My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 30)
I also used to go to Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough to see football matches. Newcastle United was riding high in the 50's, Jackie Milburn, Ernie Taylor the Robledo brothers. I also saw Stanley Matthews playing for Blackpool Vs Middlesborough a capital game which Blackpool won 4-3, both teams were applauded at the end. Stan played a blinder and was cutting in and shooting, a thing he rarely did. I had seen Trevor Ford playing for Aston Villa in his last match before being the first player to be transferred for £5000 – or £10, 000, can’t remember which, to Sunderland. I also saw his first match for Sunderland at Roker Park.
In the second year I moved into the College itself, all male incidentally, and had a tiny single room at the very top with a marvellous view. There was a grand bunch in our corridor, Alan Martindale, Frank Stones, and Don Freak and we had many a convivial evening. Bob Frith moved into the P.E. Squad's rooms next to the gym, they were always hobbling about with broken or twisted ankles much to our derision.
It was Alan Martindale I used to collect going to College
and bringing him home for the holidays to his Wigan home. He could ride a motor bike so we used to
take it in spells going via Barnard Castle, but never as desperate as the first
trip, the figure 234.8 miles comes to mind but I could be wrong – see
frontispiece.
There were many pubs in Durham some with a line of sawdust round the floor of the bar for spitting! Through Frank Stones who was a very good fast bowler and who played for the University, I met Frank Tyson who was at Hatfield College and a good friend of our Frank. We often had a drink together at the Waterloo (no sawdust). He later played for England in several tests and finally settled in Australia, Frank Stones settled in Hampshire and last I heard had a trial for the county.
The College, Bede, or the College of the Venerable Bede as was its full title was a Church college attached to Durham University and the Principal was Canon Brigstock who had been in Worcester Catherdral.. It took two year students for a teacher's certificate, three years for a degree plus one year teacher training – but I think Ive mentioned this before.
Apart from the academic subjects we had to go to into local schools for teaching practice. This was where my previous experience gave me an advantage. I always opted for primary schools because that was where I knew I wanted to teach, but had to do at least on practice in a secondary school. I told the Head what I was going to do so he put me with a first year class. Schools I went to were Hordern Colliery, a mining district, where the class teacher had served in Mombasa. Newcastle which was more of a country area and South Shields, a dockside school with Chinese and United Nations bunch of pupils.
I think I did pretty well in my final mark because an independent inspector came to see a lesson and they only came if you were good or very bad, still on second thoughts! Also the principal Canon Brigstock came to see the first R.K. Lesson on a Monday morning. I had prepared all the others thoroughly, reams of notes and vizual aids, etc, but skimped a bit on the first one as nobody would come to see that, “I think you ought to brush up on your Biblical knowledge, Mr. Graves”, was his succint comment at the end.
One little item during our final year 1952, Frank Stones was friendly with a girl from Hilds College for Women, a couple of hundred yards away from ours. He arranged for them to leave a corridor window open one Saturday night. Alan and Don made a clamp like contraption which would keep a fire alarm button pressed down. They got me to set my alarm clock for 3am Sunday morning, I woke them all then we went over, got through the window, clamped on the contraption, screwed it down and legged it through the window and back to Bede, with the alarm ringing like mad. The next morning we heard that all 300 odd students and staff had evacuated the building and lined up outside on the lawns, then realised that the alarm was still ringing before finding the contraption.
We were called to a mass meeting and our Leading Man said they thought some of us were responsible and would the culprits report to the Principal. This we did and he informed us that because of recent rags by other colleges which had caused damage to property, the University authorities had decided to crack down on those responsible for any more and have them sent down, suspended, rusticated or expelled. Luckily for us no damage had been done and the victims had used it as a legitimate fire drill, so we would just have to go and apologise to the Principal of Hilds. Here Don Freak, in his usual bull in a china shop way, put his foot in it and said we thought no harm would be done because it was a Saturday night, and merited the Canon's waspish refroof, “So you needn't bother to go to Church on Sunday morning”.
We went over meek and mild and apologised to the Principal who was charming and pleasant with a good sense of humour and had a job not to smile. So alls well that ends well. The best ever rag had been done in the City a few years earlier when a gang dressed as workmen put up signs and barricades and started digging up the cobbles in the city square, they did this for a couple of days then like the Ayrabs packed up their tents and silently departed, leaving a lot of puzzled city officials.
Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).
Copyright ©2000-2008 L. Graves. All Rights Reserved.
