NEWS FROM OLD EALONIANS

Peter Hughes Looks Back to 1947 to 1954

I came across some newsletters by chance and found it surprisingly pleasant to read about their author’s schooldays.   I was at Ealing Grammar School from 1947 to 1954, like  Robert (Bob)  Holmes,  although we didn't  meet until  Six  Science, under Mr. Tew, as we were in different forms & sports in the earlier years.  I seem to remember rugby coming to the school only about 1951.    One thing that impressed me about Bob, at the time, was that he knew exactly what he wanted to do in life - be a doctor.

Starting after the first year, I recall the forms were split into 2, who did French, 2A who did French & German & 2 Alpha, with French & Latin.    I don't recall Classical /Modern being used.  (They came in by 1953 - JH Ed)

Another pupil l knew well, because we played football for the school & in lunch times in the park together, was Richard Greenbury.   I remember that he was a very good junior tennis player - I think he got to the last 16 or 8 at Wimbledon one year. In the playground he drew 2 lines on the wall • one the height of a tennis net & one just above it showing how close a good serve should go.    Then he hammered balls at the gap for an impressively long time.

Apart from football in the park, another call we made at lunch times was to Martins, just across the road, for blocks of ice cream. I cannot remember school lunches much except that, later in the school, we had to bring in, serve & clear up the first sitting before having our lunch. This meant there was lots to eat, although I do remember occasions when tables collapsed with food & plates being shot about.

Someone mentioned school plays.   I never took part. but remember how girls from my sister's nearby grammar school sometimes did take part.   This was only about once a year but it did highlight one of the disadvantages of single sex education!   Though I also have pleasant memories of the Ealonians Swimming Club, held In the evening at the local baths - surely this was a mixed club or was it just wishful thinking on my part?

I don't remember our Headmaster Mr A Sainsbury Hicks as a martinet, although he did give me 6 of the best once for carving my name on a chemistry lab bench, but rather as someone who tried too hard to gentrify the school.

The only advice I can remember from ASH was not to wear brown shoes with a blue suit - this as we left the school. But I also recall how, after his visit to America, he paraded in morning assembly in a Stetson he had bought, so not all bad.    I heard later he retired when the school became a comprehensive.

I don’t recall too much about the teachers - it tends towards the unpleasant, but that may be because I couldn't recognize good teaching when I experienced it.

Some odd things come to mind:  

- Mr. Thompson, gym teacher, setting up "pirates" - ropes hanging down, mats & wall bars out.  Then getting chased up/down & round gym without touching the floor.  Health & Safety may have had a hand in his retirement soon after.

- Mr Hartnall, telling us in the 3rd or 4th Form, that we should be thinking in French by now. That gave me a bit of a fright.

- Mr. Cleere, our Form Master at the time, giving  the whole  class detention  that day (although I can't recall why) & forgetting we were there, until 5.30.

- Mr. Potts would come in to applied  maths in Six Science & say “Read pages X to Z & then do examples A to H”.  He then left the room & did not come back.  No checking our work, no homework.

- In the Upper Six, an unusual three days at Ealing Studios. About 100 of us, as extras, in a film The Lease of Life. Some years later I panned thro' the film & didn't recognize anybody - bad memory or were us Ealing boys unphotogenic & replaced?

My overall feelings about the school were of a good education, although even then it seemed rather old fashioned, but with great chances to do well if you wanted to & worked at it.  Very pleased I had the chance.

Peter Hughes

James Pidding attended EGS between 1944 & 1949

He would like to make contact with classmates who were at the school

in 1948 to 1949.  James writes:

Dear Editor,

At a quiet period at my desk, I have just come across the Old Ealonians website and browsed its contents with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia.  I think that I must have been an OE member briefly in the early 1950's but allowed it to lapse when I started National Service.   My business career then took me away from the area and did not think of getting back in touch until I met the husband of our new MP for Beaconsfield.   (He is also an alumnus).  I now wish to rejoin and I will be applying for membership.

I was a pupil at Ealing Grammar School from 1944 to 1949.   Initially the Headmaster was Clarke and he was superseded by Sainsbury Hicks after WW2 ended.   I can recall many of the masters mentioned in one of the memoirs on your website.   

Some notable contemporaries of mine were the cricketer (Middlesex & England) John Warr, Batho (a great debater) and Boothroyd (the best soccer player in the School at the time).   Rugby was very much a secondary sport in the School at the time.

I must have been considered to have been either insufficiently bright or too lazy or too  easily distracted because I spent my second to fifth  years in the 'alpha'  stream and I did not  make full  use of the  excellent  education available  to  me.  When I started to pull my socks up in School Certificate   year, it was too late to make up all the lost ground.   I scraped through with five credits, no passes and too many failures.   When I decided to study parts of the law thirty years ago, I rued my wasted opportunities at EGS.

There are three things on which you might be able to help me:

a) How can I contact my 1948/9 classmates in form 5 alpha?

b) Is the Old Ealonian tie still obtainable?   (I wore my old one out - from memory   it was of dark green and navy wide stripes, with a narrower silver stripe, and used to be sold by Foster Brothers in Ealing Broadway).

c) I would be prepared to write a memoir if you think it might be useful for the website.

Best regards,

James

Allan James Pidding  FCIArb

Chartered  Arbitrator

Construction   Adjudicator

If you wish to make contact with any of the contributors to this site, iplease write to me or one of the Committee members by email and we will pass on your address, so that you can get together.

This should ensure that unwanted emails are filtered out.

It was a pleasure to hear from James, who writes below.   I look forward to receiving his memoir, so that it can be posted here, on the website.

If you were contemporaries of James in 1948 / 49, he would be delighted to hear from you.

John H (Editor)

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