Harry Davies was at WBHS in the very early days, and his nephew, Mick (not an old Woden) has very kindly sent me 2 photographs from 1927. I am most grateful for these, as they are the oldest photographs on the website, I believe.
A full school photograph – can anyone locate it relative to the railway line and St Paul’s Road?
Apart from CSK, can anyone identify the rest of the staff?
The 1927 football 1st XI:
We also have a more recent photograph of Harry.
Old Wodens, Trevor Reece, John Doughty, David Butler and Les Berry have arranged a reunion dinner on 9 November 2012 at the Beverley Hotel, Walsall, principally for those old boys who started at the School in 1955. Those who started in 1954 or 1956 would also be welcome, as indeed would any other Old Woden who might wish to attend.
14 Old Wodens have already signed up to attend, and 2 others are trying to make arrangements.
If you are interested, Trevor would be delighted to hear from you, initially via me. Please send an email to webmaster AT wbhs.info (replacing the AT with @, and leaving no spaces in the email address). I will then send you Trevor’s contact details.
Kenneth Gordon Parker was a pupil at Wednesbury Boys’ High School from 1942 to 1947. He wonders how many of his classmates are still around, as he is 81 in May. He remembers names of his more personal friends at the time: Gordon Farquhar, Eric Yates, Alan Martin (Smacker!), Brian Amos, and quite a few more.
There were two teachers during this period in addition to most of the others in the 1930′s: Ms “Grannie” Hollins (Latin) and a very attractive Art mistress, Sybil Deuichse, a Dutch lady (spelling ?), who wore very attractive perfume!
He is not officially a member of ‘Old Wodens’ – as far as he can remember, the Association did not exist when he moved on to higher education. He attended the school from 1942 to 1947.
Kenneth writes:
“C S Kipping was eccentric but was a brilliant Teacher. He was my Chemistry Master for the 5 years. I later obtained a BSc in Chemistry and found his teaching methods gave me powerful intuition.
His grandfather was Sir William Perkin, knighted by Queen Victoria for his work on the purple aniline dye. He wrote a classical organic chemistry text book with C S Kipping’s father – I actually had a copy at one time.
I wonder if any of my classmates are still around ?”
If any Old Wodens would like to contact Kenneth, please email me, WEBMASTER AT WBHS.INFO (replace the AT with the @ symbol and leave no spaces in the email address), and I will put you in contact with one another.
At last, here are the final two Wodens. Apart from a page missing here and there, we now have the entire collection from 1946 to 1968 online in PDF format. I may try to index them as time permits.
I have come to realise that we have a wonderful diary of the life of the School in the pages of these Woden magazines, and I hope to extract, collate and present some of the best bits of the News section of each.
Thanks to all those who have kindly provided their magazines for scanning to make this possible. What a pity there is nothing similar prior to 1946…
The whole collection can be accessed from the permanent link in the top RH corner of the page.
Here, at last, is the transcription of a wonderful, handwritten article that has gathered dust in the archives for many years. Unfortunately, I do not know when it was written, but would estimate about 1978. What a pity there is not more of it!
C P Vale gives an affectionate account of the man that leaves me thinking that CSK was an eccentric buffoon, but that does him an injustice. I think Corwyn was trying to enlighten us about his human side rather than provide a thorough account of his Headship (which has been covered elsewhere by himself and others).
I hope it stimulates some more memories and reactions from those who were fortunate to be at school in his time. Here is the first welcome response to the document (which is readable in Microsoft Word 97 onwards – if anyone needs another format, do let me know).
Trevor Reece writes:
“I think that the notes are a pretty accurate description of CSK. He was first and foremost greatly eccentric, but as the notes show, over and over again, his main love was his School and his boys.
“I think it is difficult to appreciate what the School would have been like in the early days and also to appreciate that, in the main, the pupils represented the elite. They were capable of working themselves from text books with the minimum of help from the staff. More in keeping with night school, college or university.
“As the notes say, CSK was a kindly caring man – sentiments echoed by the articles written in the Woden by Joe Turner and Ted Davies after CSK’s death. We must remember Joe knew and worked with CSK for a long time and not only was Ted Davies a teacher, he was also a pupil.
“CSK was intimidating particularly for young boys and this was probably especially true when he was much younger than when I had the fortune to know him [his last 3 years as Headmaster]. My memories are full of his skill in managing boys and his kindness to us all in general, but myself in particular. There is no doubt in my mind that he was a great man, and I think that the majority of the boys who passed through his care would agree with me.”
I have just completed the typing up of 20 fairly illegible, hand-written pages of biographical notes on CSK penned by OW Corwyn P Vale. It makes fascinating reading and complements (with some repeats, inevitably) the article he had published in the BlackCountryMan (and which is already reproduced in my companion website.
Another very interesting article by Corwyn Vale tells us about his early days at WBHS and the staff he encountered.
Do come back in a couple of days to view the newly-transcribed, in-depth article about CSK…
Our staff were required to be quite versatile in those days. I wonder how much they would be allowed to do in these days of blame, Health & Safety, and child protection.
Starting in 1947, the School kept a record of all incidents in which staff had to take medical action. Many of these are very routine entries, but those that I have selected to publish (with names blurred as appropriate) show the attention to detail that KWGH and FLGS (and others) paid in recording these incidents, and the variety of conditions with which they had to deal.
Some make quite entertaining reading; others reveal quite a lot about the staff involved (mostly good! names will be blurred if not). If anyone is keen to know the identity of the blurred victims and would like to email me, I will lift the veil of secrecy for the enquirer.
Here is about a fifth of the medical book; more to follow.
Malcolm writes:
I was 1 year behind Ken Burke and obviously in the M form (so 1948-1953). I remember Tony Perry, Ken Parton, and Martin Wolverson, but other names escape me. I obtained a 3 grade with prizes but no money so never got to 6th form. Later I went to King’s College, London and obtained B.Sc.Eng, 1st Class honours, in Electrical engineering. An M.Sc. from Birmingham University followed and later the AMP business degree from Harvard Business School in Boston USA. Varied career in GKN, Chloride, ABB etc. as a Ford supplier. In advanced batteries for EVs and Utilities since 1980. Lived in Toronto since 1989, now retired from large companies but still operating as a consultant for advanced batteries.
Early in ECW’s reign, it became a Government requirement that all corporal punishment should be recorded, mainly for the future entertainment of old boys! The record begins in 1958 and ends in 1974, but only those pages up to the end of WBHS in 1968 are reproduced here. Don’t panic – all names have been blurred out, but if anyone is keen to know who was the lucky recipient of any particular punishment, feel free to ask by email.
It is interesting to note that “six of the best” was a very rare occurrence. Indeed, I spotted only one – for defacing school furniture.
There seem to have been a lot of mass canings – often for “attending a fight” or “condoning a brawl”.
The tariff (that is, how many strokes were administered) did seem to vary enormously, and obviously consistency was not a worry for ECW! Some of the offences for which caning was used seem laughable today. My favourite is 3 strokes for “singing at the end of morning service”.
One name (surname beginning with M) seemed to crop up several times on every page in the early 60s. I would love to know how he turned out, for it was clear that he did not respond well to authority!
In my day, the punishment was always carried out at break, in the Headmaster’s study, whose window was clearly visible from the tennis courts and nearby playground. Great entertainment. There was always another member of staff present, and his initials were recorded in the book.
If you have any memories of punishments (corporal, or otherwise; yours or others’) do share them!
