Woodlands School

Can remember Trollope as umpire for school first eleven at cricket, used to sit on a shooting stick to umpire at square leg, famously knocked off it by a hook from a batsman, uproarious laughter all round.

If my memory is correct (I was there at the same time, 1965-1970), Mr Newton was House Master of Gibson. Mr Panter was also Gibson (he very kindly ran the after school photography classes) Mr Twistleton was, er, Stringer? Mr Burdett - I just cannot remember, but I'm pretty sure it was Ellis or Stringer or another house on 'that' side of the school, me being from Perrens on the 'other' side of the school!

Burdett was housemaster of McLachlan!

I knew it was that side of the school !!!!!

Old Boys' Reunion, reported here in the Coventry Telegraph

Just found this forum so this is my first post. Well done to the designers, great web site! I was at Woodlands from 1956 to 61 in McLaughlin House. The HM was , I think, Mr Hancox. I had forgotten most of my school days but reading through these post has brought most it flooding back. In response to a query about Ron Ravenhall, I can confirm that he lives in Stretton on Dunsmore where he became an active local politician and a member of Rugby Borough Council. I played a bit of Rugby at school and on until I was forty or so. I will try and attach a photo of the squad of 57/58, I remember most of the faces but the majority of names are beyond recall. Anyone help?

Hi all - I attended Woodlands from '67-'72 and have both good and bad memories - uniform rules were pretty strict : blazers black buttons only - no chrome & must be parallel stitched - not cross stitched, lace-up shoes: no slip-ons- white underwear not coloured and if it was found to be coloured it was confiscated ate when changing for PE!! Creep Rogers took us for physics & chemistry - so called Creep due to his habit of creeping up behind you with a coil of bunsen burner tubing and whacking your behind if all 4 legs of your lab stool were not on the ground! Great teacher - he made science fun and was animated and passionate about his subject - even when one of us was caught with a packet of Refreshers he took one for himself and then made the miscreant eat the whole packet in one go - while the poor guy was foaming at the mouth he then explained the chemical reaction of water (saliva in this case), tartaric acid, citric acid, & sodium bicarbonate. We were in Ellis House & Dennis Miles was the very disciplinarian house master: I remember the one morning assembly some progressive soul had persuaded him to play Jumping Jack Flash by the Stones on the House record player - he was obviously not impressed and banned future departures from the classical singing along to "Jock" Davies' piano accompaniment : by way of errr. ...reaction we attached drawing pins to the felt hammers of his piano so that the next assembly heard Jock inadvertantly playing the first honky-tonk version of "Jerusalem" - he was incandescent! - such happy days!!

Hi everyone, I am a fuzzer to this site, attended Woodlands from 1957-1961. Malins was my house, (my brother Michael also attended 3 years later in the same house). Lots of happy memories, just a few teachers to throw into the mix to start with. Mr Oakes: Gardening, Mr Lewis: English, Mr Gough: R.K., Mr Twiselton: Pottery, Mr. Briers and 'Pop' Major: Music, Mr Dick: Bookbinding, Mr. Flitcroft: Art and Mr. Edney (cannot remember his subject, just his famous line in every lesson 'can I have your undivided attention'. Lots of memories to offer later once the grey matter starts kicking in. Peter Young 1G, 2G, 3S, 3R, 4Q, 5Q

Hi egg foo. As far as I remember, Edney taught German.

Thanks for that Greenman, just a couple of memories of Malins' housemaster 'Lofty' Lee, first when giving you the cane sometimes he would select the one with a lead tip sellotaped to the end for extra whip and my brother whenever caught smoking would be asked to empty his pockets, any fags found, Lofty would put a couple in his top pocket and the rest confiscated, then cane you. Come the showers after games we would show off our wounds! Happy days.

Yes I do, if I remember rightly they were covering the work to rule by teachers which interfered with the run up to exams. There was a sit down in the main entrance by pupils in protest. The tv crew were outside the main gate asking us questions, and my face along with about 30 others appeared on the evening news - a bit chaotic when the camera rolled, as you can imagine.