him in the pre term rugby practice. He left me waiting outside the pavilion (I think that's what we called it). An elderly (to my eyes - Jeff was probably 40) gentleman walked past and asked me my name. I told him, he consulted a sheaf of papers in his hand and he said, "Yes, Sherwyn's", all without stopping or slowing. On my first day, I found I was indeed in Sherwyn's house, but the odd thing is that I was one of two boys with the same name.

Hi & welcome PeterAJ I was in yellows too. (Sherwyn's house). Hope you enjoy your time with us. I actually believe that most of the staff were indeed dedicated to our development. I was there from 53 to 63. They did not short change me ever.

Hi, PeterAJ. I think I know who you are, as I was there from 64-71 too. I believe you were in 2A in 1964, as was I, with 'Jasper' Watson as form master. I cannot agree with you that the teachers were good at their jobs at that time. I've said before that many were certainly clever and knowledgeable, but they were hopeless with children and many failed to engage in any way whatsoever. This applies mainly to the 'old guard' who were aged 60+ and had been there since before the war. They had never moved with the times and the austerity and casual brutality just seemed normal to them. I feel we were rather unfortunate to have encountered so many of them who were just coasting to retirement. You say this is not representative, but in my experience it certainly is. This forum and others have many such anecdotes, and other contemporaries of ours have usually expressed similar sentiments. I do agree that some of the teaching was better once we specialised. I have always thought this was down to the new influx of younger teachers. Certainly that was the case for me. And I believe things changed rapidly as the 70s progressed. Former pupils of that era certainly have different memories to mine. I am interested that you say you saw human sides of Walker and Shore. Walker was certainly remote, and I think few people ever got to know him at all. For most he was just the 'beak' in the gown who we saw in assembly 3 times a week. I recall his policy was to take RE lessons in the first year, but my memory of this is we sometimes didn't see him for weeks on end, as if he was too busy he sent a senior prefect with an instruction for us to learn by rote some meaningless bible passage. I wonder how many kids he ever knew by name. Shore was different. He was very 'hands on, sometimes too literally. He was clearly an embittered man that he never got the top job, and it showed. I never saw a grain of compassion. And I have never heard anyone else have a good word to say about him. The few teachers I saw after leaving always said that even the staff had no sort of liking for him. I presume you saw the Jack Wrench obituary in the newsletter, as I did today. He, like Jeff Vent, was someone I never came into contact with in all my time there. So I have no recollections of him, other than hearing from others that he was a decent teacher. I wish he had taught me, since I had some remarkably poor maths teaching. I was interested to read that Wrench was housemaster of Hales house for many years. I was Hales, and for all my time there the housemaster was Ernie Shaw, one of the most uninspiring teachers I ever saw. Jack Wrench must have been a considerable improvement!

Hi - I am another Sherwyns 56-63. I would not wish to be drawn on the teaching debate. These people were coloured by the times in which they taught and what was demanded of them but I suspect with little or no guidance or control once the classroom door was closed! What I do remember of Jack Wrench were his two minute detentions which consisted of the whole class sitting with hands on the head whilst he paraded up and down with a piece of dowell ~ striking the occasional boy across the knuckles. The fear of it was almost as bad as the punishment.

Hmmm! That's what I meant by 'casual brutality', Mick. As I said, I had no direct experience of Jack Wrench, so I wasn't aware of such behaviour. But it was certainly the case that a considerable proportion of the staff at KHVIII in the 60s were willing to dispense such pointless violence. Some seemed to do so in quite a calculated way, others would lose their temper and lash out at whoever had upset them, or even at who happened to be nearest. Neither were acceptable, of course, as they were not part of the actual 'corporal punishment' which was administered by the head and records kept. But examples such as the cold-blooded application of violence with a dowell is actually quite shocking in their pre-meditated and unprovoked manner. I know we are in different times now, but I am certain that it didn't happen in other schools attended by my friends. What was kept behind closed doors and ignored in those days would result in teachers being jailed now. When you hear memories of Bablake boys, it seems there was far less violence, less fear of teachers, and much more respect. We did a 2-week joint field trip with Bablake and their attitudes were very different. They had a far better rapport with their teachers. We were very envious of them if we were honest.

I was there much later than the previous posters (1969-1980 'Hollands' house), and I can confirm that the 'casual brutality' was almost completely gone; sad to say, it had been replaced by subtle psychological torments! Again, I had no direct experience of either Jeff Vent or Jack Wrench, though they were still around in my time. To bring the discussion back around to the positive, here are my nominations for the best teachers: HF Owen (Chemistry), J Humphries (Chemistry again!), Dave Barclay (Physics - the only teacher I've ever known to use the phrase "I don't know"), Dr Kerr (Biology) and RHM Dunnett (Latin)... that's enough to get the ball rolling!

I agree with you Vtopian regarding one of your teaching nominations. RHM Dunnett was a top man. I was never taught by him, but he ran the school 1st Hockey XI. I played for nearly two years. He was a very approachable guy who always had time to help and advise the players. So different from the rest of the games staff at the time. He certainly didn't employ the 'yelling in your face' method. It was a sad occasion when he left. I believe he went to work away from teaching, somewhere in the East of England. Incidentally I was a member of the now defunct Kings House from 1967-74.

That's interesting, Vtopian. Although our times there overlap by a couple of years, not a single one of those teachers had arrived by the time I left in 1971. I think it shows just how quickly the staff changed, and obviously improved, as the old guard must have retired all around the same time. The 1970s must have been the most significant ever in the school's history. And when I went back for the first time last year, it was like entering a parallel universe. Some of the rooms were the same, but what was happening was unrecognisable.

It's certainly entertaining to hear how bad the teachers were 40 years ago. Relationships between teachers and pupils, particularly teenage boys, were very polarised. The assumption is that all the problems were with the teachers and the pupils were blameless. I suspect the boys were far from perfect and really wound up some of the teachers who weren't good at controlling things. I can't speak for the ethos at KHS, but as I went to Bablake from 59 to 66, I can confirm it was far from the perfect place Mr D Di has suggested, in the early years at least. I had some good teachers there, but there were others who frightened the living sh** out of us. There was a German teacher who threw the board rubber at us with considerable force, and, if he didn't think the homework was good enough, threw the whole pile of exercise books en-masse at the class. I remember on one occasion trying to give the German for 66 (sechs und sechszig) and got tongue tied. Result: after-school detention. The headmaster in my first three years was Eric Seaborne who operated a report card system. You had to carry it around with you like a driving licence, and your misdemeanours were recorded on the card. Teachers and prefects could do it. After every three endorsements you had to go to the head, and after nine you qualified for Saturday morning detention. Each entry was graded from W (warning) up to "ringed H" which was straight to the head for a good tanning. There didn't seem to be any restriction on hitting pupils and I remember once having my head deliberately banged against a light switch in the corridor for nothing much. I was a bit of cheeky so on so, it has to be said. Incidently, you could also get C (commendation) though that was a mixed blessing as it branded you as a swot. I did get some commendations from "Lavatory Jack" the music teacher, partly because I was the only one who didn't take the piss out of him! Anyway, this stuff should really be on another thread about Bablake not KHS. The education in the 1960s at Bablake was OK for mainstream subjects, but there was little choice and very little encouragement to broaden interests. Mine was music, but there was virtually nothing doing. As Mr D Di said above, the differences today are like entering a parallel universe. Our children went to the local comprehensive here in Fife and the range of curriculum options, and other things like music and art, were a million miles from Bablake in the 60s.