Farnworth Grammar SchoolFGS in the 1940sRandom Reminiscences |
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Alec Murphy, who was at FGS virtually throughout WW2, sent this persuasive evidence that wartime life wasn't all about the miseries of blackouts, rationing and nightly air raids... |
Potato pickingA week (or was it two?) off school lessons to help the wartime food harvest...In October we used to go to a farm on the Manchester side of Walkden to harvest the potato crop. I can't remember how many years this was done but it was arranged through the school and I remember cycling from Peel St. in Farnworth to start the work early morning & then riding back home, all uphill — knackered! We christened the tractor "Perpetual motion" as it never seemed to stop and we hadn't time to finish picking up all the spuds from one furrow's yield before it was back on the next one. Girls went as well as boys, and I remember on one occasion some larking about in the lunch break and one of the girls (Doreen Pennington) slipping (or was she pushed?) and falling into a ditch full of water. She emerged as a saturated, forlorn figure not knowing whether to scream or cry. Poor girl !! We actually all felt sorry for her and didn't laugh - we were civilized at FGS !! But we were all sent home (I don't know how she got back), and the incident was reported to Mr Wilson. After a stern lecture, he let us resume later in the week. I don't know whether we were pleased or sorry - lessons were easier! Going to Farnworth Baths on the games afternoonThis was an alternative for those who preferred the water to the field sports. Most weeks, there were only three of us (Ron Walsh, Frank Ewell and me) and we usually had the Plunge to ourselves, the attendant only putting in rare appearances to monitor us (we became well known).Apart from the usual swimming, diving, jumping etc., we tried to think of innovations and one day someone (I think it was Frank's idea but he would probably say it was mine; so all right then, let's blame it on Ron!) had the bright notion of using a loose cabin door as a raft. Frank was in the middle of the plunge, floating on the door, when the attendant came in and Frank attempted to submerge it by pushing it further under the water. Of course, the buoyancy just made it shoot up out of the water. We were caught, sent off home and reported to Mr. Wilson, who read out our misdemeanours at the following morning's school Assembly. We were caned (I remember Mr. Wilson coming for me when I was doing PE in the Hall clad in just a pair of thin shorts - OUCH! It hurt...). As further punishment, we were suspended from games for the next few weeks and put on shovelling & transporting coal (or coke?) from the girls' playground, where it had been unloaded, down into the boiler house. But it served us right and we were allowed to resume our Baths visits when our sentences had been served. I bet Frank & Ron got top marks for their knowledge of buoyancy in their sea careers!! The football shirt up the flagpoleThis was when Frank Wilson's football shirt was run up the flagpole when we were about to leave school for the last time in July 1946 (were you part of this, Les?) [Certainly not! Ah were a good lad, me. LD]Frank was crafty, of course, as the shirt had his name in it and he used that well-known logic when confronted with Mr. Wilson: "I wouldn't have done this knowing my name was in it, would I, Sir ? Someone must have taken it". But nobody was unduly bothered as we were all leaving anyway. Playing football in the school yard after schoolThe boys' playground round the back contained the boys' toilets with two entrances on the same wall side. These were the goals and after school a number of us often played a football match for up to an hour. The position of the "goals" meant that the other three walls were used and many of the lads were pretty good at the wall pass (i.e. flicking the tennis ball against the wall when being tackled & running to take its return bounce). I never quite got to their standard - I was usually flattened by Duggie Thompson or Gordon Colley or some other 1st teamer!Afterwards, we would walk back past the Park, the Town Hall & Library, up lower Market St and go into Powell's Milk Bar, opposite the Post Office, Darley St. & Peel St. Those with any money would get a Vimto or similar (England had never heard of Coca Cola in those days) but mostly I think we just stood around and talked. On the odd occasion, a few of us would go to my house and we would do our homework together. I remember we still had double summer time & GMT+1 in winter so it was invariably light. A last emotional visit to FGSIn 1988, by chance, I was passing the school by car. I didn't know it was about be demolished although I had heard it had closed a few years earlier. The gates and main entrance door up the steps were open and I stopped and went in, the first time since I left in 1946. There was not a soul about.I wandered in complete silence through to the Hall with its empty stage, up on to the balcony, and looked down into the Hall and at the large windows. I fully expected to meet someone — a caretaker or contractor perhaps — but the place was completely deserted. I can only assume in retrospect that the contractors were round the other side on a break. I went along the corridors and into the last classroom I had had in the Upper V's. It was empty, of course, but the green chalkboard was still there on the wall. Everything looked so much smaller than in my memory. I stood for a few minutes with very mixed emotions — I could see where I once sat, where each of the boys and girls sat. It was quite eerie, almost ghostlike with that strange absence of noise as I felt the past, not as a shiver but as a warmth. It was time to go. I didn't want to meet anyone else there now. My memories were sufficient. |
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