BRISTOL GRAMMAR SCHOOL

A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION 1941 – 1950

P H STICKLAND (b1931)

During the whole of my time at BGS I lived at my birthplace, Branksome Road, Redland, about two miles from school. By bus or cycle one crossed Redland Green and took the No 20 bus from Clyde Road to Elton Road (1d each way) or rode down Chapel Green Lane and Elgin Park to Hampton Road then crossed via Cotham Hill to Woodlands Road. Children in those days found their own way to school (even elementary school), there was no petrol for private motoring and we didn’t have a car anyway.

I had been at the nearby Westbury Park Elementary School until the summer of 1941. I took the scholarship exam for grammar schools, which I failed, so then had to take entrance exams for individual schools. I tried Clifton College and QEH without success, then Cathedral and BGS, both of which accepted me, BGS for the Prep School. My parents chose BGS which was then fee-paying (my elder brother had chosen to go to St Brendan’s, to follow a great friend of his. (But his son R J Stickland attended BGS in the 1970s).

PREP SCHOOL

This had been largely destroyed (except the hall) in a night air raid just before I arrived and had been relocated in the headmaster’s house between the prep and the main school. The headmaster moved into the Hawthorns Hotel opposite, where my father had lived in the mid-1920s before his marriage. I was assigned to Upper Division, which with Lower Division formed a Remove at the top of the Prep – I think there were 1A and B, 2A and B also for younger boys. I was assigned to Strachan’s House; there was another, Boulton’s.

The Headmaster of the Prep was one F S Pitt a white haired man who doubled as Form Master of Upper Division, and other masters I remember were R J McGregor, a noted children’s’ author, and Mr Boulton a large balding man. My Housemaster Mr Strachan, like many younger staff was away at the war. I believe McGregor later became Head of the Prep.

The school Headmaster during my first term was Dr R W Moore, who then left to become Headmaster of Harrow School (as had a previous headmaster). He was a most imposing character when I once encountered him in academic square and gown. Moore was replaced for one term by a Mr Henderson. John Garrett came for my third term, and was still Headmaster when I left BGS in 1950.

I don’t remember what the syllabus was in the Prep School, but we weren’t taught languages or sciences. I did very badly in my first year, and was bottom of the class most of the time – in those days you were given a place in the class based on published weekly tests. I was quietly dozing in a history lesson when Mr Pitt grasped me by the hair, pulled me upright and said “You’re a pudding sir, you’re a pudding!” In the end, I was kept down at the end of the year, and spent a further year in Upper Division, by the end of which I was generally top of the class, before going on to 3A in the main school. Had I got a scholarship from elementary school I would have gone straight into ‘Shell’ a 3rd form class, and been two years further on in BGS. As it was, in School Certificate year (Remove A) I was not the oldest in the class.

GENERAL

School uniform was rather in abeyance during the war, apart from school cap and tie. We wore jackets and shorts in the Prep School, the tailors/outfitters delighted in calling the latter “knickers”, much to the discomfiture of small boys. Jackets were the normal wear for boys and men in those days. School uniform of grey flannel jacket and trousers with black shoes was reintroduced in the autumn term of 1947; the official outfitters were Marsh’s in Whiteladies Road. We never had blazers, but we did have navy mackintoshes. 6th formers had a special cap with a crest over the BGS coat of arms, while a prefect’s cap had a yellow stripe at the back of the peak. In later years, many boys smoked and it was de rigueur to remove the cap to do so, thus committing two breaches of school rules at once. (Smoking in the street was considered a bit naff in society anyway). Otherwise we went behind the traditional bike shed to smoke – at BGS bikes were kept opposite the library around the inside of the yard above the gate into University Road. There were also three Rugby fives courts round there attached to the side of the gym, but not many ever played. After the war a very few boys came to school on motorcycles and these were parked in the fives courts.

School started at 9am and finished at 3.35 Mondays and Fridays and 4.15pm Wednesdays, with dinner break from 12.50 to 2.15pm. You could get home for dinner by bus or cycle but it had to be quick. Even my father went home for lunch from his office at St Stephens Avenue in the city. On Saturdays school finished at 12.50pm. (Girls’ schools didn’t open on Saturdays). Tuesday afternoons were devoted to Corps (OTC, JTC, ATC, CCF) in the main school, and Thursdays to compulsory sport, while matches between houses and schools were played on Saturday afternoons. I don’t remember what the Prep School did on Tuesday afternoons, but we played soccer and cricket at Golden Hill on Thursdays: this was about a mile from my house on the present site of a Tesco superstore in Kellaway Avenue, and had an imposing pavilion and some fifteen sports pitches. The pavilion clock had the hours marked by ‘e  x  s  p  i  n  i  s  u  v  a  s’. In the main school we played Rugby in the Autumn term, Rugby or Hockey in the Spring, and Cricket or Swimming in the Summer term. Swimming was at the Kingsdown baths. Cricket was not time-limited, and you could be late home from Golden Hill, with no means of letting your parents know - we didn’t have a telephone at home. Failure to join the Corps was a black mark to prospects of becoming a house or school prefect. I became neither, though I was in the ATC in later years, gaining proficiency and advanced training certificates (useful during later National Service).

During my time, BGS was about a thousand strong, including the Prep and the 6th form, all boys of course. The main school started with morning prayers in the Great Hall, normally conducted by the Headmaster in academic square and gown; other masters just wore gowns during school hours. He started up the stairs as the school clock started chiming nine, and it was OK to overtake him before he reached the doors into Hall. If you didn’t you were officially late, and had your name taken by the head porter, Sergeant Middleton. Prayers were Christian, consisting of a prayer, and a hymn followed by announcements. The very dirge-like hymn ‘Wake oh wake for night is flying’ was popular as it delayed the start of the first lesson at 9.10am. The Headmaster sat behind the table on the dais in the Great Hall, sometimes with other masters, in front of the wooden screen behind which was the prefects’ room. If the Headmaster was not available, prayers were taken by the Deputy Head Mr J M Harrison and once or twice by Mr Beecroft the senior French master. The organ, always used for the hymn, was played by Mr Cheney (Shiner).

The school buildings had been extended some years back and consisted of the main block with classrooms and the Headmaster’s office under the Great Hall, joined at the SE end to the crossing Winterstoke Wing with the library at one end and the science labs and art room at the other. The were some steps down to the linking corridor which had one classroom and a little canteen where those with a packed lunch could buy a mug of Bovril for 1d. A pavilion overlooked the sports field, which was hardly used, matches being played at Golden Hill. There was a single-storey castellated building at the NW end, which was for metal and woodwork. Between that and the old Headmaster’s house was an armoury for the WW1 rifles kept for Corps drilling and beyond the house the remains of the Prep School adjacent to Elton Road? Apart from underground air raid shelters (disused as there were no more daylight raids) there were no other buildings on the sports field. Opposite the main entrance in the yard were the loos, always referred to as the bogs, and the gymnasium with its changing room: also a 25 yard range for small-bore rifle shooting. The gym was equipped with bars round the walls, with mats and pommel horses, and ropes and rope ladders suspended from the beams. Also a plentiful supply of very heavy medicine balls about 20cm in diameter.  At the University Road end were the open bicycle sheds, where one chained up one’s bike because theft was rife during and after the war. 

The Great Hall was (and is) very impressive, and when I first saw it had wooden-railed daises and desks in front of the masters’ seats that remain in the wainscoting. It was lit by eight or so large gas lamps suspended from the ceiling by long pipes: each lamp contained eight or ten gas mantles. To light them, a traditional lamplighter’s pole was used, first to hook the hanging eyes on the end of the control lever of the gas cock and then to insert the pilot flame of the pole. Later on, electric lamps were fitted near the tops of the masonry columns where they met the wooden roof beams, and painted coats of arms appeared near them. The walls had full-length portraits of past headmasters. I think the masters’ desks and daises were removed when the SE end of the hall was converted for school dinners, with a servery behind a screen and dining tables. I was once privileged to go up the crawling ladders on the roof, accessed by a spiral staircase at the side of the main entrance that passed a door into the prefects’ room. These ladders were used in the early part of the war by senior boys who spent nights at school fire-watching - with ‘stirrup pumps’ they could, with difficulty, put out incendiary bombs. (Note: Night air raids commonly lasted throughout the hours of darkness. If the ‘All Clear’ was later than 6am, you were excused school that day).  From the top, you could get into the loft, and see down into the hall through the wide cracks in the floorboards.

The Winterstoke wing had the library, the masters’ common room and three classrooms on the ground floor - Room 14 was configured as a lecture theatre. On the upper floor there was a chemistry lab and four or five classrooms. From the ground floor there were steps down to the main chemistry lab Room16 and physics lab Room 15. The upper floor led to the Art Room 17 and another physics lab - Room 18 I think!

The classrooms were mostly fitted with continuous desks and forms, five or six wide. In form rooms you had your own desk which you could secure with a hasp and padlock. We had to supply our own textbooks, and we did all our work in exercise books usually exchanged in class with other boys for marking. A4 paper had not been invented, and we did external exams on foolscap. Desks were furnished with inkwells as we wrote with steel pens (and pencils) in lower forms, though we graduated later to fountain pens. Biros became available around 1945, but were very expensive, and were discouraged “because they spoil your handwriting”. We didn’t move all the stuff that modern children do, having only a small leather satchel to carry homework to and fro. These had a shoulder strap, or they could be hung over the top tube of a bicycle frame. Books I remember include Kennedy’s ‘Shorter Latin  Primer’, ‘Deutches Leben’, ‘Deutches Lesebuch’ (in Gothic script) J M Harrison’s Inorganic Chemistry textbook, and Auden and Garrett’s anthology ‘The Poet’s Tongue’.

Under the 1944 Education Act, when I was in 4A, BGS became a Direct Grant school, meaning that fees were abolished (much to my parents’ relief) and the school became responsible for supplying textbooks. So they purchased our books, at what we thought was a knockdown price, and we had to stamp them all ‘Property of Bristol Grammar School’. One of the hell raisers in 4A, Jennings asserted that he had so stamped the ‘member’. In elementary school and BGS we had always had free milk at morning break: it came in 1/3 pint glass bottles, to be drunk through a straw.

We had five lesson periods in the morning, signalled by bells, starting at 9.10, 9.50 and 10.30 followed by 20 minutes break, then 11.30 and 12.10. In the afternoon we had two starting at 2.15 and 2.55 to 3.35, or three on Wednesdays, the last being from 3.35 to 4.15. Forms or individuals could be kept in after school for misbehaviour. More serious misbehaviour merited one or two hours’ detention on a Saturday afternoon. Detention was held in physics lab room 15 at 2.15pm and was usually supervised by Mr T A Morris. The first hour consisted of unpleasant and painful exercises like standing with one or both arms extended horizontally for a period of five minutes. The second hour was devoted to cleaning the laboratories. Detentions were awarded by masters, though I think school prefects could recommend them. Corporal punishment was common – masters would slap you hard round the ears in class, and Mr Cheney used his inch diameter ebony foot ruler to belabour boys. Form master ‘Grassy’ Morris once apologised to me at the end of one period, saying, “Perhaps I hit the wrong boy”. For even more serious offences you would be caned on the bottom by the Headmaster in his study – the school sergeant Middleton actually performed the operation. I was threatened with caning by Garrett for jumping over a flower bed in the Headmaster’s garden: fortunately he was with his aged mother, who told him not to. In theory school prefects could cane boys, but only with a master’s permission and I never heard of such a case. A further punishment or humiliation inflicted on unpopular boys by groups of their peers at Corps camps was ‘black-balling’, involving the use of Cherry Blossom boot polish...

In the main school there were six houses, named after their present housemasters, and each had their own tie. I was placed in Dunnicliffes; others being Carters, Dudley’s Langford’s, Jacobs, and Morris’s. (Dudley had been a PoW in Germany and did not arrive till 1945, replacing someone else). I suppose the house system was meant to emulate that in public boarding schools, but it wasn’t so important in a day school, though there were various house competitions apart from sporting. I think a house could become ‘cock house’ from the sum of various competitions. Apparently BGS did count as a public school as the head was a member of the Headmasters’ Conference. I don’t think I ever did anything much for the house, and was looked on with some disfavour by Mr Dunnicliffe. Mr Dunnicliffe had red hair and a boss eye - you could never be sure whether he was looking at you or not.

I got into 3A from Upper Division in September 1943, and went on in the A classes all the way to Remove A. At 3rd form level there was ‘Shell’, 3A, 3B, and 3C; at 4th level and above, Classical, A, B and C. Additionally there was Upper Remove for boys who had to re-take the School Certificate exam – you had to re-sit all subjects, not just those you had failed in. 

3A’s form master was Mr Bone, and the form room was one the ground floor towards the NW of the main building. We started Latin, French, and Physics, while Maths was broadened to include algebra. We still had Geography, History and Divinity (RE, but all Christian) and PT ( now known as PE).

In 4A we had ‘Grassy’ Morris (so called because he went on in geography about the rolling grasslands of the South American Pampas) and we were on the ground floor next to the Headmaster’s study. We started Chemistry and German, but had to choose between History and Geography. One could have gone into 4 Classical which offered ancient Greek, however the A classes continued with Latin as it was then required for entry to Oxbridge, and BGS was very keen on winning scholarships there. (My Cambridge Natural Science Finals in 1954 included translation papers in ancient and modern languages).

In 5A we had Dick Dudley, recently returned from his spell as a PoW In Germany, and we were in physics lab 18 next to the Art Room. We now had to choose between German and Latin, so I opted for Latin, but we also had a fairly minimal course in Biology, lasting only one term. Throughout the main school we had one period a week of PT, and for some years one of Divinity.

In Remove A our form master was F C Perry, the school librarian, and our form room was a section of the Great Hall. I have the official form list for 31 December 1946 and there are 32 names on it. At the end of the school year we took the Bristol University First School Certificate exam, in my case in nine subjects: I obtained credits in maths and additional maths, and ‘very goods’ in English Language, English Literature, Latin, French, Geography, Physics and Chemistry. I think this was the best result in that year in BGS.

The 6th form classes were much smaller, as many boys left school at 16 after First School Certificate. There were Classical, Modern, Science, Maths and Economics, and each had some periods in Civics. Courses were two years long. My photograph (probably 6Sc 1st year) shows 16 boys.

My father had died in the previous October, and my mother was desperately poor, so I too was going to leave at this point. Though the mortgage was paid off with his life insurance, he left no firm’s pension, and my mother had to let rooms in our small house, and go out to work, both very unusual in those days, for ‘white-collar’ wives. However by chance she met a Clifton lady who became my benefactress. So I was enabled to stay on in the 6th form, and went into 6 Sc first year, where our form master was Mr Dunnicliffe and we were in Room 14 (the lecture theatre). Subjects in 6 Sc (both years) were Chemistry, Physics and Maths, with fairly minimal Scientific German – then thought essential for chemists. I’m afraid that after School Certificate, everyone slacked abominably in the first term, and we all had rotten school reports. It was in this year when I was 16, that we had our first and only sex education. Mr J M Harrison passed out duplicated copies of male and female genital organs (for us to stick in our exercise books) and described the process of reproduction. Everyone, including Mr Harrison was thoroughly embarrassed!

For 6 Sc second year we moved into Chemistry lab room 16, under J M Harrison, the senior chemistry master, and continued the same syllabus taking the Bristol Higher School Certificate in three subjects at the end of the school year in 1949. I got ‘very goods’ in physics and chemistry and a ‘pass’ in maths. This qualified me for a Bristol City Senior Scholarship valid for Oxbridge with a very generous maintenance grant of £232pa (and no fees to pay). State Scholarships to the same value were also awarded on the results of Highers.

To get into Oxbridge you had to apply to individual college admissions tutors to take the college’s Open Scholarship exams, held either side of Christmas, so I stayed on in a third year. One or two of us used a side room off physics lab Room 15, and T A Morris looked after us while we prepared for these exams – mainly by doing old papers under exam conditions. You then travelled up and stayed a couple of days in college, being interviewed by the tutors, and taking the written examination. I went to Trinity College Cambridge in December 1949, and Jesus College Oxford in January 1950, being driven there by John Garrett in his Hillman 10 – he was going to a college reunion nearby, and he stood me afternoon tea. At Jesus I was also eligible for a Welsh Closed Scholarship, as my father had been born in Carmarthen (in 1886). In the end, I didn’t get an Open Scholarship (or a closed one) but both colleges offered me a place as a commoner, for which I could use the City Senior Scholarship. I chose Trinity, which wanted me to go up in October 1951, which quite suited a National Service period of 18 months. Following a medical in March 1950, I was ‘deemed to have enlisted in his Majesty’s Royal Air Force’ and left BGS aged just 19.

MASTERS AT BGS (not in particular order)

The head, John Garrett was a very personable Oxford graduate who had been up in the 1920s as part of a rather louche set, including Evelyn Waugh, W H Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Peter Pears (an associate of Benjamin Britten). I think he made a perfect headmaster, though he was somewhat obsessed with the number of Oxbridge open scholarships the school could win. He had taught in Jersey before the war, and came to BGS from Raynes Park School in 1942. It was said that he tried to get Waugh to come and lecture 6 Modern on the art of novel-writing. When Waugh declined, Garrett threatened to take them in a charabanc to Waugh’s then country residence at Piers Court, Dursley. Whether this happened I do not know.

The deputy head was J M Harrison, senior chemistry master, and form master 6Sc2: a very pleasant man, who had written an inorganic chemistry textbook (1937) that was of course one of our set books. He surprised us once at a concert in the Great Hall by playing with T A Morris on two grand pianos Milhaud’s ‘Suite Scaramouche’ – notoriously difficult. No one knew that either of them was musical.

T A Morris (Tam) the senior physics master was a short dumpy man with the reputation of a martinet. He was an excellent teacher, but was extremely short sighted – using a slide rule, he pushed his gold rimmed spectacles onto his forehead, and had it about 5cm from his eye. His blackboard writing was very neat and legible, and he had extraordinary powers of mental arithmetic – he could multiply three digit numbers in his head. He was a sure shot with a piece of chalk to wake up boys who were not attending. Perhaps his supervision of detentions added to his reputation.

Frank Beecroft the senior French master was a very florid character who dressed sharply and used what we called ‘scent’, probably after-shave. He was into all the cultural activity of the school, including production of the annual school play at the Victoria Rooms. (Always Shakespeare, female parts being played by boys). 

Fred Perry (Remove A) the senior English master was a very cultured old-fashioned Yorkshireman from Keighley who wore a blue serge suit with four buttons down the front, and black boots. He did a lot to instil a love of poetry and literature in his students.

I don’t remember much about Mr Bone (3A). Mr Pick was a brilliant history teacher in the 3rd form, but rather a savage referee on the rugby field, twirling his metal whistle on its lanyard and catching you on the bottom.

Grassy Morris (4A) had us in the room next to the head’s study, and made us sit in alphabetic order, apart from the two hell-raisers Hurley and Jennings, who he had in opposite corners. A pretty good geography teacher.

Mr R C Evans a Welshman took us for Latin, and was in the habit of saying, “You’re a bit of a tic, you know”, and when extremely provoked “Take two hours!” (detention). When Hurley professed difficulty translating ‘ob tres causas’, Evans took him through it slowly, ‘ob’? H ‘because of, sir?’ E ‘tres’? H ‘three, sir? E ‘now causas, Hurley?’ H ‘bull’s botty, sir?’ The class collapsed, and Hurley got away with it.

Mr Osborne took us in the 4th form for German, and was very good. His proposition in 1944 that German is not a guttural language did not go down very well. Mr Jack took us sometime around then. I cannot remember what taught, but he thrilled us with a story of driving a Morgan three-wheeler to Scotland on the wrong side of the road because of fog (so that he could follow the kerb).

Mr Dudley (5A) was reticent about his flying experience, but became the officer in charge of the ATC – later the RAF section of the CCF. He was very keen on fresh air, so when in class we ascertained when he was approaching the room, and seconds before he arrived we would close all the windows. Invariably he said, "Bit of a fug in here, isn't there?" and called for them to be opened.

Reggie Holt was a one-eyed man who took us for chemistry in the lab over the library. He famously set his gown alight by leaning back over the front demonstration bench, on which was a Bunsen on a very low flame (for lighting his cigarettes). “Please Sir, you’re on fire!”

A new chemistry master after the war was always called ‘Copperas’ (‘Copperbottom’) after his teaching us about it (ferrous sulphate) - his skin had a very coppery appearance, and he looked incredibly young. 

Hadyn Tanner a former Welsh International scrum half joined and taught trigonometry – I didn’t find him a likeable character. Whether he did anything for the school’s rugby I do not know.

Mr Keane took us for art in room 17, and I remember the visit of the then Queen Mother, Queen Mary (a real sort of queen who wore a toque). My watercolour was suppressed, as being colour-blind; I had painted a mauve sea.

Mr Tapp took us for wood and metalwork in the separate building to the NW of the main block. One produced mortise joints, teapot stands, pipe/toothbrush racks, and if you were very good, a table lamp. Otherwise diving-weights where we cast lead into hollow wooden sections, and copper ashtrays. Given a 20cm dia piece of copper sheets, one hit it with a soft mallet on a leather cushion, and after what seemed several weeks work mine all of a sudden achieved the right shape. But my mother threw it away!

Mr Barham was the PT instructor in the gym, where we did the usual exercises, and tossed very heavy medicine balls (4or 5kg) to each other. As a treat we played ‘Pirates’ at the end of term, a form of tag where seamen were chased by pirates – the wooden floor was water to be avoided so you had to stick to mats, horses, bars ropes, and ladders.

Mr Cheney, the organist taught French, and laid about himself with the ebony ruler. Detecting a bad smell in class one morning, he got the culprit (P D Gardiner) to own up and then lectured us all on the desirability of evacuating the bowels before coming to school.

A Mrs Smith was the only female teacher – she took us for biology for a term or so in the 5th form.

Sergeant Middleton was the head porter, apparently a former NCO or warrant officer in the Army; he had a little box-like office in the main entrance. He had a very commanding presence, and dressed in a smart military style uniform. He normally drilled the Corps on parade.

SPORTS

On compulsory sports days, Thursday afternoons, we reported to Golden Hill to play rugby, hockey or cricket according to season. There were also standards that you were supposed to reach in athletics, and these counted towards the cock-house competition. My performance in these was pretty abysmal and Mr Dunnicliffe suggested the 440yds (one lap of a cricket boundary) would suit me best. However I developed a stitch and had to sit down half way round. My cricket ball-throwing wasn’t very good either.

Rugby was a bit different in those days: we played in soccer boots for want of anything else, the scoring system was 3 for a try and 2 for a conversion, when the ball was always steadied by a player on the ground, and drop goals were discouraged as being almost unsporting. At least the outcome of set scrums and line-outs was less predictable than today. The school played a variety of other schools around Bristol and Bath on Saturday afternoons, and we were encouraged to go along to support them

My games prowess was such that after selection of school, house, senior A, and senior B teams there were senior B remainders for the likes of me. Often there was no master to supervise the remainders, and in later years it fell to me. At least I could play in whatever position I liked, and referee-ing was very ad hoc.

When I was due to leave in the summer of 1947, my name had been taken off the house list, and I discovered this on my first games afternoon in 6Sc1. I then bunked off games for the next 6 weeks, until Mr Dunnicliffe spoke one Friday morning “I didn’t see you at Golden Hill yesterday, Stickland”, “No sir”, “I’ll see you there next Thursday then”, Yes sir”. We both knew my crime, but he didn’t want to admit losing anyone!

I enjoyed cricket rather more but it did go on a bit on summer afternoons, so I opted to go swimming instead, to save time. My best score in senior B remainders was 16, with 2 wickets taken. Hockey was played by some in the spring term. A friend remarked recently that he had played Red Maids, and they were a vicious lot. It was probably a scratch game on Durdham Downs.

There was a annual compulsory cross country race mainly in the grounds of Blaise Castle; about four miles for seniors, less for juniors. In my last competing year, Hurley, Gardiner and I were walking up Coombe Lane towards the finish at the University Sports Ground, smoking a quiet cigarette when we met masters J M Harrison and T A Morris coming the other way, under the impression that it was all over. We had to jettison the ciggies and break into a trot, and the other two being faster, I was recorded as 287th and last. Thereafter I became a race marshall.

THE CORPS

The army section, the OTC, morphing into JTC and then CCF was dressed in WW1 uniforms when I first saw them – tunics and breeches with puttees, and they drilled with WW1 rifles (MK3* short magazine Lee Enfields) which they still had in 1950 when I left. I think they had given up marching in columns of four by 1941. They had a fife and drum band that made a frightful noise as they marched up and down the yard playing ‘Marching through Georgia’. After the war ended, they went on field days and summer camps, but until then I think all activities were within school.

I joined the ATC I suppose in 5A, there being a lower age limit. With other schools, we were part of No 1425 (?) Squadron and our first parades were down at QEH, where we drilled with old American rifles. But we soon moved back to BGS. Activities on Tuesday afternoons included foot and arms drill, shooting, and aircraft recognition classes, plus talks on RAF matters. We shot on the small-bore range at school, using Lee Enfields tubed-down to 0.22in calibre, and at an 800yd range at Pilning with 0.303in Mk4 Lee Enfields: after firing 72 rounds one afternoon my shoulder was rather sore. We went out on field days with the JTC, with lots of blank ammunition for the rifles, and ‘Thunderflashes’, very large bangers. Letting one of these off in a loose cowpat was spectacular. The ATC had a field day on which we were supposed to assault RAF Aston Down, and a group of us managed to reach the control tower by an outflanking move. Offered a meal in the airmen’s’ mess, we had no kfs to eat it!

We were also given instructional flights in a variety of aircraft from the RAF reserve station at Filton, and at the consecutive yearly summer camps at RAF St Eval, Cranwell and Hullavington. It was the first time that anyone flew, and there was a rule that cadets wore parachute harnesses and carried parachutes. 

I went on a gliding course at RAF Colerne, near Bath, where we were driven in a very old bus given by Bristol Tramways to the Bristol ATC. We always had to stop halfway up Colerne Hill to refill the radiator. Normally once a week on Saturdays, but with a final weekend. They were single seat gliders, and after sessions of wing balancing (If there was sufficient wind) we were attached and towed by a long steel cable to a balloon winch and progressed through ground slides, low hops and high hops. Out longest flights were less than a minute, having been released from tow at about 100ft or so. We retrieved the gliders (and cables) using ‘Beaverettes’, cut-down armoured cars with two cadets sitting at the back – one to hang onto front of the glider fuselage, and the other to hold a wing strut to keep the wings level. I ended up with a Category A Gliding Licence.

My proficiency and advanced training certificates from the ATC were very useful in that I was excused two of the eight weeks basic training when called up for National Service in the RAF: I was also entitled to choose my ‘trade’ and so became a sergeant in the Education Branch.

OTHER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Apart from ATC activities, I had only one general school trip in the whole of my time at BGS: a visit to the Odeon cinema to see the 1944 film version of ‘Henry V’, with Laurence Olivier. During the war there was no travel anywhere of course, but after 1946 there were residential trips to Paris, staying at a girls’ school – however we could not afford them.

Senior boys did go to the Museum Lecture Theatre down University Road. I remember recitals by Peter Pears and Nina Milkina (piano) and a talk on stagecraft by Peggy Ashcroft.

The school Scientific Society organised visits to local factories, but I think we had to find our own way there. We went to Spiller’s grain elevator and National Smelting at Avonmouth, the Canons Marsh gasworks, Poeton’s electroplating near Old Market, Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton, and Wills Tobacco in Bedminster. Wills was fascinating, with a lot of intricate machinery for making cigarettes and many different forms of pipe-tobacco. They gave you a packet of twenty at the end of the visit, but thought Copperas (our accompanying master) too young to have cigarettes.

The Caving club of which I was a member, cycled out 15 or 20 miles to the Mendips on Sundays; to Burrington for Goatchurch, Sidcot and Rod’s Pot, or to Priddy for Swildon’s Hole, Eastwater and GB Cave. We wore rugby boots and shirts, with old trousers, and had candles and acetylene lamps, no helmets, and we cycled home sometimes wet and muddy. After an overnight stay at the Belfry, a University cavng hut in Priddy, P D Gardiner said that Mr Dunnicliffe had dangled his dong in Peter's soup. Perhaps indicative of the squalor in the Belfry, we didn't altogether believe this.

For school dinners, if we didn’t go home, British Restaurants were invented in 1940, to provide substantial adult meals for 9d. I remember Mr Pitt describing with feigned horror the cafeteria system, which ‘polite society’ had never experienced before. There was one I used on a bomb site at the corner of Tyndalls Park Road and Whiteladies Road, and another in the incomplete Council House on ColMr Dunniclife had red hair and a boss eye - you could never be sure whether he was looking at you or not.lege Green. (The unicorns on the roof were ‘lost’ during the war, but were delivered later, a complete surprise).

The SE end of the Great Hall was converted into a dining area with servery and kitchen behind a wooden screen. Two course lunches were 5d (say2p) a day, paid by tickets bought weekly in advance, and it was not a cafeteria. We sat at tables of six, and a monitor was appointed to collect the meals with a large tray. Grace was said from the lectern on the Hall dais before (Dominie Deus, agimus tibi gratias...) and after the meal (Benedico benedicatur...) Common dishes were fish or cheese and potato pie, a curious meat pie, very thinly sliced meat and liver, with boiled potato and cabbage much in evidence. Puddings included the ever popular stodge with custard, and various sagos, tapiocas with a dob of red jam. I don’t remember much ‘pickiness’ or wastage at school dinners.

Senior boys were allowed out at lunchtime – I was once ejected from the Museum and Art Gallery for parking my school cap on a bust of Ernest Bevin (then Foreign Secretary). I thought it suited him. After Saturday morning school, many used to go to the Dugout, a bar under Bright’s department store in Queens Road, to drink halves of beer and smoke. Otherwise Grant’s ice cream shop in Coldharbour Road became a popular place to meet each other (and girls) when ice cream became available again. On Sunday evenings we all went to the ‘Speaker’s Corner’ on the Downs to hear the fascist John Webster slag off Mrs Gilchrist, the communist.             

Speech days were interesting: Garrett conjured up eminent people to give away prizes – I had them from Admiral of the Fleet Lord Tovey, and from His Excellency Lewis Douglas US Ambassador to the Court of St James. (OB Sir Oliver Franks was then our ambassador in Washington). The National Anthem was played and the school song ‘Nunc universo gaudio...’ (soon needing an update) was sung: and Shiner managed ‘The Star Spangled Banner’. The visiting dignitary always asked the headmaster for an extra half day’s holiday of course.

Though I lived and worked in Bristol after graduating until 1959, and didn’t lose connection with Bristol until 1970, I never joined the Old Bristolians, but associated with a group, mainly old boys, interested in competitive motor sport (rallies, trials, autocross, sprints and speed hill climbs) usually organised by the Bristol MC&LCC. However I came to the 1945-50 Reunion at Failand on 15 March 2003 where among others I encountered Erik (E F M) Sperring, one of three who went youth hostelling on bicycles to Land’s End in the summer of 1947. We contacted the third member Tony (A W) Horne and later repeated the trip, now in cars, and with wives, visiting 10 of the 12 hostels we had used 57 years before. I also went hostelling in 1948 to the Wye Valley with Erik and A M Bennett, and in 1949 to Dover with Bennett and Hubert (H F) Bolton. Such long trips were common among the senior boys.

Note that Christian or forenames were NEVER used for boys in school, only surnames, or perhaps nicknames. Jennings was always 'Jerky', B E Giles was 'Blower' (don't ask) while H J Scawin ( a scaly character) was 'George, Garbage, Rubberguts, Tombstone'. Masters often had nicknames. 

I returned to school on Remembrance Day 2015, and after the service and lunch, talked with some of the students (in the old woodworking shop) about my experience at BGS in the war years and after, producing my Ration Book and Identity Card, and pictures of gas masks, producer-gas buses and the like. The Roll of Honour had included my cousin I K J Bidgood d1941) and my very near neighbour T E Waters GC d Korea 1951.

At 91 I have only one schoolmate living (that I know of) R N Thomas, and one some years younger R Bonsall, but I have not seen either for some years.

Paul Stickland

Written 21 August 2022

• Photographs include five about school and seven showing the different aircraft type I flew in while in the ATC; dual-control in the single engine ones. 
• You have seen the two before with John Garrett/J M Harrison, and the quartet on the garden seat. The people in the 6Sc1 photograph from 1948 are, L to R: 
  • Front row: Sperring, Horne, D J H Giles, Neale, Stickland
  • Centre:      ?, K C Smith, Mansfield, P A McKeown, Bolton
  • Rear           King, Thompson, A M Bennett, Husband, Elliot, Scawin
  • Flying Officer (Dick) Dudley is immediately to (our) left of the CO in the 1949 Hullavington photo, while I am third from the right in the row behind.