Further to the piece on the Watford Central School: in 1939, children aged 11 before the end of the year were obliged to sit the 11 plus examination. Since my birthday fell on December 24, Christmas Eve, that meant I was still ten years old when. I took the exam.
Afterwards, my parents were delighted to learn I had passed for the Boys Grammar School, but their pleasure was short lived. There were only a finite number of places available at the Grammar School, and because too many boys achieved the pass mark that year, the goal posts were moved to a higher level and I missed out, but this meant I was automatically eligible to go to either the Watford Central and Secondary School in Durban Road or the Technical School (long since demolished). I chose the former.
Newly equipped with an identity card and a gas mask - gifts from the war department - we gathered for induction in the main hall, where I was dismayed to learn that, because of the war, the traditional end-of-term annual student concert would no longer take place for the duration of hostilities.
Together with the other new arrivals, I was directed to take my place in Mr Avery's classroom, where we were to spend the next year. We were each allocated a separate desk, all lined up from front to rear, with a teacher-wide gangway between rows.
The curriculum consisted of periods devoted to English language and literature, french, mathematics, history, geography, art, science, woodwork and sports. The school playing fields were some distance away in Park Avenue (Water Lane) and our weekly visit afforded us a welcome break from academic study.
There were pegs on the wall in each classroom on which to hang gas masks and satchels. There was corporal punishment in the form of the cane or a beating on the miscreant's backside with a rubber soled plimsoll. Such punishments were administered by the teacher or, if the deed was deemed to have been particularly heinous, then the unfortunate lad was sent to stand outside the headmaster's study.
The headmaster, Mr Lilliman, believed that a long wait before receiving a dressing down and four of the best on each hand increased the receiver's humiliation and pain. After an unfortunate accident with a couple of home-made stink bombs I had brought in and sold to a friend, the fragile glass phials shattered when our teacher, who had imbibed too much amber liquid during midday lunch break, lurched against my friends satchel hanging on the wall.
The resultant stench successfully emptied both the boys and the girls wings. While they were happy waiting in the playground until all the windows were opened and the air cleared, I collected four of the best on each hand, and I am able to confirm it taught me a lesson I never forgot.
Furthermore, in reply to the zealots who campaign against corporal punishment, I can also confirm it did not scar me mentally or prompt me to exercise violence when dealing with my own four children later in life.
A caning punishment was an effective deterrent in those days and only used as a last resort. And yes, smoking went on behind the woodwork block on the far side of the playground. During one science lesson, our "stinks" master had been experimenting with barium nitrate and this led to him giving us the formulae for a number of fireworks, and I found other formulae in boys books of Things to Make and Do.
This led to my making fireworks for my school chums, of which the stink bombs were very popular.
At that time, all the chemicals were available over the counter in any chemist shop - even the three principal constituents of gunpowder!
A few of us grouped together, and we had nicknames: there was Ricky Rayfield, Sticky Stark, Dicky Dyke, Clicky Clark - ouch. However, there was a certain strength in unity, enabling.us to avoid the attentions of the class bully and his sycophants. At midday, we made our way down Derby Road, over the railway bridge and into the Water Lane recreation ground.
A few brave souls crossed the road and walked along the river bank until they came opposite to Benskins Brewery warehouses on the other bank. They had found a way across and into the rear of the buildings.
Discovering the storage areas unattended (leastwise, they claimed never to have seen anyone), they would spend the entire lunch hour exploring the vaults.
This daring trespass came to a sticky end when one lad wriggled through the fanlight of a locked door and, on dropping to the floor the other side, landed on the end of a length of packing case complete with nails, which flew up in the air and buried itself in his knee. That took some ingenuous explaining.
I cannot remember ever rushing for the air-raid shelter during school time. Hitler was too intent on destroying London to subject Watford to sustained attacks.
Apart from the bombs previously mentioned on this page, I watched, overhead, Spitfires attempting to shoot down enemy fighters, with the spent cartridge shells falling in the streets around the Cherry Tree/Hazel Tree Road area.
I can still remember the stick of three bombs that were jettisoned by a fleeing enemy bomber, one exploding in the north Watford cemetery, another in front of an air-raid shelter in a Rushton Avenue back garden, filling it with dirt, stones and debris (fortunately the occupants were enjoying the film showing at the north Watford Odeon at the time) and the third landing on the allotments behind our house in Clarke Way.
As 1942 moved into autumn, I persuaded our headmaster to agree to us mounting an end of term concert. Talent came from both sides of the school. I teamed up with Beryl Smith to do vocal impersonations. It was a good act, one we continued to perform afterwards, taking part in shows for servicemen, Christmas shows in the local hospital wards, talent shows at the Gaumont and the Regal cinemas, and very many variety concerts.
As a result, I am happy to report that my Central School schooldays were anything but dull.
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