King Henry VIII Grammar School

Good morning to all, Now then, we have a bit of a conundrum here for which I hope one of you can summon up Robert Langdon himself! As enjoyable as many of these posts are, we've come such a long way from the original topic scope that I really need your help in finding a solution. I've made a small start, by skimming off the latest posts into their own topic: University of Warwick. However, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the remaining meanderings, so I'm here now, seeking creative ideas from you, the members, on what you'd like to see done with the "off topic" posts. Maybe you'd like a new thread.... and if so, what would you call it? I'm open to ideas, so please feel free to suggest here how we can organise this stuff, so we can get the KHVIII topic tidy once again. Have a great weekend. Rob

'Comic heroes of our childhoods'? Perhaps

Good to have this one suggestion so far, which will cover a few posts, thank you Bags. Anyone else got any ideas what we can do with all the Dan Brown related stuff? (Unprintable answers on a postcard please.... )

Hold a massive book burning and get a load of homeless people to come and keep warm around the fire. Best use for the total tosh he scribbles.

Hello Rob, I would second Bags' suggestion about a 'Childhood Comic Heroes' thread, if that can be arranged. Or maybe 'Childhood Comics' as a more general topic. As regards the recent submissions that are very, very, very loosely based on the history of the school and how efforts might be made to uncover the 'real story' - um - here is my suggestion. I think they should go in the Non-Coventry category. How about a thread entiltled 'Education, Educashun, Ejukashun'? That seems suitably silly! Thank you.

`O Sage, I second that, at least the second bit. After "chicks own" I wasn`t allowed comics, although in my Dundee spell of life I did live opposite one of the editors/designer (?) of the Beano and Dandy and actually worked with his son.

Our physics lessons with Ron Hough were normally held in P3, which was one of the erstwhile buildings that looked as if it might have been used by the military in WW1. However, on one occasion, P3 was out of commission (essential maintenance, re-decoration or something) so we had been assigned to a different lab which was upstairs in what was known as the "New" Science Block. Ron Hough was an excellent teacher, not without an appropriate sense of humour. If you worked well, he praised you. He was also very strict, did not tolerate any tomfoolery or cheek, and had an explosive temper at the first sign of anyone acting up. Nobody wanted to incur his wrath. Back to the change of venue. As a few of us had just walked into the upstairs lab, there was an almighty bang, like a bomb going off, just outside on the landing. Ron Hough's face suffused with the red of anger, and he stormed out onto the landing. We all expected some poor boy to be on the receiving end. What had actually happened was that a member of staff, a lab steward, was the culprit. He was a quiet, inoffensive, meek and mild, wizened, diminutive chap wearing spectacles and a white coat, who looked out of place in the school - he would have been more at home on the film set of a Carry On film. One had to feel sorry for him. He was at the top of a stepladder, and had been attempting to lift down an object from the top shelf of one of the glass fronted cabinets. The object in question was some sort of large cathode ray tube used in physics. Obviously an expensive item, it was now smashed into several hundred pieces of broken glass all over the landing! On seeing what had happened, Ron Hough stopped in his tracks, gave a nonplussed look, said nothing, and returned to the lab.

I remember Dr Kolisch very well. He was my Form Master in 1942/43 when I was in Form 2 and made me Homework Monitor. He taught me Latin for which I am extremely grateful, even helped with what might be in the mid term exams by telling us which piece of The Trojan War was being used. I even remember to this day part of it! "Cives cubicuae sunt" "All the citizens were in their beds!" He also in year 4 and 5 taught me German, the only subject I ever came top in and in which I am still reasonably fluent today. He failed however in trying to teach me maths!

I was taught physics by Ron Hough at KH and was encouraged to learn a bit about radio communications which ended up with obtaining a "Radio Amateurs" City and Guilds certificate. I remember the fun we had constructing a large (about 10ft long with a 6ft square ground screen from memory) helical antenna mounted in a barrel of concrete which was placed on the roof of the (then) new science block and fed through a frequency converter into a SW telecommunications receiver located in a small room on the upper floor. The intent was to pick up weather satellite transmissions. The control system for positioning the antenna towards a satellite consisted of a human (student) chain relaying spoken commands from the receiver room along the corridor, through the roof access door and to another student at the antenna. Commands consisted of "left a bit", "up a bit", "back a bit" and so on in the manner of "The Navy Lark" so imagine our delight in eventually hearing what seemed to be a Russian voice emanating from the receivers' loudspeaker! Upon using the human command chain to establish where the antenna was directed we discovered that it was pointed down toward the city centre and we finally decided that the Russian voice was probably from a city taxi radio. The whole operation had some risk associated with it and on a particularly windy day we nearly lost the antenna over the edge of the roof along with the three or four of us that were holding onto it. This was long before any safety rails had been fitted around the flat roof. I see from google street view that the roof now has railings but I'd be interested to know how long the helical antenna survived after I left in 1970. Incidentally, I believe that Ron Hough was responsible for handing out stickers "Always ask WHY" as a way of encouraging us to be enquiring. I've always remembered this bit of advice which can be quite intimidating to even the most capable scientist.

I must be one of the earliest ex-pupils on your site as I started at KHVIII Junior School in January 1941 so was there before it was bombed. I can remember the tuck shop, which was the small building on its own in the playground and later became the Music Room. I even had one school lunch, I recall, sausage and mash on that day. I also had several PT lessons in the gym which had climbing rails as I recall, Then came the April Blitz. As I remember it the school was struck by 31 incendiaries, all but one of which were successfully put out. That particular one landed in a spot were it had been predicted that if that was to happen it would be almost impossible to get at and extinguish - and that was the one that altered my education future! I was heartbroken as I had left my brand new Venus pencil case in my desk and it was destroyed in the fire. The Junior School was transferred to a large empty private house in Belvedere Road, owned by Coventry dentist named Cleverly, which had a swimming pool in the garden and 20s style decoration of all the rooms. I remained there until I got a special place and went to the Main School in September 1941. There we were taught in temporary classrooms built on part of the school playing field. Except for science, for which we had to go - the shame of it - to Bablake School - and a weekly morning assembly which took place in the Coventry Technical College Theatre in Albany Road. Eventually we started to have a morning assembly in the playground. At that time, I suffered the same fate as any other "fuzzer" most mornings, by being thrown into the first holly bush on Spencer Park across the road from the school! Later on, I think in 1942 school hours changed and we had to attend in shifts, two each day, some days consecutive ones, other days with a gap between the two. PT was all of the "arms bend, knees stretch" kind in the playground. When there were any daytime air raids we had to use dug out shelters in the playing fields. What with their existence, the ground used for the class rooms and the area used by the Headmaster's cultivation of potatoes there wasn't too much left for rugger or cricket, but enough!

Fascinating insight into times at KHVIII even before PhilipinCoventry and I started there (1954) - thank you for posting this