Hi. Andy, my time at Hope St was between 1950 - 1955, and yes I remember Mr Barnard, he was the woodwork teacher, then there was Mr Evens nice old guy,( deaf as a door post) till you said something out of turn, and wow, and you got a wack from him with what ever he had in his hand at the time, I liked him, he tought us to use our imagination and to create something from nothing, the science teacher was a small heavy guy with a bald head and a white coat who used to stink out the classroom ( I remember that doorknob trick,) didn't happen to me, because I was always late,
I remember I got into bad trouble one time, remember the stairs that came down from all the levels and at the bottom was that large double doors that let us out into the playground. well, one Friday afternoon ( 4.00pm) I rand down the stairs first, as the mob came running down the stairs, I blocked the doors with at big black mat that was on the outside, no one could get out and the stairs where filling up with snotty nosed kids all screaming to get out, anyway the door frame gave way, and it was like a flood , Monday morning I was up in front of Mr Underwood ( then headmaster) six of the best,.
Then there was the "the milk run" I became a milk monitor, walking round with all the milk crates , 27 bottles for Mr Jones, 35 for Mrs Mastrantony ( evil cow she was ) 26 for Mr Stuart ( art teacher) I'd spend most of the morning delivering the milk, Tuesdays was great fun, the girls would have a class about childbirth with little dolls and wall charts of all the things we boys weren't to know about, so I used to wait till Mrs Luise ( the teacher)had 3-4 girls out in front of the class, all looking at something, then I would barge in with my creates, and make myself known. ha,
there was about 4 of us that would deliver the milk, we had one guy who used to collect the empties, he would stand at the top of the stairwell and drop the empties down the shaft, and we would catch them at the bottom, anyway we broke some bottles and we where told to carry them down the stairs, ( that was a pain in the a..) we had one little guy, carring 3 createes of empties, from the top floor down to the ground level, anyway half way down he fell, now, Imagen 60 empty milk bottles all bouncing down the stairs and this guy bouncing with them, we heard the crash, "bloody hell"we ran up thinking we will find snot and blood every where, nope, all the bottles broke , glass every where, and this guy covered with broken glass, and not a make on him, ( he was the luckiest guy alive ) shortly after he put his hand on a creat and cut himself badly, blood everywhere, the teacher wouldn't let him be a milk monitor after, ....