Queen Elizabeth Grammar And Darlington In The 40’s And 50’s

A Memory of Darlington.

QUEEN ELIZABETH GRAMMAR AND DARLINGTON IN THE 40’s and 50’s

I was born and lived for 18 years in Pensbury Street. Then Hargreave terrace. And grateful for the 1944 Education Act. Still. Recently I visited the Sixth Form College. It was Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. Nostalgic. And welcoming. Thank you.

Most changes have been for the better. Woody Allen is right; carpeting makes all the difference. But it’s more than that. Better energy: really much better.

The excellent history pamphlet captures a lot about the ethos of the Grammar School. Not everything. Respectful. The writer knows, the present is path dependent on the past. Maybe I can be less respectful.

I don't think the School (masters) recovered from the shock of the 1944 Act and the end of fee paying. A few of the older masters used to say, things were not what they used to be, when most children paid to come.

I guess the 1944 didn't make much difference to the social makeup. Still difficult to reach from Model Place, Swann Street, Hargreave Terrace, Park Street/Place, Pensbury Street. A pity they have gone.

I used to wonder; my friends in the Streets seemed just as bright, interesting and interested in things as the kids at Grammar School. But lacked and were barred from, the skills of acquiring cultural capital. Maybe didn’t want it. But knew all about it.

The most profound statement – you learn to call such things, if you can’t help it, propositions/hypotheses – that’s cultural capital. To continue, the most profound statement about education and cultural capital, was my uncle snatching a copy of Keats (mine) from one of his jeering (puzzled, not hostile), friends; saying “That’s money, you idiot.”

He, my uncle, a Military Medal, he never said what for, died in the Memorial Hospital. His last hours accompanied by a kango hammer, throbbing a tune through the steel and concrete hospital. “No intermission possible,” they said. Or something like that. Puzzled I dared to ask for one.

His wife, my aunt, died in the same room, two years later. Same cancer. I have a photo of her at Aycliffe munitions factory around 1943/4. She sits at the front, clearly the boss (in the sense of) helping things to happen; a suit. Only two men, suited too, one either side of her, and around 100 women workers in white overalls. In 1945, she went as a labourer to the Chemical Works. 15 years. Then a cleaner at Hummers Knott Old People’s Home. Some things, Women’s Rights are, not perfect, but better.

I worked at the Chemical Works one summer. One plant, part of the Works made asbestos; workers came and left earlier than the rest of the works, luminous grey faced; paid more. Compensation; kind of.

They said “No penalty”, for not having all the kit for the Grammar School. Not so. If there were things missing (it was expensive), to masters in the reception classes (Shell sic), it was a boy’s dereliction; an affront.

Richard Hoggart's Uses of Literacy is accurate. The poorer part of Darlington was split, in the way Hoggart describes, between two cultures; middle class at school with the expectation, for example that the home was set up to do homework. In working class at home where, from October to March, heating bills meant that everyone more or less lived in the kitchen which was comfortable but not set up for study.

I remember one teacher (from Cornwall) singling out two 12 year olds to demonstrate the difference between being well turned out and not. I thought at the time that the real difference was that one of them was the fourth in a family of 10 who lived in Borough Road. Another, a Military Cross. He never said what for. Very kind.

I have never seen manners like the canteen at lunchtime. Rabelesian. The Other of the Grammar School played out for 90 minutes. The noise crescendos, nearly lifting the corrugated (asbestos) roof over the fence into the women’s Training College. A prefect clashes a steel tray against the wall. Truce. The master slinks in, his turn, mutters Benedictus Benedicat, bolts his lunch and flees.

There was a macho competition among the masters about being able to keep order. No support for a master who couldn't. No one could in the canteen.

Some anti Semitism too; boys and masters. One, looked strange and had a nightmare time in class was brilliant (Dr Magoon?? something like that). In one of the rare lulls, explaining to me the difference between the different kinds of to (too, to). Brilliant.

There were inspiring teachers. Some, which is pretty good. An easier era. Not the same pressure to get (ostensible) results/scores.

Field Marshall Montgomery visited once. He was a bit batty. He advised us to get haircuts. And Len Hutton came; impressive, ordinary, modest. Speakers came to talk to the sixth form; Friday mornings. Usually they were good.

A master said once that the (old) library was designed on golden section proportions, Ψ. Hence the up and down stairs on the corridor above perhaps.

Strange things you remember. A boy cheered when a teacher announced the old king (George) had died. He ended up in 4th Remove, a title that literally meant what it said. If you wanted to stay on, stay out of the C and D forms in the first (Shells) and second (called, oddly the 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D) year.

January/February. Age 16. Stanhope Park, first love. A girl from the Training College, now part of the Sixth Form College. Saturday night, after the Coniscliffe Methodist Youth Club. Glad they are there still; Stanhope Park, the College, if not the Youth Club.

Doc Hare had a feud with an ice cream man Martinio, who parked his cycle van outside the gate. He respected Martinio more than his staff. A couple of them (staff) used to go purple with ire at the drop of......well anything. Perhaps they were actors.

Robin DC Matthews