TheALMONDBURIAN

March2013

THE MAGAZINE OF THE OLD ALMONDBURIANS’ SOCIETY

IN THIS ISSUE3 A word from your Editor4 OAS Calendar5 Annual Dinner/Founders’ Day8 From School to Academy

12 Oastler: the Factory King12 Centenarian Percy is still church organist13 Minutes of Annual General Meeting15 Accounts 2011-201216 Executive Officers 201317 Cricket19 Badminton20 Football21 Tennis21 Golf22 George Hotel closes – for good?23 Farnley Lines26 Bonsai and poetry atWisley27 Article sparks newTeak interest28 Exclusive: how to beat the bookies31 Who would be a proofreader?33 Terry’sTeaser34 New sports pavilion35 Olympics display was a cracker38 George Beharrel: the Dunlop man40 OAS membership41 Postbag46 Obituaries

(Opposite):The main school entrance has changed little since this drawing by the late Brian Littlewood

(obituary: page 51) which first appeared in The Almondburian 50 years ago, though the grasstennis courts in the distance have now sadly disappeared

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The magazine of The Old Almondburians’ Society

The ALMONDBURIANEditor: Roger Dowling March 2013

ITwas pleasing to see the good turnout for theAnnual Dinner last November whenwe presented Exploration Bursaries to three former KJS students to mark the birthcentenary of former Head of Geography and Second Master Fred Hudson.A full

report with photographs appears on page 5.As a postscript,we are pleased to congratulateHannahWard, a student at Greenhead College, who won a special £25 ‘Fred S HudsonCentenary Prize for Geography’ donated byOldAlmondburian Gerald Stead. It provideda neat link with Greenhead, which was attended by Gerald’s mother and wife and byFred’s daughterAnnWalker.

A word from your editorROGER DOWLING

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OLD ALMONDBURIANS’ SOCIETY CALENDARDATES OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEMEETINGS, 2013

The Executive Committee of the Societymeets upstairs at theWoolpack inAlmondbury, at 7.30 pm.Meetings are usuallyheld on the first Monday of the month,although there are exceptions due to BankHolidays and school holidays, and there is nomeeting in August.Any member of theSociety who would like to attend one ofthese meetings will be made most welcomeon the following dates:Monday, 11th February; Monday, 4th March;Monday, 15th April; Monday, 13th May;Monday, 3rd June; Monday, 1st July;Monday, 2nd September; Monday, 7thOctober; Monday, 4th November; Monday,2nd December.

ANNUAL DINNERThis year’s Annual Dinner will be held on

Saturday, 23rd November. Full details,together with an application form for tickets,will appear in the next Almondburian, which isdue out in July.It is always good to see members making a

special effort to stage a re-union of theiryear at the dinner and such occasions arealways enjoyable, so those with a specialanniversary this year, members of the classes

of 1943, 1953, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1988, 1993or 2003 for example or, indeed, anyone elsewho takes a notion to do so, should considerstarting to organise their class re-unionearlier rather than later.

FOUNDERS’ DAYTheTraditional Founders’ Day Service will

be held the day after the Annual Dinner,Sunday, 24th November, as usual. Full detailswill be announced in a later magazine.

BADMINTONThursday evenings from 7.30 pm until 9.30pm, until Thursday, 23rd May 2013. Fee: £6per person per evening.

CRICKETPresentation Evening: Saturday, 2nd March,2013 at 7.00 for 7.30 pm.Venue: LockwoodPark. Booking:TimTaylor(Tim.Taylor@moisoncoors.com)

TENNISThe season will start onThursday, 6th Juneon the school tennis courts from 7.15 pm todusk.

GOLFGothard Cup:Woodsome Hall Golf Club onFriday 5th July 2013 followed by Dinner.

It will be observed that a severe case of poetry seems to have broken out in this issue.On page 26 we report with pleasure that one of David Morphet’s superb poems hasbeen selected for display in the world-famousWisley Gardens in Surrey.Not to be out-done, John Goodall has also been inspired by the teaching of the lateAlbert Makinsonto submit some of his poems toThe Poetry Society’s 2012 competition (page 43);whileJimToomey owns up on page 42 to have been in league with real-ale third-formerMichael Jackson in composing the 1956 pseudo-Latin poem that so intrigued DenisTaylor in our November issue.

Coincidentally, both Dave Bush and JimToomey refer to the proud tradition of Scout-ing at King James’s. Please let us have yourmemories and photographs. I should also wel-come your recollections of the unforgettableWalter Haigh who taught PT,mathematics,geography, science and even religion in his long career from 1929 to 1967.Walter wasof course also a formmaster and a champion of Fenay House which under his influenceinvariably came top in sports.A feature onWalter will appear in a future issue. �

coming back in a year’s time to tell theSociety how the expedition went.”

The Old Almondburians’ Society alsopresented runner-up awards of £500 toAronThompson from Fenay Bridge andTom Boothroyd fromAlmondbury.

The dinner attracted 110members andguests, including 13members of the‘Classof 1956’ 50 years after they left the schoolin 1962.Those present travelled from asfar away as the United States, Germanyand Norway, as well as from all over theUnited Kingdom, and they spanned oversixty-six years at the school, from 1940to 2006. In addition toAnnWalker, guestspeakers included Peter Tracey andGerald Stead.Also presentwere currentHead Boy Alfie Ruttle, Head GirlBethany Smith, HeadTeacher RobertLamb, and members of staff.The annual Founders’Day service took

place the following day at AlmondburyParish Church. �

More photographs overleaf

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FORMER King James’s studentRebeccaAddy (17) was all smileson 24th November when she

received a cheque of £1,000 at the annualdinner at the John Smith’s Stadium. Shewas the winner of the special ExplorationBursary presented by the OldAlmondburians’ Society tomark the 100thanniversary of the birth of Fred Hudson.Rebecca, now at Greenhead Collegestudying geography and mathematics, isbusy raising over £3,000 for a ‘WorldChallenge’ trip to Nepal when she will betrekking and working on variouscommunity projects.

The bursary was presented by FredHudson’s daughter AnnWalker, who wasGuest of Honour at the dinner.

“For many months I have been busywith fund-raising projects,” said Rebecca.“These have included organising events,running a sweet shop and takingpart in

the Huddersfield 10kmrun. The £1,000 bursary was a lovelysurprise and I’ll be looking forward to

Annual Dinner/Founders’ Day

I am writing to thank you for all your time and

care taken during this year of my father’s natal

centenary. The exploration

bursary award is such

an honour and it was wonderful towitness the

young recipients’ acceptance of them.

The organisation of the speeches and donations

of the cheques was most impressive. Itwent

smoothly and enjoyably, thanks to your planning

and attention to detail.

It has been a great honour and a most

interesting experience to have been involved in this

special occasion, togethe

r with the excellent

commemorative issue of The Almondburian.Ann Walker

Fred Hudson’s daughter AnnWalker wasGuest of Honour and presented the awards

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Clockwise from left: BethanySmith (Head Girl), Nick Briggs,PeterTracey, Gerald Stead,Founders’ Day procession

Top table guests (left to right): Robert Lamb (HeadTeacher), Bethany Smith, (Head Girl),AlfieRuttle (Head Boy),AnnWalker (Guest of Honour), Nick Briggs (OAS Chairman), Brian Stahelin(Chairman of Governors), Rev Dennis Handley (Rector,Almondbury Parish Church), awardwinners AronThompson, Rebecca Addy andTom Boothroyd

Annual Dinnerand

Founders’ Day2012

Above:Winner of the £1,000 exploration bursary RebeccaAddy receives her cheque fromAnnWalker.Below:AnnWalker withTom Boothroyd andAronThompson,who each received cheques for £500

Photos: Andrew Haigh

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From school to academyROBERT LAMB

A LIFE IN THE DAY

I’M an early riser – up at 6.00 amand ready to leave by 7.00.As mostpeople know, I’m a Lancastrian: I

come from Shaw, near Oldham.However,I’ve lived in Rochdale for more than 30years – it’s just 19 miles from Almond-bury and it takes exactly half an hour toget to work, less time than when I usedto work inManchester. I’m rarely affectedby bad weather or holdups on the motor-way.I get to School by 7.30 am. My PA is

also in by then so it’s a good chance to findout what’s going on and review the plansfor the day.A num-ber of staff willcome down to seeme about specificmatters before theystart teaching.Thenit just goes crazyand I never seem tohave a spare mo-ment.

We have a shortsenior team brief-ing at around 8.00am followed twicea week by a briefingwith all the staff at8.25.Then I’ll wan-

In January,Robert Lamb completed ten rewarding years as HeadTeacher.He looks forward to the many challenges that lie ahead…

der round the School to see what’s goingon. Back in my office, I’ll then check myemails – typically between 30 and 50 eachmorning, many of which will require ac-tion.

Then there’ll be numerous meetings inmy office on teaching or pastoral matters,staffing issues, the academy, finance andso on.

Even at weekends, it’s still an earlystart.Our sonWilliam, 13, is in his schoolfootball team so if he has an away matchI’ll need to get him to his coach by 8.00before following by car to watch the

game. In the after-noon, we’ll go towatch the greatOldhamAthletic inaction. Our songoes to school inOldham –the sameschool where mywife Jane is head ofmathematics. Ourdaughter Katrina,23, is at OxfordUniversity study-ing medicine

In no time at allit’s dinner time soI’ll go round to the

dinner hall to help supervise the children.I’ll probably eat my own dinner standingup.

There’ll be more meetings and corre-spondence in the afternoon and with a bitof luck I’ll finally get away by 5.00 pm.But there are also regular Governors’meetings, in which case I’m more likelyto get away around 9.00 pm. One weekbefore half term I clocked up 62 hours inschool.

A lot of my time has been taken up inrecent months by the conversion to acad-emy status.Will things change?Well, itwill still be called King James’s School andit will hopefully still be a very successfuland very popular school. But where it willchange is that we will have all the extra

funding we have been denied in the pastand we can spend it on the things the chil-dren deserve.King James’s has been by farthe worst funded school in Kirklees in re-cent years, to the extent that someschools have been receiving up to twiceas much money per pupil as ourselves. It’sthe result of many years of providing ad-ditional funding for pupils in deprivedareas, which – however worthy – worksto the detriment of pupils from more af-fluent parts of the borough.Nearly half ofall secondary schools in Kirklees havenow become academies and I suspectmost of the rest will become academiesover the next few years.

A priority now that we have the extrafunding will be to increase the number of

The School’s status as a Specialist Science College resulted in greatly improved results inscience and mathematics. Isaac Russell and Lily Cameron prepare an experiment.

Jenny Ainger

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staff.Our pupil-teacher ratio is currentlythe highest in the whole of Kirklees – wehave roughly one teacher for every 18children compared with 9 or 10 in someother Kirklees schools. Consequentlythey can have much smaller classes thanwe can. Our situation is even worse, be-cause many of our older classrooms areso small. So,we’re in the absurd positionof having to teach large classes in smallclassrooms.We’ve already made a start inengaging additional staff and this willcontinue during the coming year.

Of course, we will also need moreclassrooms in the years ahead.There aretimes at present when the number ofclasses being taught is exactly the same asthe number of classrooms available sothat we literally have no spare capacity atall. But the problem with classrooms isthat they are very expensive to build andproviding new ones will probably have to

be the subject of successful funding bidsto the Government.There have been nosignificant additional buildings on the sitesince I have been here, just a few mobileclassrooms and a few enlargements of ex-isting classrooms.

Now we are an academy, the day-to-day running of the school will continueto be in the hands of the governors butmajor longer-term decisions will be theresponsibility of the trustees. I don’t ex-pect much of an organisational problemas the five Trustees are also members ofthe Board of Governors.

Of course, there is a down-side to allthis.This is the first time in my teachingcareer that I have been unable to continueto teach a class alongside my duties asHeadTeacher. I very rarely take school as-sembly nowadays. There is a school as-sembly each day, but these are taken bymembers of staff on a rota basis. They

Time for algebra: Robert Lamb keeps his hand in with students fromYear 8.

Jenny Ainger

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normally last 10-15 minutes, and typi-cally include videos and PowerPoint pre-sentations about current issues – charityactivities, current affairs, natural disastersand so on.They are no longer religiousoccasions.

Looking back, it’s been a deeply re-warding ten years since I arrived at theSchool.The 5+A-C* GCSE pass rate wasaround 51% when I arrived and we gotit up to 95% last year. But the Govern-ment has now changed the rules so thatthe measure is 5+A-C* including Englishand Mathematics.At the moment our fig-ure is 70% on this measure; the equiva-lent figure when I arrived ten years agowas 31%.We hope that our new status asan academy will enable us to continue toimprove our results, though the Govern-ment has recently changed the rules againto exclude certain subjects from theleague tables.

The achievement ofSpecialist Science Col-lege status in 2004,soon after I arrived,was a major step for-ward. It strengthenedour science and mathsenormously.Mathematics was very weakwhen I arrived at the School, with a passrate of 37%. Last year we got our best-ever results of 80%; as a mathematicianmyself, I’m very proud of that achieve-ment. Our Science GCSE pass rate lastyear was 89%.

I’ve always enjoyed sports since thedays when I used to play crown greenbowls with my dad as a youngster. I alsoused to be a keen cricketer so I’m very

pleased about the proposal to build a newcricket pavilion. It will be an excellentnew resource for the school and indeedfor the Old Almondburians’ Society andthe local community.Our sports facilitieshere at King James’s School are alreadyvery good – tennis, rugby, soccer andbadminton in the sports hall. It will begood to improve our cricket facilities.

I’d like to see a strengthening of the re-lationship between the OldAlmondburi-ans’ Society and the School staff. It’s notan easy problem to solve because thenewer, younger members of staff tend tobe more mobile and career-minded thanused to be the case. So it’s difficult to de-velop that long term relationship withthe OAS that used to exist and it’s a realchallenge for the OAS to face in the yearsahead.

By the end of a long school day, there’snot always much timeleft for relaxation andperhaps that’s why Itend to be somethingof a night-owl. How-ever, we do enjoy thetheatre and cinema,and we’ve really en-

joyed the recent terrorist thriller Home-land on television.

But all too soon it’s time for bed, andI dream about the challenges that lie instore now the School has become anacademy, and the possibility that wemight one day have our own bowlinggreen. �Robert Lamb was talking to Roger Dowling.The full interview can be heard on the OASwebsite at http://tinyurl.com/adadpsg.

‘I’d like to see astrengthening of therelationship betweenthe OAS and theSchool staff’

Oastler: the ‘Factory King’

BORN in Leeds in 1789, the labour reformerRichardOastler played a major role in the campaignagainst the use of child labour in the 1830s.This was

subsequently to lead to the 1847 Factory Act which for thefirst time restricted children to a 10-hour working day.

This is the subject of a new book edited by former KingJames’s School Head of History John Hargreaves in col-laboration with E A Hilary Haigh. Based upon a conferenceat the University of Huddersfield, the collection of essays ex-plores the links between Richard Oastler’s campaign and thesuccessful campaign to abolish the transatlantic slavetrade led byYorkshire MPWilliamWilberforce.

In addition to contributions from John Harg-reaves, the book also includes a detailed account ofOastler’sYorkshire slavery campaign by ProfessorEdward Royle at the University ofYork who at-tended King James’s Grammar School from 1955to 1962. �

Slavery in Yorkshire: RichardOastler and the campaignagainst child labour in the In-dustrial RevolutionEdited by JohnA Hargreaves andEA Hilary HaighUniversity of Huddersfield £24 pp238

NEW BOOK

Centenarian Percy is still church organist

W)E were delighted to learn from the Alveston Courierthat OldAlmondburian PercyTrutone (1922-25)

has just celebrated his 100th birthday – and is still theregular organist at his local church. Percy, aBuckinghamshire resident for the past 60 years, had a toughstart in life. Born by caesarian section in 1913, he lost hismother from diptheria when he was only three and wasbrought up by his father.After his time atAGS, he procededto Magdelene College, Oxford on condition from his father that he became anaccountant. However, such was his self-confessed idiosyncracy that he flaunted hisfather’s wishes and in due course became an opthalmologist. But music was alwaysthe most important part of his life. “Percy has always been the village impressariowhen it comes to organising local musical events,” reports the newspaper. �

NEWS

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MINUTES OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at theWoolpack,Almondbury, on Monday, 7th January 2013, at 7.30 pm.

Attendance: In the absence of Nicky Briggs, John Broadbent took the chair andKeith Crawshaw, Roger Dowling,Andrew Haigh,Angela Melling, and RichardTaylor were in attendance.

Apologies for Absence were received from JackTaylor, Gerald Stead and NickyBriggs.

A Minute’s Silence was held for members lost during the previous year, includingBob Brook and Les Baxter.

The Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Monday, 9th January2012, were read and approved and there were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Report: There was no report.

Treasurer’s Report: Keith Crawshaw presented the accounts for the financialyear ended 31st August 2012, noting that this year subscription income hasdecreased and the cost of distributing the magazine has increased due to theconsiderable increase in postage rates. Indeed, the total cost of the magazine nowaccounts for 90% of subscription income, compared with 76% last year. He feltthat is still OK, since there is an excess of income over expenditure of £186.94and, overall, the Society is still in a healthy position and able to support anythingthat we might want to support.Acceptance of the accounts was proposed byAndrew Haigh and seconded byAngela Melling, before being carried unanimously.The Chairman thanked Keith.

Subscription Rate for the FinancialYear Commencing 1st September,2013: Keith Crawshaw saw no reason to change the basic subscription rate from£10 per annum and recommended that it should remain the same. However, he wasconcerned at the poor response that we get from the recent leavers who aremembers for free for the first year and cost us a significant amount in postage.Thetake-up rate is only two or three new members per year and so it is probablyunsustainable. He therefore recommended that new leavers are no longerautomatically made members for free for their first year, but that we perhaps givethem the first magazine after they leave and offer them the opportunity to opt-in tothe others.Andrew Haigh noted that those who sign up usually do so early on.

Membership Secretary’s Report:Andrew Haigh reported that membershipcurrently stands at 720, compared with 730 at this time last year, a reduction of 10,due to a number of deaths and resignations. However, eight new members wererecruited during the course of the last financial year, three of whom were schoolleavers in 2011, so we are still recruiting new members quite well even if not manyare recruited immediately upon leaving the school. Indeed, most new members areprobably recruited through the web site.As a result, membership still remainshealthy and four more new members have already joined the Society during thecurrent financial year.

Election of President: RichardTaylor proposed that Robert Lamb should beinvited to continue as President of the Society.There were no President’s Remarks,due to his absence from the meeting.

Election of Executive Officers for 2013:Although absent, Nicky Briggs had previously indicated his willingness to stand fora third year as Chairman and he was duly re-elected.The other Officers were then elected as follows:

Vice-Chairman VacantHonorary Secretary Andrew HaighHonoraryTreasurer Keith CrawshawMedia Editor Roger DowlingOrdinary Committee Members Emily Briggs

Martyn HicksWalter RaleighThree vacancies

Chaplain Rev Stuart RoebuckRepresentative of the School Angela Melling

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Date of Next Executive Committee Meeting: -The Secretary asked that thedate be fixed for the next Executive Committee Meeting. Due to several membersbeing unable to attend on the first Monday in February, Monday 11th February wassuggested, and this was agreed.

Cricket Section: RichardTaylor mentioned that the Dinner will take place onSaturday, 2nd March at Lockwood Park.

The Meeting closed at 8.33 p.m. and was followed by the customary pie and peassupper.

Signed:AMHaigh (Secretary)J Broadbent (Chairman).

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Opposite:Annual accounts presented byN Briggs (Chairman);

K Crawshaw (Treasurer);J A Swift (Independent Examiner)

337333315

INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR YEAR ENDED 31ST AUGUST 2012

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31ST AUGUST 20122011

Accumulated FundBalance as at1st September 2011 8615.25Add Excess of

8615 Income over Expenditure 186.94 8802.19Life Membership AccountBalance as at1st September 2011 351.08Add Interest 2.98

354.06Less Transfer to Income

351 & Expenditure Account 21.75 332.31KJS Development FundBalance as at1st September 2011 1815.28Add Interest 15.43

School Histories 10.001815 KJS 400 Merchandise 30.00 1870.711965 Cricket Pavilion Appeal Fund 2065.00— Annual Dinner Receipts in Advance 249.50120 Subscriptions in Advance 110.00707 Sundry Creditors 523.06

13573 13952.77

201118 Trophies 18.0015 Stock of Ties 15.32

175 Stock of Prints 175.00Stock of Morning AssemblyBooks 1454.00

— Less sales 720.00 734.00Life Membership Account

351 Nat West Bonus Saver Account 332.31

KJS Development Fund1815 Nat West Bonus Saver Account 1870.71

Cash and Bank BalancesNational Westminster Bank:

8144 Bonus Saver Account 10707.582985 Current Account 52.59

48 Paypal Account 2.0822 Cash in Hand 45.18 10807.43

13573 13952.77

20115597 Subscriptions 5245.00

22 Transfer from Life Membership Account 21.755 Interest Received 82.26

— Surplus on Sales of DVDs 4.005 Surplus on AGM Supper 1.15

— Surplus on Quiz Evening Supper 0.12133 Surplus on Annual Dinner —

5762 5354.28

2011Printing, Stationery & Postages:

2826 Magazines, Printing 2759.241166 Magazines, Stationery & Postages 1602.95257 Other Stationery & Postages 377.48 4739.6725 Jessop Prize 25.0060 Young Old Almondburians’ Prizes 60.00

166 Sundry Expenses 95.0024 Paypal Charges 27.5014 Loss on Quiz Evening Supper —

228 Loss on Reunion Evening —— Loss on Annual Dinner 126.23

KJS Contribution:— 400th Anniversary Gates 93.94996 Excess of Income over Expenditure 186.94

5762 5354.28

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EXECUTIVE OFFICERS 2013OFFICE NAME TEL E-MAILPresident Robert Lamb (01484) 412990 staff.rlamb@kingjames.org.uk

Chairman Nicky Briggs (01484) 305734 nickybriggs@hotmail.comMob: 07427 668004

Vice-Chairman Vacant

Hon Secretary Andrew M Haigh Tel: (01484) 432105 andrew.haigh@oas.org.ukMob: 07770 220733WorkTel: (01484) 400032

HonTreasurer Keith Crawshaw Tel: (01484) 533658 keith.crawshaw@oas.org.ukWorkTel: (01924) 409311

Media Editor Roger Dowling Tel: (01925) 756390 roger.dowling@oas.org.uk

Ordinary Emily Briggs Tel: (01484) 305734 nickybriggs@hotmail.comCommittee Martyn Hicks Tel: (01484) 539409 martyn@screenprintproductions.comMembers WorkTel: (01422) 371751

Walter Raleigh(Two vacancies)

Chaplain Rev Stuart Roebuck Tel: (01484) 306644 sroebuck39@gmail.com

School Reps Angela Melling Tel: (01484) 412990 staff.amelling@kingjames.org.ukAlfie Ruttle (Head Boy)Bethany Smith (Head Girl)

Badminton Andrew M Haigh As above

Cricket Section Jack ATaylor jtaylor73@btinternet.com

Golf Section SimonA Russell Tel: (01484) 685365 simon@pacific-lifestyle.co.u

Tennis Section Andrew M Haigh As above

Archivist Nich Briggs Mob: 07771 865330 nichbriggs@hotmail.com

Ind Examiner (Vacant)

Vice-Presidents E Brian Carter M F Dyson Emily ComerPeter L Burns Nicky Murphy K G ShawD GArmitage J AWard Richard J GreenGeoffrey Douglas Keith Crawshaw Paul A G BalderstoneJ RichardTaylor John M Drewery JackATaylorJ AmandaTaylor Malcolm JTaylor James NTaylorDavid Gary Croft David A Bush Graham CliffeRobertWilliams Ian Shaw Bryan Hopkinson

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IN the ‘bleak mid-winter’, as Iavidly read The Last Flannelled Foolby Michael Simkins, my thoughts

inevitably turn to a new season –hopefully with better weather than thatexperienced in 2012. Some enlightenedreaders may know Simkins as theultimate Sunday cricketer: passionate,obsessive, technically inept andhopelessly deluded.When an injury ruleshim out of an entire season, in the bookhe sets off on an odyssey across thecounties of England in search of thatgolden time in his youth when his passionfor the game was first kindled.

A welcome pre-season ritual forsimilarly deluded Almondburians is therigour of net practice, which started atAlmondbury High School on Sunday,20th January.As yet another new seasonapproaches we also eagerly look forwardto further positive news towards therealisation of a new cricket pavilion onthe present Arkenley site, to replace theexisting one.

CricketJACK TAYLOR

This year is be the Centenary of theHuddersfield Central Cricket League.On Monday, 8th December 1913, menrepresenting seven clubs met at

‘Cola’ – Joe Colagiovanni – will again be FirstXI captain for the coming season

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structuring following the latestdeparture and demise of a numberof teams, the most recent beingBadger Hill (formerly RastrickNew Road Cricket Club) andWoodfield Park (formerly PoliceCricket Club).

At our AGM, held on Sunday,6th January in The Woolpack,‘Cola’(Joe Colagiovanni) was unani-mously re-elected First XI captainand Jonathan Mansell was hon-oured with the Second XI cap-taincy. Unfortunately, our treasurerof long standing, LouiseWalmsley,has tendered her resignation. Weare grateful for her skilful and ded-icated handling of our finances.Thus an opportunity is created fora volunteer, anxious to gain expe-rience in the world of finance, tostep forward.

We are delighted to welcomeformer player Maurice Peters backto the club as one of our

designated umpires. The formerWoodfield Park resigned from theLeague, but this has now fortunatelyenabled Maurice, their umpire, torepresent the Almondburians’ First XI.

Traditionally, the first round of theAllsop (First XI) andTinker (Second XI)Cup competitions was held on the sameweekend, early in the season. However,a recent League rule change relating tothe Tinker Cup (‘Entry into thiscompetition will be optional’) has led toour reluctant withdrawal from thecompetition as we experience greatdifficulty in raising two teams on double-header weekends. �

Huddersfield’s Pack Horse Hotel inKirkgate in order to form a new cricketleague. The seven clubs wereAlmondbury, Hall Bower, Primrose Hill,St Andrews, Salendine Nook Baptist,Honley Wesleyans and Bradley Mills.Although not present at this meeting, Idid make my playing debut (as abatsman!) in the Central League in 1949for the now-defunct Rowley Hill.Currently there are 53 teams in theLeague, with upwards of a dozen formerCentral League teams having moved tothe Huddersfield and District League inrecent years.At the time of going to presswe await details of the League re-

CRICKET CALENDAR

CENTENARY LEAGUE DINNERFriday, 1st March, 2013 at 7.00 for 7.30 pmVenue:Cedar Court Hotel,AinleyTop

PRESENTATION EVENINGSaturday, 2nd March, 2013 at 7.00 for 7.30 pm

Venue: Lockwood ParkBooking:TimTaylor

(Tim.Taylor@moisoncoors.com)

EARLY SEASON FIXTURESSunday, 21stApril, 2013 at 2.00 pmFirst XI v Bradley & Colne (home)Leymoor v Second XI (away)

Saturday, 11th May, 2013 at 2.00 pmFirst roundAllsop Cup

First XI v Upper Hopton (away)

‘COPYMARK’ 20/20 CUPCOMPETITION

The First XI have been drawn at home inthe first round against Edgerton and Dalton;

games to be played on or beforeFriday, 24th May.

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ANDREW HAIGH

was, literally, a flying visit, and he onlymade two appearances before returning toCambodia. Upon his return home,Matthew e-mailed me to enquire whetherall his disciples had continued to play afterhis departure and, I regret to say, they didnot. We are once again struggling fornumbers and your Badminton SectionneedsYOU!

It has again been difficult to scrapetogether sufficient funds to pay for the hireof the sports hall and, so tardy must ourpayments have become, that we arrived afew weeks ago to find ourselves locked outand having to hang around the car park inshorts and T-shirts amongst the piles ofsnow. However, it subsequently transpiredthat this was not punishment for ourinability to pay our debts, but simplybecause the caretaker thought that it wasWednesday and there were no bookings!

Dave Bush,who played with us for manyyears, still plays onThursday evenings butnow with Porthcawl Badminton Club fromwhere he reports burgeoning attendances.

So, come on, Almondburians!We play in the School sports hall onThursday evenings during term-time, from 7.30 p.m. until 9.30p.m., until the season ends onThursday, 23rd May.The fee is now£6.00 per player, per week. Pleasecome and join us. �

Badminton

YOU will recall that in the lastissue of The Almondburian Ireported that the 2011-12 season

was not a success, with attendances beingtoo low to cover costs. I went on to say thatalthough we received assurances thateveryone was keen to continue to play,washappy to pay an extra pound per week andwould try to attend more frequently, the2012-13 badminton season started onThursday, 6th September with just fourpeople playing!

I went on to recount how MatthewBooth, a former regular player who nowlives in Cambodia, where he owns theOceanWalk Inn, had returned to the UnitedKingdom and made a reappearance atbadminton, his popularity causing playerswhom we haven’t seen for months to flockfrom far and wide to the school sports halljust for the privilege of playing withMatthew once again.

It was good to see Matthew again, notleast because of the boost to ourattendances. Unfortunately, however, it

What a racquet: Neil Gledhill (1954-1959), Ian Daffern (1977-1982) andAdam Daffern (current Year 11)

33

THE Almondburians’ FootballClub continues prosper, as ourFirst XI finds its feet

this season newly promotedto Division 2.

Our overall financialposition is good. A new£350 sponsorship deal hasbeen securedwith PC Specialistand their logowill appear on theback of our train-ing jackets.

Serious consideration is beinggiven to forming a Third XI. This fol-lows the great success we have had

Football

MARTYN HICKS

with our Second XI which has seen abig influx of new players.Where they

will play and who will managethem are questions for fur-ther down the line.

We were able to trainup to the end of Februaryon the floodlit all-weather

field at MirfieldG r a m m a rSchool. [Onethird of the pitch

for one hour costus £36; who would have believed thatfootball pitches (not even real ones!)could generate over £100 an hour?]

After a brief dalliance at the Rad-cliffe, we have reverted to the Woolpackas our post-match venue.

Finally, you cannotfail to have noticedour new club motto(above). It arose froma suggestion fromGreg Sykes and RobAntich who had at-tended the OAS Din-ner last November andnoted with approvalFred Hudson’s lifelongmantra: ‘love the gamebeyond the prize’.

DIVISION 2 Played Pts

Morley Town 12 34

Sandal Wanderers 13 29

Leeds Indep 12 27

Almondburians 13 27

Huddersfield YMCA 12 23

St Bedes Res 13 21

Old Mods Res 15 21

Amaranth 14 20

Wood Moor 15 15

Medics IV 13 14

Colton Inst 13 12

Spurs III 15 11

E Ardsley Wd 15 8

Bram Jun III 13 3

DIVISION 4 Played Pts

Cents Res 16 34

Alwoodley III 16 34

Almondburians Res 13 31

Farnley Sp R 17 30

W’wright OB 14 27

College Res 15 22

Hudds Am III 16 19

North Leeds 16 17

City OB Res 13 14

Moderns IV 15 12

Thornes III 10 5

Sandal A Res 15 5

Yorkshire Amateur Leaguetables as we go to press(early February)

20

ANDREW HAIGH

badminton in the sports hall if the weatheris inclement, although this is not possibleduring the summer holidays due tomaintenance work in the sports hall. Thefee, to cover the cost of balls (and showersduring term-time), will be the princelysum of £3.00 per person, per evening.Almondburian tennis is purely social, sowhy not come along and join us? �

Golf: Gothard CupSIMON RUSSELL

Tennis

THE 2013 Almondburian tennisseason will start on Thursday, 6thJune and will run until Thursday,

29th August. We shall be playing on theschool tennis courts eachThursday eveningbetween these dates, weather permitting,from 7.15 p.m. until dusk, and anyone ismost welcome to join us.

During term-time, it is possible to play

21

Greg even suggested a possibleLatin translation which, after consul-tation with the UK’s top advisers inthis field (known to you and me asDave Bush and JimToomey) ended up

in the form you see here. Never let itbe said that your committee membersfail to take their responsibilities seri-ously or have time on their hands whilstat work… �

AFTER the dismal last minute cancellation last year, I have now bookedWoodsome Hall Golf Club on Friday, 5th July for the Gothard Cup.As usual the tee is reserved between 4.00 and 5.00 pm. Dinner

will be served inWoodsome’s magnificent dining room at 9.15 pm.Any Almondburian who does not play golf is very welcome to attend the

Dinner. I need to know numbers as soon as possible so please get in touch atSimon@pacific-lifestyle.co.uk or 07798823825.

22

ONE of the most well-known ho-tels in Huddersfield – theGeorge Hotel in St George’s

Square – closed at the beginning of Jan-uary. It’s the second time in a year thatthe Grade II listed 60-bed hotel hasclosed its doors.The presentVictorian building with its

Italianate facade on St George’s Square isthe third on the site.The original GeorgeHotel, believed to date back to 1687,wasowned by Huddersfield’s principallandowners the Ramsden family. A sec-ond hotel was built on the site in 1790,and with the arrival of the railway inHuddersfield the Ramsdens decided toconstruct the current building on itspresent site in 1852 as a cost of over£10,000.

The George Hotel has two special linkswith King James’s Grammar School. It isgenerally accepted that the catalyst to thefoundation of the professional RugbyLeague at a meeting in the George Hotelin 1895 was the ‘rugby rumpus’ createdby Rev Francis Marshall, headmasterfrom 1878 to 1896.Marshall objected ve-hemently to the growing professionalisa-tion of Rugby Union, leading ultimatelyto the breakaway professional league.A display of rugby league memorabilia

set up by OldAlmondburian Chris Earn-shaw, who died last June (obituary: page46), forms the basis of the Rugby LeagueHeritage Museum at the George Hotel.More recently, in 2004, the George

Hotel was the venue for a mediationmeeting relating to the School’s historic

trusts,which the OldAlmond-burians’ Society claimed hadbeen badly administered byHuddersfield Corporation andKirklees Council.A marathon session of

meetings lasting a total of 15hours resulted in a major six-figure out-of-court settlementin favour of the Society and theSchool, leading to the settingup of the King James’s SchoolFoundation. �

Many OldAlmondburians will be shocked at the news of the closure of afamous Huddersfield hotel.It has two notable historic links with the School

George Hotel closes – for good?NEWS

23

Farnley LinesDAVE BUSH

LET’S get The Big Disappoint-ment over first. I left you at thevery end of my last epistle with

the tantalising titbit that early in 2013 Iwas to undertake ‘my most adventurousbirding trip so far’.

I imagine you tearing open yourlatest Almondburian, flicking rapidly toFarnley Lines and… then there’s this.Ah,such self-delusion! (Apologies to theEditor about the exclamation mark)*.Any road up, as I believe they say round’uddersfield – the aforementioned trip isstill on; it’s just that your esteemededitor’s deadline is five days before ourdeparture from Heathrow. You’ll justhave to wait until the July issue of TheAlmondburian.

Earning my stripes at the OAS DinnerIt’s certainly not an ego trip but I

suppose I still experience a thrill at theOAS Annual Dinner when soaking up afew complimentary comments. Not soinitially this year for I appeared wearingthe striped blazer, pictured here.Veiledqueries politely delivered werenumerous, while Bob Williams, neverone to beat about a Dave Bush nor let theopportunity pass for a witty remark,suggested it was my deckchairattendant’s uniform for summers onPorthcawl seafront. Others perhapsquietly muttered “Senility”. It wasnaturally a relief to be able to explainbriefly during the speeches that when Isucceeded the great F S Hudson asDeputy Head he passed on to me his

academic gown anduniversity blazer. Ifelt deep emotion. Iwas puzzled at first asthe blazer did notbear Fred’s exactinitials. DaughterAnn explained thatthese were his elderbrother’s and it hadbeen passed down tothe younger sibling.

Dave Bush, FredHudson’s daughter AnnWalker andTHAT jacketat the OAS Dinner

*Who would want to be a proof-reader: page 31

24

We calculated that it was at least80 years old but obviously hadshrunk over that period as it wasimpossible by a large margin to fasten it(exclamation mark suppressed). I havenow passed it on to be stored/displayedin the school’s archives.

Founders’DayA delightful evening with fine

tributes was followed next day by aslightly larger group than normal makingits way up St Helen’s for the Sundaymorning service.What was normal washow moving this service is whateverone’s belief. But why, oh why are thereno representatives from the School? It isan OAS occasion but I am sure somepupils and their parents would take partif a strong invitation were issued. I mustconfess to a fluttery moment when,withthe vicar waiting on the chancel steps tobegin the service, a large-hatted,archetypal Church Lady asked me toread a prayer from the School statutes.This contained passages such as ‘beautifyby the light of thy heavenly grace thetowardness… (OK, spell check but youhave not read Morning Assembly) of ourwits, the which with all powers of naturethou hast poured into us.’ I think I justabout carried it off. Plenty of time on theway back to Porthcawl to mull over suchmatters as I sat for more than two hoursnear the junction of the M42 and M5after a serious accident.

Farewell to the formidable HelenI was saddened to hear of the death of

Helen Hebblethwaite (obituary: page 46).Hers was a formidable presence in thecorridors of KJGS and I likened hermovement to that of a Spanish galleonunder full sail. It is rumoured that pupilsin the ‘Gab Lab’ ( language laboratory)deliberately sabotaged their machines sothat HH had to lean over them to effectrepairs. I had heard that she lived in alarge house in Beaumont Park. However,when I first arrived there to give one ofher daughters some private tuition inLatin I thought the house was not solarge. I then realised I was looking at thetriple garage with granny flat above; themain house was to the left. My paymentwas a length of finest worsted from theSykes & Hebblethwaite mill. Does it stillexist? Made into a suit, it served me wellfor my interview for the King James’sDeputy Headship. I know she retained,for many years after she left, fondmemories of her time down St Helen’sGate.

Scouting at King James’sFlicking through Morning Assembly I

noticed (prayer 60) that HarryTaylor hadincluded a prayer for Scouts. Anindication of their importance in theschool? I should like to think so. JimToomey and I have often discussed the

SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs:a 1991 show written and producedby Helen Hebblethwaite for herpupils at Rosemeade School inAlmondbury where she moved fromKing James’s in 1978

25

possibility of writing a history of the‘46th’ but with no real source material Ifear it is a non-starter. Jimmentioned theCourt of Honour which met onelunchtime each week – scouters andpatrol leaders – to discuss topicalmatters and plan the next meeting.Whathappened to the minutes book? Any ex-KJ scout’s memories will, I am sure, bewarmly welcomed by the editor.

More grand weather here in PorthcawlAs I tap away on my keyboard there’s

a song thrush tuning up in the woods atthe top of our garden, a sure indicationof the changing of the season. Here’s tobetter weather in 2013 although we stillrush down to the front when there’s astrong south westerly blowing and a hightide.The novelty of seeing seas such asthe one pictured here will never fade.Ken Leech, Bob Field andAndrew Haighhave all walked along the top of thisbreakwater – in calmer conditions. Iremember JackTaylor declined.

Typhoid booster tomorrow and thenall ready to go. Let’s hope I do not sharethe experience of near neighbour Coralwho flew for the first time at 84 to hergranddaughter’s wedding in Perth. “Howwere the flights, Coral?” I queried. “Finegoing out , Dave, but coming back therewas an awful lot of flatulence.”

As I said to my Ozzie pal, KenLeech, if the plane were full of beer-swilling, baked-bean chompingAustralians… �

Dave Bush and JimToomey with ‘46th Huddersfield’ scouts and senior scouts in 1961.

26

Bonsai and poetry at Wisley

W ISLEY, in Surrey, is theflagship garden of the RoyalHorticultural Society.The

original garden was the creation ofGeorge Fergusson Wilson – business-man, scientist, inventor and keen gar-dener and a former treasurer of theRHS. AfterWilson’s death in 1902, thegarden and the adjoining Glebe Farm

NEWS

were bought by Sir Thomas Hanbury, awealthy Quaker who had founded thecelebrated garden of La Mortola, on theItalian Riviera. In 1903, SirThomas pre-sented theWisley estate in trust to theSociety for its perpetual use.

Last year,Wisley opened its latest ad-dition: the Herons BonsaiWalk, an im-pressive avenue of beautiful, hardy bonsaitrees. Old Almondburian David Mor-phet (1951-58) was invited to read hispoem Bonsai atWisley from the collec-tion The Silence of Green.The Presidentof the RHS Elizabeth Banks and its Di-rector General Sue Biggs were boththere and they came up with the ideaof displaying the poem at theWalk.

“No one who has visited the RHSflagship Garden atWisley over the pastfive or six years can fail to have been

Old Almondburian’s poem is selected to mark the opening of a new‘BonsaiWalk’at Royal Horticultural Society’s 60 acre gardens in Surrey

27

Article sparks new Teak interest

impressed by a collection of bonsai pro-vided and curated by Herons, a leadingnursery,” said David. “I was so taken withit that I found room for a bonsai poem inmy 2007 The Silence of Green which interalia contains over thirty poems on indi-vidual plants – from aloe to yarrow –which have meant something special tome in my life.

“Earlier this year, the RHS andHerons got together on the new Bonsai

Walk,which expands the original collec-tion and provides a really dramatic fea-ture. I was honoured to be invited toread my poem at the opening and evenmore delighted when the RHS decidedto display the poem in theWalk itself.

“There is something quite magicalabout ‘timber made petite’ and I sin-cerely hope that the poem will in somesmall way increase the pleasure of visi-tors to theWalk.” �

THE article in The Almond-burian about Edward‘Teak’ Akroyd (May,

2011) has revived interest in paint-ings and drawings by the formerKing James’s Grammar School artmaster.

Surprisingly for a prominentlocal artist who had his own studioin Huddersfield, Kirklees Muse-ums & Galleries have only a singleexample of his work: a fine 122 x92 cm oil painting of formerMayor of Huddersfield ReginaldWood (1956-1957).The paintingwas acquired as a gift from MrsAkroyd in 1988.

Kirklees Museums & Gallerieshave now created an artist’s file forEdward Akroyd and we should beinterested in the whereabouts ofother paintings and drawings.Anyreaders who can help are asked tocontact The Almondburian (detailson back cover). �

28

Exclusive: how to beat the bookiesTHE TIPSTER

ONE-TIME captain of the Schoolcricket First XI and vice-captainof the Soccer XI, Oxford

graduate, higher servant and Companionof the Order of St Michael and St George,Commandeur de l’Ordre National deMadagascar – Old Almondburian BobGoldsmith has many claims to fame. Butone interest may be less well known: hislove of the turf.

So what could be more natural, whenhe was posted to the distant outpost ofPapua New Guinea in the 1980s, that heshould devise an ingenious way of continu-ing to enjoy his recreation by remote con-trol?All he needed was a couple of‘agents’back in the UK who would place bets onhis behalf in accordance with his predeter-mined criteria so that he could collect hiswinnings when he returned.

He called his system GRIP: the Gold-smith Racing Investment Procedure. It wasbased on a simple irrefutable proposition:that horses which have already won arelikely to win again, and they will win againmore often than horses with a losingrecord.

However, as many punters before andsince have discovered to their cost, it’s notas simple as that.Circumstances change foreach race: different competing horses;weight carried;distance run;and so on.ButGoldsmith reckoned that given the average

RACING

The Almondburian reveals top tips for a profitable day at the races

odds atwhichwinning horses are returned,a success rate of only 30% was all that wasrequired for long term profitability. So allthat was needed was careful numericalanalysis of the key factors.

After much deliberation, Goldsmithreckoned there were 11 factors in total:winning margin last time out; number ofrunners last time out; going (groundconditions);draw; jockey; trainer;distance;prize money; weight carried; name; andcourse.

Then, he devised a scoring algorithmwhereby pointscould be scored in re-lation to the perceivedimportance of each fac-tor. The highestnumber of pointsscored wouldd e t e r m i n ewhich horseswould be backed.

Having developed the system tohis satisfaction, Goldsmith’s next taskwas to select his two agents back inthe UK.Two fellow members ofthe Civil Service Crusaderscricket team immediatelysprang to mind: RonaldGeorgeWarr and Regi-nald BasilWood.To be aCrusader, one had to be a First XI member

29

factor was also abandoned.Goldsmith also realised that the proce-

dure required more of a mental effort andmore of the agents’ time than he had origi-nally expected.(One agentwrote that he al-ways worried when the postman called lesta new mass of GRIP material should bestuffed through his letter box).Goldsmithreluctantly accepted that a revised GRIPmust take account of this‘human factor’.

Goldsmith also berated his agents forfailing to apply the GRIPS procedure ‘aupied de la lettre’. He grumbled that on oc-casions they allowed extraneous factors(such as‘tips from Peter O’Sullevan*’,‘rat-ings in Football and Racing Outlook’ and‘def-erential attitudes towards the higher femalearistocracy in the person of Lavinia,Duchessof Norfolk†)’ to influence their selections.

So,a revisedGRIPmade its appearancein 1987,and it is this (see panel overleaf) thatwe are now proudly able to reveal exclu-sively to readers of TheAlmondburian.

It needs little explanation. Any horse

THE BRAINS BEHIND ‘GRIP’Bob Goldsmith (1935-1942), achieved a FirstClass Honours degreein Philosophy, Politicsand Economics atOxford University. Hewas deputy head ofthe first UKdelegation to the thenEuropean Economic Community andappointed CMG in 1974.On leaving theCivil Service, he became a delegate of theEuropean Commission. Bob Goldsmithnow lives in retirement in Scarborough.

*Peter O’Sullevan was the BBC’s principal rac-ing commentator from 1947 to 1997†Owner, breeder, rider and trainer, Lavinia,Duchess of Norfolk was one of the most knowl-edgeable women in racing. She died in 1995.

of one of the better cricket clubs in the Lon-don area.Wood was reputedly the best legspin bowler in London club cricket.Warr,the elder brother ofMiddlesex andEnglandcricketer JohnWarr,had scored over 20,000runs for his Ealing club. In true secret agentstyle,Warrwas given the code-name‘RigorMortis’ (soon changed,following not unrea-sonable protestations from his daughter, to‘Brideshead’); and Wood was given thename‘Basilisk’.

And so,with criteria agreed and agentsselected, the great project was launched.Goldsmith provided each agentwith a £100kitty and awaited results.Alas, it has to berecorded that the initial resultswere not toopromising. Far from achieving a modestprofit by the end of the season each agentsustained a £40 loss.

But Goldsmithwas not discouraged.“Itcannot be said that the procedure is an utterfailure,” he insisted.“The use of random se-lections, or slavish recommendations of aparticular newspaper, would almost cer-tainly have turned out more costly.”

The first problemwas that the systemwas over-complicated,with toomany factors to be taken into

account.He decided toabandon the con-

siderations of‘winning mar-

gin’ and‘numberof runners last time out’.He also decided that, as

their reading abil-ity is very lim-

ited, horses wereunlikely to be in-

fluenced bythe name

under which theywere running, so this

30

that has not previouslywonor placed secondis disregarded, and of the remainderpoints are awarded to horses with notabletrainers or jockeys. (Henry Cecil, GuyHarwood, Jeremy Hindley, MichaelStoute and Luca Cumani were all verysuccessful trainers in the 1980s,while PatEddery, Greville Starkey, Walter Swin-burn,Willie Carson and Tony Ives weretop jockeys in their day). Additionalpoints are earned through various otherfactors as identified in the original GRIPexercise.

So how did Basilisk and Bridesheadfare when they set to work to put the Re-vised GRIP through its paces in 1987?Al-

though most of the records have been lostover time,we are pleased to report that asingle tantalising report for 22nd May1987 has survived in the extensive Gold-smith archives. During April and May ofthat year, Basilisk backed eight horses(four winners) and won £19.94. His col-league Brideshead was evenmore success-ful: he backed three horses (two winners)and reported winnings of £31.50.

It may be that present-day Old Al-mondburians will be inspired to put therevised GRIP to the test, updating it withtheir own choice of jockeys and trainers.If so, we will have great pleasure in re-porting their results in a future issue. �

THE REVISED GRIP (1987 MODEL)INSTRUCTIONSTOAGENTS

1. Select the race with the most prize money at stake at the principal meeting of the dayon Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays (BASILISK) andTuesdays,Thursdays and Saturdays(BRIDESHEAD).

2. List the first five in the betting forecast for each race selected (first six if there are 15runners or more).

3. Discard any horse among the first five (or six) in the betting forecast never to have wona race or been placed second.

4.Award points to the remaining horses on the following basis:(a) if trained by Cecil, Harwood, Hindley, Stoute or Cumani (one point)

(b) if ridden by Pat Eddery, Starkey, Swinburn, Carson or Ives (one point)

(c) if the horse won on its last outing or last but one outing (one point)(d) if its winning margin was a length or more (5 or 6 furlongs or 2 lengths or more(longer distances) - (one point)

(e) if it won on a left (right) hand track and is now running on a similar track (one point)

(f) if the going on the day is about the same as when it last won or was placed second(one point)

(g) if a horse is penalised in the weights for a previous win (deduct one point).

5. Maximum points is six. List the horses in the order of their ‘score’ in accordance withparagraph 4. Back the one with most points. If two or more horses are equal in the pointslisting, back the one at the longest odds in the betting forecast.

6.All wagers are £5 to win. Results of the wagers with names of selected horses to besent to me once a week for verification

31

THE EDITOR

THERE is one very good reasonwhy The Almondburian is noterror-strewn from cover to

cover. His name is Keith Crawshaw, andhe is our faithful proofreader.Proofreading is the final vital stage

before any magazine goes to press.However diligent, it’s a fact of life that astrange word-blindness seems to preventany writer from spotting his or her ownmistakes.That’s certainly true in the caseof The Almondburian: typically, Keithidentifies 50 or more such infelicitieswhich require correction to his exactingstandards before the magazine finallygoes off to the printer.English is a strange lan-

guage, full of traps tocatch the unwary. If youdon’t believe me, take alook again at the story onpage 12 about our cente-narian organist PercyTrutone. In fact, thisstory is entirely fictitiousand I’m truly sorry to saythat PercyTrutone does-n’t exist (keen cross-word-solvers will havespotted immediately thathis surname is an ana-gram of ‘not true’).Moreover, this short

article contains no fewerthan 10 deliberate errors– misspelled words,

errors of fact or grammar, and so on.Canyou spot them? (Answers overleaf).A significant number of corrections in

each issue is related to issues of ‘housestyle’ – the often arbitrary conventionsthat exist in all publications to ensure auniformity of presentation. This may,therefore, be a convenient time to setsome of these out for the benefit offuture contributors.Top of the list is the name of this mag-

azine (which, by the way, is no longer a‘newsletter’). Nor is it ‘The Almond-burian’ or the ‘Almondburian’; it is TheAlmondburian.The names of all publica-tions mentioned by name in the magazine

are normally italicised inthis way.Then there’s the issue

of spaces. Almost everyarticle I receive for pub-lication is blighted bydouble or even triplespaces between sen-tences. This is a relic ofthe days of typewriterswhen all characters (in-cluding spaces) had ex-actly the same width, anda good typist would al-ways insert two or threespaces between sen-tences to avoid an over-cramped appearance.Multiple spaces are NOTrequired with today’s

Who would be a proofreader?

KEITH CRAWSHAW (1964-1971) is an accountant byprofession. He has beentreasurer of the OldAlmondburians’ Society since1973 and was chairman in1980. For over 20 years hehas organised the annualOAS quiz. He has lived inAlmondbury all his life.

32

electronic fonts,which are clever enoughto generate a space of just the rightwidth.Abbreviations are another problem

area. The Almondburian house style doesnot use dots so we prefer ‘KJS’ to thecumbersome‘K.J.S.’And while we’re onthe subject of the School, any referencesto ‘our’ school are capitalized whereas –as you would expect – lesser schoolsreceive no such recognition.Dates in The Almondburian are always

shown in the form ‘25th May 2013’ andnot ‘May 25th’ or ‘May 25.Times of dayare in the form ‘6.00 pm’, not 6 pm or18.00 and certainly never the illiterate12.00 am or 12.00 pm (as often seen ontelevision weather charts and elsewhere).Numbers up to and including nine are

normally spelled out, but all othernumbers are shown numerically, eg 17,24,000 etc.Double inverted commas are normally

used around speech, eg “The sun has justcome out,” she said. Single inverted commas

are used elsewhere, eg He thought a moresuitable word would have been ‘academic’.Finally, please think twice about using

exclamation marks (often known inAmerica as ‘screamers’ – and for verygood reason). If you think you arewriting something hilariously funny, letthe reader be the judge.I hope that none of the foregoing will

discourage anyone from sending mearticles! (Ooops, there we go). But itmight just give poor old Keith a bit moretime to get on with other jobs around thehouse. �

PERCYTRUTONE (page 12)1. Alveston is in Gloucestershire, not

Buckinghamshire2. Caesarean, not caesarian3. Diphtheria, not diptheria4. Proceeded, not proceded5. Magdelen College, Oxford6. Flouted, not flaunted7. Become, not became8. Idiosyncrasy, not idiosyncracy9. Ophthalmologist, not opthalmologist10. Impresario, not impressario

6 1 3 72 8

4 8 7 14 7 2

8 16 9 2

8 9 3 42 89 6 1 2

SUDOKUDifficulty: tough

Each row, columnand 3 x 3 box

must contain thedigits 1 to 9

33

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

8 9 10 20 11 12 20

20 13 20 14 20 20 15

16 20 20 20 20 17 20

20 20 20 18 20 20 20 20 20

19 20 20 21

20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

22 23 20 24 25 26

20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

20 27 28 20 20 20 20 29

30 20 20 31 32 20 33 34 20

20 35 36 20 37

20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20

36

ACROSS1 Itinerant actor is sure to get run

out! (9,6)8 Works in the middle of a field (7)11 Green girl (5)13 Forever in the red (3)14 Change in Paris (3)15 Sorts shot silk (4)16 An invoice without heading is bad (3)17 Damon backed ‘The Wanderer’ (5)19 Unravel and mend - who, then, will

get the family garment ? (4-2-4)

21 A study on the Arabian Peninsular? (4)22 Challenge dignity (4)24 In the black, tried tonic, well

shaken (2,6,2)27 Generally and privately worn off

duty (5)29 Everything heard for the leather

worker (3)30 Of ducks and spiders (4)31 Seen ahead in the Middle East (3)33 Reverse short numbers, my boy (3)

35 They’re up in arms! (5)37 Confused melee before the National

Trust found the member (7)38 Medical loafer? (6,9)

DOWN1 Go ahead, it’s easy (15)2 Accomplished throughout (4)3 Get a date in old Rome (4)4 Preparation for the plough ? (10)5 Garland of pale irises (3)6 Profited and gave way (7)7 Played by suicidal gamblers? (7,8)9 Villain in lifelong association (5)10 The world of rare almanacs (5)12 Direction finder in aviation (3)18 Distinguished indeed, if it were

converted (10)20 Outstanding merit (3)21 European mate (3)23 The bar in the cricket club is ran

sacked by a thousand and one, forthe material (7)

25 Snuff out soak (5)26 Head of Leviathan Enterprises (5)28 As a word, nation becomes a

consumer (3)32 Duck or goose egg ? (4)34 Except in the United Kingdom

itself (4)36 Florence’s Duomo has two (3)

TERRY’S TEASER NO 8Compiled by Terry Buckley (1948 - 1953)

Entries to the Editor by 1st June 2013 Prize: 12 months free OAS membership

� The winner of Terry’s Teaser No 7 (November 2012) was Keith CrawshawAcross 7.Wrongful arrest 9. Scrape 11.Gite 12.Triptych 14. Intros 15. Satire 16.Ate 18. Steward 19.Wearing 20.Ace 22.Queens 25.Civics 26. Jettison 27. Stye 28.Mellow 30.OstentatiouslyDown 1.Anna 2.Offers 3.Gluepot 4.Arrays 5.Weight 6. State run school 8.Reconstruction 10. Ptomaine 13Calamine 16.Ada 17. Ewe 21.Chilean 23. Ejects 24. String 25.Commit 29. Laud

Articles and photographsThe Editor is always delighted to receive articles for The Almondburian. Photographs are alsowelcome; if sent as email attachments the preferred format is jpeg (.jpg) with a minimum resolutionof 300 dpi.Alternatively, send your photographs by post and we will scan and return them.Whensubmitting photographs, always provide a suitable caption.

34

UPDATE

New sports pavilion

THE project continues to gather momentum. In the last issue of TheAlmondburian we published for the first time the plans for a ‘new-build’ pavilion (below) which have replaced the original option of

restoring and extending the existing building. It is envisaged that the pavilionand associated works will cost in the order of £450,000-£500,000.

The project has now received the ‘wholehearted support’ of the KingJames’s School Foundation which has agreed to meet 50% of the cost. It ishoped that the balance will be raised through contributions from nationalsporting bodies and through fund-raising activities on the part of the Schooland the OldAlmondburians’ Society.An important aspect of the plan is thatthe pavilion should not only be available for use by the School and the OldAlmondburians’ Society but also by the local community.

The next step will be to secure outline planning permission; once this hasbeen obtained, the ‘Call to Action’ appeal will be formally launched andfundraising committees will be set up. Meanwhile we should like to thankagain those Old Almondburians who have already sent in contributions toset the ball rolling.

Martyn Hicks/Graham Cliffe

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IT is the evening of 27th July 2012and the Olympics 2012 openingceremony is about to get under

way.A team of 1,000 pyrotechnicians hasbeen assembled, ready to light the bluetouch paper as soon as they receive theirinstructions on their personal radios.They have protective clothing to shieldthem from the showers of sparks that willsoon be raining down on them, and fastmotor boats are moored nearby to trans-

port them to fireworks loaded on bargesin the river that runs through theOlympic Park.There’s a hush – and theceremony starts.Dream on! Even I,with fond memories

of the 5th November fireworks displaysin Ravensknowle Park, could not believethat the brilliant displays to mark theopening and closing of the LondonOlympics could really be just scaled-upversions of the displays of my childhood.

Olympics display was a crackerCATHERINE WHEEL

NEWS

An OldAlmondburian’s fireworks company was responsible forthe opening and closing displays at the London 2012 OlympicGames acclaimed all over the world.We reveal how it was all done

Nick Alloway

36

But how on earth was it all done?WhenI heard to my delight that the man behindthe display was Old Almondburian RonLancaster MBE (1942-1950), this seemedthe perfect opportunity to find out.As we reported in The Almondburian in

March 2010, Rev Ron Lancaster set upKimbolton Fireworks in 1964.The com-pany today is the UK’s market leader infirework production and operator-fireddisplays.Their involvement in the Olympics

commenced with the receipt of tenderdocuments in early September 2011.After the lengthy procurement process,they finally got the go-ahead in Novem-ber, when the London and EdinburghNewYear’s Eve fireworks displays werealready making big demands on theirtime and resources.The artistic director Danny Boyle was

keen that any displays around theOlympic Park should not be to the detri-ment of spectators within the stadium it-

self. He envisaged what he described as a‘ceiling of fire’, with pyrotechnic effectsbeing fired from the inner gantry of thestadium over the heads of the 80,000 au-dience, 2,000 athletes and 4,500 per-formers. Never having been attemptedbefore on this scale, this was to prove amajor challenge.The stadium firing po-sitions were in three specific locations.Around the outside circumference were56 equally spaced firing positions; therewere a further 14 firing positions on thecurved lighting poles or‘paddles’ aroundthe arena; and finally there were another56 firing positions directed towards thefield of play from the stadium’s suspen-sion ring gantry 30m above the specta-tors.In addition to the stadium display, there

was a requirement to create a widerspectacle around the rest of the OlympicPark. This was achieved by positioningfive barges 200m apart along the RiverLea which runs through the site; shells onthese produced an overlapping wall ofstar bursts over a length of 1 km. Further

Kimbolton’s displays director Darryl Flemingat the stadium roof firing control position

Spectacular: the view from the firing positionon the ArcelorMittal Orbit

Sarah Gardiner

Nick Alloway

37

low level roman can-dles along the tow-path added an extradimension: in totalsome 75 firing posi-tions stretched some1.5km all the wayfrom the Velodrometo the ArcelorMittalOrbit, the 115m highsculpture and obser-vation tower to theeast of the stadium.The Orbit itself provided the final firinglocation within the Park.In total, nearly 250 firing positions

provided a 2.5km frontage, all carefullysynchronised with the choreography ofthe ceremony itself.As the Opening Ceremony ap-

proached, the Kimbolton team was some50-strong.They ran 15km of data cable,connected and wired 12,000 igniters toset off 20,000 fireworks to be launchedfrom firing positions around the Park.But why only 50 pyrotechnicians rather

than 1,000?The answer, of course, is theubiquitous computer; or rather manycomputers within the FireOne XL4 con-trol systems that were used to ensure thatthe ceremony went off smoothly. Basedin Pennsylvania, FireOne PyrotechnicsManagement Inc has developed sophisti-cated digital firing and integrated fire-works-to-music choreography systemsthat are now in use all over the world.The team faced some unusual chal-

lenges. Remember the endless rain wehad last ‘summer’? Not surprisingly, theywere warned that every 100 years or so

the River Lea was aptto flood; the prospectof the firework-ladenbarges breaking fromtheir moorings wasnot a welcomeprospect. The solu-tion: more substantial– and more costly –moorings.Storage and firing

of such vast quantitiesof fireworks within

such a highly populated site also presenteda major worry and the team were fortu-nate to receive full cooperation from theHealth and Safety Executive in securingthe necessary exemption certificates andlicences.And where was Ron Lancaster on the

night of the Opening Ceremony? I imag-ined that he would have a grandstand seatin the stadium but the reality was moreprosaic.“There was a very tight three-layer se-

curity system to get anywhere near theOlympic Park,” says Ron. “I decided thatat 82 I was too old for that hassle so Istayed at home and watched on televi-sion.”Did he enjoy the fireworks? “Yes and

no,” he laughs. “The tension made it ab-solute agony. But believe me, I went tobed a very happy man when it all went offso smoothly.” �� We should like to thank Darryl Fleming,display director at Kimbolton Fireworks, forhelp with this article. An interview with RonLancaster can be heard on the OAS website athttp://tinyurl.com/yl5lgqa.

“I watched from home,” admits Ron

ROGER DOWLING

IN September 1884, a young lad of11 nervously presented himself atthe gates ofAlmondbury Grammar

School to become one of around 25boarders at that time. He left school atthe age of 14 to join the North EasternRailway Company and was in due courseknighted for his services to the country inWorldWar 1. By the time he was 50 hehad become managing director of theDunlop Rubber Company and then adirector of Imperial Airways. His namewas John George Beharrel.In An Illustrated History of King James’s

School published as part of our400th anniversary celebra-tions, I presented my‘Hall of Fame’ of for-mer pupils of theSchool who had dis-tinguished them-selves in later life.To some extent mylist was arbitraryand I was uneasiilyaware that it mightunknowingly omitmany who deserved anentry.With your help, dearreader, I would like to extend thelist through the pages of The Almond-burian, and the name of George Beharrelseems to me to be an excellent one withwhich to start.

Rev Francis Marshall, the formidablerugby enthusiast, had been headmasterfor six years when John George Behar-rel joined Almondbury GrammarSchool.The School was doing well; infact, it was bursting at the seams and theprevious year Mrs Blanche Brooke hadlaid the memorial stone in the FenayQuad which marked the start of a majorbuilding programme that would resultin the ‘Big’, the ‘Small’, a new middledormitory that would later becomeDorms 2 and 3, and a masters’ commonroom.Wherever he went, the young Be-

harrel would have been beset bythe smell of new paint.

Beharrel was one of21 pupils who joinedthe School that year.The Beharrels wereHuguenots whocame over fromHolland and adja-cent parts ofFrance in the 1620sto escape religious

persecution directedagainst their Protestant

faith.A branch of the familymoved to East Yorkshire and

George Beharrel himself was born inYork on 11th March 1873.Marshall worked his new boys hard:

he entered Beharrel for various subjects

George Beharrel: the Dunlop manHALL OF FAME

38

39

in the College of Preceptorsand Cambridge Local JuniorExaminations in 1885,1886 and 1887. Beharrelfinally achieved a SecondClass, Second Division inthe former and a FirstClass Honours, Second Di-vision, with distinction inmathematics, in the latter.Despite this academic suc-cess, however, he cannot haveoverly impressed FrancisMarshall as he had a marked distaste forrugby, though this did not prove anybarrier to his being press-ganged to playin the School Rugby XV in the winterterm of 1887.He was however gifted at handling fig-

ures, and when he left school to join theNorth Eastern Railway he gradually rosefrom junior clerk to assistant generalmanager. He also developed a deep un-derstanding of railway operations and fi-nance, so much so that when war brokeout he was appointed Director of Statis-tics and Requirements at the Ministry of

Munitions. In due course, hewas sent to France as Assis-tant Director-General ofTransportation. He achievedthe rank of lieutenant-colonel and then becameAs-sistant Inspector of GeneralTransportation for all the-atres of war. For his distin-guished wartime services hewas awarded the DSO and, in

1919, a knighthood.On leaving government service in

1922, Sir George was appointed manag-ing director of the Dunlop RubberCompany, a company of which he wouldlater become chairman and, in 1949,president. The Dunlop Rubber Com-pany was set up in 1889 in response toa growing interest in bicycling: JohnBoyd Dunlop took out a patent for thepneumatic rubber tyre which was tolead to the company’s massive growth inthe years that followed. Motor car andaircraft tyres were to follow, but by the1980s the company was in serious finan-cial difficulties.The name lives on today

thanks to links with Goodyearand Sumitomo Rubber Industriesof Japan.By 1926, Sir George had been

appointed president of the IndiaRubber Manufacturers Associa-tion. In 1932 he became presi-dent of the Federation of BritishIndustries, and in 1935 hechaired the 6th InternationalCongress for Scientific Manage-

Chocks away: an Imperial Airlinesaircraft refuels atTsemah, Palestinein the 1930s

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In 1923 George Beharrelunveiled theWar Memorial inthe ‘Big’. It was designed by artmaster Bradley Shaw andpresented by him to the ‘OldBoys’ Society’ for the School

ment set up under the pa-tronage of the Prince ofWales.

In June 1937, Sir Johnbecame chairman of Impe-rial Airways (later BOACand today British Airways)in succession to Sir Eric Geddes withwhom he had worked closely over theyears. He retained this position until thefollowing year, when the position wastaken by the formidable former BBCDirector General John Reith.George Beharrel never lost his

affection for his old School. On 24thMarch 1923 he returned to unveil theOld Boys’War Memorial which gracesthe wall of the ‘Big’, and in 1958 hecontributed to the Pavilion Fund. Hedied at his home in Harpenden on 20thFebruary 1959. �

SINCE the last issue of TheAlmondburian, we have beendelighted to welcome five new

members to the Society, including one oflast summer’s school leavers: KatieStead (2007-12), from Hopton; GailSykes (née Falck, 1993-98), fromCowlersley;Peter HHeywood (Pupil1945-51 and Staff 1962-67), from Filey;Darren Ardron (1979-85) fromSalford; and David Micklethwaitefrom Penistone.

For the few who do not yet pay bystanding order, please remember thatyour £10.00 subscription for 2012-2013

OAS membershipANDREW HAIGH

fell due on 1st September last year.Thankyou to those who have recently broughttheir subscription up to date; however, ifyou do receive a letter with this magazinepointing out that your subscription is notup-to-date, please do send your paymentwithout delay.

It does make life much easier if youcan complete the updated standing ordermandate that accompanies the letter andreturn it in the envelope provided.Alternatively, you may renew online,using PayPal or a debit or credit card, byvisiting www.oas.org.uk and clicking onthe‘Join/Renew Online’ button. �

41

PostbagYOU WRITE …

MEMORIES, both happy andnot so happy, have comeflooding back sparked by the

recent programmes on BBC4 about thehistory of the grammar school*.Doubtless many other Old Boys havewatched it and reflected on the quasipublic school atmosphere that existedback in the 60s and doubtless before andsince.What rang the biggest bell from theTV

programmes? For me it was probably theemphasis on sport, particularly inter-house which was fiercely competitive.Well,with Dave Bush as our housemasterit had to be competitive! My wife,comprehensively educated, isincredulous when I tell her stories ofturning up after school to improve ourcross country time just to get extra housepoints.“Why would you do that?” she not

unfairly asks.Was it love of our house?Was it our own desire to do our best? Orwas it that Mr Bush would be hoveringaround the playing fields and woulddemand an explanation if you didn’t turnup? The rivalry was particularly intensewith Dave’s buddy Jack Taylor headingFenay.One thing I clearly remember. One of

the accolades one could receive was notjust a mention in house assembly on a

From SimonThackray (1965-1971)The School’s ‘quasi public school’ atmosphere

Thursday morning held in the Librarybut better still was to be called out to thefront by Mr Bush and receive his vice-likehandshake to the applause of yourhousemates.I was fortunate enough to receive the

handshake on a number of occasions. Butone particular memory was when MrBush didn’t call out the usual achieversbut made special mention of one lad whoshall remain nameless who was not asportsman and was also significantlyoverweight.This lad had turned up to re-run his cross country standard and,having not previously achieved a crosscountry standard, managed to achieve a‘B’ standard, thus earning Jessop a housepoint or two. Maybe not the greatestsporting achievement of all time butDave identified him, held him out as a ladof‘commitment & effort’ and summonedthe red-faced young lad to the front for‘the handshake’.Well done, Dave! I’ve not forgotten it

and I doubt that young lad has forgottenit either.

Beckenham,Kent*The Grammar School: A Secret History(BBC4).It is well known thatTaylor Dyson hadearly ambitions that King James’s should be-come a small public school. In 1915 he intro-duced the House system on the model of thepubic schools, to provide an incentive in bothwork and games. (Ed)

42

AGAIN a pleasure to receive TheAlmondburian. I am pleased that)Albert Makinson got a good

coverage. I hope that some of his pupilswill respond with friendly memories.

Denis Taylor asked about the maca-ronic poem in the Summer 1956 issue. Ithink my only input was help with Latin-ising his name. ‘Michaelis Iacci f(ilius)Niger’ means ‘Michael the dark(haired) one, son of Jack’; ‘Iaccus’ is aninvented Latin word. It is an imitationof a Roman name, and Niger is the cog-nomen. Rather corny, I agree.

Readers probably realise now thatit is none other than the late MichaelJackson, of real ale fame,who was then inthe third form. He was an enterprisingand resourceful boy, and he may havehad some help from older pupils. Cer-tainly the subject matter and the Latinare a bit advanced for a third former.

I notice in the Scouts section of the1956 magazine that Bill Rennison andI took 28 of the Troop to camp inBorrowdale.They will remember thatit rained for days until, on a wild andstormy night, the tents were blown downaround them and the nearby stream roseso high that it threatened to cut off anyescape.We had to decamp speedily andspent the rest of the night in a churchhall in Keswick, finding it hard to ob-serve the Scout Law which says that aScout ‘smiles and whistles under alldifficulties’.

Dave Bush and I talked a few yearsago about a history of Scouting at

From Dr JimToomey (staff 1953-1968)Michael Jackson composed the macaronic poem

KJGS, but it would depend only onsnatches of memory as (Dave said) theMinute Books of the Court of Honour(there’s a title from the past!) had beenthrown out at some point. Bill did writea little in a couple of short articles someyears ago, but only an outline frommem-ory.

Stourport-on-Severn,Worcestershire

ladders of social mobility that the ‘highfliers’ of the period succeeded inclimbing. Those, like myself, who keptfalling off the ladder as the contradictionsbetween the social milieu of their careersand their backgrounds and beliefsbecame unbearable can sympathise. I’veno regrets about the time I spent workingas a trolley-bus conductor forHuddersfield Corporation PassengerTransport Department.I almost wet my prostatectomised

pants laughing at Reggie Byram’smusings. What a delightful story, toldwith such warmth and humour. Betterthan a session with a Rogerian(!)

psychotherapist.My next job is toorder John Tembo’s Dead MenDon’tTalk onAmazon.In acknowledgement of my

debt to Albert Makinson, I’vewritten a couple of poems undermy pseudonym‘John Purslow’. AWalk to the Meeting of the Waters(left) was published by Seigfried’sJournal (Journal of the SiegriedSassoon Fellowship, Summer Issue2012) after I’d read it aloud at theFellowship’s event during theShakespeare Birthplace Trust’sPoetry Sunday on 15th July.

Thou andYou is one of a selectionof 10 poems I’m planning tosubmit to The Poetry Society’s2012 competition. I hope Albertwould have liked them.

Wakefield,WestYorkshire

W HAT a fascinating selectionof writing in the latest issueof The Almondburian.

I was saddened to learn of AlbertMakinson’s illness and death.Those of uswhose school years coincided with hisyears at KJGS were fortunate to havesomeone whose love of literature was soinfectiously communicated in histeaching. His presence lives on for mealongside that of DiggoryVenn.DenisTaylor’s reflections of life at the

school for an ‘under-achiever’ I thoughtcaptured well the zeitgeist of the 1950sfrom the standpoint of those who neverquite got on one or the other of the

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AWalk to the Meeting of theWaters

“I know a bank” . . .where snowdrops growBy raging rivers’ melting snowWhose waters meet from South and NorthBefore the coaly Tyne spews forth,Beyond the ArmstrongWorks at Benwell,Tanks that oil the flames of death smell;Where Phantoms fly at forty feetImperial terror, on full heatTo gild foul feudal fiefdoms’ tassels.

Make no mistake, they’ll bomb Newcastle’sWorkers when no more they’ll followLabour leaders who betray to wallowIn wealth with their own ruling classFor fear their privilege won’t lastThe freedom of a world united;As rivers’ floods, no more benightedSweep away, like drowning dross,The borders Man was born to cross.

Siegfried’s Journal, Summer 2012

From John Goodall (1953-1960)My debt to Albert Makinson

44

I’VE JUST read the letter in theNovember Almondburian fromChris Fry and the response from

you guys.I can only assume that the members on

the OAS Executive Committee have leda seriously protected and out of the realworld life.The Committee reckon that having a

buffet in the school hall would encounter‘significant difficulties in terms ofsecurity’…ADOORMAN (any old boysrun a security company?). ‘Cleaning’…A TABLE WIPER and A FLOORSWEEPER (any old boys run a cleaningcompany?). ‘Catering’…AN OUTSIDE

From ChrisWest (1960-1966)Of course the Annual Dinner should be at the School

CATERER (any old boys etc and whoalso might just wipe the tables?).The‘ambience’ of the Galpharm/John

Smith’s may be fine, but I reckon you’vetotally missed the point with yourcomment that punters ‘would now findthe school hall a less attractive meetingplace’. I for one,would far rather enjoy abuffet at the school than a Dinner at theGalpharm, as I suspect would many moreOldAlmondburians.You could always test it out! Maybe if

this note goes in the next edition,you/we would find out. As Mr Fryconcludes,‘Food for thought’.

Slaithwaite,WestYorkshire

MAY we suggest we trysomewhere (anywhere?)else this year.The standard

of the food at the stadium hasdeteriorated over the last few years andwas mediocre in 2012.

Could we also suggest we go to a

From Roger Battye (1962-1969) and six othersFood and drink at stadium less good in recent years

venue that serves DECENT REAL ALEinstead of the chemical swill served at thestadium? Greenhead Masonic?

Keep up the good work and forgivethis NewYear moan.

Holmfirth,WestYorkshire

W’E readmuch these days aboutthe shocking behaviour offootball ‘fans’ in England. It

wasn’t always so.Letme tell you the saga ofMr Gallagher.

From Bob Goldsmith (1935-1942)The shocking tale of football fan ‘Mr Gallagher’

I first became aware of him afterwatchinga match against Derby County when I wasabut eight years old. Iwas returning on footalong StAndrew’s Road opposite the groupof streets (now demolished) named after

45

flowers –Rose Street,Lily Street etc.Amanshouted, “How did we get on then?” Ireplied,“Adraw,nowt-nowt.”“What sort oflanguage is that?”quoth he.“Youmean itwasa scoreless draw.”Yes – ever since then I have described

such matches as‘scoreless draws’.Now move on to a match against

Blackburn Rovers later in the same season.It was one of those games with nothing atstake:neither side had fears of relegation orhopes of becoming championship winners.The crowd was sparse, especially at theBradley Mills end where I was in my usualposition on the parapet to one side of thegoalposts.After 10 minutes or so there was one of

those tackles between defender and attackerthat ended up over the dead ball line. Itcould have been either a goal kick or acorner.The referee awarded a corner.There was a loud shout from someone

just behindme.It came fromMrGallagher,apparently incensed by this decision. “You

are a fat, bald-headed pig,” he yelled to thereferee. True, the referee was on theplump side and he didn’t have much hair.But he certainly did not resemble a pig.We read in the following Monday’s

Hudderseld Examiner that the Townmanagement had decreed that MrGallagher should be refused entry to theground sine die. [Clever grammar schoolboys (of whom I was not yet one) wouldhave pronounced this ‘sinnay deeay’ butfor most of the general public it was‘signdye.’] To most regular Town supporters,this was a terrible punishment – worsethan a month or two in gaol. Yet MrGallagher had uttered no obscenities orany kind of verbal abuse that is socommon today.I often wondered if Mr Gallagher’s

punishment was ever rescinded. I neversaw him again, either near the ‘flower’streets of St Andrew’s Road or in thestands at Leeds Road.

Scarborough,NorthYorkshire

Leeds Road stadium in the 1930s.Today the site is a retail park; the centre spot of the formerpitch is marked by a plaque (inset) in the car park outside B&Q.

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ObituariesGONE BUT NOT FORGOTTENHelen Hebblethwaite

(Staff 1963-1978)Popular teacher who pioneered the School’s first language laboratory

We are sorry to record the death of Helen Hebblethwaite on 22nd October 2012.Born in Halifax,Helen initially joined King James’s Grammar School in 1963 to teachFrench during Mr Addy’s illness. Photographed here in 1971, she stayed on to spe-

cialise in French and English, and was prominent insetting up the audio language laboratory in the for-mer dining room. Helen was a respected col-league, always cheerful and friendly, gregarious inher contacts with fellow staff and students alike.Her enthusiastic approach to teaching was re-flected in the positive and eager response from herstudents.

On leaving King James’s in 1978, Helen be-came owner and principal of Rosemeade School inBank End Lane where, in collaboration with herdaughter, she heightened the school’s reputationfor progressive pre-secondary school education.There was great sadness when Rosemeade closedin 2006 on Helen’s retirement.

JackTaylorPeter Heywood adds:

Helen was very generous to her closest colleagues;Dave Bush and I were both ‘rewarded’for our help and support in her work by top-quality suit lengths of our choice on visits to herhusband’s mill Sykes & Hebblethwaite in Moldgreen. She was a very sensitive soul andarrived at School one afternoon in floods of tears: in Somerset Road, a bird had flown in frontof her car and fatally impaled itself on the grille. I believe the bird was taken home and givena burial in the Hebblethwaite garden.

A running joke among staff was the frequency with which she would appear at the end ofmorning school in the no-man’s land between the Secretary’s office and the Head’s study,ready to help HarryTaylor on with his coat before he left for his lunch. (She would in facthave ‘mothered’ us all).

Her move to Rosemeade was to link her again to King James’s Grammar School, for in

47

the 1940s and 1950s the school was run by Mrs Hopton, the wife of the KJGS maths teacher‘Johnny’Hopton.My late wife, June, was a pupil there, as were the Carter boys of the samegeneration.More significantly, however, was the presence of another pupil at that time: aGordon Hebblethwaite who would later become Helen’s husband.What a small world we livein!

Helen was a breath of fresh air, kind and courageous; like many, I have very fondmemories of her.

Michael Brown(1947-1953)

Accountant and church organist with a passion for steam trains and a day at the racesMichael, a gentle,generous person all his life, died suddenly on 10thAugust 2012.

Earlier he had beaten bowel cancer and had received the all clear after chemotherapy.Michael met his colleagues from the year of ’47 at the 400th anniversary dinner

which required two tables to accom-modate everyone.He had lived downsouth for many years working as anaccountant for British Rail.

At that time he supported Ful-ham and saw famous old boy JeffTay-lor playing.

Following his early retirement hemoved back up to Huddersfield andbecame church organist at Rashcliffeand Lockwood. After his first wifedied he moved toThongsbridge andbecame organist at Thongsbridge StAndrew’s Church and deputisedthroughout the Holme Valley forservices, weddings and funerals.

Music was a major part of his lifeand at StAndrew’s he would play for small groups and follow up with a short talk onthe composer.

During this time he met his second wife and started to enjoy frequent UK holi-days. He still found time to watch theTerriers, attend an occasional day at the racesand follow his passion for steam trains with Rev John Capstick ofAll Saints’ Church,Netherthong.

Michael will be missed by the congregation at St Andrew’s, and all his formerclassmates.

Colin Cheesbrough

3348

T R (‘Dick’) Moules(1937-1941)

Forestry specialist who scored a hat-trick in a high-scoring school football matchWe are sorry to re-

port the death of DickMoules.Hewas a goodcricketer and foot-baller who famouslyscored a hat-trick inthe Second XI soccermatch against Honleyon 29thOctober 1940when the visitors werebeaten 14-1. Even theHonley goal wasscored by an AGSplayer, full back Jar-man unluckily slicing the ball through his own goal.Moules served in theArmy in India, and after graduating in the Forestry School he spent

his working life with the Forestry Commission in NorthYorkshire and Northumberland.Donald Sykes

A C Earnshaw(1953-1958)

FormerYMCA rugby coach who helped to set up a heritage centre at the George HotelChris Earnshaw died in June 2012 at the age of 69, after a short illness. He spent

a large part of his working life at the David Brown Gears ParkWorks in Lockwoodwhere he was responsible for marketing and conference activities. Chris was a rugbyenthusiast who devoted much of his time to coaching at HuddersfieldYMCA’s Laund

Hill sports centre in SalendineNook. He was one of those re-sponsible for setting up theRugby League Heritage Centredisplay of memorabilia at theGeorge Hotel.

Donald Sykes

Bust of legendary Huddersfield andGreat Britain player Douglas Clark(1891-1951) at the Rugby LeagueHeritage CentreT

heHud

dersfield

Exam

iner

3349

D P V Crossley(1937-1943)

‘Bevin Boy’who later qualified as an architect working with local authoritiesPeter Crossley died in April 2012 in Huddersfield.An able pupil, he gained nine

School Certificate passes in the examinations held in July1942, of which seven were‘credits’. He worked in the pits as a‘Bevin Boy’ during the SecondWorldWar, one of48,000 conscripts and volunteers who performed vital but largely unrecognisedservice in the coal mines. He went on to become a qualified architect who workedchiefly with local authorities in theWestYorkshire area.

Donald Sykes

P A (Tony) Haigh(1947-1953)

Noted local artist who recorded in pictures Huddersfield’s great industrial pastNo other artist in the area did more to put the old mills and

factories of Huddersfield on the map than Old AlmondburianTony Haigh, of Dalton. But after a lifetime of recording the

town’s industrialhistory, he died atthe age of 75 inKirkwood Hospice inJune 2012.

Tony was an artist all his life – eventhough his father had tried to dissuade himfrom the path.He was brought up in Hud-dersfield and in Ravensthorpe, where hisfather ran a grocery and provisions store.Tony worked behind the counter after fin-ishing school, delivering groceries to localcustomers, but then embarked on a careeras a salesman with a soap company.

He had a brief spell selling records forEMI and then later worked for Hudders-field Borough Council and CalderdaleCouncil as a school welfare officer.He wasrenowned for his work with youth andcommunity groups, especially DeightonYouth Club.

Tony was fascinated by the old textilemills of Huddersfield, the Colne Valley

Nearly 60 years separate these drawings byTony Haigh.Top: the old school entranceyard, drawn when he was a fifth-former in1952; bottom: the drawing specially producedfor the 400th anniversary in 2008.

50

and Halifax.He decided to capture in drawings and paintings as many as he couldbefore they were demolished or converted to other uses.

He also worked inside many of Huddersfield’s well-known factories, includ-ing Hopkinsons and David Brown Gears.He enjoyed painting and drawing manyof the old churches and chapels of the area and regularly held exhibitions of hiswork at local galleries and museums.

Robert (Bob) Brook(1932-1939)

Air crash survivor who became a successful art teacher and chairman of the OASBob Brook who was chairman of the OldAlmondburians’ Society in 1965, served

as general secretary from 1945 to 1955, and was for many years an active committeemember andVice President, died on 18th September 2012 aged 91.

Bob was born in Almondbury in Sep-tember 1921, the only child of Nellie andHarold Brook. He was a member of AllHallows’ Church in Almondbury and at-tended Almondbury Junior School beforegoing on to Almondbury GrammarSchool. At school he enjoyed all subjects,especially chemistry, art,mathematics, his-tory and English.A life-long love of Englishpoetry was reflected in his ability to recallverse learned over eighty years earlier atschool inAlmondbury and the fact that hewas still reading poetry to the very end ofhis life.

He studied at St John’s College,York from 1939 to 1942, qualifying as a secondaryschool teacher.Wartime service in the RoyalAir Force followed from 1942 until beingdemobbed in early 1947. In theAir Force he volunteered for aircrew but (fortunatelyfor his life expectancy) this ambition was brought to a sudden end when a trainingflight in May 1943 ended in a crash, luckily without any serious injuries. He served atmany stations and bases, principally in England and Scotland and had an endless fundof happy reminiscences and anecdotes about Service life.

Bob met Barbara Barton, a pretty youngWAAF, at a Christmas Eve hangar danceat RAFWarboys in 1944. Barbara moved toYorkshire (a great leap for a girl broughtup in London) and they set up home; initially with Bob’s parents inAlmondbury, thenEdgerton and Linthwaite, before finally settling in Marsh in 1954. Two children, LesleyandAdam arrived during these years to form the Brook family.

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Bob taught in several Huddersfield secondary schools including Stile Common,Crosland Moor, Moldgreen and Deighton, Huddersfield Technical College andDeighton Adult Education Centre. He used his talent to design and print his ownChristmas cards every year for over sixty years and was a keen student of architecture,design and typography.

Gerald Stead/Lesley Brook

Brian Littlewood(1948-1956)

School scraper-board artist who became a top British Rail regional scientistBrian Littlewood died after a very short illness

on 27th June 2012. He will be remembered bymany OldAlmondburians as a talented artist whosedrawings often featured in the School magazine; anexample appears on page 3 of this issue.

With a Chemistry degree from Leeds Univer-sity, Brian’s first job was with Laporte in Sheffield.Preferring analytical chemistry to industrial chem-istry, he soon moved to Mullard and then to Interna-tional Nickel in Birmingham.

In 1965 he became head of British Rail’s centralanalytical laboratory and in due course became Re-gional Scientist in charge of R & D activities in the London Midland Region.

Retirement in 1993 gave Brian the opportunity to concentrate on his first love ofpainting and drawing. He leaves a wife Hazel, three sons (Richard, Christopher andDavid) and four grandchildren.

Gerald SteadLes Baxter(1954-1959)

Stockbrokerwhowas aHuddersfieldDistrict League football referee formany yearsThe death of Les Baxter last November at the age of 69 is noted with regret. He

was brought up in Lowerhouses and on leaving King James’s Grammar School he gota job at the former John Quarmby beermat factory in Milnsbridge. Quickly realisingit was not for him, he joined the Huddersfield stockbroking firm of Robert Ramsdenand Co (now Capel Cure Myers) as an office junior in the 1960s and rose through the ranksto become a partner in the business. Les became a member of the London Stock Ex-change in 1972.

For many years, Les was a football referee, officiating at games in the HuddersfieldDistrict League.

ChairmanNICK BRIGGS

17 Fair Street, Huddersfield,Yorkshire HD1 3QBTel: 01484 305734

Mobile: 07427 668004Email: nickybriggs@hotmail.com

SecretaryANDREW HAIGH

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Email: andrew.haigh@oas.org.uk

TreasurerKEITH CRAWSHAW

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Email: keith.crawshaw@oas.org.uk

Media EditorROGER DOWLINGEditorial address:

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Email: almondburian@oas.org.ukArchivist

NICH BRIGGSTel: 07771 865330

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