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CHRIS RICHARDS

GLAISDALE SCHOOL 4

HOW IT WAS, 1973 - 1978

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Guy Notley's dad owned the Garden Centre just behind the 'Wheatsheaf' pub at Bobbers Mill. Guy was previously the leader of a school gang, and wore a leather jacket with a tigers head on the back. Seeing the number 56 bus coming up Wigman Road, Guy and I jumped on. It was one of the old fashioned types, with a rear corner opening with a metal pole which the clippie hung on to, and ancient leather seats. However, he was chatting to the driver, so we crept upstairs and Guy said 'Lay down and curl up on the seats at the front, he won't see us and we won't have to pay' This failed when an inspector got on and grabbed us by our blazer collars and flung us off at Beechdale shops. Seeing the old bus pulling off into the distance, we fired V signs and insults at its disappearing rear end.

1976 - Richard Smyth and I decided to go for a game of snooker at the old Snooker Hall on Goldsmith Street. Getting a 60 bus into town, we passed the County Hotel and clambered up the steep but rotten stairs to the first floor hall. The place looked like the entrance to an old Wild West Saloon and the handrail wobbled as I grabbed it. As we paid for a table, a man was making cheese and onion cobs, which he placed under a large perspex dome on the counter. The rows of snooker tables seemed endless and we soon got bored, finished our game and Rich suggested a trip to the pictures. I can't remember which film it was, but I can remember it was the ABC and being led in darkness by the girl with a torch into the seats about halfway up. I became aware that I was a lot higher up than Richard, whose head was somewhere by my left elbow. As the film ended and the lights came up, I discovered that I hadn't flapped the fold-up seat down, and was sitting on the front edge of the seat. What a plonker!

1973 - This was the registration number of Janet Wensley's red Mini. Mrs Wensley was the art teacher, and with her long blonde hair and flowing dresses, she would not have looked out of place in the audience at Woodstock. A common exercise set by her was the 'still life' where pupils would draw bowls of fruit and other organic objects. However, my pencil sketch of a ram's head was displayed in an art exhibition in the foyer, and I was asked by Jeanette Hillman if it was 'a cabbage with a boomerang through it?' Tactful as ever. I was shocked to wander into the art store-room one lesson to find Mrs Wensley picking at her teeth with a Stanley knife! She would also drive the school mini-bus with gear-crunching determination, which usually set off from Mrs Darby's biology lab, and ended up at the Castle or some other place of learning

The geography Field Trip was normally led by Mr Dixon. Driving a mustard or yellow Ford Cortina GT, (with a black vinyl roof) and with a a ruddy complexion, Dixon was nicknamed 'Botch' or 'Strawberry Head' by pupils, though I always found him funny and witty. He would explain glaciers, scree, erosion and other vitally important geographical terms in great detail. Except when Daryll Cree was in the lesson and he would exaggerate the word 'scree' while grinning at Daryll. On one memorable trip to Wells-next-the Sea, Dave (Graffy) McGrath stuck seaside prawns in his ice-cream, while another one to Kinder Scout ended up with Ann Silvers getting a telling-off for wearing plimsolls for hiking in. When Dixon spoke of Kendal Mint Cake, which was always to be carried for nutrition in an emergency, 13 year old Chris Richards' agile brain thought it would perhaps be served in a Derbyshire tea room, on a silver platter with a cup of Earl Grey, not a brown substance in a packet that was supposed to keep you alive on the cold desolate mountain in the middle of nowhere.

PE was the dreaded lesson for the artistic and very unsporty me (in 1975). Mr Short and Mr Higgins really were like the TV characters portrayed in 'Gordon Grimley'. With giant sideburns, metal whistles, leg hair and attitude, they would shin up ropes and vault pommel-horses like Bodie and Doyle from 'The Professionals'. And drive MGB sports cars. It was fun trying to belt a football at a kid who was nicknamed 'Bostik Glasses' by Dale Rolfe. With thick specs taped to his head with gaffa-tape, he would be a sitting target for the leather football, which would be aimed at face, genitals and other sensitive areas. The star javelin thrower however was Robin Edgar,a ginger haired freckly youth who was also diabetic. Miss Stocker was the female PE teacher at this time.

In my first year, I was taken under the wing of a 4th year who I remember very little about, except he had a black PUMA bag. When I asked 'PUMA' about the dreaded Player school and their 4 'o' clock battles on the school field, he said 'look what they did to me' and flapped down his four false front teeth from his gums on a plate. He looked like a younger version of Nobby Stiles in the '66 Cup Final, and said 'now when you fight, protect yer teeth and your knackers, right?'

Just at the top of my road across Western Boulevard was the large cube-like structure called Beechdale Baths, but we always called it 'Bleachdale Baths' because of the permenant smell of chlorine that oozed from its great ugly pores. Gary Beardall's mum Doreen worked here, always in a blue tracksuit. After paying at the small window in the foyer, we would walk down a small corridor and pick up a metal basket into which our clothes would be loaded, with a space at the bottom for shoes, and this would be exchanged for a coloured metal disk with a pin on it, which threaded through your shorts. The grey concrete cubicles had grubby blue rubber curtains, which always seemed to be ripped, and were held up by rusting guide wires. The next step was to turn left, then left again though the freezing footbath, which often had cast-off verruca-ridden plasters floating in it. Emerging into the main pool area, we would stick out our puny chests to impress the girls, and walk past the 'No Petting' and 'No Ducking' signs towards the diving area.

There was often a chap there with half a leg, who would leave his wheelchair at the side of the pool and do a few lengths. How he lost his leg and when was uncertain, but his swimmimg skills were second to none. Diving off the top board was the thing to do, especially when girls were in the spectators area. Eventually, the coloured light started flashing on the wall that corresponded with the colour on your tag, and we would walk back though the footbath and into the showers. Afterwards, it was up into the spectators area and cafe for a 'Bar Six' and a lemon drink from the vending machine. Tudor Crisps were also popular at this time, with the ever present totem pole and indians on the front.

Sometime in the mid 70s, singer Steve Harley was all the rage. Though, according to my dad, his singing technique left a lot to be desired. Seeing him on telly doing 'Come Up and See Me (Make Me Smile)' the pronunciation of of such phrases as - 'all gone and run awaaaaay' and 'only METULLLL' made my dad launch into an armchair frenzy, as he cried 'Whats he on about?. He sounds like a bloody spastic'. Which was enough persuasion to make me run out and buy the single the very next day. It was nearly as bad as Bowie's 1972 single 'Starman', where Bowie had put his arm round guitarist Mick Ronson during the chorus on 'Top of The Pops'. Once again my Dad launched into the television set like an animal. Perhaps because his son was enjoying his youth it reminded him of the youth which he had already lost at nearly 50 years of age. Whatever he thought of Bowie, Ronno, Bolan and other teen heroes, they were cool. When Dave Hill of Slade strapped on a guitar with the words 'SUPERYOB' set into the body, with his Fray Bentos haircut and boots, he was still a 70s icon.

all text ©2001 C W Richards

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