'Willingly to School' Coventry Express Article 1963

 

'Willingly to School' Coventry Express 1963 - Mr Rowland was Head Teacher.


WILLINGLY TO SCHOOL

Reporter Ashley Walton and photographer Mick Thorpe Visit the City of Coventry Boarding school.

"We are not fighting pictures or the telly every night" said the tweed suited teacher. "Extra evening study is always done, and willingly!" He was talking to me in the masters' common room at the City of Coventry Boarding School where 170 Coventry boys live in a wild and beautiful part of Shropshire.

This school, a cluster of buildings on a hill overlooking the small village of Cleobury Mortimer, a few miles from Kidderminster, could be the poor man's Eton. But a public public school is the best description. A place where boys from the ages of 11 to 15 (16) live a genuine classless existence. It offers some of the best qualities of the traditional public school without its drawbacks. It makes no difference who your father is or what kind of car he drives. Motorcycle combinations and E type Jaguars stand side by side on visiting day. There is no fagging and the results speak for themselves.

The City of Coventry Boarding school, which has been open since the summer of 1940, is the boarding school of the Coventry education Authority. In the blitz it was used as a receiving centre for boy evacuees.

Building

And suddenly from the experiences of these boys the education people realised that living in a friendly community with hundreds of boys of the same ages developed a strong spirit of self reliance. And that is why Coventry Boarding school is still operating today. A new school building programme is on the drawing boards. The headmaster has had to turn down hundreds of requests for places each year. There were almost 75 per cent GCE passes last year.

Parents pay according to their means. Tuition is free and the boarding fee less than the actual cost to the Authority. Parents may ask for an assessment of the actual fee which is £100 a year. The London County Council run the same kind of school at Woolverstone Hall but the fees at Woolverstone are much higher, up to a maximum of £240. The boys at Cleobury Mortimer, in the regulation navy blue blazers and grey flannels, are well spoken, well mannered and able to stand on their own two feet.

The 15 year old school Captain, David Holmes, of 62, Northumberland Road, Coventry, told me "There is little or no bullying by the upper school. If the younger boys are upset about anything they go to their housemaster. He is like a father to them. I take my GCE's in the summer and then I hope to become a draughtsman. I think the education here is of a higher standard than the normal secondary school. The classes are smaller and get individual attention."

TELEVISION

"Although we have television here, it is not a distraction. This evening most of the upper school will be studying without supervision. Not because they have to, but because they want to."

The 42 year old headmaster, Mr Robert Rowland was senior housemaster at the LCC's Woolverstone Hall.

This is his third year as head of the Coventry School. He lives with his wife and three children Susan (13), Alison (9) and Jonathan (6 months) in a cottage in the school grounds. He has attempted to bring new ideas to the school. If a problem comes up, he gathers the House Captains together and discusses the problem with them. And in most cases he yields to their wishes. The boys flock to his small crowded study with their requests and problems.

"I hope before long to achieve a limited range of sixth form courses. To give the boys a chance at University places." He told me.

He spoke about his big problem, homesickness on the first day.. "This shows itself immediately and the boys make it worse by not taking any interest in the things going on around them. But we are soon able to get to the root of the problem, and then they settle in happily."

Eleven year old Gordon Talbot, of 172, Lockhurst Lane, Coventry, started at the school in September. He said : "When I first came I thought I wanted to go home again but then I made friends a few of the other new boys. Now i love it here. The hours of sport are terrific." The boys are allowed to watch television for a few hours each evening if they want to.

GIRLFRIENDS

There are the usual school societies in the evening, and on Saturdays the boys can go down the village to the cinema, or go cycling in the lovely countryside. Sport in the healthy Shropshire air takes up only the usual part of any school curriculum. Equal emphasis is placed on the arts and the sciences.

"This is not a monastic life" said Mr Rowland, "Some of the older boys have girl friends in the village. This is not frowned on, the only stipulation made is that the girl's parents know of the relationship. I would like to organise school dances. But there are just not enough girls in the nearby area."

City of Coventry Boarding school pupils go out into the world with something the secondary modern or comprehensive cannot give them. They go with a sense of independence and ruggedness, a thing not easily cultivated.

Example of a Coventry Express - a weekly paper in 1963

1950'S SPORTS TEAMS

 Headmaster Mr Morris seems to be in all the sports team photos of the the 1950's and very early 60's. Clearly he took pride in them.

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

Neen Savage 2020 Gill Guest - New Book

I got an email from author Gill Guest who has authored a book on Neen Savage which sounds quite amazing. Gill says "The book might make a great Christmas present for someone. It's a whopping 200 pages, with colour pics. There's a section on the Pioneer Centre/Wyre Farm school, as well as history and stories and field maps and name origins. Did you know 'neen' is a great rarity, one of our oldest words and possibly THE oldest? How about that! It means river."

Recent Material via Facebook or other!

NEIL AND HAZEL O'CONNOR

Taken at the Coventry Music Museum a couple of years back - Coventry singer Hazel O'Connor n the right, Pete Chambers (Curator of the museum) and hazel's older brother, Neil O'Connor on the left. Neil was at CCSB c 1965 in Dudley but left the school early. He later formed his own band c 1974 called Midnight Circus. I gave them their first two gigs at the Hobo Workshop, Holyhead Road Coventry where some of the Two Tone bands later formed. Midnight Circus changed their name c 1970 to the Flys becoming a punk band with a single called Molotov Cocktail. The Flys appeared on John Peel, Old Grey Whistle Test but split up by the time Hazel broke through in 1981 with her film and album 'Breaking Glass'. Neil joined Hazel's backing tour band Megahype on guitar and they recently toured again a few years back. Neil lives in Montreal now where he's still writing and making music.

Rosemary Webb Rehill, daughter of the bursar has once again submitted some interesting material.

Oliver

Many of you remember the production of Oliver c 1969 in the school hall - there is a post on here with many photos. Rosemary found the programme and heere it is.

THE SWIMMING POOL

Another of Rosemary's finds was a video of the school swimming pool. The footage is from1959 and stars Rosemary swimming in the school pool with her cousin and her brother Steve Webb with Sue Rowland. 

MAWLEY HALL

Way back in 2011 when we started this blog and the Facebook page, Rosemary initiated a discussion about Mawley Hall - whose grounds are opposite Cherry Orchard. Rosemary recalled that any Catholics at the school would worship at Mawley Hall ( and later in Cleobury) and she also mention that the hall had associations with Napoleon, King Henry VIII and the Blunt family. The original post can be viewed here  https://wyrefarmed.blogspot.com/2011/07/mawley-hall.html?fbclid=IwAR3eP-Pk86lf9f89kLmCc0h-QrGuPzc0sLi1zzKnhhqbzmqxBXJeTqQ2fe4

Recently Rosemary and her husband Chuck Rehill visited Mawley Hall and here is a video from that video 

Below - the entrance to Mawley Hall

This cutting was uploaded to our Facebook page by Peter Stokes in regard to the school Initiative tests.

THE INITIATIVE TESTS

Adrian Adams

Myself and China Downing made it to Lands End. I know Braid Cochran and Andy (Huck) Finney got to somewhere in Scotland that Braid had relations.

Paul Nicholas Williamson

As it happens there was a map put on the wall of the assembly hall showing where each pair had got to. RTM would also tell the school at morning assembly the up to date news that was when the school was really buzzing with activities, sorry but we entertained ourselves more than the lazy gits of today on their play stations.

Lauri Lindsay

We did Taunton Somerset. I remember hearing of a pair who went to Scotland and were offered a trip on a trawler if they got the ok which of course they said they had it. On their return the Police were waiting on the dock for them. Seems they were away for a week !

Pete Day

Imagine this now. The kids wouldn't cope, the parents would be in fits and the cops would go nuts, bless.

Michael Billings

I was on the same initiative test as Peter with Warren Shepherd. We went up to Glasgow across to Edinburgh and down to London before returning to school. We got separated on our last night in Evesham and arrived back at school separately (my fault) and i landed in hot water with the head. Highlight for me was visiting Glasgow St Enoch station and cabbing 46222 Queen Mary Coronation Class loco.

TexasDave McGarry

I went with Peter Lund to Devon. Rained the whole time as I remember, but the best escape from school ever. It prepared me for the longest hitch hike ever when I took the long road to Australia a few years later.

Ken Hammond

Did they not stop this when two boys had to be ‘recovered’ from the Côte d’Azur? They ‘crewed’ on a Yacht.

Tony Baker

Did this in 1957 when myself and John Davies reached Glasgow, Edinburgh and London then across to South Wales achieving 1500 miles. We were that years winners. Have still got the original notebook in which we recorded details of our adventures.

Trev Teasdel

Thanks Peter. We went on an initiative test in 1966 but I think we took a tent, stove and had some tins of food and had to phone the school each night to check in. More precautions then. I don't remember an instruction to earn our way but people were very kind with lifts, camping grounds and food. We went to Radnorshire but some went down south - didn't hear of anyone going to Ireland. It's unthinkable now - there would be an outcry but we had a good time luckily!

........................

MARTYN HAWTHORNE

Several of the lads spotted former House and School Captain Martyn Hawthorn at the Cenotaph on Poppy day. Martyn was born on 5th October, 1946, in Stratford-upon-Avon and brought up in Coventry. He was educated at the City of Coventry Boys Boarding School (1958-1963) and was House Captain and Head Boy. He continued his education at Binley Park Comprehensive School in Coventry where he was Deputy Head Boy from 1964 to 1965. He was an accomplished sportsman, playing cricket for Worcestershire, competing in the All England Athletic Championships and playing for England Schools versus Wales and Scotland.
He continued his education at the Coventry College of Education and became a PE and Masters teacher. Having taught for a number of years, he became a leisure centre manager as many PE teachers did in the early 1970’s. He applied to join the Royal Navy as an Instructor Officer. He was accepted and went to BRNC in April 1977 and then onto HMS Fearless for training. Having trained, he served on HMS Raleigh, HMS Hermes, HMS Heron, HMS Nelson, Squadron Instructor Officer for D3 going to Armilla Patrol on HMS Glasgow. During the Falklands Crisis, he was appointed to MoD in London due to his specialist skills. He went on an exchange appointment to HMAS Cerberus with the Royal Australian Navy and was their Quality Control Officer.
Returning to the UK, Martyn was appointed SATO at HMS Neptune and was responsible for the training change-over from Polaris to Trident. “Options for Change” meant that he could not be promoted again and his Commission ended in 1993. Since 1979, he had refereed rugby union for the RNRURS and the Combined Services Rugby Union, having officiated the All Blacks in 1984.
On completion of his Commission, he went back to his roots as a PE teacher and became a lecturer in the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies in the sports department. Within three years, he was Head of School and stayed for another three years before taking up an appointment with the Scottish Rugby Union as a Referee Development Officer where he stayed until his retirement in June 2014.
Martyn was part-time Clerk to the Board of Management at the Barony College, Dumfries, for seven years until it was amalgamated with Elmwood College, Oakridge College and the Scottish Agricultural College. This gave him first-hand experience of Governance and dealing with Trustee issues.
He and his family moved to Moffat in 1992 where he has lived ever since. Having re-established his career and his young family having grown up, he joined the Moffat Branch of the Legion in 2001. At that time, the Branch only held one meeting a year, the AGM. Martyn became the Poppy Convenor and Branch Secretary when the Secretary retired in 2003. He and the new Branch Chairman, Billy Duncan BEM, introduced a monthly coffee morning on the last Wednesday of the month from 1030 to 1200 noon. The first month, there were only 12 Legionnaires present. The next month, there were 19 and now, some years later, over 40 members attend and there are guest speakers whenever possible.
Martyn became the NEC Representative for Dumfries and Galloway in December 2013 and then, Area Secretary for Dumfries and Galloway in February 2014. He has recently again been voted as the Area NBT Representative. He was on the working group that revised the RBLS Constitution and Handbook as well as Convenor of the working group looking at the structure of the RBLS.
Martyn’s interests are mainly sports-related, especially rugby, as well as flying, photography, all types of music and travel. He has three daughters and a son plus four grandchildren who also keep him busy. ......[Courtesy of the Scottish Legion ]

Letter from the school to Phil Hawkes 1973

Clothing and sports equipment list from Phil Hawkes 1973.