I've been following this thread for a while now and it has brought back a lot of memories long since forgotten. I am prompted to respond for the first time following recent mention of one or two former pupils who I do remember. In particular Mark Goldberg who I was quite pally with but lost touch with when I left GD. An avid Wolves fan who modelled his footballing prowess on David Wagstaff who played on the left wing for Wolves at the time. I know he went on to work in Animal Rights writing a number of books and including one on his beloved Wolves.
I started in 1963 in 1A but quickly found my level among the C steam ending up in 6G before leaving in 1969.
I well remember Rudolph Smith from those early days and didn't relish facing him at Cricket in inter house games between the Britons and Saxons. I still remember one ball in particular rising off a full length and whistling past my ear.
I think the head boy when I started was called Wainwright and when I left in 1969 I think it was Martin Ashcroft.
Other names I remember over the years are Alan George, Geoff Benton, Timothy Taylor, Paul Mayhew, Tony Barron, Bernard Coulson etc.
The very attractive young female French teacher with the mini skirts was Miss Lewis who was from Wales, if I remember correctly. Hard to believe she must be in her early seventies now. I also remember reading about Mr Caplin's suicide in the Daily Mirror while travelling on the coach to the Lakes District on holiday. Such a shame and hard to believe I'd only last seen him a few weeks before.
My favourite subject was Engineering Drawing and in particular I remember 'lines in space' which took me ages to get the hang of but once I did then they were easy and never gave me any trouble until it came to doing the 'O' level and couldn't work it out at all. In the end I just wrote 'this is impossible' and left it at that. I never did find out whether or not it was impossible but I passed anyway although, sad to say, it hasn't been of any use to me since.
After leaving GD in 1969 I went to work for Rabone Petersen who were then in Exeter Street, Holloway Head and met up with Peter Ordidge who had been a prefect at GD when I started. As has previously been mentioned in this thread Rabone Petersen was owned by the Dixon family and George Dixon's grandson Norman Dixon was chairman. I do remember the photograph of George Dixon which he had in his office.