Many of us look back on school days as being some of the best of our life. For me, there were a few good times, but mostly it was not a happy experience, and I don’t feel disappointed that my old school has now been demolished. In the image above, the east entrance to the school, with its rather grand portico, remains, as does the eastern internal staircase (just visible in the background of this image by Tom Jolliffe – with the handrail still in place) that led to the first floor.
Passing though the entrance shown in the image, one entered a corridor that had the Head’s Study on the left, the Secretary’s office on the right and a succession of classrooms also on the right, with the Biology Laboratory at the end of the corridor (to the left of the corridor were windows looking out on to one of the “playgrounds”). The Biology Lab. plays an important part in the following narrative.
Having passed O-levels in 1962, I took A-levels in Chemistry, Botany and Zoology (I dropped Physics after one year). Chemistry was then taught at the school in a relatively new two-storey block that had replaced an old hut, where Mr Roberts had earlier taught us (1A of the 1958 intake) to recite the mantra “Acid + Base = Salt + Water”. The hut was so old that the knots in the floorboards were raised and shiny, the rest of the boards being worn away by the scuffing shoes of generations of students. As I recall, A-level Chemistry was taught on the first floor of the new building and I had the misfortune of having Mr Crabtree as my teacher. He was clearly an able chemist, but he bullied me on occasions, one of which I recall clearly when he tapped me repeatedly on the head while saying, with raised voice, “valency, Wotton, valency!”. I’m not sure what I had done to deserve this response, but I admit that I didn’t have much interest in chemistry, as was apparent to Mr Crabtree. My fascination with natural history made the A-levels in Botany and Zoology much more to my taste, but, unfortunately, I was not a good scholar.
As Biology was
not among the most popular subjects at TBGS, we took A-Levels in both Botany
and Zoology at the South Devon Technical College, in a building adjacent to the
school. Teaching was shared between the two institutions, with Botany taught by
Mr Hood from the Grammar School and Zoology by Mr Cosway from the Tech…
…I always enjoyed visiting Paignton Zoo to gaze at the animals and I joined the “Peacock Association” (the Friends of the Zoo) to gain free entry and to attend meetings with guest speakers. On the south side of the Zoo was an area closed to the public, with a high double gate that led to mature woodland and a hillside that was grazed by rabbits. Mr Hood had kept a record of the distribution of plants on the hillside over several years and a group of us Botany students was taken there to continue mapping the site using quadrats. It was something that was organised each year to teach botanical surveying techniques and I really enjoyed this field work. My earlier flower collecting meant that I could identify many plants, although I now used Latin names rather than the common ones, and I went back to the site on my own a few times to expand the survey in other areas. This impressed, and surprised, Mr Hood who, like Mr Cosway, didn’t think I had much of a future academically [the latter having recommended that I give up Zoology].
I liked Mr Hood, as he clearly loved plants and seemed independent-minded, although we only had occasional glimpses of the human side of our schoolmasters. He had spent time in India with the Army and was almost a caricature of someone from that background, having a large moustache and habitually wearing a rumpled tweed sports jacket and cavalry twills. Occasionally, he talked to us about the Western Ghats and some of his Indian adventures and these were very exotic for me, an insular Paigntonian.
The freedom of the Tech. was such that I never worked as hard as I should have done in classes and it also meant that, with a couple of friends, we thought little of skipping school to go collecting marine animals from the local shore (see below). We should have been in the School Library, but identifying the animals in our collections was much more fun and we also brought back specimens and set them up in aquarium tanks.
Our form room was the Biology Lab. in the main school building and it was the scene of several pranks. One came from our collections, as we soon discovered that seaweed kept in a large jar decomposed to produce a shocking and pervasive smell. What could be more fun than to secrete an open jar of rotting wrack near a radiator in the corridor and then retrieve it once the area had become filled with its perfume? We also discovered that bubbling gas into a sink of water to which “Teepol” had been added produced large quantities of foam that would spread along a bench and that throwing a lighted match into the foam would produce a wonderful sheet of flame that burned itself out in a second or two.
Perhaps the most infamous prank came when we went to a local pub and bought a couple of flagons of cider that we distilled to produce applejack. We knew well enough that distillates might contain harmful chemicals, in addition to ethyl alcohol, so we were reluctant to drink the stuff that we had made. I can still remember the smell of it though, and the pleasure to be obtained by our behaviour and, as with all the other pranks, the school was seemingly unaware of our activities. As mentioned earlier, the Head’s Study was just along our corridor and “Joe” Harmer (MA Cantab. FRAS) didn’t have a highly-developed sense of humour. If I’d been caught there would have been trouble (and more doubt about my academic abilities), even though I was only a passive participant in the activities. Visits to the shore were an exception, as I was fascinated by all that I discovered there, and played an active role in searches.
My chances of gaining a good reference on my university application form would also have been affected if my behaviour during the 1964 Sixth Form Conference had been discovered. These conferences were held in different schools each year and there were lots of group debates that were very enjoyable: conferences were also a chance to meet girls. At the one held at TBGS, the day started with a religious service at a local church and then there were sessions until lunchtime, during which three of us (highly illegally) went to “The Rising Sun”. After a couple of pints of beer each, we left to walk back to school, singing our version of the 1964 hit by The Animals:
There is a house in Torre, Torquay
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know, I’m one
Well, it didn’t lead to my ruin, but it might have done. On return to the conference, I had the misfortune to sit next to a teacher from another school and had to ask him to let me out as I needed to get rid of some of the fluid that I’d accumulated. He must have found it odd that I left the debate so soon after it started, and also that I smelt a little of alcohol. An anxious few days followed, but I got away with it and I did get my university place and that’s where I changed beyond recognition. I was now much more diligent and I have to say that it was at university where it all started for me. School was just part of the build-up, although I recognise the dedication, and excellence, of some masters and the friendship of fellow students. While rarely happy to see buildings being demolished (another image by Tom Jolliffe is shown below), there’s some satisfaction in seeing the end of the old TBGS. My time there wasn’t the happiest period of my life.
[1] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book (available widely).
