An Experience not to be Forgotten...

Every now and then a Google search throws up something I haven't seen. This is from an article in the Coventry Telegraph c2018. Some of you from the 70's might know the guys mentioned. -

An experience not to be forgotten... 

"Last week's feature on the old City of Coventry boarding school prompted several memories and one mysterious sighting. It was very interesting to read and see the photographs of Cleobury Mortimer and the City of Coventry School, formerly Wyre Forest Camp School, writes Paul Rutherford of Coventry.

I was a pupil at the school from 1970-1975, five years of my life that I will never forget, and although now aged 52 I think like a lot of the former pupils, there are memories that will never be forgotten.

I know at the time it was thought by many of the pupils to resemble a prisoner of war camp, and how long times were longed to get into the 4th & 5th years to be housed in the modern block, with smaller rooms and none of the drafty dormitories. Oh, and of course they had the snooker table.

The early years based in the dormitories are ones that would never be forgotten for the early rising to the rush over to the ablutions in all weathers to get cleaned up for the day, the rush to have breakfast, and to be back for inspection hoping that you had remembered to roll the bed back and draw curtains to avoid the punishment of lines, and that was before you got back to school.

I still maintain that we had one of the hardest masters in the camp who doubled up as chemistry teacher and house master for the youngsters of Dudley House.

If the swimming pool was too cold for swimming, then they could always arrange a Cross Country Run for sports, and this not just during the school times, but also when they began to organise sports on a Saturday morning, reducing our free time even further, and of course there was no complete free day on a Sunday either as there was church to attend, and no going into the village without school uniform.

Was it any wonder that some of the new attendances to the school, saw it in their mind to do a runner back to Coventry.
But it did have one good advantage, the power cuts of the 1970s meant that we did have one advantage, and had an extended time at home.
It may have seemed like a hard life at the time, but looking back, I don't think it did any of us any harm."

EDWARD Johns, of Acacia Avenue, Stoke, Coventry, was intrigued by our picture of boys in 1945/6 when the school was Wyre Farm Camp.
He asks: "Who is the turbanned gentleman in the top left hand corner of the photograph? Anybody else spot it?" (below right) 

And Mick Lacey, of Bedworth, recalls: "I was at Wyre Farm Camp School in the late 50s early 60s. Forest Lodge was not built then. The ground was the allotments which we tended. While I was there it changed name to City of Coventry Boarding School for Boys. Not that made any difference to us. It was good school.

In the winter when there was snow and frost and the classrooms were not over warm we used to have mass snowball fights with the whole school and teachers involved."
I WAS a border for six months in 1944/5; all dormitories were named after districts in Coventry. I was in Radford.We had bunk beds in those days the cold showers in the morning certainly brushed the cobwebs away.

The school used to take us out on many trips, including Ludlow Castle and the Elan Valley dams which supplies water to Birmingham. Food took a bit of getting used to, specially having kippers and mash potato for breakfast. On the subject of potatoes we went picking for a week; it was on a very large estate with a beautiful house and its own small church.
When we arrived, we scared stiff when we found out we would be working Italian prisoners of war who were being held there. We soon got over that when they invited us up to the house and gave us endless supplies of cakes and trifles. I always remember when you fell foul of the teacher you were told to go and collect a set of studs from around school. All our shoes were heavily studded to make them last, hence there was studs all over the place! It was great place for sport. I used to play in goal for the junior team.
Another sport I was introduced to was table tennis, a game I subsequently played for over fifty years with a little bit of success.
Bob Harrigan, Whitmore Park, Coventry