Bishop Wordsworth's School In The 1960s

A Memory of Salisbury.

I attended Bishop Wordsworth's School between 1964 and 1967 arriving when I was 14. I had previously gone to a very prestigious grammar school in north London which in fact was awful. Discipline was non-existent, bullying rife and the standard of teaching, with few exceptions, abysmal. BWS was much, much better.
The headmaster at Bishop's was Mr Blackledge, a man not to be messed with. He would take school assemblies from the stage in the school hall while we, the boys, stood in a great untidy mass at his feet. I remember one morning he came in and saw some minor argy-bargy going on at the back of the hall. Mr Blackledge jumped down into the pit and waded through the mob in search of the miscreant. I saw him making straight towards me and thought, 'F . . er, crikey, he's coming straight at me' but, no, he elbowed me aside and dragged a boy behind me to the front, clouting the back of his head as he did so. This individual incidentally never, ever misbehaved. Of course it was really a bit of psychological kidology on the part of the Head. If he was capable of doing this to the School Saint, what punishment might he not visit upon us reprobates? Actually Mr Blackledge was OK and always had our best interests at heart. I lost count of the number of references he later wrote for me. He lived in the Cathedral Close and would always wave as you walked home past his window.
The deputy head was Mr J E Potter, known as Jep. Jep had two bees in his bonnet: smoking and long hair. This was the mid-sixties when long hair was all the rage. The very first morning I was at BWS, Jep called out from the stage, 'Cornish, I'm going to cane you after assembly. I saw you on Saturday afternoon smoking outside Style and Gerrish (damned). You know what the trouble with you is, don't you, Cornish? It's that long hair of your's (double-damned). Behind the stern exterior Jep was actually a kind man. And he did what no other teacher could, he actually got me through my Maths 'O' level. My exam result just before leaving London was less than 10%: under Jep it soared to 67%. His methods were unimaginative but very effective. He would spend the entire lesson chalking up examples for us to copy down. All we had to do in the exam was follow the formulae and substitute the numbers. That and the pale blue logarithm books got me through. I'll always be grateful to Jep.
Good teachers at BWS were the English masters Mr Jones and Mr Barnes. Messrs Hewlett and Bowden (the legendary Titch) were also good. My favourite though was Mr Richard (aka Charlie) Cusden, the Art master. He was a very civilised man who wore an elegant Edwardian beard and a white coat. He was inspirational and later, in the 1970s, presented his own art programme on TV where he painted country churches. We were very lucky to have him.
There were other masters who, outside school, led or had led very interesting lives. One was Mr Underwood who taught metalwork. I read that during the Second World War he had registered as a conscientious objector. He had then had second thoughts and gone on to serve with distinction in military intelligence. After the War Mr Underwood entered local politics becoming something of a radical. He led a well-publicised though unsuccessful campaign to restore the Wiltshire village of Imber, which had been commandeered by the MOD for military manoeuvres, to its original inhabitants. Naturally his nickname to us boys was 'Imber'.
One master had the nickname 'Fruit'. He was an ancient man who taught Maths and only had one arm. I don't know but he may have lost it in the Great War, he was old enough. 'Fruit' was short for Fruit Machine, ie the One-Armed Bandit.
Unfortunately the novelist William Golding left BWS a couple of years before I arrived. It would have been good to tell people I had once studied under a Nobel prizewinner.
Not all of the teaching was good. One Geography master did nothing but dictate notes which I have no doubt were copied from a text-book. He could have shown us slides of Odstock Down or even had us walk there to show the effects of glaciation on the local landscape. I also had a huge interest in History but learned nothing in the lessons and did not take the exam at 'O' level.
The boys in my year congregated in various social groups. There were the popular alpha-males like Trevor Egan and Jon Green who wore all the latest mod gear and got off with the best-looking girls from South Wilts Grammar School. This group over-lapped with the members of the First XV. The best rugby players were Chris Evans, Kenny Parker and Keith Steer.
My best friends were Ian Butterfield and Ray Cooper, both from Wilton. Ian's family ran a bakery and cafe there while Ray's owned Cooper's Food Market. I still keep in touch with Ian who went on to head Bournemouth Town Council's building department. Another nice chap I remember was Pete Catlin. Pete was very much into pop-music (his favourite group was the Kinks) and he had his own group (they didn't call them bands then) called Five Alive.
I left BWS in 1967 with 5 'O' levels. It should have been so much better but in fact my education had already been blighted by the previous three years in London. This after attending excellent primary schools. I later moved to the Midlands, took my 'A' levels at evening classes and obtained a degree. I was a History teacher for 12 years and a police officer for a further 17.
BWS was a good grammar school but I imagine in these far more competitive times that it is outstanding. Thanks for some fond memories.
(Alaric Birkett)