King Henry VIII Grammar School

Any ideas when Ted Norrish started at Henry's? Was his initials 'E.W.' And did he have any connection to the Stoke or North Staffs area? Thanks.

I remember the name Hunka, but not from school. Many years after KH, I read "Stefan Hunka, defending..." in the CET. Probably in the year/s below. Nashed - pronounced Na Shed - rings a bell. Foghorn always called him Gnashed. But then, Fog would always mispronounce names if he could. Especially foreign origin names. Nashed was the only boy not referred to by his surname by Jack Wrench. He was the exception. LJW always called him Bobby, as if he had a soft spot or some sort of affection for him. I shudder to think, given what has come to light on this forum, about some of the teachers.

Yes, he's EWN - I would say from memory he started at KHVIII c.1959

Hi Harrier, with regard to Ted Norrish, I can recall that whenever he went running he wore a white tracksuit top emblazoned on the back with ' North Staffs and Stone.' Hope this helps with your enquiry.

The 2 Hunkas I remember were Stefan started circa 67 and Paul who started with me in 1970.

Thankyou Midland Red and Beesman, that is absolutely brilliant. I was trying to identify some runners from old athletic programmes in the late 50s early sixties - Norrish was one of the names and from the information you have given me, it fits perfectly that the Norrish in those programmes fits the Norrish from the school. Many thanks.

A few familiar names have been appearing here of late, all contemporaries of mine. Stefan Hunka was indeed a solicitor who defended people at Coventry Magistrates Court. I even saw him in action when he defended people we were prosecuting on a few occasions. I have a feeling he cross-examined me on one occasion when his client had pleaded not guilty but not absolutely certain. Hardly Kavanagh QC at that level! I didn't know him at school really though. I knew Bob Nashed from the age of 5 as we went to the same prep school. They lived in Coundon at one time but moved to Ernesford Grange, quite close to where we lived. His name was from his Egyptian father, his mother was Scottish. Sound lad, good at several sports, and I doubt he would have let any teacher take advantage of him. I believe he became a dentist. D1 - Have to agree about Charlie. As I said, he played for my team for a while. Problem was that he played, or even turned up, when he felt like it. Didn't last too long. Beesman - How do you remember such trivial detail as Droob's running top? Your memory for detail is actually a bit worrying.

I've no idea MisterD-Di! It came in useful today though didn't it?! I accept that the writing on Droob's top will probably never appear as a quiz question, but maybe it was because I always preferred E W Norrish in front of me, by a considerable distance, on compulsory cross country runs, (when I wasn't writing my own 'unfit' notes) rather than behind me yelling, 'Use your stride boy!' and 'Go for your time!!' No need to worry... any details concerning your good self will remain forever hidden!

I find an omission in not responding to this By "having his own building" I was referring to Room 1, the wooden building which jutted out into the "playground" just along from the tuck shop window and adjacent to the caretakers door This was the old music room, before Bebop took up residence in the new block, above the metalwork/woodwork rooms

Ah... that was before my time.

Droob used to scare the hell out of me. I likened him to Mount Vesuvius on legs. Capable of exploding at any time and leaving a trail of devastation and havoc in his wake. Back in the day, you might chance upon a group of quivering schoolboys in the playground and when enquiring as to what had happened, effectively receive the reply that "Mount Droob just erupted". I figured that the only way I was going to survive was to develop a 'Droob Seismometer' as a warning system. That is, I had to heighten my senses to any Droob indicators (moustache, shouting, running shorts, etc.) and dash for cover whenever there was the slightest possibility that it could actually be him. The Seismometer was not infallible. Many teachers, for instance, were given to shouting, so you had to become more sensitive to his unique tone and pitch. His was extraordinarily discordant, so I used to familiarise myself to that sort of sound by listening to Frank Zappa albums. Also running shorts were fairly commonplace, so I had to hone the ability to recognise Droob's legs at a distance. As you can well imagine, that wasn't a pleasant thing to accomplish but, eventually, I began to detect his gait and stride from afar. On his approach, if there was no immediate place to hide, I would endeavour to make myself invisible to him as quickly as possible. I won't go into detail as to how I achieved this, but I will reveal that you would more likely be overlooked by him if you adopted a stance that I would best describe as 'cowering'. With luck, you might just experience a non-explosive lava emission, rather than a full scale eruption. I keep looking on the internet to see if 'Mount Droob' has been officially designated as a volcano, but nothing so far. Perhaps it became dormant over time. I very much hope this was the case. (This is another of my posts whose place is - as I have now designated them - in 'The Silly Files'. That is, belonging to the Historic Coventry Forum, but some distance away from the mainland!)

Ted Norrish, 2nd left, 1961

Incredible. I've just thought up twelve possible entries to the Caption Competition and not a flipping one of them is suitable for publication.

Where DID you get this from, MR? They look like a bunch of Aussie bushies! Ted was always very fond of his mountain walking, bush walking - anything to get somewhere remote! I went with him a couple of times to the Lake District and the Welsh mountains, but I was much too soft for his sort of excursions. Gosh - he'd even put salt in his porridge!!! He must have left his footprints in most of the far-flung corners of the planet, and has been writing his memoirs - mostly about these exploits - for the past few years. They will make interesting reading! I saw both sides of Ted - the scary side and the other side. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if he happens to read this. As a 'droober' and a "reasonable" Latin scholar, his scary side was never aimed at me - but I saw it often enough, and I know why kids trembled! Ooops - sorry - I'm in an airport, and my battery has decided to run out, so I'll finish this later... You'll be surprised!