Weaverham Secondary Modern

High Street c1955
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Harry Christian was the headmaster when I started at Weaverham Secondary Modern school in Lime Avenue in 1956. He was the first headmaster of the new school which by then had I think been open one or two years.  

Assembly was the big event of the day! I recall that the few Catholic children we had in the school were excused attending and went off for an hours rest and relaxation before lessons started. One or two assemblies stick in my mind. One was at the time of the Cuban crisis when Harry Christian asked us to recall who had backed down and to give thanks for our deliverance (my words). Another was when a poor girl who had been caught stealing was metaphorically put in the stocks up on the stage and publically humiliated and expelled from the school!

Games played a big part in life at Weaverham Sec Mod and we were encouraged to participate. I wasn't much good at football - though I recall I did once play against a budding young player called Glyn Pardoe who I think turned out for Hartford School? and who went on to play for Manchester City! Not bad! I remember with horror the huge heavy boots we used to wear in those days, with their lethal studs! And the ball too which when wet weighed several tons!

There were four so called "houses" in the school which competed against each other both academically and in sport. These were Weaver, Dane, Bollin and Gowy - named of course after the rivers of mid Cheshire. These houses were I believe abolished some time later by a new headmaster who thought competition a bad thing! I think that the school in my days was a reasonably happy place and Harry Christian who was from what is now Cumbria, was thought of as an effective headmaster. He died in a nursing home in Taunton a few years ago.

The head of the Governors was the Reverend Patterson Morgan of Sandiway(he lived in the big house across Chester road from Sandiway Post Office.) Teachers I remember from my years there were Mr Taylor (Science), Mrs Taylor, Mrs Scarr (music), Mr Heard (woodwork), Mr Tomlinson (Rural studies ie garden digging!), Mr Jones (who I heard retired to his native Wales some years after I left), Mr Egerter (English), Alcock, Citrine, Baylis and one or two others I will recall later!