MEMORIES OF BGS – Eric Marshall 1942 Starter

My family moved from King's Lynn in Norfolk, where I was born, to Blackpool in 1940, after the war closed the shipping line for which my father worked and he found similar work for a company shipping material to Iceland from Fleetwood. At the time of our move to Blackpool there were many evacuees in town and, the school I attended (Claremont?) was so crowded that the local school operated in the morning and another, with separate staff, in the afternoon. I was in the afternoon school, which was the evacuees’ school, and, since I had not come from Manchester with most of the other students, I was an outcast and my education suffered.

When I came to take the 11+ I did not pass and should have gone to the technical school. However, Blackpool Grammar School took fee-paying students at that time and for two years I was such a student there. I took the 13+ exams and passed easily and my parents no longer had to pay fees. It was interesting to note that some half dozen of us who were fee-paying students in those first two years finally graduated from the sixth form with University Scholarships!

In wartime the school staff included many teachers who came out of retirement and some were not very effective. We teased some by putting match heads inside the chalk and flicking ink pellets at their bald heads. The return of the younger teachers after the war raised the level of teaching. Teachers such as Mr LYNE and Mr WINN dragged us through the school certificate examinations.

During my first year at school I was teased and called "Dumbo" because of my large ears. I later became known as "General" or "Genny", after General MARSHALL, the American who developed the post-war plan given his name. In my senior years I contributed articles to the school magazine under the nom-de-plume "Dux" (Latin for general).

In one of my final years ‘Speech Day’ included a musical performance of ‘When the Foeman Bears His Steel’ by Gilbert and Sullivan – Mr BREEZE had the male lead – I was pressed into the choir as bass voices were needed to sing the ‘Taranta-ra’ chorus.

Towards the end of my time in Blackpool Grammar School I became a Road Prefect. For some reason I was sent to make representations to some city safety committee. I had a moment of fame when I spoke at this meeting complaining about a lack of concern by parents and other adults in the safety of children going to and from school on foot and on bicycles. This was reported in the local paper and they sent a photographer over to school. I was hauled out of class to have my photograph taken which duly appeared in the paper.

In my final year I was a senior prefect. I was often called upon to take delinquent students to the head master or deputy head for punishment. It was interesting to compare the ways in which they caned a student. (Yes! You could be caned in those days.) Dr BENSON, the head, took his cane out and still wearing his gown with wide sleeves caned the open hand - the sleeves slowed down the movement of the cane and lessened the punishment. Mr. HAWTHORNTHWAITE, the deputy-head, simply took his cane, bent it into a circle and released one end which whipped back with surprising speed - with minimal effort on his part.

During the war the school did not put on any plays due to wartime austerity. I had parts school plays during my last three years at school (Macbeth, St Joan and Dr Faustus). I was also stage manager for a classical play which we lightened up by doing such things as screwing the chain holding two prisoners together to the stage so they could not move. The curtain was opened while I was still on stage checking that all was in place! When I was in the first year sixth, I was asked to take a part in an Old-Students' Association play (The Housemaster).

I played for the school second cricket eleven on a regular basis, becoming captain, and occasionally for the first eleven. I did play rugby for a while but I was not a great player and gave it up after breaking my nose and then I went for cross-country runs on sport's afternoons.

During the summer of one of my final years at school, with a cricketer friend, I walked over to the school playing fields to practice at the nets. To our surprise we found that some adults were using the facilities. These turned out to be members of a well-known dance band (Ted Heath’s Orchestra) which was playing in Blackpool that summer. This band had a cricket team which played against local village clubs. Johnny GREY, a trumpet player, with a huge moustache, was the captain of the team. As they were short of players they asked us to play for them.

I was inspired to take up biology by Mr. Peter HOLWAY who was a great teacher. We often went out on field trips and I remember once going to the sand dunes just to the south of Blackpool where the class started a line transect from the main road towards the sea. After an hour or so identifying grasses and other plants along the line near the road we extended our line over the dunes towards the sea only to find a young couple doing what couples do in an isolated area of the sand dunes. Mr. HOLWAY tried to apologize to them but I am not sure who was the more embarrassed - they ran off pretty rapidly! In the year behind me at school, also in Mr. HOLWAY's biology classes, were Ken BOCOCK and Roy DRINNAN – both subsequently graduated in biology. (Roy also now lives in Canada).

I graduated from the sixth form with a Blackpool University Scholarship and went on to King's College, London, where I took a B.Sc. in Zoology specializing in marine biology. After temporary work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries I was offered the position of librarian at the Freshwater Biological Association on Windermere in the Lake District. After nine years there I became Science Librarian at Royal Holloway College in Englefield Green, Surrey. Three years later, in 1967, I was offered the position of Head Library and Publications Services at the just formed Freshwater Institute of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada in Winnipeg. There I had the challenge of building up a library almost from scratch. After my retirement in 1992 the library was named ‘The Eric Marshall Aquatic Research Library’. In 1996 I moved to Vancouver Island where I now live.

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