I took a trip back in time last week…like Sam Tyler in the brilliant Life On Mars I 'woke up' in 1973 and, yes, it felt like I'd landed in a different planet. No, I hadn't had an accident, wasn't in a coma, but back to the school which I left 35 years ago. John Willmott (Grammar) School in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands kicked off its golden anniversary celebrations with an Open Day and invited former pupils and staff to come along. Now, I left Sutton when I was 18 and have never returned, apart from once, on returning from a wedding down south, we had a brief de-tour to see our old home there. I certainly hadn't been inside the school since '75. I had some friends who stayed on at the sixth from there – I went to the local F.E. college, as did quite a few others.
(The school, which became a comprehensive in 1975, had been set up as a mixed sex grammar school - there were long-established single-sex grammar schools in the town - and the first Head, who left the summer before we arrived, was, clearly, a charismatic figure. He had never taught girls before so decided to treat them as "honorary boys." Of course, they did at least as well as the lads; within ten years the school's 'O' and 'A' level results matched those of Bishop Vesey's boys' grammar school, and regarded as THE top grammar school).
I'd arranged with one of my former classmates, Nigel ('Stumpy' of old) to meet up with him and John ('Moz') at a nearby pub. I had misunderstood this to mean they were arriving together. However, Moz arrived first, looking smart – he'd been on business in the morning. We looked at each other; he thought (he told me later) "I thought you looked like Dickie (I was always 'Dickie' at that school-never before or since!) but you didn't have long, curly hair!" "Well", I countered, "You weren't wearing your Eddie and the Hot Rods T-shirt!" (with which he is pictured on Friends Reunited). Anyhow, Nigel arrives shortly after – big (manly!) hugs and out nostalgia-fest gets under way. Now, dear reader, these are two really top blokes and it was a real joy to meet them again and we just hit off straight away. After about 45 minutes of this, John spots one of our classmates, coming out of the Spar-cum-Post-Office over the road. I hadn't seen him or had any contact with him since '73 but I'd heard he was running this Post Office and Nige' knew him because one of his daughters had worked there a couple of summers ago. So, we drink up and go to see him and sure enough there he is bustling away there. Again, he seems delighted to see us but he is busy in the store but hopes to come along to the School when he's finished.
Anyhow, we can't delay it any longer, so we drive I convoy the half mile or so and are parked at the back by the sports field (of blessed memory!). We're greeted inside the school by our former classmate, Gill, who works there and looks fantastic. "You haven't changed a bit!" I tell her. "Do I take that as a good thing?" Oh, yes, Gill! We then go into the school hall – scene of school productions of very happy memories; Tony Daniels the second of the great drama teachers in my time was had laid out his production scrapbooks and he was there, too, looking remarkably dapper and lithe. "Hi, I was your Artful Dodger!" 
That's me, far 
left, in the December '72 production of Oliver!
Pictured left is me (right) at the Open Day in one of our old form rooms, with Nigel 'Stumpy' (centre, and John 'Moz' left).
We had a short chat but there were current school pupils eager to show us round. It was then a blur of memories and working out which was our old form rooms, science lab's and so on. Some of it of course has completely changed – and not just with the introduction of I.T. suites (computers! Calculators were only just coming in when we left! 'Course, we 'ad it tough!', etc., etc). But a lot of it was eerily familiar, even if it did seem a lot smaller than we remembered it. The memories were certainly coming thick and fast. I found it very moving – but then I am kinda emotional anyway – but when I got most choked was when we started talking of the times we bunked off ('Moz' pointing out the window from where we sometimes made good our escape) and on lunch-times when we would sometimes go to Nigel's home – out of bounds so risking a 'whacking' or detention if caught, not to mention running the gauntlet of the Secondary Modern kids in their school over the road! I had a very clear vision of us as 14 or 15 year olds scarpering out of the school, which was curiously moving.
Ah yes, that corporal punishment, usually administered by one of the P.E. teachers, using a gym shoe on our backsides (only protected by thin gym shorts-not even underpants allowed, allegedly for hygiene reasons). Although c.p. was used sparingly (and, to be fair, usually only after due warning was given that a further transgression would result in such a beating) it was an ever present danger for us lads. To be sent for the cane by the head was really serious, with the next step being suspension or expulsion; I really wanted to avoid this, mainly because it would have meant parents being brought in and all sorts of hideous palaver. I was on a 'yellow card' though on more than one occasion – usually classroom disruption - and once because I had written a very cheeky essay as punishment for some misdemeanour. I was all set for the dreaded visit to the head's study but my head of form pleaded my case and the sentence was downgraded to the more common, less formalised beating and, I think, two detentions (which took some explaining way to my parents!). "And don't tell him (the teacher who had set the original punishment) I said so, Rudin, but actually I found it very funny!" Of course, c.p. has been illegal in UK schools for over two decades. By the end of our time it was being phased out and there was clearly a clash between 'traditionalists' and more liberal-minded staff going on about all sorts of aspects of the running of the school; well, this was the late '60s and early '70s – the whole of society was changing.
The much more fundamental changes in attitudes towards the pupils in the twenty-first century were evident as we made our way round. In our time, the school made little or no concessions to the individual needs of the pupils. The current JWS is a vastly different place. When chatting to the current Head (who I am sure is younger than me – that was weird!) and looking at the work on display, it is clear they try and bring out whatever talents they have. There was some excellent art-work on display; if some of it was rather disturbing! The music and drama performances were also impressive.
I definitely think I would have enjoyed being a pupil at today's school; on the other hand, the tougher, uncompromising approach in my time gave me some grit and determination. I was an RP talking, delicate- looking ('though stronger than I looked!) Mummy's Boy when I arrived there, not good at games and keen on drama stuff-which could easily have spelled trouble! The fact that I didn't flinch let alone blub after my first 'whacking' (along with about 12 other boys, for the heinous crime of not whitening our 'pumps' to the acceptable standard) raised my cred' a couple of notches, especially when, returning to the changing rooms, I (naturally) had my shorts pulled down for inspection of the 'damage' –OK, that IS somewhat homo-erotic, but, hey, people pay good money these days (apparently!) and devote whole web sites for something we got for free on the State!!). Yes, there was a fair amount of (mostly good-natured) teasing in the showers of those us who were late developers, and of any other physical aspects of note, but overall I think us lads bonded through adversity and looked out for each other. Due to my Dad being Head Brewer at Ansell's I also had supplies of beer for school trips and the like, whereas everyone else brought pop ("Dickie's got beer!"). Cred' up another notch. And I got on with a lot of the girls, too, and at least I didn't grow up – as did many who went to single sex schools - thinking they were from another planet! There was very little bullying or trouble between students, although there was a lot of horseplay with lads lunging at each other's scrotums: what was THAT all about?! Most of us have gone on to be fathers, so the damage can't have been too severe!
It's clear from various forums and chat rooms that there are a lot of mental scars left by experiences at this school and many others like it. But I can't say that's the case with me (although I am probably the worst-placed person to judge that!). I established my (tentative) position as the class clown – I did some pretty mean impressions of some of the teachers; inevitably getting caught out by one of my 'victims' when I was in full flow! - but, certainly, I flourished academically and in all sorts of other ways once I had left school, finding the atmosphere of the college much more congenial. I did have my first real love at JWGS; she was a year younger than me and in the cast of one of the shows – I will go no further but she was a fantastic snogger! – so there is also a frisson when I think back to my school days.
Best of all, the reunion has re-connected me with some of my class-mates and I am only sorry we lost touch over all those years. We've had long 'phone conversations and e-mails over the last week or so. That's been good, really good.
I am going to end this section of the Blog now, 'cos I am getting all 'teary'!!
There went Rhymin' Simon
Back to Liverpool on Sunday night for an utterly brilliant show from Paul Simon – who has been my music favourite since JWGS days (I remember the music teacher going through Bridge Over Troubled Water album in class and eulogising over The Boxer, amongst others) and I had his eponymous first solo album as a 15th birthday present. He was in superb voice, had an excellent seven-piece band, did a wide range from his 'back catalogue' (what a choice to have to make!), including Duncan (from the 'Paul Simon' album) and my all-time favourite of favourites, The Cool, Cool River – which I've never seen him perform before. Total joy. (I've seen him 'live' several times; with Garfunkel in an amazing open-air gig in Berlin '82 and in Manchester a few years ago and 'solo Simon' when he was last at the Liverpool Summer Pops six years ago). And the Liverpool Echo Arena is absolutely fabulous; inside and, especially, out. Walking round afterwards, against the rapid dusk, with the waterfront to one side and the new Liverpool One shopping centre on the other was almost spell-binding. I took some pic's on my 'mobbley' – now I've just got to work out how to download them!
And to end this lengthy blog, some lyrics from The Cool, Cool River, which seems to work these two experiences together. I now I WILL have to sop because these always 'choke' me:
And I believe in the future
We shall suffer no more
Maybe not in my lifetime
But in yours, I feel sure
Song dogs barking at the break of dawn
Lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm
And these streets
Quiet as a sleeping army
Send their battered dreams to heaven, to heaven
For the mother's restless son
Who is a witness to, who is a warrior,
Who denies his urge to break and run
Who says: hard times?
I'm used to them
The speeding planet burns
I'm used to that
My life's so common it disappears
And sometimes even music
Cannot substitute for tears
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