“Play Up, Play Up, And Play The Game!”

A Memory of Middlesbrough.

My memory bank has been activated by the contributed items about Hugh Bell Central School, though my recollections of Hugh Bell are older than those published on this website. My years at Hugh Bell were 1938 to 1942 and so my memories have had many years to fade and I’ve been living on the far side of Canada in the beautiful Okanagan Valley since 1948.

Most of the teacher’s names have passed into oblivion, but who could forget the irascible Arthur E. Evans. I remember all too well the day I was speeding to get to school in time. It was raining hard as I sped along, I think, Borough Rd. and turned hard on to (could it be) Albert Rd.? A High School girl was riding hard in the opposite direction. We each leaned hard in a vain attempt to avoid the other idiot, but our front wheels touched and we both went flying, she one way, me the other. Not only did the crash break my front mudguard into three pieces (was it a Bluemel made of celluloid?) but it made me late for the third time, and I had to hold out my hand for four of the best from Taffy.

In those war years the young teachers disappeared, gone away to war. I, alas, don’t remember much about them, though I do remember the to-do it caused among the students when this new war-time teacher was a woman, and further, she had abroad Scots accent, and was there to teach English! Though I also remember another female teacher who was quite easy on the eyes, had my young eyes appreciated the sight!

Another of the temporary teachers was a man, Ikey Solomon. An English teacher, we heard, though in war-time Hugh Bell he taught French and wielded a cane, an unpleasant swish ending with a nasty sting on the hand of the unfortunate student (me) who managed the lowest score on each Friday’s test. I remember though, how genuinely and terribly upset he was when France was lost. The serious nature of war news was lost on me at that age, and perhaps others of my age.

And the last teacher memory is of “Boxer” Collingwood, another in the short series of English teachers, presumably pulled out of retirement to fill in for for absent teacher-soldiers. Boxer was very popular with the boys. When it was his turn to oversee the orderly return to class of the whole school in the morning and after lunch, he would stand at the top of the steps and blow the first whistle. When all was quiet some wag would shout “Who won the war?”. The whole school would respond with a shouted “Boxer!” The teacher’s face would break out in a huge smile until he blew the second whistle, the signal for all to file in an orderly fashion back into the school.