TONY NORRIS

Memories

Hi,
I was at Roxeth Manor Sec: School for Boys between 1959 and 1963. I will say that the education I received there was second to none amongst all the other local schools. I hated my school life, but after I started work, soon realised how much further ahead my education had been to others I met from other schools.
My brother was also at the school but he was 4 years older than me so left from a 5th year engineering extension at the end of my first year there.
The head Mr Watkins was the subject of a fair amount of sniggering by a lot of us. He had the habit during assembly, of standing on the edge of the stage whilst he was talking, with his hands in his jacket pockets, and swaying quite a lot backwards and forwards.
We all sat waiting for him to overbalance one day and topple off the stage.
A few teachers I remember were : Mr Maplethorpe - Geography and PE
Mr Watson - Music ( when annoyed, was very adept at what would nowadays could possibly be termed as physical abuse)
Mr Gareth Gibson Faithwaite Dowbiggin - Physics (went on to Harrow Tech College where I next met him)
Mr Barnes - Maths (same as Mr Dowbiggin, went onto Harrow Tech as I believe asst. Principal.
Both of them worked at the School Lane, Pinner annexe when I knew them)
We had a teacher of history who was known as 'Commie Kate'. I do not know if that was her actual politics or name, but she always carried a chair cushion around with her.
(Maybe she suffered with piles ?)
Mr Cole - I can't remember what he taught, but he worked primarily in the huts at the front of the school.
He, Mr Barnes and Mr Dowbiggin were amongst the best teachers in the school. They certainly knew their subjects and kept a very disciplined classroom.
I also remember a cadaverous caretaker wearing a blue boiler suit and a cap, who always seemed to me, to be disappearing into the bowels to stoke the boilers with coal.
I recall my lack of enthusiasm for anything physical and always tried to skive out of PE or games. When we left the back of the school and crossed over Malvern Avenue to enter the school games field, it was always a case of hatching a plan on the way.
Sometimes we just got a football and kicked it around eventually ending up at the far end of the field, disappearing behind the trees up there. 'Out of sight, out of mind'.
We used to love cross country running as we usually left from the field, run the designated course and return via the front entrance to the school.
We skivers, used to run off into the distance out of teachers range, round the corner and follow round the block to the cafe next to the school entrance.
There we enjoyed a coke or tea until we tagged onto the back of the runners as they returned to the school about an hour later. We always thought it was fair game as we considered the teachers were pulling a fast one anyway.

They rarely came with us. A little snippet which I believe is accurate is that I remember Mr Maplethorpe had a grey Rover (100?) car.
At some point during my time there, he traded it in for a brand new Wolesley (4/40 ?) with a walnut dashboard, which was then, a radical new design, and I was as jealous as hell.
Being too young to drive I always envied that car, and look back now with nostalgia, thinking I wouldn't mind owning a classic like that now. It was all his fault!!!!
I lived during that time in Warden Avenue in Rayners Lane. We moved into the area in 1957 from Southend. I went to Roxbourne (Primary or Junior ?) school, then was promoted to Roxeth Manor in '59. It cost 2d on the 114 bus to school each way, but we often walked to save the money for sweets.
Tony Norris
©Tony Norris2008