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I am currently reading, amongst other things, a copy of my old headmaster's history of Adams' Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire: Mr Adams' Free Grammar School, where ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telemeister and I whiled away our formative teens. I have rather fonder memories of the place than does he - but then he has the better memory, so maybe I'm just editing out most of the horror.
Anyway.
Unlike most hiostory books I am finding that tjhism one gets more interesting as we progress toward the present day. I suppose that's not too surprising really as the records get better as we approach the present and certainly once we get into the twentieth century the anecdotes are drawn increasingly from living memory rather than dusty parchment. It is an interesting read, thougjh not quite as weel written as I would expect from a former headmaster. It does read very much as though it has been put together by a teacher. I'm not quite suire what the quality of writing is that teachers have, but I think you would see what I mean if you were to read it. There is also an alarming tendency to use exclamation marks several times a chapter, despite this being something the self-same school warned us off during English composition. Oh well.
The two facts that I found most interseting - and wish had still been current when I was there - were, firstly, that in 1920 the War Office presented the school with a captured German Howitzer, which sat on the front lawn until around 1941 until it was dragged off for scrap to aid the war effort. From some time in the late 1930s until around the same time, there was a Hawker Hart biplane which had been donated by the RAF, though that seems to have disappeared in increments as the canvass was stripped off by boys and bits looted for souvenirs. It seems that there was enough of it still there in 1940 for credulous evacuees to be told that it was a German airplane that had been shot down by the local anti-aircraft barrage, of which the town had er... none.
I hadn't appreciated how long some of the masters of my time had been there: I am up to the immediate post war years when our old Deputy Head, the late RH "Zapper" Anderson is noted as returning to the school from service in the RAF and AW "Beak" Harding arrived shortly after the war. He was still hanging around the place as Bursar in 1990.
telemeister and I whiled away our formative teens. I have rather fonder memories of the place than does he - but then he has the better memory, so maybe I'm just editing out most of the horror.Anyway.
Unlike most hiostory books I am finding that tjhism one gets more interesting as we progress toward the present day. I suppose that's not too surprising really as the records get better as we approach the present and certainly once we get into the twentieth century the anecdotes are drawn increasingly from living memory rather than dusty parchment. It is an interesting read, thougjh not quite as weel written as I would expect from a former headmaster. It does read very much as though it has been put together by a teacher. I'm not quite suire what the quality of writing is that teachers have, but I think you would see what I mean if you were to read it. There is also an alarming tendency to use exclamation marks several times a chapter, despite this being something the self-same school warned us off during English composition. Oh well.
The two facts that I found most interseting - and wish had still been current when I was there - were, firstly, that in 1920 the War Office presented the school with a captured German Howitzer, which sat on the front lawn until around 1941 until it was dragged off for scrap to aid the war effort. From some time in the late 1930s until around the same time, there was a Hawker Hart biplane which had been donated by the RAF, though that seems to have disappeared in increments as the canvass was stripped off by boys and bits looted for souvenirs. It seems that there was enough of it still there in 1940 for credulous evacuees to be told that it was a German airplane that had been shot down by the local anti-aircraft barrage, of which the town had er... none.
I hadn't appreciated how long some of the masters of my time had been there: I am up to the immediate post war years when our old Deputy Head, the late RH "Zapper" Anderson is noted as returning to the school from service in the RAF and AW "Beak" Harding arrived shortly after the war. He was still hanging around the place as Bursar in 1990.
