Southend, Greenways, Thorpe School, Southend High for Boys,

Southend On Sea: My small part in its existence

Lived my early life in Southend, near Southchurch Park. My first school was Thorpe School.

I used to be pretty fat, probably the fattest in the school. There were not many "fatsos" around then, I'd be pretty common place now.

Though I had a very short attention span I managed to pass my eleven plus and went to Southend High for Boys.

I arrived in 1970, taught by staff who actually had nicknames, (I don't think children do this anymore). They included Boris, Flo, Biscuits, Bombduck, CB, Bunny, Fert-Jackson, Chalky Brown and Hitler Hills. Other characters included Oddy (real name), Beatty, Colloby. Grimes & Stansfield.

I still feel grateful to the last two, who took more interest in my education than I did and actually coerced me into passing my English and Mathematics GCE's.

My sixth form mates (in no particular order were): Phil May, Bob Grant, Tony De Barr, Nigel Rosehill. We spent most Saturday nights going round to the Yacht Club Discos (The Alex, Leigh and Benfleet) as well as Southend Rugby Club, the pub The Smac in Leigh (where I played Space Invaders for the first time). Most fraternization seemed to be with the females from St. Bernard's, possibly because we met in that classic competition.. The English Speaking Union,a vestigial remenant of the British Empire.

At about 15 , I had a very "stylish" Afro. Eddie Morris the Head, referred to me as a Bogbrush. He was bald, I think it was jealousy.

I enjoyed greatly decapitating locusts and skinning rats as part of my Biology A level course. This is was probably the reason I decided to take the subject further.

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