WBHS Blog

Whatever happened to … Malcolm Shemmans?

WBHSwebmaster — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:38:01 +0000

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.

Punishment Book

WBHSwebmaster — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:52:51 +0000

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!

Academic honours

WBHSwebmaster — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:54:17 +0000

Upside-down, at the back of the Headmasters’ Logbook (whose contents are available in the top right-hand corner of the page), I was surprised to discover an attempt at a record of university successes of old boys for 1948-1953. I would have expected a more formal record (and perhaps there was, on pupil index cards, which may or may not still exist).

If anyone objects to his entry being shown here, please let me know, and I will remove or blur it.

Click on any pages to switch to a scrollable viewer with much larger pages.

Can anyone identify the hand-writing, please? It looks too neat to be CSK!

Woden – Autumn 1949

WBHSwebmaster — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:39:50 +0000

One that slipped through the uploading process….

Vol 2.10 – Autumn 1949

Apart from those of my own era, awaiting scanning, we now seem to have a complete set of WBHS magazines (except for a few missing pages mentioned elsewhere), which is very satisfying.

There remains some doubt about Autumn Term 1961 (which I certainly won’t have). Does anyone have a copy, or did it never exist?

You may wish to note that you can right-click any link to a magazine and save it on your own computer. You can then open it in your own PDF-reading program, and magnify pages as necessary.

Wodens 1964 onwards

WBHSwebmaster — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:21:52 +0000

Here is the final batch for now (the rest – from my own WBHS years – have yet to be scanned, so will take longer … perhaps much longer!).

The final magazine was the first from the new joint Wood Green Bilateral School, published in Summer 1969, and is still of some interest to Old Wodens, as it tells of the fate of familiar staff.

Vol 8.5 – Summer 1964 (includes obituary for CSK)
Vol 8.6 – Autumn 1964
Vol 9.1 – Summer 1965
Vol 9.2 – Autumn 1965
Vol 10.5 – Summer 1968
Vol 1.1 – Summer 1969 (called “Scope”)

Wodens gaps filled – 1961-63

WBHSwebmaster — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:41:49 +0000

Another 5 editions to rekindle your memories. Although I haven’t a list of the highlights of each (please help!), I couldn’t help noticing that in the 1963 Summer edition is a long farewell by KH to P R Hatcher, and in the 1963 Autumn edition, a tribute to J F Ede (written by OW and new teacher at the time, John Clifford).

More Wodens filling gaps from 1950 to 1954

WBHSwebmaster — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:32:58 +0000

I hadn’t realised what a wonderful resource these are for tracing the history of the School (especially the comings and going of staff and pupils). When the posting of the complete magazines is finished, I may try to extract the News and Notices sections to produce a continuous narrative. Meanwhile, here are another 12 issues:

Of course, these and all published volumes are also available from the Woden Magazines link in the top right-hand quarter of the page (near the headmasters’ logs links).

Wodens from 1947 to 1951

WBHSwebmaster — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:44:32 +0000

Here are another 7 of the missing old Woden magazines. There were several gaps from the early days in the “official” collection, so I am indebted to OW Don Peacock for allowing me to scan his Christmas 1947, Easter 1948, Summer 1950, Christmas 1950 and Summer 1951 copies.

These are all large PDF files containing the whole of each magazine, unadjusted (that is, with no enhancements after scanning). They may take a long time to load on slow Internet links. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader to be able to read them.

Once again, I regret I don’t have time to summarise the items of special interest in each magazine, so if anyone would like to do that and let me have the summaries by email, I shall be happy to publish them. Otherwise, enjoy reading them all!

1948 Wodens

WBHSwebmaster — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:38:58 +0000

At last! I have made the summer 1948 and autumn 1948 volumes (1.6 and 1.7) available for anyone interested!

If anyone would be kind enough to write a list of the highlights of each magazine, I would be happy to publish it. Regrettably I don’t have time to do that, as I am determined to put all those Wodens I have already scanned into this blog so anyone can read them if they wish.

Annual Autumn reunion 2011

WBHSwebmaster — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:21:07 +0000

John Rowley writes:

Just to let all friends know about the WBHS annual reunion – currently planned for The Old Blue Ball, Hall End, Wednesbury.

To be held on Friday November 25th, kick-off around 8.00pm, however as per normal the pub is open all day on a Friday so the arrival time is whenever.

As always please pass on the details to as many people as is possible if you are uncertain as to whether we have been unable to contact them. The details have been posted on Friends Reunited, so lets make it a good one.