King Henry VIII Grammar School

Fairy Light inspired me with his tales of industry to take up engineering as a career. I couldn't get on with Foghorn at all, but have since found history enjoyable. I saw little point in the maths we were taught, but became adept at statistics (and enjoyed it) when investigating process improvements using SPC as per the teachings of Deming.

Maths - struggled a bit for 3 years under LJW, then got really interested when Bob Griffiths entered the arena, and could suddenly understand stuff. That's about the only subject in that category. It was in my interest to be good at maths - I've been telling youngsters for years that if they can't hack maths, then engineering and science is not for them. Subjects that I was not interested in at school, but later developed an interest in (I'm a late developer): geography, history, music, games and PE. History and geography fascinate me now, music is a part time hobby, I've been a regular badminton player for decades, a regular gym user, and still go out on roller blades. My main passion was always for electricity/electronics, which the school didn't cater for academically.

Hope this question was not just for Henry VIII, Inkers. I hated history at school. Just involved taking down loads of dictation, mostly about Romans. Since getting interested in family trees and local history it has become far more interesting, finding out about the history of the times my ancestors were in certain places. We are lucky to have so much more on television to bring it to life, even if it is mostly fiction. The kids of today have far more opportunity to go on school trips and visit historical places.

I already enjoyed English, History and Geography before I started at Henry's and have maintained an interest in all three to some extent, though mainly History. I have to say that three years of Fossil didn't inspire me particularly but once I had a Chris Holland teaching me I was much more inspired, though he despaired of me at the amount of p*** taking I did in class. Pope Harris took my set in our 'O' level year and got us all through which he was immensely proud of as were we, as apparently we were the first set to all pass, ever. PB Ripon took me for Eng Lit and he was a good and interesting teacher as well as an exceedingly nice man. Maths and the Sciences were of no interest whatsoever. Languages I couldn't get on with at school, but oddly enough having worked with French and Italian guys I can converse reasonably in French and my Italian used to be fairly fluent, though I am refreshing it at the moment after years of very little use.

Hello bohica, I am, in a sense, collating statistics on the 'motivated-demotivated' issue, so I am going to count your experience as 'motivated'. I did some Quality Systems Admin at a small company I once worked for and also found it interesting. I liked the Kaizen philosophy but, unfortunately, have been unable to put it into practice in my personal life. Each day seems to require one corrective action after another!

Hi Anne, I also think that tracing family ancestry can help make history seem more pertinent, rather than, as you write, learning about the Romans. I discovered, a few years ago, that one of my great-grandfathers was a road sweeper and I did the "Who Do You Think You Are?" thing, of using this information to possibly explain character traits. "Ah" I thought to myself "that would explain why I get really annoyed with seeing litter being dropped in the streets. Plus, it could also be the reason why my mind is so often in the gutter." The only lineage tracing that I recall from school was 'Kings and Queens'. That was fun, trying to remember all the dates of reigns and periods. Of course, I knew King Henry VIII, off by heart. 1509 to 1547. I didn't have to look it up. Honestly.

Slim, Interested in maths at school and then a significant number of subjects after leaving. I'm going to categorise you as a polymath. You state that you are a late learner, which might account for lower levels of motivation at school. It is a different perspective and one that I have contemplated regarding my own under-performance. In which case, the teaching style might not have made much difference. I'm not quite persuaded, but I can see that it is a possibility. When one has one's head buried in "Charles Buchan's Football Monthly", then the prospect of turning the old attention to chemical formulae isn't really going to get the heart pounding with excitement at that age. Well, not unless the resultant compound smells like rotten eggs.

Hi Inkers With me it wasn't football, but from the age of about 14 another distraction - motorbikes. Life in the fast lane. Well, you're a long time dead; they tell me. Probably right about teaching style, for me there was zero interest ab initio, whoever the teacher - Foghorn or Fossil in history, Jerry Barrel, Thunderguts or Dickie Dawson, Bazley, Bunny, or Moggy for English lit/composition/fiction. Same with games (what a waste of a whole afternoon!), music and RE. Interested in science for the first couple of years, esp. chemistry and physics, but switched off when it became too high-fallutin' full of theory. Biology was a turn off - all that blood and gore. What really did it for me (and one or two others) was when Bobby Gould brought in a semi-dissected cow's lung on a tray, dripping in blood, and, to judge by the smell, in one of the more advanced stages of putrefaction. Several of us wanted to go outside and puke!

Fossil was my Form master in 2B and so took us for History. What I will say in his favour is that I used to get really bad headaches and went home early quite regularly. Fossil noticed that I squinted at the blackboard and surmised I seemed to be short sighted and that was what could be causing me headaches. Sure enough after a trip to the Opticians that was proved to be the case and a pair of glasses sorted the problem out. So fair play to Fossil. I was able for the rest of my time at school able to pull a flanker and go to see Miss French and go home early on days that seemed to require it. Apologies to Miss French.

Walked up to the school today on the 50th anniversary of starting in the Senior School on 8 September 1966. I still have the school cap I wore that morning and my Whites House tie. The tie still fits me but I think the cap has shrunk over the years. I also have the little blue hymn book that was given to all new inmates on their first day along with the brown library cards needed to borrow a book and the little coloured cards issued to those who took a packed lunch and used the sandwich room. Does anyone remember the name of the lady who served the tea in the sandwich room? (2d a cup?) I remember going through the school gates on Spencer Road on that first day and on giving my name to a master being directed to one of the groups of waiting new boys. I was allocated to 2 beta and we were led away to room 9 by our form master Mr Bellamy. Mr Fisher took over after the first term. The Head Warden was Mr Walker and his Head of Security was Mr Shore. I will get my thoughts together and post the more memorable of them. One I remember well was when Ted Norrish was on playground duty when he had laryngitis and his usually loud voice was reduced to a croak. To communicate he carried a clipboard to write on and across the top he had written "when I write in capital letters it means I am shouting".

Hi Gruncle, and welcome. You've jogged a few of my memory cells. I used the sandwich room in the lower years, having suffered school dinners for my first two years in the juniors ("No wonder I was ill."). I remember the sandwich room lady well, and can picture her now. I don't recall her ever having a name, but I know she liked to leave on time, and would start cleaning the tables well before the end of the session. Any stragglers were likely to get a wet dishcloth chucked onto the table, aimed to land perilously close to their still being eaten food. Some sort of hint. Yes, the tea, which came from a huge brown chipped enamel teapot, was 2d a cup for donkeys' years. I don't think inflation had been invented then. In the 6th form I remember Pete Jones introducing us to the word. Of course, after a couple of years, I wised up and told the school I was going home for "dinner" (lunch, I suppose, to be posh). I wasn't (I lived miles away), but stayed on the premises and ate my grub wherever. This way, I saved the 15/- termly charge for using the sandwich room. Even then, I realised cash was king. Droob was years ahead of his time, then (he never taught me). Using capitals on electronic devices is considered shouting. Over the years, there have been a couple of employees, one who insisted on having the CAPS lock key on, thus typing everything in upper case, and another, whose handwriting was only ever in capitals. Strange.

Yes, the school became very rough during my last years. In early days, prefects on the gate merely took the names of latecomers. Later, they searched everyone for weapons. And, to be fair to the school, if they didn't find a weapon on you, they'd give you a knife or something so you could defend yourself.

I couldn't be bothered with school dinners after the third form so I used to pay the 75p for the sandwich room card and as I didn't tell my mum what I was doing the 75p a week dinner money went straight in my pocket. We used to go off the premises most lunchtimes and either go into town or down into Earlsdon and get some chips which were in those days 5p a portion. So that left 50p a week with which I'd usually buy a single in Boots as they were 45p in there as opposed to 50p elsewhere.

Hi Bags, Hi all, Or to the downstairs cafe in Owens where egg, chips & beans was 1/9d

Now and again we'd go to The Pagoda and have the 3 course businessman's lunch which as I remember was either 35 or 45p. Bargain.