Kingsley School Chelsea
A Memory of Chelsea.
Kingsley Secondary School,
Hi, my name is Richard Hood and I attended Kingsley from 1958 to 1964.
I have very fond memories of the school together with the many classmates who are fondly remembered. It’s a shame that I lost touch with all of them. I think it was because I lived in Westminster and most of them lived in the Chelsea or Fulham areas.
I do have a couple of photographs, one from a school journey to the Isle of Weight – when I was in the second year, and one of a school sports day when I was in action against Johnny Johnston and Parkinson; aka Parko who if memory serves me wanted to be a jockey (sorry but can’t recall is first name).
Teachers I recall are Mr Allan (Headmaster) Mr Ford and Mr George (Maths), Mr Pickering (Metalwork) Mr Mason (woodwork ) Still have the Tennon Saw I won as a prize, Miss Lavoux (French) later to marry Mr George, Mr Burton (Sport and Art) he welded a mean rounders to the posterior to those found wanting! Mr Stewart (Geography) caned me in my first week for a very minor misdemeanour – talking after the playground whistle blew, Mr Allan (English) – “short words are better than long ones”! That probably accounts for some of my Anglo-Saxon vocabulary :o). There was a Mr Burt, Mr Morris and a Miss Gibson. Oh yes Mr Jewer (Science). We made full use of his lab when no one was watching.
Mr Mason was great with the cane. He had a cupboard full of different shapes and sizes. You had a choice. He was nonetheless a caring teacher. If he saw a pupil about to injure themselves on a machine, up went the shout “timber’ and if you thought that it was you in the wrong, you’d better duck before a lump of 4x2 hit you on the back of the head. As I said, very caring!
The school journey was a hoot! We had a pillow fight one night when the teachers had gone out (Burton, Morris, Burt and Gibson) naturally some of the feather down pillows split and sent feathers everywhere.
Classmates remembered are Derek Wallace, Ben warren, Sandra King (Blondie) Kath Yeadon, Roland Seneviratne, Christine Harrison, May Bryan (deceased), Chris Milner, Jennifer Smith, Edward Ruff, Violet Jepson, Bernard Fogg, Linda Bell, Ronald Hillier, Georgina Wright, Jeffrey Daniels, Doddy, Michael Waller, Cockburn John? Smith? Fry? Allan McRobert, Cecil, Pretic, Carl Hill and Wales – if I recall his dad had a shop at the Worlds End. There was a Barbara and June whose surnames I just can’t recall. They were however on the school journey.
I was in classes 1e, 2b, 3 & 4a and year 5 and 6
Happy Days! Would like to do it all again. I would however study just a little bit harder – yes I would, promise.
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It does seem however that comments are in two locations - Kingsley School and Chelsea.
The next step in my life would be living in the Suttons as a teenager, after Marlborough school I went to Kingsley collage for the sons of gentle folk better known as rouges gallery..first day there if you were lucky you didn’t get your head shoved down the toilet and the chain pulled….done wonders for your hair style.
Some of the fourth years made the Kray brothers look like the telly tubbys..hand over your dinner money or you’ll get a kicking…OK OK it weren’t that bad but it open your eyes to what the world had in store for you.
The teachers were just as bad Mr Burt…yes I will name the son of bitch.. if your still alive reading this Mr Burt, get in touch and I’ll meet you anywhere and punch you lights out…Sorry I had to get that out of my system..
OK back to the plot..some of the things we did, George [better known as deaf George] he wore an hearing aid, we would be doing technical drawing [as it was known back then] and one of us would whistle very low and as long as we could…when we ran out of breath we would get someone to take over….George would be sitting reading his book and would look around the room to see where this whistling noise was coming from,,he would assume that it was his hearing aid battery running down so he would get his little screw drive out and change the battery….only for use cruel bastards to start whistling again 10 minutes later…I think we drove him mad..A mate Lenard Harris crept up behind him one day and cut the wire to his hearing aid…he was a nutter I wonder what happened to him.
Mr Mason the woodwork teacher was just as mad..he said if anyone cuts themselves while in his class they would get the cane. But if he cuts himself we could all take one swipe of the cane on him…well one day he come in with a cut on his forehead…well the whole class jumped up and down with great expectation only to be told that he did it at home and it don’t count.
One day he told us to gather around his desk to see how to use a saw…I was standing 90 degrees to his left and started to read what was written on the saw blade as it went backwards and forwards…he noticed this and with one quick move that came out of nowhere the saw smacked me on the cheek and went straight back to sawing the piece of timber.
The sports master who was in charge of picking the cricket team decided the best way to find out who would be the best pupil to be the wicket keeper for the school team was to line up the fourth years against the wall and throw cricket ball at them, those that could catch the balls before they hit them would become the school wicket keeper…..guess who got the job..yes your truly….I didn’t want to get hurt.
OK it sounds like Broadmoor on steroids but to be honest it had some of the best teachers going with a dedication second to none. One teacher was Mr Ford he was strict but fair and he explained thing in simple terms that dummy’s like me could understand. it’s fair to say I liked him.
One thing that really sticks in my mind was, back in the day it was common to grab your mates by the nuts,,,,ok ok calm down we were all young once it was a silly thing to do but it was what we did,,,I’m being truthful here..no we weren’t of bunch of poofs just silly kids.
One day we were clowning around on the staircase in the building. It’s the type of staircase where you can’t see around to the next flight, we were doing the nut grabbing thing when one of us [not me ] I won’t name the person, reached around the wall and grabbed the nuts of who he thought was his mate hiding…it turned out to be Mr Ford no I don’t know who was the more surprised Mr Ford or my mate…and to this day I don’t know whether MR F enjoyed it or was angry.