In the early 1940's Blackpool particularly in the summer time was a seething mass of humanity with holiday makers from the Lancashire cotton towns, competing with an already increased population due to Blackpool being an RAF intake station, and also host to several Whitehall ministries, their staffs and families. Accommodation was at a premium. If you had somewhere to sleep in the winter, you lost it as soon as the "Wakes Weeks" began. This rubbed off on the Grammar School where extra classes were started to cope with the intake of boys whose parents had been drafted in to Blackpool. I joined in September 1941, and left, having a Northern Universities School Certificate in July 1943. Mr Robinson was headmaster, Mr Curnow Assistant Head, and the pre-war staff was supplemented by masters coming out of retuirement, and young lady teachers just out of training college. My form master in 4 Beta was Mr Bowman who taught chemistry. Among the staff I also recall Mr. Noble who taught music and had a fine baritone voice, Mr, Starkey (Physics), Miss Perkins (French), Mrs Fyldes (English), and I must not forget Mr. Siddall who came once a week to teach the violin. Among my contemporaries I remember Cromwell, Monk, Black, Stafford,,(fellow evacuees, but from Manchester) Newton, Wolstencroft, Bates, Womersley, Hindle and two Whittakers,(local boys) and Armstong (a Canadian). In the winter months we were allowed into the Tower to hear the Hallé Orchestra under Malcolm Sargeant once a month for the princely sum of 6d, and we fished off the north pier. We were also taken to see Forbes Robertson in Shakespeare at the Winter Gardens. In the summer we had our allotments on the "Flashings" (behind Layton, and now all built over) to attend to, and there was swimming in the Darby Baths, the South Shore open air pool, or in the clay pits adjoining the brickworks on the Cleveleys Road (not strictly speaking permitted). In the summer holidays we went potato picking at Nether Kellett near Lancaster. At Christmas we all became temporary postmen.
Sporting activities involved Rugby and Swimming. I remember away matches to King Georges School Southhport, Leyland Balshaws at Preston, and home matches on the school ground. I was also picked to play water polo for Blackpool Schools against Kirkham.
For most of the time we lived in a flat over a grocer's shop run by a Mr Roscoe in Layton, just opposite the bowling green, where amazingly to us southerners, schoolboys were allowed to play on the crown green. The family returned south after the war, and I have only been in Blackpool once since about twenty years ago when the school was sadly derelict. I hope the Salvation Army are looking after it for you. After a career as a civil engineering quantity surveyor, I and my wife are now retired and living in Frome, Somerset.
My e-mail address is David Whitehouse
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