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To be honest, I was a little bit semi-detached from social,
though not academic, life at JRGS. This was partly because I
lived way out on the northeast boundary of Croydon Borough, near
Anerley, and nobody at school except me lived out there. Also, my
parents moved away from Croydon in 1966 at the time I left
school, so any links I had with school friends more or less got
severed. I always wondered how many ex-pupils I would come across
in later life. "Not many is the answer" - until 2001 when the friendsreunited
website took off.
I tended to be socially gauche when young, and this was
encouraged by the distance I lived from school, with the result
that I had virtually no social life with colleagues outside
school. My energies went into private hobbies and into life at
school. The latter was a great tonic to me, a very ordinary
working-class boy. For many years my father was manager at Mence Smith hardware
shop in High Street, Croydon, near the top of Surrey Street
market, until 1961 when he went into insurance
(pounding the streets in New Addington for the Co-op probably
knocking on a few of our classmates' doors). Like many others at
grammar schools at that time, nobody in my family had stayed at
school beyond the age of 14, let alone gone to university. To my
parent's delight, I did well at school, and was aware of the
corny but sound advice of the school motto - whatever you do, do
it well.
I started life at JRGS in 1H with Mr. "Spike" Hancock; my love of
all kinds of music has survived despite his teaching, although I
always reckon that my distaste for organ music is down to him.
Any other instrument, even harmonica, but not organ.
I have a great deal of respect for most of the staff. With Mr.
"Rhino" Rees, it was just self-preservation to show respect! I
recall one lad in our class, Ian Simmonds, getting his head
banged against a wall for something dire - like the lack of
adequate set-book preparation. I am sure that many of my
colleagues remember preparing translations of Caesar's Gallic
Wars on Friday lunchtimes in the quadrangle. Yet Rhino had a
mellow side, especially when he waxed lyrical about Catullus's
love poems (delivered with his bronchial Welsh chainsaw voice) or
was persuaded to digress into tales of his days in World War II
in North Africa as a sergeant major. I remember once some poor
wretch daring to ask if blazers could be removed on some very hot
day. Rhino (dressed in worsted suit with waistcoat plus gown)
tore into him with tales of how hot it was in North Africa in
full army uniform, and that if "it ever gets to 90 degrees in the
shade in my classroom, then you may ask to remove your blazer".
Nobody bothered again. I also remember Mr. "Hooky" Maggs too,
although I don't think he ever taught me. I believe he lost his
arm while parachuting into Arnhem during World War II.
In the sixth form, I studied maths and sciences. Mr. "Puncher"
Pearce was quite a character then, rigorous and direct. When I
went back to JRGS for a visit in about 1970, after university, he
had died recently of a heart attack, I think; not many of the old
staff were there. I went to see the headmaster, Mr. "Joe" Lowe,
but sad to say he was about as welcoming as an ice block.
Some of the other staff I remember include Mr. "Sam" Chaundy, who
taught me Physics in the sixth form; he was a decent bloke,
although very pompous. Mr. Cook was a crazy guy who taught us
Physics in the lower school, threw board rubbers, and splintered metre rules regularly on the benches to gain attention. A lower-school Geography teacher,
Mr. Nunn, gave unauthorized sex-education lessons. An English teacher,
Mr. "Fred" Field, lead a
trip to France that I went on and was great fun in school drama
productions. The deputy head, Mr. "Wally" Cracknell, always
reminded me of the character Flay the butler in Gormenghast by
Mervyn Peake. Others I recall: Mr. "Percy" Pearman, who taught me
Chemistry; Mr. "Smuts" Smith, the PE teacher whose ferocity rivaled Rhino's; and
Mr. "Piggy" Graham, a more reasonable PE
teacher who didn't automatically assume that sluggards at games,
like me, were just slackers in need of national service.
However, one of the biggest influences was Mr. Alan Murray, who
taught and instilled a love of history in me, as well being my
form teacher in 3M (1961-62). He also, quite properly, but in an
unusual way for schools then and now, stressed the importance of
politics in history and life generally. He was a most
approachable and generous man. Later, when I was in the sixth
form, I remember being enlightened by his short course of Chinese
Civilization as part of General Studies. He also ran mock General
Elections and was the guiding light of the all-important and
intellectual 15 Society for a select group of sixth formers. As
this is the subject of a separate essay I will say no more about
it other than endorse all the good words that Cliff Preddy and
others have already written.
The other teacher who I looked up to very much was Mr. Tony
Crowe, my form teacher in 2C (1960-61), a young but excellent
teacher, who made you think and gently pricked the grammar school
pomposity that I for one too easily indulged in. He was also
Junior School Librarian, produced school drama, ran a film club
that encouraged new ideas in us youngsters, and was a sad loss to
the school when he left in 1963 to go to Homerton Teachers
Training College.
As well as Science, I used to get involved in drama productions,
and frightened myself recently by digging out a box of JRGS stuff
from the attic and finding a picture in the
April 1963 School
Magazine playing Portia, wife of Brutus, in Julius Caesar! Later
I played Portia in Merchant of Venice opposite John George's
Shylock, and naturally the nickname of Portia stuck from then on.
Oddly, I don't remember minding. Drama continued to be a great
love beyond school at university and later still. I also joined
the Chess Club and enjoyed the games with colleagues as well as
the camaraderie of home and away matches against other schools.
Sport, however, was not my scene, though I enjoyed the long table
tennis sessions in the basement bike sheds under the Chemistry
Laboratory and near the tuck shop. When it came to pounding up
and down the pebbled ridges of Shirley Hills in winter cross-
country runs, I did my level best to opt out.
I remember the early 1960s at John Ruskin as being an exciting
time of great change, with the school reflecting trends in
society. When I arrived in 1959, the Prime Minister was Harold
Macmillan, who was prescient in his Winds of Change speech, but
really was at the end of the Edwardian era. When I left, JFK had
come and gone in the United States, Harold Wilson was in power
with the emphasis on radical change, white-hot technology etc -
all very attractive to us budding scientists. It was obvious that
there were tensions within the school arising from this. Some of the tension was old staff
versus young staff, but age wasn't the most
important factor at all. In any case, I believe the staff had
enough of a common vision of true education and improvement that
this was transmitted automatically to us students.
Despite doing well at school personally - and much of this essay
stressing the good educational start that the school gave to so
many pupils - I am very conscious of the inequities of the
selective-school system that John Ruskin Grammar was a part of,
and that even within the school there were large numbers of
pupils who for one reason or another did not achieve their full
potential. Overall, I believe that the emphasis given to good A-Level grades and university entrance may have been too strong.
Famous ex-pupils that I remember? Steve Kember, in the cohort
below me, is now manager of Crystal Palace FC. John Rivers, two
or three years older than me, was quite an intellectual,
memorably played Badger in a production of Toad of Toad Hall, and left to
study nutrition at London University. He had quite a career but, sadly, died
of cancer in 1989 (I learnt of this via an obituary in The Guardian). Barrie Sturt-Penrose, also older,
had a career in investigative journalism. I remember his reports
in, I think, "The Sunday Times."
My career? After A-levels, I wasted a term in the Third Year Sixth,
took a job in Croydon (GSI, oil exploration, office job) for a
few months, then went to Durham University and scraped though
Maths there, plus the other usual stuff like drinking etc. I did
a Post Graduate Certificate of Education and taught in London
schools (Lewisham and Hillingdon) until 1991, although this was
interrupted with a three-year round the world hippy trip, during
which I got married in Australia. Julie and I came back to
England in 1976 and have lived in Iver, Buckinghamshire, since
1980. We have two great children, Claire (born in 1986, and
recently in Madagascar on a World Challenge expedition before
starting A-levels), and Neil (born in 1987, and heavily into
science, as well as usurping my role as domestic IT manager).
I gave up teaching in 1991, for a whole variety of reasons, and
have worked in local government since then at a much lower
salary, and am pretty content with life.
Paul Graham, Iver, Bucks, April 2002
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