• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

King Edwards Grammar School Camp Hill

  • Thread starter Thread starter Happyguy
  • Start date Start date
jmadone said:
Came across this short film.
I remember the film being made I think I must have been in the second form at the time. I recognised a few of the faces, mainly the masters. Great shots of Ray Watson, Ron Jones with the inevitable fag in his mouth, Sid Madge talking with Mr Cross a maths teacher from Canada. Does anyone recognise the French master? I have a vague recollection of someone named Perry or Pirrie but I may be mistaking him for a completely different person.
Click to expand...
My father, D I Thomas, master at camp hill made this film and I helped him. Stephen Thomas, old boy
 
HayleySpires said:
Yes he did!!!
Click to expand...
I remember Stuart, I think his was TV200, I had a lambretta LI 150, and later a Vespa, I was a year above Stuart,but got kept back down a year partly because my O levels were 'disappointing' and partly because we were due to move house the next year and my brother was at Moseley Grammar. As I said elsewhere my time at Camp Hill was the worst part of my life so far apart from the sport, I couldn't wait to get away. I think Stuart also played cricket with me at Ward End unity when we were about 15 or 16
 
boringmike said:
I feel that we should all take some action, my close personal friend is Tony Jackson who was caretaker plus many many other jobs at Camp Hill for 49 years and previously worked with his father at the old site. King Edwards runs in his blood and he has provided so much memorabilia for the school, he even climbed in the skips at the old site to rescue so many photos etc. but has had little interest from the school. He has so many memories having served under so many Headmasters and Headmistresses. He has written and continues to write a book on all his memories and I feel some action should be taken to preserve this memory, one of the secreteries at the Girls School typed it up in her spare time but no more, I want to help so that the manuscript is preserved or at best published and feel he should be interviewed, any ideas, please?
Click to expand...
Appreciate this post is quite old now, but very interested in any updates, please. I'm finishing off my own history book now, which the school is very supportive of. The King Edward VI foundation archivist is extremely approachable too (I saw another post suggesting they be contacted). If nothing else, I'd be keen to interview Tony to fill a few gaps in my manuscript. By my reckoning he may be the third longest serving member of staff in the School's history.
 
Hi Dyarwood,

Could you please give a bit more info on Tony and his dad's role at the school.

I was at both schools in the 50's, and the caretaker during my time there was Joe Young.

Kind regards
Dave.
 
Dave89 said:
Hi Dyarwood,

Could you please give a bit more info on Tony and his dad's role at the school.

I was at both schools in the 50's, and the caretaker during my time there was Joe Young.

Kind regards
Dave.
Click to expand...
That's who I remembered
 
Dave89 said:
Hi Dyarwood,

Could you please give a bit more info on Tony and his dad's role at the school.

I was at both schools in the 50's, and the caretaker during my time there was Joe Young.

Kind regards
Dave.
Click to expand...
Sorry I don't know much. He's mentioned briefly in the 2018 Chronicle on his retirement. I've just made a note of staff & their dates as I've gone through them all, and my list won't be complete. There was a porter I noted as E Young from 1932-1962, known as Joe. He has a tribute in the 1963 Chronicle. I think he died in 1965.
 
Hello, I've recently seen a very grainy newspaper photo of 'A Cholmondeley' playing rugby for Kent in 1938 and I wondered if anyone might know or make an educated guess if this could be our fifth headmaster, please? I know he was studying in London in 1939. It could be someone entirely different, mind. He was before me and I've not read anything to suggest he was particularly passionate about rugby. Thanks for any pointers.
 
farmerdave said:
And finally Photos 6 and 7 which are to the right of the Headmaster as viewed, Photo 7 being on the extreme right.
Click to expand...
Blimey - I was there 1966-1971, and many of the names above taught me - Polly Bates - he also taught my dad when he was there!; Hunt - Geography; Tony Appleby got me through Art O level; Harry Brown - we though he was old in 1966! Geoff Sanders - French?
My head was Alan Cholmondley, who could only pronounce discotheque with the 'th' as in the , not 't'. He was bemused by morning notices in assembly, as to why teenage boys would want to arrange lunch time music with dancing in the hall! I guess years of teaching classics and Latin left you bemused my anything modern life threw at you.
 
don wright said:
part 5


Another Chums wobble was when I was in 5b and just opposite on the other side of the corridor was the form room of 5c, aka the remove, when on this occasion Martin Webb was having great fun having greased the outside door knob and was holding onto the inside one and preventing anyone getting in much to the enjoyment of his classmates and us on the other side of the corridor. Martin was turning round enjoying all of the plaudits while someone outside was struggling unsuccessfully to enter, when all suddenly went silent inside the classroom and when he turned around there was the beak with hand all greased up and pretty cheesed off to boot. So Martin was taken off and promptly caned. Just as an aside one of my classmates had to go to him to get caned and took the precaution of wearing an extra couple of pairs of trousers so as to absorb some of the force of the blows, and when he bent down, Chums apparently said, 'Looks like you're wearing an extra pair of trousers,' to which the reply was, 'Yes, it might look like that, perhaps..... whoosh!! [several times]. Back to the football programme..... then we have 'Ted' Jones, so called due to his fashionable 'Teddy-boy' hairstyle, and I have no comment to make on him as he never taught me French. Next we have Harry brown, aka Harry the Plank the woodwork teacher. Harry was an old-style craftsman and didn't take to fools easily or those who did not respect the tools and equipment in the woodwork room. I liked Harry and got on with him OK because I have a fairly decent set of hands and was not bad at woodwork. He used to laugh at me because I'm left handed.... but would always clarify matters by saying that he was laughing because I seemed to be working backwards and he couldn't see how anyone could work that way.

Last but by no means least is Mr B A Tomkinson, the metalwork teacher otherwise known as the BAT, who once gave me a lift to Cotteridge on the back of his motor bike..... an act of generosity which would probably be frowned upon nowadays. Did metalwork only in IM and have regretted it ever since. I see that I have missed out Dai Thom, about whom I have already spoken. Here's another lovely little story also when I was in IM. Johnny Morrow and I were larking about at the bus stop at the top of Cartland/Vicarage Road to go back in the Cotteridge direction and Johnny at some stage or other threw my cap into the road. Well, we had a serious gap in our anti-teacher intelligence system here because to Johnny's misfortune what we didn't know was that Mr Thomas lived in the gouse right by the bus stop, and he must have been watching, 'cos he shot out of his house and beat him around the head repeatedly. Charming.

And back to Dennis for another bit of badinage.... we were reading Moliere in 6U in preparation for our A levels and Dennis was going on about life in seventeenth century France when he suddenly said, 'In seventeenth century France... [pause.... because we were going to get some really interesting stuff here..... and of course we were because he continued by saying ].... the men conceived....' Well he didn't get any further than that due to the laughter.

end of part 5.
Click to expand...
I so remember being a sherrin, & the blue goldfish, but fortunately was never subjected to it - I have not heard that phrase since the 1970s! Harry the Plank - I still have the boat/steamer I made in the first year, and he had a very whistly laugh, I remember. The BAT - lived up the road from us in Hall Green - I still have the garden tool hanger I made, the gilding metal pin bowl, the garden trowel & fork - my dad worked at Metal Treatments in Deritend, and painted them in Fordson Tractor blue, I also took O level metalwork, but had tonsilitis on the day of the practical so couldn't get enough marks to pass; also remember the BAT bringing out his model of a Pickfords Transporter low loader - it was fabulous. I always though that the crafts were second best at Camp Hill, as they weren't academic enough, same as Art & Music really. I wanted to take English Language at A level, as loved English, taught by Jonny Cleek to O level, but they only did Eng Lit at A level. One of the reasons I left at the end of the fifth year really.
 
farmerdave said:
"Dan" Matthews was a Maths teacher. He joined the school in September 1959 and was my teacher at "A" level from 1959 to 1961 when I was in 6L and 6U. He got the description "Dan" because there was a TV series at that time called "Highway Patrol". It always started off with the actor Broderick Crawford saying, "Hi, my name's Matthews, Dan Matthews, I'm a cop".
Click to expand...
Dan Matthews was good enough to get me through my Maths O level, despite the fact that I was awful...quadratic equations were the bane of my life.
 
boringmike said:
Sorry, senior moment, Geoff Saunders was solus Deputy Head but when he left for Five Ways he was replaced by Harry Greenaway and J D M (Des) Wright who's son Chris also attended the school.
Click to expand...
JDM Wright taught me Biology year 1 & 2, maybe. Very dry, from what I can remember.
 
John Cleak died in March of this year, at the age of 92. He was a brilliant teacher of English literature, particularly at A-level.
 
Mark Hayman said:
John Cleak died in March of this year, at the age of 92. He was a brilliant teacher of English literature, particularly at A-level.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the update and the spelling correction...it's been a while. He was a terrific teacher, I'm only sorry that I didn't continue with him, perhaps I wasn't given the support I needed to carry on. I'd only ever done English Language as a subject, and Literature never appealed.
 
Wawacita said:
Recognising a (very young) Gerry Thain on the left (row of Masters). I went to KEHS but swam at Camp Hill with Gerry as my coach from 1971 until around 1984. A fabulous man who could quieten a swimming pool full of teenagers with one look!
Click to expand...
He taught me to swim at Moseley Road Baths, we were given tokens for the 50 bus back into Kings Heath. Wasn't he a national coach too?
 
Mark Hayman said:
Here is Form 1J on a trip to the Elan Valley. Stuart Spires is 4th from left on the back row.
Click to expand...
Blimey, I was in 1J too, but in 1966. I don't recall any trips like this...nor Stuart Spires, although he would have been in the 3rd year when I started..obvs...
 
My memory is now bringing snippets from the deep. Len Bowles taught us Maths, 2X & 3X, I seem to recall. Double on Wednesday afternoon. He took great delight in reading us Sherlock Holmes stories...also remember in a school concert when he did a turn on stage with massive Indian clubs. Also Physics with Dick Spiby? I had a badge from Sugar Puffs, SPIBY..Sugar Puffs International Bear Year...he wasn't amused. Chemistry..Brian Fildes, who I loved, also our Form Tutor I think in 4X, and then left to go to Harrow Weald? Then taught in 5X by Keith Ross, who I found to be useless. Rumour was he played croquet for England. My science mock results were terrible, something in the teens, so I then went into the dummies group to take a combined O level science, and passed with flying colours.
Mates at school..Andy Finney, lived in Chinn Brook Lane; Dave Bull, lived in Runcorn Road, Tilton Road partner; Barry Jackson; Alan Dedicoat (yes, that one), emailed him at the BBC few years ago, and he remembered me! Gary Meechan, who was always in trouble, last met him in the 1980s, playing guitar in a local band called Soul Survivors, who were pretty good, still have their CD. Mick Cheeseman; John Ellis, obviously sat in front of me. Nigel Barker, who became a fire fighter. Mick Hobbs, who became the owner of a timber merchants. John Crisp, who was into model steam engines. Steve Cubbins too.
The Film Society, ran maybe only a year or two, showed films in the lecture theatre Wednesdays after school..saw Guns of Navarone, Macbeth, The Mouse that Roared, The Vikings; always felt really adult catching the bus home after six o'clock!
Finally, remember in 5X, going on the Railway Society end of term trips to little trains of Wales...cider to the fore.
 
Last edited:
boringmike said:
Hi Don, one small point and not being pedantic Alan Cholmondeley was a tail gunner in WW2 showing his extreme bravery sat in a gold fish bowl waiting to be shot. He was a fantastic headmaster who had the discipline to silence a whole corridor of 300 boys just by his very appearance. He suffered bell's palsy which I believe may have been brought on by the stress of his military service. It is good to see you also hold him in high regard, as boys you take no notice of these things and tend to dismiss anyone over 30 years of age as a quirky old fool. I always remember the sniggers when the head would announce a "discotheck" using his training in classics to produce his own pronunciation. Camp Hill was a great school but totally beyond me accademically. My well meaning parents had me tutored to pass the 11 plus but when it was down to me at grammar school I was totally out of my depth and sank from day one. I was lucky that Mr Cholmondeley also placed value on other abilities as I turned out to have a reasonable ability at rugby which saved my bacon. I scraped a few O levels and was allowed to take an unheard of combination of only 2 A levels, Geography and Biology which I failed spectacularly but allowed me to spend 2 years playing rugby. A fantastic Headmaster.
Click to expand...
Mr Cholmondeley was not a tail-gunner, but a distinguished pilot during the war, awarded the Air Force Cross for his service. Immediately after the war he continued in the RAF as a trainer in India.
 
I find that amazing...I and I guess most of the other pupils there would have no idea of his history. And how do you get from RAF training in India after the war, to being head of a high aiming grammar school less than 20 years later? I always thought he engendered a lot respect from the boys, despite his palsy. He never taught me, but the comment of being able to achieve silence by his very presence is very true. I don't recall him without his gown, and I often think that was part of the theatre, several others too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top