Roger Shore has written to us to share a panorama photo (PDF, 2Mb) of the school from 1933. Roger writes:
My father was at Bournemouth School between 1929 and 1936. I followed in his footsteps between 1960 and 1967. There were six masters who taught both me and my father, although I can only identify five of them in that photo at present. That would be Messrs Cushion, Dodds (a truly dreadful man, as I’m sure you already either know, or will have heard!) Walker, Williamson and Wiseman. The 6th – Mr. Dixon (who went on to become deputy head) – I haven’t yet identified…
Roger is surely right that this may be of interest to some of you, although as he notes the very youngest in that photo will be at least 90 by now.
With regard to the 1933 Panorama photo recently posted, I think that I can identify a few of the teachers in it ( I described some of them in an earlier post — 01/10/12).
The Headmaster is J. J. Parry, a Welshman. I remember him as a small, august and horn-rimmed eminence whom we saw mainly at school assemblies. First Left of him is Mr Rogers (nickname “Buck”, from the hero of a 1930s B science-fiction film serial whose name was Buck Rogers). He taught English in an uninspiring way. Second Left is “Joe” Little, who taught Mathematics, with a forbidding expression and a harsh rule. His favourite punishment for bad behaviour was “write me out Pythagoras three times!” Pythagoras’s theorem was one of the few bits of maths that I actually understood (although I did manage to get a Credit for it in the 1941 School Certificate exam.). Fourth Left is (I think) Percy Cushion, who taught Latin, and whose unmerited nick-name was “Persecution” — he was cheerful and made Latin interesting. Fifth Left is the Art Master, whose name I’ve forgotten, though I enjoyed his classes. Second Right is A. Spencer White, another Welshman of solemn demeanour, who taught Chemistry. Extreme Right is Herbert Wiseman, who taught English more interestingly than Mr Rogers. Mr Wiseman acted in amateur drama at the Little Theatre in Westover Road in central Bournemouth. He had a close resemblance to a popular English film-star, Barry K. Barnes, with his black wavy Brylcremed hair and handsome face. The Deputy Head in my day was the good-natured “Beaky” (from his long, pointed nose), who taught French occasionally, with an execrable accent — “eel fay doo vent ah Boscombe.”
The Panorama photo currently displayed on the web-site cannot have been taken in 1933! I am on it and it displays many of my contemporaries – and we are certainly not yet in our nineties. If the boys are lined up in form groups then it is the year 1945-46 when I was in form 5A1.
I can name most of the staff members shown and if I could have a view of the entire photo I expect I would be able to name at least thirty more of the boys.
It is quite a coincidence that I recently met in Toronto with (Dr) Alan Pollard who is clearly visible at the top left of the picture. This meeting could have been our first since the photo was taken as he went up to Cambridge shortly afterwards and we had not met again until now.
BRYAN BURDETT 1942-1950
The link “panorama photo” above leads to a photo dated November 1933, but it is not the photo displayed here at the top of the page.
My brother, Stanley Kirtley, is in the front row. He would have been in the first form in 1933 and some of his teachers (Jasper Dodds, Herbie Wiseman, Percy Cushion, etc) were still there when I became a pupil in 1954. Stan joined the RAF and became a Spitfire pilot, ending up as a Wing Commander. He recently moved from
Milford on Sea to Boston, Lincs.
did he become a math’s teacher at some point?
Yes, John, he did, after he left the RAF. He taught in Bracknell and then in Cornwall. He now lives in Boston, Lincs. Did you come across him?
Hello Bryan,
I found the 1946 panorama in my mum’s attic – my father is in it. I scanned it and set it to this website. You can see the whole image here:
http://grke.net/cgi-bin/family.pl?photo=bmouthschool-1946
I would be very interested in trying to attach some names to the faces.
A few names from the ones I remember eight years later in 1954:
From Head, Mr Parry, wearing mortarboard, to left (his right):
4 Miss Pearce, indomitable secretary
6 ‘Jimmy’ James, Physics
7 ‘RJ’ Williams, Maths
9 Mr. Hickling, ex military, possibly wartime colonel
10 ‘Percy’ Cushion, Latin
11 Mr Arrowsmith, History
12 Mr Wiseman, English, Drama
13 ‘Spike’ Whittaker, French
15 Mr Styles, Geography
To right, Parry’s left:
3 Mr Dixon, Taught us French when Sid was sick, but not his main subject. Deputy Head in fifties
4 ‘Sid’ Segger
5 ‘Bernie’ or ‘Johnnie’ Walker, Art
13 Mr Williamson, Physics
14 Mr Watts (Pegleg), French
15 ‘Ego’ Knight, Divinity. Starred on telly later, crossword genius
Forgive any errors or omissions. It was 60 years ago after all!
You need to follow link to full panoramic image. Extremely good resolution considering. Thanks to Graham Keeling.
Does anyone have a high resolution image of the 1964 school photo? The one on the site is, sadly, much inferior to the 1933 and 1946 ones!
Does anyone have a high(er) resolution copy of the 1964 school photograph that they could post? The one on this site is nowhere near the quality of the 1928(ish), 1933 or 1946 photos.
Incidentally I’m a little surprised that the list above doesn’t point out the dreaded JJD, known to everyone as Jasper. Admittedly he looks a lot less like an inhabitant of Transylvania than he did when I knew him in the earlier sixties. He’s number 7, two away from Bernie.