Rotherham Grammar School - ne ingrati videamur

How I resisted the temptation to head this "Rothrum Grammer Skool" I shall never know. It isn't that I didn't learn anything there - it is just that it was a school after all, and therefore has to be treated with some degree of ridicule. The minute I started to draw together all my thoughts I started to shed the years - and fairly soon I had mentally lost 40 years...... If you want a brief history of the old place  then the Unofficial Rotherham site covers it very well http://www.rotherhamunofficial.co.uk/outandabout/trc.htm

My first recollection of the place was Class 1A in Woodhurst at the front, overlooking the playing fields - far removed from the main school - the prefects - they really did have slippers and they used them - and the teachers - Dickie Pile (or was it Pyle) - English , Max -  ? French and Music- Flash Gordon (his dad had taught me at primary school) PE, Fred Kemp - Geography , Mr. Hunt History ....and ? Foster of woodwork and metalwork fame and ??

... and the kids - Michael Ede, Dave Norcliffe, Roger Binney, Peter Demaine, Midhurst or Medhurst, Phil Lander, John Piper, Nigel Wilson, Howard Davies, Will Howarth, John Williams, Keith Smith, Malcolm Cox, Graham Balderstone, Snowy White, Malcolm Foster, Philip Glossop, another Williams came later, Simpkins or Simpson maybe, Ray Shepherd, Graham Ellis (he died of a brain tumor in 1962 (ish)), a guy named Harrison, Pop Hawkins, Tommy Rowley (he became a bus driver), Mike Scott, Michael Fletcher (Ollie), Geoff Hague lived near me, Pete Bower (I saw him a lot when he worked at SPT) ..... There was a . ??? Morrison, Bealey,  Alan Howland, Chris Earnshaw and Terry Roach, Graham Batteson.  John Prescott , Mike Parry, Eric Cottam ....

and in the year above us .. John Halliday, John Bates, Doug Page, Phil Early, Jeremy Spencer, Ian Rufus and ?

this is sure to grow - not all from 1A of course - but inevitably I went from 1A to 2beta - still in Woodhurst, but now the class demarcation becomes blurred - Standeven taught us General Science down in the main school labs - and Kershaw later taught us Chemistry - and "Ben" Buttery (sp?) who taught us biology who later killed his family and then himself (I must look him up in the archives), and good old Tom Dealy with his art (wasn't John Bates a great artist).

and who could forget GEG - G.E.Gunner the headmaster with his Rover 90. Check out the Staff Photo (1963) courtesy of Phil Holden. If you can add any more (or spot any mistakes) please drop me a line  - Lol@Valeofglamorgan.net

The houses - I was in Snells (loved the blue but hated the name), Bishops (green), Founders (yellow), Hooles (red).

Lol Middleton - Lol@Valeofglamorgan.net

(first one to say Piggy gets kill-filed sine die)

Contacts made so far

John Williams, Will Howarth, John Halliday

I am grateful to Richard Drabble for copies of the photographs of the school and Woodhurst.