Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Serge Surprises



Here at 1zaac we received yesterday an email from honorary 1zaac Anne in Brittany;

Hello everyone.

I think I need to tell you about a film I have gone to see last week in Rennes. It is call "Gainsbourg (vie héroïque)"

I know you have interest in this French singer from your previous blogpostings. It tell the story of Serge Gainsbourg. How he grow up as Jewish boy in Paris during occupation. How he love many women, and they love him back. How he was always obsess by his ugliness, but this does not stop him bonking Juliette Gréco, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin and many others. Au contraire...

It turn out that while you Zeddeurs are all in room D6 at Cannock Grammar School in autumn of 1967, in fact probably while Miss Austin give you her very first Latin lesson, Serge and Brigitte are Latin Lovers in Paris apartement, when he write for her songs Bonnie and Clyde or Harley Davidson.

Did you know he write "Je t'aime, Moi non plus" for Bardot, not Birkin? Brigitte so embarrass by her own gasping, she ask him to hold back for a bit, so the BB version only get released in 1986. Is even more sulfureuse than Jane version.

"Shame Bardot is now racist hag", I am thinking in Rennes multiplex while Avatar next door make walls vibrate with Serge and Jane in a bathtub, while Staffordshire terrier looks on. (Is bit weird in places).

I think you should see this film if it come to Cannock Electric Palace.

Amicalement. Anne de Bretagne.
Well merci beaucoup, Anne. We'll look for the write-up in the Chase Post if it makes the screens here. But don't hold your breath.

Judge for yourself, 1zaacs, by clicking on pics in this posting for a few Serge surprises.




BBC-type warning: 1zaac.com is not responsible for the content of other websites. We have enough trouble taking responsibility for some of the stuff on this one. Ed.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Love Grows, Hair Grows...


For the 1zaacs who left Cannock Grammar School at the end of the Fifth Year, the Spring Term of 1970 marked the half-way point in their secondary school career.
How we had changed since that day in September 1967 in room D6. How much more we would change as our story unfolded...
"Mairte"
Said Kev on our first day back forty years ago.
"Have yoe noticed summat, er, different about all the lads. Summat, er, physical??"
He said it in a tone unusual for him. A tone more théâtre de l'absurde than New Scientist.
I looked around room C2. Kev was right. Something was different.
"Mairte."
The line was straight from Ionesco's Rhinocéros.
"We've all lost our ears."
1970 was shaping up to become an interesting year.
Click on Edison Lighthouse for a taste of Rosemary.
AB

Monday, January 4, 2010

Food Feedback


Here at 1zaac we received an email from Anne in Brittany:
Hello 1zaac. I really enjoy the story of school dinner. I thought that midday meal in English is call lunch?
Anyway, I have been to see a film about this in my little cinéma near to Saint Malo last year. If you clic on poster, I think this will give some idea of one initiative in a small commune in South-West France.
The Maire of this commune say "In local government, if you want initiative to work, NEVER send in the accountants first. They just know about money. Initiatives have to be about people, first."
I hope this is, how you say, food for thought".
Thank-you Anne, from all of us at 1zaac.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Five Decades of School Dinners

This post is an 1zaac prequel.

The levelling effect of hot, subsidised, nutritionally-planned school meals was possibly at its most pronounced when we, the middle baby-boomers, were in our schooling years.

These were the years when the “bean cookers” in the Staffordshire School Meals Service still had more influence than the “bean -counter” or the “book -cooker” policymakers, who were busying themselves losing the plot just over the political horizon. (Expect mail on this one. Ed.)

Here is the first of three 1zaac’essays on the subject, covering Five Decades of School Dinners. The Midstaffordian working title for this 1zaac venture is “Am Them Kids All Right?”

[Regular readers will be indulgent of the crowd-pleasing nostalgic tone, and should feel free to add their own unpleasant 1960’s memories of dental caries, inedible items and wasted food in the interests of balance. Ed]


January 1961 i hold on to the Silver Cross pushchair as Mom walks us past Hassall’s sweet shop then turns out of High Street and into Pinfold Lane i am four i am wearing mittens and my favourite home-knitted green Balaclava helmet my breath freezes on the woolly mass in front of my mouth my little sister is wrapped up snugly in the pushchair Santa gave her the same winter overcoat as mine with six big buttons on the front i haven't learned punctuation yet. Oh. That's better. (Thank you for the retro-txt. Ed.)

Mom pauses at the oxblood steel railings behind the school. The kids are playing kiss-chase in the crackling morning air. Behind us, although it is mid-morning, the sun is barely above the horizon, and the long shadows of the kisschasers are dashing across the pencil-grey surface of the playground.

“Orright Auntie Edna”

Shout a dozen kids in rough unison, some of whom are genuinely cousins, some not.

“Is your Alan stoppin’ dinners when he starts school?” Enquires a voice from the line of littlies pressed against the railings.

I don’t hear the answer.

I am absorbed in the study of the pyramid-shaped white cartons which are piled into a crate on the other side of the playground, next to the Victorian gothic revival doorway of the canteen kitchen.

“Them’uns am all empty now. That’s our milk what we ‘ave before playtime that is”



Cheslyn Hay County Primary School 1960. Photo courtesy CHLHS

“Our Fred”, a real cousin, is enlightening me, having seen the puzzled, inquiring look.

“Are. Missis Jeavons cuts a bit off the corner o’ the box thing, an’ we ‘ave a straw an’all. An’ we doe atter pay for it neither.”

While Mom and the kids exchange chatter, I imagine what icy cold milk would taste like through a waxed paper straw.

Mrs Jeavons appears at the top of the steps, smiles in our direction, and blows a whistle. The kids say “Ta-ra Auntie Edna”, and assemble themselves into four shuffling lines, which quickly quieten down and file through another ogival gothic arch, into the corridor…

It was September before I learned what milk from a white “Jublee” carton tasted like.

On that first day of school, Mrs Jeavons snipped the corner of the pack, just before play-time, in the prescribed manner. Her scissors had pointy ends: we were only allowed to use the ones with round ends until we graduated to The Top Class, five years hence.

Like the other kids in the infants’ class, I had selected my straw from a grey carton marked “100 waxed drinking straws”.

The only sounds for the next three minutes were the gaggled gluggings and soft slurpings of forty straws.

Mrs Jeavons watched benignly over the silent communion of our third-of-a pint-sized community.
Photo courtesy National Archives

At playtime, refuelled with egalitarian energy, we zoomed around the playground pretending to be
Spitfires or Hurricanes.

The school bully forced me to crash-land in the dark, northern corner, next to the bell tower. He asserted his identity by boxing my ears. When I refused to cry, and he saw that I had no morning snack, he re-joined the dog-fighters and looked for another little kid. (It would be some time before I was able to even the score using a bar of ex-lax laxative chocolate convincingly moulded into Cadbury’s Buttons. )

Being the youngest and smallest, I made friends that with the biggest kid in the class, who told me his name was Kev.

“Doe yoe worry, Mairte. That milk’ll soon build yer up. ‘Ave a Tairter Puff.”

He proffered an open bag of Potato Puffs, which he’d bought with a threepenny bit.

“Am yoe stoppin’ dinners? Me mom to’d me as the lairdy in charge o’ the cookin’ is Missis Cartwright, an ‘ers a bostin’ cook. Yoe wairte till yoe tairste ‘er pairstry.

Map courtesy CHLHS

Kev explained, in a scientific manner beyond his years, the three luncheon options:

“See, yoe’ve got three choices:
(i) Gooin’ wum. Yer can goo ter yer Gran’s or back wum if it ay too fur ter walk.
(ii) Stoppin’ samwidgiz. That ay too bad if yer Mom puts a bit’o variety in theer. But yer doe want salmon spread more than once a wick.
(iii) Stoppin’ dinners. It costs a bob a day, burra lot o’ the kids get free ‘uns.”

I wanted to learn analysis like that, and decided to try to casually sprinkle some (i), (ii) and (iii) type punctuational elements into conversation at the earliest opportunity.

The whistle blew, and I fell into file in front of Kev.

Lunchtime arrived after a reading lesson with Janet and John, Book One. Pink cover. I could read already, but kept it quiet as I didn’t want any newly-found friends discovering a smart-arse in their midst.

The school canteen was a tribute to the sobriety, practicality and occasional wackiness of its Victorian designers. The aforementioned gothic doors and windows were no doubt a nod to ecclesiastical respectability and other-worldliness, circa 1880. The window ledges were high: seated pupils could not see out. There was plenty of light on sunny days, and no distractions from the grown-ups’ world outside. During the six years of our primary schooling, our only view when day-dreaming was the Rosemary Tileries roof-tiles of the houses in Hatherton Street, and the occasional bemused swallow on the single telephone wire across the road.
Pinfold Lane School, from Hatherton St. circa 1915 Courtesy CHLHS
In the eyes of a five-year-old, the dining room seemed as capacious as any Oxford College refectory. Hot dinners and puddings were served from a hatchway at the southern end. The smells of home cooking diffused into the seating area. Today it was roast lamb, with bright green peas, scoops of mashed potato and steaming gravy from aluminium jugs. The potato had a sprinkling of dried parsley: we all looked at it carefully, then at one another before cautiously digging in. We sat at sixties Formica tables of 8. My cousin Fred was a Big Kid, and so had the job of Server.

Fifty years later, my revisionist memory tells me that we all ate every bit. It also indicates that pudding was pineapple crush with crumbly pastry and a flourish of mock cream. Water was poured from aluminium jugs, too, and into “Made in France” Duralex glasses. There was once again that feeling of communion, of a moment shared. A moment of normality.

Class favourites during thosr primary schooling years were cheese & potato pie, liver wrapped in bacon, even …SALAD (pronounced “sallid”). Chocolate sponge pudding with peppermint custard. Shortbread with pink sauce. Slabs of jam tart…

With our young minds well-nourished, in the playground after lunch we could hone our punctuation skills by pondering on such mysteries as:

(i) “Why do they put Made in France in English on them Durex glasses, Kev?”
(ii) "Kev, how do they mek them milk cartons?"...
"Like this, Mairte"

In the good years, we paid a shilling for each meal. When our families fell on hard times, some of us kids qualified for “Free Dinners”, and got a life-lesson in how to cope with peer-group social stigma.

In 1961, the School Meals Service, and the supply of Free School Milk seemed to be as perennial a fixture in our everyday lives as those gothic revival buildings...

Stay tuned, 1zaacs, for this prequel's sequel, when we return to the 1970's.

We’ll see the emergence of Costcutter Analysis Milk Snatching.

Then, in the hope that maybe history could teach us something, we’ll travel to 1980, for a feast of Economic Fundamentalism, and the genesis of an obesity epidemic.

Then we’ll share some Good News Initiatives from the ‘90’s and the Noughties, and come bang up to date with Food For Thought for the Tenties.

Happy New Year.

AB.





Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Loy-it Moiy Foyer


When Cannock Grammar School ceased to exist, not many years after the 1zaacs left, much memorabilia was consigned to the dustbin. Try phoning the school campus now, and you will learn that the Grammar School is referred to as "the other end of the campus", and that all school records have been destroyed.


This makes the hunt for memorabilia a bit of a challenge. [Probably not altogether a bad thing. Ed.]


One item which survived was this photo. If you click on it, you can take a short aerial Mystery Tour of the School as we 1zaacs remember it.


The photo was rescued by staff member Mr Sewell. It used to be on display in the Foyer.


"Foyer" was uttered in 1967 by us Grammar Grubs in the manner of a Brummie saying "Fire": Foy as in boy and er as in err. It was the first posh word I remember learning to mispronounce at age 11.


Our rendition of the word produced kilos of laughter from our French penfriends, who would be arriving in 1970.


Our pronunciation was, however quite serendipitous: Foyer also means "hearth" in French.


This set us here at 1zaac wondering whether William the Conqueror may have become a closet Brummie after sending his Domesday Froggy tax officials to survey the Cannock Chase area in the 1070's.


"Coom on Bayboy, Loit moiy Foyer" ?


[Probably not. More justification for that failed History 'A' Level. Just hope that the examining board pulped that one. Ed]
Enjoy the flight.
AB

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Pre-Tippex Teaching Tips

We 1zaacs seem to have a surprising number of our offspring who have ended up in the teaching profession.

Here is a Christmas present for them, and for general interest, in the form of a 1970's pre-photocopy roneostat.

Click on the pic for 37 pearls of practicality and sagesse, with a few reassuring spelling erreurs thrown in.

The document came to light in an old file, and was the sole surviving element after the dormouse (see article, infra) applied radical editing techniques and made a nest of the rest. [you should let it loose on your blogposts. Ed]

It proves the French adagium;

"Il n'y a de nouveau que ce qui a été oublié"

...or as Gaston Pommille-Bâtard would say "Ze only new steuff is zat what you forgot"

AB

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Daily Mash


Here at 1zaac we received details of a recommended website some months ago from one of our fellow Zeddeurs. We have been laughing so much that it's taken us most of the year to get around to sharing this one.
Click on the Daily Mash for the Real News, and the surprising truth about French TV.
AB

Woolies Christmas (Past 'n) Present


Forty years ago this week the members of class 3E put their laboratory brat stools up on to the science benches and filed out of room C1, and out of the sixties at Cannock Grammar School.
It was 3.35 in the afternoon, and night had fallen over the coalfields. The air was crisp. Frozen snow crunched under the soles of our General Purpose Tuf school shoes.
Because of the slippery conditions, we missed the 3.45 Number 17, whose tail was disappearing past the Technical College. I was going to be late for my Express & Star newspaper round.
"Doe worry, Mairte. We'll goo an' treat ourselves to some Pick 'n Mix down Woolies. Ah'll gi' yer a nand deliverin' the pairpers after."
Kev led the way through The Arcade, pausing only to cast a critical eye over the Mamod steam engines in the toy emporium. The smell of roast chicken radiated with the warmth from the Barbecue Shop opposite.
"Thar'll never ketch on Al. Ten bob fer a roasted chickin when yer Mom can cook one at 'um..."
Across the town centre was Woolworth's.
"Tat an' treasure, Mairte".
My companion pushed open the swinging doors.
We walked into Cannock's retail hot-spot, counted the pre-decimal coppers after removing green blazer fluff, and headed for the Pick 'n Mix...
"It's always packed in here, Kev, ay it" I said, counting in a Bubbly, five Flying Saucers and some liquorice shoe laces.
"Are. Always wull be an' all, Boy Wonder. Yoe car beat Woolies for a bargin. Come on, we've just got time ter look through the records"...
"Let's walk down past the Picture House instead, Kev. They'm playin' that Rolf Harris record over the'er, an' it drives me soft. Paul's workin' on a better version, he to'd me this afternoon. 'e promised it'll be ready for when we goo back ter school in January."
"Con do. Am yoe gunner eat all o' them flyin saucers?"
And with that, we stepped out into the Christmas air of the pavement, balancing briefcases in one hand, and a bag of "sook" in the other.
Now click on the Woolworth's pic for a Christmas present from Mitch Benn.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Bowdler'1zaac Request



Hello 1zaacs,

I am so excited to see that we are at last arriving in 1970. I see that your editorial dept has a thing about the Moon and about aeroplanes, so I'm sending you this picture to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first commercial flights of the Jumbo Jet.

Do any 1zaacs remember the missing words to the Cadbury's Dairy Milk advert with the pics of the 747, circa 1970?

"In the something something Seventies, isn't it nice to know....

There's still the something something taste...

of Cadbury's Dairy Milk".

Just one request; can you give us ample warning of any rude bits coming up. I clicked on one pic infra, and had to go for a lie down.

The Benny Hill ad was good, though.

Keep up the good work.

T Bowdler esq.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Numerical Nerditorium Forum

Here at 1zaac we have been having nerd'iscussions about PNP.

Not the PNP transistors Mr Griffiths taught us about in Physics in 1970.

"Transistors are going to revolutionize technology"

He told us.

"One day we'll all have a computer in our house, and it will probably be quite a lot smaller than your Mum's New World 33 gas cooker with eye level grill..."

He carried on, ignoring Carole Freeman's eye-rolling for a minute.

No, here at 1zaac we've been thinking about Personal Number Plates, and what they might reveal about different cultures...

[This sounds like more "rivetting stuff". Ed]

Hey, Ed, bear with us for a mo.

...We asked four different 1zaac'affiliates to explain the set-ups in;

UK

France

Australia

Switzerland.

First a report from Ellen Jay in Cannock, Staffordshire, England who is having a break from her restaurant jaunts today.

"Here in England, it's big business. You can get a PNP, or "Cherished Plate" from a private individual or from a "Cherished Plate Broker" (dealer).

You will pay anything from a few quid to many thousands. The plate might end up being worth more than the car. (I have a car like that; its value increases by 25% every time I fill the tank. Ed)

The price depends on how rich/gullible/narcissitic/desperate you are.

The best ones are owned by toffs, genuine or aspiring. "CON 1", football players "WW1" or lottery winners "1 WON". The Queen is allowed to have no numberplate at all, which we admire as classic understatement. Chavs (see Wiki for definition, Ed) sometimes modify numbers to look like letters or vice-versa. See example below spotted at the Cannock Grammar reunion last month.

I am told that the constabulary does not approve of this because speed cameras find creative chavvery hard to read.

Wicked.

Thank you Ellen Jay.

One of our 1zaac French correspondents, Gaston Pommille-Bâtard, did some research at his local préfecture last week. Over to you, Gaston.

'Ere in La Belle France, it is land of intellectuels and égalité. So in theeory, en principe, we 'ave no frivolousse personel numbeurs. BUT (In Franch hadministration is always a BUT), eef you know someone who work in ze Préfecture, you can 'ave, for example 308 AB 85 for your Peugeot 308 if 'e wait for computeur to get to zat numbeur. Is a bit compliqué, and s-l-o-w, but it don't cost nothing. So is a sort of égalité, non?

Also is advantage, because gendarmes 'ave invisibeul message zat you know somebody wiz influence, somebody who work in Préfecture. So zey less likely to stop you if zey see you on ze radar caméra. BUT, wiz automatic camera, is now 'arder to dodge zis one. Unless you have friend in Préfecture who check ze radar pictures.

And anozeur thing. Since six month we 'ave EUROPEAN numbeur instead. Bleurdy European get rid of our département reference on numbeur plate. Zis anozeur reason why ze British Cherish Number Lobby don't want to join Euro, no?

Oh, and I leurve CON 1. You know what is CON in Franch? You can Google it if you want.

Well Gaston, we don't know about that. Thanks for stirring things up a bit.[This is rubbish continuity. Sounds like Benny Hill. Ed]

Click on Ernie for 1971 TV memorabilia.

Our Southern Correspondent, down there in Western Australia, may be able to enlighten us about the Aussie approach.

"Starve the bloomin lizards 1zaacs, no worries here.

Just pay 250 bucks to have any eight letter or number combo, providin' it ain't abusive to English speakers or any other of them there ethnicities. 2CV, DEUX CV, FIFI 2CV, BEANCAN, CARTOON, CAJUNDUCK and TUPAWARE have all been seen on those funny French cars down here. Oh, or youse can have yer favourite footy club emblem, too, if yer pays a bit more. Then, when things are all sorted out an' lookin' good, yez can go down the pub...

Many thanks to our Downunder'1zaac.


Finally, we asked 1zaac Magritte, who hails from Switzerland, to explain the Swiss system.


"Well, in my country, to buy a car, first you need plates. You get these from the local authority, after they have checked your residency status and identity document. They just cost a few Swiss Francs for the ordinary ones, and you can pay more for a lower number. So it is a sort of franco-teutonic snobisme. But you must have correct residency status. Then you go onto the computer, and any car dealer can see your details before agreeing to sell you a car. Did I mention you need to prove your residency status?

Thank you Magritte. It sounds like secret banking in reverse. (That was a joke. Ed)

So, there we are. An 1zaac nerditorium forum.

One of our 1zaac all-time favourites is the Mayor of Walsall's. Definitely not transferable to Australia:

1 DH


Now here's the PNP we Zedders saw last month at The Barns restaurant in Huntington, Staffordshire, after Cannock Grammar School Former Pupils' Association reunion.










[Perhaps a reference to Huntington's mining heritage? Like the St George's flag flourish. Sorry about the rivetting remark supra. Ed]



Click on pic for the inevitable 1971 1zaac Hayes link AB

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Zorro Dormouse Eats Nuts And Bolts






1zaac regulars will have a sense of déjà lu, having read about Eliomys Quercinus, the masked dormouse who does the Zorro impersonations around here.




Well, today, look who turned up, fat and sleepy, nestled in a box of Citroën brake shoes.

Click on the dormouse/lérot pic for the full story, and revive your nursery rhyme French.

But be warned; the 2-minute clip will send your cute-o-meter into the red zone.

At least the bloated little blighter hasn't, after nicking and stuffing itself with our walnuts, eaten through the foam n'cardboard heater tubes of the 2CV this year, in its quest for nesting material.
Yet.
It woke up with a start, and did the Zorro escape routine, seconds after its picture had been taken.

"Recession Bites - Dormouse Eats Nuts and Bolts".

You heard it first on 1zaac.

AB




Saturday, November 28, 2009

Translating, Interpreting and Subtitles

Here at 1zaac we were recently asked to explain the difference between translation and interpretation, and why subtitle writers sometimes find things challenging.





Click on Juliette Greco, and then on Eva Cassidy and have a look at the two beautiful songs for éléments de réponse.


Friday, November 27, 2009

Les Feuilles Mortes


1zaac musical interlude.

Click on the Sainte-Cécile leaves for Juliette Greco's interpretation of the Prévert masterpiece, circa 1970.

Arthur, Ash & Allen; our "A" Stars



On 7th November 2009, sixty-five years, almost to the day, since Allen baled out of a burning Lancaster, since Ash recited Grumble Corner after Arnhem, and since Arthur left the safe haven of the Steffens family, our three 1zaac affiliate WW2 veterans told their stories to our luncheon gathering at Cheslyn Hay Village Hall.

As one of our Zeddeuse attendees wrote later;

"I feel very privileged to have taken part in this Bringing People Together initiative".

Thank-you to everyone who was able to come along, and for all of the contributions which made the event so special.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Shafts, Knobs and Cupules



Thanks to little bro' 1zaac'Ant for this contribution.

He had obviously been reading the 1969 retro-tech post infra, and wished to compare & contrast 2009 technology.

1.Click on the "Operational Instructions" pic.

2. Read carefully, and work out why Staffordshire is no longer the Workshop of the World.

3. Send answers via usual channels to 1zaac.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Rolf, Maggie & Andy




The last Number One hit of the Peace & Love Sixties was an incongruous one, but one which proved to be the biggest selling single of that year.


It was not The Beatles, or The Stones, or even our 1zaac' iconic Présidente d'Honneur Sandie Shaw who occupied the top slot as the decade turned.

While the Apollo 12 crew had been calling President Tricky Dicky Nixon long-distance from the Moon, while my mischievous mining village cousins and I had been dialling "O" and making spoof calls to the operator from the red 'phone box in Low Street, Cheslyn Hay, Rolf Harris had been on the blower to Ted Egan, in Australia.

Ted had sung a music-hall song from 1902 to Rolf during the latter's visit to Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, earlier in 1969. Rolf 'phoned Ted later in the year, shelling out a quid a minute, jotted the words down, and made the Christmas hit record which zedders, zeddeuses and all other 1zaacs will recall.
Click on young R Harris esq, not for a rendition of the song which Margaret Thatcher once claimed as her favourite, but for conclusive evidence that some blokes ought to stick to painting.

Back in science lab form room C2, it didn't take long for one of our number to write a set of alternative lyrics for "Two Little Boys".

Of which the Rt Hon Mrs T would certainly not have approved...

It was a mere foretaste of more mischief to come.
And there was a general election in the offing.
Oh dear. The Great British Public had just kept Rolf at Number One for six weeks.
What might it do given the responsibility of a voting slip?
Stay tuned for Episode 3, chapter 5 for more antidote to Andrew Marr.






Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Episode 3 Chapter 4 Rivetting Stuff & Bad Rising to the Moon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12


Episode 3, Chapter 4







This post is dedicated to Mr John Lees and Mr Andy Morton. Thank-you for teaching us the therapy of "mekkin' an mendin' ".

It was a pleasure to meet you again at the 2008 & 2009 CGSFPA reunions.




Our ginger beer plants were in full production by mid- November 1969. Creedence Clearwater Revival hammered out the three chords of Bad Moon Rising, which would be reprised by the Cannock Grammar Boys' Band precisely forty years later at their school reunion.

(Click on astronauts if you'd like the full Apollo 12 nerdfile)

Astronauts Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Al Bean had a bad rising to the moon on 15th, when their Saturn rocket was struck twice by lightning. Al saved the mission by fiddling with an override switch in the Command module, after the instruments and onboard computer told them to abort...



In our Wednesday afternoon school metalwork lesson, Zedders Paul, Nigel, Kev, Graham and I were fiddling too, as usual, but with less guarantee of success. We were discussing the Apollo drama in a fume cocktail of machine oil, brazing flux and arsenic. This was metalwork before Health & Safety spoiled the fun.





"It's all bloomin' aluminium these days", said Nige, who was struggling with the handle of the screwdriver he had chosen to manufacture, while Kev attempted to remove a piece of swarf from his eye.


Paul chipped in. "Yep. It meks good aeroplanes, 'though; And egg cups. I'm on me second one."

He proudly demonstrated his handiwork; a matched pair of recepticles made from bent slices of the miracle metal, which wobbled hardly at all when placed on the flat surface of the tool-strewn workbench.



"Are", said Kev. It might be good on them spairce rockets, burrit's a bugger to get outter yer eye orright. At least wi' them steel slivers, yer can use a magnet."

Graham was experimenting with spent air-rifle pellets and a brazing torch. "Look Al, this lead melts dead easy. Ah'm gunner mek some fishin' weights for Kev"


I was busy affixing a shaft to the garden trowel project, bashing the rivets and one of my thumbnails with affected aplomb.



I looked up, wrapped a handkerchief around the wound, and peered past lathes and drills into the middle distance of the far end of the workshop.


"Dave's mekkin' a steam engine, yer know..."


Our classmate Dave was good at everything, and never needed to affect aplomb because he had the real stuff by the bucketful.



Kev said "I bet Dairve ends up doin' summat in the car industry. Have yer gorra minute, Boy Wonder, I need a nand to light the forge"



Mr Morton and Mr Lees were engrossed in technical consultations with one of the Sixth Formers who was building a full-sized space-framed sports car next to where Dave was honing the brass bore of his steam engine, prior to final assembly.



The forge was an example of The Real McCoy approach to education: Our 1960's Grammar School curriculum juxtaposed Science, Humanities and Manual/Domestic Arts.



After a token nod to mixed boy-girl woodworking in our First Year, the lads (at least those who'd failed Latin) were by now being instructed in the skills of drilling, brazing, soldering, melting, casting, filing, forging, bending, or shaping the metals of the waning industrial age as well as those of the emerging space-age.



The girls were learning Latin, or cooking cheese pie.



This all seemed to fit in with the late-Sixties vibe/zeitgeist: Apollo Astronauts went to the moon, while their wives looked stylish and stayed home cooking apple pie. We made egg cups or steam engines in the high-risk metalworkshop, our female class companions huddled in the Domestic Science bliss of E block...(Expect a few emails on this subject. Ed)



Kev was reading the instructions on the forge.



"It says here we need ter remove clinker before lighting. What's a clinker, Boy Wonder, yo'm the language specialist ay yer?"



"Dunno, Kev. Doe bother wi' th'instructions, just light the bugger."



Kev had sorted out the gas taps in no time, and applied a match. An orange flame sprang under the canopy, bathing us, and Paul and Nige who had come to watch, in a golden glow.



"Doe worry, Al, them eyebrows'll soon grow back"


Kev applied some air. The flame roared and changed to blue, showering the floor and the spectators with red-hot popcorn. We had just discoverd the existence of clinker, and the need for its removal.



"Looks like an Apollo mission in here" quipped Paul, picking clinker from Nige's face, and we all burst into laughter.



Mr Lees heard the laughter, and came striding into the forge.



He failed to see the reason for our amusement, and gave us a few (20, reckoned Paul) minutes' in-service training on the importance of pre-lighting clinker precautions.



At the end of the lesson, we took off our aprons, examined the burns in our clothing, put on our striped green ties and our blazers, and strode out into the autumn 3.35 pm semi-darkness of the staff car park. We did not often see the school from this angle, with its array of sixties motorbilia. We admired Mr Blackham's cream Triumph Vitesse six-cylinder saloon.


Kev claimed he spotted Miss Austin SMOKING in the staffroom, but none of us believed him. He was adamant all the way home, upstairs on the Number 17, that his eyes had not failed him.



It was completely dark when I picked up my newspaper delivery bag at Mrs Rogers' shop. Walking past the war memorial, with its recently-laid wreaths of poppies, and through the fallen leaves, then past the Monkey Puzzle tree next to the Chemist's, I looked up at the Moon, and couldn't understand why most other folks were going about their everyday routines apparently oblivious to the fact that there were two blokes up there at this very moment.



A characteristically downbeat headline in the Express & Star tried to bring my thoughts back into line and down to Earth, by whining:



"MOON TV FLOP" .



Up there on the Mare Cognita, joking prankster astronaut Al Bean had accidentally pointed the TV camera at the sun, burning out the video tube, and putting an abrupt end to colour coverage.



The tabloids sulked en masse. Even Cliff Michelmore and James Burke at the Beeb faltered in their enthusiastic elogies for a while. But my own attention was rivetted to the Apollo 12 mission, all the way to splashdown on 24th.



Rivetted as firmly as the shaft of the gardening trowel which was nestling next to the three dozen undelivered newspapers.



EPILOGUE


November 2009. A weak sun is low in the mid - afternoon sky.



There is enough light in Dad's shed to find the toolbox, but I need to carry it outside to look at its contents.

Through odours of Jeyes Fluid and creosote I pick out a life history in implements: Plumber's apprentice; Bricklayer; Village postman. I find his spirit level made by Rabone, Birmingham; a cold chisel stamped "Gilpin, Staffs"; a bike spanner marked "GPO".



At the bottom of the box, I find what I knew would be there.


-An aluminium eggcup.


-A screwdriver with a wonky handle.


-And a garden trowel, minus its handle, but with two rivets holding the blade as tightly as ever.


AB

1970: Did your doughnuts look like Fanny's?

Click HERE for some unmissable (2009 BBCspeak. Be careful. Ed) eclectic 1970 TV ads.

1zaac's chance to join the MEN in mining, the Pommy Sheilas in pink paradisiac Sydney. To soar with Nimble Maggie under an alpine hot-air balloon. To drag Willy the Weasle from under the wheels of a Ford Escort. To catch Fanny and Johnny in the pantry, still save four bob in the pound on the Inter City and be home in time to splash on some Chanel and watch On the Buses.

1zaac'hint; scroll down the seventy-odd Vox Populi comments below the Youtube clip to unearth Fanny Craddock's secret admirer. It's worth the dig. Here in the 1zaac'editorial dept we laughed so much, one of the staff slipped a disc.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Vale Sixties, Salve Seventies

Here at 1zaac, our mémoire collective story will shortly drift to a new decade.

We'd like to thank our senior Cannock Grammar School affiliates for the warm welcome they gave to us 1967-ers at their annual reunion last Saturday.

Well done the Boys' Band for rocking us all past the Midnight Hour, ushering us onto the dance floor and out of the Sixties to the strains of Jeff Beck, and his '67 Silver Lining.

While we are waiting for the reunion pics, and while we're editing the goss, click on the recent photo of Jeff for a "taste" of Seventies "style".

And you'll see where we got our dress codes and dancing moves.

AB

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Forging Ahead





Here at 1zaac we were thinking about metalwork lessons in 1969, and about Mr John Lees, our woodwork/metalwork teacher.


We hope to see him again at the Cannock Grammar School Former Pupils' reunion on 14th November.


Zedder Paul is looking forward to an up-to-date assessment of his varnishing techniques.


Look out for the article. There are jokes about forges, "removal of clinker before lighting", and Dave Bowes' first involvement with mechanical engineering.


The forgeron/blacksmith in the pic is the late Monsieur André AMIAUD. In 2004, he showed a group of primary school kids from Sainte-Cécile around his forge, which had bellows made from a ventilation fan from a German Blockhaus, and had not been lit for five years. Click on the pic if you'd like to see the kids' film report, and to brush up your primary French.

AB

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Vidi, Vici, Veni

Here at 1zaac we received an email about the previous post;
Dear 1zaac,

Thanks for the memories. Listening to Sugar Sugar and Bad Moon Rising took me back to 1969 and my disc-jockey days.


If I remember correctly, the two Number Ones in between were "Je t'aime, Moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" by Bobby Gentry.


Can you confirm this?


Keep up the good work.

TB


Well, yes, TB, that seems to be the case according to our 1zaac'internet service.


Those two records were very different variations on the love/aimer theme, weren't they?


Serge could have chosen to paraphrase Julius Caesar with "Vidi, Vici, Veni".


Instead he achieved a similar triple-V effect with "Je vais, je veux et je viens"...whilst, we imagine, addressing Jane Birkin's bottom.


Jane sighed her way through it, got banned by the BBC, and set our post-pubescent wannabeaSerge Lyon French penpals fantasizing about English roses.


Bobby Gentry's Bacharach tones cooled down the charts, and the 3E lads' collective ardour, the following week, but evidently had no effect at all on the Lyon lads. They arrived seeking Janes, not Bobby's. As it turned out, they met a Bobby or two, but not in the context they had intended...


As we shall see later in Episode 3, when things really start to heat up in July 1970 with the cross-cultural adventures of the Lyon kids.


Click on Jane, Serge or Bobby to see what all the fuss was about. And some weird stuff with a watermelon.


AB

Friday, October 23, 2009

Episode 3, Chapter 3; Lashings of Ginger, Here





1zaac Episode 3, Chapter 3

LASHINGS OF GINGER, HERE

Yes, Steve M was indeed carrying a jam jar.

After impressing us with his strong-arm tactics as court usher in the 2E frog/kangaroo trial, Steve again set the tone and pulled off another coup in October 1969.

Click on Archies for an earful of bubblegum pop.

Once a week, he walked into form room cum science-lab C2 carrying a jam jar full of cloudy, fermenting liquid.

He would walk past the front bench, in full view of the “serious” triumvirate; two Janets and a Christine.

Although contemplating the arrival of the maxi dress, Karen, Judy and Lynette would invariably be in mini-skirted poise on bar-stools in the second row. Karen elbowed Judy each time she spotted the jam jar, whilst checking that her contraband Number Six and mascara were safely stowed in Judy's "Safe Keeper" satchel.

“What’th he got in there?” She'd whisper in hushed Balsall Heath-ese to her neighbour, rolling eyes to the right, and then to the ceiling, being careful not to alert Mr Griffiths.

The word on the jam-jars, and rumours of secret recipes involving sugar-sugar, alcohol and spices spread over and under the exotic hardwood, pre-save-the-rainforest timber benches like a bushfire.

As The Archies hit Number One, Steve revealed his secret in front of all of the lads, in the dining room one morning break, next to the fizzy drink machine.

“Phoar” said Nige/Marcel, gagging on a limeade. “”Yer mean you mek one o' them every wick?”

“Yo’ve gorra hand it ter them Pye Green Road kids” said Kev. They’m never short of ideas, am they?”

Steve explained the technicalities of the jar, giving us a blow by blow exposé of the biological techniques involved.

“Right. Every Sunday night, yer get an o’d pair o’ tights or stockin’s, right?”

Graham’s ears pricked up behind his plastic cup of whipped hot chocolate, which he was drinking with his little finger crooked.

“Then yer get the weshin’ up bowl…”

He started doing hand motions with the jar.

“An’ yer tip the stuff out o’ the jar into the tights, then squeeze it over the bowl. Mek sure yer wesh yer ‘ands fust, ‘though”

“Right?”

We all nodded in hushed complicity.

“Now, yer’ll ‘ave all the liquid in the bowl. What yer do next is boil four pints o’ wairter an’ two pound o’ sugar”

Marcel started making notes on the back of an old betting slip.

“Then yer pour that into the bowl an’all, but let it cool down fust, so it ‘ay no ‘otter than yer ‘and”

For some reason at this stage, Steve held up his hand, and we all looked at ours.

“What do you do with the tights, Steve”

Came an interjection from the back of the gaggle, which Steve ignored, as everyone else said

“Shut up, Gethin”.

“Now, yer squeeze the tights again, then turn ‘em inside-out over a plate”

He mimed this bit.

“An’ they’ll be a lump o’ damp powder, see”.

We all looked at the yellowy deposit in the jar, as it fizzed and bubbled, then imagined it after processing via American Tan nylon.

“Next, yer divide that inter two lumps, yer get another spare jar, an’ put one lump inter each jar, right?”

We sipped our limeade/hot, whipped chocolate or ersatz Bovril as we nodded, spellbound.

“Then yer get a bit o’ the juice out o’ the weshin’ up bowl, an’ fill each jar half-way”

The Eureka moment dawned on the green-blazer clad circle.

“So now yer’ve got TWO GINGER BEER PLANTS”.

Scientist Kev could not stifle a “Whoar”, as Steve went on to suggest that you could pass the spare on to a mate, who then fed the plant for a week with daily pinches of ginger and half a teaspoon of sugar.

"Yer keep it warm on the mantlepiece"

“Must be alcoholic an all” Surmised Kev (a premonitory comment as it turned out: two decades later he would be a technician in a Burton on Trent brewery)

“Oh, are, it is an’all”

“So yer’ve gorra washin’up bowl full o’ GINGER BEER.

Yer put that inter bottles. Alpine pop bottles am orrigght. Strungbow cider ones am the best. Them wi’ the screw-in stoppers. Yo’ atter put a bit o’ sugar in the bottom, then it ferments for a wick, an’ that’s wheer the fizz comes from. Doe put too much sugar in, ‘though, cus they’ll explode.

The Ginger beer production fad swept through term one like another bushfire, with the demand for jam jars doubling exponentially every week, creating a jam jar and pop bottle shortage never seen in the Cannock area before or since.


Before it faded, as fads do, and as British troops fired teargas in Shankhill Road, Belfast, it provided the conditions sine qua non for a potential international terrorist incident in July 1970.


And if, dear 1zaac'holics, you suspect that history has once again been mis-remembered, stay tuned for the forthcoming chapter of Episode 3...


"An Airing of Differences".

AB



Now click on Creedence for some more moonshine.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Pimientos Asados



This post is dedicated to Mr M. Montague, our profesor de Español at Cannock Grammar School.

Here is a much-belated gracias for his patience in coaxing and coaching the more recalcitrant of us through to 'O' level.

I had a stroke of luck during my 'O' level Spanish oral exam, which was held in a broom cupboard upstairs in "B" block: the examiner asked if I played a musical instrument, and I answered "La guitarra", thinking of how to add "muy malo". I was careful to half-gurgle the 'g', roll the 'rr', and to generally fake a degree of fluency.

The lucky bit was when I said " Y usted?, invisibly placing an upside-down question mark at the beginning of the interrogative.

He then gave me a friendly monologue, in perfect Castellano, about his favourite pieces, a condensed history of Spanish guitar manufacture and some hints on buying a good one. I listened with fake fluency. At least I had been consistent. He must have given me a good mark, because I was awarded a pass. I could never have garnered enough marks in the written section.

Opting for Spanish back in 1971 enabled me to roast peppers with Claudio and his amigos in La Rioja this time last year.

1zaacs will have heard of Riojan wine. Up in the village of Berceo, 600 metres above sea-level, next to the tempranillo vines you can also find asparagus, olives, almonds and figs in the transitional mediterranean climate.

In October, just before the frosts, everyone harvests their pimientos.

It's all there in the video clip if you click on the pic: Claudio, the roaring grills, the alcaldes (mayors) of two villages brandishing swords...

What can you do with a dustbinful of scorched red peppers?

Stay tuned to 1zaac to find out.

Muchas gracias, Señor Montague.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

1zaa'cochon caption competition



Here at 1zaac our Press Review Committee noticed this photo in an August 2009 edition of Le Nouvel Observateur. Its cover announced "Le Retour de Marx".
Presumably this will be Karl rather than Groucho.
As many 1zaac'afficionados will know, Nouvel Obs is a weekly mag for Francophone BoBo's (Bohémiens Bourgeois ). The telly section has some excellent critiques and analysis. There are also ads for Volvo four-wheel drives and Chanel Number 5.
Think "Guardian" with a thicker coating of glitz, more studied Sarkozy-loathing and a slightly easier crossword.
[What about the pig. Ed]
We love the expression on the pig's face, the bike you couldn't even find in Thacker's Emporium, and all of the little "intra-ordinaire" details; The roof-rack and its carefully stowed contents, the persuasion stick, the half-finished bottle of Coke/chain oil...
Click on the pic to enlarge.
And we have been spending idle moments trying to imagine where they're off to.
We have thought up a few Nouvel Obs editorial conspiracy sub-texts; What if the pig were to symbolize a fat-cat/cochon banker from the Occident Capitaliste? This would explain the smile if it had just received its bonus...
We have decided to offer a special French prize for the best caption received before bonfire night. The runner-up will be treated to a steamed pork dim-sim.
So get composing, 1zaacs.
And look out now for the next chapter of 1zaac Episode 3, celebrating 40 years on, October 1969: "Lashings of Ginger, Here."
AB

Monday, October 12, 2009

Allium Maxibottum



As autumn tiptoes in here, the antipodean spring has sprung.


Here at 1zaac we know this, because our Southern Correspondent, M Pyper esq. was in touch over the weekend.


Here's Michael at a Special Protocol 1zaac Fireside Summit in 2008.


Last time I went for a senior citizen swim with him & George, down in the Bunbury surf at sunrise, only one of us was surprised when a fin appeared in the foam. It was a porpoise, and not the Great White Shark which had made the headlines after it had eaten a surfski-ing Perth barrister the week previously.


Here's MP's email;


"G’day sport. Been reading that long-winded stuff about you an' your Pommy mates from the seventies. Strewth. Liked the garlic story. I never eat the stuff; you are what you eat. See the picture.

Swimming has begun. The sea is Puck Ern cold but the retrospective is glorious. George is getting a bit unsteady on his pins but is of good cheer. We only spend about 5 minutes in the surf, frightened of getting chilled, y’know.

George overdid it a bit last year, went into Koombana bay on a deceptively sunny day.

Double pneumonia!!

Hope all is well

MP"


And here is MP's attachment. Click for a larger version.

1zaac'editorial warning; It is rude. Readers of a sensitive disposition DO NOT CLICK.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Eliomys Quercinus



...or garden dormouse/lérot.


Autumn is here when these little chaps start gathering acorns & walnuts.


Not so cute, though when they hold the nocturnal qualifying rounds of the Walnut World Cup in the roof-space of your house. And Wikipédia just told us here at 1zaac that the little beggars turn cannibalistic after fighting over the females.


Can you spot the quirky Cannock link with the Latin name? (1zaac'lue; read the Vale Vista Virgin post, infra.)


The Romans used to eat them, as a snack or for dessert with honey & poppyseeds, Wiki also told us. (1zaac'curacy sub-committee note; it was the fatter cousin glis glis "edible dormouse" wot the Romans used to eat.)
Thank-you, smartus arsus. Author's note.


Not yet available at Greggs Gourmet Counter, according to 1zaac gourmette Ellen Jay.


Whoops. There's another one. Where's the honey and poppy seeds? We ay fussy on a Sunday night...

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Safety first and last...


Here at 1zaac we received an enquiry from 1zaa'Carole in South Carolina this week:
"Ah jes leurve that lil'ole 2CV thangy you done tol' me 'bout infra. You are always tellin' us 'bout Health 'n Safety. Are those thangs safe?"
Well, Carole, here is some evidence of just how safe they are. The one on the left belonged to senior 1zaac Vic, until he drove to Llansà, down there in Cataluña one Saturday morning to have his waders dry-cleaned.
When he returned to the car park, the bomberos/fire brigade had already left the scene.
To see how safe you'd be in a collision, click on the pic for a journey to Paris in 1964.
AB

Thursday, October 1, 2009

RazzaLezzerMarl'ole







Here at 1zaac we received by email this week a tale relating to the laws of physics, and their relevance to the effect of buoyancy.


The sender of the email, an affiliated senior 1zaac, prefers to remain anonymous. His reasons for this will become evident upon reading the email infra.

Thanks again to Cheslyn Hay Local History Society, and to Trevor McFarlane for permission to use the pic from his book "Happy Days". Trevor's original caption informs us that the "boat" was made from a Boulton Paul packing case, in which aircraft wing sections were delivered...

1zaac'Nerditorium note; to see what the packing case contents were used for in the 1940's, click on pic.


Before we hear of our emailer's aquatic adventure, here's some local history on the same theme...


When we were kids in Cheslyn Hay, in landlocked Staffordshire in those pre-Health 'n Safety days, we were never short of watery adventure park drowning ponds.



Because our village was built on coal and clay, and because of decaying, but not yet entirely decommissioned post-Industrial Revolution infrastructure, there was a variety of venues at which we could test our construction skills, and experiment with the laws of buoyancy.



These venues were:



1.The Raz/Razza; Number one choice for safe swimming and risky pike fishing. The name was our Midstaffordian corruption of the French imported word "Reservoir". Grandad Jack habitually used the correct full-length appellation of "Razzavoy". One spring day in 1969, I met Clive Baker outside the Colliers' Arms. He was pushing his racing bike with a pike hanging vertically from the handlebars. It had an England's Glory matchbox holding its mouth open, and its tail scraped the pebbledash road surface of Queen Street.


"Gorrit down the Raz", he affirmed.



2. The Lezzers; Clearly a pre-politically correct nomenclature, and officially Hawkins' Clay Pit, situated just behind the chimney stacks of Rosemary Tileries. Number two on the safety scale. Officially private property and out of bounds, therefore even more inviting. The water was cold tea. There were steep, slippery sides. A village the size of a Wyrley Bonk Atlantis and several entombed bulldozers were known by us urchins to lurk in the depths. There was a pike so big in there that no fisherman, sitting on the edge of "The Railroad" which skirted its eastern seaboard, ever baited the hook at the end of his Thacker's tank aerial without trepidation.



3. The Marl'ole; Death-wish territory. Marl was the Midstaffordian term for clay. There were never any fishermen up there, in its pike-less environs near the canal basin, to pull us non-swimmers out. There was no vegetation on its ravine-like sides to grab onto as your wellies sucked you under for the third time. This made it even more inviting to daredevils like my cousin Mick. And the cemetery was ("That's handy", said Mick) quite nearby.

Now here's that buoyancy report:

Had an interesting experience whilst fishing. I have chest waders so's I can get nearer the trout. They're good. The night before had lots of veg - broccoli and runner beans - they're good too.

I have a weight lifters belt that is also good as it stops the discs complaining. But I tied the wide belt over the top of the chest-waders. Not so good.

I broke wind a couple of times - naturally. But at the third fart, the tight belt round my waist and the methane building up in my boots - physics took over.

I ended up upside down and had to walk shorewards on my hands. I was helped out by two fishermen one who collected my rod.

I told them I must have tripped on a rock. I decided to leave the waders outside for the night and remember not to put the belt over the waders next time.

But the girls enjoyed the one fish that I did catch.

Troute Diem. AB

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Superglue Blue Skies





Long-time friends and Anzac'1zaacs John, Ina and CJ have been with us for the past couple of weeks.


CJ is our youngest 1zaac, and he starts school in Sydney in January.


Remember when you were 4 years old, nearly 5, and you were figuring out what holds the universe together?


CJ has the answer:


Superglue.


Click on the four à pain pic for pizza party bread oven re-lighting after 22 years, and the answer to: 1. "How they make trees..." (Wood. Branches. Superglue)


2. "How they make the sky..."(Carpet. Blue paint. Superglue)


And look out for part 2, if you'd like to find out "How they make roads"... (Pipes. More carpet. Monsters. Superglue)


All those years of Cannock Grammar School physics lessons. Wasted after all.


Thanks CJ, and have a good flight home on the new double-decker Number 17 Airbus.


AB

Friday, September 25, 2009

Alan, Alan...


Click on 1zaac'sproglet cousins Alisa, Marie and Hannah 1997 family picnicpic for a laugh to start the day.
Thanks, Hannah, for finding this one.
The shark excerpt is for Gibbsie, who will be preparing the diving gear for the next dive off Busselton jetty.
X

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Vale, Ray


Here at 1zaac we would like to pay tribute to craggy-faced veteran Australian actor Ray Barrett, who died earlier this month, aged 82.
There are voices which echo in our collective memory, and fellow 1zaacs will remember Ray's from Stingray or Thunderbirds. They will also recall his rugged appearances in Emergency Ward 10, Doctor Who and, especially, as oil-industry's Peter Thornton in The Troubleshooters.
Ray's last film appearance was in the film "Australia" last year.
Look out for him in upcoming 1zaac episode 4, when, in April 1971 he and the BBC film crew sat next to the Cannock Grammar School group on an Air France Caravelle en route from Heathrow to Lyon...
"The only things that are cheaper in France are cigarettes and alcohol", Ray said to the gingery kid in the green anorak in the next seat.
"Oh, and women." He said, and lit a cigarette.
Click on Ray's photo for a proper obituary.
AB

Monday, September 21, 2009

SAFE? Served Allday Full English...

Here at 1zaac our galloping gourmette Ellen Jay did a restaurant check with a friend in Cannock last week, after reading the Airspeed post, infra. Here is her report.

My guest and I went upstairs in a restaurant, which still has waitresses that wear black, real table cloths and the same decor it had in the 1970's.

It does nod to modern cuisine by offering paninis and Mississippi chicken. We were informed they were not actually available in the week.

We could nonetheless avail ourselves of their special "Served Allday Full English" provided we ordered before 2:30, as they were closing.

We did not partake of "The Full English".

I had Jacket potato with Tuna'N'Sweetcorn.

Unfortunately after digging around in my filling as she put it on the table, the waitress deduced that chef had been remiss and the 'N' sweetcorn part was missing.

This was rectified by a finger-bowlful that was delivered to the table.

My guest plumped for the 'Seafood Special Platter', with peas.

By the time this arrived the peas had morphed into lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, and the 'special' seafood into two types of fishfingers and a fishcake, all bread crumbed and deep fried.

See-you don't have to live in France to enjoy gourmet cuisine.

Well thank-you Ellen Jay for your intrepid reporting. That should put those Frogs in their place.

Here at 1zaac, we are still attempting to confirm/quosh rumours that our gourmette gal and her mate called in to Gregg's healthy options pie emporium on the way back to the taxi rank.

We'll keep you posted, readers.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Ken and Kes 1969




Coming up in 1zaac Episode 3; memories of football lessons in 1969.


Some of us went to the Danilo that year, and saw a film which would become Number Seven in the British Film institute's "Best 100 British films of all time".


This post is a thank-you to Ken Loach, and a nod to those Games teachers, good, bad and ugly...
Click on Ken for part one, then Kes for part two.




Thursday, September 17, 2009

Airspeed to Arnhem


Today is the 65th anniversary of Operation Market Garden.


Our honorary 1zaacs Arthur and Ash are in Arnhem to commemorate the event.


Arthur joined a school group for the journey, and we look forward to some pictures and a report from him soon.


"It's great" he said when we spoke on Monday. "I only have to drive up to the school and they look after me for five days."


Ash travelled by 'plane yesterday. He told 1zaac last month at Cosford RAF museum that the last time he had flown into Arnhem was as platoon commander on an Airspeed Horsa glider, on tow behind a Douglas Dakota...


"There was myself, two army pilots and 28 fit young blokes all revved up and ready for a fight..."


Our 1zaac'ameraman suggested that he may find the Low-Cost flight from Nottingham brings back some memories.


Especially if the pre-booked group of stag-nighters have indulged in the "Full English and a pint of Carlsberg only £5.99 before 11 am" on offer in the "Relax and Shop" departure lounge.


Although the army pilots will most likely be Ukrainian.


Click on Allan, Ash and Arthur for a surprising twist.
AB

Monday, September 14, 2009

Bienvenue les Dubrège



Jean-Luc DUMONT and and Nad' DUBREGE are our 1zaac sculptor/writer contemporaries.


The camera team met up with them and their daughters Florane and Audeline at the Mairie of Venansault last Friday, where their works will be on show until October 8th.


Click on the invitation for a 3 minute meeting with Vantelle, L'Art-Osé, Gaïa, Porcinet, Talent-Aiguilles...et les autres.


And a glass of champagne.


Avec toute notre affection...


AB

Friday, September 11, 2009

Allium Concharum: L'Ail des Conches


"Make sure the roots are still on"
Said septuagenarian honorary frog1zaac Colette last week when we told her we were taking the 2CV to Les Conches, on the coast.
"If the garlic bulbs have no roots, they've had a maladie"
We asked for no further explanation; Colette has been growing garlic for more than 60 years...
...By 1zaac'oincidence, it is 60 years since the last Préveil/Village fête at Les Conches.
The village is just behind the sand dunes and the pine forest. Garlic prefers sandy soil, it would seem.
And the born-again Préveil was a joy.
Click on the rootless, rejected garlic for a 5-minute flavour of the day: glove puppets; traditional crafts; more blokes & bloody steam engines; rosé and mogettes at the sausage sizzle...
AB

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Victor et Victrix Ludorum 1967

The video clip of Combe Martin 1967 brought some happy recollections to Cheslyn Hay County Primary ("Top School") Contemporaries and 1zaac affiliates.

Here's another 1zaac'ontribution, courtesy once again of Cheslyn Hay Local History Society.

Click on the class picture below for Sports Day 1967: a sunny afternoon, Mr Martin on the microphone, Mr Blount starting the sack race, the wheelbarrow race, the Moms' race and the potato race.

The school buildings are in the background, and you will also see the newly-built baby-boom flats and houses of Mitre Road.

Tony Gregory and Laetitia Bowater emerged Victor et Victrix. Stephen Wesley and I got a blue "susstificate" for second place in the wheelbarrows, despite a sprained wrist collapse just yards from the finish...

Were you Nelson, Raleigh, Anson or Drake? Did your Mom make you a rosette?

We had Midland Counties ice creams afterwards; the round ones which Mrs Smales put into cones for us.

Then we wandered to the other end of the playing fields and ate them next to the air-raid trenches and our gardening plots, where the Village Hall was built later on.

Thank you to Kev (last on right, second row, Combe Martin cardigan) for supplying the class photo, from from me (pint-sized, fourth from left, between giants Phil Benbow & Andy Higgs).

How many others can you name?


And a message from 1zaac Nina ;

Al- names from photo listed below:
Back Row L to R
Barry Norman-Graham Hammond-Philip Benbow-Alan Brown-Andrew Higgs-Steven Grundy-Alistaire Bowker-Alan Parsons-Jane Stanton-Carol Pedley-Lesley Hayes.
Second Row From Back L to R
Steven Westley-Steven Plant-Julian Simms-Janet Leach-Janet Parkes-Heather Alsopp-Linda Jeavons-Karen Harvey-Paul Lawson-Kevin Gunn.
Second Row From Front L to R
Mary Hughes-Susan Williams-Jackie Jones-Angela Hollins-Mr Blount-Mr Martin-Letitia Bowater-Angela Kidd-Jane Parsons-Christine Hawkins.
Front Row L to R
Pauline Ridgeway-Jane Pitchford-Linda Shelton-Sharon Tonks-Robert Petts-Tony Gregory-Paul Ridgeway-Alan Ridgeway-David Burton.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Grumble Corner



1zaac technical dept has set up a better quality clip of Grumble Corner.

Click on Arthur & Ash to brighten up your day.

AB

Salutations Sandie, 1zaac Présidente d'Honneur


Bienvenue à Sandie, notre Présidente d'Honneur.
Here at 1zaac we feel privileged that Sandie Shaw has accepted our invitation to be our "Présidente d'Honneur".
Click on Sandie's photo to see some of the reasons we are particularly proud of this 1zaac.
Avec toute notre affection.
L'Equipe 1zaac.
AB

Les Devoirs des Peanuts...


Here at 1zaac we discussed at our last meeting different approaches to the accomplishment of homework tasks when we were at Cannock Grammar School.
Which one were you: a Charlie, a Schroeder, a Lucy or a Linus?
Click on Charlie & Snoopy if you'd like 5 minutes to think about it.
Pour la rentrée; un petit cours d'anglais pour Audeline, Florane et nos autres jeunes écoliers et écolières, collégiens et collégiennes 1zaacobloggeur/euses.
Cliquez sur la photo pour en savoir plus...
Vous ferez votre rapport en 100 mots là-dessus pour vendredi...
AB

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Another Aspect of the Sixties with Gilles & Jean-Claude




We are pleased to present Honorary 1zaacs Jean-Claude and Gilles Blézeau.



The brothers have, since 1967, owned and run a saw-mill in Bazoges which has machinery more frightening than any you may have seen in a James Bond film.



After all these years, the finger count is still 10.




Well, nine and a half.




More about the saw-mill at a later date.



Every July, our Bazoges H1's exchange dangerous timber-cutting equipment for equally dangerous agricultural gear, when they dust off the threshing machine and organize an "at your own risk" picnic, using the family's tractors of the 1950's and '60's.



The focus of the get-together is a working reconstruction of harvest and threshing of the wheat crop. This is how it was done before the arrival of the village of the combine harvester in...



...1967.




This year there were 140 "convives" at this delightfully informal event.




As a tribute to their contribution to the Community, les productions 1zaac has put together a 10-minute film.



Click on Jean-Claude's photo for a Short Story of Tractors in Bazoges, featuring:



-throbbing, pilotless Vierzon, Zetor and Massey Harris tractors



-lethal and unshielded cogs, drivebelts and other assorted limb-removal accessories



-Community Spirit/Wine/amputational anaesthesia in a "barricot"from Gilles...



This film is dedicated to the pupils of Mr Blount's class, Cheslyn Hay primary school, September 1965 to July 1967. On several occasions they witnessed similar scenes in miniature and in the playground when a couple of us smuggled our Mamod steam engines, matches and bottles of meths past the school gate. (See 1zaac Episode 1, infra).




Merci Jean-Claude et Gilles.




AB

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Upupa Epops


It must be La Rentrée Scolaire.
Back to School in France brings kilometres of human traffic jams at the stationery counters in Leclerc or Carrefour.
And the last whoop whoops of the hoopoe from the dry doormat which used to be our lawn.
Click on pic if you want to know more about this summer visitor with the Latin name which sounds like the 1967 Greek runner-up to Puppet on a String.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Salve, Celia


Here at 1zaac we were very pleased to welcome a new Honorary 1zaac last month.


Regular readers will remember our young Scripture teacher, Mrs Foote, from Episode 1.


Happily she seems to have forgiven our secretary for her transgressions and spelling mistakes of 1967, (Scroll down to episode 1 for the evidence) and tells us that she would be delighted to accept Honorary 1zaac status, provided that:


"It involves nothing illegal, immoral or fattening"


Well, Celia, our legal and ethical sub-committee is presently seeking a chairperson. We shall forward your candidature if that's OK.


As for your third requirement; Judy has been ordered not to bring more than one cake-tin full of home-made chocolate shortcake to future meetings.


Welcome on board the Magical Mystery Tour.


Click on pic for your 1967 dedication.





Vale Vista Virginity


Here at 1zaac we received in July an email from our cherished Latin teacher Miss Ann Austin. Not just any old email, either.


This was Miss Austin's Very First Email.


We suppose that this makes her a lapsed Vistal Virgin. (Come on. Ed.)
In a subsequent email, Ann caused a rash of blushes in the 1zaac editorial dept when she revealed her 1967 penchant for mini-skirts which were "shorter than Sandie's"...


Even better: we received a bene for our attempt at "All Roman roads do not lead to Cannock" (viz Scholars & Amazons, infra.)


"Omnes viae ad Quercum non ferunt"


(1zaac wannabe Teacher's Pet comment; "Please Miss, do we have to put Romanae in there somewhere? And Lynette Royster wants to confess that she has been copying Latin sentences out of a book".) What a swot. Ed.


Ann also made a suggestion for an 1zaac motto, which has received much approval.


More anon.


We have also learned that Ann has now discovered the "Return" key, and has become quite proficient with her emailing.

How do we know this?


Click on the pic below. (Any excuse for a song. Ed)






Un Tout Petit Pantin

It was raining, but the large lady in the brocante on the N137 was having a Gauloise, a café and a good day.


She had sold three items to the gingery bloke with the 2CV from the village down the road: a 1950's 4 metre ladder with woodworm; a 1966 record player which was the size of an attaché case and bore a sticker stating it had been "Mad in France", and a 45 rpm record in its original 1967 colour sleeve.


She settled down amongst the body odour and the semi-ordered detritus to write some more price-tags, in Euros, for the 287 house-clearance aluminium crucifixes she had gathered over the two decades since she set up shop, and which were still on offer at 25 Francs each.


Her customer turned the ivory "Deuche" southwards into the back lane which ran a parallel five kilometres between the sunflowers and next to the Route Nationale, and which was fondly known to the locals, in reference to breathalyser readings, as "La route à trois grammes".


There were nine feet of unsafe ladder protruding forwards from the opened roof of the 2CV, and a fifty centimetre smile behind the narrow windscreen. The driver looked back through the internal drizzle at the record in the plastic bag on the rear seat, and started to do a mental brouillon of the email he needed to write to Sandie...




Click on the record sleeve for a wonky microphone and Eurovision 1967...










Here is an extract from the minutes of our last 1zaac meeting;


One 1zaac arrived armed with a state of the Ark record player.


This he adapted from continental current compatibility and hotwired it into the British main grid.


We were then treated to a selection of 45rpm singles from 1968-1970 including Sandie Shaw - In French, Dana- In Irish, and Zager and Evans- In the year 2525.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Woodstock 40 years on...


This morning's Radio 4 news mentioned a Woodstock tribute festival 40 years on.
Click on the poster to go to 1969, courtesy of 1zaac Episode 3 sub-committee...

Saturday, August 15, 2009


Last Tuesday the 1zaac camera crew visited Cosford RAF museum and spent a fascinating few hours with our Honorary 1zaacs Arthur & Ash.
Click on the picture for a four-minute treat. Smell the coffee and taste the brioche.
You will also spot their colleagues Allen CLIFFORD and Allan AUSTIN.
Together, they make up the "A" team.
You will find them at Cosford on most Tuesday mornings from 10 a.m.
On this occasion, Arthur & Ash spoke with Aiden, "Bob" and the other members of the Sandwell Deaf Community Association. Arthur explained the intricacies of 1940 Anderson Bomb Shelter construction ("Like IKEA flatpack", said Aiden).
Thank-you from 1zaac to Helen and Natalie, two of the sign language interpreters accompanying this happy and inquisitive group of young people.
You made our day.
We will post some pictures of the SDCA visit in due course, provided that the Association gives consent.
AB

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Combe Martin 1967


Here is an 1zaac'adeau for Zeddeur Kev (there he is, outside the Sunray hotel, holding his brownpaper-bagged packed lunch of fish-paste sandwiches), and to any other Cheslyn Hay or Great Wyrley Primary School kids who went on the school outing to Combe Martin, Devon, Easter 1967 and '68.
Click on pic for the clip.


Many thanks to Cheslyn Hay Local History Society, and especially to the Cartwright Family.


This post is dedicated to the late Mr J Cartwright, who had the foresight to capture these moments on his movie camera, and who led our imaginations on literary adventures with the Famous Five on winter afternoons in our primary school classroom.


Look out for future Zeddeur Steve "Snowy" Wilson (also in the pic) being bitten by an Exmoor pony, Carol Pedley, Mr Martin's benevolent briefcase, a Hillman Minx, and lots of anorak-ed ten year-olds scrambling up cliffs in pre-Health & Safety bliss.
Veteran primary teacher Mr Blount gathers the gaggle, just before his retirement, like a Welsh shepherd herding hyperactive cats.
AB


Saturday, August 1, 2009

Fontenay Film Fixed


1zaac technical dept has fiddled & fixed the Fontenay clip.
Click on the pic.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Episode 3 Chapter 2 Exordium et Terminus

Click on Zager & Evans for 1zaac'lip
Here at 1zaac we thought we'd try a new format for Episode 3.

We have decided to call it "serialization".

This clever blog format puts the most recent chapters first: so if you are new to 1zaac, you will need to fiddle around in the margins and read the earlier episodes or chapters to keep au fait.

There is a hidden bonus here, for bloggers who have only a short attention span: you don't have to concentrate on a whole episode at once. (Stop patronizing. Ed)

Cannock Grammar School, Class 3E 1969-1970
Episode 3; EXORDIUM ET TERMINUS:
Chapter 2.

This post is dedicated to Karen, our poet-laureate- Benjamine Zeddeuse, and to the memory of her Dad, who died earlier this year.

It is Karen's birthday next week. Bon anniversaire from all of us, Karen.

Caring for, and accompanying ageing parents is one "Life-Support" aspect of being fifty-something about which we 1zaacs exchange during our get-togethers.

Long may it continue.
AB

TWENTY NUMBER SIX AT THE NUMBER ONE STOP
Cannock Centre, circa 1960, just as concrete bus stops were coming into vogue, and at a time before the first Datsun cars began to replace half-timbered Morris Minors. Photo courtesy Staffordshire past track. Click on link to go to their website. http://www.staffspasttrack.org.uk/


On the second day of our Third Year at Cannock Grammar, as the Isle of Wight local councils cleared away the last debris from the pop festival, Kev and I, having had our fill of Roman Holiday Watling Street cycling ventures, got off the Number 17 bus in Cannock bus station.
The air had a hint of Autumn, and more than a hint of partially-combusted diesel fuel.

We and our briefcases wandered down to the café on the corner opposite the Technical College.

Nowadays, the Caff would be called something twee or ironic like "Travellers' Rest" or "Pig's Bum" .

But in September 1969, there was just a blue perspex sign which matched all of the other blue perspex signs in the oil-stained expanse, stating;

"Bus Station Cafe".

Between the Tech and the bus station ran the A34, and between the A34 and the Caff there was
a patch of semi-manicured turf, which was bordered by a low, galvanized iron rail and a series of 1950’s concrete posts.

That town planner had been at work again, and had unwittingly produced an urban feature which was not quite lawn, not quite coliseum, and not quite bowling green.

The Tech kids sat on the galvanized rail, peering into the vacant middle of the grass patch, where the town planner had omitted to design in a 1960’s sculpture or any other focal point . Some were eating Wagon Wheels (this was Cannock, England, remember). Some were overtly smoking.
Social historlude: During the Baby-Boomer years, Cannock was in some ways the Silicon Valley of the Coal-Fired British economy. The National Coal Board had established its "Computer Centre" in the town. This had the socio-geographic effect of attracting young, white, socially aspirational families to the area. Families who were often eager to secure places at the town's Grammar School for their offspring.
From our 1zaac perspective, this led to an interesting mix of classmates. From a community perspective, new challenges with regard to social cohesion were being presented. On the eve of the Seventies, against the backdrop of an emerging multi-cultural Midlands England, we were growing, and playing out our parts.
The end of the reign of "King Coal" was a subject which did not enter our thoughts in 1969, any more than did the permanency of a two-tier, selective State Secondary Education system.
This, of course, was about to change...

On that September morning, two of the bigger lads were sitting apart from the others, and were sharply dressed as proto-skinheads; yellow Ben Sherman shirts; straight-cut two-tone trousers; brown, leather-soled brogues. A Brut aftershave pheromone drifted along the galvanized rail. The fashion statement read “dangerous, brooding, possibly violent, definitely jingoistic, attractive to Third and Fourth Year girls bad or good”.

They were casting less-than -furtive glances at the rising Third Year Grammar talent alighting from the double deckers. One girl with long, straight hair was exceptionally pretty. Her green blazer, matching eyes and studiously-just-short-enough grey miniskirt whispered;

“Look. 1969”.

The emerald way she returned their stares, daring them to leer, sent a rumble like distant thunder across the A34 and into the bowling green enclosure where it echoed off the four foot high brick walls.

Kev must have detected the rumble, too. He gave me a look which said “Mairte, did yoe hear that?”

We too had taken to buying morning confectionery, and on that late summer morning, Kev pointed out our two classmates Karen and Judy at the front of the queue.

Karen, five-foot-ten, was putting a little blue box into the patch pocket of her grey duffel coat.

It looked suspiciously more like a packet of 20 Players Number Six than a Milky Way.

The lady behind the counter was giving change to Judy, who, in elegant gabardine, looked a lot older than someone about to turn fourteen.

K & J, under a Double Diamond sign, some time after School...
A transistor radio on a shelf above the Baby Burco boiler broadcast Tony Blackburn and his dog Arnold, who introduced the next record;
"Here's this weeks number one sound; In the Year 2525, by Zager and Evans, Exordium and Terminus, Woof, Woof".
"Looks like Tony Blackburn's started talkin' Latin, Mairte. Miss Austin'll be pleased.", smiled Kev.

Walking up to school, he spotted a yellow Ford Capri on the way past the tax office.

“Wouldn’t mind one o’ them, Al”…He said, turning his head back towards town.

“That’s a 3000E Kev. New overhead valve six-cylinder V6 engine with seven speed rajamatators and left-handed recirculatory steering rack. Yer can tell by the bulge in the bonnet”

“How do yoe remember all that stuff, Al?”

“Well, mairte, I on’y remember about half on it, then I mek the rest on it up”

“I ay sittin’ next to yoe in th' Histry exam again, then”, said Kev, only half-jokingly.
Then he asked, quite randomly;"I wonder how many people work in the Tax Offices?"
"About half on 'em on a good day, ah bet" I told him.

We were mesmerized by Karen and Judy’s studied catwalk gait, and by the clouds of smoke emanating from their gabardine and duffeled figures which were just in front of us.

...Then the Capri came back along Allport Road, its six cylinders gurgling to a halt just in front of the two Number Sixers.

It was Karen’s Dad.

His Balsall Heath brogue was unmistakable, as he calmly informed Karen that she was “In for the high jump, Madam” when she got home that evening.

Lynette, Sunday-school graduate and non-smoker, joined them at the school gate. Karen rolled her eyes with an engaging lisp, shrugged her shoulders, and attempted to slip the contraband tobacco under the stretched plastic cover of Lynette's basket.

The elastic was reluctant to yield, and Karen fumbled for a second or two while Judy kept an alert look-out for any late-arriving pedestrian staff members.

"Hang on a sec" she whispered, as Mr Wheat was spotted, on foot and in a college scarf, coming into view around the corner of Brunswick Road.

"Bloody 'ell, it'th Mithter Wheat"

Uttered Karen, managing a lisp through clenched teeth.

The three girls put on their best hautaine expressions, and Mr W breezed past in "default 1969 CGS-teacher-mode" : without suspicion or acknowledgment.

As soon as danger had passed, Karen resumed her smuggler stance, and deposited the booty next to the week's carefully-folded edition of Jackie.

They waited for a minute or so, while Karen checked her eye make-up, then walked together up the gravel scar of a path, past the soccer and rugby pitches, through the bike sheds, and headed towards Science Laboratory and Form Room C2.

Only one of the trio was blushing.
"Exordium of another day, Mairte"
I said, as we hung around in the low morning sunlight, next to the crumbling cement post which marked where Town Terminus-ed and School Exordium-ed, sharing the last granules of kali from a two-ounce bag.
Kev did not hear. He was too busy looking back towards the bus station.
"Is that a jar Steve M's carrying?"
He asked...

Friday, July 3, 2009

Fons Fontanacum Felicium





Zedders, Zeddeuses and other 1zaacs will remember their last day at school. And all of those last days of summer terms when we perspired, green, grey and collectively in school uniform.


Here in Vendée, the primary school kids broke up for school holidays yesterday.


(Click on Fontenacum pic if you'd like to go to Fontenay.)

Outside the Lycée in Fontenay this morning the borderliners who had just "missed their Bac" by a few marks sat nervously awaiting the catch-up oral exams.


Their teachers colluded in upstairs retreats, sympathique or antipathique, in huddled committees, some contemplating générosité, some vengeance, all contemplating vacances.


So there was an air de vacances in Fontenay on this hot, sunny morning. No fleet of synchronised buses. No rasping scooters dashing to start lessons at 8am.


I was on official business at the Sous-Préfecture. The young fonctionnaire was polite, nervous and efficient. We exchanged documents in a meeting-room, with the newly-installed 9 o'clock air-conditioning set at an enthusiastic 15°. The staff were clearly applying the "heatwave emergency procedure" directives to the letter.


On the way out, a mussel producer from L'Aiguillon was entering the foyer with a green plastic carrier bag. She told me that it was the daily sample which had to be deposited with the veterinary services for toxic algae tests. "The algae problem becomes worse every year, Monsieur. It is le réchauffement planétaire, you know..."


Having finished early, I returned to my non air-conditioned Crapcar, which was in the horse-chestnut shade on the Place Viète. Waiting for the sun to climb high enough to reveal the Latin inscriptions on the fountain, an impromptu morning flask of tea (Ty-Phoo from Aldi, Cannock. See 1961 double decker ad, infra) transported me back to those hot, end of term days.


Then I found another fountain in a backstreet. And indulged in some filming for the Nerditorium.

Hope the video clip works on all 1zaac computers.

1zaac technical dept note; "It day work. They am gunna fix it soon at Blogger, they to'd us".


(Sound engineer apology):There was a bloke, sitting in a purple Renault Clio Crapcar watching his poodle sniff at the camera crew flask, then offering a fight or other physical intercourse with a large German Shepherd (dog). The owner was listening to "Golden Years" by David Bowie on radio station Nostalgie. This would have been a good soundtrack for the clip.


But now that our editing dept has worked out how to put in a soundtrack, an extraordinary meeting of the 1zaac legal committee has issued a caveat with regard to copyright infringement.


They probably can't get you if you hum it, 'though.

AB


Thursday, July 2, 2009

Nonne quisquis hic Latine decenter loquitur?



Lynette enquired this week;

"What do you think of the above suggestion for our 1zaac motto?"

Here at 1zaac we are awaiting Miss Austin's reply. What do you think, readers?

Monday, June 29, 2009

Fauna hazards



Here at 1zaac we received a note from Carol in South Carolina today;

"Ah jes leurve that cute lil'ol automobile in the cerise story. What is that thang?"

Well, Carol, it's called a 2CV. It has four doors and two cylinders. And you'll be seeing more of them in Episode 4, Lyon, France, Easter 1971.

While you're waiting, we think that a smart Southern Belle lady like yourself can probably guess which country the above photo was taken in?

Look out, too, for a new 1zaac "triple C" initiative: The Clever Crapcar Commission.

Do you own a Crapcar, or have you ever owned one? Do you have any motoring adventure stories to relate from the sixties, up to the modern day, illustrating the good times to be had in Crapcars?

The Commission will consider any non-libellous content for publication.

Macroglossum Stellatarum



...or Hummingbird Hawkmoth.

1zaac affiliates Daniel and Sarah visited Sainte Cécile last week, and spotted this summer visitor doing the nectar rounds in the lavender.

photo courtesy flickr

Friday, June 26, 2009

Le Temps des Cerises...

South Australian Anzac 1zaacs John and Kathy Clarke visited Sainte Cécile this week. The Crows narrowly beat the blackbirds to the cherry crop.

Click on the cherries to go to the Sainte Cécile website, where you will find some pictures of the commune, and all you never needed to know about local authority administrative procedures...
Kathy & John painstakingly de-stoned the fruit, before preparing a coulis for the ice-cream.We went for a picnic at the romanesque church at Mesnard.The 13th-century wall-paintings were re-discovered in 1950, after the de-consecrated church had been used as a barn for almost 100 years... John did a "Don't Look Now" tribute pose...(1zaac film buff committee comment; a very scary film, released during our last year in the Sixth Form...)










Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Salve Debbie; mea maxima culpa



1zaac eye candy; Judy, Debbie AND the post-war council houses of West Chadsmoor.

Welcome to the Magical Mystery Tour, Debbie. Yes, blame the 1zaac editorial dept for omitting the smouldering brunette from the 1971 Cannock Grammar School playing fields pic. (Scholars & Amazons story, infra)

The Council Planner was obviously having a bad hair day; he left a tree.

Salutations amicales de la part des Zeddeurs et Zeddeuses.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Spot the Zedders

Latest 1zaac library addition, for our "Nerds R Us" Australiana section;
From page 18...Spot the Zedders:

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Coming Soon; 1969 - 1970...

Click on the 1970 School mag for an amazing and expanding experience...

Monday, June 8, 2009

Salve, Graham

Tixall Bridge, near Stafford, UK. Sunrise in May.

This photo is to welcome our latest 1Z 1967 Zeddeur, Graham PRICE.

For the past six months, we 1zaacs have trawled through telephone directories, electoral registers, West Chadsmoor King Lear impersonator long-term residents' memories and the internet. Amongst other places. We even contemplated an Indiana Jones Crusade "up the higher reaches of Pye Green Road" as our annual outing.

We located our long-lost "Mairte" last week, and were delighted to welcome him on board our Magical Mystery TourBuzz.

The photo: Tixall is on the edge of Cannock Chase.

Graham recalled our 1973 Sixth-Form Motor Moron Games Rejects afternoon orienteering excursions, in full school uniform, embarking from Pye Green telecommunications tower. (Even WE could not fail to find THAT starting point...) Those green blazers and the acorn emblems certainly made unorthodox but effective camouflage "Up The Chase" for the afternoon tobacco addicts.

A belated thank-you to Graham's Dad, Ron, for all of those rides to the Tower in his immaculate blue Hillman Avenger.

Great to have you on board, Graham. We've got the compass somewhere. Hope you've still got those orienteering score sheets.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

(Almost) August publications in June

In 1zaac days, there were two local newspapers in Cannock: The Advertiser and The Courier.

Nowadays there is The Chase Post.

More, much more, anon.

Recent sample headlines, allegedly:

  • "Huntington's Stolen Leisure Mound St George Flag Returns"
  • "Grave Error Exclusive: Cheslyn Hay Woman Buried On Top Of Wrong Man"
  • "Fred Puts Cannock On Map"
  • "Cannock UK Chav Capital - Councillor Resigns - I Day Do It"

(supplied by embedded 1zaac proofreaders. Let us know if you have spotted others...Especially if you have any which are easier to translate for our French readership than are the above examples. Merci. On behalf of 1zaac translation committee )

French 1zaacs; Clicquez le tricolore Chase Post banner below pour latest Cheslyn Hay histoire, et un cours immersion short en 2009 local journalism central Angleterre. (Hope translation is OK. Usual translator en vacances. Bonjour et merci.)


Saturday, June 6, 2009

Buzzing Around, from Malcolm Tolley


Click on the badge to buzz to Cannock Grammar School Former Pupils' Association (no buzz pass required)
Good to hear from Malcolm Tolley, from the cgsfpa committee this week:
Hi Alan
Thanks for the update of your posts on 1zaac.

I see you have an interest in buses.

I used to live in Essington when I was at the Grammar school, and travelled on the number 56 Wolverhampton to Great Wyrley bus, also known as the Wyrley Whizzer.
There was a basic core of conductors on this bus :- Dora, a buxom ginger haired lady, and two or three Polish ? men, one was called Michael, I can't remember the other names.

I was one of about five students that caught the bus at the top of Broad Lane and travelled to Deakin's corner, and then caught the number 1 or 865 to Cannock.

Most of us were pupils at Cannock, but one pupil ( Vic Whitehouse ) carried on to Rugeley Grammar.

We were such regular passengers, that the conductors knew how many there should be, and they would tell the driver to stop at the top of Broad Lane so that they could see down the lane, and would blow their whistle to tell us to hurry up if they could see anyone coming up the lane.

This wouldn't happen today !

Monday, June 1, 2009

1zaac doyen Ash Ashley, born 1914, recites "Grumble Corner"...

Here at 1zaac we present, with affection, an offering from our most senior member.

Just click on the play button.

If you do not feel better after viewing, if your heart is not warmed and your spirits not raised, you should delete this blog from your favourites.

Carpe Video

AB


video


Saturday, May 30, 2009

Canine Caption Conundrum


Here at 1zaac we would like to apologize for any offence caused to Cannock Council Planning dept in our previous post.
We think, however, that CCP could take a lead from Walsall Council Street naming dept.
Here is a bit of signwriting from a Walsall chippy.
In Hawes Close.
Caption suggestions invited.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Midstaffordian 1967 Dialect - A Glossary






Cannock Town Centre, circa 1961. Some things are timeless:Ty-Phoo still available at ALDI. Others are not: Beware of the forty quid overstay parking fines from the Automated Numberplate Recognition cameras (Caveat courtesy of Zeddeuse LP).


If the lady in the black dress would like to contact 1zaac, we may have a few stories about our Cardinal Griffin School contemporaries to pass on.

Photo courtesy Staffordshire Past Track Archive.



This post may be of special interest to our latest 1zaac-ette, Ann BEAUMONT.



Ann was, in her Miss Austin previous existence, our Latin teacher in 1967. Cf episode 1.




Salve, magistra. Welcome to the Mystery Tour. Here is a picture just for you.



We are working on a translation into Latin of;



"Not all Roman roads lead to Cannock"...



...and hoping for a "bene".



Here at 1zaac we have recently received three enquiries from overseas contributors:


The first one is from a gentleman signing as "Moikle", from Australia. Here is an excerpt.


"Starve the bloomin' lizards Brownie. Wot's all this Pommy dialect stuff. Jeez, mate, can't ya use the flamin' QUEEN'S ENGLISH??? And proper punctuation!!!"


The second snippet is from Carol in South Carolina:


Oh My. Ah jes leurve the sto'ries. How 'bout y'all hep us out with some those itty-bitty Staffo'd shire sayens?


And a word from Bernadette in Brittany:


What do it means "Ode on a bit. Yoe ay 'erd the best yet" ?


There appears to be a pattern here. (Nice one, 1zaac "spot the need dept" -Ed)


So here are the first entries of the Midstaffordian Glossary.


Please feel welcome to forward your own entries via the usual channels.


NOTIFICATION from 1zaac "Varieties of 1960's Regional English" sub-committee:


Midstaffordian is NOT (="AY") Brummy. It is NOT/AY Black Country. It ay North Staffs neither. An doe get/goo mixin it up wi' that MidStaffs healthcare trust. We day do it. And the past tense of AY is WA'AR. Yoe doe hear much on it now.


Mairte (n) Term of endearment used, until the start of the third millennium, between working-class males of similar age and status. It illustrates the Northern English "air" varietal of the vowel sound [a]. Specialists/smartarses will have observed the mutation to the Black Country/Brummified "ayee" in the southern fringes (Essington and beyond). It then sounds like a nasalized "may it" to non-native speakers. This occasionally leads French listeners, like Bernadette, to anticipate a subjunctive. Well, Bernadette, the bad news is that this is one of the easier mutations to grasp.


Not to be confused with the gentrified version "Mate", which is now in common use by both genders when addressing spouses/partners, siblings, offspring, contemporaries and so forth.


This is no longer confined to members of the remnant working-class. Even less to those who are still lucky enough to be in employment; at least one former British Prime Minister, initials TB, has been observed "Mate-ing" on more than one occasion. Usually with himself.


"Mate" has been for more than a generation the generic choice of Australian male politicians when addressing their peers outside Parliament in Canberra. Inside that edifice, the titles of choice include "Ratbag", "Scumbag", "Liar" and, in the case of One Nation's Pauline Hanson, "The Oxley Moron".

American speakers of English (no oxleymoron intended) rarely use the term: hence Carolinan Carol's consternation.


Are adv., An expression of agreement or assent. "Are, yoe'm right, theer". NOT a part of the verb "to be", which is conjugated thus;


I am/yoe am/ (irregularity coming up, be careful...)'e is/ 'er is/ we am/yoe am/they am


The negatives are (sorry, am) even easier: I ay/yoe ay/'e ay/ 'er ay/ we ay/ yoe ay/ they ay...

While we are on verbs; can any Midstaffordian speakers who may be reading this provide entries for "Car" and "Day"?


Hang on/Ho'de up. This is a glossary. You are not supposed to digress. No wonder you failed History 'O' Level. And Physics. Ed.
Further entry requests;
Buzz/Buzziz

Bostin'
Bost
Mardy
Sook
Snap
Wench/Wenchiz
Ess'ole








To be continued. Send in your own items at your leisure. AB




Cannock Town Centre, Monday 3pm, January 2009. Half a century of streetscape enhancement projects after the 1961 picture, above.

"Blizzard conditions" have even kept the hot-dog vendor and Sister Josephine away.

Solitary shopper has defected to Martin's now Pick n' Mix no longer available at Woolworth's.

The council ran out of salt two days later. Plenty available at Taylor's Caff.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Être et Avoir...


Unhurried schooldays memories from a different perspective...
Just added to 1zaac'archive.
We saw this film when it was released, and have just re-watched it.

Être et Avoir

DVD Nicolas PHILIBERT (2002)

(Review abridged/translated from Amazon French website by 1zaac intercultural dept)

A village primary school in deepest Auvergne; one of those mixed classrooms where children from nursery class to top juniors are taught in the same group; a teacher whose attentiveness and patience are matched only by his passion for teaching...Here are the main ingredients of this modest documentary masterpiece from Nicolas Philibert.

Gently following the rhythm of the seasons (sumptuous landscapes, changing from snow to spring flowers, illustrating the passage of time), and that of smallholder farmers working the land (a number of sequences show the hardships of small-farm life), the film-maker follows step by step, for six months the thirteen pupils taught by Monsieur Lopez on the eve of his retirement.

Philibert explores the childrens' doubts, their difficulties, their hardships and their enthusiasm in the face of traditional school subjects. (This is a very "French" context. Ed)

Most of all, he highlights the true values in life: patience, perseverence, humility, developing a taste for effort, co-operation and teamwork, respect for others, resolution of conflict...

As the scenes of the film unfold, depicting everyday classroom life, we are taken to the very heart of the little school, as if drawn into a family circle. Explosions of joy and unbridled laughter, brought about by the natural behaviour of its children, are thrown into contrast with the occasional deeply moving passage, such as one where a pupil confides to M. Lopez his concern and emotion about his father's recently diagnosed serious illness.

The viewer becomes intimately involved in this splendid, refreshing film. He or she will be reminded of the happy, unworried and carefree moments of their own primary school days.

It is as enriching as it is entertaining.

5 stars from 1zaac. Un trésor, tout simplement.

AB

Sunday, April 26, 2009

"G'day Mr Brown. You used to be our Mum's old French teacher..."


Click on this photo for a photographic and inter-cultural feast.

It's always great to catch up with kids you once taught. Even thirty years on...
Caroline TELFER (née SOLLY) visited us last August with husband Roger and children Sophie, Odette, Bonnie and Hugh.

The Telfer's blog says it all. Caro is a professional photographer, so there's an 1zaac treat in store just a click away.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Anzac 1zaacamino

Anzac 1zaacs on "The Trail"


"Hey Dad. Are we nearly there yet?"

We have just been across the Pyrenees on one of the Compostella trails with friend and former Bunbury Grammar colleague Chris GIBBS, and his son, Robert.

Keep watching for Rob's mountaineering Easter egg hunt, a report on his sporting prowess in the Basque Pelota game, and his 6'6"Clint Eastwood tribute with rain cape, penknife and Crocodile Dundee hat...


Click on this photo to go to Chris's website; Follow prompts to Camino de Santiago, then click on the boots pic. Take a deep breath first: Scuba diving with sharks in W Australia; Belgrade science teaching in English; Environmental surveys in tropical NW Oz; Footslogging the trail in Spain with other 1zaacs...and much, much more.

Great to have you as 'onorary Anzac 1zaacs, cobbers.


First snowball

Friday, April 3, 2009

Episode 3 Chapter 1 Scholars and Amazons


This post is dedicated to Judy and her Mom, with affection from all of us at 1zaac.

SCHOLARS AND AMAZONS

IT WAS MONDAY SEPTEMBER 1st, 1969...

“Let’s goo ter school on our bikes termorrer, Kev”

I said to him when we met on the Liver-Stretcher at the “Rec’ on the afternoon before our Third Year at Cannock Grammar School started.


The "Rec" and the Liver Stretcher, endless summer day circa 1965, as remembered by Bonker Baby Boomers.


The Liver Stretcher, a cast-iron and oak-beamed contraption which sported the same rusty red and green paint as that Mamod steam engine with which we had set fire to the Top School playground three years previously, creaked and squealed in slow motion.

Its mass swung back and forth with a force which all of us kids knew could inflict concussion or amputation on the unwary.

This 1930’s design feature, with its disregard for Health and Safety considerations which, even eighty years ago, must have been bordering on the politically incorrect, meant that the unwary faction of our Cheslyn Hay contemporaries had very few members. (Ho Ho. 1zaac pun spotter)

A laconic Kev, who, as a budding Physics undergraduate, was perhaps pondering the exact inertial forces and their potential destructive qualities, replied;

“Con do”.

Kev always replied “Con do” to my spontaneous think out-loud illogical/creative suggestions.

Being logical and scientific, he should really have said;

“Mairte. We’ve got buzz passes. We’ll be sweatin’ like pigs afore we get to Wynn’s Foundry in our blairzers. Yoe ay got no bike clips, an’ that’s a wenches bike yo’ve got. We’ll be the loffin’ stock o’ them Walhouse kids once we get ter the bike sheds. Cannock ay the Bonk yer know….

Instead he said;

“Con do”

Which meant that the next morning we met up at the New Hoss Road, outside Taylor’s bakery and Mrs Rogers’ newsagents.



"That ay a wench's bike..."

I saw Mrs Rogers give a quick nod of recognition to the Humbrol/Airfix “sand and spinach” repainted version of her daughter Jennifer’s bike, astride which I was perched with my briefcase strapped to the imaginary cross-bar in an attempt at camouflage.



Thacker's, when pet food allowed for rich pickings, before the "outbreak of War Surplus"

Kev’s steed was a “Thacker Tracker” (More about Thacker’s anon), purchased by his Dad in 1963 for the sum of ten bob, and a veteran of the war-time anti-aircraft battery at Middle Hill.

At least it had a cross-bar.

And Mr Thacker had thrown in a pair of undersized WAAF shoes for good measure.

“Yoe’ll be doin’ yerself injury if yoe doe move that briefcairse mairte”, he laughed as he offered carriage space on his RAF-issue parcel rack.

He secured it with a bungy strap he’d made from an inner tube and two metal coat hangers.

“That orta do it. Hee y’am. Strap this tank aerial to your saddle bracket an’up to the ‘andle bars. Use the rest o’ this inner tube. Ho’de on, I’ll mek yer another hook wi’ this coat ‘anger. It’ll mek it look like a lad’s bike, norra wench’s. Nobody’ll know the difference.

The tank aerial was his army surplus fishing rod.

Its provenance needed no explanation, and it packed down to a bundle of copper rods which, depending on your cultural references on any particular morning, looked like a collection of dark green blow-pipes, or a Roman Legion symbol, minus the axe and the SPQR.

We set off down Station Street, into the sunrise, pausing for chewing gum from Mr Mears’ “Y-Z” dispensing machine on the corner of Coppice Lane. “Free packet every fourth turn” it said, next to the painting of an owl.

Mears' shop, on Coppice Lane corner, after the Roman legions, before the Y-Z machine.

“Bostin’”, said Kev. “We’ll share the free packet lairter on. What does SPQR mean, mairte?

As I explained, we began to realise that, had he not “con-doed” Kev would have been right about the perspiration problem.

Our green baize blazers felt like knitted tea cosies by the time we got past Rosemary Tileries, to the “Raz” (Hatherton Reservoir), and as we pedalled our no-geared bikes through the stink past Cannock Fertilizers and the Lucas electrical metropolis.

I kept looking back at Kev, with his black hair, bared teeth and scarlet face hauling two briefcases and his breakfast up the slight but protracted incline towards Bridgtown.

After crossing our imagined territorial frontier which was the A5, my chain came off. I got oil on my fingers, wiped them on my face, and we decided to push for a bit.

I suggested stopping for some kali at the “sook” shop near the Post Office.

North Street, Bridgtown. "Forrin" territory to us until we braved the crossing of the A5.

“ Con do”

Said Kev

“It’s on’y twenty ter airte anyway. Am yoe sure we needed ter start out soo early?”

“It’s a nice mornin’ ay it, though”

We agreed, as usual, and Kev pointed out the late Victorian façade of Bridgtown school.


Bridgtown School & War memorial

“Judy’s Mom works theer, Al; Her's a really nice lady. Remember her use to pick Judy up from school in Pinfold Lane when we was in the Infants up the Bonk? Me uncle Tommy lives over the road an’ he tode me. An’ they’ve got a relative what was on the Titanic. ‘Er Dad’s a grairt carpenter an’ me uncle says they’ve gorra grairt big back gardin wheer he breeds guinea pigs an’ stuff. Ah’m gunna ‘ave me a goo at that an’ all”.

As we pushed the bikes, and dipped a finger in the post-breakfast kali, I said;

“Yoe’ve got a nuncle Tommy. Tommy GUNN?. An’ yer sister’s nairme’s Brenda? They must 'ave a good sense o’ youmour in your family!”

Kev laughed and had another dip of kali.

“Remember when Judy was in Mrs Jeavons’s, then Mr Cartwright’s class wi’ us, an’ he used to read us them Fairmous Five stories of an afternoon”

“Are, ah doo. I use ter like that one about that Kirrin Island the best. We use to watch Judy an’ Carol Pedley listenin’ to ‘im read, day we?”

Having walked the length of Bridgtown High Street, we reached another frontier; the A34. Then we turned left towards Cannock, still pushing.

We both knew that Judy lived near the Territorial Army HQ. We couldn’t remember how we knew, we just did.

We’d both watch for her walking out of the front door from the top deck of the Number 17, but we’d never see her. Judy's beauty was matched only by her mystique. Even to former Wyrley Bonk classmates such as us.

But the three of us shared, somehow, an unspoken familiarity. One which had been born of the three or four years we had been at primary school together, before she had emigrated across the A5.

To us, she was still belonged to our exclusive little faction of Honorary Wyrley Bonkers.

We’d missed her after she’d left.

These days she occasionally cast a glance across our Grammar School classroom, which melted our Cheslyn Hearts every time.

As it turned out, the early, bicycling departure worked in our favour on this first morning of our 3E adventure.

Because Judy’s Mom was seeing her off at the door.

Momentarily self-conscious, Kev disposed of the kali bag, dropping it like a miniature drogue parachute, and started scooting his Tracker along the A34's gutter, cocking a manly leg over our briefcases, and launching into a nonchalant, whistling, sit-up-and-brag pedalling posture as he reached the NCB Computer Centre.

Trying to take on a 1969-ish air of "cool", like an imagined and anachronous sidewalk surfer, I attempted the same manoeuvre, but on spindly legs.

This was when the tank aerial sprang loose of its inner-tube elastics.

I had to fiddle and hold the bundle of copper tubes/blowpipes together, trotting alongside Jennifer Rogers' cycle, still trying to guess what "cool" looked like in such circumstances.

Looking back, I can only reach the conclusion that my attempt fell short of the mark.

I looked briefly like a tribal Amazonian midget in green cloth, three oil stripes on reddening cheeks, clumsily holding a bunch of blowpipes, and trying to balance on a manifestly wench’s bike.

I hoped Judy hadn’t noticed as, crimsonly glancing backwards with affected disdain, I saw her walking, élégante, past Ernie Ball’s garage, up the hill towards the Bus Station Café.

“Wheer yoe gooin’”

I shouted to Kev, who was signalling an intention to turn right after Thackertrackering past Jellyman’s Foundry, the Walsall Road chip shop and towards the gasworks at Rumer Hill.

“We ay gooin’ through the town centre with yoe lookin’ like that, mairte. Foller me. We can get to the bike sheds up Pennine Drive, past them posh houses.

Once again, Kev had saved the day.

What he had omitted to calculate was the steepness of Pennine Drive, and the likelihood of both our chains parting company with their sprockets.

“The probability of that occurrence was less than one in a nundred, mairte”

Assured Kev upon our glowing, Mamod arrival under the expanse of the bike shed’s flat roof, whilst expertly releasing two briefcases from their inner tube restraints, and sending a shard of coat hanger wire past Denis Bould's eye.

Denis was parking his own bike, a West Chadsmoor wench version my own conveyance. He removed his German army helmet, and inspected the scratch which the projectile had left.

"Good 'un Gunny. Yoe nearly shot me theer."

He said in a Pye Green Bavarian accent.


“Yoe’m probably right about the one in a nundred. Shall we get the buzz termorrer?”

“Con do”.

And we walked out of the empty bike shed with our Class 3B Wehrmacht colleague, abandoning the more extreme elements of our Cheslyn dialect next to our bikes, into the uncertain light of a New School Year.

It was still only quarter past eight.




Wednesday, March 25, 2009

1zaactivities - Literature

Extract from Amo, Amas, Amat. Harry Mount quotes Kingsley Amis to illustrate the chasm between Latin and French: "an imagined dialogue between a scrounging legionary, perhaps a Vandal or Parthian by origin, and a willing but benighted yokel [in ancient Gaul, which became France]."
Click on any image to enlarge.







Some reading we have exchanged recently.

1zaac feedbac

"I laughed. I cried. It is OUR story"
Zeddeuse. GB

"I had a dream that I was in that class with those kids in 1968"
Anzac 1zaac, Western Australia (plagiarism alert. Ed.)

"Yeah, it was pretty much like that in the States, too"
Minnesota 1zaac, SW France

"Loved it! I was there. The bits about the "village" are all true. Clive likes it as well and is sending you a copy of his new book."
Former Wyrley Bonker, Cambridge GB

"It wa'ar me. I day do it."
Zeddeur attendee Cheslyn Hay Pit Mound, 1967

"The penoremic school photo uz great; the ummages are so clear. Will done Med Scienteust Keuv"
Former CGS pupil, New Zealand

"Beautiful Cheslyn Hay memories"
Cheslyn Hay Local History Society

"Speak to my lawyer"
Former Zeddeur, southern England

"Interesting"
Zeddeur, USA

"Shall we tell them about the jockstrap?"
Zeddeur, formerly of Hednesford

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Congratulations! May 1968 school photo.

Cannock Grammar School, May 1968

Riots in Paris. Hanky panky in Cannock. Cliff wins the Eurovision...

Click on pics for larger image.


Scanning courtesy of 1zaac.com "Mad Scientist" Head of Dept Kev Gunn.

Kev, (with a pedigree as 1970's Bisto Gravy lab researcher, 1980's rural policeman, 1990's Ind Coope brewery technician) has managed to produce several cloned teachers, and a number of identical twin pupils.

Including two Patrick Darbys.

Nice one, Kev.


Keep scrolling down the page for Episode 2 "Time, Space and other Oddities"








Saturday, December 13, 2008

Episode 2 Time, Space & other Oddities

1zaac.com Episode 2

Cannock Grammar School class 2E 1968/9

Time, Space and Other Oddities














"Earthrise" Apollo 8 mission, December 1968

Courtesy NASA collection

















"Clews & Bayliss with Hillman Hunter, Summer of '69"
Courtesy Royster collection

1zaac social comment dept note; Clews & Bayliss now Bargain Booze.
1zaac Cannock motoring history dept note; "It ay a Nunter. It's a Mark 2 Ford Cortina."





For new visitors


SPOILER WARNING


Welcome to our bit of cyberspace at 1zaac.com


You are strongly advised to read the disclaimers preceding episode 1.


Then have a laugh with us and enjoy this.


AB


Ste Cécile


Dec 2008


CHAPTERS


Hey Jude, it's September 1968 /Max Headroom 12' 6" / New Bus to Nubile /SHA 69G / Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin "Je t'aime, mon grand bus" /Business as Usual/ Uniform Changes- OFFICIAL /Disparate Housewives / Frozen River / Fantasy Nympherlude / Get Back to Reality in Long Trousers/Uniform Changes-UNOFFICIAL / Muffin Tights / WHAM! it's Owen & Lee / Spelling Test/Surveillance Strategies/Evacuee Exodus to The Chase in WAAF shoes / Grandad Jack / Galloping Gourmand / Frogs and Kangaroos/Full Metal Blazer / "What Rhymes with Gary Puckett, Sir?" / Major Tom to Jon the Mon / Epilogue, Infinity and Beyond...


September 1968.

It was the term which started with Hey Jude, and led up to the Lily the Pink Christmas.


As "je t'aime, moi non plus" Serge Gainsbourg experimented with Jane Birkin, our own rear-entry model, the 1950’s Number 17 bus from Cheslyn Hay was retired during the summer holidays.











A Walsall depot driver in a turban had attempted to pass under the railway bridge in Station Street…

RAILWAY BRIDGE PROLOGUE
Flashback 1st August 1961

Today I am 5.

It is hot.

I have had a Cold War blue and yellow plastic Vulcan bomber from Woolworths in Cannock for my birthday.


It shoots red missiles from a spring-loaded hole in the front. The shop had dusty parquet floors, wooden counters & brass door fittings.

We lived at 174 Station Street until I was 8. A miner’s terraced house opposite Georgie Lunt’s chip shop, and around the bend from the railway bridge.
Station St Cheslyn Hay. Photo courtesy CHLHS

One of the earliest signs I learned to read, before plunging between the floppy pink covers of “Janet & John Book 1” at primary school, was the sign between our house and the bridge.

It was in raised black script with weathered round red reflectors set into the letters like raspberry Rowntree’s fruit gums;


“Caution. Max. Headroom 12’ 6”

“Dad, what does “Max Headroom” mean”

…I asked as he pedalled us under the bridge and uphill towards home on the dark green, immaculately maintained BSA bike.

The Sturmey Archer gears clicked. His dark blue bib & brace overalls have a packet of Players in the patch pouch on the chest and a folding wooden ruler in the side pocket. His knees pumped up and down like mighty pistons.

I was on the cross-bar, astride a not-very- padded red satin cushion, using a knotted tartan kipper tie as stirrups.

Dad, in surprise, pulled on the rod brakes, which gave out a note akin to a yawn.

“Eh? Can you read that, Son?”

“Caution (pronounced cow-she-on)…Max..Head...room 12 dot dot 6 dot”

“Bloomin’ ‘eck. "

"Where did you learn to do that.”

“I doe know”

I replied, thinking about Grandad Jack’s “Valiant” comic in front of the blazing coal fire at their house in Low Street, or across the street at Uncle Frank’s, with the “By appointment to Her Majesty” Ready Brek packet and HP sauce bottle on his kitchen table under the redundant gas mantle, in front of the Victorian cast-iron cooking range.

Or the Sally Army “War Cry” distributed just before the Wright's seafood cockle man came round with his basket, graseproof paper bags and vinegar on Saturday nights at the Working Mens’ club, to shouts of;

" 'ave yer got any mussels on yer, cock?"…

… Well, “Headroom” means that’s how high the bridge is. In the middle of the arch, though. So a double decker buzz can’t get under it, because they are nearly 14 foot high, right? That’s why they go down Coppice Lane, and the little buzz up from Wyrley, the “Wyrley Whizzer, is only a single decker, see…”

“Oh, orright”

Dad was my Encyclopaedia Britannica.

He lifted me off the cross-bar, and started wheeling the bike towards the back garden, through the cool darkness of the arched entry tunnel between 172 and 174.

The free-wheel clicked to a stop. I heard the clack and echo of the latch when he opened the back gate.

Through the telescope of the entry tunnel, I saw my little sister Nina in a yellow dress on her Tri-ang tricycle under the pear tree at the top of the back garden.

I stood alone in the sixties streetscape next to the flowering currant bush, in the dusty summer afternoon shade at the front of the house.

I had never been alone in the street before.

But now I was five.

I looked up Station Street, at the grey Ford Popular outside Jack & Gil Harding's house, then down at the manufacturer’s plate on the cast iron wall cappings.

The Wyrley Whizzer roared down a deserted street.

I felt the hot diesel exhaust bounce off the chip shop windows.

“Dad, what is “Jellyman Ironfoundry Cannock”? And what does “Her Majesty” mean?

“Your Mom’s made a cup of tea. Come on and I’ll tell you”.

I hurry into the entry, still a bit wary of the dark and the musty smell of plaster and lath.

Then into the pool of light in the back yard where my Vulcan bomber is propped against the Staffordshire blue bricks under the middle room window.

I am 5. I am going to school soon. The world seems old and new all at once.

It feels like being born, again.

It feels like home.

END OF PROLOGUE

Back in September 1968…

Good job there had been no top deck smokers that afternoon; the bus was empty and on the way back to the depot in Bloxwich, its sub-continent pilot and conductor crew briefly happy in the pre-GPS creative route-finding joy of having beaten the system by finding a short cut.

If it had not been his day off, our usual cleft-palated conductor Dennis would have saved the day, and the roof, by shouting down the length of the deserted lower deck;

“Ho’d up, Whoah! What ner yo’ think yo’m mlayin’at, yer mlockhead? 'ave yer gone off yer mloomin' yed? This ay the way back to Mloxwich mnepot. Am yer tryin'ter mnemolish the mlinkin muzz or summat?.”

The replacement new bus on Tuesday 3rd September 1968 was BRAND new.



Engine at the rear, pre-select gears, folding front door, pneumatic midships sliding door.

The sixty-ninth vehicle to be registered in West Brom since 1st August 1968 “G” registration came out.

Its number plate bore promise for our new year at school and our pre-teen explorations.

Now was the fag-end of the Summer of Love, the eve of;

« Mille neuf cent soixante-neuf, année érotique”
(Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin)

The square number plate, prominently affixed next to the rear window in the recess forward of the thundering diesel engine read;

SHA
69G….


The BBC and Tony Blackburn banned Serge's grunts and Jane's affected ecstase of "Je t'aime, moi non plus", no doubt worried it would all be a bit too much to take with the Weetabix.

It rocketed to Number One, and the Number Seventeen became "Je t'aime, mon grand bus"

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In other ways our second year at Cannock Grammar felt like business as usual.

Lime green bus passes. The walk from the bus station, past the Social Security pre-fab block, with the E..R 1963 plaque, discussing, post-superhero-neo-asperger-style, car number prefixes with Kev;

“RBF 649, that’s Stafford ay it Al?”

“549 KEA, sure to be West Brom”

“1 DH, that’s the Mayor of Walsall just gone past, mairte”

"SHA 69G, theere's the buzz gooin' back to the Bonk" ...

Through the bike sheds.

All familiar by now.

We had even begun to develop immunity from the vending machine Limeade chilled green emetic, and were now able to swallow half a plastic cupful at morning break time without indulging in the communal chundering sessions which distinguished the new 1968 intake of First Year pupils.

In a year which heralded Man’s first footsteps very much upstairs on another world, there was a move downstairs for 1Z, now….2E.

None of us protested at no longer being Zedders.








Even though we were no longer the youngest kids in the school, we were the last of the Zedder breed: the 1968 intake were labelled more conventionally 1A to 1E.


(click on image for larger view of 1968 intake)











There was little nostalgia for Zeds forgotten, even as we listened to Mary Hopkins intoning Russian folk revival “Those Were the Days”…

UNIFORM CHANGES-OFFICIAL

The Jackie-reading section of the class set some trendy tones. As well as Scholl’s exercise sandals, other items appeared;

Lynette wrote;
Our school uniform saw changes, although these were mainly to the girls’ attire.

Our pale green linen type blouses would be replaced with green and white striped ones and our 'nursey' striped dresses with small round collars were replaced by a more hip “shift” style.

We could now make our own with material stocked in the Co-Op. At last a cheaper uniform. Hopefully in future it would not be necessary to buy things with a good four years of growth potential.

…my satchel was changed for a basket with a cover that looked like the elasticated plastic thingy from the bottom of our budgie cage, but one had to keep up with the fashion…

DISPARATE HOUSEWIVES

With their cheese pie ingredients, exercise books, ladder repair sewing kits, blue mascara, lunar charts and other carefully packaged hygiene accessories stowed neatly in their baskets, there was enough variety now in the home-made elements of the girls’ uniform to qualify them as budding “Disparate Housewives”…

In contrast to the “homely” cardigan & cardboardy conical brassière look, some of the girls began cautiously flirting with the “24/7 Clubber” style (full make-up and exposed flesh regardless of season or venue). This style, as any occasional visitor to Cannock will attest, has burgeoned (with midriff/body-piercing and cleavage updates) amongst local youngsters for more than forty years.

On the academic front, The Powers That Be had started to sift and label us further: Latin and Maths were two obvious sieves.

Were we still in form groups for some subjects, though.

We must have been for English, because we had a young Mr DS Wheat, and read “Cider with Rosie”, “Grandad with Snails”…and “The Grapes of Wrath” (Steinbeck had died on 10th November.) The Chrysalids. (John Wyndham failed to keep off the reading list and died that year, too)

FROZEN RIVER
Our new form teacher was Mr Griffiths, who was given the sobriquet of “Nobby”, by Carole Freeman.

She said she’d seen his knees during a staff soccer match.

Mr G was a young, tall, swarthy, likeable, deliberate Physics teacher.

His passion for pastoral care began, falteringly, to make itself felt on the first day during an enforced form period at 10am.

He had dealt with matters arising (distribution of new orange rough books and blotting paper, reminder of General Fund protocol…) by 10.10.

So he filled in time by explaining how lucky we were going to be this year; our General Science would transform itself into Chemistry, Biology and….Physics. We would be learning about FORCES…

He wrote the word on the blackboard.

A basket handle creaked as someone fumbled for a “Jackie”.

He then regaled us with a riddle, which he claimed would illustrate what a fascinating subject Physics was.

The details, (and hopefully former classmates will be able to help out on this one), have become hazy when viewed through the mists of time. But it involved the unlikely scenario of a man in frictionless ice skates on a frictionless frozen river (!), desirous of moving backwards.

Steve Wilson’s eyes began to glaze over, like a frozen river…

We were still seated in rows, although (possibly in a nod to chaos theory by Mr G?) no longer alphabetically.

Some of us had begun the slow, inexorable migration towards the “cooler” zones of the back of the classroom, with the footballers, and nearer to the athletic frame and micro skirt of new class member Lynne Hodgkiss.

(More “Less is More” on micros later.)

As Mr G posed his riddle, I’d semi-switched off, and had started day-dreaming comic scenarios in pidgin French, more or less related to the subject.

I already had one suggestion about how our theoretical skater might propel himself forwards by breaking wind, and decided to keep this for possible later use.

When we got to know him a bit better.

And when I knew the correct French for “breaking wind”.

Our form room was F1.

We were increasingly obsessed by Rowan & Martin-esque sexual innuendo, so domiciliation in “F-block” held a certain appeal.

FANTASY “NYMPHERLUDE”
A highlight of each week was when we had to queue for the changing rooms outside the Gym.

If you hung back towards the rear of the queue, you were, allegedly, afforded a view along the tunnel which led to our imagined erotic heaven;

The Girls’ Changing Room.

Unfortunately, the Town Planner responsible for the school’s design had done his job too well when designing the entrance, and the chicane at the other end allowed sound to filter, indeed to be amplified.

But it blotted out any voluptuous visuals.

We knew from the squeals of delight which echoed down the tunnel that something was going on in there which entailed more than mere nubile nymphettes undressing and the pulling on of Netball or Hockey gear.

(Although the mere thought of those particular vestment manoeuvres was more than sufficient to kick our hormones into attentive mode for several hours.)

Nah.



There had to be other things going on.

The boys’ collective imagination was certainly not lacking in the supply of scenarios.

And, judging by the way we all lingered as the queue started to move past the doorway, leaning backwards as our place in front of the doorway slipped past, in a vain expectation that the brick wall at the end of the tunnel would miraculously reveal a vision of delight, most of us had similar ideas…

FAST FORWARD 2008

On a September Sunday evening in 2008, at our first 1ZAAC reunion, White Horse pub, Cheslyn Hay, all was-figuratively speaking- finally revealed.

Those changing room squeals were not of joy or ecstasy.

They were emanating from 30 naked, innocent young ladies and Carole Freeman (who was incongruously singing "Blackberry Way"...) attempting to maintain poise, arms and elbows gathered in a bodice, unsuccessfully dodging the chilly jets of water Carole was aiming across the white-tiled expanses of the communal shower.

So, dear reader, it was even better than we’d dare imagine.

Better, anyway, than Carry on Camping.

(Technical aside; Upon this 2008 revelation, a suggestion was made, just before we were thrown out of the pub for sober hysteria, that a re-enactment video clip be made on the school premises for the forthcoming blog.

Assurances of copious use of steam, a discreet cameraman and Vaseline-ed lenses did nothing to reassure potential showering starlets.

We may have to be satisfied with a soundbyte only.

Readers will be encouraged, just as in '68, to make up their own pictures.

I know this is disappointing. I saved a fair bit on Vaseline, though)

Plug for 1zaac episode 3
By popular request from the zeddeuse contingent - "what about he boys' changing rooms?": keep blogwatching for episode 3E. Rugby balls, sun-stroked cricketers, jockstraps and the pubic cubicles...

GET BACK TO REALITY IN LONG TROUSERS
Around the time “Get Back” hit the top slot, my own Griffiths-style knees were covered with the charcoal flannel of long trousers, purchased with Gran Floss and with relief at Foster Brothers for 17/6.

The transaction had felt like a rite of passage.

When they wore to semi-transparency in the first week of January, I wished we had raided the gas meter as well as the electric one, and invested in the one-guinea pair.







Accelerated wear was convolutedly caused by avoiding a boycraze of “humbug, finger or thumb”.


This appeared to be a dodgy import from places like Harrow or Eton, where its epithet was British Bulldog .

The Cannock Grammar wannabe/aspirational version was, however, performed fully clothed, outdoors, in daylight, and minus top hat. It was practised principally by the now infamous lads from planet 1B, with bouts usually convened by "Gaz" Nicholls.

It was a “Boy Thing” with undertones of rugger and homo-eroticism, involving as it did, a pretext for sticking the back of your head against the boy in front’s testicles.


It was good training for the budding rugby stars in our class.


More about this, with a free download of their song repertoire, including Eskimo Nell, in 3E episode.

We were guessing that the girls must have thought the exponents were totally tough and that they (the girls...) were just feigning disinterest by reading Jackie articles aloud to one another..

The girls thought the humbuggers looked like total morons.

As usual, the girls were right.

Kev Gunn’s posterior ended up through a window pane during a rare 2E indoor session of humbuggery. We had a solidarity whip-round collection to pay for the replacement, after a headmaster's enquiry failed to flush out an informer.

It was on the morning Tony Blackburn’s syrupy tones announced the maiden flight of the Boeing 747, and when the humbuggers had gone, that half a dozen of us formed a splinter group next to the humbug Staffordshire blue-brick wall outside G-Block, and invented a game which involved tossing duffel bags over the wall.

We had no points- scoring system, or rules. The game just happened.

It felt refreshingly like a road less travelled.

And this, if you haven't lost the thread by now, dear reader, is where my long trousers lost theirs.

It was because the duffel game, somehow by common accord, was played in full uniform, sitting on the tarmac.

UNIFORM CHANGES-UNOFFICIAL

As the Apollo 8 astronauts looped the moon that Christmas, and maybe because we took interest in the kinky uniforms on Star Trek, classmates started to probe the final frontiers of uniform prescriptions…










As a counter to our teenage fashion cred, but with a nod to fashionable sci-fi, Kev brought in one of his Christmas presents.

The Blue Peter Eighth Book.

He sat, scratching his sideburns, reading a Bleep & Booster chapter in the corner of room F1.

Paul Nicholls, became a trendsetter when he discovered orange, black-buttoned denim shirts (still at Foster’s), for a pound.


Then, despite the hazard posed by Mrs Aston’s uniform recognition abilities, came to school in it, humming the cool strains of 'Albatross' by Fleetwood Mac.


(This seemed very daring at the time. It set the trend for the purple flares conflagration in the 5E episode...)

That was it: we duffel tossers all wanted in.

Within 3 weeks, my ‘paper round money secured the first tangerine element of a parental influence-free school uniform alternative.

WHAM! IT's OWEN & LEE

The school had been painted during the autumn term.

The whiff of turps set us all up for the promised hallucinations when plans were outlined to buy a bottle of dandelion & burdock and some junior aspirins from Boots chemists, and to sit in the front row of 2001 A Space Odyssey behind the bowling green and next to Rosa's caff, through the folding glass doors at... the Danilo.

For the aesthetic approval of the painters, several of the girls made two tuck-up turns of their skirt waistbands, revealing four more teen-inches of American Tan. They watched the two hunky, tanned, white bib-and braced, pistol-packing spunky-hunks (who were 17,) create a wedding cake effect by gathering all of the classroom furniture to the middle of the room, and covering it with a white dust sheet.

A signwritten board, propped in F1’s window, informed us that their names were possibly Owen and Lee.

They had the 1969 bum fluff equivalent of designer stubble.

Had they been blond, gay and a little less challenged in the dental department, it would have looked like a WHAM! concert, the gals perhaps envisaging four powdery, blushing buttocks emerging from that cake.

The painters would return the following year.

Lynne and Lesley started preparing a welcome- back fantasy fake French-kissing number for them. (Stay tuned for 3E chapter for details).

But WHAM!..They were half a generation away.

Back to 1969. Miniskirts were definitely IN.

On January 1st, Louis Armstrong let us all know it was a Wonderful World.

We thought so too: this, our 1zaac research dept reliably informs, was the year of the MICRO.

It had to be a teenage dream come true for us boys, frustrated every Friday by the Changing Room Corridor design fault, surreptitiously scanning for a glance of knicker cloth of any shade but grey. Or even a triangular micro-flash veiled in American Tan, or even Muffin, with a vertical gusset seam (see note below), if you were lucky enough to catch a micro-wearer crossing or uncrossing her lower limbs.

Author’s note; Whilst undertaking research for this article, I was assured by a normally reliable 1ZAAC source/Sunday School attendee that there was also a shade of tights called “Muffin”.

It shall be left to the readership to determine whether this may have been a Wikipedia-style hoax.

Muff+in=tights??

The same correspondent also provided, in 2008, an update on uniform developments. And a (four-decades on; better late than never) insight into the girls’ regulation undies.

...Although my Mom always said that expensive though they were, the regulation grey flannel knickers would last forever. PLEASE SPARE ME THAT.... hideous, itchy and the half-life of plutonium to boot.


We all turned 13 that year. TEENAGERS AT LAST.

As if to welcome us into the contradictions of the grown-up world, the American electorate let a shifty-looking Nixon have the keys to the Oval Office, and the nuclear launch codes, on 20th of January.

Nixon probably stole the election by, during the campaign, appearing on the “Laugh-in”, and uttering “sock it to me?” (cf 1Z episode). Democrat candidate Hubert Humphrey turned down Rowan & Martin’s invitation, to his later regret.

By March, Tricky Dickie Nixon was secretly bombing Cambodia.

We started making a few assumptions about the collective competency of the US electorate.

But we were too pre-occupied with other matters of adolescence to be unduly worried.

Growing from a distant rumble of our First Year, you could hear the hormones rushing from halfway down F block corridor, regardless of any four-minute warnings. Rowan & Martin must have got wind of this, and fuelled our fantasies with weekly visions of Goldie Hawn go-go dancing.

The staff perhaps picked up on the sexual zeitgeist.

This was, after all “1969, année érotique”: As mentioned above, Serge Gainsbourg was, even as we drifted away from Humbugfingerthumbery, penning “Je t’aime….Moi non plus”, with he and Jane Birkin, like a pair of panting puppies, breathily climaxing to Number One, despite/because of being banned by Tony effing Blackburn.

Almost all of us, allegedly, were only solo performers at this stage.

But our minds were certainly fixed on duets, and that bus registration number.

As usual, Lennon had it all sorted. John and Yoko posed naked for an album cover, then started a “Bed-in” towards the end of May.



















Tangerine-shirted Paul Nicholls did an instant re-write Lennon's September ‘68 Beatles’ masterpiece, releasing

“Hey, Nude…

…don’t turn around”

upon us the next day.

It didn’t help that Mr Wheat introduced the topic of the Swedish Sexlympics into class discussions rather more often than seemed necessary. This delighted Ian and Steve, now firmly established one desk away from Lynne's micro.

Then we studied Cider with Rosie.

Karen remarked in 2008;

Someone got “tossed off” the haywain on the first page.

This started a few more -albeit rustic- stirrings.

SPELLING TEST

We had a spelling test, which included the words naïve, haemorrhoid and diarrhoea...


...clearly Mr Wheat was preparing us for future careers in the medical profession. Naïve was a bit of a puzzler, 'though.



Click on image to see if you've improved since 1968...

SURVEILLANCE STRATEGIES

In the delegatory tradition favoured by boarding schools or concentration camps, or other institutions housing more than a thousand inmates, we had Form Prefects assigned to us.

Hand-picked, trustee-status Fifth formers, they were delegated, presumably, to survey and protect us.

Their duties, when they turned up, seemed to comprise sitting on the window ledge (new glass after Kev’s “accident”) while the majority of us played more whist, or milled around the break-time classroom in quasi-anarchical semi-liberty.

We would occasionally take breaks from the mild anarchy to discuss elementary human biology with the FP’s.

There may have been a few inter-year Nuffield hands-on practicals, too.

But those mists of time, and the fear of litigation from retired FP’s, are rising again.

Form 2E won the 6 –a-side soccer competition.

England reigned as World Cup champions, at least for now. One of the lads did a talk on football, and duped us all, including Mr W, before admitting he had plagiarized it en bloc from The Daily Mirror.

At least it wasn’t The Daily Mail.

There was some great footballing talent in evidence with snowy-haired Steve Wilson, Ian Walton, Bill Haughey, Dave Bowes…Who else was in the team? Was it Bernie Silverstone and Steve Menzler?

EVACUEE EXODUS to the CHASE in WAAF SHOES

Mr Spencer headed up a Student Aid Programme committee which organized a 30-mile sponsored walk around Cannock Chase one Saturday in October. We all set off wearing labels, like evacuees.

(Click on images for contemporaneous school mag article Exodus Chapter One by Peter Taylor)

I managed 17 miles before RAF shoe-induced blisters stopped play, then missed the bus home and was late limping my Express & Star round.


It was Tim Dawson (see photo) who drew to my attention the provenance of the shoes I was wearing.


He had seen the same ones in the film "Battle of Britain" at the Danilo the previous evening.


Unfortunately they had been on the feet of a dead WAAF. (Royal Air Force Lady).


I had thought that they were pretty cool -black lace ups and leather soles- when I'd snapped them up for six bob (1 week's 'paper round pay) at Thackers emporium opposite the Rec' in Cheslyn Hay.


Only when Tim pointed out the subtle curves in the stitching did I "cotton on." (More about this, and other war surplus anecdotes courtesy of Kev in Episode 3)


It was by now painfully clear to me that WAAFs didn't do much sponsored walking. I was driven back to the starting point by one of the Sixth Form organizers with Karen, bored and knackered despite her long legs after seventeen miles too, in a Vauxhall Viva.


GRANDAD JACK

I was only late delivering the 'papers one one other occasion that year, in January 1969 when I was given a "detention" punishment for habitual AOH: Avoidance of Homework, see below.

So I had to effect a rapid ‘paper delivery in the dark, carrying the canvas bag, which had two knots in the shoulder strap and was so blackened by newsprint that you could hardly read the words “News of the World” emblazoned in blue on its outside face.

I was walking down Cross Street, which we always called “The Town Well” because of the communal water pump.

Bill Mansell took his ‘paper from me. He was painting the parish pump with black gloss even though it was winter, and dark.

“Bit lairte ay yer, Cock?”

He said with a smile.

Then I looked down the hill, to the Cross Street junction with Low Street fifty yards away.

Some new, detached houses were being built next to the pink-flowering horse chestnut tree on the corner. In the orange glow of the street lamps, a billboard announced that they would be available shortly for the price of four thousand two hundred and fifty pounds.

What I saw next is imprinted on my memory, and is as clear as I write this as it was on that day forty years ago in 1969.

On the bend of Low Street, next to the black and white fingerpost, caught in the headlamps of the Wyrley Whizzer bus was the unmistakeable figure of my Grandad Jack.

He was wearing his dark brown suit, an olive green peaked cap, and leaning on a shiny walking stick.

I shouted “Grandad!”, and waved.

He looked up the Town Well hill, put his hand to his eyes, saw it was me, and waved back across the murky, coal-fire smoked infinity of those fifty yards.

He was smiling.

It was the last time I saw him.

He died peacefully in his sleep that night.

He was sixty-eight years old.

This was considered a good age for anyone who had worked “down the pit”.





















Gran & Grandad Davis circa 1968


Back at school later that week in room F1, we read hilarious, nostalgic passages from “Grandad with Snails” in our English lesson.

At twelve years old, after seeing my Mom unconsolable, it was the first time I had experienced grief.

I thought of Grandad Jack’s skills at keeping the coal fire burning all night by putting on "the right way round" a judiciously-sized lump he called a “rairker”. Of the day he taught me to drink “tay” out of a saucer. Of the way he listened to me reading Janet & John, and then the Captain Hurricane stories in The Valiant…

In Mr W’s English lesson, silent tears fell onto the opened pages. It was not a very 1960’s English thing to do.

I was sitting next to Graham Price. He asked me if I was OK.

I was glad Mr Wheat asked Ian Walton, not me, to read out aloud.

We laughed in unison at Ian's reading.

GALLOPING GOURMAND
Later in the term, there was another fund-raising initiative based on the a priori that emerging bulimia in the white West could be the key to helping starving Biafrans.

The Dr Scholl wearers were invited to bake Victorian sponges or fairy cakes, and to sell them to their classmates at break-time, to be washed down with lashings of green fizz from the now- popular vending machines in the dining hall. (We had developed full immunity by now. A whole cup...)

Just like at the bulimic’s birthday party (the cake came out of the girl), there would then be mass squeamishness as the boys winced during locust testicle dissections in double Biology.

Enterprising, Euro-trotting Peter Gethin went a step further.

In a cunningly crafted plan, he set about stuffing HIMSELF, (a suggestion which had been repeatedly voiced by a number of the girls earlier in the term)... for a good cause.

The plan was admirably simple, and may or may not have been inspired by conversations with members of the town’s Rotary Club.

“How many pancakes can Peter Gethin cook, toss and eat during break on Tuesday?”

...mused the hand-crafted posters which appeared during Christian Aid week all over F-Block.

For a mere pre-decimal sponsorship charge of “thruppence” per 6 pancakes, onlookers were offered the opportunity to crowd the safety-glassed porthole in the Domestic Science doorway, and observe the unforgettable spectacle of an apron-ed PG doing his Home Alone in the Kitchen Galloping Gourmet impression.

He cooked and consumed fifteen deftly flicked crêpes, imagining himself as Cannock’s answer to Cool Hand Luke.

A number of the girls concurred that he would indeed be their hero, and branded him the most accomplished tosser of the week.

FROGS and KANGAROOS

Shortly afterwards there was a frogspawn population explosion in the Biology pond.

This resulted in the frog trial/kangaroo court.

This episode deserves a separate article, which can be left to the literary talents of other former classmates.

The outcome was a dramatic brawl, when the rows of desks parted like the Red Sea, between Steve Rotherham, (now Menzler) (Court Usher), and a much bigger kid from the Third Year.

None of us could ever imagine Steve taking second place in such a conflict, and he indeed came out on top.

FULL METAL BLAZER

We had “fatigues”/PT training in the gym.

This was as close to National Service as most of us would get. We never liked the way aptly-named Mr Skinner referred to big bloke Graham Price by the name of “Slim”.

Foreshadowing Stan Kubrick's 1980's masterpiece "Full Metal Jacket", Graham had armed himself with a good sense of humour, elegant copperplate handwriting and that Paratrooper air rifle. Full Metal Blazer.

We also had a Full Metal Gym Slip section in class 2E.

There were the athletics stars; Lynne was an all-round champ (javelin?) with big dimples and a broad smile.

Paul had begun to astound us after the October’68 Olympics with backwards “Phosbury Flop” high-jumping. His recruitment into district athletics, and the demolition of the Civic restaurant put an end to hopes of a revivalist Cannock Gastro-afternoon this year.

On the study side, some of us thought how clever we were by planning, using a plethora of excuses or absences, the Avoidance Of Homework.

I was an accomplished subscriber to the AOH method, often spending mere hours avoiding what could have been accomplished in whole minutes.

Some teachers had a quaint approach, returning marked exercise books with the flourish of what could perhaps best be described as an “oral public flogging”.

The recipient would turn scarlet for five minutes, after having had his/her (usually his) exercise book frisbee’d-(with remarkable accuracy in the case of Mr Wheat) back to his desk.

Mr W thought he had most of us taped, and was probably right.

He lost his cool last lesson one Tuesday when we were writing limericks.

He struck Bill Haughey on the side of the head, after he made one up about Number One Hit “Young Girl” and the lead singer Gary Puckett.

In 2008, the Zedder poet in residence suggested a tribute "Lyneric"


If Puckett was your given name
It could well have led you to fame
As with Gary, the chap,

Who joined Union Gap,

And thought 60's 'Young Girls' were all game.


Now if you had the surname of Glitter,

You might have found younger kids 'fitter,'

So when this Gary sang,

About joining his gang,

He was after the baby, not sitter.


(More Glam & Glitter in 5E...)


(Note from 1zaac legal dept; There should be an "allegedly" in the last line.)


Near the end of the year, the winds of change once more blew softly. Thunderclap Newman sang that there was "Something in the Air".


The school magazine was published, and contained some some poignant poetry.


























Rather less poetically, Euro-ambassadrice extraordinaire Sandie Shaw sang a re-worked German pop “gem” called Monsieur Dupont and, right on cue, a vanguard group of French kids came from Lyon.

Click on record to see Sandie's 1967 Eurovision victory, mini-nightdress included...





















Some of us became go-betweens/interpreters (the past is indeed a foreign country; for me the future would be, too…) for the struggling polyglot chaps who were seeking international relations with the French demoiselles. The lads were in the fourth or fifth years and were, as a consequence of their seniority, surfing the hormone/acne tsunami with aplomb.

This Gallic arrival was nearly as good as my planned elopement with Miss Simpson (cf 1Z article).

I was sad but resigned when she left for another school, then visited room B2 with a BABY the next year.

Drat.

That only left Sandie Shaw.

So, the school year ended with Neil Armstrong taking one small step.

The Apollo 11 adventure launched on 16th July.

David Bowie launched into psychedelic folk with A Space Oddity the same day.

It shot to Number One.

Dennis Bould came out with a better A Capella cover version the next morning, which started

“Mountain goat to John the Mon”…

Ted Kennedy took a giant leap in his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, just before the Astronauts returned safely to earth.

The world, and American politics, would never be the same again.


We knew Steve Wilson's voice had broken, when he walked in to F1 one morning, and gave a bass rendition of Desmond Dekker's "The Israelites" just before Mr Spencer walked into our Scripture lesson.

It might have been school holidays by July 21st.

In any event, I have no recollection of turning up to school on 22nd, bleary-eyed after an all-night session viewing Cannock Grammar visitor Patrick Moore & James Burke’s jittering black and white live, hyper-excited TV coverage, to inform Mr Griffiths that I’d worked out the answer to his riddle.

He was set to be our form teacher for another year, and on the last day of term informed us that we would be moving into a science lab after the holidays….


Oh dear.


With unlimited and unsupervised access to gas, electricity, magnesium ribbon, sulphur, mercury and ammonium nitrate, and with the autumn arrival of more hormones and Monty Python, things promised to be "completely different"...



Fireworks were clearly going to be in store for us in 3E.



For a front row seat at the display, keep watching out for 1zaac episode 3, which is due for release at the end of January 2009...

EPILOGUE

FAST FORWARD, FATHERS’ DAY 15th JUNE 2008

The wheels of the nursing home’s red wheelchair make a soft click as we pass under the railway bridge in Station Street.

Dad is in good spirits, and wearing his favourite green “Country Gent” green check cap, souvenir'ed from my brother Ant some years previously.

The stroke took away most of his conversational abilities last year.

But he still joins in if we instigate a song from the forties, fifties or sixties.

His repertoire is inexhaustible.

White Cliffs of Dover. A Nice Cup of Tea. Que Sera Sera. Theme from Rawhide. Spanish Eyes…

In another gambit showing us that he’s still here, he has also taken to swearing and blaspheming with impressive flair.

I never remember him swearing much when we were kids.

Now he’s an accomplished cusser.

We pause on the Cheslyn Hay side of the bridge, opposite number 174.

“Look Dad. Max Headroom”

“Bloomin’ ‘eck”

I try to second-guess the far-away regard in his alert eyes, and imagine he’s thinking;

“Now where did that last half century go?”…

And so am I.

So I say

"Let's go and see if Mom's put the kettle on"

The reply comes after a second or two;

"Orright."

We set off up the Station Street hill, into the sunshine.

As the Cannock bus drives towards us on the bend of Low Street, we are standing in the shade of the flowering pink horse chestnut, waiting to cross the "Town Well. "

Dad points at one of the fallen blossoms , which is balanced on the kerbstone. He thinks, then says clearly and with a smile:

"Pink"

And we start singing, in harmony and at nearly full volume, a disgustingly customized version of “Lily the Pink”.


Alan Brown

Sainte Cécile

December 2008
albrown@wanadoo.fr





Postscript; Science exercise book comment, unvetted by the English dept by the looks. Inadvertent creative entry for a new blog; epitaphs r us.com?

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Episode 1 Cannock Grammar School September 1967





"Interpreting the past....not as a refuge from the present, but as a means of understanding and enjoying it."
Graham Robb: The Discovery of France (Picador 2007)


"Remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
(Aphorisms 'R' Us)
Click on any picture to enlarge

INTRODUCTION by Alan BROWN

1. The butterfly effect?

Cannock Grammar School 1Z 1967 is the first in the series “Grammar Mémoire Collective”.

These stories started out as the author’s attempt in 2004 at capturing memories with a butterfly net. The net widened during the next four years, and some of its gaping holes were patched as former classmates got in touch.

Paul, Nigel, Lynette, Kevin, Judy and Karen added their own anecdotes. They brought light, shade and colour. They brought new specimens to the collection.

There are several episodes in preparation, covering the years 1967-1974 at Cannock Grammar School, as seen through the eyes of 11-18 year-old kids from the miners’ terraces and post -WW2 houses on the edge of the Cannock Chase Coalfields.

Read on if you’d like to recall the Summer of Love, Cannockian retro-gastronomy, The Beatles at their zenith, Time and Space Oddities, teenage explorations, wet-look bikinis, power cuts, Hillman Imps, David Bowie, French Clockwork Oranges, Life on a Mars Bar, cross-cultural trainee sperm donors and bus journeys upstairs with the smokers on the Number 17...

Or if you just fancy a bit of a giggle.

2. Disclaimer, rose-tinted spectacle warning, and admission of historical incompetence.

The author achieved a grade 7 for History “O” level. (That's a fail)

Any glaring errors or gaffes are entirely the responsibility of the author.

If any person is offended by any content, remark or implication, please contact me
albrown@wanadoo.fr and appropriate action will be taken to remove offending material immediately.

(Keep reading; it gets worse as we get older. )

3. Thank-you. Without the input, exchanges and conviviality of fellow 1ZAACs (1Z Alumni & Affiliated Contemporaries), these stories would have remained a flutter of butterflies…

Thank-you to cgsfpa for the images we have borrowed from their website! http://www.cgsfpa.co.uk/

We hope you enjoy the trip.

Alan Brown, Ste Cécile, France November 2008.

Carpe Diem

For our parents. In appreciation:

In 2008, Lynette wrote;

…we know that our parents were so proud "our Lyn passed her eleven plus you know" was how mine started most conversations in the summer of 1967… We realise now that they (probably even more than us) felt out of their depth if they had to have any contact with the school…

For our kids: Remember Blue Peter. Don't try this at home. Not all of it, anyway.


IZAAC EPISODE ONE : 1Z 1967

Absolute Beginners?


Diary Extracts; Monday 4th September 1967;

PRESS RELEASE


BBC announces “17 ex-pirate DJ’s will join the soon-to-be launched Radio One.

They will include John Peel and…

Tony Blackburn.”





















Spend afternoon stifling excitement, shining Tuf black lace-ups with Cherry Blossom polish, removing blazer from tissue wrap in box, smelling the new cloth.





And calming nerves by removing fluff from stylus, looking in vain for the gaps between tracks, listening to Sergeant Pepper on cousin's Dansette record player, last track, side one, Day in the Life...


"I read the news today, oh boy...."

...Hoping Tony B wouldn't get his hands on that one.


Tuesday 5th September, 1967;
First day, Class 1Z at Cannock Grammar School.

"IngLAND clap clap clap, IngLAND clap clap clap",
...we had chant-applauded in June the previous year at the end of our lives' first decade, watching victory in the soccer World Cup final.

Our grandparents at the same age had packed up their troubles, witnessed jingoism and heard hushed accounts of slaughter in Flanders.

Our parents had scurried into Anderson shelters, or journeyed to these islands, and sought impossible bluebirds over white cliffs.

And us. The Middlers.


The mid-boom, born in '55 or '56 Suez-crisis Baby Boomers, now in 1967.

We were in the middle of England. And, as it would turn out, we were also in the middle of Cannock Grammar School's twenty-five year existence.

Now we had Sandie Shaw with Puppet on a String as our victrix in the Eurovision Song Contest.

As a marker in the history of Britain in Europe, the orchestrated oboe closing strains of Puppet may not have been the most memorable.

But, looking back, they might have been a move in the right direction, and a sign of Hope after a first-half twentieth century that will not be remembered as Europe's most glorious epoch.

So by September 1967, we were the next generation.

It was with Hope, curiosity, and cautious enthusiasm keeping those butterflies at bay that we, the eleven-plus examination's "chosen few", started Living almost Worthily in billiard table cloth blazers.

The braid & badge shining green & silver grey on the first day.

That's how you knew the first year pupils.





The braid faded with our own freshness as the terms went by.




Mrs Waterhouse
was our form teacher.





She had lop-sided long hair with a mauve headband, and spoke like a genteel Billy Connolly.

We liked her, even when she smiled with the north-of-border aplomb of Gorrrdon Brrrown.


She explained with a deft combination of prudence, seduction and dourness, and in a contralto Scots brogue, the intricacies of “Geenerral Fund, one guinea…”.


We wondered what she made of our not-quite-Miss-Jean-Brodie's "crème de la crème" nasal Midland/Mid Staffs tones, an octave higher than her own.

A minority of our fellow pupils spoke using genuine or affected Mid Staffs variety of (“posh”) Received Pronunciation:RP.

This was, after all, a state school in the middle of Staffordshire, where the Black Country dialect drifted northwards with the factory smoke…

One of our compositions was "The day I shrank". Miss W told us not to spell “shrank” with a U. When she said it, it sounded to our ears like "shrenk".

Being Mid-Staffordians, however, our language centres were attuned to diasporan varieties of British English. De-coding Scots, Irish, Geordie, Welsh, Pye Green-ese, Wyrley Bonkish and the like was second nature to most of us. We could switch with ease from dialect conjugations (I am/yoe am/he is/we am/yoe am/they am) to more Cannock Grammartically correct versions...
Even our RP-er mates could do this.

The "shrenk" piece was written in a crisp exercise book which had the school crest and a different colour for each subject. French dark blue, Science green, orange or pale blue, Scripture pink, Latin mustard...


The covers felt smooth and shiny, then became matt with use.

One of our number expressed forthright views about Tarka the blinkin’ Otter;










"Rough books" were orange with blotting paper pages which drained your Quink but made good paper planes or, in later years, fuses for home-made fireworks.

We Zedders spent nearly all of our time together as a closely-knit class in the first two years, unlike subsequent years when we were set by results for core subjects.


There were five forms in the First Year; 1A, 1B, (trendy sixties appellations oblige) 1X, 1Y, and our own 1Z.

If your form's letter tag was from the tail end of the alphabet, you studied Latin.

1Z’s form room was up the dusty, tiled stairs in D block. Room D6.


The rumour had gone around that D6 had been the Staff Room when the school had opened in 1956. Perhaps this explained the faint, lingering aroma of Camp coffee, St Bruno's pipe tobacco and Rothman's King Size.


Ten years later, when we Zedders took up D6 domicile in 1967, the staff had long moved out to new, upper floor premises in the quieter outer suburbs of the campus, overlooking the dining room.


From a surveillance perspective, the new Staff Room's location was of questionable merit; the town-planning equivalent of putting a police station in the smartest residential street, then blindfolding the policemen.


But it did allow for reverse observation.


From the hush of the library's custom-made oak tables, bookcases and herringbone parquet, we could watch the Staff Room from fifteen yards away, through two thicknesses of glass, like a colourful silent movie. Onto which we would dub our own soundtracks and screenplays in imagined French, Latin or RP.


On that first day I was last to arrive, with fellow Cheslyn Hay-ite Kev Gunn.

We had been delayed on the 8.15 Number 17 blue double decker from Colliers Arms terminus to Cannock bus station. There was a newly-qualified Sikh driver at the wheel, and a conductor called Dennis issuing navigational instructions in broad Walsall and with a hare lip.





Extract: "Noooo! you'm s'mosed ter tairn LEFT, LEFT! There's a mloody RAILWAY bridge down the end of this road! Yo' cor get under it in a nubble necker..."






It was the first time we had taken the bus unaccompanied.


So we had prepared with paramilitary precision.


Identical contents in our blazer inside pocket;
Ø Platinum pump-action fountain pen.
Ø EJ Arnold HB pencil, pin-point sharp, maroon.
Ø Passport to Adventure (Staffs Education Authority lime green free bus pass).
Ø Man from U.N.C.L.E. fan club card (expired).

Kev had to walk half a mile in the wrong direction to qualify for the 3-mile pass.

We walked past the “Dole offices” (1963 Tax & Social Security buildings), taxonomizing and comparing identification notes for Austin & Morris 1100's/1300's.
Then through the School’s back gate, past the “front lawn” soccer and rugby pitches (there were acres of playing fields to the rear, which we hadn’t seen yet).

Through the bike sheds.

We got briefly lost in the dining hall, consulted Kev’s U.N.C.L.E. compass and a smiling Miss Andrews, and found our form room.







The room looked something like this;
















We tried to do our Dynamic Duo “Batman and Robin”, but must have looked like a nervous, blushing Laurel & Hardy with new leather brief-cases.

Kev, one foot two and a half inches taller than me, was already shaving three times a week.

Gentle giant, Enid Blyton Famous Five guru, backwoodsman and general Good Bloke Kev had been my best mate since we were 5 years old in Mrs Jeavons' class at infants’ school.

Together we had;
Ø Set fire to Cheslyn Hay County Primary playground with lilac methylated spirits from a stolen/recovered model MECCANO/MAMOD steam engine. (One zillion per cent kudos rating from onlookers.)
Ø Collected “tat”, a war surplus parachute, a thunder box portable toilet & pop bottles for pocket money.
Ø Embezzled kali and acid drops from the alcoholic off-licensee by scaling a back wall and returning the same pop bottles 8 times.
Ø Done a project on mammals with stolen Sellotape. (Kev stuffed up the taxonomy when he started adding pictures of birds to use up excess tape.)
Ø Pilfered balsa-wood from Mr Blount’s classroom to make models of Thunderbird 4.
Ø Got busted, (narrowly avoiding “the cane”) for attacking our 36 other classmates with peashooter/outstretched arms Spitfire & Hurricane impressions.
Ø Been photographed (by a teacher) sharing a double bed on a Junior school holiday to Devon. (Cash paid if anyone -besides Gary Glitter- has the negative).
Ø Become The Hooded Avenger (Kev in black trunks, hood made from second recycling of parachute silk. Had previously been shepherd’s hood in 1965 nativity play.) and Lightning Lad (Me in borrowed, old blue balaclava, Lone Ranger mask from lucky bag, & new black trunks +cape made from little brother Ant's Silver Cross pram blanket.)

No wonder we looked nervous.

Fortunately it would be 40 years before our classmates would find out about our primary school Curricula Vitae.

Kev was also unfailing in his ability to laugh at my jokes.

Despite our previous superhero experience and deductive powers, we were at risk of being overawed on our first day at The Grammar.

Sharing his potato puffs during that first morning break, he remarked;

“There’s a lot of kids from Walhouse, ay they Al?”

Walhouse was the town’s C of E primary school.

In 1967, we hadn’t heard of the English Class System, Establishment pecking orders or Postcode Lotteries, but it didn’t take many days, or an ‘O’ level in sociology to work out that ex-Walhouse alumni had a better than 60% chance of quasi-natural progression to “The Grammar”.

Fewer than 10% of us kids from the outlying mining villages, or from the less leafy parts of town got to jump the 11-plus exam hurdle to don the green baize.

Judy and Lynette pointed out in 2008 that it was even harder for the girls: The 11-plus exam marks were scaled up for boys, in order to ensure a balanced boy:girl ratio in mixed Grammar Schools.






(It nearly worked, but there were more girls than boys in every class of our year. No complaints from the lads on that score.)
That first morning, after our first French lesson, Kev & I sat on the grassy knoll between B-block book repository and the tennis courts, potato puffed-out, leaning on a low brick wall. Our new-found "Mairte"Graham Price sat next to us, licking salt from his fingers, and told us, Full Metal Jacket-style, that he was having a "Paratrooper" air rifle for his birthday.



Grassy knolls, book repositories, rifles...



"Kev, we need to ask Miss Simpson what the French is for "déjà vu"

"Yoe ay trying to be a smart-arse again am yer, Boy Wonder?" mumbled Kev.

We sat, observing the green fibres which the elbows of our blazers had deposited on the masonry.

"Them'll want some leather patches on 'em before th'end o' this term, Al"


said Kev, as we ruminated on our situation, and talked of thoroughbreds and pit ponies.


We drew up a quick sample list of non-mining paternal occupations we'd evesdropped, on the back of Kev's Man From U.N.C.L.E. card: Headmaster; Turf Accountant; Dentist; Night Club Proprietor; Solicitor; Gents' outfitter...

"Mairte, this is Cannock aristocracy", deduced Kev, scratching his stubble. Graham agreed.

"One of them posh wenches has even got a Blue Peter badge"...

A kid from the soon-to-be notorious non-Latin class 1B interrupted our musings, asked if I was Al, and introduced himself as Denis Bould.


He told me he knew my uncle in Pye Green road because it was the last house on his ‘paper round.

DB1








DB2



He then informed us he had the same initials as his preferred oddball pop idol, and performed a pitch-perfect rendition of David Bowie’s “Laughing Gnome”, without the helium or voice synthesizers.

The four of us agreed that Bowie had no future as a performer if he continued to produce such puerile stuff, but Kev, Graham & I thought Denis had something…a bit, er, "Pye Green roadish" about him.

Which we liked.

Paul Nicholls 2008 “Denis was one of the few genuine eccentrics I have ever met”…

(I can vouch for this; according to my uncle, Denis would wear a WW2 German army helmet to deliver the Express and Star Mid Staffs edition on rainy days).

After “break”, we went back to room D6, which, along with the residual staffroom essences, smelled of Dettol, soap, chalk and recently-purchased, two-sizes too big, overpriced cloth.

We’d already deduced that the price had something to do with the word “exclusive” next to the word “outfitters” on the cardboard box containing my short trousers. A first, free lesson in Market Economics/cabals, and the Grammar School year had not yet even started properly.

Uniform prices were set to drop as the Co-op got in on the act, with "Dividend too!":

Do you remember the boys blazers had rounded front edges, the girls had pointed ones. Our uniform brief also stated that for those girls who wished to wear tights 'American Tan' would be the accepted colour. (LR)

















(Yards more American Tan in 2E)

On the side of our form room nearest to the door there was a dazzling array of fresh-faced, smiling girls.

“Our” 16 girls sat, smiling or serious, on their planet in their half of the classroom. They wore green-striped summer dresses on that first day.

Lynn Bellinger, Angela Binks, Debbie Clark, Nicolette Dzuba, Judy Edge, Karen Floyd, Carole Freeman, Gillian Lucas, Carolyn Mayou, Faith McCarthy, Janet Robinson, Lynette Royster, Annette Stimpson, Lesley Thompson, Janet Thorneycroft, Christine Tongue.










The boys looked not so serious, more like a good football team, and mostly seemed much bigger than I was.

Dave Bowes, me, Nige Dean, Peter Gethin, Kev Gunn, Will Haughey, Nick Hill, Paul Nicholls, Graham Price, Steve Rotherham, Bernie Silverstone, Robert Walker, Ian Walton, Steve Wilson.






I soon worked out that I was the youngest boy in the class, and that white-socked Karen was the youngest (and tallest) girl.

We sat in alphabetical order. For me, this meant looking up at the back of good all-rounder Dave Bowes' head for a year, sharing jokes with Nige “Marcel” Dean, passing French test notes to Nick Hill, and being dazzled by Bernie Silverstone's Aston Villa badge.










We all had French names.



Dave Bowes protested across the front row to fellow Walhouser Peter Gethin that he should be "Davide"[sic] and not "Didier".

Presumably because of the Ken Dodd overtones. He was not prepared to be a Didier-man.

The alphabetical order stuff, as well as teachers' wearing of gowns, was quietly dropped by the younger “hip” staff members as the year progressed.

Our lift-top desks were covered in graffiti, some of it witty.

The school buildings and furnishings were the same age as we were, although not as fresh. They were already showing the inevitable wear and tear inflicted by the passing of 150 new Grammarians each year.

Judy in 2008: “I used to leave my purse in the desk, and never worried about it”…

Karen, ominously, in 2008 “Judy used to get £1 a week pocket money by the time we were in the 3rd year. We used to buy Player's Number 6 cigs.”

In 2008 Kev Gunn wrote about forgetting books and lift top desks. Kev add comment here.

The desktop jottings bore tangible witness to an undercurrent of anarchy which never seemed far below the surface at Cannock Grammar, and which in later years, despite the sporadic presence of prefects and duty staff, regularly seemed to rise above it.

Laminated chair legs sometimes broke if you leaned back hard enough, although at this age we had yet to indulge in mindless vandalism.

Right on cue, on 30th September, BBC Radios 1,2,3 and 4 fired up. Breakfast would now be Weetabix with a tinny tranny, Tony B and his dog Arnold.

Oh dear.

Within 10 days, the pound plumetted and Che Guevara was shot in the Bolivian jungle.

In that Autumn term, a few of us had window seats, with a view through the aluminium frames, over acres of playing fields, as far as the Shropshire Wrekin to the West, or the nearly-new high-rise blocks of flats beyond the lard belt in Bloxwich and Walsall to the South.

Over the brow of Cannock Chase, a few miles north, you could, by leaning out of the window, see Pye Green tower and the steaming top rims of Rugeley power station’s cooling towers. These marked the River Trent, the oatcake frontier and the linguistic divide where the Midlands/Black country accent of Mid Staffs blurred into a more northerly variety.

In the foreground was the industrial South Staffs haze from a hundred factories, mines or brickworks. Later in the year, on still summer days we would hear the drop forges at Churchbridge as well as the sounds of tennis just below, adding a note of aspirational gentility.

I remember thinking of my thirty-two primary school classmates, feeling like Charlie in the Great Glass Elevator, or a third-class English train passenger who, by the mere virtue of an 11-plus “Golden Ticket” pass, had been wrongly seated in first class…

Would it all last, even with Harold Wilson devaluing the "pound in your pocket", and Johnson’s B-52’s bombing Hanoi?

One Wednesday morning, after assembly in the dining room (more oak floors and sixties formica tables) the sky turned a biblical black and there was a dramatic lightning storm.

I sat next to the upper-floor metal window frame during Mrs Foote’s Scripture lesson, and, stifling hysteria, prepared to die.

Lynette incurred Mrs F’s displeasure by making a rather obvious (for a self-avowed Sunday School graduate) spelling mistake that day.






Was this the explanation for the storm??











We stood up at the arrival of each teacher; and changed rooms for science, sport & activites.

This meant corridor journeys.

The design of the school, one (former Walhouse boy) expert had informed us, had to accommodate the risk of subsidence due to coal mining.

So there were several two-storey post-modern brick and glass blocks, connected by flat-roofed corridors.

It looked like a Gerry Anderson Moonbase as designed by a draughtsman on graph paper with only one pencil, a ruler and a budget set by a post-austerity planning committee. Little concession seemed to have been made in the original concept to the requirements of student supervision.

“Second day of school I was off ill, I'm sure it was a panic attack, I must have missed the bit about keeping to the left and can still recall trying to find my way through the corridors on the wrong side, and swamped by giants. I really was physically ill.” (LR)






At the sound of a bell, a thousand green chattering ants migrated in two opposing single files, scowled upon by gargantuan folded-arm prefects.

Swinging sixties and a progressive activities programme meant that the girls had a go at Mr Lees in mixed woodwork, which removed a little of their mystique, brought them briefly onto the boys’ planet, and resulted in a few laddered tights and broken fingernails.






A few of the girls turned out to be more skilled at the plane and the lathe than some of the boys.

We made wobbly, octagonal, (formica again) tea-pot stands, or carved stylised mantlepiece animals...

Boys did sewing & domestic science too, and learned to wash their socks and polish their shoes.

My mates at Great Wyrley secondary made a big joke of this, as it confirmed their conviction that the masculinity of all "Grammar Grub" boys was questionable.

Back in our ivory, brick and aluminium towers, new arrival Miss Austin (Latin) greeted us with RP Latin;

"salvete discipuli"...

we replied "salve magistra" and we all sniggered inwardly when she poshly proposed a conjugation of the verb mitto;

"Mitto, mittis, mittit (already funny with more to come) mittimus, mittitis (wait for it)........Ian Walton biting the insides of his cheeks near the back row, Carole Freeman rolling her eyeballs...



...mittunt. "

We hung on her every syllable, and thought she was really upper crust.

It must have been effective teaching, because the memory lingers more than 40 years on.

At age eleven, my own experience of the Romans was restricted to what we had gleaned on a Cheslyn Hay County Primary day trip to the Roman baths at Wall, near Lichfield.

The other baths we had visited from primary school were at Bloxwich. These were Victorian buildings of faded industrial grandeur.

We had gathered that the conquoring legions of the second century AD were posher than the Victorian Bloxwegians.

This may have explained the RP-sounding verbs.

Whilst the Romans had slaves who would massage you with warmed olive oil after a dip in the tepidarium, the creature comforts of Bloxwich nineteenth century bathers seemed to be restricted to the sipping of Bovril from a cardboard cup. (Although you could see into the ladies' changing cubicle if you stood on tip-toe on the top diving board.)

As a linguist-to-be, I surrendered to lazy mediocrity, stuffed up the exam and, of course got weeded out of Latin after a year.

Worse was to come.

Some classmates showed more consistency after only a week, and got a "bene"…
















Miss Austin's Latin legacy re-surfaced with approbrium, at the turn of the second millennium.

Our younger daughter was eleven, and had just started at the local collège in Chantonnay. She had a couple of friends around, and they were doing their Latin homework.

Her friends were both teachers' kids.

(It is a fact that the offspring of "professeurs" are statistically those most likely to succeed in the French system; despite the credo of "égalité des chances", they get put into the subtly élitist classes. Latin, German, and now...Chinese.)

Anyway, I thought I'd impress them with a quick conjuguaison of Mitto...

Finishing with a mittunt flourish, one of the girls said;

"Trop cool Marie. Ton papa parle Latin avec un accent super anglais!"

Miss Simpson (it could well have been her first year teaching; we’d never have guessed…) only ever spoke to us in French from day one.

I knew on 5th September 1967 that I was hooked and that I wouldn’t have been averse to eloping with her to St Tropez, where we would be able to co-write a French version of "Puppet on a String" and walk barefoot by the Med.

Or even Calais…



















Failing that, I wanted her job.

There were weekly dictées, filmstrip slides of La Famille Thibault, and monthly copies of Bonjour magazine.

Rob Walker always got the best marks. He was a natural.






Then, like a few others in our year, he emigrated to Australia.

By the third term, the Gals were writing French compositions about the musical tastes of their parents: "Le chanteur favori de ma mère est Vince Hill"....











Mr Hudson, returning from the diminishing Colonies, newly-arrived from Zambia (although he never told us...) read his Daily Telegraph on one occasion while we coloured in maps of Africa, imprinted onto our damson-coloured exercise books by a giant, roly-poly rubber stamp.


We wrote about the Cannock economy, or cacao production.

Telegraph or not, it was clear to us that things were changing in the world, even if you could still get a bar of Whole Nut for 8d...































Applying the "Bernard Manning/John Prescott" approach to student motivation, Mr Hudson gave me a "Ugh - D minus" for a piece on "Uses of Coal."

Since I had spent two hours at home, struggling with Be-Ro flour-and-water paste, blunt scissors and a flagging King Coal fire, I felt a bit miffed.

At least I now knew how to spell "Ugh".

What a contrast when brright Mrs Brrooks brreezed in brrashly, rolled her 'r's and rraced us through maths lessons.


Didn’t you hate it when your ruler did this ?
















Remember singing “moo-oh-ah”, and “food, glorious food” and C.O.F.F.E.E. just before lunch with Mr Hunter in the big assembly hall, and kneeling on the polished parquet to lean on the chair and write in our music books with class 1X?






I sat next to a grinning Tim Dawson.
Did anyone in the year ever ENJOY singing Gilbert and blooming Sullivan?

For some of us, it was nearly as painful as those TB (Tony Blackburn again?) injections we all had, lined up in the foyer next door.

One music lesson, we went on a foray to Calving Hill Secondary Modern. Again another planet, all of fifty yards north of the woodwork room. We were treated to a dress rehearsal of the musical "Salad Days". A bit fifties, but a welcome change of diet from G&S.

In Nuffield hands-on science with Mr Horne (moustache-less beards were apparently in vogue, see also Mr Hunter) we made table salt by crushing and dissolving rock salt, then evaporating the water from the saline solution in a porcelain crucible.

Wyrley-ite graduates/soccer stars Steve Wilson & Ian Walton turned up the gas full bore and sent searing hot grains of sodium chloride over 3 rows of benches in room E1, taking Harold Wilson’s “White Heat of Technology” right up to the pointy end of education.


I got a bit in my eye.

We had not yet discovered that Bunsen burners made great water pistols, or that an impressive flame could be produced by setting fire to the gas taps or farts. Or that stealing mercury gave you dermatitis (and possibly worse).

We found these things out later when we had a science lab form room in (still pre-health and safety) third year.

Mild electrocutions and firework manufacture were among other discoveries yet to be made.

Lynette drew a map for Miss Bratby. Oops.


















....And it was first year as headmaster for DP Adams. It must have been a steep, eyebrow-raising learning curve for him.






Just after the first heart transplant in South Africa, and as Concorde was rolled out in Toulouse, we First Years had the privilege of a Christmas film from a whirring Cinema Paradiso projector, (starring Leslie “He…llo…” Philipps. Daring stuff, but we would, sadly, have preferred recent bra-popping release "Carry On Camping").

Lynette recalls; We had a Christmas party , I think in the first year, and Nicolette Dzuba wore a gold dress, it was in the dining room or sports hall and it was the first time we saw everyone out of uniform. (I wanted a gold dress after seeing Nicolette's, but to no avail). No one else seems to recall this, and I think it was a one off as I can't remember us ever having another one. I think we had to take our clothes with us to change into and someone played some hip and happening tunes and we all tried to show just how cool we really were.

One of the boys wore a cravate.







Classicist Mr Lloyd


did a mind-reading act involving Mr Adams’ Dormobile Campervan.

He was not able, ‘though, to ascertain the whereabouts of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, who disappeared forever into the Melbournian surf on December 17th, launching a thousand conspiracy theories about sharks, defections and Russian submarines.

WATER HAZARDS
Back in Cannock, we had our own water hazards.

The school swimming pool always seemed cold, its wheezing 1950's heating technology perennially engaged in an uneven struggle against the elements, a four-seasons thermostatic chill setting, and absent insulation.

The sides were like blue sandpaper, encouraging an economy of breast-stroke movement if you picked the outside lane and wanted to preserve your verrucas.

There were diving boards, recently out of bounds, since the water was only six feet deep, imposing the choice between a belly flop or concussion. A whiff of over-chlorinated air was usually enough to bring a victim back to his senses.

Russet Mr Horne, as apparently was customary, joined us in the communal shower.

I had never seen a naked man before, and, judging from the furtive glances of the other lads in among the red tiles and tepid water, nor had they. We wondered if we’d get to look like that one day, and all agreed that the red squirrel was not yet extinct from Cannock Chase.

The wearing of a “bathing cap” was deemed compulsory. Kev had the School Outfitter official brilliant white Rolls Royce model, size 6 7/8”, made of vulcanised Malaysian rubber with a British Standard kite mark over each ear.

I had the Cheslyn Hay “Harold Lockett, suit your pocket” High Street outfitters economy downpayment + 20 weeks instalment economy special. Off-white, one-size-don’t- fit-all.
Manufactured by an offshoot of Durex Ltd.

This was probably why getting your short back & sides haircut into it presented a challenge not dissimilar to that of inserting your head into a condom.

Except that the bathing cap trick was more difficult. Unless you were Patrick Darby, (sole future Tory party activist in a group of paid-up Monster Raving Loonies, AKA the notorious class 1B), and wore Brylcreem.

FAST FORWARD: (Incidentally, the head/condom trick appears in the 5E chapter. 5 pints of Worthington E in this case).

Mixed bathing would not occur until that 5E year, when we would at last get to see Judy’s wet-leather-look bikini, a sight of which we boys had all made mental fantasy video clips, and had awaited feverishly by then for nearly half a decade .

(Admit it reader; now you’re hooked.)

Conjouring up images of Marge Simpson, Lynette wrote in 2008:
All that I now needed to do was get rid of the blue swimming cap(complete with chin strap) that, because of my then long hair, looked as if it was worn over a traffic cone.

The end of the Autumn term brought a solution to my own weekly bathing cap fitment struggle when, no doubt as a result of being stuffed into my briefcase with damp black regulation trunks and Daz-scented pink towel + geometry set + rough book + potato puffs + assorted other indispensables, it developed a brim-to-crown split.

Thank-you Durex.

It still passed inspection if you wore it back to front, ‘though.

Blue Peter Health & safety notice to Durex users; don’t try this at home.

FAST FORWARD As a last bathing irony/ example of laconic antipodean humour; In 1996 I did some team teaching with Australian colleague Helen Warnod at Camberwell French-English bilingual primary school in Melbourne, test-running a programme we developed around the theme of the Citroën 2CV.

We took the kids on a French/swimming activity to the local heated pool. The sign in the foyer read:

“Welcome to the Harold Holt Aquatic Centre”…

There I was, back in 1Z, December 1967…)

From water to snow...

Didn't it snow that winter of '67-'68, after the rains, discarded combs and worm-casts on the grassy knoll above the tennis courts, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in provided us with punch-lines?

Budding émigré Rob Walker turned up with an incongruous "I'm Backing Britain" badge.

We practised our imitations of "Sock it To Me" or "Here Come de Judge".

Richard Nixon turned up on "Laugh-in" and said "Sock it to Me?"

We realized that this meant he would win the presidential election in the coming November.

In another sketch "News from the future", R & M got a huge laugh when they referred to "President Ronald Reagan...."

Even R & M at their most burlesque could not have made a joke about George Dubya Bush, though.
There was a craze of bringing hot drinks in flasks to the D6 mirador.
Then private enterprise started to install vending machines, leaving Mrs Thatcher freedom of manoeuvre to forebodingly snatch our free milk.

The chilled fluorescent green fizzy pop started another craze: vomiting.

Just my luck, when Marcel chucked up over Graham Price's corfam slip-ons, to drop on head of French Mr Draper at the top of the staffroom stairs. I knew what was coming.

"En français" He smiled derrière les spectacles noirs......

"Marcel a spewé sur les slip-ons de notre ami Graham, Monsieur. C'est le pop vert et froid. Et un peu sur mon blazer vert. Regardez. Ce n'est pas beaucoup. J'irai à Sketchleys dans le centre de Cannock, ils ont une offre spéciale pour les mini-skirts en ce moment, seulement deuxpence par deux point cinq centimetres..."

Monsieur D interjected at this stage, mumbling something like "personne n'aime les smart-arses, voici un cloth de dish"...

Le pop vert conceivably set the scene for two generations of institutionalised nutritional abuse.

Martin Luther King was gunned down on 4th of April, a dream shattered. There would now be four decades of picking up the pieces.

The shiny, new 5p and 10p coins arrived later that month. A “cafeteria” school canteen system may also have appeared shortly afterwards.
The school canteen aspired to the ultimate heights of sophisticated chic by serving doughnuts and coffee in their regulation 'arcroc' glasses. (LR)

Our school panoramic group photo was taken as riots erupted in Paris in May. But all was quiet on the Grammar tennis courts as temperatures rose, and staff/student tennis matches were arranged. Judy and Karen became avid watchers. Liz Myers from 1X was a star.
Peter Gethin missed the panoramic photo opportunity.

He returned the following week, Alan Whicker style, with an orange sun tan, a new cravate in his pocket, and a seventeen-shilling Spanish guitar, on which he expertly picked the first half-dozen bars of "Spanish Eyes".

He informed the lads, in a series of stage-whispers behind his BBC hymn book in junior assembly, that the Costa Del Sol was where it was all going to be at in the near future. The beach culture was eclectic, there was bikini-clad tangerine pre-teen Dutch crumpet everywhere.

He had even precociously picked up a bit of the lingo.

"No Tango Dineero" he claimed with a semi-Cannockian RP inflection, was a sure-fire way of shoo-ing off insistent ice-cream sellers on the playa when, an Amsterdam-ette on each arm, you'd pigged out on "helado" all morning.

In our swimming lesson the next week, he impressed us with his new-found crawl, and further managed to inform us, with characteristic modesty, that he had swum a kilometre in the hotel pool on the morning before the Cosmos BAC one-eleven had whisked the family back to Gatwick.

Additionally, he would be approaching BOAC for training as a moustachio-ed airline pilot in August 1974 as soon as his A-level results were confirmed.

We all tried to picture what a kilometre looked like, and assumed that "our" girls would be honoured to have this modest maestro, this globe-trotting neo-Nemo in our midst.

Summer term arrived.

One June day we were given an afternoon off when the sporting types went in a green procession up Pye Green Road to the stadium.

Paul instigated a Cannock Cultural/Magical Mystery Tour afternoon for a gaggle of us athletic rejects. The programme involved cottage pie with chips and gravy, in Cannock's top gastronomy spot; upstairs at the Civic restaurant.
Partakers were me, Paul, Marcel/Nige, Kev & Graham Price.

We saved up for three weeks, foregoing potato puffs, Marcel's racing tips and le fizzy green émétique.

Paul, as a future literary expert, taught us the phrase "to go Dutch", as, unable to eat another mouthful of apple pie and custard, we scoured our blazer pockets for green fluff and dinner money.

The Civic experience was followed by a quick grab of the Pick n'Mix, across the square and through the traffic, in Woolworth's.

Activity three was a matinée reprise performance of "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" at the Walsall Road Picture House.

We settled into the blue velour, and treated ourselves to Westler's hot dogs, Butterkist popcorn and Kia Ora during the intermission.

I made a mental note to buy, in the unlikely event that they should appear in Auntie Vi's Great Universal Stores catalogue, some brown shoes like the French bloke flying the Antoinette. I made another mental note to book some flying instruction one day. (Probably not available on the 20-week G.U.S. payment plan).

Graham and Kev, slurping the last gurgle of Kia-Ora from the bottom of the early-model tetrapak container through a waxed paper straw, said this was the best Games afternoon we'd had all year.

In July, there was a Geography field trip to Dovedale. One of the girls lost a shoe in the river Dove, swollen by an English summer deluge. “Diddy” David Yardley waded in, surf-lifesaver-style to rescue it. Then he emigrated to Australia, too, maybe to escape the rain, arriving just six months too late to drag Harold Holt from the clutches of the Russkies.








We discovered a joke shop in Ashbourne on the way home, then bought Itchy Coo powder and stink bombs, which we took back to D6 in order to sprinkle the first timorous seeds of mild rebellion.


Steve Rotherham set off a stink at the top of D-block stairs. I pointed at the back of Didier/Dave Bowes’ head for an Itchy Coo attack. Dave was not impressed and a brief alpha-male stand-off ensued.

Towards the end of the year, the stink finally cleared, and a delicious air of freedom drifted up the hill. Perhaps this was not only the vinegary odours emanating from the Civic fish bar, or the cyclamate artificial flavourings of the migraine-inducing cider ice-lollies from the ice-cream van, parked next to big-hearted Graham Price's dad's D-Reg grey Austin 1800 at the school gate.








1968’s Summer of Love was not yet a myth.

Reformed salt scientists Steve & Ian were spotted risking third degree burns by doing some chick-magnet shirtless sunbathing near the biology pond.

There had been a speech competition in June, and one of the Second Year girls brought the outside world into the senior assembly hall, moving many of us to tears with a report on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.


Our young minds could detect a theme of Americans and guns emerging.

Our loss of innocence began when we noticed that our female classmates were becoming increasingly curvaceous, and we started observing/timing/distracting the fifth-formers snogging outside 'B' block.

They were generally asked to stop by the duty staff.

Snoggus interruptus, I fancy I’d have called it had I not failed Latin.

Miss Simpson had never taught us the English word for voyeurisme. She only ever spoke French, after all.

So we just enjoyed watching in near-innocence.

Biology lessons, formal and informal, would no doubt come along in due course in a co-educational establishment with such a lax culture of "surveillance"…surely?

Lynette wrote about snogging recently, too;
“I well remember as a first year waiting for the No.7 bus home in the bus station and being amazed at how long you had to be able to hold your breath to kiss somebody. I would clearly have to improve my lung capacity before I could aspire to a boyfriend. I usually looked apoplectic by the time I boarded the bus as I would surreptitiously watch a likely couple and try and hold my breath for the length of their long kiss goodbye. How naive were we?”

In between keeping a stop-watch on the snogs, we collected daddy long-legs from the timber cladding of G block. Despite our lack of ability in inter-gender verbal communication, some of the girls faked being impressed by our Neanderthal bravado, and by our macho ability to perform amputations and mutilations upon these frightening insects.


















A visiting group of French students appeared, and added their grown-up-style autographs to our little kiddie ones the back page of Karen's Chenet (School magazine).
As the mags were handed out, the stirrings of hormonal change were like the distant summer thunder over Rugeley power station.

FAST FORWARD; CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE
There is a "cultural simulation" game called BAFA BAFA. I first came across it in a Staffs Education Authority youth leadership course in Codsall late '70's. In a previous life as a teacher, I got to use it in places as prestigious as Norton Canes Comp, Bunbury Grammar in OZ & Lycée Mendès-France near here in La Roche sur Yon.

The game was devised circa 1967 by the US army for use with troops en route to Viet Nam. I always imagined it being played below decks on aircraft carriers (probable), or inside very big Lockheed Galaxy transport planes (improbable, but a nice image).

You can see a long explanation if you Google it. But briefly, you divide the group (works well with 30 or so) into Alpha & Beta cultures. Or Zedders if you want. They then go into separate rooms & get briefed about their cultures.

Alphans are highly competitive, and speech is forbidden. You only make contact with another Alphan by saying your initials twice and adding a vowel (hence BAFA BAFA/KAGA KAGA or LAPA LAPA) Their activity involves swapping playing cards in order to make full sets which they then go and register with a Banker, who keeps a tally. They only use facial expressions in order to negotiate. Physical contact leads to an expression of shock or disgust. Smiling is seen as socially unacceptable.

Betans are noisy, gregarious and smiling. They greet with backslaps and negotiate the exchange of beads whilst always touching. They talk incessantly about everything or nothing. The beads have no pecuniary significance whatsoever.

So you set up the two groups, let them practise for a bit.

Then you send an envoy Alphan into the Betan room to observe &, if they can, interact. And vice-versa.

Then the envoys come back & report to the rest of their group, and you finish off with a group session to discuss cultural assumptions.

Or, in the case of the US armed forces, you shout a lot and go and bomb the shite out of the Betans with B-52's.

RELEVANCE TO 1Z in early summer 1967 - (as you are probably wondering...)

Anyway, since it felt a lot of the time that we were living in two universes, Kev worked out the next step in intercultural mining village/Cannock Cosmopolis relations in 1967.

He invited one of our Grammar year mates from Pye Green as BAFA BAFA envoy to the badlands of the Cheslyn Hay "Mount" = slag heap.

Yes, we tried out the Tarzan swing over the Brook (1" steel cable with prickly wire bits for tetanus). Then we slid down slope B on the car bonnet, and went to look at the volcano (eternally smouldering slag on the south slope.).

Our guest then showed approval by demonstrating his skills, recumbent in the grass of the north face of the slag heap, the Cannock skyline and window frames of Moonbase Grammar illuminated by the fading evening rays of a July sun, as a prospective soloist sperm donor.

Boy, were we impressed.

As losses of innocence go, it wasn't exactly Cider with Rosie, then again it wasn't Famous Five either.

Except our guest had, in lieu of a packed lunch and lashings of ginger beer, brought along his own Famous Five fingers.

Famous Five pull it off?

I can't for the life of me remember who our "Semen on the Mount" (Scripture spelling corrections again) guest was, and I'm sure Kev won't either.

At least not in writing...

The following week, back in D6 watchtower, and as if as a precursor to our changes, the halfpenny disappeared from circulation with the end of term.

The boys would have to invent alternative activities to “shove ha’penny” played on a graffiti'ed desk top.

What would they get up to next?…

1Z was to become 2E, Physician “Nobby” Griffiths as form teacher.

The girls would become even prettier, and their mini-skirts would get even shorter, as my short trousers-thankfully- morphed into long ones.
And our elbow-less, faded and, presumably smelly blazers walked themselves to Sketchley's dry cleaners.

















Watch this Space for the continuing Odyssey.

Alan BROWN albrown@wanadoo.fr

October 2008

In Memoriam, Nick HILL, Angela BINKS, Denis BOULD, Tim DAWSON, Donna JOVICICH

In November 2008, Lynette wrote:


Angela was a much-loved only child. She had lovely dark shiny hair, olive complexion, and a good figure.


I always wished I could write like she did, her exercise books were filled with pages that were really neat and tidy.


She moved to the area from Tamworth, and attended Broomhill Junior School. I have some Sunday School photos that she is on.


She always seemed to keep a low profile, was quiet and unassuming.


After leaving school she worked for the Coal Board at the Computer Centre on the Walsall Road. She married young and had three daughters.


She was very friendly with Nicolette Dzuba, and also had a Parker ladies fountain pen in maroon. I was ecstatic when I received the same model one Christmas.


She was also my carol singing partner my only foray into the world of festive begging, and knew a jolly Christmas song which went down a storm!

Appendix;

My first week at the “Grammer”…LR