KES Aston - Big School

Big School

(Photograph by kind permission of Max Nicholls)

Ever since the opening (in 1963) of the recently re-named Douglas House, 'Big School' has been used as the Library.

Gradually, perhaps inevitably but sadly, its original name has dropped out of use. Indeed, I recently had a current pupil email me asking 'What is this 'Big School' you keep on about?'! It was known to even earlier generations as 'The Big Room'.

Honours Boards now cover three of its walls (two of which can be seen in Max Nicholls's excellent photograph above). These include some on which an unknown signwriter of the 1920s records the achievements of AOEs in a mysterious subject called Mathmatics! (Harry Tyson must have been standing over him at the time!!) Most of the headmasters' portraits are between the windows and so cannot be seen to best advantage 'against the light'.

During a visit to the school in 1994 from his home in Australia John Bradford (1947) photographed the Honours Boards on the 'back' wall (covering the period 1949 - 60). He has kindly made this available:

By kind permission of the Headmaster the remaining boards were photographed in August 2006. The photographs have been used to transcribe their contents and create an 'Honours' database.

The Honours Boards, the 'hammer beam' roof and the small-paned mullioned windows provided vast areas of broken surface that made the acoustics very favourable. LGB could address the whole school without hardly having to raise his voice, yet even the most inattentive at the back could hear him.

But, of course, it's the things which can't be seen that we remember most vividly: the daily assemblies (the stage and Headmaster's 'throne' are gone, unfortunately); the plays and operettas; the music lessons; school dances; debates; a mock trial; the farewell speeches of retiring or departing masters; etc., etc. We even trooped in there to listen on the radio to the funeral of King George VI, and to record the School Song for the BBC.

In my time the school numbered around 650 souls (of whom 100 were Sixth Formers) and we could all - just - squeeze in there. If anyone fainted during Assembly you didn't find out 'til we left! Then one day Billy Chivers dropped a ball bearing near the wall and watched it oscillate across the floor and settle in the middle! Even the non-scientists understood the significance of that particular experiment (Billy was famous for his demonstrations!). After that forms 1 to 5 took it in turns to miss out on morning assembly one day a week. We 6th Formers were not so lucky!