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Bordesley Green Grammar Technical School

Hi Hayward
Mr Tapp, your form tutor, stayed in the building teaching maths even when it became Bordesley Green Girls' School. He retired through ill-health about 1999 and passed away shortly afterwards. A gentleman in all respects.
 
yes Mr Tapp was hard but fair i think i tested his patience on more than one occasion but he was very approachable.I would love to know what became of Mr Brayley Willmetts he taught geography and also PE. he was probably the biggest influence on me at school.
 
The present school (Bordesley Green Girls' School) have a summer fete Saturday 4th July 2009 from 12 noon to 4 pm. 'Old BGBTS Boys' welcome, so I'm told.
 
Hi David. Yes I went. I got there quite early, and only met one other old boy. It was worth the trip. The essential fabric of the school hasn't changed all that much. There are new bits added on, and some classrooms have necessarily changed use. The metalwork shop is now a domestic science room. The head teacher was very obliging. She gave us a limited tour of the inside of the building. She also invited us back for a more comprehensive visit during class time. I will probably take up her offer.
 
Blimey BobbyGee. Just realised you're round the corner from me! I would have gone but the petrol's about £20 in my old gas guzzler so I decided not to go. Dissapointed I didn't.
 
I attended Bordesley Green Junior County Technical School, (As it was called then,) in 1953/54 and coming from a background of abuse did not notice the cruelty of the teachers. My previous school, a co-ed, had chalk throwing and breaking blackboard rulers across the male students buttocks but not blackboard eraser throwing. Reading the reports here brings it all back. The best teacher we had was the
English Master and he was a Hungarian, but he just watched as the PT instructor, (an ex-RAF PT instructor) beat up one of my class mates. I was seriously injured in a PT accident, I was rendered unconsious and although passing in and out of consiousness was made to attend the rest of my day's classes. A boy was detailed to make sure that I made it back home. No medical help was sought! I found out much later I should probably have died, broken nose, cheek bones and base of skull.
I was later suspended indefinately for letting off a firework in school, the Deputy Headmaster came into the change room, grabbed me by the shoulder and my feet did not touch the floor again until I was in front of H B Brown. My father did not want me at home doing nothing so he complained to the Education Department and said he had not complained about my accident. It was the first the Education Department had heard about it. Brown had reported nothing from the school.
I think the main trouble was that the teachers had been inducted into the armed forces and taught to kill, then after the war they were turned loose on schoolboys. It really was not fair!
 
Well done, expatriate, on having reopened this exceedingly interesting thread. I've read and reread it since joining the forum in July. Do you all remember the extremely dangerous "game" we used to play during the mid-morning break in our lessons? Do you recall Polly-on-the-Mopstick? And, after a frosty/ snowy night, the 25-yard-plus slides on the ice down the ramp in front of the library (the run started at the top of the slope and the slide began a few yards from the point at which Mr Gilbert would often stand with his constantly flicking rod to guarantee that about 106 boys re-entered the school building within a couple of minutes of the bell having been rung!)?

Thanks shavedfish49. (Please see following post.) I had originally written Polly but looked it up on two Birmingham sites and I let myself be persuaded by them that it should be Molly. [See - as an example - www.oldladywood.co.uk, Memories of Our Street, Memories of John Healey.]
I suppose I ought to have looked it up on Birmingham History in preference to other sites as I now know that every mention of “the pileup” here uses the “P” and not the “M” – although I personally like the alliteration of Molly-on-the-Mopstick!! Sorry, and thank you, shavedfish49. db84124
 
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Bordesley would probably have been closer for me but I went to HTS (52/55). Sounds like HTS was a better school. If you go to the HTS site you will read some stories about some abuse but I never experienced much and caning for missdeeds was par in those days but never saw much of that either and it was never administered in an overly zealous way. There was maybe one teacher who was a bit hard but even he had a human side and never caned anyone all of the time that I was there. By and large I would say that we had an outstanding bunch of teachers and they did indeed have a major influence on anything that I have been able to achieve in my life. After saying that I would say that the best mentor in my schooling was a Mr Cheshire who was the woodwork master at Leigh Road secondary school...a fine man and superbe instructor.
I found that although we had great teachers at HTS, the abuse for the most of us came from the odd sadistic bully or two who one found in ones class. They had no place in these schools and how these numbskulls came to be there was a mystery.
 
I found that although we had great teachers at HTS, the abuse for the most of us came from the odd sadicious bully or two who one found in ones class. They had no place in these schools and how these numbskulls came to be there was a mystery.
Coming from a mixed school to an all boys school ( H.T.S. ) was a bit daunting, no more dancing lessens in the hall, no more female teachers, no more girls. I was expecting to be picked on by older purples. It never happened. There was horseplay and water bombing but it never got physical. The teachers were on the whole a good bunch and really seemed to care that you were taught a bit more than the three Rs. All in all it was a good start in life.
 
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Hi db, yes both Polly on the Mopstick and that great huge (well it seemed big to me at the time!) ice slide still stay with me.
 
Thanks db84124, I remember polly on the mopstick but not the ice slide nor library. We used to play rugby in the quad with empty cans we got from the canteen, many boys got injured. There was talk about a third year while I was there, but no talk about the criteria. I see that you lived in Blake Lane, I lived for a while in Fifth Avenue, but with our age difference I would not have known you.
 
I have just looked at BGTS on Google maps and it so different from when I went there! It was a simple "U" shape, as I entered from Bordesley Green Road, the caretakers house was on the right and we turned left into the cycle park. One wall had holes in it from an aircraft cannon and the best memory was of the girls who worked next door sitting on the wall with their legs over our side. How could you concentrate on algebra?
 
Reading the threads is bringing back memories. I remember going by bus to Gospel Lane for sports, a ground we shared with a girls Commercial School. The bus ride was always hair raising, the drivers always seemed to drive fast, mount curbs and traffic islands. We some times played against the girls, rounders was OK but hockey was dangerous. The girls did not bother with the ball, but went for our ankles and shins. We always limped off. An ambulance was called twice. Once because a girl had swallowed a pen in class and it had moved. The other time a sport Master got harpooned. He stood too near to the javelin area when one of the bigger boys was throwing and he got him in the thigh. Some like me were just boys, but some were already fully grown men.
One day a Commercial School Teacher stormed into our change room and sprung a group of boys peeping through a hole they made in the door between their change room and ours. She was not happy!!
 
As it begins to warm up down here, I remember how bitterly cold it gets in the UK during winter and every time we used to do gymnastics or sport at the school, afterwards we had to strip off naked and run through the cold water showers. The Deputy Headmaster used to come into the change room to see that everybody did and watch us go through. Maybe he had a problem?

Maybe we are wrong to blame HB for the cruelty at the school, maybe he was bullied into it. I remember HB sitting with us and telling us how in WW1 he and another soldier sat in an artificial tree stump listening to chat in the German lines and relaying it back to his own lines.

He also sat us down for a fatherly chat about the facts of life, I wish I had taken more attention of him in the selection of a wife, instead of being influenced by lust. An action I was later to regret!
 
Killers name was Don Gilbert. We must have been there together. I was in 3E and 4E taught maths by Richards and drawing by harry Sandford. I was also caught smoking on the bus but got away with it.
Sid
 
Hi guys, Bordesley Green Tech, Brings tears to my old eyes, I attended this school between 1953-55, Happy days, I wish I had paid more attention, although the teachers were more minders than anything else. Polly on the mopstick, my infamous Crunch must have kept spinal specialists busy for years. Would any of you remember the unholy trinity, eustace, dingle, and clutt, all top students. Eustace spent more school time rubbing rust off Hard Blacks old Riley than on any other subject. I see no mention of one of my hero"s Mr Tommis what a great man, started on the broom at the BSA, educated himself to professor in three subjects, as well as an talented musician, ah happy times, I would like to do it all again, best of luck old BGT"s.
 
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