Reading back over the posts I thought I would gabble on a bit more LoL!
I too remember Mr Moore's talks about his naval years, I think it was in Portsmouth. He used to keep a big box of wooden rulers on his desk and if he really lost his temper he would throw the whole lot at us and we would have to scrabble to pick them all up pronto or get detention!! We had a new teacher start, a petite little 60s beauty (for French I think) and he followed around at her heels like a puppy!
Mr Wager, I remember he had a big trunk that was filled with all kinds of weird and wonderful things from all over the world which totally enthralled me! It was soooo easy to get out of doing any work in his class, all we did was say something like "Sir, what was it like when you were in the Desert Rats?" and away he would go, reminiscing, and we would pass notes and shoot chewed up blotting paper at each other until the bell went!!
Miss Caldicott, she was a tyrant, she only had to glare and you would shrivel under the gaze. "Aunty Fallon " seemed like the sugarplum fairy in comparison! Miss F showed me up more than once in front of the class because I couldn't act for toffee, but she taught me so well that I ended up taking the old RSA in English and past at advanced level! I think it was Mr Edwards we had for Maths, and I remember Mr Lavender; he would use the slipper on the boys - with a lump of rock-hard plasticine in the toe! That must have hurt! But if we had teachers like them nowadays they wouldn't be needing to hand out ASBOs like sweeties!
Classmates included Jane Scott (Diane's younger sister I believe), Irene Smith, Andy Duthie, Grace ?, Susan Shaw, Valrose ?, Hugh Tulloch, "H", Philip ?, Michael ?, and my first boyfriend Gary Balding (but he was in the B stream and I was in the A stream). There was a Billy Glock - maybe Jeff's brother and a Frank Connor. Marilyn Latusek, David Hughes, Richard Webb (who was also my nextdoor neighbour!) Denise Raybould... but right now the others escape my memory. I recall the long walks to the Playing Fields, the Swimming Baths and the Library, etc (apart from the actual trek to and from school!) and two trips; one to London where we travelled up the Thames in a boat to see the Bloody Tower (and I got a bad nose bleed LoL!) and another to Blakesley Hall, Yardley.
I lived on the Lyndhurst Estate; Rowden Drive and then Beechmount Drive - sadly, like the old school itself, my home their was demolished. I used to go to Erdington Friendship Hall, the Carlton...and then Mothers, and I worked at the Yenton Garage - on the pumps!!
They were wonderfully happy days and it's memories like those that keep me warm through the cold and lonely days of getting old.