Back In Time For School (BBC2)

[Spargone]

That was new to me also, but it seems was true. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Margaret_Garrud and https://londonist.com/london/history/the-jujitsu-suffreagette

One woman in one city. The wikipedia article only says that she ran her own school, not that she ran classes in local authority schools. That is like having children in the 1960s episode taking ballet lessons - yes, if like my sister, they were taken outside normal school. 'Ancient' history suffers from a lack of information but in series like this we see broadcasters distorting the history of the living.

 

[Eric Gibson]

Sorry it's strayed off topic but.
On the nuclear subject, I had in my shop in the sixties the early warning system speaker kit and in my shed the siren, we attended training meetings at Cheltenham police HQ and had frequent trial runs of the kit.
There was one point like mine set up in every village and community.

 

[Pedrocut]

One woman in one city. The wikipedia article only says that she ran her own school, not that she ran classes in local authority schools. That is like having children in the 1960s episode taking ballet lessons - yes, if like my sister, they were taken outside normal school. 'Ancient' history suffers from a lack of information but in series like this we see broadcasters distorting the history of the living.

What a remarkable lady Edith Garrud must have been, and she lived until she was 99. Having looked back on IPlayer I believe they were portraying what they called the Higher Grade School, and only open to about 4% of the population.

It looks completely out of character for a school like this to teach self-defence to what they called young suffragettes

 

[Maria Magenta]

I knew that some suffragettes learned ju-jitsu, but was hazy on the details. It seems very unlikely that it was taught in any schools, I agree (even Cheltenham Ladies' College, where I believe they are quite sporty!)

 

[Spargone]

Sorry it's strayed off topic but.
On the nuclear subject, I had in my shop in the sixties the early warning system speaker kit and in my shed the siren, we attended training meetings at Cheltenham police HQ and had frequent trial runs of the kit.
There was one point like mine set up in every village and community.

Certainly a Civil Defence structure existed, the underground Regional HQs and Birmingham's own Anchor exchange for example. My uncle was a member of the Observer Corps so we knew something of what was going on, but all that duck under desk nonsense, that was pure American. Realistically we wouldn't have had time to shelter.

 

[jmadone]

Certainly a Civil Defence structure existed, the underground Regional HQs and Birmingham's own Anchor exchange for example. My uncle was a member of the Observer Corps so we knew something of what was going on, but all that duck under desk nonsense, that was pure American. Realistically we wouldn't have had time to shelter.

When I worked at Solihull Police Station there was a special piece of equipment, not large, attatched to the wall in the teleprinter room. We were told that it was the four minute warning audible device and every now and again we would get a message to say that it was to be tested and to make the appropriate response. No-one ever told us what precautions to take i.e. hide under a table or such, just acknowledge the signal and then put your head between your legs and kiss your a*** goodbye This was in the late 70s early 80's and it was removed when the front office was renovated.
p.s. My apologies for straying off topic.

 

[Eric Gibson]

This is the unit we had in the shop, on the top shelf, we did get asked occasionally what it was but we were told not to say.
The one o the left.

 

[JohnO]

Agreed. Our air raid shelter was above ground and stuffed with old desks! The public information films on nuclear war weren't shown to the general public as implied, (they were only going to be released if the threat was high). I recall a boy saying to me in the playground that, "another few minutes and we will know if the world will come to an end", and I had no idea what he was talking about. That was the Cuba Crisis!
My general impression of the series is that the children were more adaptable than the programmed adults! Poor old Enoch Powell was, as usual, misquoted. Didn't they see the irony of the Asian-heritage teacher 'having the whip hand'? A problem with all these 'history' programmes is that they like to spice them up with the exceptions - if they could find one woman that had dressed up as a man in WW1, say, her story would lead over the million-plus men! We had a bit of that here with the girls being taught self-defence by the suffragette, how typical was that?

Yes, you are entirely correct; we never got to see those particular ‘public information’ (?) films, until years later. The only time I recall being truly scared, albeit for a few days only, was during the Cuban Missile Crisis: it wasn’t so much that we had one of our ‘practice sessions’ but the fact that the school-caretaker was seen taking boxes of toilet-paper down the shelter steps! Our school was fortunate to have been built upon a deep rock outcrop, that housed ancient caves, part natural, part man-made, which were further augmented during the early years of the Second World War. Although the playground ‘slit-trench’ shelters had been filled in, the older tunnels remained as they’d always been; together with several entrances throughout the school. The deeper part of the tunnels being better protected than many a purpose-built ‘nuclear bunker’ but lacking any sophisticated air-filtration/ventilation system. The school was demolished during the 1980’s; replaced by a small housing estate. I often wonder if the residents are aware of what lies beneath them! I agree too, that many of these ‘back in the day’ type programmes are heavily filtered through the lens of modern social mores. Like you, and many others on this site, I’m now old enough to have my own ‘youth’ explained back to me, by modern historians/programme makers (seemingly just out of school) who too often haven’t the first clue as to what it was really like. If the rest of ‘history’ is so badly served, then we must all of us have a generally distorted view of almost everything we think we know, about anything! Cheers Pedrocut!

 

[Pedrocut]

Certainly a Civil Defence structure existed, the underground Regional HQs and Birmingham's own Anchor exchange for example. My uncle was a member of the Observer Corps so we knew something of what was going on, but all that duck under desk nonsense, that was pure American. Realistically we wouldn't have had time to shelter.

I spent about 20 years in the Anchor complex!

 

[Spargone]

I spent about 20 years in the Anchor complex!

Do we have to shoot you/us? No doubt you knew about the satellite on the Coventry Road/New Coventry Road island that still survives?
Back to the BBC programme, by jumping between different sorts of schools the history becomes confused as they didn't compare like with like. It also gave the impression that the Secondary Modern was a product of the 1960s whereas they go back to at least the Education Act 1944.

 

[Pedrocut]

June 1910...Mrs Garrud throws big policeman...

 

[Pedrocut]

Episode 5, school in the 70s, where it all went wrong?

Around 18mins 57 a geography trip to Gravelly Hill Interchange.

Around 27mins 45 the free school movement and Balsall Heath.

 

[Eric Gibson]

I recall at about that time a careers teacher from my daughter's school telling me that he'd taken a minibus full of pupils out on a trip to local employers, a lot of them refused to get off the bus because they said "Mr
Wilson (Harold) has told us that employment prospects for us are near zero and that we will have to get used to being on the dole for most of our lives."

 

[sospiri]

Eric,

She probably wasn't far wrong. And I'm not getting into politics at all. It is economics, and as more and more unskilled and semi-skilled tasks become mechanised everywhere, the whole world is suffering a similar fate.

Maurice

 

[Maria Magenta]

Had anyone heard of urban geography? I hadn't.
As for using teachers' first names....I kept in touch with one teacher long after I'd left school. She suggested I use her first name, but it was impossible She was always Miss X!

 

[JohnO]

I knew that some suffragettes learned ju-jitsu, but was hazy on the details. It seems very unlikely that it was taught in any schools, I agree (even Cheltenham Ladies' College, where I believe they are quite sporty!)

Ju-Jitsu was also taught to the female members of the British Fascisti Party (founded 1923 (?) by Rotha Lintorn Orman, until it’s demise, 1935-ish, following Miss Orman’s death. The Party ran children's clubs, the daughters of which were trained too; many of their mothers having been suffragettes.

 

[mw0njm.]

i dont think a tin shelter will do any good. this tine if the worst did happen, the world would be like it was on the mad max film. nothing left,and what few of us are left,will be fighting for what is left to suvive.

 

[Hattie]

I can only go on what my parents have told me, Schools and life were nothing like the programme portrayed.

 

[pjmburns]

I think the confusion is that they have tried to show all the things going on in education. As someone who started teaching in the 70s I know most of the things shown in the 70s did happen - just not all in the same school. Likewise the 60s - again in different parts of the country and in different schools.

 

[Hattie]

I have talked to my Mom an Dad about this programme as I was interested. They told me that there is no way the children would have talked or answered back to the school teacher.

 

[pjmburns]

True most probably wouldn't but I think these pupils have been told they can comment and question things. They seem to have been doing it from the first programme. I was a bit disappointed as l thought we would see them behave and be taught as if they attended school in the period rather than given a flavour of how things were and allowed to comment.

 

[Hattie]

It must have been different for some kids as my Mom and Dad went to what they called secondary modern, He don't remember going into the playing field and shooting refiles or was this just for the rich.

 

[pjmburns]

The rifles were early on (in run up to WW1 wasn't it) - unless I have missed something - that was at a grammar school. I don't go back that far but imagine some of the older grammars probably did do shooting especially in more rural areas.

 

[Hattie]

But isn't that a false way of showing how British schools were?

 

[Spargone]

The rifles were early on (in run up to WWistow wasn't it) - unless I have missed something - that was at a grammar school. I don't go back that far but imagine some of the older grammars probably did do shooting especially in more rural areas.

I am sure that my school had an Army cadet scheme in the 1950s (before my time) and no doubt they got to handle rifles. If they ever got to fire them that surely was done on a properly managed firing range.
At the first sight of our headmaster, always in a black gown, we would vanish before he got near enough to recognise us! Something missing from these programmes, (or did I miss it?), was detention. Not only did the teachers use this, so did the prefects. I was an acting prefect, (during the period when prefects were revising for exams), but I was too much of a hardened rebel to accept the full post, always a poacher, never a gamekeeper!

I agree that this programme seems to work on the basis that if something happened somewhere it is fair to include it. Polar bears and penguins exist but they don't naturally occupy the same places!

 

[Spargone]

Totally off subject, but the tennis/netball courts shown were an exclusive girls' domain. We used to play touch rugby in the playground between the courts and the gym in the background. One day the senior games mistress turned up with one of the 'first' teams and set about using the netball court marked out on the playground, (perhaps it was the 'proper' size?). Risking a detention I asked her if we could use one of the courts instead, (a real 'no-no'!). Somewhat taken aback she said "Yes". One up for the rebels!

 

[Maria Magenta]

My school also had had a cadet corps, but it didn't exist by the time I went there. I wonder what happened to the uniforms and equipment.

 

[Michael_Ingram]

We had a cadet force at Handsworth Grammar in the 50s. We had rifle practice in the playground where there was a large shooting range - a large wall structure built at the side. Once we had a session reconstructing our weapon collection which had been taken apart by the police one weekend due to a suspected terrorist threat.

 

[Spargone]

We had a cadet force at Handsworth Grammar in the 50s. We had rifle practice in the playground where there was a large shooting range - a large wall structure built at the side. Once we had a session reconstructing our weapon collection which had been taken apart by the police one weekend due to a suspected terrorist threat.

I bet they drilled some discipline into you before giving you a rifle! No-one in the BBC's version seemed to have any awareness of basic gun safety. I never saw a school rifle range but there was one at a factory that I worked at and, as you say, they had a large wall. It was arranged so that firing was directed away from the public road.

 

[Spargone]

I wonder what happened to the uniforms and equipment.

The same as with any disbanded army unit, handed in and returned to army stores?