"I do my best with the plane and saw, thanks to the nicest teacher at KEGSA, Mr. Fox. By the way, my crowning achievement at KEGS was winning the school woodwork prize in the 4th form. I remember the prize was a gift certificate from Hudson's Books which used to be in New St. I chose the book "The Colditz Story" thinking it would remind me of KEGS. I have since thought that as a so called woodworker I should have built a glider up in Jackie Tyson's garret to launch from the roof and thus effect my escape. As it turned out, since my birthday is in October and I could not legally leave school in June with the rest of my cohort, I had to go back in September. Sure enough, on the 20th. of October the Beak sent for me. He told me that as of that day I was free to leave if I so wished. I could have kissed him but refrained, merely tugged at my forelock, thanked him and slowly backed out of his office. The following Monday I was working for the GPO in Newhall St.

Unfortunately Jackie (Harry) Tyson seems to get a bad rap from most of your contributors.

At some point in my KEGS career, I think it was in the third form, I took to playing truant quite frequently. I had discovered that my handwriting was uncannily similar to my mother's and I could thus write myself very passable sick notes. I spent many happy days cycling along the canal around Perry Barr, or on wet days traveling the world in the reference room of the Public Library in Chamberlain Place. I noticed that Jackie Tyson seemed quite suspicious of my frequent absences since he used to question me at length on the state of my health. I paid his curiosity little attention. After I had racked up an attendance record of about fifty percent for the term, who did I see walking up our driveway one evening on a day on which I had given myself an unauthorized holiday but the little man himself! He knocked and my father answered the door. By this time I had fled to my bedroom but was quickly called down to face the charges.

Jackie lived in Ivyfield Rd., a few streets from my home, and my newspaper route started in Lindredge Rd, thence to Woolmore Rd and finished on Ransome Rd. It seems that Mr. T. had spotted me delivering papers on a day when I was supposed to have been sick. On subsequent days when he knew I hadn't been at school he watched out for me and logged the anomalies. Naturally, my dad was furious and after admitting that everything that I was accused of was true I was sent back to my room. The next day I learned of the outcome of Jackie's and my father's discussions. For the next eight weeks I was to take three hours of math. tutoring at Jackie's home every Saturday morning. For this my dad paid ten shillings which I dutifully delivered upon arrival. At about 10:30 we would stop for coffee and chocolate digestive biscuits. I couldn't believe, at the time, what a different person he became in this environment. He was softly spoken, encouraging and showed infinite patience with me. I quickly mastered quadratic equations and various other aspects of math. in which I was weak. The summer break came and I stopped going for my lessons. My greatest wish at that time was that all of my studying at KEGS should be as enjoyable but that could not be as I was to learn later in life during my own 32 year career as a teacher.

That's how I feel about Harry Tyson: an ogre in the classroom but as nice a person as you could wish to meet otherwise.(Tom Pittaway, 1950 New Brunswick, Canada)