King Henry VIII Grammar School

And my big buddy, drinking pal and partner in crime and person who introduced me to the Blues, for a number of years anyway, until he went off to the Daily Mirror and the big time and I slid off into the murky realms of the undergound press and the perils of the music biz. I was often appalled by the number of his stories I appeared in and the accuracy of many, especially the one on "Flower Power comes to Coventry". But it did mean free entry to many a gig and rubbing shouders with popstars and footballers and such and mostly free drinkies. There was a bit of a downside though, he was never so good at anything to do with his hands, so I always seemed to be the handy man ; be it decorating his flat in Birmingham, and, at his housewarming party, having to dangle, head first, down a manhole in a new suit to unblock all of the compacted so called disposable nappies that had caused the toilets to back up to the annoyance of most of the overimbibed guests. With his love and knowledge of things jazz and blues I had always hoped that he would make it more in the line of A Melly, but no.

Just came across these photos showing bomb damage to KHVIII in WWII Bombing of King Henry VIII School

Amazing pictures! I used to drive past the school every day. You would never believe, looking at it now, that it had been so badly damaged. Someone did a great job of the rebuild

It was always considered an honour to pass to go to KHVIII but these stories have reminded me why I hated the place from the minute I arrived until the minute I left. I may be the only person who left with no qualifications. Don't forget Mr Scotford - history master - who was a good guy.

I attended King Henry after passing the 13+ examinations, terrible years we were given the title lower and S which followed us through the school our counterparts were upper and A or B, no discrimination there then. The transition from Cheylesmore Secondary Modern was immense, the lessons were beyond most of the class especialy Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. Mr Scotford was a good teacher. Geography came alive with him. Harry Dunne the sports master was a bully, Bert Wrench made a good impression. On my 16th birthday I aquired a 1931 Matchless 500cc motorcycle and sidecar and went to school on it. Piggy Shore saw a motorcycle helmet in my rucksack and immediately banned me from riding it to school, luckily I had an uncle who lived at the bottom of Spencer Road so I rode it to there each morning and walked up the road to school. Joe Swan saw me a couple of times and gave a wry smile. I left with two GCE O Level, Woodwork and Art, passed a scholarship to Alfred Herberts and went on from there. I often wondered if I would have been better off at one of the new Comprehensives that were just opening at the time, Caludon or Whitley Abbey.

My experience there left me believing that I was thick. I did an Apprenticeship with Dowty in Exhall, eventually getting a B.Sc, then a Masters and just finishing a PhD - but I am 60

Herberts lad: I don't recall Frank Scotford teaching geography. Surely he was a history master. He taught history to us in 2A in 1964. His nickname was 'Fossil', presumably because of him having a love for ancient history. He was also a Morris Dancer, I remember. He lived to a ripe old age and died comparitively recently.

Apologies, yes he did teach History, must have been the fossil connection.

I remember enjoying Mr 'Fossil' Scotford's history lessons as he was very easily encouraged to talk about his own history which was a lot more interesting! He always maintained that if it wasn't for exams he wouldn't bother trying to instill any 'proper' history into the class! Other masters that spring to mind during the '67-'74 era........ 'Thunderguts' McGawley, games and geography, Bert 'Foghorn' Tompkins, history, 'Slug' Hughes, biology, 'Joe Soap' J Stevenson, art, 'Bunny' Burrows, English, 'froggy' Irwin, French, 'Krum' Morgan, Latin. There were many more of course but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

I am still embarrassed about our cruel treatment of a young French teacher called Littlewood in the mid-60s. He eventually broke down in the middle of the class and had to leave. He was replaced by another youngster called Harris who introduced Russian to the school (as well as French of course). We thought that we would be able to treat him like Mr Littlewood but he was a different kettle of fish. He was vile to us and deservedly so. Eventually he calmed down and was a great teacher. 25 years after leaving school, my son was attending King Edward's School Birmingham and he had to play rugby against KHVIII. Returning to school, I found it was much smaller than I remembered. I got into conversation with Jeff Vent. I told him that I was ex-pupil. He asked me my surname and what years I had attended (62-67). 'Ah! Yes. You were there in White's House, weren't you?' He'd never taught me and wasn't attached to our House so how did he remember? My older brother was particularly gifted at modern languages so I asked if he was confusing us but he assured me that he wasn't.

Hi all & Hello to you Bryn. I am sure that Mr.Vent remembered everyone & everything. In his later years he was very involved with Bablake too, but that did not slow his memory. I liked him for his dedication to young people.

Stumbled across this - thought I'd share it with some OCs !

Good grief! What are you trying to do to us? There I was, minding my own business. Then I clicked on an updated thread for my old school. And horror of horrors there was a full screen picture of Piggy Shore in all his pomp and glory. 'The Pig' was a mean and sadistic man whose only pleasure was making the boys' lives a misery. He was once an art teacher. But 'deputy head' gave him the levers of power. He was headmaster Herbert Walker's enforcer. Walker liked a quiet life but happily let Shore do his dirty work. Shore would sit in his little office, at the far end and barely visible across the haze of his ever-present fag, and have younger pupils shaking with fear. He was cold and cynical and rarely needed to raise his voice. He clearly loved every minute of it, and was a product of his era. In truth he would never get near such a job now, and rightly so. I have never heard anyone, even the most charitable of Old Boys, say a good word about him.

As we are still discussing King Henry's little boys I must say they were not all as innocent as they look. They must have broken up for their holidays a week, or maybe two, before us St Joseph's Convent girls, as our 4th formers' classroom used to over look the Crackley Woods and during that last week for us the boys were seen climbing in the trees and they would be waving to us, of course we (not me!) would wave back until we were seen by the form teacher. On one occasion the teacher waved back and the lads dropped out the trees from shock, and we all had a good laugh over that.

I can only confirm your sentiments Mr D-Di. I reckon morning assembly was about the only time you didn't see him with a fag on. Thoroughly nasty piece of work. We did fool him on one occasion though. We managed to convince him that a pupil named 'A J Salmon' had missed his detention and thus had his name read out in assembly. Embarrassingly for Piggy Shore, 'A J Salmon' was a figment of our fertile imaginations.