Amongst the post when we returned home was the Old Norvicensian Magazine. This is a glossy annual production for former pupils of the Norwich School and is lavish.
It also acts as a link between the school of today and the school of the past.
This time around there was a lengthy interview with former Headmaster Stuart Andrews which was lovely to read and see. Stuart has to be approaching 90 now. He wasn't Head at the school all that long but it did include my formative years.
When I entered the school in 1963 it was still in the Victorian Age with discipline to match. I have absolute contempt for the then Head who to me was a horrible man who ruled the school through fear and was more like something out of Tom Brown's Schooldays than a modern school.
Thankfully, part of the way through my time at the school, this ogre retired and Stuart Andrews came to the school. In the interview he was asked how he wanted to be remembered and he said "as being firm but fair." I would say he should be remembered as the great moderniser.
He took the rule book and tore a lot of it up whilst keeping the disciplinary essence of the school. He said that if any pupil could give him a school rule that was pointless he would change it. And so he received a list. "Why do we have to wear Macs with belts?" "Why can't we go in certain buildings at lunchtimes," "Why do we have to stop everything and stand to attention when teachers walk across the playground to go into lunch?" "Why do we have to play rugby when we want to play football which is banned for some reason known only to a few?" "Why do six formers have to wear school caps which are usually too small for them."
Those were just some of the comments made and he thought about it and agreed with them all. He didn't agree with everything. He kept the rule about hair not being below the collar and sideburns not being more than halfway down an ear because he thought these added to the elegance of pupils (I have to point out that at this time it was an all boys school. Today it is mixed). In those days we went to school on Saturday mornings as well which was to make up for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons when we played sport.
Stuart allowed us to play football and got rid of so many petty rules that he couldn't see the point of. In the interview he singles out one particular series of lessons taken with pupils studying English Literature O'Level. This was the trial of Richard III. The premise being that King Dick hadn't died at Bosworth Field but was being put on trial for various crimes. I was in the year group that did this and its amazing that he remembers this as a stand-out moment in his teaching career as I do as well.
I seem to remember I was one of the prosecuting counsels. It could have led me into a career in the law but it didn't but it did indirectly lead me into a career in writing which now culminates in this blog.
After the trial (and I cannot remember whether King Dick was found guilty or not guilty) we had to write an essay on the Battle of Bosworth with reference to Shakespeare. I put a different slant on it and imagined what England would have been like if Richard had survived and then followed that down into the modern day (which in this case would have been the late 1960s) arguing whether England would have won the World Cup and much more.
Stuart was kind enough to give me an A grade for the essay with the comment that I hadn't answered the actual question but had written something very original. I guess that may have been where my idea of being slightly different in my writing came from.
Stuart Andrews could be amusing as well. He obviously liked me and fully supported my decision not to go to University but to take a career path into journalism through going to a technical college. In those days it was a given that Norwich School Boys went onto Uni (preferably Oxford or Cambridge). But Stuart never tried to change my mind on that one. He did point out though that my spelling had been shot to pieces by studying Chaucer as I started to spell wordes in an olde Englishe waye.
At the age of 18 and just before leaving the school I contracted Mumps (today I cannot eat chicken soup as it reminds me of those days when it was just about the only thing I could keep down). Stuart put on my report. "Has enjoyed a good term but really 18 year olds shouldn't get mumps." It was a very tongue in the cheek remark.
A few years after leaving the school, finishing journalism college, working in Lowestoft and coming back for a short stint of working in Norwich, I was sent to cover a Rotary Club talk by the international football referee Norman Burtenshaw. I guess the editor thought that as a football fan I would enjoy it and indeed I did. Stuart Andrews was in the Rotary Club. As soon as I turned up he walked over.
"Ah Peter welcome. You must sit next to me for the meal", he said.
I was delighted to do so and also to be called by my first name as it had strictly been surnames at the school.
At one point he asked me a question. "Well Sir" I began my reply.
"None of this Sir business now. Please call me Stuart," he said. I think I tried to but it became hard.
Yes I have nothing but good memories of Stuart Andrews. He helped to foster my love of English and supported me on my career path. I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Tomorrow I will tell you about how I got to know international referee Norman Burtenshaw.