King Henry VIII Grammar School

It may have been intended as a "suit" but I'm not sure the jacket and trousers had the same parents

"He is a sock of Mr"

I didn't say the Frenchman would be able to understand me. (Probably also explains why I ended up with a French wife).

I had Laird for German from lower five languages to a-level. In our group he had the nickname Schneidy as a reference to his strong line in sarcasm, but perhaps that never caught on. What I do remember was that in the a-level year he said that if the whole set passed, he would buy us all a meal, adding that he felt he was on a pretty safe bet. In fact we did all pass, but he left the school that summer and moved to the Oxford area. He was, however, true to his word, and a bunch of us travelled down to his new house, where he and his wife provided us with food and wine. In fact he was very sociable and very different to the teacher we knew in the classroom.

I also remember the 'promotion' and 'relegation' system operated by the school at the end of each summer term. Two occasions particularly stick in my mind. The first concerned a lad in my class (alpha) who was 'relegated' to 'B' for the following year. His father, who was a very influential figure in Coventry, stormed up to the school, called the school secretary (Miss French) a 'jumped up office clerk', demanded an audience with Herbert Walker and duly succeeded in maintaining his son's presence in the alpha stream for the following year. The other occasion was almost the complete opposite of the above! This lad was the class swot who had no interest in sport, be it cricket, rugby, tennis or gambling. He was devoted to his studies. He duly rose to the heights of 2nd in the form exams, so a promotion place looked a certainty. The day arrived when the decisions were announced, the pupil concerned turned up to school in his best clothes and his hair slicked down in a manner that Hitler would have been proud of. In walks Herbie and announces two promoted boys and alas, they did not include Mister Runner Up. So first two and bottom two did not always guarantee your position for the next 'season!' Me? I was a bit like Coventry City Football Club......... Always threatened with relegation, but always somehow avoiding it, usually by the skin of my teeth! Summing things up though, I obviously attended the 'school on the hill,' didn't go to university (Herbie told me I wasn't fit to represent the school there), so I was a black spot on the the great list of successful pupils at the school. However, domiciled down here in Cornwall, I love where I live and I love running my own little business. Surely that's what life's all about.......... being happy!

Indeed it is, Beesman, and I too have achieved that, in spite of 'the school on the hill'. And well done with your successful business

I started in 2B. In one history test (one of the subjects in which I had no interest at that time) I scored a measly 8 out of 20. When we handed the marks in, Foghorn bawled "Eh? You'll end up in the D form next year, you will!" The following year, I was promoted to 3?. Poetic justice. (I recall the amusement we had impersonating Foghorn's favourite catchphrase: "I dunno. Might as well go outside and talk to a row of trees!".

I had many a run in with Foghorn. I had a similar experience to you over my History O level. He said I had no chance and I needn't come crawling to him to ask to re-take it. (No chance of that, as it had already been suggested to me that the school wouldn't be welcoming me back.) Strangely enough, I obtained a very good grade in History. - Not that I ever used it.

My classmate scored even worse; got a 6 out of 20, but lied when he handed his mark in, and claimed 14 or something. Then at the end of the lesson, Fog made us hand our test papers in for checking! The following week, he slammed the door shut then shouted " 'oose Snodgrass? Where is 'e? Eh?" He laid into my mate and put him into detention. (Snodgrass of course is a fictitious name is to protect the boy's identity; his real name was one of those foreign European ones that Fog could never pronounce correctly.) Some of the events in Fog's lessons injected amusement, and helped to relieve an otherwise dull session.

Many of the older teachers were in the comfort zone and simply stood at the front of the class and churned out the same things, word for word, year after year. I often got the feeling that they couldn't see beyond the end of their desk as there was no real engagement with pupils at all. It was just a means to an end for them, the exam results at the end of the year. The pupils themselves were of no consequence, just a name on the attendance list. Some teachers would have taught you 3 or 4 times a week for 2 years and still have no idea what your name was. Did that European name begin with 'P' by any chance? It sounds like it could be someone I know.

No, it began with D, and was Polish.

Ok, not who I thought it would be then. But I think I do now. Dz*****, tubby lad in Sherwyns? If so, fair play to him for trying. I used to hate tests, especially the French and Latin vocabulary tests which came after trying to learn some random list of words the night before. So I soon developed a rather crafty method of 'cribsheets' concealed within my rough book, which were disposed of immediately after the tests. Even the lads sat next to me never sussed it, and Maxie Gordon, Froggy Irwin or Willy Rose certainly never did. I always made sure I never got full marks though, far too obvious.

You are correct. (Dzien dobry, btw.) He was the lad who referred to Laird by describing his aching face. I was fine with the language tests for the first 3 years; it was no effort at all, and I rarely lost a mark by forgetting a word or its spelling. However, that all changed when we had KRM for the first time, the fourth year of Latin, and suddenly, we were not studying the language any more - the whole time was spent reading Virgil. The whole subject then became dull and boring to me, for at least two reasons: one, it was literature, i.e. fiction, something I didn't do, and two, all the vocabulary I had learnt for 3 years was now irrelevant - just about every word was new, as if from some classical vocabulary book. Whereas before, I could not only understand a Latin piece, and even think simple sentences in Latin, now I could barely understand a word of the long passages, which KRM expected us to translate into English in tests. So my homework consisted of not studying the piece to commit it to memory, but very lightly pencilling in, between the lines of printed Virgil in my textbook, the English meaning of any unfamiliar words. I was dismayed at having to do this, i.e. cheat, but felt no remorse; in a way, it was I who felt cheated by the syllabus. Nobody, including KRM, cottoned on, and the pencilling was swiftly erased once it had served its purpose. A third reason might be that KRM's style of teaching did not inspire me, as previous teachers like BP and MBF had done. MBF expressed his disappointment that I was not going to do classics, as the staff had assumed I would naturally do. He ordered me to learn the Greek alphabet; I never bothered. He poured scorn on modern languages, telling me that "anyone can learn German off a Linguaphone record at home". I was determined to do something else, and have never regretted making that decision.

It seems the main thing was to get the best possible O level results. It had always been assumed I'd sail through with a 1, based on the previous 3 years under BP the MBF. But I lost all interest when we had to spend the whole 4th year learning Virgil's Aeneid parrot-fashion; so I did no revision, concentrating on other stuff. I got a 3 at O level.

Hi, I have a couple of questions. Can anyone attest to having been sufficiently stimulated by a subject taught at school that they continued to learn more about it after they left? Alternatively, were you put off a subject and then subsequently discovered that, when presented in another style, you actually found it quite enjoyable? Thanks for any contributions.