It was the first week of September, I seem to remember it was a wet and windy Thursday, I was feeling uncomfortable in my new uniform with my new school bag. There was no doubting we were the lowest of the low, a shock to the system after having been on the top tier of our previous schools, everything that day seemed design to bring home to us our insignificance.
After arrival our first stop was our designated cloakroom where we duly deposited our regulation school raincoats and hung our school caps on the pegs. Then we were all brought together in the main hall where the great Mr Sexton read out our names and we put our hand in the air when ours was called. I don’t remember being told which of the three forms I had been allocated to but the next thing I remember was being in our form room where our processing was continued by our form master.
Our new form master, a large fat man whose jovial manner I was to learn masked a dark side, seemed to find the whole thing highly amusing and singled out a couple of kids, inviting us to snigger at them and of course we duly obliged. Under his direction we copied out our school timetables, which lessons we would attend in which rooms.
Then things took a rather sinister turn, we where given forms to complete with details of our parents position in life. The school wanted to know, for both parents, their names, occupations, educational and professional qualifications – basically they wanted to know where our families stood in the British class system. I don’t know to this day whether this information was being collected on orders from the education authority or had been unilaterally implemented by Mr Sexton though I think one must strongly suspect the latter. I was not happy even at the time and looking back I find it totally distasteful and wonder how long this practice continued.
I don’t remember much about lessons with the exception of PE where we met a rather ill at ease youngish teacher who seemed to be attempting to compensate for his lack of confidence by doing a bad impression of an army drill instructor. Many, many years later I discovered it was also his first day at the school. Having rather enjoyed PE at my previous schools I was shocked by the realisation that it was no longer going to be “fun”. He often told us “I’m not asking you to do anything I can’t do myself” rather missing the point that he was a fully grown man and we were boys.
At one time during the day I had occasion to visit the toilets, I was followed in by a very unprepossessing older youth with a hair helmet and surly manner who proceeded to one of the cubicles and I heard the sound of metal objections being dropped down the lavatory pan. Apparently the latest craze was stealing cutlery from the canteen, bending or breaking them in half, and flushing them down the toilet. Describing this as mindless yobbery seemed an insult to mindless yobbery. To say I felt trapped in a nightmare was an understatement, if I was with the elite I could only wonder what life was like at a secondary modern school.
Eventually “home time” arrived and we went to the cloakroom to find that the nice neat rows of caps had been too much of a provocation for the older yobs who had played football with them and left them strewn over the filthy floor. Welcome to your new school!
Then I was out of the front gate and blessed relief, somewhat dimmed by the prospect of having to come back and go through it all again the next day. It was the start of the most unhappy five years of my life. When I joined Francis Bacon it was a Grammar School and I had to fight for my place as there was a much more convenient secondary modern dustbin school just up the road. However, pupils who had no such convenient dustbin school got a place at Francis Bacon regardless of ability. Of course attempting to dispense a Grammar School education to those without any desire to be educated caused serious problems.
Brings it all back, I too remember the intrusive family data questionnaire and agree very distasteful. Cannot believe it was instigated by the local education authority, more likely the Sexton mafia trying to identify the working class kids.
This article brings back many unpleasant memories for me.
I joined the school in 1962 when it was still in Alma Road and another annex round the corner from the former prison. We had moved from Eastbourne to London Colney in August 1962 and I started senior school in September, a complete stranger in the company of what seemed like hundreds of other pupils who all seemed to know each other.
I certainly remember the intrusive form about my parent’s occupations. If my daughter had ever come home with a questionnaire like this I’d have written “Mind your own business” in big red capital letters across it, but we’re going back fifty six years ago now and things were different then, so I remember the form was dutifully filled in, together with the agreement that we’d contribute to the “voluntary” school fund. I think it was something like 7/6d (37 1/2p in today’s money) which in those days was a hell of a lot of money.
I also remember that the school uniform had to be purchased from Charles Mares menswear shop in St Albans, about the most expensive shop on the city from what I can remember. Once again, it was a major burden for my parents. Nowadays you can get school uniform at throwaway prices from places like Primark, Asda and Tesco. In my younger days you had to get it from an approved supplier.
I must have just scraped through the 11 plus and always found lessons a struggle. I don’t have any fond memories of my time there or of any of the teachers. When I started studying for my “A” levels I wasn’t allowed to do the two subjects which I was good at, English language and geography. I had to do English literature and economics instead. Although passing both, it never got me anywhere and I ended up with a job I could have done by leaving school without any qualifications whatsoever.
All in all, I look back on my time at Francis Bacon Grammar School as seven years of my life wasted. Whoever said schooldays are the best days of your life never went to the same schools as me.
The “voluntary” contribution to school funds was something I had forgotten about. Rather like a protection racket, pay up or your kid gets it!
I can’t remember how much it was 7/6d seems high could it have been 2/6 (half a crown in those days)? I do remember we had little books in which our donations were recorded. When I had a difference of opinions with certain members of staff I persuaded my mother to cease payments and received the third degree from my form teacher as to why.
Certain questions needed to be answered about these funds: where were they held? who had access? why were no accounts ever produced?
I am afraid that in the absence of proper documentation, and the obvious lack of understanding that accountability was necessary, you are forced to certain conclusions.
If they were collecting only 2/6d a week (12.5p) over 40 weeks a year, making £3000 per annum, which equates to £39,000 per today. Not exactly peanuts, what on earth happened to it?