Foxford Schools

Hello Mick, I don't know if you remember me, the name is George Vaughan, I can remember a lot of the names in Derrick's post but I cannot remember him, old age creeping in again. Nice to know there is a few of us left still

Hi George Of course I remember you. You were quite short, chubby face. I'm surprised you don't remember Derrick but then there were people I forgot. Mick. (Sorry didn't reply earlier, don't check in that often)

Hi Mick, thanks for replying, I am still in Coventry, in fact just round the corner from where I lived when I was at Foxford. I remembered quite a few of the names of pupils and staff, most of whom I liked and respected, but one I hated was Stan Mills, he was a big bully on the sports side of things. George

My last year at Foxford School, 1940-41. Eddie Branson (teacher) taught us - music, singing, football, cricket, swimming, English, geography, science, gas mask drill, air raid shelter drill. Tommy Woodroff (blackbat) (teacher) taught us arithmetic, history, and the cane, and assisted with the drills. Cook (headmaster), Mr and Mrs Cole (teachers) taught the 8 to 10 year olds, assisted with the drills. We boys had the choice of half a day a week to do woodwork or metalwork, the girls cookery at Windmill Lane School. Branson I would put under 40, Woodroff in his fifties, Cook in his fifties, and the Coles in their 60s (guess work)

Hello Derrick, just discovered this website & found this post whilst researching something else. I attended Foxford in the 60's & recall a lot of the names mentioned in your post. I was in Mercury & Mr Knight was the Head as I recall. My schoolmates included - Adrian Booth (who later became a teacher at Foxford), Alan Powell, Remi Pollard, Bob Ainsworth (became Coventry Councillor & MP), Martin Hewitt etc. I was big into my sports mainly football representing the school for Coventry Boys & Warwickshire levels. Brings back some pleasant memories. Richard Mather

Foxford did not have much of a football team or equipment or sports master, but we got excited when a match was arranged against a top school in the town. The long single decker bus arrived and we piled aboard. We only had two footballs - one had a scruffed surface that hurt you when heading the ball, the other we found was soft as we boarded the bus. We had a bicycle pump but not the little silver connection to pump it up. Branson the teacher asked the driver to stop 'up the 'Wolfe' and a lad ran into the shop and bought one. We pumped up the ball but some of the stitches were worn so we had a bleb. The driver took us in the wrong end of the park, so when we arrived at the right place we had no football, half the team had no jersey, and we were jeered by the other team who thought we were a bunch of country bumpkins. We changed in a hut, their teacher was to be the ref. We played for about half an hour, and up went the barrage balloons and the sirens wailed - we were ushered into a brick shelter and there was a lot of bad feeling between us, and we were frozen. When the all-clear sounded it was decided we would only play another half hour but we scored a goal, so the ref let the game go on longer. Finally it was over, but our bus was missing. Branson was worried about the time. He held a count to see who could afford bus fare - we walked into Broadgate, caught a Bedworth bus for Longford. At Longford it had started to rain and was pitch dark, only one lad had a torch and that was dim. At the bottom of Hurst Road the torch gave out, the path across the field to Grange Road was pitch black. Our top coats and macs were in the school cloakroom but it was too dark and we were too wet to bother with them. But the blackout had made us aware of every railing, hedgerow and pot-hole, or kerbs missing. At the top of Jackers Road Branson left us. I arrived home cold, wet, my gas-mask box fell apart, but we had thrashed a larger school than us and that's what counted. A few weeks later came the blitz - I remember we never played another game after that while I was at school.

Great illustration of the times, Kaga - thanks It's the "little things" that fascinate, like the fact that you'd gone to play school football match, carrying a box containing your gas mask

Little Tommy Cartwright lived in a little terraced house that was lower than the road by about three feet, and about three feet from the pavement, so he had to climb up about 4/5 brick steps. He would carry a jug and I would ladle out a pint of milk into the jug, he would then tenderly walk down the well worn steps, and I would hold my breath in case he would fall or spill the milk. I should have had no fears, he had the safest pair of hands you could imagine, for he became one of Warwickshire's great cricketers.

Midland Red, What happened about the portrait?

Pardon?

Midland Red, Sorry, little Tommy Cartwright, cricketer, above. I seem to recall you posted about him a while back?

Hi Derek I have just joined this forum and hopefully my post will follow yours. I attended Foxford School 1953-1958, I was in Mercury house and the house mistress Miss Barwell. Friends were Susan Gardner, Mary Ashton, Judith Priestley, Ann Gilder and Kathleen Wagstaffe. Headmaster Mr Dodson. You mentioned my younger sister Kathleen WHITTEM who attended after I had left, my brothers John & David also went there. I HATED my time there and left at 15 with no qualifications but good references. These stood me in good stead as I trained as a nurse at Coventry & Warwickshire Hospital. I married Collin Fairfoot who also attended Foxford but was in the year above me. We have been married for 52 years.

Hi Janty I'm not a Coventry kid but hello anyway A bit of a warning, posts like this can take weeks or even months to get a response because there are only a few members from each school and not every member of the site pops in every day.

Janty43, Hi! I can take you back 80 years to Foxford! About that time, we were just getting back to our normal school - evacuees had almost all returned, the football team was almost back up to strength. We had lost another teacher, Mr Hilditch, to the armed forces, replaced by Mr and Mrs Coleman, two softy teachers saved from retirement. We had stopped carrying gas masks. The winter was very cold, we stayed in school for lunch - cold sandwiches - for we didn't possess anywhere to eat, only the class room. We would sit by the wall, slide down so the hot water pipes were behind our bottoms - if that wasn't warm enough we could sit in the cloakroom with our heads among the coats on two much larger hot pipes. The school at fourteen years of age could not take us past the 12 times table in maths, simple essays in writing, and in geography the names of a few countries and where they were placed on a map. I would say no teacher had ever been outside England, so knew little of the cultures in the world. With most of us having brothers and sisters, by the time we were ten we knew as much as the school could teach us at 14. Our classes were by age, not education - little wooden desks for pens and pencils and school books as we needed them. But we were an happy bunch, apart from it being wartime. No buses in that area and not one kid was picked up or taken to school by car. No medical room. We did have a bike rack, and a wooden hut tuck shop opposite in the allotments. The school football shirt was dark maroon with a broad light blue V on the front, the school playing field was what is now Longford Park that sloped heavily down both west and south. I can't remember any school photo's. They had just built us a new gym a few months before, but the glass went with a bomb blast so it couldn't be used. There had been a system where three kids could win scholarships to move on - that ended with the war.

Hello Kaga Simpson and all earlier pupils of Foxford Comprehensive School. Also an older ex-pupil hailing, from about 1956/57 (born 1945) was about eleven when I caught two buses to get to this new school (didn't really know what it was about, unlike how everyone is thoroughly informed... ;-/ now! Previously at Parkgate Primary School, Parkgate Road, I'd passed whatever the exam was, we didn't know at the time really, the 11plus - hm! What's that supposed to mean? From Hen Lane bus stop, to Courtaulds, then out to Longford, walking down Jackers Road through the 'old school' to finally the quadrangle and Jupiter house. Could it be that Mr. Hilditch, back from the war, was our House Master? I know we had a very sharp Housemistress.. I see her face, but not her name. Mr. Cole was our science teacher (married the PE teacher, very pretty) and I was in the front rowbench of his class one day, when a bunsen burner exploded an experimental glass flask.. I was ok, I just slid under the desk. What else do I remember? How strange, at the moment only primary school names.. Was Miss Powell the art teacher, blond haired, fancied herself, bombshell? - didn't like her female pupils. Yes, Mr. Dodgson was the good headmaster. And lovely Mr. Nash, our class teacher. Has anyone any photographs of this time - I don't remember any class photos being taken then. Maybe it was only primary school class practice?.. Or maybe I just didn't want to be photographed. Anyway, if anyone can fill in anything (I might remember names now I'm in mode) perhaps you'll be kind enough to let me know.. I think there were netball, swimming, hockey, football etc, badges, given out to teams, at assembly too? Wait a minute, one name, good sportsplayer, football, rugger? George? Brindley (his dad was a butcher) but don't remember surnames of girls, yet. Patricia? good pal, hockey. Norma Crouch (red Hair) - car crash?) Anyway, this is my first try, and it would be nice if there's anyone still around who enjoyed these first (didn't know at the time) comprehensive school footsteps...