The Almondburian March 2017

The ALMONDBURIAN T H E MAG AZINE O F TH E O L D AL MO ND BU RI ANS ’ S O C I ETY

March 2017

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IN THIS ISSUE

A word from your Chairman Old Almondburians’ Society Calendar Membership A long affection for King James’s We’re off: Work starts on site Do we have a cartoonist out there?

Annual Dinner 2016 Heritage: fed by our traditions Back to the drawing board Almondbury: A village of change Annual General Meeting Executive Officers 2017 Robert Lynes is appointed CMG The Almondbury poets The secret history of Birks Mill Farnley Lines Every picture tells a story Creating a good impression Crossword by Hérisson The case of the missing iPad Book Review And back at the School Sport Postbag Obituaries

(Opposite): One of the earliest drawings of the schoolhouse and ‘Big’, by Rev Foxley Norris, former vicar of Almondbury Foxley Norris was a school governor from 1889 to 1901 when he became Dean of York and later Dean of Westminster

The ALMONDBURIAN Editor: Roger Dowling

March 2017

The magazine of The Old Almondburians’ Society

A word from your Chairman

F

WA LT E R R AL E IG H

IRST of all, may I wish all Old Almondburians, friends and readers of the magazine, a very happy New Year. From the greeting you will notice that we, as a body, are still the Old Almondburians as the proposal for a name change at the Annual General Meeting was defeated.

The vote was both interesting and disappointing. There were 24 proxy votes of which 2 were spoiled papers. They voted 13 against the name change and 9 in favour. As any rule or name change needs

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a two thirds majority of those taking part to be accepted, a vote of those present at the AGM was neither taken nor necessary.

The disappointing aspect of the vote for me was that out of a membership of 483 only 24 were interested enough to send in their vote and give an opinion.

I should like to thank all those who came to the Dinner in November. It was a wonderful turnout of more than 130, the largest attendance since the 400th Anniversary Dinner. It reflected the importance of celebrating the change of sta-

tus of the school 40 years ago.There were a number of people who criticised the time spent listening to speeches but this in itself was a reflection of the interest amongst former staff and students to be involved in the evening. I apologise for those disappointed with this aspect of the evening and agree that for most the importance of the evening was meeting up again with former colleagues and students from those formative years. For me particularly, meeting and talking again with Mr Conley, the Head at the time of the great change, was, in itself worth the time spent in the organisation of the evening. Once again, I thank him for coming up from Dorset for the event.

And finally, in the last issue I stated

that I had been approached by some female members for a silk scarf to be available to wear at formal events of the Society. It was something the Executive Committee fully agreed with and set out to put right. I asked for designs and was overwhelmed with the number which arrived on my desk. Well, go on then: I received two! I have chosen the design brought to my home by a former Head of Textiles and Food at King James’s, Christine Hazle. Christine joined King James’s in 1976 and wrote all the initial programmes of study for the girls in the Textile and Food area. Her design is stunning, as anyone who knows Christine would expect. It is now going to tender to find a manufacturer. I’ll keep you informed. n

OLD ALMONDBURIANS’ SOCIETY CALENDAR

DATES OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETINGS, 2017 The Executive Committee of the Society meets upstairs at the ‘Woolpack’ in Almondbury, at 7.30 pm.

Meetings are usually held on the first Monday of the month, although there are exceptions due to Bank Holidays and school holidays There is no meeting in August. Any member of the Society who would like to attend one of these meetings will be made most welcome on the following dates: Monday, 6th March; Monday, 3rd April; Monday, 8th May; Monday, 5th June; Monday, 3rd July; Monday, 4th September; Monday, 2nd October; Monday, 6th November; Monday, 4th December.

We therefore require eight teams of three or four members and guests. It would be appreciated if teams could be entered in advance, although you are most welcome to turn up on the night and participate in what is always a very enjoyable evening.

Quizmaster, as always, will be Keith Crawshaw.

ANNUAL DINNER This year’s Annual Dinner will be held on Saturday, 25th November. Full details, together with an application form for tickets, will appear in the next issue of The Almondburian which will be published on 1st July.

It is always good to see members making a special effort to stage a re-union of their year at the dinner and such occasions are always enjoyable, so those with a special anniversary this year, members of the classes of 1947, 1957, 1967, 1977, 1987, 1992, 1997 or 2007 for example or, indeed, anyone else who takes a notion to do so, should consider starting to organise their class re-union earlier rather than later.

QUIZ EVENING This year’s Old Almondburians’ Society Quiz sees a change of venue; it will be held in the upstairs room at ‘The Woolpack’, Almondbury, on Wednesday, 10th May at 7.00 pm for a 7.30 pm prompt start.

The return to ‘The Woolpack’ after a number of years at the Conservative Club is due to a desire for more space, so that everyone can be involved all the time. To this end, it is also proposed to revise the format this year and, instead of having two semi-finals of four teams followed by a final of the four highest-scoring teams, all eight teams will be involved throughout.

Because of this, a prompt start is essential.

FOUNDERS’ DAY The traditional Founders’ Day Service will be held the day after the Annual Dinner, Sunday, 26th November, as usual. Full details will be announced in future issues.

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Membership

S

AND R E W HAIG H

INCE the last magazine was published we have been delighted to welcome two new members to the Society: l Christopher Wilson (1990-1995); l Christopher Pickles (1997-2002).

We have been saddened to learn of the death of five long-standing members of the Society: l Rev Stuart W. Roebuck (1950-1955) (obituary: page 68); l Michael Dyson (1940-1947) (obituary: page 70); l Gorden Kaye (1952-1958) (obituary: page 72). l Trevor T Carter (1945-1950); l Phillip Denley Davies (1941-1946); For the few who do not pay their subscriptions by standing order, please

Be honest…

remember that your £10.00 subscription for 2016-2017 fell due on 1st September last year.

Thank you to those who have recently brought their subscription up to date; however, if you do receive a letter with this magazine pointing out that your subscription is not up-to-date, please do send your payment without delay.

It does make life much easier if you can complete the updated standing order mandate that accompanies the letter and return it in the envelope provided.

Alternatively, you may renew online, using PayPal or a debit or credit card, by visiting www.oas.org.uk and clicking on the ‘Join/Renew Online’ button. n

Take a long, hard look at that old OAS tie in your wardrobe. Is it: n crumpled? n the wrong length? n the wrong width? n soup-stained?

If the answer to any (or all) of these questions is ‘yes’, join the club. But here’s a cheap, costeffective answer: the latest newly-fashioned OAS tie, available from us TODAY.

Price: £15 + pp

(UK: 75p; Europe: £2.50; Rest of world: £3.00) Available from www.oas.org.uk/buymemorabilia.php or by post from: Andrew Haigh,c/o R D Haigh & Co, Floresco House, Oak Hill Road, Brighouse, West Yorkshire HD6 1SN

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Length: 150 cm (59 in) Width: 9 cm (3½ in)

AN APPRECIATION

A long affection for King James’s

Raine, Countess of Spencer died on 21st October 2016.We recall her affection for King James’s School and her pride in the historic Dartmouth connection

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CHRISTOPHER MANN (1958 - 1966)

N his definitive history of the School, Gerald Hinchliffe offers readers a nostalgic account of the opening of the ‘new buildings’ on 10th May 1963. It was a glorious and colourful occasion: everyone – boys, staff and guests – were in their best, with every nook and cranny, inside and out, festooned with spring bulbs.

The guest of honour was the Countess of Dartmouth, whose husband, the eighth Earl, was directly descended from the Kayes of Woodsome, who had relocated the chantry School to its present site and, with other local worthies, in 1608, petitioned King James I for a royal charter.

As Gerald Hinchliffe has written, it was certainly a day to remember and perhaps was the high point of “…a deep-rooted tradition of wide education, of discipline and of service. How can this combination fail to produce young men who will triumph in many walks of life?”

The Countess of Dartmouth speaks at the grand opening of the 1963 extensions.

Christopher Mann studied modern history at King’s College, London. He is a freelance professional fundraiser, working with prominent figures all over the country. His responsibilities have embraced organising royal visits including those by the late Queen Mother. He retains an office at the College of Arms in London which, under the supervision of the Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal, organises state ceremonial occasions.

Huddersfield Examiner

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The Countess of Dartmouth (centre) at the ceremony on 10th May 1963 to mark the opening of the major School extensions. Other members of the platform party included the Mayor of Huddersfield Ald J A Gray and the chairman of Huddersfield Education Committee Ald J L Dawson.

the royal charter were maturing. She was a great ally in my persuading her eldest son William, the present Earl of Dartmouth, to be involved in the commemorative events. Afterwards, she asked for a report of their success.

Raine, Countess of Spencer (as she was known latterly) died last autumn aged 87 after a short illness. Her affection for the School and pride in the Dartmouth connection remained undiminished. She led a remarkable life and, for her, King James’s was a small but special part of it. n

Harry Taylor’s reign at King James’s. The Countess spoke fluently with a passion and knowledge which captivated her audience.

Hers was a magnificent performance.

I met her briefly after the ceremony and in the following fifty years did so on numerous occasions both at Althorp (the Northamptonshire home of her second husband, Earl Spencer, father of Diana, Princess of Wales), where she was a perfect hostess, and in London, where we encountered each other as fellow guests at lavish soirées. In conversation, she always referred to her visit to the School in 1963 and enquired of its fortunes. She was genuinely interested (and not a little concerned sometimes) in my replies.

I corresponded with her frequently as plans to celebrate the 400th anniversary of The Duke of Gloucester (left) chats to the Earl of Dartmouth, the writer and head teacher Robert Lamb when he visited the School as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations in 2008.

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The big day remembered: how The Almondburian reported on the opening of the new extensions in 1963

Alderman J L Dawson, who is also Chairman of the Huddersfield Education Committee, described how the School had long had a need for a better Assembly Hall and gymnasium. He said that over the past few years, intensive building operations, financed by the Huddersfield Education authorities, had transformed the School, not only by making it much more amenable and conducive to studies, but also by providing the required recreational facilities, which played such an important and necessary role in the life of any school. Alderman Dawson said that the completion of these extensions marked “the final phase of a complete, up-to-date Grammar School with an old tradition,” and he invited the Countess to perform the official opening.

HE skies were overcast, and a few large drops of rain stained the new stone extensions which stood smiling over the playing fields, where the School 1st XI were forging to a strong position in a celebration match.

The School Charter and Statutes provided the centrepiece for an exhibition in the Library, illustrating the history of the School from the date of its foundation to the present day. The transition from the old to the new, and the obvious harmony of the two, aroused the admiration of the guests, who looked enviously at the boys of the School as they filed proudly into the L-shaped Assembly Hall, prior to the entry of the platform party, which included the Mayor, the Mayoress, the Countess of Dartmouth, the Chairman, the governors and other friends of the School.

The hymn ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the King of Creation’ was followed by the lesson (Ephesians 6 v.1017), read by the Head Boy, P M Westerby, who was congratulated by the Countess, later in the proceedings, for his eloquence. Prayers for Home and School Life were offered by the Methodist Minister of Almondbury, the Reverend T B Dutton, and the Prayers of Dedication by the Vicar of Almondbury, Canon R G Clarke. As always, the School Choir attained a very high standard, in its rendering of Schubert's ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’

Following the Service, the Chairman,

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The Countess, who is a member of a family which has been connected with the School since 1547, and which not only furnishes the name of one of our Houses, but also provides the School with its highest academic award, the Dartmouth Medal, admitted that she was always “stimulated to come toYorkshire,” where, she said, “you are always looking ahead and always full of new and practical ideas, and yet you are not afraid, or ashamed to learn from the old ones.”The Countess congratulated the Huddersfield Education Committee on the completed project, and remarked that this would enable “ the bulge, expected in 1970,” to be fore- stalled, and that it would provide “the best possible amenities for present-day pupils.”

Then with a slow, purposeful, all encompassing turn of her head, the radiant Countess held her audience as if by some invisible force and asked how a School which combined such a “deep-rooted tradition of wide education, of discipline and of service,” as ours, could fail to pro-

duce young men who would triumph in all walks of life. The charming sincerity of the words and manner of the Countess amply compensated for the disappointment the School had felt when she had been unable to attend to present prizes at the previous Speech Day; and the thunderous applause indicated how fully her presence was appreciated on this Opening Day. The singing by the Choir, with G. M. Powner as soloist, directed by Mr. Gledhill well merited the congratulations the Countess expressed. The School Orchestra was conducted by Mr. G L Beach and provided music during the intervals and at the close of the proceedings.

His Worship the Mayor, Alderman J A Bray, expressed thanks to the Countess and to everyone who had contributed to make the occasion such a success. The Countess and the Mayoress of Huddersfield were presented with bouquets

by I G Robertson and C Barrow, 2nd Form Captains, and the proceedings ended with a rousing performance of the

SUDOKU

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6 1 8 2 3 7 6 7 5 2 9 9 8 1 4 1 7 3 5 5 9 2 3 7 4 1 2 5 8 9 4 9 7 2

Difficulty: tough

Each row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain the digits 1 to 9 10

PAVILION UPDATE

We’re off! Work starts on site

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HE new sports pavilion moved a step closer when a team of tree fellers moved on to the site in January to clear a line of trees behind the present building that lay within the site of the new construction. Behind the scenes, work has also been progressing to finalise the various funding sources that will make possible this important new £450,000 - £500,000 facility, to be used by the School and other local sports groups.

Position of Core funding has already been promised proposed pavilion by the King James’s School Foundation and a new submission may also be made to Sport Position of present England which has recently introduced new pavilion funding criteria. Meetings are also taking place with Kirklees Council to identify Pitch others who can help with the project.

Line of “We are very confident that we can now trees removed move forward,” said Graham Cliffe, chairman of the Trustees of the Foundation. “We have appointed a firm of architects to preParking pare a detailed specification and the project will hopefully be going out to tender in the Ark enl ey summer. The aim is for the pavilion to be Lan e completed in 2018 or 2019.”

Principal of King James’s School, Ian Rimmer, said that it was excellent news that the pavilion was to become a reality. “It is an exciting development for the School,” he said. “We are also in touch with parents’ groups so that we can maximise the future use of the pavilion, not only by pupils but by the wider sporting community.” n 11

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Do we have a cartoonist out there?

VERY school generation has its resident joker – the class comedian with a wisecrack for every situation or the rascal just waiting to make mischief whenever a master might unwisely turn his back.

Those humourists with an artistic bent often turned to the cartoon as a means of demonstrating their wit and two examples are shown here.The top two cartoons were by former OAS chairman Les Holroyd and appeared in The Almondburian in December 1935. More recently, in July 2015, we printed this excellent effort (bottom right) by the late Terry Buckley, our former resident crossword compiler.

We all like a good laugh, and amongst our large membership we feel sure there must be someone out there with an artistic flair who would like to take on the challenge of becoming The Almondburian’s resident cartoonist. No money - but think of the honour and prestige!

Email your cartoons to cartoon@oas.org.uk or post them to the editorial address shown on the back cover.

“School activities: Science”

“School activities: Gardening”

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Annual Dinner 24th November 2016 Andrew Haigh reports

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he 2016 Annual Dinner was wonderfully attended by 133 members and guests, the largest gathering of Almondburians since the 400th Anniversary of the granting of the Royal Charter in 2008. Those attending the dinner spanned a period of seventyone years, from those who entered the school in 1945, to those currently students at the school in 2016, and they travelled from all over the United Kingdom, as well as Ireland, Channel Islands, Germany and USA. The main focus of this year’s dinner was a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first comprehensive intake in 1976 and Andrew Schofield and Robin Sharman did an excellent job in getting together twelve members of their year.The guest speaker was Keith Best, a teacher in

the early years of Lepton Middle School, the then feeder school for King James’s.

Keith Best proposed the toast to the School and a fine response was made by the Head Girl, Olivia Falcon. A very entertaining speech by Patrick O’Brien ended with a presentation to Lesley Rattigan, who was retiring after many years teaching Latin at the School, and with the toast to the Society, to which the Chairman, Walter Raleigh, responded.

Top marks for attendance go to David Parry and Robin Merchant, who gathered together no fewer than nineteen of their Class of 1966 for their 50th anniversary reunion and they lined up in the dining hall to recreate their form photograph (see page 17). Only third prize this year for the Class of 1947, who are so often the most represented year, with ten of

Top table guests (l to r): Ian Rimmer, Olivia Falcon, Alex Byram, Keith Best, Matt Mills (Chairman of Governors), Walter Raleigh

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Keynote speaker: Keith Best, who also proposed the toast to the School

them present this year. Also worthy of mention are the nine members of the Class of 1956, who were celebrating their 60th anniversary.

Those present enjoyed another excellent meal, cooked by Andrew Hirst of ‘Brambles’ in Holmfirth.The menu comprised spiced roast parsnip soup, roast salmon cut of beef with red wine jus and Yorkshire pudding, followed by sticky toffee pudding with Bailey’s crème Anglaise, a cheeseboard, and coffee or tea. Andrew often treats us to a little something extra at the end of the meal and this year it was a rather excellent port to go with the cheeseboard. It was unfortunate that he had staff call off ill at short notice, because the service was very slow. However, many people did take the opportunity to go round other tables to chat between courses.

The Head Boy, Alex Byram, and Head Girl, Olivia Falcon, along with the

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Deputy Head Boys, Ellis Kirk and Finlay Horsfall, and the Deputy Head Girls, Mollie Wilson and Kasey Buckley, hosted tours of the school before the meal and Ellis, Finlay, Mollie and Kasey did an absolutely brilliant job of selling the raffle tickets between courses, for the raffle raised over £400.

Organising the dinner at the School does involve a tremendous amount of work. As well as spending a great deal of time on preparatory work, your Secretary was at school from 10.30 am on Saturday, until 1.30 am on Sunday and again all afternoon on Sunday after Founders’ Day. Huge thanks are due to Martyn Hicks who, on Saturday morning, came to the Stadium, from where we borrow the round tables free of charge, with his van and trailer to help your Secretary move the tables to the school. He then stayed most of Saturday helping to move things around and set up

and he also came back on Sunday afternoon to reverse the process. Martyn did all this on a weekend when he was unable to attend the dinner itself, due to a family celebration; we cannot thank him enough. Huge thanks are also due to your Treasurer, Keith Crawshaw, who was also present most of Saturday helping to set up and who, along with Matthew Booth and Emily Murphy, stayed until the early hours of the morning helping to tidy up and lock up. Keith also single-handedly washed up all our beer glasses on Sunday afternoon.

Due to an unfortunate breakdown in electronic communications between Nicky Briggs, Head Brewer for Mallinson’s Brewing Company and also for his own Briggs Signature Ales, who usually runs the bar, I was unaware that he had informed me that he would be unable to do so this year until only a couple of weeks before the event! Thanks are due to Nicky for none the less supplying some fine ale for the evening, but also to David Parry, who not only helped Robin Merchant to gather nineteen of their year together, but who also found three students to staff the bar at short notice.

Thanks also to ‘Taste Fine Wines’, of Almondbury, for supplying some excellent wines and other drinks.

Despite all this hard work, we would recognise that the dinner was not perfect; it is still a work in progress since returning to the school and there is still room for improvement.We could definitely use some more help, since those who help at the moment cannot do much more than they already do. So, if you can spare a few hours to help organise the 2017 Annual

From the top: Olivia Falcon, Patrick O’Brien, Walter Raleigh, Chris Temperton

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Dinner, then it would be much appreciated. It is a wonderful and most enjoyable occasion to gather 133 Almondburians together, so let’s make it even better next year. Those of you with anniversaries to

Top marks: 19 members of the Class of 1964 enjoy their 50th anniversary reunion

the church on Founders’ Day. Head Boy Alex Byram and the Head Girl Olivia Falcon, led a small band of a dozen or so Almondburians up the hill, albeit at a blistering pace, or certainly a little too briskly for some of those getting left behind!

However, it was well worth the effort for, on arrival at All Hallows’ a goodly number of pupils, parents and Almondburians had congregated for the service.

King James’s enthusiastic new Head of Performing Arts, Charmain Gott, had assembled a band of extremely talented musicians, who performed beautifully during the service, following readings from Alex and Olivia.

A further highlight of the service was the outstanding address given by Prof.

Edward Royle (see page 20).

The service concluded in the traditional way, with the hymn For All the Saints, prayers from the Ancient Statutes and the singing of the School Song and was followed by refreshments in the Church Hall and the opportunity to socialise. n l Overleaf: list of Dinner attendees

celebrate start planning now! Who can better the Class of 1966?

The 2017 Annual Dinner will take place on Saturday, 25th November, so please put the date in your diary now to make sure that you don’t miss out on a great evening.

Founders’ Day There was a disappointing turnout for the traditional procession up the hill to

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Founders’ Day musicians: Chloe Wood (guitar) and Lydia Taylor (vocals)

Name

Arrowsmith

Annual Dinner 2016 attendees Geoff (Guest)

Aspinall

John

Bamforth

Mrs (Guest)

Barstow

Jonathan

Balderstone Paul Bamforth

Batty

Battye

Beattie

Bedford

Bellerby

Best

Bonser

Booth

Boothroyd

Brawn

Brier

Briggs

Brook

Brook

Brooke

Brunskill Buckley Butters

Byram

Clayton

Cliffe

Cliffe

Ashley (Staff) Karen

Roger

Karen

Godfrey

1956 1961 Skelmanthorpe

Matthew S

J. Amanda

Keith

Graham C

Jeffrey

Robert

Stephen

Jane (Staff)

Earles

Falcon

Ferguson

Field

1966 1973 Chippenham

Firth

1974 1976 Hopton

Fisher

1962 1969 Holmfirth

Flooks

1976 1979 Holmfirth

Gibson

1949 1957 Honley

1947 1654 Huddersfield

David

Dye

1954 1962 E Wittering

Norris

Keith (Guest)

Dowling

Almondbury

1947 1953 Marsden

Gothard

Graley

Scotland

Graley

Graley

1995 2000 Lepton

Green

1967 1973 Over

Green

1974 1976 Highburton

Green, CBE

1947 1953 Upperthong

Haigh

1988 1991 Waterloo

Roger

Jim

David B M

1952 1959 Lymm

1947 1954 York

1947 1952 New Mill

Olivia (Head Girl)

Anne (Staff) 1981 2004 Netherthong

Bob (Staff)

Andrew

Peter E

Andrew

Prof. M.S.

George

John E

Simon A

Christopher

Richard

Nicky (Staff)

1973 1989 Kirkheaton

1961 1967 Grimsby

1956 1962 Fixby

1967 1974 Shepley

1956 1963 Brighton

1945 1950 Grouville

1962 1969 Fixby

1964 1971 Isle of Man

1962 1970 Farnley Tyas

1957 1963 Netherthong

Netherthong

John Terence 1947 1955 Chester

Andrew M

1977 1983 Almondbury

Hales

Ian R

Hargreaves

Dr John (Staff) 1971 1990 Halifax

1947 1952 Almondbury

Hargreaves

1971 1977 Wakefield

Hart

1966 1973 Alton

Hazel

Kacey (Deputy Head Girl)

Hellawell

Susan (Guest)

1966 1793 Netherton Halifax

Jacqueline

1976 1981 Streatham

J Michael

1956 1962 Longwood

Christine (Staff)1976 1999 Thongsbridge

Geoffrey

1956 1963 Fixby

Helm

David

1966 1973 Shelley

James M

1947 1951 Norwich

Herbert

Rev David

1969 1974 Newcastle

Alex (Head Boy) Andrew

Timothy

Mrs (Guest)

Crawshaw

Keith

Croft

From

Keith

Conley Conley

Dates

Heptonstall

1966 1973 Texas, USA

Honeywell

1966 1973 Sandal

Horsfall

Sherbourne

Howarth

Alan (Head) 1973 1985 Sherbourne

David Gary

Hoyle

1964 1971 Almondbury

1968 1975 Almondbury

Hudson

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Kirk

David A.

Ruth J

1949 1957 Matlock

1979 1981 Guildford

Finlay (Deputy Head Boy)

Paul

Michael

Peter

1966 1973 Morley

1969 1976 Honley

1976 1981 Cardiff

Ellis (Deputy Head Boy)

Large

Law

Lawton

Lijka

Linton

Peter

George

Mark

Maria

John M

Lofthouse

Howard

Mallinson

Mrs J (Guest)

Mallinson

Morrison

Mott

Murphy

Nash

Newsome

Newton

O’Brien

Oughton

Parr

Parry

Paton

Poole

Prescott

Raleigh

Rattigan

Smart

Smith

Stead

Matthew (Governor)

Graeme

Roger

David Neil

Nichola

Stead

1957 1965 Cardiff

Sutton

1956 1962 Meltham

Taylor

1967 1970 Chigwell, Essex

Taylor

1991 1996 Wilmslow

Taylor

Emily Jayne 1997 2002 Almondbury

Brian

Robert

Taylor

1964 1972 Cheadle Hulme

Taylor

1966 1973 Germany

Teale

Graham

1966 1973 Ramsbottom

Ian

1946 1954 Northallerton

Christine

1974 1976 Scholes

David G

1965 1971 Bradley

Dr. Robin A. 1976 1981 Highburton

Mrs (Guest)

Gemma

Ian

1947 1952 Brough

Andrew (Guest)

1948 1956 Lindley

David

1968 1970 Ainley Top

Mrs (Guest) John

Dennis

Jack (Staff)

1959 1997 Greetland

Jonathan D. 1971 1978 Almondbury

A Richard

David

1966 1973 Longwood

Thompson

Mrs (Guest)

Robin

Turner

1976 1981 Enfield

Walshaw

1962 1969 Brockholes

Walshaw

1956 1963 Fixby

White

Walter (Staff) 1978 2010 Almondbury

Williams

Lesley (Staff) 1980 2016 Holmfirth David

Wilson

Wolton

1956 1961 Sheffield

Wood

Holmfirth

Wrathall

Prof Edward 1955 1962 York

Andrew M

Richard

1976 1981 Almondbury

1976 1979 Lepton

19

1954 1962 Ossett

1961 1969 Chesterfield

1963 1970 Bideford

Mrs (Guest)

Helen

Lindley

J Andrew

Temperton

John

Penrith

Gerald

1966 1967 Eastham

Thompson

1966 1973 Barrow

Alan D.

Richard D

Marlene (Staff) 1975 2002

1991 1996 Cumberworth

1976 1981 Penrith

1947 1950 Lepton

Temperton

Northallerton

Dawn

Clifford

Patrick (Staff) 1971 2013 Almondbury

Ian W (Headmaster)

Searby

Smallwood

Smart

Angela (Staff) 1985 2015 Bradley

Robin

Rimmer Royle

Slocombe

Stourbridge

Mike (Staff)

Schofield

Shearing

Dr R F Niven 1955 1962 Stourbridge

Rattigan Reilly

Shaw

1956 1963 Brockholes

1966 1973 Kirkheaton

Milnes

Shaw

1952 1959 Sheffield

Merchant

Morgan

Shaw

1976 1981 Jersey

1976 1978 Stainland

1966 1973 Meltham

Mills

Sharman

1951 1959 Fenay Bridge

Matthewman Howard P

Melling

Sellens

1966 1973 Hounslow

1961 1968 Whitley Bay

Chris (Staff) 1976 2002 Holmfirth

Holmfirth

J Stuart

1949 1956 Stockport

Ann (Staff)

1993 2015 Lindley

M (Guest)

Stockport

Honley

Frances (Staff) 1979 1993 Honley

John

1966 1973 Penrith

Robert

1964 1970 Bradley

David

1976 1981 Ireland

Mollie (Deputy Head Girl)

Graham C

Tim

1966 1973 Preston

1976 1981 York

‘

FOUNDERS’ DAY ADDRESS

Heritage: fed by our traditions

PROF EDWARD ROYLE (1955 - 1962)

Memorials in Almondbury Parish Church remind us of its close links with the School - and the debt we owe to those who created it over the past four centuries

If I took a potted plant – for ex- we will not survive long, because our idenample, a chrysanthemum – with tity has been formed by our roots and we a good head of flowers, and cut are sustained by our connection to them. some of those flowers off with We are fed by our traditions – those things their stalks, after a few hours they that have been handed down to us. This is would begin to droop. If I put them in water our heritage which enriches our lives; and they would last a little longer – perhaps two that forms the subject of my Founders’ Day or even three weeks – but then they would address this morning. die. But those flowers still attached to the Heritage comes to us in many forms. plant would last much longer, and even as There is the built heritage – a legacy of inthey died others would spiring buildings. Of A former foundation scholar, Edward grow in their place. Royle retired from the University of course, not all old And the plant would York in 2004 since when he has been buildings are equally last the whole season Emeritus Professor. A Methodist inspiring, and some for over 50 years,Ted and perhaps, with preacher having served their continues to publish and give talks on proper care, several history. useful lives need to be years. And this is berenewed or replaced. cause the plant is being Plants need repotting; fed through its roots. roots need to be The flowers do not pruned. Some buildlook like the roots, but ings like this church they depend upon have been constantly them: what they are, renewed to meet the and can be, is deterneeds of changing genmined by those roots erations and yet they and their attachment proclaim a continuity to them.So it is with with the past. Other human institutions and buildings, like the individuals. If we are school cricket pavilion cut off from our roots which I and many oth20

The Kaye Chapel in Almondbury Church commemorates the lives of Arthur Kaye and his son John who pulled down St Helen’s Chapel stone by stone and reconstructed it on the site of the present school.

ers here worked to raise funds for in the later 1950s have to be replaced. In managing our heritage we need the wisdom to see what should be preserved and what needs renewal. Heritage also comes to us in our values – things which have been thought important in the past and which can still enrich our lives today. Again, some changes will occur. The rigid fence will blow down in the wind; the living hedge will bend and not break. Our heritage is alive and so it must grow and change or it will appear dead.

Heritage is preserved for us and handed down to us over the generations.We receive and in turn pass it on to others. We hold such things in our memories and we add more memories to them from our own experiences. And this is what makes us what we are.Those who lose their memories lose their identities. Those who cherish their memories preserve their identities.

We can see this in the history of the

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Jewish people. For three thousand years and more they have preserved the story of their escape from Egypt, first in oral tradition and then in their written Scriptures. Each year at the celebration of the Passover they recall those events, and that act of recollection has preserved their identity against all the odds. In our reading from the Book of Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Sirach, which was written about two hundred years before the birth of Jesus, we hear Joshua Ben Sira recalling the heroes of his nation’s history – and he goes on in the rest of his book to recall Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses, Joshua and Caleb; Samuel, David and Solomon; and so on down to his own time. But in my memory that passage has another meaning. It was the passage read each year at the school Remembrance Service, on or about 11th November. The staff and prefects left the school assembly to walk in procession to lay a wreath on the school war memorial in what was once

(Top): A memorial to Benjamin Batty of Fenay Hall, a former governor of the school

(Bottom): A tablet on the north wall of the chancel commemorates Robert Nettleton, one of the ‘six honest men’ responsible for creating the school over 400 years ago

called the Big and later the Library, while the school sang For All the Saints – a hymn long enough to last until they returned.We remembered, as we still remember, and give thanks.

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And like the writer of Ecclesiasticus we too recite our history as a school, and we do so again whenever we sing the school song. We recall Arthur Kaye ofWoodsome and his son John whose ancestors had built the chantry chapel by St Helen’s Well and who shifted the stones of the chapel to the present site and built a schoolhouse in 1547.We recall John Kaye’s son, Robert, who with William Ramsden, Richard Appleyard, Nicholas Fenay, Robert Nettleton and the Revd George Crosland petitioned King James I to put the school on a more regular basis as the free grammar school of King James in Almondbury; we remember the benefactors who established the school’s finances; and the many governors, masters and pupils who comprised the life of the school over the years.

Some of these are memorialised in this church – the Kaye Chapel for example witnesses to the most influential family in the school’s history. And some there be who have no memorial; but others there be who have.

It may be today that those who have been bored by this address have surreptitiously taken out some small electronic device on which to read or from which to send a message: the twittersphere may be

(Left): A tablet to Rev Alfred Easther, master of the school from 1848 to 1876 (Right): A window on the south wall of the nave commemorates George Armitage who was also a governor, as were his father and grandfather before him

active at this very moment. But the historian in me in such idle moments turns instead to reading the writings on the wall.

Robert Nettleton is remembered with a tablet on the north wall of the chancel; a brass plate in the chancel marks the site below of the vault containing the remains of Nicholas Fenay. And right before us on the south wall of the nave is a monument to a past governor of the school: Benjamin North Rockley Batty of Fenay Hall, died 1863, governor from 1816 to 1858; the adjacent window also commemorates a governor, George Armitage, whose father and grandfather before him had also been governors; and next to this is the memorial to Alfred Easther, master from

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1847 to 1876, one of several masters of the school to be memorialised in this church.

We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and we give them thanks on this Founders’ Day. And I have my own memories. I remember the first time I came into this building. It would have been a Sunday in late November 1955 – my first Founders’ Day – for the older ones here will recall how in those days Founders’ Day was commemorated on a Sunday afternoon and it was an occasion when all members of the school were required to attend and process up St Helen’s Gate for a service of thanksgiving in this church. Little did I realise at the time that when, later in the year at Speech Day,

the speaker traditionally asked for a half- we do not appreciate or even do not notice day holiday for the school, which was al- at the time.The school nurtures those roots ways granted and always cheered, we were which enable us to grow and flourish in the simply being paid back for the overtime we decades to come. Governments today like to impose their will upon what is taught, had done in November!

It may have been then, but I think it was how it is taught and how it is examined. rather at my first school Carol Service here They expect instant outcomes. It is good to in December that I was in the school choir reflect on the fact that some of the best things that make for a when we sang ‘The good life are not to be Heavens are Telling’ Some of the best hurried and are to be from Haydn’s Crethings that make found beyond the naration. And it was here row confines of the forthat I had my first lesfor a good life are mal curriculum; they son in public speaking – how to read the first to be found beyond cannot be measured and so do not conof the Nine Lessons the narrow confines tribute to examination without gabbling and results and league tamaking a nonsense of of the formal bles. But it would be ‘And they heard the curriculum folly not to prize them voice of the Lord God highly. As the Letter of walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Genesis 3, v.8). James reminds us, there are two kinds of Much critical comment has been made re- wisdom: earthly wisdom which is narrowly cently of Harry Gledhill as a music teacher, focused and selfishly ambitious; and heavand it is true I left the school after seven enly wisdom which embraces all the finest years with as little knowledge of musical qualities of the human spirit. It is in the tratheory as I had had on entering it, but he dition of the school to seek the latter. From was a great organist and choir master. It was this fertile soil grow healthy plants with only years later that I realised that all the fine flowers and bearing rich fruits.

We are indeed fortunate. In many parts singing of traditional English and British songs that he put us through each week in- of the world education is in short supply. stead of teaching us anything about music Schools are badly equipped; parents cannot was in fact a practical induction to a rich afford to send their children to them; atvein of English folk music which I now tendance at class is disrupted by war and greatly value: a gateway through Cecil persecution. Even in this country it is a Sharp and Percy Grainger to the world of privilege to have attended or to be attendEdward Elgar, Frederick Delius, Ralph ing King James’s: many are not so fortunate.

Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten.

We have much to thank our From this I take a valuable lesson: we learn much at school from those things that Founders for.

24

T

Back to the drawing board Roger Sykes (1946-1953) revisits some of his favourite drawings

here are some almost-hidden parts of the old school. Hidden in full view that is, but not noticed despite the memorable atmosphere. A simple back-door corridor providing a short cut for the prefect homeward bound – particularly on a wet day – or a quiet entrance for the morning laggard hoping to creep in and not be noticed.

But with an element of risk!

Through the doorway on the right lies the headmaster’s lair. When summoned here, this was a waiting area, allowing one to slow down and pretend to examine the detail and carvings on the old desk.This one location was central to the old school atmosphere.

This was history – a real connection with the past.

Some would rush along what was really a dimly lit corridor – past the room on the left, still known as the Old Dining Hall or ODH. I have memories of Latin classes there, with ‘Tich’ Blackburn struggling to create some enthusiasm (extinctus amabitur idem).

The staircase on the right led up to the music room and another small room that housed the model railway club layout. But stop a while – this old desk has survived – a focus for a sort of time travel. It is about 65 years ago that I stopped for once to have a good look round and it said ‘draw me’ for the record.

I’m glad I did and I am so pleased that it has survived. n

The old school desk 25

PART 2

Almondbury: a village of change ROGER DOWLING (1952 - 1959)

Spot the difference: your Editor continues his tour of the locality to see the changes - not always for the better - that have taken place over the years

S

OMERSET ROAD was constructed around 1870 and it was not long before neat rows of stone-built terrace houses began to appear along a number of stretches. Park Terrace was the row of houses opposite Dog Kennel Bank and it has changed little over the past 100 years.

The chief interest here centres around number 36, ringed in both photographs. It was the former home of Wallace Henry Hartley, the leader of a string quintet on the Titanic, who went to his death

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when the ship struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912. Hartley and his four fellow musicians had reputedly calmed the nerves of the terrified passengers by playing a selection of favourite hymns, before they all heroically went down with their ship.

Hartley was born in Colne, Lancashire in 1878 where his father Albert was choirmaster of a Methodist church. Albert worked for the Refuge Assurance Company and as a result of promotion in 1895 the family moved to Huddersfield.

By this time, Wallace Hartley had become a proficient violinist and he lost no time in joining the Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra. He had left school and had a job as a clerk, but he found this work unfulfilling and, in 1903, made the big decision to make his living as a full-time professional violinist.

Leaving home, he moved to Bridlington to take up a position with the Bridlington Municipal Orchestra.

Living for the first time near the sea, it was perhaps inevitable that he should sooner or later contemplate life on the ocean waves, and in 1910 he was offered the position of bandmaster on the White Star Lines ship Mauretania. By his time, he was employed by an agency CW & FN Black which supplied musicians to a number of shipping lines, and on 8th April 2012 he was allocated to the largest and most luxurious new ship in the world – the Titanic – due to make its maiden voyage from Southampton two days later. He had also become engaged to Maria Robinson from Boston Spa, near Wetherby, and the couple planned to marry later that year. Maria’s present to him was a violin.

The story of Titanic’s collision with an iceberg on 15th April has been told many times. Hartley’s body was recovered from the water two weeks later, as was a suitcase containing his treasured violin which still carried on its tailpiece a small metal plate inscribed ‘For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria’. Astonishingly, the violin had survived its long immersion in the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was returned to Maria, and when she died in 1939 her sister passed it on to Bridlington Salvation Army. Subsequently it passed through various hands until it was sold at auction in October 2013 for £900,000 – the highest price ever achieved for an item of Titanic memorabilia.

27

M

ANY Almondburians will remember the blue police box which has stood – and still stands – in Northgate (right). Inevitably, it is now known affectionately as the Almondbury Tardis and in recent months understandable concern has been expressed about the poor state of its external paintwork.

“It has fallen into disrepair and is in need of tender loving care,” said Almondbury councillor Bernard McGuin, following complaints from two local residents. “I have met the Police Estates Department to discuss how the box can be saved for the future.”

The photograph below of a real Tardis shows the excellent paint finish required to achieve optimal intergalactic performance. (We cannot confirm that the photograph was taken in the past: being a Tardis it may well have been taken in the future).

As befits a Tardis, the Almondbury police box has a mysterious history.

“It’s said to be from either the 1920s or 1930s,” said West Yorkshire

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Police’s Head of Learning and Development Supt Dave Lunn. “It is believed to be a 1929 Mackenzie Trench design police box, made of timber, with a small door to a telephone cupboard on the inside and a bell on the top.”

A similar police box in Wakefield has recently been moved from its previous location at Bishopsgarth to West Yorkshire Police’s new Carr Gate training complex close to junction 41 of the M1 motorway.

The good news is that the Almondbury Tardis, which has been in use by the force for many decades and is still serving a useful purpose, is to remain.

Patrol officers use it to make calls, write up reports – and to have a refreshment break.

And the force has no plans to change the situation. A spokesman said: “The Almondbury box has always been used by local officers and they will continue to do that. It is a very useful contact point in the centre of the village.”

One can only hope that it will receive its much-needed TLC in the very near future: surely there can be no more ignominious end to a Tardis than that it should succumb to the ravages of Time.

I

T does not need a trained eye to spot the difference between these two photographs.The one above shows what was once a familiar local landmark: the pub on the top of Castle Hill, in which many a thirst has been slaked after the climb to admire the view from the top of the tower on a hot summer’s afternoon.The photograph on the right shows the same view today.

The circumstances surrounding the demolition of Castle Hill Hotel are so distressing to beer drinkers that those of a sensitive disposition are advised to leave this page at once.

The hotel was built in 1852 to the design of architect William Wallen who, two years earlier, had collaborated with Charles Child on the George Hotel in Huddersfield.

Castle Hill was already a popular venue for sports and for large outdoor meetings and a bowling green was laid near the inn; other pursuits, such as dog fighting and bareknuckled prize fights are also recorded.The idea of erecting a ‘Victoria Prospect Tower’ on the site to mark the reign of Queen Victoria was considered and rejected, only to emerge again in 1899 when the present tower was opened by the Earl of Scarbrough.

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In 1998 the hotel was bought by the Thandi Partnership (comprising Mick and Barry Thandi) who were given planning permission to build a 10-room extension. In the event, for reasons never explained, much of the original hotel was demolished during the building work and by the time the council issued a Stop Notice in 2004 the entire building had been razed to the ground.

The Thandi Partnership submitted new plans for a 14-bedroom hotel in 2009 which were duly rejected. In the past two years, Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman suggested that they should be given another chance but his pleas have so far fallen on the stony ground that is all that now remains of this once much-loved pub.

The ascent of Castle Hill tower is likely, it seems, to remain a thirsty proposition.

A

LTHOUGH we talk glibly about ‘the good old days’ we should never forget that many local workpeople in the early years of the nineteenth century lived in abject poverty. According to contemporary reports, Almondbury handloom weavers in 1825 typically worked very long hours for as little as 15s [75p] a week, equivalent to around £50 in today’s money.

Not surprisingly, it was felt by many that there must be a fairer system and this led to the growth of the co-operative movement whereby a worker would pay a subscription to become a member and shareholder of a ‘co-operative’ that would buy and sell essential products back to its members, any profits being returned in the form of a quarterly dividend or ‘divvy’.

Two very early societies were in

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Almondbury: the Integrity Provident Co-operative (1838) in Northgate and the Perseverance Co-operative (1848) in Westgate.The Huddersfield Industrial Society Ltd was set up in 1860 and grew rapidly with retail stores all over the town. In 1897 it acquired the Perseverance and the Integrity to form the Almondbury Branch, located in the former Perseverance premises at 18 Westgate, shown on the opposite page. Much later, the shop moved to other premises in Northgate and nowadays the Westgate building is occupied by Heirloom hairdressers.

Another local co-op that many readers will remember is the Moldgreen branch shown below, which was set up in January 1875 as the second branch of Huddersfield Industrial Society.The staff pose proudly for the 1910 photograph: note the heavily salted carcasses of meat on open display, long before the days of refrigeration. The building is currently being converted to form four apartments.

Huddersfield Industrial Co-operative Society was a hugely successful enterprise. By the time it celebrated its golden jubilee in 1910 it had some 14,500 members and was distributing a dividend of 3s [15p] in the ÂŁ1. It owned most of its 43 grocery and butchering branches and had many other assets including 200 houses and 44 horses.

The Co-ops have lost some distinctiveness in recent years with the growth of loyalty cards and similar incentives to shoppers. However, there are still over 4,000 retail co-ops around the UK with total sales of ÂŁ26.1 billion.

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Annual General Meeting

9t h Januar y 2 01 7

The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at the ‘Woolpack’, Almondbury on Monday, 9th January 2017 at 7.30 pm.

Attendance Walter Raleigh (chair) Andrew Haigh Keith Crawshaw Chris West

Graham Cliffe Michael Powner Patrick O’Brien

Apologies for Absence Jenny Sanderson, Roger Dowling and Philip Coxon

Remembrance A minute’s silence was held for members of the Society who had passed away during the year, and in particular for our hard-working Chaplain, Rev Stuart Roebuck.

The Minutes of the last Annual General Meeting The minutes of the meeting held on Monday, 4th January, 2016, were read and approved and there were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Report Walter Raleigh observed that it has been a mixed year. When he took office, he had wanted a focal point to be the fortieth anniversary of the start of comprehensive education.

He had therefore contacted lots of former students and staff, which had resulted in 130 attending the dinner, the highest number for quite some years, so the Annual Dinner was certainly a great success in terms of numbers. The earlier reunion event, organised by Gary Woodhouse, wasn’t the success on this occasion that we had hoped for, but not through lack of effort on his part. Walter ended by remembering that our Chaplain, Rev. Stuart Roebuck, had been hugely supportive of the Society and that his very sudden loss had been a great shock. He will be sorely missed.

Treasurer’s Report Keith Crawshaw presented the accounts for the financial year ended 31st August, 2016, noting that the expenditure of £3,133.78 on printing, stationery andpostages was almost identical to the previous year, which is about 65% of subscription income. So, unless we have any major increases in costs, we do not need to increase subscriptions. The excess of income over expenditure is £613.91, which increases the accumulated fund to £10,898.49.

Fairly steady, he felt. The Chairman thanked Keith for his work, which is much appreciated.

Approval of the accounts was proposed by Chris. West, seconded by Patrick O’Brien and carried unanimously.

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Membership Secretary’s Report Andrew Haigh reported that membership currently stands at 483, four fewer than this time last year. Of the members who do not pay by standing order, 32 subscriptions for the current year are presently unpaid, compared to 26 at this time last year. We have been saddened to learn of the deaths of six members during the year 2015-2016: Garry Lee Hirst, John Segar, Prof. Keith Vickerman, Michael Dyson, Avril Dawson and Prof. Alex Danchev (since when the death of Rev. Stuart Roebuck occurred in the current membership year).

However, on a more positive note, we are pleased to have recruited ten new members in the last year, compared to eight in the previous year.

Subscription rate for the Financial Year commencing 1st September 2017 Following on from his Treasurer’s report, Keith Crawshaw proposed that the subscription rate remains at £10 per annum.This was agreed unanimously.

Special resolution to change Rule 1 (Name) From: The name of the organisation shall be “The Old Almondburians’ Society” and in these Rules it is referred to as “the Society” To: The name of the organisation shall be “The Almondburians’ Society” and in these Rules it is referred to as “the Society”.

Graham Cliffe spoke in favour of the resolution, saying that the idea was first raised during his time as Chairman in 1996, but it was not well-received and so it was taken no further. It has now been raised again this year. Graham said that he had no strong feelings, but was persuaded by Jenny Sanderson that the ‘Old’ was a disincentive to young members, so he thinks that we should change the name if it might improve recruitment.The Chairman observed that Jenny Sanderson would go further, because she feels that the name should incorporate King James’s School, since current pupils don’t understand the meaning of ‘Almondburian’. Keith Crawshaw commented that he still has mixed views. Andrew Haigh said that he would be in favour if he believed that it would improve recruitment of younger members, but he didn’t believe that it would, because people have always tended to join later in life, rather than straight from School. Chris.West, on the other hand, felt that it definitely will attract younger members.

The Secretary counted the proxy votes that he had received by post and the totals were 11 in favour and 16 against. However, three of the votes against were not on the official proxy form and so had to be discounted, making the totals 11 in favour and 13 against. One member had left his vote to the discretion of the Chairman. Given the number of people present, even if all voted in favour of the resolution and the Chairman also cast the vote left to his discretion in favour, the total number of votes in favour would only be 19. The Secretary said that, since the total number of votes cast would be 32, the maximum possible 19 votes in favour would still fall three short of the 22 votes required for a two-thirds majority to enable a resolution to change a rule to be carried.

The resolution had therefore been decided on the proxy vote and no vote was held at the meeting.

Since the name of the Society would be unchanged, Graham Cliffe suggested using King James’s School as a strapline on our logo to see if that makes any difference. Michael Powner suggested also incorporating the word ‘student’, since younger people may think ‘oh, that’s me!’

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Election of President It was proposed that the Principal, Ian Rimmer, should be invited to continue as President of the Society. Ian Rimmer was duly elected President for 2017.There were no President’s Remarks, due to his absence from the meeting.

Election of Executive Officers for 2017 Graham Cliffe proposed that Walter Raleigh continue as Chairman for 2017. This was seconded by Patrick O’Brien and Walter was re-elected by acclamation.

The other Officers were then elected as follows: Vice-Chairman Chris West (proposed by Keith Crawshaw and seconded by Graham Cliffe) Honorary Secretary Andrew Haigh (proposed by the Chairman) Honorary Treasurer Keith Crawshaw (continuing in post for the 45th year).

Media Editor Roger Dowling (proposed by Keith Crawshaw, who thinks that the magazine is wonderful) Ordinary Committee Members Emily Briggs (continuing in post) Martyn Hicks (continuing in post) Samuel Atkin (continuing in post) Michael Powner (continuing in post) Andrew Schofield (proposed by Keith Crawshaw) One Vacancy Chaplain Revd. Chris. Pickles (proposed by Andrew Haigh).

Representatives of the School Jenny Sanderson (continuing in post) Philip Coxon (proposed by Keith Crawshaw)

Any Other Business Society Scarf The Chairman reported that, prior to the Dinner people had contacted him about having a female equivalent of the Society tie, such as a scarf. Christine Hazle has now designed one, based on the stained glass window in the library.We will be having a meeting to see where we can get it produced in silk.

Archive Keith Crawshaw said that we must get on with organising the archive, since we paid for the new archive room at school over a year ago now.

Date of Next Executive Committee Meeting The Secretary asked that the date be fixed for the next meeting of the Executive Committee.

The first Monday in February is the norm and Monday, 6th February was agreed.

The meeting closed at 9.18 p.m. and was followed by the customary pie and peas supper.

Signed: A M Haigh Secretary.

P W Raleigh Chairman.

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Overleaf: Annual accounts presented by P W Raleigh (Chairman); K Crawshaw (Treasurer); J A Swift (Independent Examiner)

I INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR YEAR ENDED 31ST AUGUST 2016

2015

1734 1340 65 25 60 — 116 34 119 1565 — — —

5058 2015

Printing, Stationery & Postage: Magazines Printing 1740.42 Magazines Stationery/Postage 1362.00 Other Stationery/Postage 31.36 Jessop Prize Young Old Almondburians’ Prizes Presentations Sundry Expenses Paypal Charges Computer Running Expenses KJS Contributions: Archive Room Bdg Work — Leavers’ Pens 275.00 Logocloth 433.50 Excess of Income over Expenditure

2015

4840 21 26 43 — 40 3 76

Subscriptions 4780.00 Transfer from Life Membership Account 20.09 Interest Received 4.74 Sales of Magazines 30.00 Surplus on Sales of DVDs 15.00 Surplus on Sales of Ties 60.00 Surplus on AGM Supper 2.00 Surplus on Annual Dinner 56.09 Sales of ‘Morning Assembly’ 10.00 Less Transfer to — Harry Taylor Trust Fund 10.00 — 9 Excess of Expenditure over Income —

3133.78 25.00 60.00 206.12 121.36 38.19 61.06 708.50 613.91

4967.92

5058

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31ST AUGUST 2016 2015

Accumulated Fund Balance at 1 Sep 2015 10284.58 Add Excess of Income over 10285 Expenditure 613.91 10898.49

18 864 170 60 —

Life Membership Account Balance at 1 Sep 2015 274.61 Add Interest 0.12 274.73 Less Transfer to Income 275 & Expenditure Account 20.09 254.64

2266 360 292 70 1741

15289

Trophies Stock of Ties Stock of Prints Stock of Envelopes Net Rave-up Payments in Advance

18.00 774.00 165.00 50.00 56.77

Life Membership Account 275 Nat West Business Reserve 254.64

KJS Development Fund 2266 Nat West Business Reserve

KJS Development Fund Balance at 1 Sep 2015 2265.80 Add Interest 1.01 KJS 400 Merchandise 46.63 School Histories 10.00 2323.44 Pavilion Appeal Fund Balance 165.00 Net Annual Dinner Receipts in Advance 597.48 Subscriptions in Advance 90.00 Sundry Creditors 538.50

14867.55

4967.92

35 35

2323.44

10624 945 31 36

Cash and Bank Balances National Westminster Bank: Business Reserve 10592.04 Current Account 398.96 Paypal Account 213.44 Cash in Hand 21.26 11225.70

15289

14867.55

Executive Officers

20 17

President

Ian Rimmer

King James’s School Work Telephone: (01484) 412990 e-mail: staff.irimmer@kingjames.school

Chairman

Walter Raleigh

15 Thorpe Lane Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD5 8TA

Home Telephone: (01484) 533805 e-mail: walterraleigh@hotmail.co.uk

ViceChairman

Chris. West

7 Brookside Crimble Slaithwaite Huddersfield Yorkshire HD7 5BZ

Home Telephone: (01484) 843518 e-mail: cwest225@btinternet.com

Hon Secretary Andrew M. Haigh 2 Arkenley Lane Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD4 6SQ

Home Telephone: (01484) 432105 Mobile Telephone: (07770) 220733 Work Telephone:(01484) 400032 Facsimile:(01484) 469567 e-mail: andrew@rdhaigh.com

Hon Treasurer

Keith Crawshaw

5 Benomley Drive Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD5 8LX

Home Telephone: (01484) 533658 e-mail: keithcrawshawrhb@gmail.com

Media Editor

Roger Dowling

Orchard House Oughtrington Lane Lymm Cheshire WA13 0RD

Home Telephone: (01925) 756390 Mobile Telephone: (07815) 601447 e-mail: roger.dowling@oas.org.uk

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I Ordinary Committee Members

Emily Briggs

17 Fair Street Huddersfield Yorkshire HD1 3QB

Home Telephone: (01484) 535999 e-mail: nickybriggs@hotmail.co.uk

Martyn Hicks

12 Gernhill Avenue Home Telephone: (01484) 539409 Fixby e-mail: martyn.hicks@hotmail.com Huddersfield Yorkshire HD2 2HR

Samuel Atkin

24 Far Croft Lepton Huddersfield Yorkshire HD8 0LS

Home Telephone: (01484) 307124 Work Telephone:(01484) 665023 e-mail: sam.atkin@steadrobinson.co.uk

Michael Powner

The Fairway Fixby Huddersfield HD2 2HU

Home Telephone: (01484) 423365 e-mail: mikepowner@ntlworld.com

Andrew M. Schofield Royd House Barn Royd House Almondbury Huddersfield HD4 6SX

Mobile Telephone: (07767) 600904 e-mail: andrew.schofield@camirafabrics.com

Chaplain

Rev. Chris. Pickles 73 Watercroft Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD5 8UT

Mobile Telephone: (07783) 060420 e-mail: christopherjamespickles@gmail.com

Representatives of the School

Jenny Sanderson Philip Coxon

King James’s School Work Telephone: (01484) 412990 e-mail: staff.jsanderson@kingjames.school King James’s School Work Telephone: (01484) 412990 e-mail: staff.pcoxon@kingjames.school 37

Head Boy

Alex Byram

King James’s School Telephone:

(01484) 412990

Head Girl

Olivia Falcon

King James’s School Telephone:

(01484) 412990

Badminton Section

Andrew M. Haigh 2 Arkenley Lane Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD4 6SQ

Home Telephone: (01484) 432105 Mobile Telephone: (07770) 220733 Work Telephone: (01484) 400032 Facsimile: (01484) 469567 e-mail: andrew@rdhaigh.com

Cricket Section

Samuel Atkin

Home Telephone: (01484) 307124 Work Telephone: (01484) 665023 e-mail: sam.atkin@steadrobinson.co.uk

Golf Section -

Robin E. Merchant 26 Jagger Hill Kirkheaton Huddersfield Yorkshire HD5 0RA

24 Far Croft Lepton Huddersfield Yorkshire HD8 0LS

Tennis Section Andrew M. Haigh 2 Arkenley Lane Almondbury Huddersfield Yorkshire HD4 6SQ Independent Examiner

Vice-Presidents

Mobile Telephone: (07933) 200475 e-mail: robin.merchant@talktalk.net

Home Telephone: (01484) 432105 Mobile Telephone: (07770) 220733 Work Telephone: (01484) 400032 Facsimile: (01484) 469567 e-mail: andrew@rdhaigh.com

J A Swift Nicky Murphy J A Ward Paul Balderstone Jack A. Taylor James N. Taylor Graham Cliffe Bryan Hopkinson Nicky Briggs

K G Shaw Richard J Green J Richard Taylor J Amanda Taylor David Gary Croft Robert Williams Emily Murphy Patrick O’Brien 38

Peter L Burns Keith Crawshaw John M Drewery Malcolm J Taylor David A Bush Ian Shaw

NEW YEAR HONOURS 2017

Robert Lynes is appointed CMG

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E are pleased to report that former KJS pupil Robert Lynes (1972-1978) has been appointed as a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2017 New Year Honours list.

He is Director UK for the British Council, based in Edinburgh.

The honour is in recognition of his services to strengthening cultural and educational relations between the UK and India.

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. It works with more than 100 countries in the fields of arts and culture, English language education and civil society.

Born in Newsome, Rob has travelled widely since leaving what had by then become a co-educational 13-18 comprehensive in 1978. He studied Russian and Polish before leaving Lancaster University with an MA in applied linguistics.

After several years working in Berlin and Hungary, he joined the British Council in 1986 with postings in Saudi Arabia and Poland. His most recent posting was to India, where he helped

Adrian Pope

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to expand the number of cultural and educational ties with the UK and was instrumental in establishing the UK/India Year of Culture 2017 which will celebrate a major year of cultural exchange.

Rob said: “My overarching memory of King James’s is that it was a school which set out to help every pupil fulfil his or her potential, and I am sure that aim continues today.

“My life and work over the last 34 years have taken me around the world and I have lived 27 of those years overseas in eight different countries.

“While King James’s in my time was

not overtly international in its outlook, the first time I ever took a flight was on a school exchange trip to Germany when I was about 14.

“This and the excellent French teacher Robert Field did create an early interest in the wider world and the possibilities it could offer.”

“At a time when, following the Brexit vote, the UK seeks to forge a new place in the world, the building of cultural and educational links with other countries is

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essential. We need to provide more opportunities for young people to experience and understand other cultures.”

Ian Rimmer, Principal of King James’s School, said, “With a new Head of Modern Foreign Languages and a Vice-Principal who is himself a linguist, there is more potential than ever for the School developing international links in the future. We are happy to be a vehicle n for the idea.”

The Almondburian Poets

As I surveyed the dark and grimy scene— The ragged children playing in the streets, The chimneys belching sooty smoke; I thought: Is this the place of which I’ve oft been told, Where pupils crawl from under stones and slime, And in the sewers dwell the scum of earth, And monsters lurk in dark and gloomy pools— Each weary day to rise and take their place In class and study English and be taught The rights and wrongs of writing poems?

But lo! I looked but could not see these things.

I turned—a hooter blew, a baby cried; The smell of fish and chips enriched the air.

The sweet gasometer aroma of Moldgreen.

‘Moldgreen’ by R A Whiteley, Form 4 The Almondburian, Spring 1964

district with a name like Moldgreen (and even worse, Mould Green as it was originally known) was always going to struggle to establish itself as a top holiday destination. Glamorous it may not have been – but it did at least provide unlikely inspiration for Richard Whiteley, a KJGS fourth-former in 1964.

Originally no more than a hamlet, Moldgreen owed its growth to the industrial revolution which led to a rapid expansion of industry in Huddersfield along the banks of the River Colne. Mould Green, located only half a mile away, was in an ideal position to benefit and in due course had its own factories and even – as Richard Whiteley’s nose correctly discerned – its own gasometer.

Many Almondburians will remember the old Regal Cinema (right) in Wakefield Road, opposite School Street.

It opened on 6th April 1936 and could seat over 800 people. Sadly, it became a bingo hall in the early 1960s and was demolished, along with the Congregational Church next door, to make way for the widening of Wakefield Road in the late 1980s.

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LOCAL HISTORY

The secret history of Birks Mill

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Birks Mill lies less than half a mile east of King James’s School. How many former pupils are aware of the historic links between the two?

cloth for themselves and their families, but in 1294 the Almondbury Market was founded to establish trade on more organised lines. It is said that deals were often concluded at Almondbury parish church, the lids of the tombs serving as convenient table tops for the transactions.

According to tax returns, it is estimated that there were around 20 weavers in the 1400s, by which time the village was producing some 6% of the woollen cloth manufactured in Yorkshire – significantly more than major centres like Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield.

It was only in the following century that Huddersfield started to establish itself as a centre for the organisation of the

N the last issue of The Almondburian we mentioned the long-standing school enthusiasm for cross-country running. The route, down Farnley Line and across to Dark Lane, took one past the ruins of Birks Mill, though it is doubtful whether most runners gave this a second thought as they made their weary way towards their distant goal. Certainly, few would have been aware that Birks Mill and its one-time owner John Nowell had deep links with the School, and had a great influence on the teaching of science there.

It is well known that Almondbury was once a major textiles centre. The earliest textile workers were probably making

From an Ordnance Survey map

Birks Mill and surrounding areas in 1854, described at the time as a ‘fancy woollen mill’. Water for the mill came from Rushfield Dike.

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Birks Mill in its early days.The main buildings are on the right, facing a row of workers’ cottages

trade, and by 1671 when Huddersfield was granted its market charter the process was virtually complete.

All this activity was, of course, spinning and handloom weaving carried out in cottages around the village. Sadly, most of these have now gone, though there are still a few excellent examples such as the one at the top of Almondbury Bank at Fernside and one now known as Reins Cottage in Lumb Lane. A characteristic of these weavers’ cottages is the long row of upstairs windows to maximise the light and extend the working day.

All this began to change with the introduction of mechanisation. In 1767, the spinning ‘jenny’ – so called because it did a woman’s work – was invented by James Hargreaves. A few years later, in 1785, Edmund Cartwright produced the first powered loom.The age-old ways of making cloth began to change.

Birks Mill appeared on the scene

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around 1790, built by William Nowell in partnership with James Kaye, Thomas Heaton and a number of other local men.

The site was chosen with great care: it lies alongside Rushfield Dike, a small tributory of Fenay Beck linking to the River Colne, which provided the mill with the water vital for such processes as wool washing, cloth felting and cleaning. The stream provided the water to power the mill by means of a water-wheel.

Fully equipped, it cost £5,600 (over £600,000 in today’s money), so it was a very substantial investment. It was a fulling mill, this being the process of cleansing the wool to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and make it thicker.

In addition to fulling, the mill was also used for ‘scribbling’ (preparing the wool for spinning) and ‘slubbing’ (rolling the strand of fibres preparatory to spinning).

Initially, storage dams were constructed to deal with the somewhat fickle

(Top):The cottages opposite Birks Mill photographed in 1910.

(Bottom):Today, the old cottages are largely gone

flow of water in Rushfield Dike but it was soon found that it was still insufficient to provide the power required. In 1795, a 30 hp steam engine was installed, probably the first such engine in the district.

By 1834, Birks Mill employed some 42 people, each typically working a 66hour week. Life was not always rosy. According to a report in the Huddersfield Chronicle in 1853, a cloth dresser at the mill named William Hanson failed to return home for breakfast. His wife found that his razor was missing and went off in search. Eventually he was found in a field near his former home in Honley, where he had cut his own throat.

On another occasion, in 1884, the mill manager Henry Blackburne wit-

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nessed an attempted murder in the mill yard having heard screams from the victim.

But what of the link between Birks Mill and King James’s School? It arose from the moment when, in 1841, John Nowell succeeded to his father’s lands and manufacturing interests. Born in 1794, John attended King James’s Grammar School at the time when Rev Thomas Sedgewick was headmaster, later moving to Attercliffe boarding school near Sheffield.

From an early age, John Nowell was deeply interested in all aspects of science, noted for performing dramatic chemical experiments which led to him becoming known as ‘th’ Aumbreywitch’. He lectured and travelled widely, and numbered the likes of John Dalton, Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday amongst his associates.

All this was an ideal background for someone destined to inherit Birks Mill.

He patented numerous innovations relating to dyeing and carbonising and was the first to use steam to heat water in a dyehouse. Later he introduced gas lighting, Birks Mill being the first local mill to have this innovation.

John Nowell’s interests were by no means confined to science. He took a particular interest in ‘spade husbandry’ (allotments) and travelled and wrote widely on the topic. He was also deeply

Another view of Birks Mill in the early days. In the distance, on the right, one can just see Northfield Mill on Almondbury Common which acquired Birks Mill in 1905

& Tunnicliffe, this also had connections with KJGS: G H Tunnicliffe attended the School from 1919. It was the last operational mill in Almondbury before moving to Taylor Hill Mill, Newsome in 2002. The building has now been converted into apartments.

Meanwhile, Birks Mill had become a ruin and remained so for many years; but there is a happy ending. In 2013 the principal remaining building was purchased

by Howard and Heather Partington from Salford who have done a wonderful job of restoring it, retaining many original features. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.

John Nowell died in 1869 at the age of 75. In 2004, King James’s Grammar School achieved the status of Specialist Science College. It would surely have been a very proud moment for science pioneer John Nowell, born 210 years earlier. n

interested in educational issues and helped to found Huddersfield College and become a member of its council.

What could then be more appropriate than that he should become a governor of King James’s Grammar School in 1848, a position he retained until his death? He worked closely with Rev Alfred Easther, the headmaster at that time, and played a leading role in the very early teaching of Chemistry at the school. Towards the end of his life, he devoted himself to making complete copies of over 500 folio pages of the early registers of Almondbury Church.

By the end of the 1890s, Birks Mill was starting to struggle and in 1905 the business was sold to the neighbouring Northfield Mill on Almondbury Common. Owned by mohair rug makers Sykes

lAdditional reporting: Gerald Stead (1948-1956)

(Right) Birks Mill today and (below) the building before restoration

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Farnley Lines

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EVER mind Brexit and the election of President Trump – minor matters in the media.

For the really Big News one has to visit Sincil Bank. Football fanatics will immediately know where this opening paragraph is heading while the uninformed, or those of a more balanced intellect, will wonder what on earth I am talking about.

My father first took me to the aforementioned Lincoln City football ground when I was seven.We had to divert round RAF Waddington airfield, for I was told bombs were still stacked at the side of the runways. Seventy years on – giving my age away – my support for The Imps remains undiminished.

Currently, after five years’ exile from the Football League and suddenly with two ex PE teachers in charge they are riding high at the top of the National League and have defeated two League sides in their progression to the fourth round of the FA Cup.The first was a win against Oldham Athletic. This was the opportunity for an exchange of pleasant banter with retired head and Latics fan, Robert Lamb. Robert was gracious enough to acknowledge that Lincoln were the better team.

Not wishing to upset former Huddersfield friends it would be remiss of me if I did not mention that I am aware

DAV E BU S H

how well Town are faring.With son, Alan, a Leeds fanatic I shall be somewhat torn if at the end of the season they are in competition for promotion to the premiership.

The Dinner – and some sartorial issues Normally at this time I reflect on ‘The Dinner Weekend’ but not having attended my comments are based on post prandial telephone calls and emails of which I have had many. On the positive side the attendance was excellent and I much regret not having met the reunion year and so many ex-colleagues. On the negative, I really felt for those who endured such long speeches. For me with my hearing problems they would have been intolerable. So many times I have said that the prime purpose of this evening must surely be to afford members the opportunity to meet and reminisce; I strongly urge the executive committee to guarantee to those consid-

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ering attending in future years that the total time devoted to speeches will not exceed thirty minutes.

While in my Victor Meldrew mood or mode I was disappointed to hear that for this semiformal occasion the Head Boy sported neither jacket nor tie. Add to this the fact that in acknowledging my award of a prize for Highest Academic Achievement the recipient managed to commit two errors in the spelling of the School’s name. I always said that if I ruled the world – sorry, if I had been appointed Head – I would have insisted that all pupils could spell the School’s name and know the words of the School Song by the end of their first term. I know they are dated and the tune hardly uplifting but it does help to make our School ‘slightly different’ from any other school. I am fully aware I am from a different era. How about a competition to compose a School Song for modern times? After all, the current one was not the original.

Diary memories from 1996 So how long is an era? I have now been retired for more than twenty years. Is that long enough to be considered ‘an era’? The school has undergone significant changes during that time but many aspirations and challenges remain the same. I have mentioned before that I kept a diary in my final year.This I open periodically often on

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the equivalent day in 1995-96.Today as I tap away it is 26th January. So I open my diary for that day in 1996 ie I have not chosen a special day in my final year.

‘The drawn curtains revealed in the darkness steadily falling snow.

This in combination with a Friday was bound to cause Trouble.The phone was soon ringing with the usual “Is the school open?” “Are the pupils being sent home early?” “X andY will not be in school today because of the snow”.There must have been fully one inch by the time I arrived. Some more fell during the day but nothing to justify ‘Snow Chaos’. All buses arrived on time, all left on time and the K78 arrived earlier than for many a week. How pathetic! Some pupils took off at lunchtime.We must follow this up rigorously on Monday.

Even more worrying and possible cause for the closure of the school was the fact that CW’s [Clive Watkin’s] computer is emitting smoke.This is his own and will cost him much to repair. He uses it 95% for school work yet has to pay for it himself. Something seriously remiss with the system.

Yr 9 bottom set seriously depleted while Yr 11 top set Latin 19/19 present.What conclusion does one draw? I had forewarned Yr 11 at the beginning of the lesson that twoYr 7 pupils would be sent by GW [Graham Waters] to me for a Bx3 (Bush’s Big Blast).They are a noisy, difficult-to-settle group and I had ‘ordered’

changed socially and educationally since, begowned and somewhat nervously, I began my lessons in Dorms 2, 3 and 4 in September 1961. (For younger members’ information, this is now staff accommodation). It is easy to view the grammar school days as the Golden Age but they had their weaknesses. Despite having passed their 11+ those at the bottom of the form with no chance of entering ‘the Sixth’ were regarded as dispensable. Of the 21 teachers on the staff at least five would today be regarded as incompetent. However, KJGS was judged to be highly successful, so much so it was oversubscribed and the less able had to attend Huddersfield New College.

Despite all the trauma of protracted changes, King James’s has evolved to become the most popular school in Kirklees and bears comparison nationally with similar schools. If afforded the opportunity to assume grammar school status should the governors seize it? What a dilemma!

I strongly believe the country needs an intellectual elite to compete globally and highly selective grammars would provide this. Yet there is a possible compromise and I realise I shall be accused of fence-sitting. Mary Curnock Cook, Chief Executive of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) and a governor of Swindon College has suggested* that all schools should introduce a ‘grammar stream’. She believes that offering selective streams within state schools gives the ‘best of both worlds’.

Now there’s a thought. n

him in their presence to send me two in the first five minutes for committing the most minor ‘offence’, even fiddling with a pencil. Nobody arrived. At break he said, ’I could not find the slightest thing to fault. I even left the room and on my return there wasn’t a sound.’ Such fearful respect or respectful fear? They’ll miss me.

Such arrogant pride. CW seems to be sympathising with my and PR’s [Pat Reid’s] view of our bursar.The end of a busy but generally satisfying week. Half way to half term.’

The diary contains many reflections covering all my teaching career from Grammar School to Comprehensive.

Talking about which…

This leads me neatly to my final paragraph. Theresa May has recently expressed her desire to bring back grammar schools.

Having taught for many years in both, albeit on the same site, predictably I am being asked which side of this highly controversial fence I am on.

Far from easy to answer. So much has

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*See article overleaf

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Comprehensives could have ‘best of both worlds’ by bringing in ‘grammar streams’, says UCAS boss

Mrs Curnock Cook, who leaves UCAS later this year, sent her own children to academically rigorous private schools. She said she understood why less affluent parents wanted the same sort of education for their offspring. “The truth is that we all want our children to be educated at schools that will stretch them and where behavioural norms can be taken for granted,” she said.

Her comments come as Prime Minister Theresa May continues to develop a raft of selective schools to help more of the brightest pupils, overturning Labour’s ban on new grammar schools in 1998. n

OMPREHENSIVE Schools should bring in grammar school style teaching methods, according to Mary Curnock Cook, who heads the Universities and Colleges Admission Service UCAS. Mrs Curnock Cook said that there was still a huge demand from parents for schools that have academic selection and follow a traditional academic curriculum.

She criticised some comprehensive schools for putting all their effort into getting pupils to achieve ‘C’ grades. “They must be bored rigid with this undiluted cycle of revision, exams, more revison, more exams,” she said. “It’s hardly likely to see them develop a love of learning that would inspire them on to sixth form and university.”

Mrs Curnock Cook suggested that comprehensives could have the best of both worlds by introducing ‘grammar streams’ to allow particularly bright pupils who would otherwise languish in mixed ability classes to flourish and develop their talents to the full.

She is a governor of Swindon Academy in Wiltshire which already has such a system. It has a ‘grammar stream’ of students who study all the academic subjects and receive Latin lessons from the nearby Marlborough College.

Mrs Curnock Cook said: “There is no cliff-edge exam at 11 and pupils are able to move in and out of the stream as progress dictates. There is no segregation by school blazer, just streaming with an aspirational flavour.”

lWhat areYOUR views on the great educational debate? Write to almondburian@oas.org.uk.

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Every picture tells a story

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Physics at King James’s Grammar School in the 1960s

HIS photograph shows the Physics laboratory as it was in 1963; the students are from Transitus Science.

The block housing the Physics and Chemistry labs, with the classrooms N1, N2 and N3 above, was built as part of the major School extensions completed in 1938/9.The development also included an Art Room, teachers’ common room, a new entrance and a gymnasium which also doubled as an area for morning assembly.

The project, which effectively doubled the size of the School, cost around £17,000 (equivalent to over £5 million today). It was necessitated by the enlargement of the School in the 1930s as a result of which the number of boys on the register rose to a record 286. It involved the demolition of numerous old buildings on the site including the ‘Cloisters’, the original laboratory built in the days of Alfred Easther in 1868, and the later single-storey science labs of 1900.

The School has always shown good judgement in its choice of science masters.

Two teachers who arrived in 1938 were the outstanding physicist Frank Luckman and the fine Chemistry teacher Dr Thomas Calloway.They were later followed by physics masters Dr Cyril Haigh

and Charlie Gill, and the unforgettable chemistry master John Thomas. More recent science teachers have included Les Mallinson, Robert Tellez, Alan Gaukroger, Peter Heywood, Roger L’Amie and Jack Taylor.

One happy by-product of the new 1938/9 buildings was that the ‘Big’ was no longer required as a classroom. Leonard Ash had long wanted the School to have a good library and when the ‘Big’ became available, Ash seized the opportunity with both hands. It is thanks to him that we have the splendid library which all Old Almondburians will remember and which is still in intensive use today.

Further building extensions were carried out in 1963 as a result of which the old gymnasium was converted into science laboratories. More laboratories were built in 2002.

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Back row: R B Brook, I R Platt, H E Willshaw, A Walker, Mr C H Gill Middle row: G C Steedman, G Panther, J S Moorhouse, R M H Smith, B Jackson, W R Hirst Front row: I W Lodge, D J Roebuck, M A Calder-Smith, J N Chapman, P R Grant, R G Harrison

PRINTING

Creating a good impression

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JAMES CLAYTON (1947 - 1951)

“With 26 soldiers of lead I will conquer the world” (former printer and newspaper editor Benjamin Franklin, later one of the founding fathers of the United States)

RYING to cover the pre-com- teaching in the College of Further Edputer production methods in a ucation in Dunstable and subsequently relatively short space will not Norwich City College of Further and be easy but at least it will be possible to Higher Education, where I stayed until understand how far things have come my retirement. since the invention of movable type in Hand typesetting Germany in the late 15th century.

Typesetting by hand involved pickWhen I left school, I took up an aping up individual letprenticeship as a comters one by one and positor with Netherspacing them out, line wood & Dalton’s, by line, in a handprinters of a wide held composing stick. range of products inThese were placed on cluding Jane’s All the a tray (galley) folWorld’s Aircraft and lowed by proofing, schoolbooks for reading, correcting Schofield and Sims. and make-up with This was followed by Clayton left AGS to take up an blocks of illustrations a spell at the Halifax James apprenticeship as a compositor with Courier and then the Huddersfield printers Netherwood & into pages. Do you remember your ‘John Huddersfield Examiner. Dalton’s. Later he worked at the Courier and then the Bull’ printing outfit, The Civil Service then Halifax Huddersfield Examiner. In the early which you had as a beckoned with a job 1960s, he joined Her Majesty’s child? at Her Majesty’s Sta- Stationery Office in London as a buyer for various government Many Old Altionery Office in Lon- print departments. He then lectured in don, working as a typography at the College of Further mondburians will remember the Printing print buyer for dif- Education in Dunstable and then the Norwich City College of Further and Society that Albert ferent government Higher Education.With the growth departments. My ca- of computer technology, this became Makinson set up in the early 1950s. The reer then took a turn absorbed into the Department of Information Technology, where he Society used to proin a different direction stayed until his retirement in 1996. duce letterheads and when I ended up 50

Hand typesetting in 1963: an apprentice secures type within a chase using expandable ‘quoins’ while his colleague assembles letters in a composing stick

The spool of paper was then transferred to the casting unit and the the codes controlled the positioning of a matrix case of characters from which the letters were cast.

The casting unit produced individual letters, arranged in lines of text one after the other. Proofing and corrections had to wait until the whole text was available and assembled in trays (the trays were called galleys – hence the term ‘galley proofs’).

Page make up would then follow.

At Netherwood’s we used a mixture of hand typesetting for general jobbing work, and Monotype machines for large quantities of text such as bookwork. The

programmes for plays, using an Adana printing press.

Historically, work was handset until the arrival of mechanical typesetting during the Industrial Revolution. Principal machines were the Monotype (single letter composition), used in bookwork, and a solid-line product known as the Linotype, which was favoured by newspapers. Both were amazing examples of the mechanical engineers’ skill and are still to be marvelled at (if you can find them).

The hot metal used for casting was an alloy of mostly lead, with some tin and antimony added.

Monotype machines Monotype machines were generally used by book printers. Two units were involved: the keyboard and the casting unit.

The principle involved was that operation of the QWERTY keyboard resulted in perforations on a toilet roll sized spool of paper similar to those on ticker tape. Each set of perforations represented a particular letter or space value.

(Left) A monotype matrix case containing an array of 255 matrices from which letters were cast 51

(Right) A typical individual cast letter

An early linotype machine: these machines became the standard machines used for newspaper production all over the world.

A typical ‘line of type’ is shown below.

compositor then had the job of assembling all components, including display lines, borders, blocks with illustrations etc. In bookwork, pages were then arranged into ‘formes’ of type on a ‘stone’ (steel nowadays) as seen on the photograph opposite.

Linotype machines Linotype machines were much faster machines which cast solid lines of text rather than individual letters. They were eventually used all over the world for newspaper typesetting.

They were one-man machines in which operation of the keyboard would summon up individual brass matrices from the magazine above.They were assembled in a vice-like measure which could be set to various column widths. In between each word a space band would be inserted mechanically from a separate magazine just above the assembly point. The space bands were one sliver of two thin steel opposing wedges which were used to expand the space between the matrices.When the line was at a critical point, the operator would raise the complete line which would be presented to the mould whereby a solid line was cast. Then all the matrices and spacebars were returned, by some stunning mechanical engineering, to their original places on the machine.

Linotype machines were popular in newspapers because the lines were cast in succession from the beginning of the story, which meant that if time was pressing, the

first part of the story could be used and later expanded as the story unfolded.

The other benefit was that as the text was in a solid line it meant there was less chance of a ‘printer’s pie’ (upset type). It did mean however, that if there was a mistake in the line then the whole line would have to be reset.

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Later technology I was in Further Education as a college lecturer when the big change came along which affected each and every one of us.

The introduction of computers came along steadily until eventually whole classrooms were full of them and the college had its own network.

Meanwhile, in the printing industry, a new technology was appearing – that of photo typesetting. Newer versions of machines such as the Monophoto were now able to produce images of text on film, rather than casting hot metal.This cut out several production stages and made it easier to produce plates for lithography, a different planographic process.This, combined with the spread of computing within the college, led us to experiment with linking up the network with the production of text photographically on film or paper, according to which process was required.

Meanwhile in the big wide world, the World Wide Web was beginning to make its presence felt. Following a year on secondment, I remember in the mid 1980s reporting to my head of depart-

ment about how it was possible to see the prospectuses for the University of East Anglia by the use of a computer and phone line. Convergence was inevitable.

Processes overlapped and before long we were using digital cameras, which didn’t need any film. Computers for the home user were getting more sophisticated.

Desktop publishing was with us. People were getting carried away producing print of a professional quality, although the design was not always very good. (You may recall the abominations of design that Letraset heralded). In other words, knowledge of the finer points of the spacing and arranging of type is still worthwhile.

When all factors coincide, the end result is pleasing to the eye.

In printing, it’s all about creating a good impression – in more senses than one. n

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Magazine production: 2017 style

AVING read James Clayton’s article, readers may be interested to know a little about how The Almondburian is designed and produced today. In technology terms, it’s a far cry from the Monotype machines of yesteryear: one fast computer, one large colour screen, one flat-bed scanner, a mono laser printer and (out of shot) a colour laser printer.

Most articles are submitted by email, so it’s a fairly simply task to re-format them into the typographic style of the magazine: body text is 11pt Perpetua on 12 pt leading; ‘panels’ (such as this one) are usually set in 8 pt Gill Sans on 9 pt.

The magazine is designed and typeset using QuarkXpress, one of two industrystandard desk-top publishing programmes generally used today, and I make extensive use of Photoshop for picture correction and manipulation. Illustrations are scanned using an Epson flat-bed scanner.

A vital stage before the magazine goes to press is that it is expertly proof-read by Keith Crawshaw.

The magazine has steadily increased in pagination over the years and 60 pp or more is now common.The finished version is emailed as a pdf file to our printer in Germany, who sends over the printed magazines by courier 7-10 days later.

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CROSSWORD

by Hérisson

Entries to the Editor (address/email: back cover) by 1st June 2017 Prize: 12 months free OAS membership

ACROSS 1. Touch against sensitivity (7) 5. No man is moving house (7) 10. Least unknown. She’s a terror (4) 11. Is tired, but creates spread (10) 12. In deep, a scalene triangle man (6) 13. Encroach within broken finger (8) 14. Lie on account, citing third sequence (9) 16. Spoils sport in the south (5) 17. Naughty outsiders on speed make young fly (5)

19. Hold the line accompanied by support (9) 23. Notice present with National Trust follower (8) 24. Force imitator, not religious, to join church (6) 26. She’s a sailor (10) 27. Thoughts missing a date (4) 28. How days become dark (7) 29. Roy sets out for seafood (7)

DOWN 1. Wise men back in, or I make paper craft (7) 3. Poisonous to 10-99 (5) 4. I called out for diacritical mark (7) 6. Notice break floating (5) 7. Nickname “Boris” quite unusual. No-one in (10) 8. To conga madly creating figure (7) 9. Nine saver (1,6,2,4) 15. Work by the Fourth Estate. Journalist persecuted (9) 18. Hid daisy? No, a strange language (7) 20. Game holds leading northern artist (7) 21. Break rule. Can become a family type (7) 22. 6 enters. We’re about to look again (6) 25. Throw out wild civet (5)

Name Email Tel

l The winner of Terry’s Teaser (November 2016) was David Bush

Across 1. Procrastination 8. Leeward 11.Thief 13. All 14. Ace 15.Talc 16. His 17. Rowan 19. Indian meal 21. Marc 22. Undo 24. Railway age 27. Olive 29.Tis 30. Nore 31. Roo 33. Oro 35. Miami 37. Burundi 38. Sunday lunchtime Down 1. Pulchritudinous 2. Cowl 3. Soda 4. Internally 5. Ami 6. Infanta 7. Nutcracker suite 9. Eased 10. Alpha 12. Eta 18. Immaterial 20. Iso 21. May 23. Doorman 25. Actor 26. Anton 28. Lei 32. Oban 34. Runt 36. Ada

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Some thoughts on crosswords

he Crossword has been a regular feature of The Almondburian since 2010 and each issue brings a small clip of solutions from readers keen to pits their wits against compilers Terry Buckley or, more recently, David Bradford. So what is the enduring appeal of the Crossword?

Of course, we are referring here to the British crossword, rather than the insipid type of literal crossword that is still the norm in other parts of the world. Here is a yawn-inducing example from the New York Times: ‘How the boss wants things done, briefly [= fast]’). We Brits prefer the cryptic crossword: a battle to the death between compiler and solver.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, here are a few of the more common ploys. Few cryptic crosswords are complete without the split word, in which the solution is traditionally hidden over two lines. For example: It can always be seen in a cycle velodrome, though not in the track (5) [= level].

Another favourite is the ambiguous word. When a compiler refers to a ‘flower’, forget about any thoughts of roses, hyacinths and dahlias. The chances are that the solution is something like Thames or Ouse; that is, a river which flows and is therefore a ‘flower’.

I particularly like the ones that raise a chuckle: Professional man who goes to work on foot (11) [= chiropodist] But the compiler’s favourite tool is surely the simple anagram, the best examples of which are either entirely appropriate – or, even better’ so unlikely as to invite total disbelief.

One wonders how many astronomers, having reached retirement age, sadly lament to their wives no more stars!

And do musicians in orchestras, plodding their weary way though their umpteenth performance of Beethoven’s Fifth, occasionally feel no better than carthorses?

But what has all this to do with our former school, one might ask.Well, here are two or three examples that might have been appreciated in our schooldays.

What fun it might have been to accuse the teachers of being a lot of cheaters!

Of course, they could themselves have cautioned about the dangers of cheating, loftily pointing out that their role in life was simply one of education.

And I wonder how many of them, as they made their daily way to the classrooms, realised that this was an entirely appropriate anagram of schoolmasters?

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CRIME

The case of the missing iPad

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ANDREW TAYLOR (1963 - 1970)

Our hero, suspecting that his iPad has been stolen at Paddington Station, turns Sherlock Holmes as he unflinchingly tracks down the thief to bring him (or her) to justice

T's one of the oldest and most re- rack, and I must have put it on top of my spected rules of human behaviour - iPad on the table. Surely she, being pretolder than All You Need Is Love, ty well disposed towards the man who had and even more honoured than Brexit helped her, would realise when she moved Means Brexit. A Man’s Gotta Do What A the bag that I had forgotten the iPad, and Man's Gotta Do. (And a woman too, of would hand it in at lost property. I leapt off course. I make no sexist point here. After the underground, and caught another all, the real name of John Wayne, the high train back to Paddington and the lost priest of AMGDWAMGD, was Marion property office. She hadn’t.

Morrison.)

I waited around for half an hour or so, So when the forces of darkness come constantly expecting to see her wrinkled, crashing into our cosy, protected civilised kindly apologetic face, but nothing haplife, we have to fight back. This, in all pened. Then, beginning to panic, I made modesty, is the story of how I did just my first wise move. I phoned my wife. that, tracking a thief doggedly through the “Duh!” she said, sympathetically. “Use streets of London and finally running him the Find My iPad feature on your phone.” to ground.

I still say I would have thought of this on It started innocently enough. I had just my own, given time, but I hadn’t. So I did left Paddington Station on the underas advised, and even put a ground, and reached into my bag for my message on the front of Andrew iPad. My whole life is crammed into that the missing iPad giving Taylor has been a magical thin tablet - photographs, my name and phone freelance writer since friends' contact details, memo2004. After a career in number and offering a journalism which started ries, music, appointments and, reward. Still nothing, with the Yorkshire Evening most importantly at that moment, and it began to dawn Post and ended with the BBC, he travelled to the my morning newspaper. on me that my preMiddle East in 1988 to It wasn’t there. cious device had not work for Dubai Television.

I wasn’t too worbeen lost or misHe now lives in Warwickshire, where he ried at first. As I’d laid. It had been and his wife share got off the train in stolen. a passion for Paddington, I’d lifted And then, with narrowboats. a reassuring ‘ping!’ an old lady's bag down off the 56

a map of Paddington appeared as if by magic on my phone. A little pulsating dot appeared on the far side of the station my iPad! As I dashed towards it, I realised that it marked the Excess Fares window: the sweet old lady must have had a fare to pay, and handed it in there. I blessed her as I ran – but the man in the office looked at me blankly. “Sorry, pal. Not here.”

Now, as I looked at the screen, I could see that my phone was on the move – up the service road that leads out of the station towards a steak house in the street.

Driven by fury, I ran madly after it, barely restraining myself from shouting “Stop thief!” as I went. It came to a halt at the steak house, and I burst in, looking around accusingly. Surely I would be able to spot the thief as he handed over his booty to the evil Fagin who lived off his ill gotten gains? But all I saw was a roomful of people innocently eating breakfast and drinking coffee.

Clearly the steak house hadn’t been

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his destination. (Sexism again. I automatically assumed that the thief was a man.)

The little dot was on the move again, down the street towards the hospital a hundred yards away. I followed it, cannoning into people and trampling innocent toddlers underfoot as I ran down the pavement, my eyes on the dot. It stopped at a junction just outside the hospital, and I stood there, looking at the people around.

I won’t go into the baseless prejudices that flood your mind at a time like that.

That man’s eyes were too close together, clearly the sign of a villain. This woman was looking decidedly shifty. That couple were glancing back guiltily over their shoulders...

And then – inevitably – the dot was slowly on the move again, back towards the station. For a good three-quarters of an hour I followed my thief, whoever he was, around the streets of Paddington. I tracked him with the cunning of Sherlock Holmes, the angry determination of

I was just about to put my daring scheme into action when something struck me. My iPad – clearly in his pocket – was beeping just as loudly as I had been when I brushed against him as I passed...

Slowly, I bent down and picked up my bag. The beeps got louder. I turned it around. The beeping got louder still. And then I spotted a pocket in the bag which I swear I’d never seen before. And there was my missing iPad. I had been tracking myself around Paddington for the last hour.

The moral, of course, is simple.When technology firms boast about how clever they are, they lie. They are about as accurate as a drunk playing darts.

And the second moral is that you should always remember where you put your iPad. “All right, mate?” I said to my pal in the day glow jacket, who was looking at me a bit strangely as I turned and retraced my steps towards the underground. n Sent from my iPad

Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the tenacity of a bloodhound. Until eventually he turned back into the station.

Then he started off up the same road by which he’d left originally, and I spotted him. By some miracle, the road was almost empty, and there he was, on his own, a figure in a yellow day glow jacket.

I also had a brainwave – another click on my phone would start the iPad ringing.

The wonders of Apple!

As I approached him, meaning to grab him by the scruff of the neck and demand the return of my property, I paused. Now, I am young enough to remember – just about – the days when I was young and strong and not afraid of a bit of a bundle.

But as I got closer, I could see that the thief was about half my age. His day glow jacket seemed to stretch over broad, square shoulders. He was, to put it briefly, built like a particularly well trained rhinoceros.

If I tried the direct Schwarzenegger approach, there would only be one outcome, and it wasn’t a good one for me.

But I could hear my iPhone beeping plaintively, appealingly, at me. I had to do something. I walked briskly a couple of yards past him, and paused. I had a plan.

I would go up to him, smiling, my hand held out to shake his. “Mate,” I would say, “I know you’ve got it. Just hand it over and let’s call it quits?” I flatter myself that I do Mr Nice Guy quite well.

Andrew Taylor’s latest books are Walking Wounded: The Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell and The Greeks Had a Word for it: Words you never knew you can’t do without. Both are on sale from Amazon and all good bookshops.

Review: opposite page.

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BOOK REVIEW

The Greeks Had a Word For It

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edly ‘kept you at the office’ for a couple of hours. Well, there is, if you’re a Frenchman (or even a Frenchwoman): it’s called a cinq-a-sept.

The author does not claim to be a highly skilled linguist, though he modestly claims that he speaks enough French to make the French sneer at him and enough Arabic to make the Arabs laugh at him. But he has many friends who speak a variety of languages and have served him well: there are words in this book that will fascinate and amuse, with an engaging commentary full of laugh-out-loud observations.

Sadly, a few of the words the author has identified will struggle to enter our lexicon as we already have better and more succinct words of our own.We all know what we mean when we call someone a wimp, so one doesn’t fancy the prospects of the German equivalent: handschuhschneeballwerfer. n Logophile

NGLISH is a wonderful language. It’s the official language of over 60 sovereign states around the world and it’s the native language of 400 million people. And it’s been around a long, long time.

Part of its charm is that it’s never hesitated to borrow a word from its foreign neighbours whenever it’s been short of one of its own.You want to give someone a completely free hand to do whatever they want? Simple, give them carte blanche. You need a word to describe the guilty pleasure you get from seeing someone else’s misfortune? Yes. it’s our old friend schadenfreude.

In fact, foreign words are so useful that Old Almondburian Andrew Taylor has performed a valuable public service in drawing our attention in The Greeks Had a Word For It – often with tongue firmly in cheek – to a wonderful selection of words waiting in the wings for their big moment.

Who has not experienced the acute embarrassment of forgetting someone’s name at the precise moment one was about to introduce them? If you are Scottish, you can cheerfully shrug it off by explaining that you have tartled, and all will be forgiven.

And if only there were an elegant guilt-free way of describing that illicit romantic meeting that has unexpect-

The Greeks Had a Word For It

Words you never knew you can’t do without

Price: £9.99 190 pages Hard-back (Also softback at £6.49 and Kindle at £5.49) 196 x 124 mm ISBN 9780593075715 and 0593075714

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And back at the School…

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OR years, it was Gilbert & Sullivan.

Then, it was the annual Shakespeare production using the portable stage in the school gymnasium.

Things have moved on at King James’s as the musical Fame took to the stage with a cast of over 90 and a live band on 14th, 15th and 16th February.

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EAR 11 Mathematics students have been introduced to the Core Mathematics course that is now offered at Greenhead and New College. As an alternative to the traditional ‘A’ level Mathematics course, Core Mathematics is a new qualification designed for students who have achieved a grade 5 or above at GCSE. It focuses on using and applying Mathematics to solve problems drawn from other subjects, work and real life. The Core Mathematics course includes new content such as statistics, financial mathematics and using algebra.

Core Mathematics helps with the mathematics needed for a broad range of other subjects and is a good choice for any student who doesn’t wish to study A Level Mathematics, but wants to improve their mathematical skills.

It helps to develop students’ mathematical skills and thinking and supports courses such as ‘A’ level Psychology, Sciences and Geography as well as technical and vocational qualifications.

Mathematics conference Fourteen of the School’s most able mathematicians inYear 11 attended a Mathematics conference held at the University of Hull. The conference aimed to inspire students to study at a higher level by extending their experiences of Mathematics beyond GCSE. Students attended three workshops, a highlight being a workshop looking at the mathematics used in Shadow Mapping, a process of adding shadows to video games and computer generated cartoons.They also looked at network analysis and the world of taxicab geometry.

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total of 57 students at King James’s School were prize winners in a national writing competition run by Young Writers, the organisation set up in 1992 to encourage young people to engage in creative writing.

Students had to produce a descriptive ‘spine-chilling’ piece of writing .

The winning students (pictured above) had the honour of having their work published by the Young Writers.

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ING James’s School Foundation has provided funding of £21,000 for a new canopy to provide a muchneeded covered courtyard for use by students during breaks.

It supplements a similar £10,000 canopy above the walkway leading to the gym/sports hall and drama entrances, funded by a successful bid to the Big Lottery Fund. This provides cover for students, parents and the local community who use these facilities.

Summer Quiz at King James’s

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E’RE planning a special fun Quiz Evening at the School to mark the 40th anniversary of the introduction of comprehensive education at King James’s.The event will be open to students, staff, parents and OAS members.

The date is being finalised as we go to press but is likely to be in June after the summer examinations.

We’ll be giving more details on our website www.oas.org.uk or you can contact OAS chairman Walter Raleigh (contact details on back cover) 61

QUIZ Summer

Badminton / Tennis

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AND R E W H AI G H

OLLOWING the near demise of the Badminton Section on which I reported in the last issue, the threat to its existence has clearly rekindled an enthusiasm for it and I am delighted to report that the Badminton Section is currently enjoying its most successful season since 2011.

Although only eleven different people have played so far this season, the important fact is that they have all played regularly, meaning that for the majority of weeks we have had sufficient people playing to have both courts in operation, which is exactly what we need to be viable.

We would love you to come along and join us! We play in the school sports hall on Thursday evenings during term time from 7.30 p.m. until 9.30 p.m.

Because of the better numbers this season, we now pay only ÂŁ5 per evening towards the hire of courts and showers,

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a n d rew. h a igh @o a s . o rg. u k

the purchase of shuttlecocks and the donation of a prize at Presentation Evening, but with just a few more players, this fee will reduce further.

Please note that there will be no badminton during February halfterm (23rd February), nor during the Easter holidays (13th & 20th April). Otherwise, we will be playing each Thursday up to and including 25th May. l The eleven players who have played so far this season are: Matthew Booth Ian Daffern Neil Gledhill Richard Green Andrew Haigh Annabel Haigh Robin Merchant Emily Murphy David Parry Chris. Pickles CraigWatts

The 2017 Almondburian Tennis season will start on Thursday, 8th June and will run until Thursday, 31st August. Last year, because a damaged lock prevented us

from accessing the nets for the school tennis courts, we decamped to Longley Tennis Club, where we enjoyed better surfaces than the school tennis courts currently provide and where we also avoided problems with cars parking on the tennis courts during events such as parents’ evenings. It is always nice for Almondburian events to be held at school wherever possible but, when there are such good facilities just a stone’s throw away, it does make sense to take advantage of them where possible.

In view of this, we will be looking to negotiate a similar arrangement to last

year, where we played at Longley Tennis Club each Thursday evening between the above dates, weather permitting, from 7.30 pm until dusk. During term-time, it is possible to play badminton in the sports hall if the weather is inclement, although this is not possible during the summer holidays due to maintenance work in the sports hall.

Last year, the fee, to cover the cost of court hire, balls and showers, was £3.00 for members of Longley Tennis Club and £6.00 for non-members, per person, per evening. Almondburian tennis is purely social, so why not come along and join us? n

Golf: Gothard Cup

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RO BI N ME R C H ANT

ro b in . m erc h a n t@ta lk ta lk . n et

E are now starting to prepare plans for this year’s Gothard Cup event at Woodsome Hall. The competition will be on Sunday, 11th June; tee booked from 3.00 pm to 4.30 pm with evening meal and presentation to follow.We will circulate details in due course to all who may be interested in taking part.

At the recent Annual Dinner, it was a particular pleasure to meet George Gothard (19451950) (left), son of George Gothard (1908-1913) who, as an enthusiastic OAS committee member, presented the original Gothard Cup in 1932. n l We hope to carry an interview with George Gothard in a future issue.

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Cricket

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S AM AT KIN

IRSTLY, may I take this opportunity of very belatedly wishing all you Almondburians a Happy New Year from everyone who is involved with the cricket club. I trust you all had a Merry Christmas and have eaten and drunk everything you shouldn’t over the festive period! But I think it’s safe to say that we are all now looking forward to the warmer weather, and with that, bringing another season upon us at Arkenley.

I believe I covered everything in the last issue regarding last year’s cricket season, so I am going to focus on the future and fill you all in regarding what is going on behind the scenes.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank two players who have since left the club. My vicecaptain Jack Ingham has chosen a new challenge at Lascelles Hall, whilst opening bowler Adam Lightowlers has decided to spoil good walks by hitting a tiny white ball into holes around fields… or golfing as it is more commonly known! I wish them both all the success in their new adventures and both will be sorely missed on and off the field.

s a m _a tk in @ya h o o . co . u k

Many of you may have seen that our application into the Drakes League has all gone to plan. This is a very positive step for the club and I can assure you only good things can come of this. I must stress however that we have had to have numerous meetings regarding our current facilities and player availability and we are doing our best to strengthen our situation.

Our Presentation Evening this year will change slightly. We have held our last three events at Grappolos and they have all been a huge success. However we are looking at a more laid back approach this year, and the plan is to have a Race Night/Presentation Evening at the Woolpack in Almondbury either on 25th March or 1st April. I will be emailing out information to many of our members who attend each year. So if you would like to join us, I will be providing information on Twitter and email in the very near future.

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The sports pavilion On page 11 of this issue of The Almondburian you can read the latest news

A state-of-the-art ‘Bola’ bowling machine at Total Indoor Cricket Solutions at Thongsbridge.

asking, as you read this, if you know of anyone boyfriends, husbands, children, grandchildren, nephews, cousins, who would be interested in playing for our club and be part of something special.

We are a young side and have always been complimented on our welcoming approach. I can assure you we are using social media to promote the club and recruit using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and we have also put up posters in some of the local schools. Hopefully this will mean an influx of players and I look forward to seeing many new faces when nets start in early February.

Information will be on Twitter @OACCCricket with other happenings at the club so please give our club a follow and share our journey!

about the new sports pavilion. I must say that all the players are very excited that the work has finally started and we can look forward to the new facilities in the future.

Required: more players!

There is a fresh buzz around the club, but please can I take this opportunity to ask you once again for a small favour. We have a very bright future in our hands, but this can only become a reality with the players and people willing to put the effort in both on and off the field. A new club house, a better league, a new challenge!

But as always, we need players to make the club into what it can be. I’m

Nets Winter nets started on Tuesday, 7th February at Total Indoor Cricket Solutions (TICS) at Thongsbridge. It’s not too late to join us.

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Thank you Thank you once again for reading. I hope I don’t go on too much about player recruitment. But unfortunately that is the reality at the moment. I am just passionate about this club and want the club to meet its full potential! n

Postbag

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YO U WRITE …

I never realised that Alex had attended KJGS

From: Prof Alan Prout(1961-1964)

T was with sadness that I read of the death of Alex Danchev in the latest issue of The Almondburian. I knew Alex when we were both lecturers at Keele University in the 1990s.

Although we were not personal friends and were members of different departments, we did work along the same corridor and would greet each other on many days.

I also recall that there was a time when Alex served as Dean of Faculty and I am sure we met at various committee meetings, as well as having some one-to-one discussions about the issues of the day.

What makes his relatively early death even more poignant for me is that we never discovered our common roots in Huddersfield and at KJGS. Knowing that would have added another significant layer to my relationship with this gentle and talented scholar.

Marsden,WestYorkshire

The 2016 dinner: the evening dragged on too long

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From: James Clayton(1947-1951)

daresay much has been written about the recent dinner but as far as our table was concerned (number 13 – unlucky for some) it was not one of the better ones.

The general feeling was that the meal was not up to the usual standard and the promised improved ambience was not apparent. The whole evening seemed distant from the ethos of being an Old Almondburian – the speeches seemed to have little relevance. The

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evening dragged on too long and eventually (around 11.30 pm) the people around us started to leave and our party soon joined them. Some people had a long way to drive home. If I tell you that we even left our raffle tickets on the table you will know how serious things were.

I know it is easy to be critical and that members of the committee work very hard but hopefully they will take the comments in the spirit in which

they are intended; that is, to encourage people to return next year.

Coincidentally, the Founders’ Day service also seemed to be less well-attended this year although the pupils acquitted themselves very well in their musical performances.

Finally, on a lighter note, some may have noticed our 1947 group wearing

the badge (pictured) given to each of us by one of our class members.

The OBE refers to our group being ‘Over B****y Eighty’.

The class of 1947 had ten members present, which wasn’t a bad effort. Next year we should be celebrating our 70th anniversary since starting at AGS. Old Catton, Norwich

Putting the world to rights: members of the 1947 group at the Star at Folly Hall on the evening before the Annual Dinner. (Left to right) James Clayton, Terry Green, Keith Bellerby, Geoff Robertshaw, Tony Copley, Norris Bonser and Keith Brier.

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‘Little more than a ramble’

From: David Slocombe (1965-1971) VER the years, the quality and relevance of speakers has been in decline to the point where, tonight, I and those around me were bored. The only light relief was the address by the former deputy headmaster.

The membership attending are almost exclusively former pupils of the Gram-

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mar School.Teaching staff from after that era are of little interest and unfortunately, much of tonight’s content was little more than a ramble.

Please take note as this is not a lone voice; more, the opinion of many attending tonight.

Huddersfield,WestYorkshire

Obituaries

G O NE BU T NOT F O R G OTT EN

Stuart Roebuck (1950-1955) Inspirational Methodist preacher who in his later years became OAS chaplain We report with sadness the death in Huddersfield Royal Infirmary on 15th October 2016 of our OAS chaplain Stuart Roebuck. Stuart attended Berry Brow County School and Almondbury Grammar School before going to work for the Royal Insurance at Halifax, Doncaster, Sunderland and Leicester. There he reached superintendent level and achieved Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Insurancers (FCII). In Leicester he was a lay preacher for his local Methodist church and delivered the religious talks for a local radio station.

After 20 years in insurance he had a ca- ing, afternoon and evening and a plethora reer change and moved to Bristol to study of chapel teas, beetle drives, plays, ramfor a Bachelor of Divinity and was or- bles, bus trips and much more. The dained into the Methodist church.

Chapel and the Roebuck family were an Stuart Walton Roebuck was born in entity.

Hall Bower on 28th June 1939. His father At Berry Brow County School he was Norman, an insurance inspector with a bright pupil, always near the top of the Royal Insurance, excelled as an organist, class. It was no surprise when he passed choir member, producer of concerts and his 11-plus examination and on 6th Seppantomimes, fund raiser and general or- tember 1950 he proudly became a pupil ganiser – a gentleman of charisma and en- at what was then invariably known as Alergy and authority, he was much mondbury Grammar School. OAS memrespected and liked. For Stuart, life re- ber and close neighbour John Eastwood volved around Hall Bower Chapel: he at- recalls: “Stuart, Keith Brierley, Howard tended Sunday School from the age of Robinson, David Ingham and I all went to four, there was weekly choir practice, Berry Brow and joined AGS at the same weekly youth club, Sunday services morn- time. Stuart, David and Keith all left in 68

1955 after taking their ‘O’ levels.The two forms of each year were streamed, with the ‘A’ class deemed more able than the ‘Alpha’. Stuart was always very near the top of the ‘A’ class and passed everything but History in his GCEs. In spare time and for recreation he and Richard Stead – Gerald’s brother – enjoyed translating Latin prose into French. In class Roebuck and Stead were in adjacent desks.”

Stuart left school at the age of 16 to join his father at Royal Insurance. His first appointment was in Halifax, later taking up appointments in Doncaster and Sunderland where he met his wife Joan. His work then took them to Leicester where children Helen and Graham were born. It was during his time in Leicester that he became a lay preacher and local radio broadcaster, which led to his decision to read for a Bachelor of Divinity degree and train for the Methodist Ministry at Wesley College, Bristol.

After being ordained as a Methodist minister he took up his first circuit in Cranleigh, Surrey. The Roebuck family then moved to Culford, near Bury St Edmunds, where a new dimension to his ministry started. His children attended Culford School, an independent coeducational day and boarding school where in due course Stuart became school chaplain and Joan became a much-loved matron.

For ten years Stuart was Chairman of the School’s Charity Committee and he assisted in running the Charity Restaurant.

During his term of office over £100,000 was raised for Casa Materna, a Methodistrun orphanage in Naples.

Stuart was the author of numerous books on subjects of both national and

local interest. While at Culford he took part in staff plays, including an acclaimed performance of J B Priestley’s WhenWe Are Married first produced a year before Stuart’s birth and written by his fellowYorkshireman from the West Riding.

He also became Chaplain of the National MethodistYouth Brass Band, which gave him enormous personal enjoyment.

On returning to Huddersfield, where he and his wife moved into a house only a few doors away from the one in which he had been raised, Stuart again became involved in Hall Bower Chapel. Being an independent non-denominational church, Hall Bower had never had a minister and depended on volunteer preachers to come on Sunday evenings to conduct services: once Stuart was back, he usually filled the bill.

When Stuart became chaplain of the Old Almondburians’ Society four years ago, he immediately threw himself into the task of stengthening the links between the School and the OAS, particularly in the context of the annual Founders’ Day service. Although he understood the reasons, it disappointed him that it was no longer mandatory for all pupils to attend the service; however, he was delighted to meet success in involving members of the school choir and was hoping that this would lead to further interest from the School in the years ahead.

It was sad that in later years Stuart began to suffer seriously from the effects of diabetes. His death followed a fall at his home.

StuartWalton Roebuck, born 28th June 1939, died 15th October 2016.

John Eastwood

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Michael Dyson (1940-1947) Former OAS Chairman who led the campaign to retain grammar school status As a young man interested in treadReaders will be saddened to learn that former Chairman of the Old Al- ing the boards he joined the Huddersmondburians’ Society Michael Dyson field Light Opera Company. His career on stage was short lived, culminating in died on 8th October 2016.

Michael started his life at the top of him stabbing himself in the foot with his Ravensknowle Road and ended it at the sword in the Yeoman of the Guard and it bottom of Ravensknowle Road, totally embracing his life in Huddersfield in the 86 years in between.

Leaving King James’s Grammar School and Siddon House in 1947, he was articled to Sam Hurst of Hurst and Elmsleigh and, after qualifying as a chartered accountant, moved to Fred Sheard & Sons where he later became a partner up until his retirement.

During his professional life he served at different times as President of the Huddersfield Chartered Accountants Students Society, Huddersfield Chartered Accountants Society and the West Yorkshire Dis- Proudly holding his award of MBE (Michael Being Eighty) with the trict Society of Char- top inscription “There is no accounting for taste” and below “Accountants add up numbers but it is the tobacco that counts” tered Accountants.

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years loved to play golf at Longley Golf Club where he and Marjorie were members.

He even took up skiing at the grand age of 50 and his daughter, Sally, hilariously remembers the time he returned from one of his skiing trips with his beloved pipe bent to a perfect 90 degree angle.

Throughout his life after School he was an active member of the Old Almondburians’ Society. A member of the Executive Committee, he served as Chairman in 1963 so becoming a Vice President.

For many years he enjoyed his weekly game of badminton at the School, regularly attended the Annual Dinner as well as supporting and sometimes organising other social functions.

Probably his most significant work for the Society was as Status Secretary in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At a time when the very future of King James’s was under threat from the planned introduction of comprehensive education in Huddersfield, he coordinated opposition to the scheme, championing the case for King James’s Grammar School and keeping members up to date with regular reports in The Almondburian.

Many organisations will miss his humour and enthusiastic contributions but particularly the Society of which he was a stalwart.

Michael Frederick Dyson, born 7th December 1929, died 9th October 2016.

Sally Jennings and Keith Crawshaw

was at this point he decided his talents would perhaps be put to greater use behind the scenes. He later became treasurer, before promotion to general manager and then President. His support was unerring and he was still responsible for the accounts right up until the last weeks of his life.

He met his wife, Marjorie, a country lass from North Grimston when she came to work as a hairdresser for his aunt. In a busy life, Michael always found time for his family, especially enjoying weekends and holidays at the cottage. This was a derelict railway station in the village where Marjorie was born, which, together they lovingly restored over the years.

With a gusto for life, Michael formed many friendships through his involvement in numerous societies, clubs and groups. He joined UDS, the discussion society, writing and delivering papers on subjects as diverse as “Should a Guy Fawkes now succeed? to “We value human life too highly”.

He was Chairman of Huddersfield Liberals, a founder member of Huddersfield Pennine Probus and a member of Huddersfield Pennine Rotary. In helping to organise fundraising here, his jobs ranged from running beetle drives to cleaning the public toilets after the annual charity market days. He also took his turn as President.

With a love for bridge, Michael taught and encouraged many people to share his passion for the game. In his student days he played tennis at Brooklyn Tennis Club and in more recent 71

Gorden Irving Kaye (1952-1958) Shy, overweight schoolboy who became one of the country’s leading comedy actors One of the country’s best-loved comedy actors, Old Almondburian Gorden Kaye died in a care home on 23rd January 2017. He had been suffering from dementia for the past two years.

Born in Brook Street, Moldgreen, Gordon Kaye attended Moldgreen County School before surprising himself by passing his 11plus with good enough marks to gain a place at King James’s Grammar School in 1952. inevitable despatch to the headmaster’s In his autobiography René and Me, study for the cane. published in 1989, he writes at length Gordon made frequent visits to Harry and with affection about his time at the Taylor’s study for a variety of misdeSchool. By his own admission, he was not meanors. On one occasion, he was sent at all academic and he soon became the there for copying a friend’s French homeform joker, much to the distress of his work, despite which he still only got teachers. His most famous prank was in 1/10. “Kaye,” said Harry Taylor, on conN2 when he organised some fellow con- cluding three strokes of the cane, “next spirators to stand by the window holding time, copy off somebody who can do it, a pair of shoes and bewailing the appar- all right?” tent demise of Gordon, spreadeagled on He wrote warmly of his old headmasthe concrete floor below. By the time the ter. “We were getting to be quite good panicking master, Chris Perraton, had friends, the head and me. He appeared to dashed down to investigate, Gordon had be very stern but he actually had a smashmade his way back upstairs to be reunited ing sense of humour.” with his colleagues and his footwear.

Surprisingly for someone who was to On another occasion, he doctored the take up acting for a career, he appeared school piano in the gym with drawing only once in a school play: he took the pins to convert it into a honky-tonk piano part of Lord Scroop in the production of “something between Mrs Mills and Shakespeare’s Henry V in 1955. He wore Winifred Atwell”. The episode led to the some particularly baggy tights and de72

Woman trouble: café owner René Artois (Gorden Kaye) with wife Edith (Carmen Silvera) and delectable waitress Yvette (Vicki Michelle) in ’Allo ’Allo!

scribed his performance as “garbage, absolute garbage”.

Gordon left school at 16 with just two ‘O’ levels, in French and English Language. After various jobs including work at Montague Burton’s he ended up in the sales office at J C Crowther & Sons, a woollen mill at Milnsbridge which claimed to hold the record of ‘turning a sheep into a suit in 3 hr 37 min’. Meanwhile, he had become involved in hospital radio which gave him a taste for mixing with the stars: one highlight was the opportunity to interview the Beatles, whom he found “witty and charming”.

His early theatre experience was through Bradford Amateur Theatre Group and he received encouragement from playright Alan Ayckbourn who was then

a drama producer with the BBC in Manchester. This led to a part in one of Ayckbourn’s radio plays Definitely Not July produced in Leeds, followed by a part in a television series Champion House.

It was at this point that Gordon Kaye became Gorden Kaye. He wrote to the actors’ union Equity who incorrectly sent their reply to Gorden rather than Gordon. Before he could write back to correct the error, he was admitted to hospital with a kidney stone problem and by coincidence the name he found on his hospital bed as he regained consciousness was also Gorden Kaye.Taking this to be an omen (or ‘omon’ as he liked to joke) he decided that Gorden Kaye would be his future stage name.

His first professional contract was a

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enormous success, running to 84 episodes from 1984 to 1992 and still regularly repeated today. There were also some 1,200 performances of the stage version.

In January 1990 Gorden suffered serious head injuries during a Burns Day storm when a piece of advertising hoarding smashed though the window of his car. However, he made a remarkable recovery and was back on stage 24 weeks after the accident.

To end on a personal note, Gorden’s life and mine were intertwined over the years. We were both born in Moldgreen and attended the same primary school.

We were then in the same form at King James’s Grammar School and later both worked for the BBC, albeit on different sides of the camera.We last met in 2007, in the George Hotel in Huddersfield, when we recorded an interview for the OAS website*. Needless to say, René also made a guest appearance.

Gordon was a long-time member of the Old Almondburians’ Society and was guest speaker at the Annual Dinner in 2002. He spoke at the school Presentation Evening in 1988.

He started life as Gordon Kaye, an over-weight, shy, tongue-tied Moldgreen schoolboy and died as Gorden Kaye, a nationally famous comedy actor. As he observed himself in later life, perhaps he would have done better at school if he not had such a misspelt youth.

Gorden (Gordon) Kaye, born 7th April 1952, died 23rd January 2017.

Roger Dowling

six-month engagement at £18 a week (half his pay at Crowther’s) to play the part of Pistchik in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at Bolton Octagon. Then followed the Greek tragedy Oedipus and the comedy Cyclops.

It was while he was at the Octagon that he was ‘discovered’ by Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street) who saw him in David Halliwell’s play Little Malcolm set in Huddersfield. She returned with producer Harry Kershaw and he was offered a part in Coronation Street as Elsie Tanner’s nephew Bernard Butler at a salary of £175 a week. This eventually became an eight-month contract.

His television work progressively expanded with a variety of parts including appearances in All Creatures Great and Small and David Croft’s department store sitcom AreYou Being Served?

This led to an invitation in 1982 from Croft to star in a proposed new comedy ’Allo ’Allo! playing the part of René Artois, a cowardly French café owner who sought a quiet life during the Nazi occupation but found himself a wildly unlikely sex symbol. “When I received the script I was laughing aloud within minutes,” he wrote. “Whatever happened, I had to give it a go.” He loved René from the start and played the part with an excruciating ‘franglais’ accent which added to the humour. “My René accent is very slight,” he said. “It is a bit likeYorkshire – you just drop the aitches. ‘Oh, ’eck’ sounds much the same in a Yorkshire accent as in a French accent, so I can improvise quite quickly.” ’Allo ’Allo! was an

*https://goo.gl/7Kzn1o

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King James’s in Words and Pictures

THE HISTORY OF KING JAMES’S GRAMMAR SCHOOL IN ALMONDBURY

Gerald Hinchliffe’s detailed formal history of King James’s Grammar School from 1547 to 1963 384pp, hardback

£10

P&P UK £2.50 EUROPE £4.50 REST OF WORLD £7.75

AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF KING JAMES’S SCHOOL IN ALMONDBURY

Full-colour illustrated history of the School from 1547 to 2008, the 400th anniversary of the charter granted by James I 112pp, hardback

£10

P&P UK £2.50 EUROPE £5.25 REST OF WORLD £9.25

MORNING ASSEMBLY Daily Prayers for a Yorkshire School

An account of the life of former headmaster Harry Taylor, with his unique compilation of prayers for use in school assembly 104pp, hardback

£10

P&P UK £1.30 EUROPE £2.70 REST OF WORLD £4.30

FLOREAT SCHOLA!

Colour DVD in which former teacher JACK TAYLOR tells the story of King James’s School through video clips, photographs and recorded interviews.

Running time: 87 minutes; PAL, 16 x 9 format

£15

P&P UK £FREE EUROPE £1.00 REST OF WORLD £1.50

400TH ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND

Full-length colour DVD of the anniversary celebrations, produced specially for us by Yorkshire Video Arts.

Running time: 97 minutes; PAL, 16 x 9 format

£15

P&P UK £FREE EUROPE £1.00 REST OF WORLD £1.50

Order online at www.oas.org.uk or by post from Andrew Haigh, R D Haigh & Co, Oakhill Road, Brighouse, West Yorkshire HD6 1SN. (Cheque payable to the Old Almondburians’ Society).

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Chairman WALTER RALEIGH 15 Thorpe Lane, Almondbury HD5 8TA Tel: 01484 308452 Email: walter.raleigh@oas.org.uk

Secretary ANDREW HAIGH 2 Arkenley Lane, Almondbury HD4 6SQ Tel: 01484 432105 Email: andrew.haigh@oas.org.uk

Treasurer KEITH CRAWSHAW 5 Benomley Drive, Almondbury HD5 8LX Tel: 01484 533658 Email: keith.crawshaw@oas.org.uk

Media Editor ROGER DOWLING Editorial address: Orchard House, Oughtrington Lane, Lymm, Cheshire WA13 0RD Tel: 01925 756390 Email: almondburian@oas.org.uk

Website: www.oas.org.uk

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/3ykffo3

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The Almondburian is distributed to OAS members free of charge.

Price to non-members: £3.00