Foreword:

John Cooper was head boy at WLBHS in 1957 when the school celebrated its 50th Anniversary, as well as being a talented sportsman who was capped for the school at cricket.

Sadly, he passed away this year. His lifelong friend, Richard Collier, has written a biographical memoir of his school days. He was one of the last cohort of pupils to join the school kindergarten in the 1940s. For this month's story, I have chosen to include the account of his early years in the kindergarten and junior school. Most of us only knew the kindergarten as the large wooden annexe building used as a music room, radio room by the CCF, and for night-school classes in motor mechanics. -JS

Click here for a photo of a 1940's kindergarten class

Part 1: Kindergarten and Junior School.

There was cricket in the Cooper family. John's Father was a small man, but a very useful fast medium swing bowler, bowling over the wicket. He was an old boy of West Leeds High School, but left little information about his time there, or at Leeds University later. There is the story, however, of the time he volunteered his services to make up the numbers on the Staff Team when they played The Old Boys. That would have been about the year 1928 when he was in the sixth form. He bowled out one of the Old Boys team called Bill Bowes. So he was able to say that he had bowled out the cricketer who had bowled out the famous Australian batsman Donald Bradman for a duck. I wonder what Bill Bowes's bowling figures were for this school match ? It's too late to ask.

John was born in November 1938, which somehow caused an ongoing problem, or perhaps not. Things changed in the war. In 1943 it was still possible to place a child at a kindergarten in a grammar school if you were prepared to pay. At this school in Whingate it cost eight guineas a year or £2 -16s a term. The major change was The Butler Education Act of 1944 which meant these kindergartens could not charge money any longer and would have to close, and when John came to school here, he was moved up a year. It meant that going up the school he was usually the youngest boy in his class.

The kindergarten was in a long wooden building between the playing field and Heights Lane. The entrance used was at main school end, where on entering the large cloakroom was to your right and the corridor to classrooms on your left. There was a bicycle shed directly behind. From the classroom windows there was an uninterrupted view across the playing field. Somewhere in the middle was a large elm tree, and this survived until 1950. Woodwork teacher Mr. Stead made a seat from some of it. The end room was big enough to hold all three classes for a weekly assembly and full of all manner of interesting things, including a large sand pit. Suzanne Beauchamp has described it perfectly in a girl's magazine. A curtain divided the room into two when needed. Miss Moore was in charge of the new intake. Lady teachers were still unmarried. That was the kindergarten. The next years class was called Transition and was taken by Miss Hall. A lot of the maths was done on slates using chalk. I suppose that saved paper. Conditions were more cramped in this room. Finally it was a move up to the year called Preparatory. This was taken by Head Teacher Miss Jackson. Pupils were all put into two houses for competitive purposes. These were Blue and Gold. John was in Blue House, and they seemed to be winning more at this time.

In September 1946 it was time for John to move into the big school. The boys went to one end and the girls to the other. They met occasionally in the basement or top floor where specialist rooms had to be shared. The three junior school classes were on the ground floor which also had the offices, the main hall, and changing rooms, on the other side of the main staircase. There was a small cloakroom against the stairs, and four classrooms going the other way. Class J1 was in the corner of the building overlooking the Kindergarten. It was Miss Nutter who did most of the teaching. She stayed until 1948. Miss Nutter had some little sayings that one might remember, such as 'You're not the only pebble on the beach'. She could also play the piano well enough to accompany a small choir.

There seem to have been four music teachers in a short space of time. Mr. Bainbridge had been there a long time. A Miss P. Masters appeared. The juniors astounded her near Christmas by adding a descant, or more accurately the tenor line to The First Nowell. She took all their names, and volunteered them into the choir en masse. Another teacher was called Mr. J. Scholefield-Nicholson.
Mr. Charles Bainbridge was in charge of Blue House. At this he was energetic and successful. He had run some excellent concerts in the distant past after being allowed to bring together the boys and girls choirs. He was very popular with the ladies at that time. He left in 1948, for Ilkley.
Charles was known as 'Basher' Bainbridge. John would come across him during maths as well as music. He had an interesting system of encouraging the learning of mathematics. He used to give little tests with an arbitrary pass mark to achieve. The number of failures in reaching that was recorded by the number of hard smacks with a ruler across the palm of an outstretched hand.

There was one lesson in the room overlooking the kindergarten that might have been to do with nature study. It was summer. Mr Dacre was in charge. His nickname was 'Daddy.' His main teaching subject was in the sciences. With the windows wide open the class listened for the sounds of nature coming in from outside. Larks ascending, grasshoppers mating, and Keen's cattle returning along Heights Lane, were the sort of things to spot. Just over the railway line and down the hillside were the meadows and rhubarb fields, but not for much longer. Albert Edward Wilfred Dacre was one of John's Father's best friends and two years older than him. They had been at this same school and then Leeds University. He lived in a house just opposite on Green Hill Road, and they played golf together. Albert Dacre left in December 1948 for Dagenham, and it was now necessary to find another teacher to take charge of the school cadets.
Miss Masters refereed one football match I remember, but not very well. Following a corner kick the game between Blue and Gold ground to a halt for a long discussion as to whether it was possible to score a goal from it without the goalkeeper touching the ball. The result was held over while enquiries were made. Gold eventually managed to win the house shield in 1948. It was Cecil Gomersall who was in charge of sport during John's time in Junior School. He left in the summer of 1947, to be replaced by Stanley Wilson.
I have the school magazine for most years between 1947 and 1955. As far as sports results are concerned the following are recorded -

1947. 60 yards - (under 9) 1. Turner -gold 2. Collier -blue 3. Jarvis -gold Blue House 18 pts, Gold House 14 pts.
1948. 60 yards - (under 9) 1. Turner -gold 2. Collier -blue 3. Cooper -blue Blue House 14 pts, Gold House 18 pts

In 1949 I won the 80 yards, the long jump, and the school foundation race. Somebody called Cooper came third in the javelin throwing. In 1950 I was joint first in the high jump, and second in the long jump, and hurdles. I was using the high jump style called 'the scissors'. Higher up the school the 'western roll' might be used. Diving over head first was not yet invented. Stan Wilson demonstrated the western roll once at the sand pit, by picking up the smallest boy on the scene called Gilligan, and rotating him in slow motion, before holding him horizontally over the top of the cross bar. The sand pit was up near the Kindergarten, and there all the time.
I remember a cricket match on the top field when Powell was batting. Mr. Wilson had gone off somewhere, and made me temporary umpire. When the ball hit Powell in a very painful place I gave him out L.B.W. on the grounds that the batsman was very very small and the wickets were very tall. When Stan returned to administer a massage, I received a severe telling off, and never heard the last of it. Stan first lived by Charlie Cake Park, before moving just past John's house.