Past Pupils

Robert Hayes (1967*)

I started at the White Hart Lane site in 1960 at the age of 11, but in November 1962 I moved out to Essex and left the school - this leaves me with something of a dilemma regarding entering my leaving date as my peers would have left in 1965 or 1967*. 

Even though I was only at the school a short time it made quite an impression on me. I used to have a friend lived in Creighton Road, almost opposite the school, and remember being in awe of it even before I started. Then there was that first day of lying low or getting dunked.

Several teachers stick in my mind, primarily the deputy head (who also taught German and who must have been Topham - I'm hopeless with names PS, just looked at your picture of him and that was the chap, funny how a photo brings it all back) and an English teacher who I think was named Smith.

Both were army veterans. The English teacher was a lovely man who we could always steer into his (First World) War reminiscences. The deputy head I recall regularly saying "Don't tell me it's not fair, nothing's fair in this world and the sooner you learn that the better!" but though he always seemed to have the task of applying discipline rather than Dr Witt he still managed to be popular. 

During my second year at the school the English teacher died

I went back to look at the school in the late 70s/early 80s and was dismayed by what I saw through the fencing - no uniforms and no discipline it seemed to me (what an old fogie I must be getting!) - so I never went inside.

Hearing that great hall with its balcony and the school crest got demolished for a housing estate is very sad. The school I went to in Essex seems to have gone the same way after going comprehensive (It was Fryerns in Basildon and I've heard they closed it down after it got out of hand).

Anyway, enough of this misery, thanks very much for bringing back some memories. If you ever hear of two lads I was pals with in those early years (Sidney Davies and a lad named Garfinkle - can't remember his first name but with a surname like that he hardly needed one!) I'd love to know what became of them.