Contents List
Our Memories
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1988-93
Reflections After 42 years
Just looking at the web site, which I like, but I can't help but think .... I can't be the only person who didn't enjoy my time at Wymondham?
I was sure that because I wasn't an excellent student, sportsman or shone in any area really, that I was as significant in the teacher's minds as I was to the refectory staff. I really didn't come out of my shell until I left and went to another 6th form where I met with real life, was spoken to like a person and learnt the value of all people!Now I don't know if it suddenly all changed during Wymondham 6th form but there was no amount of free beer that could have make me stay! Actually there may be but that's beside the point! J. This sounds all melodramatic but I just seemed to be lost with all the average pupils.
Maybe my dislike of Wymondham has rose-tinted the idea of all other schools. It's just as likely that it would have been the same whichever school I was at! But I do hear my friends (who are now teachers) as they speak about even the uninspired pupils with a kind of affection and unassuming realism which never seemed like being shown at Wymondham.
I don't want this to be a complete hate rant!
I wonder if in a few years I may stop and think differently about it but I feel no nostalgic love of my time there apart from it was my school so it would be interesting to see the place again! There were people I could call friends and a couple of funny memories but I just have this underlying cold feeling towards the institution and that I feel in no way debited to the place which I spent a chunk of my life!Well I'm not sure where I'm going with this (if anywhere), but here are a couple of things I remember with fond, strange, awkward and annoying memory:
Seeing Mr. Sayers handcuffs hanging on the cupboard when you walked past his Kett office!
Nissen Huts .... sorry, I loved them
History Club with Mr. Lockwood which basically was a few of us watching Battle of Britain, Waterloo, All Quiet on the Western Front, Zulu on alternate weeks .... that was it!
The Grey Lady
Lights Out
Maxpax Machines
Still one of the funniest things I have seen I my life was Duncan Catchpole running into a lamppost while playing football (I'm chuckling again now! James Dixon may know what I'm talking about!)
Sneakily playing games on the Archimedes computers
Daddy-long-legs that used to cover the (old) CDT block
*0x 's
Being told when you could bathe!
Have more, but best get on. And finally (kinda related) but I love looking on Friends Reunited and seeing who has done well and feel that everyone needs to know about it ... self-back-slapping is very funny!
James Findlater (Kett 1988-93)
Now that we are on the verge of a reunion to celebrate many of us achieving 60 years on the planet, nostalgia has persuaded me to contribute another “how was it for you” retrospective. Regrettably an unlucky few haven’t made it, with most staff members that attempted to teach us also having passed on, leaving us contemplating our own mortality and the impending infirmities of our twilight years. Do we look back at our time at WC with fond and selective memories, forgetting the bad bits? I guess that’s pretty normal and the repressiveness we experienced which would not be acceptable today almost seems part of the charm of the place. The legacy for me is going in aged 11, painfully shy and wary of the opposite sex, coming out with much more confidence and independence, and probably overall better for the experience, though the freedom of University still came as quite a shock. As far as teaching was concerned it was the usual mixture of good, bad and indifferent and pretty much what you see in most schools, with the forbidding figure of “Muz” Metcalfe presiding.
Bill’s excellent website probably has enough anecdotes about what we experienced in the 60’s so I will not try and reminisce about things already recorded by more eloquent inmates than me, about subjects like the sadistic tendencies of individuals such as Hawkyard, Bawden (who must hold the record for slipperings of talkers after lights out), Marney and Bowman (learn French or have your ear twisted through several revolutions). I guess the girls were largely immune from such corporal punishment though bullying was probably present across the board (not excessively?).
My own recollections and repercussions include:
Breaking into a rudimentary quickstep every time I hear Buddy Holly’s “Rave On”
Making a break after lights out on the last night of the academic year to go down to the Park, sprinting across housemaster Mike Doughty’s garden, only to garrotte myself on his washing line
Probably apocryphal story when first former Duncan Jones (probably) was asked by Bill Atkins (possibly) if he used Durex or Ona, with the reply “Neither, Brylcreem”
Cuddly Dudley and Wobbly Wood making a big thing in Physics about a new lead-lined 10-brick-thick safe for a new radioactive source which turned out to be weaker than someone’s wrist watch on the Geiger counter
Having several radios confiscated listening to Jimmy Saville’s “Under the bedclothes Club” on Radio Luxembourg (208)
The winter of 62/63 – never seen so much snow in England.
Sunday walks – who could forget them, along with Smoker’s Wood, accessible after the crocodile era in the junior years
Playing the Catholic card and going to Mass in Wymondham town watching a fellow House member supplementing his income by regularly taking OUT of the collection plate as it came round, and also smoking the church out by excessive use of charcoal/incense during benediction
Developing a catholic taste in food of necessity, with life-long aversions remaining only for Irish stew (more indigestible grizzle than meat), rice pudding and beetroot.
Haircuts, trying to avoid Hawkyard as he went round looking for candidates, and having to bribe the barber not to take too much off, with the resultant early return
Mrs Saunder’s regular prepucial inspections on bath night – what was she looking for, once easy retraction was proven?
Resurrecting the soul of a dead cleaner during experiments with an ouija board in North House
All-in-all nothing too scaring and worthy of analyst interest – here’s to making the most of what’s left!
George Zajicek (North/York 1960-67)
Wymondham College Remembered