Reminiscences

The Saturday morning music lectures

were a delight. My fondest memory concerns an ad hoc string quartet that we formed.

Robert Davies (1st violin), ? Richards (2nd violin), ? Brown (viola) and me on cello. We found an empty downstairs classroom in the Shells and Thirds block to practise after school. We were stumbling our way through a Mozart quartet when Mr Beecroft, whose office was upstairs, appeared at the door. Far from telling us off for disturbing him, he stayed with us and patiently coached us through the piece. Subsequently, every time he passed me in the corridor, he would address me as ‘Casals’. Robert Davies reminded me that we had problems with the last movement, so we substituted a transcription of Mozart’s flute quartet. We performed it at a lunchtime recital in the Lower School Hall and Mr Lang (who had been leader of the National Youth Orchestra) was, as Robert put it, ‘a little sniffy’!

Another reminiscence concerns post A-Level activities

In 1964 and 1965 after A-Level exams we were offered out-of-school activities. In 1964, a small group of us volunteered to work on the Rodney Stoke nature reserve where we cleared brushwood in preparation for fencing. We travelled down to the Mendips every day in Mr Dunnicliffe’s ancient Land Rover – seven or eight of us crammed in the back. Lunch time was spent in the Rodney Stoke Inn playing shovehalfpenny and illicitly drinking cider. In 1965, the school bought Lodge Hill station in Westburysub-Mendip and we converted it into a field centre. Daily goods steam trains were still running on the ‘Strawberry Line’ from Wells to Yatton, picking up strawberries from the growers along the valley. Bizarrely, in 1972 we bought a house within sight of the old station and lived there for 33 years!

I have included a couple of photos I took at Rodney Stoke. In the one outside the pub, I can identify from the left: Mr MacDonald the reserve warden, ? Gammon, Mr Dunnicliffe, ? Athey, me holding the barrel, John Watkins, John Knight, and Roger Buckingham.

In the second photo, the four of us are clearly showing off our amazing physique!!

John Ogborne

(1957-1965)

Firstly let me introduce

myself: Chris Prowting, at school 1957-1965 - yes, I am

Jack’s brother. Both Jack and I were fee-paying and, as Dad was a manual worker, we both benefited from reduced fees, although our time at school only overlapped by one year. Yes, fees were means tested and I can recall taking the form to the office of ‘The Clerk To The Governors’ in Denmark(?) Street behind the Hippodrome. If I recall correctly it was a splendid Georgian building - probably a merchant’s house, and the street was cobbled! Had it not been for the (significantly, I believe) reduced fees, neither Jack nor I would have attended BGS.

Times were very hard for Mum and Dad in 1950 when Jack started, and I was given the same opportunity in 1957. My sister attended Redland High, also direct grant, as a fee paying pupil in 1962(?).

Chris Prowting

(1957-1965)

Mr JE Barton

My father, Ken Austin, was born in 1908 and grew up in Sandford, near Winscombe, North Somerset, where his father was the village postman and ran an apple orchard. Dad attended Redcliffe Endowed School and was then apprenticed to Wake & Dean, cabinet makers in Yatton.

When I was awarded a scholarship place at BGS in 1955 my father recalled an experience from his early working life. Wake & Dean were awarded the contract to equip the new library at Bristol Grammar School and, as an apprentice, my