WOLVERHAMPTON MUNICIPAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL
OLD PUPILS ASSOCIATION
Latest News
Summer 2021 Newsletter - As you may know, we have no newsletter editor at present and Mac, our chairman, was busy preparing this newsletter for distribution.
Sadly Mac had a cardiac arrest last Thursday (29th July) and is now in Intensive Care in a Frimley Park Hospital. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Michelle.
Michelle tells us that although Mac is still very unwell, he has been taken off sedation and ventilation and will hopefully soon be transferred to a coronary care ward for assessment and treatment.
He clearly will not be able to complete and distribute a newsletter for some time. I will update you when I have further news.
Bob Tame
Website Manager.
Sadly Mac had a cardiac arrest last Thursday (29th July) and is now in Intensive Care in a Frimley Park Hospital. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Michelle.
Michelle tells us that although Mac is still very unwell, he has been taken off sedation and ventilation and will hopefully soon be transferred to a coronary care ward for assessment and treatment.
He clearly will not be able to complete and distribute a newsletter for some time. I will update you when I have further news.
Bob Tame
Website Manager.
AGM and Christmas 2021 Lunch - (Updated July 2021)
The Committee has decided that the best time to hold the next event will be in December 2021 when it will be more likely that meetings can be held, rather than in July 2021 when it was suggested that we might try to meet up as a group.
We have now booked the AGM and Christmas Lunch for Sunday 5th December 2021. Again, all arrangements will be subject to the prevailing covid restrictions.
Updates will be posted on this section of the Website as necessary.
The Committee has decided that the best time to hold the next event will be in December 2021 when it will be more likely that meetings can be held, rather than in July 2021 when it was suggested that we might try to meet up as a group.
We have now booked the AGM and Christmas Lunch for Sunday 5th December 2021. Again, all arrangements will be subject to the prevailing covid restrictions.
Updates will be posted on this section of the Website as necessary.
Our Chairman Mac McCurry is always grateful to receive articles for the newsletter so if anyone can put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and produce anything they think would be of interest to our members, he would be most grateful. In the unlikely event of him getting too many articles some could be held back for use in future newsletters. The Summer 2021 Newsletter will be posted some time this month (July2021).
We are still looking for volunteers for the Posts of Newsletter Editor and sub-editor.
February 2021 - I had an email recently from Margaret Banks, she was not a pupil at our school but her father was Mr Darby, Head of science department and a Chemistry teacher. She tells me he died in 1994. She used to come along to the school to see the G&S performances and says Mr Darby usually looked after the lighting. She remembered a few of the teachers and also a Lab Assistant Mr Dance, who she says was a lovely man. Mr Askew's wife was a teacher at the school she went to in Dudley. (Bob's note: I did not have him for lessons very often but when I did, I remember Mr Darby being a very animated teacher, who would wave his arms about wildly to explain how something worked. I asked Margaret if she was related to Janet Banks, who was also a Lab assistant at the school in the late 60's early 70's and she says her late husband was Janet's Cousin and she still keeps in touch).
January 2021 - I recently found a picture from the 'Roger Taft' Collection of the bus outside the school which reminded me of an item on my own site regarding the end of day bus rush.
Maralyn Shine (Maralyn Windsor) remembers the buses we used to leave school and a minor accident she had one day:
Getting on the first available bus outside school at 4.15pm was survival of the fittest, almost a bloodsport. Amongst the lower school pupils the use of elbows, knees and hanging on to the person in front was the norm. Satchels, briefcases, hockey sticks, tennis racquets and domestic science baskets (with insecure loads) were just crammed onto the overcrowded bus. Other passengers were forced to fight past all our paraphernalia to get off the bus and many of us made the entire journey to town, standing on the steep, metal stairs. In those days the buses still had open rear platforms and it was common practice to leap on and off the moving buses, at the most convenient place. One morning I didn't leap off the bus but accidentally slipped off. A misguided survival instinct kept my hand clamped to the hand rail, resulting in my being dragged unceremoniously along on my backside for some yards. The bus and I came to a halt outside Beatties and I was left sitting in the gutter. I was more mortified by the amused bus queue than my extremely dented derriere.
Roger Taft sadly died a few years ago but I got permission from his family to use the picture on our site. There are many more of his pictures of the buses around the town on this History website.
Maralyn Shine (Maralyn Windsor) remembers the buses we used to leave school and a minor accident she had one day:
Getting on the first available bus outside school at 4.15pm was survival of the fittest, almost a bloodsport. Amongst the lower school pupils the use of elbows, knees and hanging on to the person in front was the norm. Satchels, briefcases, hockey sticks, tennis racquets and domestic science baskets (with insecure loads) were just crammed onto the overcrowded bus. Other passengers were forced to fight past all our paraphernalia to get off the bus and many of us made the entire journey to town, standing on the steep, metal stairs. In those days the buses still had open rear platforms and it was common practice to leap on and off the moving buses, at the most convenient place. One morning I didn't leap off the bus but accidentally slipped off. A misguided survival instinct kept my hand clamped to the hand rail, resulting in my being dragged unceremoniously along on my backside for some yards. The bus and I came to a halt outside Beatties and I was left sitting in the gutter. I was more mortified by the amused bus queue than my extremely dented derriere.
Roger Taft sadly died a few years ago but I got permission from his family to use the picture on our site. There are many more of his pictures of the buses around the town on this History website.
January 2021. - I had an interesting email today from a former Pupil Liz Thomas (now Liz O'Neill) who was a pupil at the school between 1948 and 1953 before a happy career as an Infant teacher. She tells me her brother Lionel Thomas (now 86) was also a pupil at the school between 1945 to 1952 before taking a degree at Birmingham University and becoming a Rocket Research Scientist.
Liz says she remembers the names of all the girls in her 5th year class and most of the boys, but can't remember what she did last week. (She's not alone there!).
From her schooldays she remembers Mr Foxon, who she says was inclined to be sarcastic, after he told her ”I can’t believe you are Thomas’s sister”. She also remembers Ms Moody a history teacher, who constantly folded her arms under her huge bra-less bosom, to the delight of the boys in the class.
She passed on one more memory from 1952, the form-master 'Lundy' Luddford, (geography), strode in to classroom, stern-faced, and told us that King George 6th had died, and the school was closing as a mark of respect. I am afraid we cheered, so he kept us in our seats, in silence, for over an hour.
Liz says she remembers the names of all the girls in her 5th year class and most of the boys, but can't remember what she did last week. (She's not alone there!).
From her schooldays she remembers Mr Foxon, who she says was inclined to be sarcastic, after he told her ”I can’t believe you are Thomas’s sister”. She also remembers Ms Moody a history teacher, who constantly folded her arms under her huge bra-less bosom, to the delight of the boys in the class.
She passed on one more memory from 1952, the form-master 'Lundy' Luddford, (geography), strode in to classroom, stern-faced, and told us that King George 6th had died, and the school was closing as a mark of respect. I am afraid we cheered, so he kept us in our seats, in silence, for over an hour.