Chris Rook (JRGS 1961-68) reacts to school memorabilia found on The Mill...

I have enjoyed the JRGS web-site for many years, and am truly grateful for our webmaster's commitment to it. It must have soaked up many hours, but I guess from the content it has been a labour of love.
   I was at the school from 19661 to 1968, and I am convinced it was the best period ever. Of course, many would say the same thing and we all have something in common; the fondness with which we look back on that time; and the regret that we didn't realise then what a privilege it was to be taught by such charismatic teachers. The alumni know them all well, so I will resist teaching you to suck eggs.
   I happened to be driving past the school as it was being demolished and, without fear or trepidation, I clambered over the rubble and made it into the foyer. I recall vividly how the staircase to Mr. "Joe" Lowe's office ended abruptly and there on the floor was a framed photo of HM The Queen. I think I shed a tear. The only souvenir I could rescue was a cutting of the pyracantha that maybe the school caretaker Percy Eagleton had grown next to the front entrance. I grew a robust bush from it, and it's still going strong.
   I only went to one JRGS Reunion and, thank God, Mr. "Ego" Murray  was there, along with Martin Nunn and a few others. Of course, "Ego" didn't remember me and, truth be told, he didn't have a reason to. Mr. Nunn, on the other hand, was a mine of useful information. And he had even salvaged many of his old work-books; and there we were all recorded, sins and all. Another fascinating artifact was the "Corporal Punishment Register"; yours truly appeared in it twice.
   I was overjoyed to see myself and many contemporaries in the 1967 school photo. I wondered if our webmaster could put me in touch with the current keeper to see if a copy can be purchased. It would give me hours of fun putting names to faces.
   Thanks once again for the alumni's selfless devotion to this fantastic collection of memories, photos and information - much of which I never knew. Needless to say, if there is a 2020 Reunion in the pipeline, I would be delighted to help with the organisation.

Chris Rook, AnyTown, AnyCounty; July 2019 Email.

Your Webmaster adds: Regarding our school photographs, Panora Ltd.'s negatives were deposited in 1986 with the Documentary Photography Archive (DPA) by the firm's managing director, who had sold his business but retained the negatives. These date from September, 1968, to July, 1985; earlier negatives have not survived. Panora Ltd was subsequently dissolved in 1989. DPA is an independent registered charity whose collections are now housed at The Greater Manchester County Record Office.

 Graham Donaldson (JRGS 1962-69) reports on common school experiences...

During the recent Reunion Planning Lunch at The Surprise pub in Shirley, it was particularly interesting to talk to Ken Woolston (JRCS 1934-39), who was at John Ruskin Central School in Tamworth Road at the same time as my Dad. Ken couldn’t remember him, but it was a long time ago. However, in a further coincidence, both of them joined the RAF as soon as they were eligible.
   Ken trained as an electrical engineer and then spent most of the remainder of the war in Egypt servicing Spitfires – a vital job. Dad trained as a pilot and then a navigator, but it took a long time to train and there were delays in even getting onto courses, which meant it was around VJ Day when he was finally passed for duty while serving at Jurby on the Isle of Man. The airmen were all given the evening off to go into Douglas for the celebrations – it seems they didn’t need to buy many drinks as all the local girls thought they were heroes, even though they hadn’t actually done any operational flying!
   After the war both of them returned to their previous employers, Ken to shipping insurance and Dad to the advertising agency that used to be at Shirley Lodge in Shirley Road (and which I walked past twice a day whilst at school). He had already met his future wife there so the rest, as they say, is history. Ken’s marriage took him into the pub trade, having become bored with insurance and commuting. He was involved in running Croydon hostelries, including the King’s Arms (demolished in the 1960s redevelopment now itself being demolished), and the Red Lion at Coulsdon, lost in the 1990s. His final venue was four years at the Clifton Hotel just outside the historic walls of York.
   Dad went on to design exhibition stands, the biggest assignments being for the Ford Motor Company at the Earl’s Court Motor Show and bi-annual Commercial Motor Show, which meant we invariably got free tickets! And he got the chance to meet again with Mr. "Wally" Cracknell and Mr. Pearman at parents’ evenings. Sadly, he died in 2007 after a long and sad decline due to Alzheimer's.
   I also attach here a photo of Katharine House and other buildings opposite Croydon Town Hall being demolished. We remember them being built, of course! Flats and retail units will eventually take their place.
   Click on the thumbnail image to view a larger version.

 David Anderson (JRGS 1964-71) recalls an historical event from 50 years ago...

Saturday, 20th July, marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in 1969; the mission was launched today, 16th of July. Where were we all five decades ago? I had just finished the O-Level exams at JRGS. What a relief! We watched the TV coverage in black and white and very poor quality. But, no matter, because it was history in the making. Sir Patrick "We just don't know" Moore and James Burke presented the BBC-TV coverage.
   What were you and other Alumni doing on this momentous day?

   Not much long afterwards, someone that us JRGS lads knew acquired a colour TV (!) and we all used to visit his house to see the new comedy programme Monty Python's Flying Circus with its vivid animations by Terry Gilliam. It was Marvelous fun and some still can recall the words used in the sketches. (Most of it now on YouTube). Watching it was like being at the cinema with various friends arriving; the room got quite crowded. I missed the programme's first few episodes because I had not latched on to it being comedy. I do not like circuses!
   I recall the Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin and her lovely song Temma Harbour. Looking for this on YouTube I found her version of Ralph McTell's Streets of London, a great song sung so well by a singer with lovely voice. Ralph was at JRGS for a while. Take a look at his Wikipedia entry.

David Anderson, Southampton, Hampshire; July 2018 Email

Roger Hall (JRGS 1959-66) adds: I sat up watching the tele and ... woke up to find them walking on the moon.

Anne Smith (JRHS/JRC teacher/principal 1970-99) adds: My daughter was born on 23 June, 1969. So in July I was awake nursing her and looking out of the window at the moon - and at the same time looking on the television at the moon. And although I was rationally sure that man had just landed there, and I had witnessed it, yet I simply could not accept that this was so.

Your webmster adds: I recall being at home during the summer between my first and second year at the University of Sussex and, with little else to do, watched the real-time coverage of the Apollo 11 landing and moon walk. It wasn't until several years later that I discovered that astronaut Neil Armstrong messed up his landmark speech, which was supposed to have been: "The Eagle has landed. That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind." As we now know, he omitted the word "a" before "man."
   I also read in today's New York Times that three reels of videotape to be auctioned at Sotheby’s on Saturday could fetch as much as $1 million. The material is considered the "only surviving first-generation recordings of the historic moon walk," and "the earliest, sharpest, and most accurate surviving video images of man’s first steps on the moon."
   Apparently, the images we saw on TV were up-converted from a 10 fps video feed sent from the moon - the 250,000-mile link only offered limited bandwidth - and was then severely degraded after passing through myriad microwave links, satellite hops and landlines in virtually real time.
   According to Sotheby’s, a NASA intern bought the recordings as part of a collection of 1,150 reels at a government surplus auction in 1976, paying $217.77 for all of them. The bidding on Saturday starts at $700,000, and Sotheby’s estimates they will sell for over $1 million/£780,000.

Duncan Smith (JRGS 1957-63) adds: Where was I in 1969 when the moon landing took place? I had just finished doing two years of farming experience in order to qualify for entrance into the Harper Adams Agricultural College (now University College) to study agriculture and farm management. I was there for two years there, and then studied plant pathology at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, which is now a university too. After two more years there, I went to Exeter University - finally an actual university! - where I again did postgraduate studies in plant pathology.

 Julian Smalley (JRGS 1959-66) reports on his career after leaving the school...

Before boring everyone with a potted life history, I have two thoughts. The first is that, looking back, how lucky I think I was going to that school and how much I owe to that incredible set of young and middle-aged men who, having recently participated in the most awful of wars, spent their days attempting to educate a bunch of callow, self-centered youths.
   My second thought is the vivid recollection at the age of 15 that in the year 2000 I would be 52. I still remember the awful sense of inevitability some 19 years after that sell-by date.
   So, I’ll make this missive as brief as possible.
   I was lucky enough in those grant-generous days to get a place after JRGS at the Architectural Association School in Bedford Square, Central London, where I came across a breed of young people that I’d had no idea of as an innocent grammar school boy: The Public School crowd. Wow, that was a shock, but we all managed to enjoy each others company.
   It took five years to graduate, with a year out in the middle to gain practical experience. Well, I did six months of that year out in an architect’s office and spent the rest travelling the US and Mexico. Those were the days of Running on Empty and hitch-hiking was a real adventure. I even worked as a painter in New Orleans. I remember hearing the news of Jimi Hendrix’ death on a car radio late at night in the wilderness of Nebraska heading for Des Moines.
   I graduated as an assistant architect in 1972 and then worked in London for a small firm in Camden Town, where I learned a lot from an elderly Irish contractor who would pay his men their weekly wages in the pub on Camden Parkway.
   But my urge to travel was growing and I joined the contracting firm, Taylor Woodrow, in Oman. But the real urge was focused on South East Asia - thanks to Joseph Conrad - and so, after spending six months travelling in Borneo, Indonesia and Malaysia, in 1977 I secured a job in Brunei designing and building a hospital. I stayed there for three years and enjoyed working on the project enormously.
   Next I went to Hong Kong in 1982. This was to be the major move of my life as it was there that I met and married my wife, Mee Mee. We lived in Hong Kong for 18 years and our two daughters were born there in 1987 (Laura) and 1994 (Ruth). In the late Nineties, we came to live in Singapore, my wife’s home. I continued to be based in HK, where I was involved in major development in Beijing that was under construction at that time.
   In all I stayed with my company for 33 years, during which time I have been lucky to have worked in many countries, including China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Myanmar, Thailand, Kazakhstan and the UAE. The Lucky Architect gets to travel. I consider myself very lucky also for the many projects worked on and the extraordinary people encountered.
   I finally retired at the end of 2017 and am now living quietly in Singapore with my wife and our younger daughter, a documentary film maker; our elder daughter is a lawyer in the Cayman Islands. Currently, I potter and am working on a mural for a local community centre, as seen below. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version. (Maybe I should caption it: "Old Geezer owes it all to Vic Gee?")
   Soon I will be working with a friend to realize his dream of creating a Singapore Model Railway Museum.

   So the years roll on from 2000 AD with alarming speed, and I look back at that kid of 15 and smile.
   All the best to you all.

Julian Smalley, Singapore; July 2019 Email

Karl W.  Smith (JRGS 1946-51) adds: All power to Julian Smalley. I too have only recently fully appreciated just how much I owe to the JRGS staff of my time there. It's too late to thank them personally but, despite the lack of co-operation from some of us, they did succeed in getting a lot home that has stood the test of time. Mr. "Puncher" Pearce, in particular, had his own very effective methods for getting Maths into our heads!
   But, as for self-centered, callow youths, Julian, I trust you speak for your own generation because mine was that much closer to WW2 and so many of the staff of my day had only just been demobbed.

Colin Taylor (JRGS 1959-64) adds: My sentiments exactly! Well said, Julian.

 Your Webmaster recalls his first day at the school six decades ago...

As I mentioned in a recent email to The Alumni, I started at JRGS in September, 1959 - almost 60 years ago. And what a terrifying experience it was. I was weedy for my age and, with a birthday in August, younger than most of the incoming boys in 1M. Also, the sixth-form lads were larger and more fierce-looking than I was used to at my mixed junior school. And the all-male teachers, with their black gowns, were much more intimidating, I recall.
   I was so spooked after that first day's lunch-time experience and the intimidating atmosphere in the playground - hazing of "Brats" was pretty commonplace, I discovered - that I persuaded my Mother to travel into Croydon on Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtime. We met at the Black&White Café next to Kennard's department store on both days. The experience calmed my nerves to a certain extent. I soon learned that the older boys were simply continuing the school transition of keeping new, younger entrants firmly in their place.
   I had also made a friend in 1M of the late Ian "Iggy" Green, whose brother David was in the sixth form and hence provided some degree of protection for his younger brother. That umbrella was extended to Ian's pals, I learned, and hence my subsequent days at the school were less intimidating. I soon settled into a routine and began to enjoy the new subjects to which we were exposed in that academic environment, including - surprisingly!- Latin, Geography, RI, History and Mathematics, plus Biology, Physics and Chemistry.
   I consider those six years spent at JRGS in Shirley to be the most formative experience of my life, and one that set me on the road to an interesting and - so far - rewarding career.
   How about others? I invited contributions from anybody regarding their first impressions of either the Tamworth Road or Upper Shirley Road locations.

Mel Lambert, Burbank, CA, USA. May2019 Email

Colin Taylor (JRGS 1959-64) adds: I also started at Ruskin in '59 and I'm sure I was in the same class as our webmaster: 1M with Mr. Kenneth Maggs. I was also terribly skinny in those days - I grew up with very little appetite for food. I remember people like Derek Powis and Roger Holcombe who seemed very beefy to me. Also "Robbo" Robertson. I thought Ken Maggs was a lovely guy. (Incidentally I heard he lost his hand during the war when the field gun he was on got hit by a German shell.) I was very much into football in those days but my pathetic body didn't get me very far. I was always a defender and recall usually playing left back with Martin Loveday playing right back. Fond memories.

Mike Beaumont (JRGS 1955-60) adds: My one overriding memory of that first day arriving at the new school on Shirley Hills in 1956 was of being corralled by older boys, who tied my shoe laces to the railings. It was impossible to untie them so I had to snap the laces and walk around with loose shoes! Then there was the threat of the dreaded foaming “lurgy”in the tanks outside the kitchens.
   Character forming?!? Happy days!

Geoffrey Farmer (JRGS 1959-64) adds: Thanks to our webmaster for forwarding all the emails relating to the 1H and 5U class photos; I was busy moving house at the time and never got round to responding. However, the current correspondence was a welcome distraction at a stressful time.
   As to my first impressions of the school in 1959, like our webmaster I was overawed by the masters in their gowns and the size of the building. One thing that comes to mind is the sorry state of most of the text books we were issued, and then instructed to cover with brown paper. I had expected better quality books. I was also taken aback by the intensity of the lessons across all subjects. Other shocks to the system were the amount of homework, discipline, and the high standards expected of us.
   I was very impressed with the organ in the main hall and looked forward to the recitals after assembly, particularly those played with relish by Mr. Field. I didn’t enjoy the sports lessons in the winter months, having to change in those freezing changing rooms at the end of Oaks Lane.
   Considering that we were from differing backgrounds, and most of us had not met each other before the first day, I think we jelled well as a group fairly quickly. I would not have had such a successful and rewarding career had it not been for the education, in its broadest sense, that I received at Ruskin, but I didn’t appreciate it at the time. One other thing that comes to mind is that Mr. Smith’s classroom was the only one in which the desks were not covered in ink and graffiti.

Bob Hyslop (JRGS 1953-60) adds: I have three memories of my first day at Tamworth Road in September 1953:

1. I felt VERY lonely and miserable in a corner of playground dominated by much larger boys charging about in front of a rather bleak and unwelcoming building.

2. I cheered up tremendously when I secured my place in the back row next to a large window. So? I quickly realised I could look down at the site of the murder in November 1952 of a policeman by Christopher Craig. Even then the case had already leaped into notoriety. Craig (16) pulled the trigger but it was his partner, Derek Bentley. who hanged in January 1953. Why? Nobody under 18 could be hanged then, but anyone involved in the crime ran that risk. The case caused controversy for nearly 50 years, producing several books and a film, Let Him Have It.

3. I nearly forgot. Just in front of me sat Pete Grey, and we've been friends for nearly 70 years.

Quite a day, I would say.

Bob Wane (JRGS 1945-53) adds: Here are some of my recollections of early days at JRGS.
    After five+ years of war not knowing whether the next bomb was going to be yours, whether your father would return from fighting, rationing of everything still in full swing - a banana, what is that? Orange, a colour in a book? - we survived to become the first year of the school with a newly enhanced [grammar school] status of what was to be JRGS in 1945.
   I passed my 11-Plus in Sheffield, where I was having some respite. Clad in our new school uniform from Hewitt's (perhaps they were coupon free) we assembled in the playground at the front of the school awaiting our form master/mistress. I seem to remember short trousers were still being worn!
   Early recollections that stand out include Mr. Chinnock trying to teach us the rudiments of woodworking with exercises in making dovetail joints. and Mr. Gee patiently inducting us into the world of art painting using copious amounts of poster paint. School lunches in the Gym were possibly the main meal for some; not bad value at 6d.
   In today’s age, it is difficult to properly describe the anxiety and deprivation that many of us had experienced at that time. I am sure were very grateful to have had this opportunity to regain an orderly, if disciplined, routine that JRGS provided.

Peter Baron (JRGS 1959-66) adds: I too started at Ruskin in September 1959 and was in 1G with the art teacher Mr. "Vic" Gee. (What did he do all day? I don’t recall Art being high on the agenda of learning at Ruskin!)
   I remember we were seated in alphabetical order and as far as I recall it started something like this: Baron, Boyes, Brigden, Bush, Byford, Charles, Chiswick, Dyer, Ead, Gerlach, Graham, Hollidge, Horner ... That’s where the memory dries up! Would be interested to know if any other 1G alumni could correct or add to the list.
   I also recall first encounter with the fearsome Mr. Smith by The Windmill when we were all us first formers were gathered together, and our names called out by "Smut" to see if we had played football at primary school. Weren’t we known as “Brats” to the second years upwards?

John "Jack" Jackaman JRGS 1951-1953) adds: My arrival at JRGS was a transfer from the Heath Clark Central School in Thornton Heath. I passed my 11-Plus examinations but had been evacuated to Perth in Scotland, and was hence unable to attend the usual associated interview. As a result, I ended up at Heath Clark where I passed the Oxford School Certificate and met my future wife.
   Arriving at JRGS to continue my education was a sort of parachuting into a school at age 16 and adjusting to a somewhat different environment than I had been used to, and to make new friends. JRGS, an all-boys school was different, but I appear to have adjusted well. Although a newcomer, I was appointed in my final year as captain of my house and vice captain of the school.
   Unlike many of my contemporaries, I was not a scholar. But the regimented system of houses and prefects must have appealed to me and it certainly helped when I joined the RAF for my National Service. My memories of events and people mention in other contributions to these early memories are still vivid in my mind. I got to know [secretary and general matron] Mrs. Vera Garwood well, as she eventually came to Canada with her naval Captain Kidd, and we met many times at various military functions in BC. I also remember the notorious Bentley and Craig murder of a policeman at the nearby confectionery factory. I knew Lucy Craig, as she was a member of a swimming club I belonged to.
   I am now 86 years old in my 31st year of retirement, and continue to travel widely. I look back on my British education as happy times and one that prepared me so well for my future life. For those who may be interested in my JRGS experiences and my life details can be found in a submission I made to The Mill in June 2010 on page 62. I appreciated the efforts being made by our Webmaster and those organizing reunions as labours of love. We can learn so much by keeping the past alive.

 Richard “Tom” Thomas (JRGS 1957-64) meets Martin Preuveneers for lunch...

I was very pleased to travel down from Shrewsbury to London on Saturday, 18th May, to meet for lunch with Martin Preuveneers (JRGS 1958-65), pictured below on the right. Martin was over in the UK for one of his periodic visits from the USA. We first met for coffee and a chat at his London townhouse in Mayfair, before going to Corrigan’s in Mayfair for lunch.

We had an excellent meal and were able to put the World to Rights over a glass of red wine. Following that, in brilliant sunshine, we walked around Grosvenor Square to see the complex conversion works underway on the former American Embassy Building, which is Listed, as well as similar such works on several other buildings around the Square. It seems the ongoing rate of development and conversion work in London remains very high.
   After tea at Martin’s place I returned to Shrewsbury, but not before a short visit to The London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

Richard "Tom" Thomas, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. May 2019 Email