Willow Lane

After my shaky start at Nelson Street School, I moved to the Willow Lane Catholic School, a converted Jesuit Chapel, built in 1828, and converted to a school in 1896. It had an imposing Palladine frontage, and was situated in the narrow twisting lane that ran from St Giles to St Benedicts. It was a picturesque, centuries old street that had been the home of both George Borrow, and Francis Blomefield, legendary Norwich writers. Inside was a large hall with classrooms leading off, and at the side a large, below ground level playground. It was here that I met friends who stayed with me throughout the rest of my school days, and it was here that the hierarchies that are such a part of school life began to be established. I was still very much a loner, and reserved, and didn’t find this school any more amenable than the first, especially as we were taught by nuns. Their scrubbed, pale faces under forbidding wimples were intimidating enough, and my particular form mistress had a sadistic penchant for unexpectedly striking her desk with a large flat ruler with such force that the explosive report echoed into the hall, and jarred my nerves to such an extent that I complained to my mother that it was making my head hurt. My complaints fell on deaf ears however, and I had to endure the banging and bellowing for another two years, although, in fairness, I did have basic skills and knowledge forced into me, however reluctantly I absorbed them.

Most of my memories are fragmentary: I remember waiting outside the headmasters office with other miscreants, to have the ends of our fingers whipped with a springy cane, a searingly painful experience that left our hands burning for the rest of the morning. I can’t imagine what I could have done to earn this punishment, but perhaps it was done on a rota basis “pour encourager des autres”. 

I have a distinct, if rather macabre, memory of the morning of 28thJanuary 1953. I sat at my desk at the start of the school day, and as the City Hall clock struck nine, I had an uneasy frisson as I realised that Derek Bentley was at that very moment being hanged at Wandsworth Prison, for the murder of a policeman in a celebrated case of two months earlier. We had even been singing for the previous few days a little rhyme about Craig and Bentley, the words of which I’ve unfortunately long forgotten. Stringing up imbeciles and lunatics was one of the amusements occasionally provided by the state in those long gone barbaric days, and one they continued with for another dozen, shameful years. 

Another memory, less grotesque, but more distressing to me at the time, was the school nativity play. I had been dragooned into playing an aged shepherd, and as the night of the performance approached, I made my mother promise she would be there to watch. On the night itself I searched the crowd from my vantage point beside the stage, but I couldn’t see her; she later said that she had been at the back, but I never could quite believe her. My moment came, and my speech was delivered, inaudibly I’m certain, and imperfectly I would guess, but also in great discomfort, as the elastic bands holding my beard were too short, and were digging painfully into my ears as I waited for my cue. The extraordinary thing is that some sixty years later, I can still remember my lines perfectly, much clearer than I could on that stressful night, and often recite them to myself, as they linger in my memory , like some persistent tune:

“Oh Lord, if these old eyes of mine,

Could see thy face , What bliss divine;

But I am old, my race is run,

May God’s All-Holy Will, be done”

Heigham House

When I left Willow Lane, it was to go to the Heigham House Catholic School on Heigham Road, where I prepared for my eleven plus exam. It was run by the fierce and fabled Mr Rudd, a large, florid faced bully, of uncertain temper, with whom I had some problems. His particular function seemed to be to enter the classroom at any time, and stand glowering at the front of the class, while some shivering victim had to stand and recite part of the times table, the teacher as nervous as the stammering pupil, in case a mistake was made. My particular run in with him was inspired by events outside of school, and which should have been no concern of his, but inveterate bullies seek out offenses to punish, and Jack Rudd was no exception.

Even at that young age I was already an inveterate cinema goer, usually with my mother, and we took a special delight in Sunday night programmes at the Theatre de Luxe,  which would often feature double bills of  old classics. Cinema going on Sunday was still frowned upon in the early fifties in some families, but especially in the Roman Catholic school I went to. Mr Rudd had somehow got wind of this indiscretion of mine, and one day decided to make an example of me. He strode into the classroom and called me out, then made me stand in the aisle while he questioned me remorselessly, until I finally admitted that I had been to the pictures the night before – a Sunday. He subjected me to a red-faced rant that stunned the classroom into silence, and threatened me with dire, if unspecified, consequences if I ever repeated such sinful behaviour. Although I was shaken by this nonsensical assault, I would have shrugged it off more easily, if he had not also said he would inform my mother that such behaviour was not acceptable in his school, and it was not to be repeated. He carried out his threat, and, although he had no means of enforcing his diktat, it made my mother think twice about taking me again on a Sunday. The pull of the cinema was too strong though, and we continued our excursions, albeit a little more circumspectly, and under strict instructions never to mention it at school.

I had Catholic friends from my previous school, including the irrepressible Ricardo Valori, of the famous Norwich family of fishmongers, who was just beginning to blossom into the cheeky character who kept us all amused through the next few years. We were a miscellaneous bunch, ranging from the very bright to the irretrievably stupid, but all about to be forced through the social sieve that was the eleven plus, and which was intended to determine our place in the social structure for the rest of our lives. 

It was at this time I discovered that I had no place in the hierachy that had established itself: I was shy and unassertive for the most part, and couldn't communicate with the teachers in the easy, natural way that people like Valori could; I had a small coterie of cronies, but not among the leaders, and had no aptitude at that time for sports, mainly due to a lack of confidence. 

At the end of one lesson the master, a generally pleasant and considerate man, read out some names of boys to meet him in his room at the end of the lesson to discuss the football team for the weekend. I somehow got the idea that he had mentioned me, which puzzled me a bit, because much as I would have loved to, I had never been invited to play for the team before. I hesitated before going to his room, but finally plucked up courage and walked through the door. The others were already there, and looked at me with some surprise, and I had a sinking feeling that I was most definitely in the wrong place. I stammered out "did you want to see me sir?", and was met with a ripple of laughter at that outrageous thought; more damaging however, was the unsupressed grin that spread over the master’s face as he waved me away dismissively with a "No, not you Cossey", and left me to retreat in shame and humiliation.

Although I had no particular sense of myself as being intelligent, the work came easily to me, and I approached the exam without any fear or nerves. The night before the exam, my mother asked me if I wanted to go to bed early and read comics, or go to the pictures. I knew the next day was important, but I was relaxed, and decided it had to be the pictures. We accordingly caught the bus and went to the Regent to see "Mogambo" with Clark Gable and Grace Kelly. I went to bed late, but the next day took the exam, and breezed through without a care, although it was still some weeks before we got the results. I was not surprised to find I had passed, although it wasn't until I started school in September, that I discovered I had obtained the highest marks in the class, and among the highest in the city.

CNS

The City of Norwich School was built in 1910 on the outskirts of the city, and was an impressive and beautifully proportioned building, of red brick with white stone balustrades. The main building was fronted with an immaculate and sacrosanct lawn, on the other side of which, just inside the main gates, stood the Old School House, a smaller, white painted structure that in my day housed the dining room, and a jazz club for the sixth formers in an upper room. At the rear of the main building was a magnificent expanse of limitless playing fields, veritable “playing fields of Eaton”, where we would indulge in cricket, football, hockey, rugby and athletics. 

In the mid fifties the CNS was the classic grammar school, and the source of much civic pride. It was a fine school in many ways, and being selective, attracted high calibre students and masters. The selective process could still work in the fifties, because the large percentage of the population that were not selected, still had schools that would prepare them for a world where work was plentiful, and those not academically inclined could fulfil their potential in many other productive ways.

The problem with the CNS was that it was still trying to enforce the old hierarchical social structure that had died in the war, but whose moribund corpse was still blocking the way to the new society that was being forged in the rest of Europe and America. It would be another 30 years before this country finally and painfully began to adjust to the new reality, but, in the fifties, we were still trapped in a culture that no longer worked, and it was my first generation of teenagers that uncertainly and blindly stumbled towards the new order, along trails mapped out for us by the rising generation of writers, film makers and musicians. I was at the CNS from the mid to late fifties, a watershed period in the post war world, and one that I responded to, and embraced, too eagerly for my own good: ten years later and I would have been in the mainstream; in 1958 I was battling a crumbling, but still formidable, stone wall.

When I first heard that I had been accepted for the CNS, I was excited; my brother had left the year before, and I knew that this was a privilege and an opportunity. My resplendent new school uniform was paid for by the Anguish Society, a local charity, and every year I had to be interviewed to gain the award for the new school year, and after every interview I was newly charged with enthusiasm, and determined to do well , and was sure that I would succeed in a way that would make my parents proud. My uniform gave me confidence, as it reminded me of the school stories I had absorbed in the books and comics I had grown up with, especially the Red Circle School featured in The Hotspur. This impression was reinforced the first morning I walked through the gates into those splendidly old fashioned precincts, and found myself in the world of Greyfriars. I was awed by the buildings, the imposing lawn, which took the place in my young imagination of the Quadrangle of school stories, the echoing corridors and mahogany panelling; but, most of all, the masters with their splendid flowing black gowns. I was nervous, but felt at home, and was eager to learn, and absorb all that this Brave New World could offer me. 

The CNS operated a remarkably stratified selection system within the school, and everybody was graded according to their supposed ability, and then fixed there for the whole five years, and probably for life; an age old system that I defied by cropping up in all the various grades at times during my stay there, an achievement probably not equalled in the annals of that hidebound establishment. The elite had their own special grade, which after the first year was divided into two equal, but distinct, disciplines: “L” and “S” for language and science; the middle stream, still quite prestigious, but rather patronisingly labelled “A”, presumably for average; and then came the dumping ground, the pit, whose door was already figuratively emblazoned with the legend “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here”. These were the notorious “X” and “Y” streams, the very symbols indicating failure, in the rigorous strata of potential as envisaged by this parochial outpost of academia.

The top stream would provide the university entrants, and the middle class professional jobs, the doctors, teachers and local government officials; the middle stream was for those wishing to get 5 “O-Levels” and work for The Norwich Union, or similar institutions for the aspiring managerial middle classes; the two bottom streams would aspire to the first tier of white collar jobs, still significantly above the lumpen proletariat from the secondary moderns, who would fill the manual labour and factory jobs. This deadening conformity of expectation had worked well for forty years, while society at large had mirrored its ambitions, but the world was changing, and the school’s ossified class structure would be swept away in the next decade.

1

Because of my exam results, I was put in the top grade in my first term, which only doubled the impact of the culture shock I experienced. At that time, I was naturally very reserved, and anonymous, with no friends in class, as those from my previous school had gone to lower classes, and I found it very difficult to get my bearings. I was as able intellectually as the others, but had no confidence, and confidence was an essential pre-requisite of success in that rarified stream. I was eager to learn, and found the work stimulating, but was intellectually undisciplined, and had no academic skills to fall back on, and so found the work oppressive, and overwhelming. It’s not so much that I did the work badly, as that I didn’t do it at all, and so melted into the background and virtually gave up. My first report said that I was apathetic, and it would be a year or more before I found my voice, but by then it was too late, the hierarchies were rigidly enforced, and if you didn’t belong, you were dispensed with. Our form master, Mr Spruce, an amiable maths teacher, had told us in our first days that a wonderful opportunity had been presented to us, we few had been selected from all the boys in our year, and that, six years before Muriel Spark gave the phrase to her heroine Jean Brodie, we were “La crème de la crème”. After my faltering first term I was abruptly de-selected, and thrown out, down to the middle grade; the cream had curdled, and I would never recover.

The rest of that first year was spent in the more agreeable environment of the middle stream; I have a diary from that year, and the school experience itself seemed to have little impact, certainly not in a positive sense. I routinely came close to bottom in any subject I attempted, or more precisely, did not attempt, and my behaviour was beginning to cause problems. I was still lost in strange surroundings, and hadn't yet discovered the confidence to attempt to excel, and so took the easier, but still distinctive, route of failing spectacularly. I was careless of rules and discipline, and so began to stack up lines, detentions and even the ultimate sanction of a caning from the headmaster. 

Lines were a chore, but not recorded on our reports, and not even checked very thoroughly, so had little impact on us. The only diary record I have is of a punishment of 50 lines stating "I must not whistle when assembling in this room", a long forgotten transgression at the lower end of school life. Detentions were a different matter as they were recorded, and noted on our report cards. This caused some difficulties with parents, but in later years when discipline was breaking down they could become a badge of honour, a Purple Heart denoting" Wounded in Battle". A normal detention involved staying behind after school for an hour, and didn't cause any problems, but the Saturday detention was much more irksome, although rarely handed out, and meant that on selected Saturday mornings throughout the year, we had to attend school for the whole morning, very much as 30 years later depicted in "The Breakfast Club", although we never had an Ally Sheedy or a Molly Ringwald to distract us. The caning was quite rare. and interestingly, never recorded; as if, even in those unenlightened times, the idea of an adult attacking a child with a club was not something to be broadcast too widely. This particular caning didn't seem to have much impact, unlike another, which I will describe later, and my diary entry is more concerned with the fact that "The Goon Show" and "Archie Andrews" were finishing that night.

The change of form after that first, traumatic term, meant that instead of the amiable, but ineffectual, Mr Spruce, I had my first encounter with the legendary A.W. (Bill) Haddon, our French teacher and form master. My first impression was very positive, although that changed over the next year. He was a burly man, in early middle age, with a bold, if somewhat shapeless, moustache, and attired in a careless assemblage of cords and tweed. He was a forceful, manly type, and spoke to us in a direct, open way that I suspect most of us had never encountered before: to a class of twelve year olds, he was an awesome figure, and he knew it.

Haddon taught us French, and rather well as I remember it; but he taught me more than he realised, and became a mentor for me of the dark side of authoritarian mentality, as others later taught me the opposite. He first made me aware of the facade that some people erect to hide their true nature, and where I had initially been in awe of him, I later came to despise him. He was a man's man, with a dominating personality that made him a hero on the sports field, and lord of all he surveyed in the classroom.  He was a swashbuckling cricketer, and a terror on the hockey field, as I learned from friends who took up what I considered to be essentially a girl's pastime: in my view, those that couldn't play football, played hockey, and I've had two close friends in my life that have lost an eye at that ludicrous pastime; too high a toll for my taste. Apart from this occupational hazard, playing hockey with Haddon also produced further discomfort in the delight he took in targeting bare, skinny ankles with either his stick, or the hard wooden ball. I never experienced this sadistic behaviour, but friends of mine who did, told me they spent most of the game keeping out of his way. He would probably have said he was making a man of them, but my experience of him was that his real instinct was deeper and less commendable.

His nature was to be in charge, in control, and dominating a class of twelve and thirteen year old children gave him that illusion, an illusion he could not see disturbed. He never liked me I suspect, because, even in that first year, I would not conform, and never took him, or the school seriously. His remarks on my report card suggest that I had begun to get under his skin: "Fair - in an indolent sort of way"; "He might be driven, but he cannot be persuaded to work hard", this from the second year when my results were finally improving. He left his attempt to crush me until the next year; first he had to deal with another free spirit who refused to bow to his authority. 

David Palmer, invariably called "bugle" for no known reason, was an urchin, an imp, a chuckling, joking bundle of energy who took nothing seriously, and enlivened any gathering he came into contact with, especially our class, much to the chagrin of Haddon, whose authority was compromised by Palmer's ebullience. Palmer would not take orders, and never listened to advice, and his self confidence was unshakeable, with occasional disastrous results. He had a mop of wiry brown hair, that he grew very long at the front, which meant that his face was usually obscured by unkempt spirals, that he was forever flicking back, to the major annoyance of more than one master. He had been told at metalwork class that his hair was too long and he must cut it, but David never listened to advice, and so continued to let it flop forward, until one day among the whirr of drills, and general banging of metal, we were all stopped in our tracks by a frantic yelling and wailing from David's side of the room. His hair had again flopped forward, but this time had become caught in the drill and dragged his head down into the danger area. The master quickly retrieved the situation by turning off the machine, and then taking great delight in chopping off a large chunk of floppy hair so that David could stand up again. David was shaken, but not stirred, and soon recovered his spirits, and in time, his long hair. 

David was a friend of mine, and with others we would often play in the waste ground at the top of Wellington Lane, as his grandmother owned a sweetshop at the corner of West Pottergate and Wellington Lane. He could be very annoying with his relentless jokes and excitement, and was not averse to causing trouble, as when he told tales to Haddon that got me my first caning, but despite that, we didn't hold grudges for long, and he was usually fun to be around. Unless, of course, you had a facade of authority that you could not let slip, and in this respect the uncontrollable spirit of David Palmer was a challenge that A.W. Haddon had to take on.

On the day in question, Haddon was taking us for French, and I found myself sitting at the front of the class, beside David Palmer, and directly in front of Haddon. David was unusually quiet that day , and when I asked why, he said he wasn't well, he had a sore throat and felt ill. During the lesson he kept a small packet of fruit sweets at the front of his desk, and from time to time took one, and popped it into his mouth. Haddon finally spotted this, and asked him what he was doing. "I've got a sore throat Sir, I don't feel well" David said, quietly and apologetically. "You can't eat sweets in class, you know better than that, bring them up here." David plaintively protested "But my throat is sore Sir, they make it feel better. My Mum gave them to me, and said to have them when my throat hurts." Haddon's voice was very calm, but implacable "I'll decide what you do in this classroom Palmer, now bring them up here." David would usually have protested at the unfairness of it, but seemed to have no spirit left, and obviously had no choice but to comply. He got up slowly and gave the packet to Haddon, then came back to his seat with a defeated droop to his shoulders. Haddon placed the sweets prominently at the front of his desk, and continued with the lesson. A few moments later I was startled to hear a snuffle beside me, and I turned to find David, the irrepressible, unsinkable David, with his head in his hands, quietly crying. Nobody in the class had ever seen David down before, but we studiously ignored his despair, and continued with our work. I was at the front however, and looked up to see Haddon's reaction, and more than fifty years later I'm still appalled at what I saw. Haddon was staring at David, and his face was suffused with a serene glow of satisfaction, as he leaned back in his chair, and quietly breathed, almost to himself: "At last - we've got him". I was only twelve, but I knew then, and am even more sure now, that for a grown man to take such pleasure in breaking the spirit of a sick boy, was obscene. Haddon was a bully who bolstered his self esteem by dominating people who couldn't fight back; he displayed an affable, gregarious persona to the world, but I had briefly seen the mask slip, and what I saw behind it was something very small.

It was sometime in the next year that I had my own run in with Haddon, and again, it was due to his need to be seen as the dominant figure in any gathering, and in control. There was only one voice to be listened to in his classroom, and when somebody like myself began to attract a following, he was galvanised into defensive action. 

During my second year with Hadon I had been involved in an unfortunate accident that reflected badly on my common sense, but was no more sinister than that. I had been cycling back from speedway at The Firs late on Saturday night with my best friend Woody, when we came to the crossroads half way down Mile Cross Road. We said goodbye as he turned right across the road into Margaret Paston Avenue, and I continued down the hill. I hadn’t gone many yards when I heard a loud crash to my right, and turned to see a motorcycle sliding into the gutter. I stopped as it came to a halt, and went back up the hill to look down Margaret Paston Avenue to see if Woody had seen it, but he was out of sight. I stayed a few moments, but as a number of people were gathering, I carried on home, and thought no more of it.

It wasn’t until I got to school on Monday that I became aware of the full enormity of the incident: as Woody had turned across the road on that fateful Saturday night, he had been hit by the motorcycle and knocked unconscious into the gutter. It was a dark night and I had been concentrating on the motorcyclist, and not registered at the time, the dark shape next to him. Woody was in hospital, still unconscious, and was to remain there for some weeks, although he made a full recovery, and our friendship was never affected. I have to admit that I foolishly, but typically,  made much of the incident in relating the horrific crash to eager listeners, even though I hadn’t really seen it, and as a result the event was much talked about for a week or more. In retrospect, my failure to realise what had happened during those few seconds seems extraordinarily obtuse; but at the time, and remembering it now with perfect clarity, I never for a moment suspected the truth.

A week or so after the event, when the story had more or less run out of steam, we had a lesson with Haddon, and towards the end he developed a reflective mood, and began to talk in a discursive way about where our lives might lead us. We settled back, happy to be relieved of work, as he talked of friendship and loyalty, morality and civic duty, and the enduring strengths that underlie our society. It seemed to be going nowhere until he began to relate an anecdote about the lack of courage shown by those who reject responsibility, and he illustrated his point by relating the story of someone who would callously leave a friend lying injured in the street, and walk away because they couldn’t be bothered to help; the kind of selfish and cowardly behaviour that we should all be ashamed of condoning. By this time the atmosphere in the class was electric: although he never mentioned my name or looked my way, we knew he was talking about me, and quite blatantly accusing me of deliberately leaving Woody to his fate. The class finally broke up, with a lot of chatter about what he had said, and what I would do about it. I said he wouldn’t get away with it, but left it at that, until I got home and told my Father what had happened. He was appalled at the story and promised to do something about it: he wrote a letter to Haddon condemning his accusations, and demanding that he immediately retract them, or he would be receiving a letter from our solicitor; and knowing Dad, and his enormous range of contacts, I’m sure he did have a solicitor somewhere. 

The letter was duly written, in Dad’s neat, legible hand, and forcefully and articulately set out his position. I took it to school next day and there was a huge sense of anticipation when I told the class what was going to happen. I placed it prominently on Haddon’s desk, and we all sat down to await his arrival and reaction. He swept into the room in his usual imperious manner, and sat at his desk, glancing at the letter, and then looking away. He must have sensed the atmosphere, and knew the cause, but he was too experienced an operator to give us any satisfaction, and so he studiously ignored the letter for the rest of the day, enjoying our seething frustration. At the end of the afternoon he dismissed the class and asked me to stay behind. 

When we were alone he read the letter, studied it, and paused before speaking. For the next half an hour he treated me to a discursive ramble on the nature of intellectual discussion, and how it was not wise to take too literally what were meant to be illustrations of philosophical constructs; despite my already impressive vocabulary, he threw in the odd esoteric technical term that I wasn’t familiar with, and which forced me to ask for clarification, no doubt to emphasise how out of my depth I was at this level. He never directly mentioned the particular incident that was the cause of the dispute, but he reiterated that no interpretation of a personal, or specific nature should be inferred from what were completely neutral references to illustrate abstract propositions. And so he went on, churning out this farrago of convoluted, self justifying nonsense, as he sought to convince me that I had misinterpreted what had been a perfectly reasonable, mature discussion, and which was perhaps, by implication, over my head. This was all done in a quiet, friendly, man-to-man kind of way that was intended to disarm me, and at the end I’m sure he was content with his performance, but I wasn’t buying it. I left without saying much, and said I would report what he had said to my Father. 

My Father didn’t buy it either, and we discussed what to do. We decided that to take it further would be pointless, and only prolong the story; Haddon had not had the courage to apologise in private, nor justify himself in public, but he had in effect withdrawn the accusation, albeit obliquely, and it was pretty certain he would never bring up the subject again. We felt that we had forced him to back down; he knew it and we knew it, and the fact that he had done it in a devious, dishonest way, only reinforced our contempt for him. We decided to accept a moral victory, rather than prolong a destructive war, and so let the matter drop. The next day I told the others that he had withdrawn the accusation, and he would never mention it again, which proved to be the case. Whether because of this or not I don’t know, but I never had any trouble with Haddon again, and at the end of the year moved to another form, which meant I had no more contact with him for the rest of my school career.

Although Haddon dominated my first two years at school, due to being my form master for four of the six terms, most of the masters were not particularly significant, although there were other bizarre characters who crossed my path. 

"Dodger"

Mr Court took French, although mainly in the upper streams, where I’m sure he felt more at home. Court was a tall, aloof man, with sharp features and black slicked back hair; he was also an irredeemable snob. He used to take the sixth form to Switzerland on school trips, and enjoyed regaling us with exotic stories of sunbathing in the snow of the Alps; not something, he hastened to assure us, that should be attempted by any but the most experienced travellers. This was to a class of boys who had probably never been further than Hemsby, and whose parents were unlikely to take them to Switzerland anytime soon. 

He was also later involved in the great sock rebellion, which he calmly and contemptuously put down. At sometime in the third year, when the Rock and Roll image was beginning to obsess us, a fad developed among teenagers for fluorescent socks: thin, nylon socks in outrageous shades of lime-green, pink, bright yellow and so on. I, and some of my friends, immediately bought a batch and proudly, and defiantly wore them to school. We were told not to, but frequently disobeyed, leading to Court coldly informing me one day that I had worn them so many times that week, they could probably do with a wash, and I had better sit at the back of the class. Robin however, a great friend, and a dedicated Rock and Roller, was not so lucky, and was taken to the Headmaster to be caned. This caused outrage among the rest of us, and we determined to go on strike at the next lesson to show our disapproval. In the manner of these things, Court got wind of our plans, and at the start of the lesson he called me, the probable ringleader, to begin the reading. It put me on the spot, as he knew it would, and I spent an uncomfortable half hour trying to live up to the expectations of the rest of the class, while not provoking Court too far. In the event, I spent the whole lesson deliberately stumbling my way through a simple passage of French that I would normally have taken ten minutes to accomplish. Court allowed it to continue without a word, and the class were satisfied that we had made a show, but it was a painful experience, and one that was not repeated, as I realised that I would be placed by Court at the forefront of any further rebellion, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I would not be backed up by anyone else in the class if they were called upon.

 My enduring memory of Court however, is a tiny vignette that sums up the class based chasm that separated the different elements in the school. I was standing beside Court in the midst of a scrum of people, when for some reason he muttered to himself, in a voice thick with contempt, about “the kind of people that urinate in public”. I can’t imagine who he was referring to, or why: I can only guess he meant public urinals that he assumed only the working classes used; perhaps he thought the Swiss didn’t micturate; perhaps for all his haughty demeanour he was essentially a limited man; perhaps he was just a fool.

Another legend that I came into contact with from time to time was “Dodger” Doe. Mr Doe had been at the school since the thirties and took us for music and football. I suspect he was a talented man, and a dedicated teacher, and although his manner could be off-putting, he was not generally disliked. He was definitely a character though, and this was down to his extraordinary appearance and voice. He was a slim, neat man with an extraordinary skeletal head topped by a crew cut of pure white hair: tight smooth skin was stretched over prominent cheekbones, and a seemingly fleshless face; his thin lipped mouth permanently stretched to an open letterbox shape, displaying his prominent teeth. From that orifice forcefully issued an upper class accent of exquisite refinement, that belonged to a world long gone. This was undercut slightly, for us, by his constant referring to various people as an “Ass”; unfortunately this always came out very distinctly as “Arse”, which did his authority no good at all. I suspect he played on his image, and was well aware of the effect it had. He was generally respected, and his word was law, especially on the football field, where he once summarily dismissed me down to a lower grade for missing a school football match. I never really resented it, as I inwardly knew he was well within his rights to be angry, and anyway, he later relented and restored me to the top grade.

Midway through my second year I became aware of abilities I hadn't suspected I had, and my attitude to the work changed at the same time as my behaviour began to cause conflict with authority figures such as Haddon. At the end of my first term I had been demoted to the middle stream; at the end of the first year I was further demoted to the "X" stream, and at the end of that first term I plummeted to the bottom of the pile, and lodged in the "Y" stream. I had taken four terms to go from the top to the bottom, touching all levels in between, but at last began to get my bearings, as I finally found the confidence that had been so miserably lacking up until then.

I had failed utterly in all subjects in that first year and a half, and made no attempt to improve. I didn't feel in any way connected with the work or the school, and had discovered that being so spectacularly dim gave me a certain notoriety among the rest of the class that was much better than not being noticed at all. The key to unlocking this impasse was my Father, and without him, I may not have survived at the school. He had many interests, but especially a love of figures, and a very clear mathematical mind. He determined to share his love of maths with me, and to let me understand the beautiful simplicity of the numbers that had appeared such a closed world to me. He would go through my maths homework with me, week after week, with infinite patience explaining exactly how the figures worked, and not letting me get to the right answer until I had fully understood how every step of the way had led to the next, and then the inevitable conclusion. He made me work hard, but he also led me to enjoy it, as seemingly intractable problems suddenly resolved themselves. All this enabled me to turn in homework that was more acceptable, but it did far more than that, by unlocking the potential that I never realised was there. I had always assumed that I wasn't intelligent enough to compete with the rest of the class, although I was fully aware that some of them struggled as much as I did, and it took a revelatory incident in class to enable me to finally break free. 

I had inherited Dad's mathematical abilities without realising it, and his patient tutoring had set them in motion, with the following dramatic results.

 I was sitting at the back of the class during a maths lesson when the teacher, the amiable Mr Spruce from my first disastrous term, gave us all a complicated maths problem to work at. He told us to do it at our own pace, and when we had the answer, to put our hands up. I began to work at it, almost unthinkingly putting Dad's methods into operation, and found to my astonishment that the whole problem unravelled magically, and resolved itself into what seemed obviously the correct answer. I tentatively put my hand up, not convinced at what I had done, as the others were still hard at work, and obviously nowhere near finished:

"Yes Cossey"

"I've finished Sir"

Two dozen heads turned to look at me. Some smirked; a whisper of derision ran round the room at the idea that the class dunce thought he had solved a problem that their best minds were still struggling with; and most deflating of all, Mr Spruce had that faint patronising smile that I had become so familiar with:

"Bring it up here Cossey, lets see what you've done"

I walked to the front of the class in complete silence as the class waited with anticipation to see me brought back to earth, and my effrontery revealed. Mr Spruce took the paper and glanced at it, then looked more carefully. I had put down the steps I had taken to arrive at the answer, as Dad had taught me, and so there could be no doubt that my correct answer had been logically deduced. Mr Spruce, to his credit, was pleased, if surprised, at the result, and congratulated me on my work, and told me to go back to my seat. He then turned on the rest of the disbelieving class, and told them to get on with their work "and try and do as well as Cossey has". I walked back through the class to my seat at the back, and this time, the smirk was on my face.

It's astonishing to see the transformation as detailed in my school reports: For the first four terms I came bottom in maths, until the breakthrough as described above; I then moved into the top five as I found my feet; and then effortlessly came top every term for the remaining two years of my time at the school. I obviously wasn't stretched at that low level, but as I shall relate, my efforts to improve my standing were repressed by a rigidly enforced school hierarchy that couldn't cope with the unconventional or the rebellious. Although the school did well by those who played by the rules, a lot of children from my background didn't even know what the rules were, and we were quickly abandoned to the lower stream dumping ground, from which there was no escape.

From that mid point in my second year, my results began to improve as I at last got to grips with the work, my confidence grew, and I began at last to establish myself as a leader, rather than an anonymous fringe player. All I really needed to complete the transformation was someone at the school who believed in me, and who could encourage me towards excellence: Haddon's attitude to my improved results was grudging at best, if the comments on my school report are anything to go by, and I only had a chance to flourish when I left his form behind, and moved into my third year where I came under the influence of the irrepressible P. W. Blake.

P.W. (Paul) Blake was a character like no other I met in my years at that generally conformist and inflexible establishment. He must have been quite young when I knew him, probably in his mid thirties, and he was inspired by an enthusiasm to teach that was an all-consuming passion. He had no particular discipline to his name, but took us for the rather vague "Local Studies", and I suspect he was not as academically well endowed as some of the other members of staff. In his rather innocent way, he once confided to us that "You may be surprised to hear this, but at school I was not a particularly gifted student, and had to work very hard to get to college". At this we exchanged knowing looks, and secret smirks - nobody had ever laboured under the illusion that "Gabby" was a gifted student; I personally thought he was rather immature, and would have been better suited to a different school and younger students. Whatever intellectual shortcomings he may have had however, he more than made up for with boundless enthusiasm, and a genuine vocation to teach. He fondly assumed that we called him "Sexton" as a nickname, but he was forever "Gabby" to everyone in the school, for no known reason, but yet another small example of his misreading of the young fifties teenagers he was so keen to instruct: "Sexton Blake" was a heroic character from the thirties, our generation was less respectful, and sought to undermine authority with less glamorous nicknames.

Gabby was an unremarkable looking man, bespectacled, with sandy hair and a shapeless sandy moustache, but he belied his conventional appearance with his constantly energetic efforts to engage us, which led to behaviour that at times verged on the manic. He would roar and rant, wave his arms, and leap about, in a constant battle to keep us engaged. We were never bored in his class, but did at times find him a bit tiresome, "silly", or "a bit too grown up for him" even, as I wrote in my diary at the time. On one occasion he spent the entire lesson regaling us with tired limericks and poems which he found hilarious, but which we thought childish: we were far more knowing than he appreciated, and had our own stock of limericks that relegated his more innocent offerings to a childhood that we had left behind. He finally lost patience with my fake guffaws, and our general derision, and said to us very seriously "you are behaving slightly loutishly", an admission that we had made our point. Gabby didn't really understand us, but he had a quality far more important - he cared about us. He desperately wanted us to learn; he wanted us to fulfil whatever potential we had, and to that end, he never stopped trying, even though we often disappointed him.

He took especial interest in me, realising that I had far more ability than I was using, and made an heroic attempt during the year that I was in his class, to encourage me to do better. He did inspire me, and I did improve, to the extent of finally coming top of the form in my last term with him; but it was never quite enough to get me the second chance I needed, and my behavioural problems were causing considerable anxiety to Gabby, and to my parents. 

The main problems were simply not adhering to strict rules, and not giving the automatic respect to authority, that the masters felt they deserved. I've always felt that respect has to be earned, not demanded, and I never tried to hide my lack of respect for certain of the members of staff that I despised. At one point I was taken to the headmaster because of a coloured windcheater I was wearing under my jacket. He was furious and told me that I was disloyal, he had disliked me for years, and that he would get my mother to come to the school to bring matters to a head. This was the anger that was caused over details of the school uniform: the fluorescent socks were a bitter controversy; a fashion some of us developed for tucking the end of our tie into our shirts under the third button caused another confrontation; trousers being too narrow as we got somebody to take them in to approach the "drainpipe" look that we were sporting outside school with our jeans; and hair being too long - a long running battle I had, that I never gave way on. These, and many other, small rebellions were as important to me as my school work, as I strove to establish an identity among the stifling conformity, an ambition that I succeeded in, too well for my own good.

Gabby, to his eternal credit, tried to understand what was going on, and tried to reach out to us, but the gap was too wide, and, despite his best efforts, we constantly let him down, me in particular. On one memorable evening I was sitting at the top of Orchard Street with Robin and a group of his friends, a rough neighbourhood bunch of proto Teds, not the kind I normally hung out with - all my friends were at CNS - but the slightly dangerous type of gang that I much admired. Totally unexpectedly, Gabby came sailing round the corner from Dereham Road on his bike. He was going to see Robin's Mother, typically using his own time to try and help anybody under his care. He spoke with us for a while, then went off to his visit. While he was there, the gang became very curious about Gabby and suggested we teach him a lesson. I was not at all sure it was a good idea, and I think Robin, despite his brash exterior, a timid soul, was frankly horrified, but the others were now in fighting mode, and left us to go and wait for Gabby outside Robin's house in the adjoining  Street. They came back half an hour later in high spirits and regaled us with the story of how they had followed Gabby when he left, caught up with him in the Street, and encircled him on their bikes, whooping and nudging, until he lost his balance and fell off his bike. It seemed a great joke to them, but Robin and I were well aware that they didn't have to face him the next morning, and we did. We went to school next day with considerable apprehension and were called in to see Gabby after assembly, and asked what we had to do with the previous nights escapade. A pale and shaking Robin stammered that he knew nothing about it Sir, and was contemplated with contempt by Gabby, who then looked at me. It was obvious that he was not particularly enraged, and I simply gave a sly smile and shrugged. We had a bland lecture on responsibility, but got away with no punishment.

Gabby was obviously at a loss as to what to do about discipline, as this event took place some weeks after he had made me an extraordinary offer to try and resolve the problem. During the day I had received yet another detention, but had protested at the unfairness of it, and Gabby had got it rescinded after a petition from some of the form saying I had been unfairly picked out. He kept me back after school that day, and brought up the subject of my burgeoning detention rate. He made what still seems to me a very strange offer: he said that if I received 4 or less detentions the next term he would give me ten shillings; if I received more than four he would wallop me! This wasn't a contract I had any interest in, and I quickly declined, although I could appreciate his attempting to think outside the box, even if his solution seemed a little bizarre. 

He wasn't to be denied however, and a few months later the subject of punishment was again on the agenda. Towards the end of my last term with him, I was confronted with the accusation of having taken a book from his cupboard; I had no defence as I had indeed taken the book, and sold it to a friend in another class for a shilling, although Gabby didn't know that. I was kept in during dinner break, and told that I could have a detention, which would have taken me to near record levels, or the slipper. "The slipper" was something new, a punishment not handed out before as far as I was aware, and certainly not part of the school curriculum, but the detentions were piling up, so I opted for this unknown alternative. He went to the cupboard and retrieved an ordinary, worn slipper, and then became very serious. "I want you to be grown up about this Cossey" he said sternly, "this is between us, and not to be discussed outside this room, do you agree?" I nodded amiably "Yes sir", happy to have avoided another detention, as I bent over the desk as instructed. He lifted my jacket, stepped back, and carefully hit me twice on each buttock. "Hit" is probably an exaggeration, as the impact was minimal, with no discomfort; he seemed unsure how hard to apply the slipper, perhaps never having done it before, but he seemed happy with the result, and pleased that I had so sportingly accepted the punishment. I was glad to get off so lightly, and as far as I remember, never mentioned it to anyone, aware, I think, that it was a personal matter between me and Gabby.

One of the other, less confrontational chores that Gabby had to perform was to take us on field trips to various factories and power plants, usually terminally boring, but sometimes enlivened by incidents that would amuse us, but usually at the discomfiture of the long suffering Mr Blake. On a trip to the uninspiring Steward and Patteson brewery in Barrack Street, at one point we climbed some iron steps to a narrow gantry high above the open vats of foaming, fermenting liquor. We were enclosed by a steel mesh so there was no chance of any accidents, although there was plenty of room to poke fingers and objects through. Before we went on the gantry we were forcibly instructed by Gabby not to drop anything near the vats, the unspoken sub text being: "and if you do, for God's sake don't say anything". Most of us understood the situation, and anything that did fall down was done so surreptitiously, purely for our own amusement. Not everyone was so alert however, and as Gabby was standing at the end of the gantry, having a beer and talking to a couple of managers, he was a approached by a timid, dim little creature known as Smith. C, who put up a shaking hand and said "Excuse me sir, but I dropped my pencil in the tank". The two managers stopped talking and glared; Gabby went pale, and I do believe that if he had not made an heroic effort to control himself, the wretched boy would have followed his pencil into the foaming liquid. Gabby stammered out embarrassed apologies, the managers left to presumably stop the process and dispose of the contaminated beer, and Gabby hurried us off the gantry with unconcealed fury, to where we could do no more damage. Smith C was petrified, while we found the whole episode hilarious.

An even greater embarrassment awaited our hapless leader on another, more adventurous field trip to Suffolk. After a stop at Framlingham Castle where a couple of local girls were of far more interest to us than the ancient stones, we continued to Thorpe Ness and the huge boating lake. After we had all disembarked from the bus, we were told by Gabby that we could spend the afternoon as we wished, but that if we went on the lake we were only to take a row boat, as the small sail boats were for "experienced users only". We accordingly pursued our own devices, either rowing, exploring or generally taking advantage of a glorious afternoon, as we watched our intrepid yatchsman, Admiral "Gabby" Blake sail confidently out on to the shallow lake. About an hour later, and almost inevitably, news spread around the various groups that "Gabby's in the drink". We all rushed to the water's edge, and sure enough there was Gabby's little sail boat capsized in the middle of the lake, its sail trailing forlornly in the water, but no sign of Gabby. There was idle speculation that he may have drowned, but no real urgency to find out, until somebody said that he had retreated to the bus, leaving strict instructions not to be disturbed. Although everybody else kept away, I couldn't resist the temptation to investigate further, and so made my way carefully to the back of the bus, then crept along the side and peeped in a side window. There sat Gabby, stripped to his underwear, his little pot belly hanging over his soaked underpants, as he carefully spread his dripping clothes over the backs of the seats to dry. I crept away and told the others what I had seen, which enlivened everyone for the rest of what had turned out to be a spectacularly impressive field trip. Nobody mentioned the incident on the way home in the hearing of the uncharacteristically quiet and dishevelled Gabby, although there were many smirks behind his back.

Paul Blake was a bit of a buffoon in many ways, and didn't always understand exactly how we thought, but he was unquestionably an outstanding teacher, and universally liked. He took an interest in my school career, and during the year I spent in his form I found my feet academically, even as my discipline problems were getting beyond my control. .

The end of the third year was an important one, as at that point the segregation of the different streams became even more firmly entrenched. The "X" and "Y" streams stopped dong French, in exchange for a rather vague "Local Studies" and our expectations were accordingly lowered. I desperately wanted to carry on with French, but to do so I had to be promoted to "A" grade, which Gabby promised he would try and achieve for me if I could get the right results in form. I put considerable effort into that last term, and finally came top of the form; I also managed my best ever French result, 3rd, which was undercut somewhat, by the official report card remarks of my French master, the supercilious Mr Court: "Capable, if he could adopt a more civilised attitude, he could do well". Unfortunately I was not given the opportunity to do well, as I failed to get promotion to the "A" stream, but was instead promoted to the "X", a pointless exercise as the two streams had the same curriculum, and were of the same standard academically. The only difference was that I was with new classmates, and new masters, not a situation conducive to settling in quickly to the new term.

Gabby had tried his best and failed, and was obviously as disappointed as I was when he told me, especially as I further learned that I had been put forward for a school prize as a result of my work, but this had been vetoed by the headmaster on the grounds that it would set a bad example if a boy with my reputation walked out in front of the school to be awarded a prize; it could be seen, he felt, as condoning my behaviour. 

Whether this was a turning point in my school career I'll never know, but I suspect that the promotion that I so desired would have proved an illusion, and would have been compromised by my growing inability to conform, which had reached the stage when I was constantly at war with any figure of authority. At the end of this piece I will consider the ultimate figure of authority, the man who, more than any other, had the ability to influence individual careers at the school, and who took it upon himself to root out what he saw as the destructive influences of the new social changes that he barely understood, but obviously feared. I speak of course, of the formidable R. W. Jackson M.A, B. Sc., London

                                                            The Reign of Terror

My first feeling at the start of the new school year, in new surroundings, was a determination to do well, and work hard; this was always my resolution, but I was never able to focus sufficiently to stay out of trouble, and trouble descended on me from a great height at the start of my newly promoted status in 4X. I may have settled in, but for an unfortunate, for both of us, conflict with a new master, the very nervous Mr Hughes.

Mr Hughes, I have no other information about him, had a brief and spectacularly unsuccessful spell at the school, and I had a ringside seat at the disaster. He took us for English and from the first day of the new term it was obvious that something was wrong. My diary entry for that day dismisses him as "a queer old sort", and we were all aware that this was somebody who was likely to provide more entertainment, than enlightenment.

 He was a nondescript youngish man, in his thirties, with a very highly strung, agitated manner. He made the first big mistake by trying to impose his authority upon us with a story from his previous career. He told us he had been teaching in Ireland, at a rough school, with boys very much more difficult to handle than we were, and that they had made the mistake of trying to take him on, with the consequence that one of them had been thrown down the stairs. The story was becoming garbled, Hughes was becoming over excited, and we got the impression that his strong arm tactics had caused his precipitate departure from the school, although it was difficult to get a clear idea of what he was saying. What we did deduce however, is that the man was a complete idiot, and the story gained ground that he had suffered a nervous breakdown, and was still recovering. If that was true, he was in the wrong place and the wrong profession, and over the next weeks we gradually unpicked his fragile personality. 

We soon found small ways of annoying him, and were never disappointed by his increasingly bizarre reactions. At one time I was sitting at the back of the class and found that if I pushed a large wardrobe sized cupboard a few inches, it was slightly unstable, and would rock backwards and forwards for a minute or so, causing a low, almost imperceptible rumble that could be faintly heard throughout the room. I continued this activity for about 10 minutes , while the class sniggered, and Hughes became more agitated as he tried to locate the source of the noise, exaggeratedly swivelling his head, and glaring in turn at every grinning face. He finally spotted the moving wardrobe and leapt down the aisle shrieking "At last - we have the culprit". He stared at the now still cupboard for a moment, then at me, then turned and left the room, ten minutes before the end of the lesson, yelling that we were "A filthy crowd".

Now that we had found his breaking point, his always minimal authority was shredded, and we took sadistic delight in watching him come apart in front of us. A few days later we again provoked him, I can't remember how, and forced another flamboyant, early exit from the classroom, this time with unexpectedly satisfying results. He again furiously swept out of the room early, his black gown flowing behind him, and, as he slammed the door, he left the tip of his gown trapped and protruding into the room. This in itself produced some whoops and yells, as we waited for the door to re-open, but to our astonishment the door remained shut, and the gown remained trapped. After a few moments some brave soul crept to the door and gingerly opened it. Hughes was gone and his gown lay abandoned in the corridor outside. That would have been triumph enough, but one enterprising member of the class, in a moment of inspiration, ran forward and stuck the sharp tip of a protractor through the triangle of protruding gown, and firmly into the door. We then waited. Within a few minutes, the door handled turned, the door opened a fraction, and the gown was forcibly recovered, although with an audible tear, as a two inch rip appeared in the corner of the gown. The door closed on a muffled exclamation, and we were left to our own devices, before another master, visibly furious, came to take the rest of the lesson, although the incident of the gown was never mentioned.

As so often, my increasing notoriety in the school led to me being identified as the ringleader in the harrying of Mr Hughes, with unfortunate consequences. Although I don't think I had more to do with Hughes than anyone else in most respects, I did assume dangerous proportions in his eyes through an entirely innocent piece of writing I did. Hughes took us for English, and set us an essay on a subject of our own choosing. I took my writing seriously, and put together what I thought was a light hearted, although insightful, satiric piece about the school as a hotbed of Rock 'n' Roll, Teddy boys and rebellion, a kind of "Blackboard Jungle", a favourite book of mine, but with real incidents thrown in, including the notorious rumbling cupboard. I had innocently expected a positive response, but instead had my paper furiously scrawled in red ink with the words: "Scurrilous nonsense! See me!", and a mark of nought out of ten. I did see him after school, and he was strangely conciliatory. He said that my writing and English were very good, and I deserved a mark; if I would redo the essay on a different subject, he would mark that and say no more. I did do another essay, on the history of the Olympic Games, with lots of research and achieved a good mark. Although the incident had passed without any real bother, I think in his increasing confusion, he identified me too closely with the "Blackboard Jungle" story, and in times of stress (and he had many), he saw me as the cause.

This whole sorry episode was heading for an inevitable conclusion however, and a week later, the final act took place. During his English lesson, whatever vestiges of authority Hughes had possessed were finally swept away, and chaos reigned. We were doing as we pleased, playing amongst ourselves and generally creating a hideous racket, with Hughes completely impotent to intervene, until he finally caught our attention by completely losing all self control. I had been feeling sorry for him before, and still did, but now could only watch in fascination as he went into complete meltdown. He ranted and shouted, kicked a locker door to pieces, threw ink all over the floor, and slammed his books and case furiously on his desk, until we finally calmed down in wonderment at this uncontrolled hysteria. Although we didn't know it at the time, it was the breaking point, and our days of sadistic fun were over.

Hughes later that day burst into the headmaster's study yelling that we were out of control, and, more importantly for me, "Either Cossey goes, or I do". The result was that the whole class had to stay after school to be spoken to by the Headmaster. I was immediately picked out and told to stand. I was sent to his study where the Assistant Headmaster, Mr Ball, was already waiting. The Headmaster then came in and I was made to bend over a chair to be caned. The cane in question was a short length of thick wood, "the cosh" as it was known to us, and capable of some damage. I had been caned once before, with no real effect, but this time I was not so lucky. The first, full blooded swing, didn't hit me on the buttocks, but was too high - I assume by accident - and caught the bottom of my spine , with excruciating consequences as my whole nervous system was inflamed, and a white hot pain shot up my spine. The second, more conventional blow, I hardly noticed, as I was in such pain, and when dismissed, I limped, white faced and shaking, back to the library where the rest of the class were assembled. We then had a tedious tirade from the Headmaster, when he told us that he had been informed by our form master that there were seven bad boys in the class, and I was the ringleader. I wasn't convinced of that, but it was becoming clear that my name was the top of the list for all that went wrong in the class, and if I was going to be blamed anyway, I may as well live up to it.

I had to see the Head again first thing the next morning, and was brusquely told: "Get your books, and go to 4Y". It was the last thing I had expected, but I was not sorry to be with my old mates in the "Y" stream, and soon settled in for what turned out to be a pretty good year.

As for Hughes, I was never taught by him again, and soon afterwards, the story swept the school that he had been found weeping in a corner of the Masters Common Room, and within weeks he had disappeared from the school completely. Were we cruel? Yes we were, and even though I had attempted some kind of rapprochement with my essays, I was no different to the others in the class: the weak, to us, were "as flies to wanton boys", and we killed them for our sport.

"Dinger"

The rest of my fourth year was in the "Y" stream, where I had friends I was comfortable with, and masters I could tolerate. My work was steady and successful, as I came top of the form every term, one term coming first in six out of the nine subjects; but always coming bottom in art, as a rebuke to an aggressive, broken-nosed little man with a toothbrush moustache named Ogden; we didn't like each other very much, and neither of us tried to hide it.

Our form master was a plump, ineffectual man named Field, inevitably degraded to "Daisy", as we virtually ignored him during our year with him. He took us for Physics and Biology, which led the hapless buffoon to conduct one hilarious lesson when he was instructed to inform us of the reproductive process. Red faced and sweating, he prefaced the lesson with the stammered words "Now, I want you to be grown-up about this", as he stumbled through his prepared text, to a background of sniggers and barely suppressed laughter. So much for sex-education.

My two best subjects were English and Maths, and I was blessed with great teachers in both subjects. Mr Bell (Dinger) took me for Maths, as he had the previous year, and we got on very well. He was a man of about 60, with a deeply lined face, no noticeable teeth, and a crew cut of pure white hair. He always had a piece of chalk in the corner of his mouth, probably as a substitute for his break time cigarette, and was totally unflappable. He never raised his voice, and there was never any trouble in his class, probably because he was so patient, and so obviously devoted to getting us to understand the intricacies of his subject. I came top every term of the six he taught us, and his reports were always enthusiastic and encouraging. He never spent much time with me because he knew I could do the work, was ultra confident in my ability, and I didn't really need his help. He spent his time, with infinite patience, with those who needed it, and dispensed endless help and encouragement, and obviously cared deeply. A lovely man, and a great teacher.

My English teacher in my 4th year was at the other end of the personality scale, but just as effective: a neat, sharp featured, young man in his twenties, not long out of University, very confident and energetic, and, more importantly, able to relate to us, and understand us, in a way that few other masters could. He was R. Clarkson, and he made the mistake of telling us early on, that he had been a member of a skiffle group at university, from which point of course, he was forever known as "Lonnie". He was respected by us, because he made no attempt to assert authority in a heavy handed way, he simply assumed it, by his ability to communicate with us in ways we understood, and by his humour and ebullience. He would often make a grand entrance into a rowdy classroom and roar "Shut up! you heap of festering dung flies", or casually informing us that we were "stupid, idle louts", which would have the desired effect of both amusing and subduing us. His invective was colourful, but never malicious, and we enjoyed listening to it, as much as he enjoyed delivering it.

As he took us for one of my favourite subjects, I probably paid more attention to him than some others in the class, and we had some spirited discussions on matters dear to me. I was in awe of his breadth of knowledge and erudition, and envied his ability to analyze anything from Hardy to rock and roll without changing gear. He once disputed a phrase I used in an essay: "Hocus Pocus", and when I protested that I had seen it used in "The Picturegoer", he went into a rant about " third rate rags" , which I still feel was unfair, but it demonstrated that he had at least read the magazine, which I suspect few other masters in the school would have done.

 He also endeared himself to me by referencing a scene in my favourite western film "Shane", to demonstrate how fictional characters can be defined by their reactions, rather than authors having to spell it out; a point lost on the rest of the class because I was the only one who had seen the film. A similar incident occurred in science class when the master attempted to describe an experiment in Physics, by referring to a scene in a film, and asked if anyone in the class had seen "The Wages Of Fear"; again, only one hand went up.

My obsessive film going obviously had its advantages, and it led to one of my most intense arguments with Clarkson in class when James Dean was mentioned - my favourite actor - and I stood up for him and said he was a great actor. Clarkson agreed, but made the point that if he had lived, could he have made the transition as an actor from troubled teenager to more mature roles. I defended my corner vigorously at the time, but in later years realised that he had made a good point, although one I would still argue with.

He also recognised, and gave me confidence in my writing ability, by taking my essays seriously, and on one occasion gave me a mark of 10/10 for a piece of writing that he said conveyed a sense of atmosphere that he rarely encountered in his students work; he said that a mark of 10 was rarely given, even among the 6th form students he taught

Lessons with Clarkson were fun, especially to me, and informative, and I prospered under his leadership, coming top every term for the whole year, and generally working very hard, as I did at Maths. Great teachers can make a difference, and for all my reservations about the C.N.S. and the staff, I was lucky enough to receive enough encouragement and guidance to give me an intellectual confidence I had never had before, and which has never left me.

That fourth year however, leading up to the end of 1958, was beginning to fall apart as external pressures exerted themselves, and finally overwhelmed the good work I was doing academically. The Rock and Roll lifestyle and rebellious attitudes had been rumbling below the surface throughout the time I was at the school, and, as they strengthened in the world outside, they seriously affected my ability to find a working relationship with the school. A major obstacle to the school being able to adapt to changing society was the inflexible character of the Headmaster, as he tried to understand, but finally concluded that all the discipline problems could be boiled down to what he called rogue "elements".

R.W.(Rupert) Jackson was a small, unremarkable looking man, with mousey hair and moustache, and a generally mild demeanour. He was an old school academic who had been at the school since 1940, and who belonged in the social world of the thirties that had died with the War. He was too old, and probably too limited, to change, and he expected the same deference to authority, and the same social groupings that he had grown up with, but which were no longer appropriate. He would still take a class from time to time, but only the upper stream; he knew who came from the middle class, he knew which families were important and had influence, and he was, I believe, always suspicious of those who had no social standing. To be fair to him, I'm sure he tried hard to accommodate everyone who entered his sealed world, but was bewildered by the lack of positive response that accompanied his best efforts. He was universally referred to as "The Beak" in our circle, probably from the school stories we had gorged ourselves on in earlier days, but he never enjoyed that total authority his literary predecessors had enjoyed, plagued as he was by those "elements" that disrupted his otherwise tidy social order.

At the beginning of every term he would address the assembled school in the main Hall, and in the first of these, supposedly inspirational, lectures that I heard in my inaugural year, he pronounced solemnly that he hoped the new intake would bring the school back to its usual smooth running, as we would soon be losing "certain elements" that had caused considerable disruption for some time now. At this, there was an audible snigger from the back row where the fifth form sat, as Masters glared, and we looked with admiration at the row of greasy haired reprobates who lounged insouciantly over their chairs, and openly mocked his reprimand. This was the first generation of the Rock and Roll era who had begun to make their presence felt, among them the legendary Tony Sheridan, later mentor of The Beatles, who was about to go out and conquer a world, of which the staff at the school were only dimly aware, but which would intrude upon them more and more with each new intake. Jackson thought he had cleansed the school of rogue "elements"; little did he know that he had just seen the beginning of a flood that would engulf not just his cosy world, but society at large.

The problem Jackson had was that he could never see the big picture, he was always convinced that any trouble was down to "certain elements", and if these could be eradicated, peace would once again reign and the old certainties be restored. To this end he picked out certain people who came into his line of vision, and became fixated upon them; unfortunately in my years at the school I became a particular bete noir of his, which had the double effect of interfering with my progress, but also giving me considerable notoriety which I felt bound to live up to.

Most of my confrontations with him were in private, when his language was less restrained than in his ocassional public pronouncements. In my first term in the fourth year I had been taken to his office for swearing at a prefect, and been told that I had "the instincts of a low animal". He said that he had promoted me against the wishes of some members of staff, and would get rid of me as soon as possible. To be fair to him though, he also took a more positive attitude at times, and there were indications all through my fourth year that a promotion was possible, if my results justified it. It wasn't something I was particularly looking for, but I did still want to get good exam results at the end of my time there, although I was increasingly distracted by my life outside school.

Like so many other schoolboys, I took a paper round to earn myself some money to fund the record and clothes buying that I was beginning to find so necessary, but which my parents could not possibly afford to subsidise. I had a newspaper shop - "Bartram's" - at the bottom of the road and started a morning round there at the end of 1957. I would get up before six and start the round about quarter past, finishing by 8 if the weather was fine. This would give me plenty of time to get to school in good times, but during the ferocious February of 1958 I would battle through heaped snow, solid ice, and sometimes blizzards, for up to 2 hours, finishing well past 8, and then cycling to school as close to 9:00 as I could make it. There were times I finished late, soaked through, and didn't make it to school at all, but this was rare, as I somehow managed to combine school and exams with the worst possible start to the day. By March, I had even taken on a Sunday round as well, 8;00 to 9:00, which gave me an extra 5/- to take my money up to £1 a week. For the first six months I coped pretty well, and even took on Evening News deliveries after school, and then the "Pink'un" as well on Saturday nights. My school work didn't seem to suffer, as I still came top in class, but later in the year, the early mornings and evenings became burdensome, and contributed to my eventual estrangement from the school.

It was already causing me problems much earlier though, as I was occasionally late for school, and at the end of March it led to a major set back in my efforts to rehabilitate myself. I had been told during the term that promotion was a possibility, and as I came top of the form for the third year in a row, my form master, Mr Fields, went to Jackson at the end of term and recommended that I move up a grade. By a very unfortunate, and possibly critical coincidence, on that very morning I had been 10 minutes late, after a paper round undertaken during a steady snowfall, but had not informed Fields of the fact, although I had been spotted coming in late by Jackson himself. The headmaster put this down as another example of my "disloyalty", and said that I would not be promoted this term. It was a rebuke I didn't think I deserved, although, despite being angry and disgusted with the whole affaire, I still intended to do well for the remainder of my time there, and was told before the end of term that promotion to possibly 5A, but definitely 5X was on if I continued to come top of the form.

At the end of that fourth year, my academic results were still excellent and I was indeed promoted, but only as far as 5X, a rather pointless exercise as I would be doing the same work, but simply have different masters and class mates, and would have to settle into a new routine; something I found impossible to do, and which led to the inevitable final showdown with authority. 

That last term was a disaster as I found the work uncongenial for the first time since my first year, I was generally tired and bored with the early morning starts, and I was in constant abrasive conflict with almost everybody in the school, as I was removed from contact with my few supporters and mentors among the masters. The first two months were a complete waste as I became uninterested in the work, and was generally tired and listless, finally culminating in giving up the paper round that had caused such difficulty. It gave me more freedom, but also took away my only income, which led me to consider the nuclear option of maybe having to get a job. Everybody advised me I had to stay at school, and I probably deep down knew they were right, but events were conspiring against me, and by November everything came to a head.

Rupert was the agent of my downfall, as he had to be, and in the middle of November of that inauspicious term, I gave him the ammunition he needed to destroy me. Over the years he had caned me; promoted me and demoted me; denied me prizes and recognition, but now he also gave me instant legend status by denouncing me by name in front of the whole assembled school. 

The incident in question occurred in the last weeks of my time at the school, and was the last straw that finally ensured my early expulsion from school life. I was walking with some friends after school along the front of Debenham's in Orford Place, and as we were passing a row of crowded bus stops, I was inspired to do my well known Elvis Presley impersonation for all who cared to see - unfortunately, on this occasion, although I wasn't aware of it, it included the unforgiving gaze of Rupert Jackson. In my early years at the school, before Elvis, Johnny Ray had been my main source of musical inspiration, and I had perfected his spasmodic thrashing, for the amusement, and probably bemusement, of my friends; but after 1956 it was only Elvis, and on this afternoon I gave the street the full treatment. My legs shook, my body jerked and my arms gyrated, as I wailed my full blooded rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel". This kind of exhibitionism was a purely natural consequence of high spirits, and was liable to break out at any time; mildly disconcerting for a passer by perhaps, but something accepted as purely natural by us, and hardly remarked upon. For Rupert however, it was the epitome of everything that was disrupting the smooth running of the school, and he determined it would not go unpunished.

I was dragged into his office the next morning to be to be assailed by an incandescent Rupert. He told me I had walked within "8 inches of him", I was "rolling my head about, sticking my tongue out, singing, and looking like a drunken fool". An old woman in the queue had made disparaging comments about me being a disgrace to the school, and he agreed that he felt ashamed, and that nobody had done more to disgrace the school since he had come there 18 years before. He continued furiously that I was worthless, despised by masters and sixth formers alike, and surrounded by the riff-raff of the school for my friends.

His method of disciplining me though, showed his total lack of understanding of the boys in his charge. The next morning at school assembly, he read out the usual timetables, then said he had a special announcement to make. "Last night in the city" he said solemnly " I witnessed a sight that I would not have believed, had I not seen it with my own eyes" He paused for effect and looked sorrowfully over the expectant faces, riding on his every word: "A boy from this school, in full public view, indulged in the most outrageous and ludicrous actions, such that, if I had not known better, I would have believed him to be drunk". He paused again, overwhelmed by the sadness and shame of it all, and then delivered his crushing coup de grace "And that boy", another pause "was Cossey, from 4Y". If the school had dared to cheer they would have done so, but instead a ripple of laughter ran lightly round the Hall, with a couple of muffled whoops mixed in. The old fool had tried to shame me, but had instead secured my legendary status, and given me even more to live up to, a task I took to willingly.

The next day he sent a letter to my parents saying I had to leave at Christmas, something I was all in favour of, but which my parents firmly resisted. It led to some acrimonious shouting matches with them, and even though deep down I suspect I knew they were right, I was on a downward path at school that could only lead to one conclusion. The school had become a war zone for me, which I revelled in, but which could only lead to eventual defeat. I made the masters lives a misery as I indulged in constant skirmishes against their authority, which was often an inspiration to others to do the same. I was not the only rebel or troublemaker, but I became the focal point of the unrest in the school, and I was my own worst enemy as I allowed myself to be eased out of the school at the end of that term, against the best advice of family and friends, and allowed the school to finally win. I could have fought to stay; I could have continued to do good work alongside the mayhem and so confounded my enemies; I could have utilised the support of those still on my side, but instead I walked out of the school gates on the 19th of December 1958, threw my school cap over the trees to the cheers of my dim-witted acolytes, and felt a chill at my core as I sensed that I was walking away from something far more precious than the empty notoriety that I had so long indulged, and which would be unlikely to sustain me in the real world.

This flickering concern however, which would become much stronger in the months to come, was temporarily erased that evening by the seductive fantasies of the cinema as I indulged in yet another viewing of "The Blackboard Jungle", a seminal movie and book in my teenage years. I went to the Norvic on that most significant of days, with a group of friends, and we wallowed again in that stimulating evocation of all that we felt about school and authority, and which I had so unwisely tried to emulate. As always, I identified with Vic Morrow rather than Sidney Poitier, deliberately missing the point of the film, but perhaps on that momentous day I may have felt a frisson of recognition of bleak reality. My diary of the time, usually so loquacious, is suspiciously perfunctory about my last day of school; I suspect I realised deep down, what I had done.

Although I had helped in my removal from the school, and should perhaps have fought harder to stay, it may have been taken out of my hands in any case, as my school days had one last move to make, that would have almost certainly sunk me anyway. During that momentous last term I had extended my activities to other ventures, outside of school, but which had consequences that reverberated through those hallowed halls for some months after I had left.

During 1958,vinyl records had become a vital part of our existence, and we bought and sold, swapped and collected obsessively in what was the dawning of the mass market record industry. We had lots of outlets for our record buying, and although there were few dedicated record shops, many stores had record departments. We could either buy direct or order records from a number of different outlets: Jarvis, Goose's, Wilmotts, Wilson and Ramshaw, Philips in St Stephen's, Oldham's and Ive's for secondhand, and the now little remembered, but for a few months notorious, "Charles Hall". 

Charles Hall was a large, three story furniture showroom at the bottom of Westlegate on the corner opposite Mark's and Spencer's. It was an unremarkable looking establishment that would have excited no attention had it not opened at the beginning of the year a record shop on the top floor, and quickly became the must visit attraction for playing the latest records, along with Wilson's on Orford Place. The record department was not advertised, and was invisible from the outside, but somehow we found it, and for over a year it was our home from home, and a regular meeting place on Saturdays, along with Woolies and its extensive cafeteria opposite. 

To reach the records we had to go through the ground floor, which was a furniture showroom, up the first flight of stairs to another showroom, and then up the last flight to the mecca that was "Charlie Hall". It was a long room with a counter along half its length on the window side, with racks of single records in front, and young women assistants behind; and on the wall opposite were a number of open listening booths. We would browse through the records and take any new titles to the booths to listen to. It was a pleasant and sociable way to while away our Saturday mornings, and for many months we used it for just that purpose, until one Friday in early November, almost by accident, I discovered how alarmingly easy it was to steal. 

A group of us were gathered in a booth, listening to a record when my best friend Mick Rpbinson  came over with a record to play, "Rebel Rouser" by Duane Eddy. While he was waiting to play it he casually mentioned how easy it would be "to whip it". I immediately took it out of his hand, and slipped it into a copy of "The New Musical Express" I was carrying; a short while later I walked over to the racks, took a copy of "Break Up" by Jerry Lee Lewis, went back to the booth and repeated the process. We then sauntered out onto the street and I was immediately swamped by a feeling of elation - 13 shillings worth of records for nothing; it was a world turned upside down. Although a fashion had been growing all that summer for some low level shoplifting, mainly from Woolworths, which I had also dabbled in, this was of a different order, these were substantial items which we would have had to buy anyway, and which normally required a careful saving of pocket money to afford, but now the rules were suspended and everything seemed to be mine for the taking. 

The next day I went back alone, and repeated the procedure, this time coming away with six records, an undreamed of amount of new records to have at one go, and the sure knowledge that everything was mine for the taking. I was back two days later, and this time I made two visits and came away with six more records, but this time I was stealing for more than my own collection, I was now selling my surplus to Oldham's at 2/- each, and to a school friend for 3/-. I was now becoming much bolder and the next time I visited I was watched by a half dozen school mates, as I made off with 9 records, only stopping because I was being scowled at by some outraged old chap who saw what I was doing.

 I was selling the records for between 2 to 3 shillings each, and by the next day at school the story of my exploits were gaining me huge notoriety, and more important, orders for records. With Christmas coming up everybody was planning to give cheap records as presents, and I began taking orders. I went back to Charles Hall after school and got 11 more to fill that day's orders. Within a week or two however the whole business was beginning to get out of control, as I was now followed by a crowd of hangers on who wanted to see me do the business, and then began indulging themselves in some record taking.

 I had a girl friend at the time who went to the Blythe School, and she was getting me orders from her school mates, putting more pressure on me to come up with the goods, which I did with up to 25 records at a time. By the middle of December I had a warning from my parents that they knew I was stealing records with a gang, and we were being watched, and would be caught. Whether they had found a pile of records in my room, and were simply guessing, or whether they had been told something, I never did find out, but it was becoming obvious that the whole thing was likely to come out into the open, because so many people were now getting involved, and not everybody had been as careful as I was.

 I decided to call a halt while the heat was on, especially as I had filled all my Christmas orders, and instead turned my attention to illegal Christmas shopping in Woolworth's and Bond's, which I found to be equally easy, and a popular past time among a number of people at school.

At the beginning of 1959 I had left school, but still spent some time in Charles Hall with various mates and even had a couple of records away, but generally I was very circumspect, and with good reason. As I wasn't at school I wasn't sure of what the others were doing, but I suspected that they were still trying to get records, and it soon became clear that I was a marked man as soon as I walked in. I would be surrounded by managers, and the assistants obviously had instructions not to let me play any records; if I was there for too long a manager would approach, and tell me, and whoever I was with, to leave. It was obvious that more records from Charles Hall were out of the question, and so we contemplated stealing from other shops, but it never came to more than idle speculation. Our mini crime wave was over, but too many people had become involved, it had become too well known, and retribution was sure to follow, as it inevitably did, at the end of January. 

I had heard whispers that the police were becoming involved, but, being out of the loop, I had no knowledge of what was being said to them, and so it came as a complete bombshell when at 10:00 one morning the police arrived at our house to take a statement. They told me that they had interviewed my erstwhile school friends, and I was implicated in all their statements. How much of that was true, and how much bluff I was never sure, but being new to the game, and not aware of who else had been involved, or what they had said, I decided it was no use trying to deny it, and so I gave them the statement they were looking for. If I had had any foreknowledge that this was coming I might have had a better story prepared, as some did, but this was my first experience with the police, and I made their job easy for them.

 The following days were traumatic as I found myself shunned and condemned wherever I went. I went round my best friend's house to see how he had got on and was thrown out by his hysterical Mother, and then chased down the road by his irate Father. My young legs outpaced him easily and I left him panting in my wake, but he exacted his revenge by then going to my house, where he spurned my Mother's conciliatory overtures so unpleasantly, that I found her in tears when I got back. The next day I went round the girlfriend's house, and was thrown out by her Mother in another tearful and angry scene: "She was a decent girl till you got hold of her", and much more in the time honoured vein of protective mother hen warding off the attentions of the sly fox, a role I had unwittingly slipped into.

The next day I was offered a job at Edwards and Holmes shoe factory on Drayton Road, after two months of looking. It was a bottom rung of the ladder job in the Heeling Room, £4/6/- a week; 7:45 till 12:30, 1:45 till 6. The money was OK, but the job wasn't exactly what I had been looking for, and rather set the pattern for much of my early working life, of taking whatever turned up, rather than seeking out a job or career that could stretch me, and give me satisfaction. 

For the next few days I had a succession of sheepish looking school girls from the Blythe School, knocking on the door to return the records I had provided as their Christmas presents for parents and grandparents, a parade of embarrassed victims of my mini crime wave, paying homage to Mr Big; another role I had unwittingly slipped into, and which was to cost me dear in the weeks ahead.

And so the fifties approached their end; schooldays over and childhood finished; a court case looming, a job I didn't want, and didn't enjoy, cut off from my old friends, and estranged from my first serious girlfriend - welcome Brave New World.