HEANOR SCHOOLDAYS 1998 It was probably the seemingly endless grey skies with rain dampening the spirits which put me in mind of Heanor Schooldays for my next choice of book in this series. Chapter 2 on page 19 - A Feared and Frosty February Face In extensive research, I interviewed hundreds of people to complete this social history centred on Mundy Street Boys School located in a begrimed and seedy little hill top community. In 1957, my day started with prayers and hymns and ended with a desire to be dead. Humiliating experiences afforded no mercy. I was prevented from using the toilet occasionally resulting in arriving home with soiled trousers. A sadistic schoolmaster encouraging aggressive taunts, brutal insults, screaming jeers reduced me to a very low level of self-esteem. All that was dismissed as a part of growing up. The headmaster, Leonard Smith [1905 – 1979] is responsible for the callous culture in his school. His merciless deputy, Peter Copestake [1929 – 2006] must take full responsibility for the emotional and physical injuries which have blighted my life. An old boy of the 1940s told me such culture of cruelty was already embedded into the ethos of this Church of England school. Barry Foster revealed horrific examples of fear imposed by an infamous hard and severe schoolmaster known as Billy Smith. He cast a fearful shadow dating from 1925. In describing personal trauma, Barry was inspired to quote from Shakespear’s Much Ado About Nothing – ‘Billy, you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness.’ For Heanor Schooldays, I acquired 45 photographs including the one on page 23 taken in 1925 showing the class of brutal Billy Smith. Forty miserable faces and not a single smile! I’m grateful to Joe Mee and his comment – ‘We were a rough lot. You can see the terrible poverty. Water toilets were rare. I was one of the lucky few to get into a tin bath once a week, but a lot of the others … well, they just stunk.’ Under the protection of a kind conscientious teacher, Mr Peter Crofts, I started Mundy Street in January 1955 in a class of 46 boys. In a school with no electricity, Mr Crofts recalled - ‘The soft gentle hissing incandescence of the gas mantle on a cold dark winter’s afternoon and a warm friendly crackling fire well banked up by the coal monitor.’ My days of woe and wretchedness arrived in 1957 with the departure of Mr Crofts and his compassionate regime. We were reunited at William Howitt Secondary School down the hill on Loscar Road in 1958. Chapter 12 – A Gracious and Charming Headmistress – describes a culture of kindness presided over by Miss Mary McLening [1915 – 1977] who filled her school with sunshine. The love of this special lady permeated the very fabric of the building and hallowed the ground. 1958 to 1960 was, for me, a magical and happy period. This headmistress was a stark contrast to the aloof, cold, detached, forbidding, haughty headmaster up the hill. Staff of William Howitt Secondary School in 1960. The Headmistress is seated in the centre. Mr Crofts on the back row is standing second from the left. Copies of Narvel's book, Heanor Schooldays, are available from his Dobba's Delights store on Amazon. Click the link or the book cover below: https://amzn.to/3UWIP5G Comments are closed.
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