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Jack Hill, who won a scholarship to Market Bosworth Grammar School before the war, reminisces as follows:-
Chemistry and Physics were conducted in an upper floor laboratory, complete with teak benches, gas taps, bent over water taps, glass cupboards and so on.
The room always had mysterious smells, mostly from methylated spirits used in the small burners, but also from the chemicals displayed in bottles above every bench.
Mr Palmer was a very enthusiastic teacher, and learning was made easier by his diligent production of cyclostyled information sheets giving a resume of the days teaching. These sheets were incorporated into booklets and really helped to keep the pace going. Some of the physics material I found a bit boring.
He also taught Geography, and for this we were ushered into the rear classroom beyond the lab.
French and English were taught in the room below the lab and here Miss Willis held sway. She maintained discipline by using ridicule. The girls were mostly like putty in her hands, and her sharp tongue and the use of the girls as her tittering ram demolished the boys.
I was keen to learn French and the correct manner of speech, but my fellows too often derided this attitude, and so I used a watered down version like the rest. Miss Willis would usually sit on one of the desks with her skirt tucked under her knees and often spent the whole lesson talking about things in general. As I wasn't much of a reader of books I didn't manage to get a good result in the English Lit exams.
A small deviation happened in First year in the form of woodwork in a well-equipped workshop at the end of the playground. My skills at that time were very basic and attempts at planing a surface always resulted in the appearance of gaps under the straightedge. Thus the piece of wood gradually diminished in size and patching was the order of the day.
I still have the footstool with its patched legs and the bookrest with a notched pattern at the sides and very poor joints.
I well remember the heady smell of hot bone glue in its pot of water and also the smell generated by French polish with the mix of methylated spirits, shellac and ox blood. The polish pad used to stick to the wood surface and was a boring pastime, but nice and smelly.
Next door was a well-equipped metal workers' shop, but this was never used during my time at the school. It had been used in the past, for there was old coke in the forge as evidence.
Wednesday afternoons were allocated to one or more games of soccer for the boys. Being ill suited to ball games I found that playing was a real chore, particularly on cold winters' afternoons when the wind seemed to come straight from Siberia.
Even in the summer when cricket was the chosen game I faired no better as I didn't have an eye for the ball and so always got ducks. I could get quite enthusiastic when in the nets and could cut to square leg with aplomb but it didn't matter, as it wasn't in earnest. If there had been other sports or even cross-country running things might have been different.
The girls had several options to choose from: tennis, netball and hockey.
The most irksome part of the sports scene was the imposition of Saturday morning attendance for football or cricket. To have to leave the farm at Desford, cycle four miles for the privilege of running around in singlet and shorts developing red knees and the sniffles, was most disagreeable. Having such a small compliment of students [approximately 180 in all from babes of five up to the sixteen-year-old] meant that the school could never muster a team to play with another school. Thus football would consist of two scratch teams with an age range of 11 to 16.
To add to the disappointments, the school had no tradition of swimming. The neighbouring council school pupils were taken by bus to Hinckley where they had a full afternoon in the pool. Therefore swimming was something which I didn't really learn until I was an adult.
One period a week was allocated to gymnastics in a brand new gym, which boasted climbing frames, wall bars, climbing ropes, parallel bars, vaulting horses and balancing benches.
I loved climbing the ropes and passing from rope to rope at high level, but this was frowned on by the PE instructor in case of an accident.
He used to embarrass me by calling me snowy.
After the session we were allowed to shower in the large open tiled space with jets lining the walls. These were adjustable for angle. We boys just stripped off and walked through into the wet area and then came back to dry ourselves, but the girls were provided with canvas curtains to form cubicles.
This must have been something connected with the onset of puberty and the formation of breasts and other wonderful happenings. { To which we were not privy.] Speaking of breasts reminds me that our interest in such items was fanned on occasions to white heat by some of the girls being well endowed and displaying these characteristics when running after a ball.
In addition, the girls were the ones who had access to the magazine Health and Efficiency, which had many nude photographs and could be borrowed during break times. Strangely enough, I never recall any sexual incidents occurring in dark corners or behind the bike sheds. Perhaps the wrath of Mr Smith was too fearsome a prospect to be risked.
There was indiscipline in some areas: for example Morris Dilks, a big lad who managed to keep his acne going for years, was a smoker and carried his cigarettes around with him in a metal case complete with built-in lighter. He would light up immediately on walking out of the school gate as he lived only on the other side of the square. He had a young brother called Clive and I was slightly related to them since their father was brother to Titus Dilks, my Aunt Mary's husband. {He was a tailor and lived in Stanton under Bardon.]
Before Morris moved into long trousers, he and his brother were dressed in woollen jerseys, long short trousers just below the knees, long stockings to just above the knees held up with elastic bands, and soft leather boots. They had a written dispensation that allowed them to remain covered during gymnastics. A very strange form of difference, but then their parents did pay fees.
The gymnasium was also used for morning assembly and Miss Willis would play the upright piano for the hymns. All the staff would wear their gowns but only the headmaster wore his Cantab stole. Sometimes to our relief Mr Morris would officiate at assembly and we would know that 'The Boss' would not be coming to Latin class.
Each pupil was issued with a pocket version of the C of E hymnal and this had to be visible at every assembly. A prayer was always intoned and the one I recall most clearly contained the phrase 'Bless all our intercourse in work and in play that the school may be the better for the life of each of its members. Good job we didn't know about intercourse proper. By we I mean me.
There was a girl from Newbold named Margaret Wagstaff who I lusted over. We used to cycle home in the evenings and often indulged in horseplay but I was always afraid of consequences and so held back. This only happened on those days when R England wasn't on his bike. She was always bursting the seams of her dress and this was very provoking.
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