by Ryan Jarrett
Down Memory Lane: 1950s – Chapter One
2:37 pm in Down Memory Lane by Ryan Jarrett
By John Macrae
This is the first in a series of articles that you have probably been reading about in the Maroon for some time. Well, I have finally got round to it in this run-up to Christmas 2007. I have just finished helping Graham Barnes put the 2008 Maroon to bed, attended the Sheppey Dinner, completed the minutes for the AGM and the recent Committee meeting and organised the mailing of the last Maroon to the Leavers of July 2007. So with some spare time on my hands I have begun searching the archive for photographs of the School and Old Bordenians. There is surprisingly little considering there should be more than a hundred years of evidence. What I have found is a box containing some photographic records that have been collecting dust for some years and the consequent deterioration of the prints. It was with a matter of urgency that I started photographing this evidence and storing it digitally. This project alone is time consuming so I decided to combine this work with my Memory Lane chapters to show how Borden has changed and to recall some of the characters who have lived and worked therein.
I have decided not to start at the beginning of 1878 but to take a series of snapshots through the years in order to cater for a wide variety of readers. Let’s begin, therefore, with the 1950’s and take a look at the school in those years.
This photo was taken from a Christmas card that I believe was organised by Reg Goff, the Art Master. I should add at this point that I cannot guarantee my detective work is totally accurate or that my memory serves me very well. I reckon, however, that this was taken in the mid ‘50’s. The reason I quote this time is because the air raid shelters are evident on the east side of the school but those on the west have been filled in. You can see the patches in the grass just to the right of the asphalt. The west side shelters were there when I entered Borden in the early 50’s but they were gone by the time I left in the late 50’s. The turret clock can be made out so the photo must have been taken after 1949 when it was installed and dedicated to the Old Boys killed in the Second World War. When the Short Building was being built on this ground, work had to be stopped during preparation of the footings to ensure that no cavities existed in the infill of the shelters and a surveyor’s inspection was needed. To my knowledge, no record had been kept of the position and shape of the shelters so the investigation was a bit hit and miss. I recall that each shelter had a set of steps and at the bottom there were two corridors at right angles to these steps travelling I know not how far. However I assume there are a number of Old Boys who can recall more about these shelters because they would have used them during the war. Also, even in my time, there were those who used them for a quick smoke at break and lunch time even though they were then out of bounds. So, readers, what do you know about these shelters?
Having mentioned the smokers, I will continue with this theme for in the photo are two other favourite spots for a quick puff. One was behind the pavilion – risky because there was little warning of the approach of staff or Prefects – and the scorer’s hut on the top field in the far corner. I found the best way to surprise the smokers there was to walk on the lower field by the embankment up to the cricket nets by the Rec. then along by the fence to the hut. This ploy worked a treat but of course only in the summer as the hut was removed after that.
Note that in those days there were two cricket squares with the 1st XI using the upper field and other teams on the lower field. In those days the pavilion had verandas at the front and back. Note the wooden hurdles at the back of the pavilion. These were very solid with large spread feet that were not meant to be knocked over. They were nothing like the modern ones which are designed to topple at the slightest tickle. No these were built to last and heaven help you if you didn’t jump cleanly over these. Hence Borden’s hurdlers gained great respect from all and sundry if they could manage 110 yards without a scrape. It made them good high jumpers too! The height could not be adjusted so all from 11 year olds to 18 used the same ones. For the first form therefore it was a pitiful sight and more like an obstacle race. I can assure you they looked huge!
Next to the pavilion is a telegraph pole and another one further up. This carried the phone line to the Headmaster’s house in the corner of the lower field. The number of times that footballs struck the wires is greater that what would statistically be allowed and I have always wondered how often the house was cut off.
There are a few final points to note. The lime trees in the Avenue of Remembrance look very young as do the copper beeches in the spur road to the cemetery. The Bowater Lloyd clubhouse is visible and next to it is the Quealy house but the house next to the cemetery path is not yet in place. A small part of the Sale field is visible and stored in the corner are what look like hurdles for the sheep that were regularly penned there during the sales on the field – hence the name.
At the front of the school is one ancient looking car. During the period in question and right up to the 1960’s all the staff cars could fit into that curved drive. In later chapters you will see how the car park has enlarged.
Lastly note that there is no Central Avenue or buildings opposite the school. These were the playing fields of the Sittingbourne Girls’ Grammar School. They had the same wooden fence around them like Borden’s so it was possible to look across and see right down to the buildings on the south side of the High Street. Not only that, but it happened that the Prefects’ room, being next to the Physics lab and in the east corner of the building, had a wonderful view of the fields and the fair damsels thereon.
These are the initial thoughts that went through my head when I saw this photo. No doubt it will stir memories of the school for others of a different kind and it would be good to hear what they are in order to have an archived record of our school through the years.
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Smoking…summer time found us laying in a long jump pit off to the right of the aerial photo, under the garden walls of the houses. We had a good all round view so you never caught us.
Another wheeze was to create a secret room amongst the “flys” of the temporary stage when there was a production on.
And when Stan the caretaker was in need of a cigarette the senior toilets were good for a puff too. When he wasn’t that was where you got caught.
And on the train home you could hardly see across the carriage
bill
Fantastic picture and accompanying tidbits of history!
I look forward to more of the same.
This is very much BGS as I first remember it in the early 1950s. During my time there (1951-58) extra teaching space was added on top of the two cloakroom blocks at the rear – a Biology/Botany lab on left and, I think, a Language lab on right, and another block was built on the tarmac behind the hall/artroom.
This picture certainly brought back some memories.
Top left is an L-shaped outbuilding. It was completely out of bounds. It was filled with all kinds of fascinating biological specimens preserved in jars. I think some perverse soul placed them there specifically to tempt small boys into sneaking into what was, next to the master’s studies and common room, the most out of bounds area in the school.
The pavilion was also out of bounds generally. However, since it was almost never locked, it was an ideal place for the more daring small boy to hide from the vagaries of the winter weather and light his cigarette by merely touching it to the top of the ever-burning stove.
The roof structures bear out my memory that the assembly hall was an immense room at the back of the school.
At the extreme corner between the school and the pavilion can be seen two small blobs. When I was at Borden in the late 1950s that side of the school was noted for its bushes. These brought forth purplish berries which rather got thrown around a lot and trodden underfoot by small boys.
Now, if only I could remember my lessons as well as this!
I have very mixed emotions when I see the old school. I wasn’t happy there, but some of what was being taught must have rubbed off.
George Ernest Hardy wasn’t happy with me either. There’s an understatement !! Our relationship was strained to say the least, and his refusal to place me for any GCE’s would be illegal today. He screwed up a potential career as a chef when he “put his oar in” with Thanet College, and a place promised by the then Principal was mysteriously withdrawn. George also flatly refused to give me any form of reference when I was about to leave the school some weeks later. I was forced to write my own which, when I presented it to him for his signature, he rudely tossed across his desk at me. He then caned me for tearing a page out of an exercise book – on which I had written my own reference.
His parting words to me, over the top of his half-rimmed spectacles, were, “Mitchell! Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for you to come back and prove me wrong”.
I left school with no qualifications whatsover. Except, perhaps, for a determined refusal to look back as I walked away in July 1961.
George died before I had passed several senior exams in Industrial Management, Quality Control etc., and eventually gained a Company Managing Directorship. I hasten to add that I’m no Alan Sugar, and although approaching retirement age I am where I am despite GEH, not because of him.
Many of my peers are still close friends, but GEH’s attitude (and it has been substantiated by many other ex-pupils of the time)left a great deal to be desired. Many of them have done well for themselves, despite GEH’s best (or worst) efforts.
If you didn’t shine at maths or sport for the school, forget it.
He must have thought that Borden was his “University of Sittingbourne”.
He was in some sort of time-warp, and the advent of the teenager and young men’s self-confidence during the late fifties/early sixties must have been anathema to him. He and many of the masters must have wondered what the blazes had hit them – they only had one course of reaction, but they certainly wouldn’t survive within today’s education system – they’d be locked up for assault. Vicious assault at that.
Still, I have reasonable English grammar, and I can recall much of my Trig and French Language. Geometry has stood me in good stead. I have greater mechanical aptitude than a grammar school education would have imparted, but that’s probably more to do with my paternal genes.
I achieved a Private Pilot’s Licence in 2003 (at 59), and flew over the school on several occasions (rudely, but pleasurably, sticking up two fingers at it).
I’ve been to only three reunions – two Sheppey ones, and one at the school. I exorcised many ghosts at the latter.
Smoking? We used to lay, face-down, in the form of cart-wheel spokes (so that, as lookouts, we could cover all points of the compass), just within the fence between the school field and the Rec. A pile of grass at the hub was a repository for the cigarettes if we needed to scarper.
I was “kept down” to repeat my time in 3b, following a disastrous academic year. The indignity was probably GEH’s last-gasp attempt to either shatter me, or give me an opportunity to redeem myself.
One particular morning, all fourth-years and above were kept behind after assembly to be lectured on the perils and consequences of smoking in school.
I was caught by a Prefect a week or so later.
George had forgotten that I wouldn’t have attended the morning lecture, due to being a second-time third-year, and wrongly mistook me for a fourth-former.
I was promptly expelled. That was on a Thursday.
I didn’t tell my parents, and feined going to school the next day.
During the Friday, GEH must have realised his mistake (I’d love to have seen his face – he must have been apoplectic !!), and sent a class-mate home with a message that I was to return to school the following Monday.
Relief all round, and a pleasant weekend.
During Assembly on the following Monday, GEH declared that I was to report to his study immediately afterwards.
He thrashed me. He panted the reasons as he did so: “Those three are for smoking, and these three are for not thanking me for having you back at school”…..
Can you wonder why I have mixed feelings about the school? I would lay a pound to a pinch of snuff that I’m not alone in my views.
Back in 1959, a Newington lad and I started a “pop-group” while at the school. Well, it was fashionable. It was what lads did. We had great fun, playing at local “gigs” in and around the Newington area.
We parted company when I left the school in 1961, and met for the first time since at a local band reunion in April 2009. The musical evening, purely by coincidence, was held at the Bowater Clubhouse, shown in the above photo, therefore just yards from where the “pop-group” was conceived.
All three guitarists on stage in this clip were educated at Borden !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbAaXRly-IQ
Hopefully, George was turning in his grave……………
David JM, Birchington, east Kent