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OPUS • Issue 2 • Spring 2010

Portsmouth Grammar School • www.pgs.org.uk

The Seaside Steinway Steeplechase continued

leaving only a generation of elderly men to chuckle and reminisce about the simple pleasures of nearly half a century ago.

Whereas pianist G.D.H. (Graham) Preskett and the three teams of pullers had every reason to be proud, it had not been a day of unalloyed pleasure. Two of the school’s leading sportsmen, G.M.T. (Geoff ) Foley and G.N. (Graham) Wingate sustained significant injuries. It was even said that members of the public took fright when they observed the approaching phalanx of pianos storming along the Promenade.

T.V. Runnacles OP (1954-1965)

This article could not have been written without the reminiscences of several OPs. In particular, I wish to thank Graham Shaw, Bill Adkins, John Chatterton, Mike Winstock and Clive Vinall for their contributions.

A wry look at the history of PGS desks “The desks at this school are not of a nice sort.”

As soon as the jubilant teams and their supporters returned to the school, the piano was lifted up to the Scout Room, its racing days ended. After March 1965 the piano-racing era at PGS seemingly ceased,

This was the considered verdict of an anonymous PGS pupil in 1898 in an essay, written in the Detention Room, thought to have been set as a punishment for banging his desk lid.

All activities contain pote PIANO RACE ntia controls you RISK ASSESS have in place l hazards and are a source to manage th Significant ris of risk. Please MENT: FORM A: em. ks to include identify and are those that many people, assess the si coul or impact on gnificant risks the finances or d lead to death, disability in your area School: Port and severe dis reputation of and the smouth Gram th tre e ss Sc ; or are less se hool. mar School rious but - oc Department: cur frequently Sport Date: A , affect 19 Decembe B Haza rd

Controls in pla ce Risk reducin g actions (hierarchy of controls)

The overturnin g of the piano.

Exhaustion of crew pulling piano

Wheel falling off piano Piano careeri ng into sea Race disrupte d by adverse weather syste m from polar maritime regio n Loss of race to College of Technology

Limited ability to sheet music du use ring race Wheel attache d by skilled person (Bill Adkins) Personnel ba rri ers in place on sea front promenade

Read weather forecast beforehand

Select highly trained crew

Charitable fun ds Funds to be distributed raised for through usua College Rag lly re liable channe Week will be ls (eg po p musician) used to buy weapons Loss of control of piano durin g return to storage in Widl ey

Hopelessly inadequate calculations

Regular circu it tra sessions in PE ini ng lessons

Poor choice of music reperto ire

C Adequa cy

Centre of grav ity evaluated by A level students study ing mechanics.

Piano to be tow ed by usually comp etent person (Mike Winstock)

Hopelessly inadequate lessons Hopelessly inadequate restriction Wholly adequate provision

Usually adequate It’s only a weather forecast

Probably inadequate or inebriate Doubtful

Outri ght untruth

Ri sks & Contr ols Communica ted to: John Th orp (risk regis ter) Name of Risk Assessment Te am Lead: Tim Runnacles

Bureau de Change

r 1962

D Risk of ha rm to No of persons person affected State problem or area s of concern

Death of a pia nist (1)

Whole crew inj ur piano running ed by amok (10) Whole crew an d illpositioned sp ectators death by drow ning (20)

Death of popu lation in war torn area s (millions)

Impact with No 41 bus following slowl y up Portsdown Hi ll

Quite serious

Once per person in crew

Damage to he aring of crew and gene ra public (thousa l nds)

Loss of face of whole school (400)

F Severity

Death can only occur once

Heart attacks (10)

Ice and snow on track leading to risk of skidding or pe piano rsons falling

E Freq

Mild

Mi ddle C is 262 Hz Once per piano Once per race Seven

One face per person

Of ten

Half hourly weekdays, hourly at weekends

Select pianist of little worth (Ray Fi sher) Crew to absta in drinking and sm from ok for 24 hours be ing fore race

Harsh but fair

Select pianist with wi de repertoire (Ray Fi sher)

Yes I’m serious

This cannot ha pp wheels secure en as d by competent pe rson

Painf ul

Balmy

Very severe

Very very severe

Ouch

G Additional co ntrols Action require d

Only compete against weak opposit ion do not learn fro who m experience Do not collect money for chari ty

Use of stout ro pe

Residual risk nil

Experienced swimmer (Graham Shaw ) wi th crew as life to run -saver

Experience weatherman (Tim Runnacles) to make final decision to race

H Level of resid ua l risk (transfer to ris k register)

Residual risk nil Residual risk nil Residual risk nil

Residual risk nil

A Mock Risk Assessment for Piano Racing devised retrospectively by Roger Pope OP (1954-1963)

Perhaps in the same way that a bad workman reputedly blames his tools, the miffed schoolboy attributes his unfair treatment firmly to his wooden desk. It was, after all, the desk that made the offending noise. In the half-an-hour that was stolen from his life, spent in shameful, unnatural silence in the Detention Room, the boy controls his despair over the injustices of school life, draws deeply on that ’can-do’ PGS spirit, and proceeds to list his ideas for improving school desk design. Nobly and selflessly he seeks practical ways to prevent others suffering his own cruel fate. He concludes that a desk catch would have prevented the lid falling down. With this simple expedient, the sacred silence of the classroom and the Master’s ignorance of his existence would have been preserved. It would also save future schoolboys from the suffering caused by heavy wood slamming on fingers and knuckles. The anonymous boy comes up with more brilliant recommendations. A unique lock for each desk: “The object of having locks is to keep your books, pens, pencils and other necessities from being ‘gone’”. Desks, he argues, “should be standalone, not shared, bench-style. Seats should be padded and have a shaped back for comfort”. All the boy’s suggestions anticipate the ergonomically designed desks and individual lockers taken for granted today.

Half a century later, in a piece of post-war creative writing of the type beloved of a new breed of English teacher, an eight year old Lower School pupil imagines himself as a desk. While the Victorian schoolboy had ideas to improve his desk, in this 1946 account, the vengeful desk concludes with an idea to improve the schoolboy: I am a single-seater desk placed in the back of the class, near the window. The first thing I remember was that a horrid boy woke me up in the morning by banging my lid up and down to make a noise. He nearly cracked my head, and to increase my discomfort he stuck some nasty chewing gum on me. I finally got some peace when the teacher came in. But even he spoilt it by making a boy stand on my seat! In the dinner-hour the little brute took out a penknife and started to carve his name upon me. Happily a Prefect caught him before any real damage was done. I hope he was caned!

The physical abuse suffered by the average desk from chewing gum and penknives, was, one imagines, an occupational hazard, and the carving of one’s name an expression of the natural territorial instinct of the schoolboy. In those innocent times, knives were carried as routinely as mobile phones today, before whittling was replaced by twittering. Ten years later, Peter Barnes OP (1954-64) and his contemporaries added their own mix of psychological and physical abuse to the long suffering school desk:

“There was a craze for creating marble runs inside the desk by arranging books, wooden pencil cases, geometry set boxes, rulers etc. inside the desk so as to create an inclined zig-zag route from the top right hand corner where the hole for the inkwell was down towards the edge closest to the seat. The trick was to catch the marble as it emerged (from a hole at the front, possibly bored by a compass point or a penknife) after its concealed passage, but sometimes it would drop on to the floor and then there could be trouble.” Today, such innovation would be heralded for its promotion of problem solving, touching on several areas of the curriculum, as well as the development of motor skills in catching the marble. Another innovative use of the desk was as a place for pin-ups utilising the underside of the lid, so that every opening provided the ranks behind with a welcome distraction from academic matters. Indeed the role of the desk in education, in its broadest sense, may appear to have been neglected, but thanks to the memories of OPs and occasional accounts in The Portmuthian, we are able to take a peep under the lid.

Following the appeal in the last edition of Opus, Geoffrey Salvetti OP (1958-1968) has very kindly donated a 1960s school desk to the PGS archive (pictured above) which will be put to good use in future displays and for present-day pupils to appreciate as a historical artefact.