A Tale of Two Schools.
Extract from"A personal reflection on two schools" by John Wardle
For the unabridged version see http://cgsfpa.co.uk/Articles/Cannock Grammar School_JWardle.htm

Foreword

In 1959 John was parachuted straight into the 6th form at West Leeds BHS. His previous school couldn't have been more different. Cannock Grammar School was a modern co-educational school, opened in 1955, so the transfer to Edwardian, single sex, West Leeds , was a culture shock to say the least. He must have had a good testimonial, however, because he was immediately appointed a prefect.

First Impressions.

I had been over the Llanberris pass once, so such scenery as the Pennines was not entirely unfamiliar, but Holm Moss was like driving up Snowdon. Mr Morton's vintage car did manage two thirds of the climb before the tell-tale signs of impending doom manifest themselves to its passengers. The car gradually slowed to a stop as the passenger compartment filled with smoke. It was not just a stroke of luck that an AA man turned up on his combination motorcycle just at that moment. He had been watching the little car, streaming smoke like the tail of a comet, from his permanent station at the top of that mountain. "'Appens all t'ime lad", he told the esteemed teacher and proceeded to fix a burst oil pipe which had burst like a blood vessel under the strain. Yorkshire folk were no respecter of persons, whatever their status, as I was to find out.
In those days, the descent into Leeds from the Huddersfield Road gave a unique panoramic view of the vast city, with the outstanding landmarks of the Town Hall and University towers penetrating the smoky haze. The outlook on that bleak late afternoon in December 1959 reflected my gloomy feelings. They were not enhanced by the blackened millstone grit buildings set in cobbled streets, which included Leeds prison which I had to pass on my way to my new home. "And they called the Midlands the Black Country?"

These photos give you some idea of John's first sight of Leeds and Armley.

A view of Leeds landscape in the 1960s. The A62, Gelderd Road, from Huddersfield runs past the Jewish cemetry (Centre) . St Bartholemews Church Armley is visible.

Leeds city center skyline taken from Armley,1963. Armley jail is partly visible on the right.The Town Hall is top right.

Stranger in a strange land

There was a lot for me to get used to, not least the culture, language and attitudes of this bleak moorland county. It is well summed up in their great Yorkshire maxim:
Hear all, see all say nowt.
Tak' all, keep all, gie nowt
Hear all, see all say nowt.
Ate all, sup all, Pay nowt,
And if tha iva does owt fo nowt, do it fo thysen.
It would not be unfair to describe Yorkshire 'folk' as proud, dour, selfish, abrupt and opinionated but for all that, direct, honest, considerate and companionable. They idolised their heroes and still do: Alan Bennett and Barbara Taylor Bradford who lived down the road from me, J B Priestly and the cricketers Freddie Truman, Geoffrey Boycott and Brian Close. The County was mortified when Yorkshire got beaten.
It was a lot to get used to, not least the common language, dialect and simple words like 'owt' - anything; 'appen' - perhaps; 'clout' - clothing; 'na'then' - hello; 'o'reight' - how are you; 'side' - put away; 'brass' - money; 'thysen' - yourself, 'frame thysen' - get yourself organised; 'ginnell' - a narrow alley and 'tha'll niver stop a pig in a ginnel'l - you're bow legged. To earn a bit of 'brass', I became a weekend milkman and found that an excellent way to learn the geography of West Leeds, its culture and language.
I soon discovered that Leeds was an outstanding city of culture and opportunity. The local Methodist church that I joined had a congregation of 300 and a choir of 80 regularly performing oratorios. International events such as the Leeds Piano festival were performed in the iconic Leeds Town Hall; theatres including the famous City Varieties, cinemas, dance halls, and clubs, especially the Leeds Mecca, were packed; brass bands played everywhere and bus and tram services ran every thirty seconds. There were annual events such as the Great Yorkshire Show, the Easter steam train exodus to scale the Three Peaks and the grand Christmas 200 strong choir performance of Messiah at Oxford Place Methodist Chapel to a congregation of 1,500. All this took place in the foggy, blackened city in the heartland of Yorkshire's 'woollen district'. It was a mesmerising contrast to anything I had previously experienced in the rural outpost of Rawnsley's tin mission hut on the edge of Cannock Chase.

Settling in- The Lower Sixth

In January [1960] I attended West Leeds Boys High School. It was an imposing four storey Edwardian Baroque building built in 1907. It had two grand first floor entrances with stone steps, one to the Girls' School and one to the Boys'. It was reminiscent of the invisible divide at Littleworth Secondary Modern School. The boys now occupied the whole school as the girls had relocated to newly built premises in September 1959 four months before I arrived. For me' going back to a single sex school was a retrograde step and I was very conscious of it. The sense of chauvinistic segregation still pervaded the place. As I mounted the steps of one of the grand entrances I felt like a Cardinal Archbishop being sucked into the Vatican, losing the freedom of his diocese and ending his days in an enclosed order.
Mr Pomfret Headmaster of Cannock GS] had introduced me to the school very well; a bit too well as it turned out. I no sooner stepped over the threshold than I was made prefect. Here the prefects had manifest privileges. They were the only pupils permitted to use the front entrances and the upper and lower sixth-form prefects had separately assigned common rooms with sofas and settees. In the fifty years of its existence the school had acquired status and expectation. It expected to win the regional schools rugby championship every year; it had cabinets full of sports trophies from swimming to cricket and expected to achieve at least two places to Oxbridge every year. A well-established Old Boys' Society was centred around the West Leeds Old Boys' Rugby Club which they had built for themselves and sponsored. The ethos of that society exerted considerable influence over the school and members held seats on the Board of Governors.

I was made to feel very welcome by members of the sixth as much as a curio as anything else. They wanted to know my nickname at Cannock; everyone had nicknames. I lied: I said the school was too new to have the tradition of nicknames; it was the only aspect of Cannock Grammar School I was happy to drop, so I was given a new one.
This new academic spectacle was for me bewildering, faintly amusing, self-serving and exemplified by the school motto, "Non Sibi Sed Ludo"; not for self but for school. The regular Army and Airforce uniformed cadet parades that took place in the school yard were amusing. They were commanded by Tisch Bein, the handlebar-moustachioed German teacher, and taken very seriously. There were, however, benefits from joining the military; the sixth-form air-force cadets did get to fly in aeroplanes and it was expected that some of the cadets would become commissioned officers.
I was tested from the outset. Unfortunately, Mr Pomfret had let it be known that I was a good swimmer. Needless to say, for four lengths of Armley baths, I was put up against the school elite and came last; exhausted. My training in lifesaving at Bloxwich baths never fitted me up for speed trials. In what remained of that academic year neither the school nor I discovered what I was good at. The head of house reported at the end of it that he was disappointed at my lack of contribution to the achievements of the house; a sting that urged me to do better in the upper sixth.

Buckling down in the Upper Sixth

It was against this background that I decided to bite the bullet for my final school year and live up to its self-serving motto, "Not for self but for school".
In my final year I did discover some useful things I could do and it was Cannock Grammar School that provided for it. Scripture was introduced to the curriculum for the first time taking the place of my long distance correspondence course with Miss Baker. As a consequence of her endeavours I won the school competition for essay writing in a discourse on 'Christianity versus Communism'. I am not sure if anyone else entered the competition but I still have the book Miss Baker recommended I ask for, 'Personalities of the Old Testament' by James which was presented in a grand ceremony at Leeds Town Hall. I still value it as a memento of Cannock Grammar School.
A Baptist minister, Mr Nettleship, was recruited to teach scripture for the first time in West Leeds' history and guide me through my A level syllabus. In his first lesson he was naïve enough to ask the upper sixth what hymns they knew. The response was a spontaneous rendition of the rugby club version of the exploits of the "Monks of St Bernard", a reaction which I could not see being tolerated by Miss Baker at Cannock Grammar School. The introduction of scripture into the school was not perhaps the most useful contribution I could have made and I felt truly guilty that the Baptist minister had been dragged out of his true vocation on my account.
Thinking of the Boys' interests in the exploits of the Monks of St Bernard brought back memories of Mary Flynne, a devout Catholic, asking Miss Baker what the 'Immaculate Conception' was, only to be told that she would consider it for the next lesson. Eagerly awaited by some, the anticipated exposition never materialised and no one saw fit to raise the question again. I think Mary genuinely wanted to know the religious significance of the question, but the boys of West Leeds would have had 'testing' motives for asking it. The musical enthusiasm for hymn singing shown in Mr Nettleship's first lesson, was in marked contrast to efforts to extract an audible hymn in the Head Teacher's morning daily assembly.
My second opportunity came when the school arranged its annual concert for invited guests. Contributions were invited from pupils but the expected staff contribution never materialised. I suggested the formation of a choir and, as there was no musical tradition in the school, I was left to get on with it. Music was consigned to wooden huts at the far end of the cricket pitch to avoid disturbing the school itself. What music there was 'in school' was confined to the one hymn the head teacher seemed to know, "New every morning is the love…" which was groaned at every morning assembly by broken voices. Suggesting a choir to sing in front of invited guests was therefore a high-risk strategy and I was no Gareth Malone.
I anticipated forming a balanced four-part harmony octet of boys I knew from the renowned Bramley Parish Church choir. I was surprised when 24 boys from various local church choirs turned up when the word got round. It was then that Mr Bailey the music teacher from Cannock Grammar School came to the rescue. He sent me 25 copies of music that we had been singing in his choir; "Ave Verum", "O who will o'er the Downs so free" and "All in the April Evening". The choir boys, all from local churches were well accomplished and didn't require much coaching from me. One of them was a good pianist and accompanied the choir which I was elected to conduct. Permitted to practice in the school hall, our efforts were clearly heard and in the end one hundred boys applied to join. It might have got out of hand but, in an exercise of self-discipline the boys organised auditions and 'approved' a further 25. Mr Bailey helped out again by furnishing a further 25 copies.
Hearing the rehearsals it was assumed by the Head that the concert was well organised by the staff and that their contribution was well in hand and it was only discovered it wasn't a week before the event. He went round fretting about the invited guests. It was rescued at a late stage by the boys themselves volunteering to read intellectual passages and a few instrumental performances. The expected staff contribution never materialised. The greatly relieved head teacher, not known for expressing gratitude, did so on this occasion. I never did quite understand how it was that the boys managed, or were allowed to manage, their own destiny. I think it was something to do with the hierarchical traditions of the sixth and the fact that they were referred to by the title 'Mr', a bit like a surgeon.
It was surprising that the school was not aware of the raw talent that existed within its cloisters. Such talent could have been harvested for school assembly to lead such choruses as, "Thine be the Glory", but assemblies were seen as an obligatory chore and "Umph" in assembly was not part of the school prospectus.

Sports Day

Sports day was an entirely different matter. It was the highlight of the year when pride was at stake and the elite sportsmen from each house vigorously competed for the coveted house trophy. Hook house was in the running that year but it was close. Not being an athlete, I was content to encourage the team of supreme athletes from the side-lines where I had formed a small orchestra, playing second fiddle, to add atmosphere to the occasion. My unsolicited last minute contribution, for which I had not trained, was to run in the 4 x 400 relay around the cricket pitch which was the final deciding event. I was given a pair of ill-fitting spikes and told that I would take the final leg, be given a substantial lead and in no way to drop the baton, or lose that lead.
I was given a lead, the spikes gripped the turf and hurt like hell, reminding me of my obligation with every stride, and sheer terror drove my legs like pistons to the tape. Perhaps that miraculous strength was down to the power of prayer, as a result of introducing scripture to the school, or perhaps the milk-round. Hook house won that race and house trophy for that year. The scene was like something out of "Harry Potter" and the emotion like something out of "To Serve Them All Our Days".

 

Head Boy for a day.

Schooldays were put behind me ( or so I thought), uniform was discarded, no more responsibilities ( or so I thought) and exam results were awaited; and then I received a letter from the headmaster. He would like to promote me to Head Boy, for one day in order that I could make the head-boy's speech at the Old Boys' society dinner. The real head-boy would be in Cambridge so once again I was required to play second fiddle. Perhaps he knew a thing or two about that dinner.
The dinner was a long standing traditional black-tie affair. It was always held in the large banqueting hall of the Wellesley Hotel in the centre of Leeds. I only had the pinstripe suit that I had acquired after the romantic evening dance with Ann in my emerald green Cannock Grammar School jacket. Much to the annoyance of Janet, the second girl I had allowed myself to be fixed up with, I now sported a Frank Sinatra trilby to accompany my pinstriped suit. So I now considered myself to be 'in fashion'. The hat saved me from a second unsolicited romantic relationship after which and I finally made a lifelong decision of my own.
Preparing a speech for the Old Boys' dinner was not difficult because I had plenty of material in the comparison between the two grammar schools. It was easy to butter up people from Yorkshire by appealing to their pride in their triumphs, which I could see from the perspective of an 'outsider'. Unaware of the audience, I had prepared a line that I thought might be received with a wry smile or polite titter. It was to say that when I arrived at West Leeds from Cannock Grammar School, I said the same as Charles 1st when he entered parliament…… The audience mostly comprised members of the old boy's rugby club who at that stage, to put it politely were well oiled, erupted. I had not got the quotation out before the place was in uproar with table thumping and foot stamping and Yorkshire beer spilling over the starched white linen table cloths from raised glasses. The Head Teacher, Mr Barnshaw woken from his contemplative slumbers, like Godfrey out of Dad's Army, or Tommy Cooper caught in the headlights, was heard to ask, "What was that? What was that? Yes, turning a 'Co. Ed.' Into 'single sex' had been indeed a retrograde step and the boys were sensitive about losing their 'birds'.

Epilogue.

The story of my transition from CGS to WLBS might have ended there but, twenty years later, there was an opportunity to fulfil the obligation of the school motto "Non Sibi Sed Ludo". The school, by that time, had become 'comprehensive' but still retained much of the ethos of the old grammar school including the uniform and motto. The image of the school represented elitism to the City Council who wanted to transfer the boys to the girls' school, rename it, demolish the old building and eradicate any vestige of its educational influence. The board of governors, which I chaired, was split on the matter and the local councillors, who had never been to a grammar school, hated the place. It was obvious to me that premises were unsuitable for teaching in a modern environment, but the building was a significant and notable landmark in the environment. With a little insider knowledge, I secretly conspired with members of staff to get the building listed. It was, much to the inconvenience of the City Council, but a 'worthy' compromise.
The school was eventually transformed into maisonettes and is now known as the Old School Lofts. They tower over the local community, proudly as a monument to past educational glories. It is likely that, had a young lad from Cannock Grammar School, not been unwillingly hauled north, the school building, which is half a mile away from where I now live, and pass on a daily basis, might not be standing. The question remains as to which of the school motto's is the more enduring; to 'live for your school' or to 'live worthily'. West Leeds is the school I am constantly reminded of; Cannock Grammar School is the school I shall never forget.