East/West Ham School Memorabilia - badges, ties, bus-pass etc.

[Stan Dyson]

Have any of the forum posters retained any of their old school memorabilia, such as blazer badge, tie, bus pass, school cap etc?  In the photo below I have included SWHT blazer badge, neck-tie and 1960 school bus pass.  Although at the time the bus pass was issued in August 1960 I would not be 16-years of age until January 1961, the fact that I had endorsed 16 on the pass meant that if I was age challenged at the cinema for an X Certificate film entry just producing my bus pass was accepted as definite age proof.  The passes were given out blank, leaving the pupil to fill in with whatever data they liked. - Stan

[peterjay]

Hey Stan and all,
This is a wonderful site for old school photographs, give it a try you may be lucky.
Peter.

http://www.worldschoolphotographs.com/

[ALANF]

Stan

The things I do still have are School Reports! Why I keep the ones from SWHTS I don't know - they are a disgrace!  But I have also kept the ones from Junior School, Tollgate. Now these are a lot better if I do say so myself! One of these subjects on the junior reports is Mental Arithmetic. I can remember standing up in class and being asked the answers to math questions.
Would the schools of today make mental arithmetic an exam subject?
Alan

[Stan Dyson]

Well Alan, here’s a challenge for you – beat this SWHT Report!   I have folded the top and bottom of the report so you can see the comments and opinions.  ‘A stupid Boy!  Sheer Laziness & Slackness.  High Absenteeism.  Just Wasting his time!  Five detentions are most unsatisfactory!  28th out of 29 in the class.’   I’m truly surprised they didn’t slip in the bit about the 4 strokes of the cane across the backside I got for the six days consecutive truancy that I was unfortunately caught for…This report would make me virtually unemployable by all, bar the terminally stupid.

Yet this unruly lad, who had spent most of his time there slightly bewildered, but on reflection enjoying every moment of it, went on to become qualified, amongst the best in his field; and after retiring from full time employment early in 2003 aged 58, then went on to conduct seminars and lectures across the UK for 6-years in credit management, debt recovery and county court litigation.  What do these teachers and headmasters know anyway?  Having dealt with, and ran rings around them, for years with the 4 grandchildren, my opinion is that all the ones I dealt with (and shot down in flames) have very little common sense, coupled with very limited commercial awareness and a mentality that suggests they never ever left school and involved themselves in the real commercial world at all. - Stan   

[Stan Dyson]

Well, sorry to be a bit of a bore here, but just look at this one, being my very last report on 21st July 1961.  Talk about give a dog a bad name!  I realised that I was wasting my time and in the last 12-months started a belated comeback.  I have gone from 26th position to very top of the class in English.  From 27th position to very top of the class in Art.  Then to 4th in Technical Drawing and 6th in metalwork.  The other subjects are covered up just to fit in the scanner.

Now that’s what I call really vindictive, the plumbing teacher has clearly really got it in for me by placing me at 18th position out of the 15 kids in the class?  How on earth did he achieve that – oh, of course, I forgot they didn’t have calculators in those days and he’d run out of fingers after ten.  He should have sat in with us in some of Mr Hardy’s Maths lessons.  Also, what about the stationery headers?  18-months ago in the above posted 1959 report you can see top L/H corner that they had crossed out the prior Headmasters name, Mr A. Baxter.   Who forgot to order the new stationery and had to physically go through all the reports writing in ‘O. W. Munden B.S.C.’   I won’t even mention that bit about ‘People in glass houses etc.’  -  S. J. Dyson F.I.C.M. (Retired)  
 

[ALANF]

Stan,

It seems that me and you were at the wrong school. When you got your 11+ result through, did they give you a choice? I had the choice of PGS, NWHTS or SWHTS. The only reason I chose SWHTS was because it was a boys only school, and the other two were mixed. Part of the reason for this, I believe, was because I still had two older sisters at home, and I was still young enough for girls to get on my nerves! I now realise that I should have gone to PGS, because I could have concentrated on my good subjects. One of these subjects was History, and I fell out with the History teacher, Mr Dove, very spectacularly. His speciality was drawing with coloured chalk on the board, the thing he was discussing. ie The Besemer Converter. He would take half the lesson doing this, and then we would spend the next half of the lesson copying his drawing. Homework would be to describe the process of making steel. We spent most time of any lesson in drawing, and most of the marks were given for the quality of the drawing. Not being a very good draughtsman, but being able to write well about the subject, I told him that it was not fair that someone who drew well but knew nothing about the subject, should get better marks that me. He immediately gave me 200 lines for cheek and at the end of the second year I dropped History for Geography.
I don't dare put my final reports on here. Thats why I left school at 15, as you could do in those days.
Stan, it's nice to know that you have done well despite the best efforts of the school. It seems that like me you were a square peg.

Alan

[Graham Starling]

Stan,

I remember the half-pass that we were given for use when travelling to and from South West Ham Technical School.  I seem to remember that they were supposed to be given to a bus conductor when they reached their expiry date.  Yours is just a little way past that!  Don’t worry, I won’t ‘grass’ you up by informing the authorities that you still have it.

My journey to SWHTS was from Plaistow Road.  If my memory serves me correctly, the half fare was 2d (two old pence of course).  So, let us assume that the full fare would have been 4d.  I would be interested to know what 4d adjusted for inflation is worth in today’s money and how that compares to the present day cost of that same bus journey.

The blazer badge that you show is significant.  If my memory serves me correctly, the school badge on a blue background is as worn by senior prefects.  As to what the difference was between a senior and an ordinary prefect, I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.  On the old Newham forum I made a post about the school’s motto, Age Ex Animo.  I still find it ironic that the school had its motto in a language (latin) that it didn’t actually teach.

When I left SWHTS in 1966 I discarded the jacket and tie.  However, I did keep the scarf.  A picture is attached.

With regards school reports, they did come back into my life at a later date.  A few years ago on the passing of my mother, I had the heart rending task of clearing out her house.  Amongst her papers were some of my old school reports.  She had kept them for all of those years, bless her.  Reading them again brought back some memories.  Whilst they in no way could compete with yours for sheer awfulness, there were the frequent, ‘could do better’, more effort required’, ‘must try harder’, etc, etc.

All the best,

Graham

[Stan Dyson]

Yes Alan. Like you I did have a choice of those three schools and I choose the SWHT because it was an all boys school and I did not want to learn Latin (like they did at PGS – or, so I was informed) that I considered to be a dead language.  I must admit, I didn’t get on too well with French at SWHT and dropped it after two years.  Yet years later I learnt Spanish after just 18-months study and ended up in 1968 as the Spanish interpreter for all the Spanish delivery drivers at Standard Telephones & Cables Ltd.  Also, my goal back then was to be an Electrical Engineer, as I thought that was the job of the future and that SWHT with its practical side with the metal work, plumbing, woodwork, brickwork, painting and decorating would be my best choice.

 Yes, I also recall Mr Dove and his Besemer Converter drawing lessons and it did seem to drag on forever!  I immediately conjured up a visual image when I read your note.  He must have had a thing about steel and its manufacturing history.  I was always quite interested in History and learned a lot more about it after leaving school than I ever did studying it whilst I was there.  But that’s the story of my life at SWHT, and one of my life’s great regrets.  Had I fully applied myself at the appropriate time then I think I could have achieved greater goals quicker, instead of waking up later on to the realisation that my ‘free study’ days were over and I must now belatedly get on with both evening classes and exams in my own evening and weekend leisure time. 

I now feel most certainly that if I had the opportunity (with my current age & mind) to go back in time to SWHT in 1956 and start again then I would have excelled instead of just coasting along, messing around and wasting my time.  I feel that I did get there in the end and achieved objectives beyond what I would have ever imagined possible all those years ago; especially doing all those public seminars and also the 2-day in-company seminars with all the finance managers of many large UK blue-chip companies sitting there taking it all in.  I feel that I was more of a rebel than a square peg at SWHT.  I fitted in OK, but I always enjoyed doing things my way, generally being the hard way, but thinking that I was right.  Well, I wasn’t and I do know it now.  Stubsy (as we called him) the plumbing teacher was right all those years ago when he used to shout into my smirking face, ‘Dyson, get it right and knuckle down – one day you’ll wish you were back here and it will be too late!’  -  Sorry Mr Stubs, you were right! - Stan

[Stan Dyson]

Hi Graham – many thanks for your kind, understated, ‘sheer awfulness’ euphemistic comments about the two school reports that I had posted.   Well done for keeping the old SWHT scarf all those years!  Mine has long gone, but it was quite different to your ‘posh’ university type of SWHT scarf, that I do well recall being the replacement to my old dark green and yellow horizontal striped one.  The only record I have of that school scarf is an old brownie 127 photo that was taken of me on the Woolwich Ferry just as it was docking at the south side in 1959.  I was also wearing my very first Canning Town Granditters off-the-peg grey Prince of Wales check Italian suit, with the cloth covered buttons.  Looking at the pic posted below do you recall this cheaper, inferior quality, woollen knitted type scarf that we poorer SWHT kids used to wear?  - Sartorially inferior Stan  

[Graham Starling]

Stan,

I remember the striped green and yellow woollen scarf with which you were so elegantly posing in that photograph.  What were you hoping for at the time, a career modelling for those mail order catalogues?  Anyway, I believe that scarf was part of the original grey uniform of SWHTS.  The black uniform was introduced in the 1960/61 term which was my second year at the school and I believe your fifth and final one.  The black, red and yellow college/university style scarf was part of that ensemble.

I don’t recall ever having that green and yellow woollen scarf.  Maybe my parents thought it was an unnecessary accessory at the time.  I remember having the blazer, cap and tie.

I don’t why the uniform was changed from grey to black.  It happened during Mr. O. W. Munden’s first full year of being the headmaster and maybe he saw it as his way of impressing that he was now in charge, you know, new broom and all that.  I was never a great admirer of OWM.  I never gave the teachers a hard time and so his strict authoritarian style was uncalled for as far as I was concerned.  But, having said that, I do recognise the problems he had and I am not only referring to some of the pupils.  A few of the teachers wouldn’t have been my first choice for the school’s staff.  One thing I didn’t realise until very recently was that OWM was a local boy, born and raised in Plaistow.  I just wonder what the reaction would have been if he had played that up and whether it would have gained him some ‘street cred’ as a result.  Having said all that, I still think it’s sad that he passed away at the relative early age of sixty eight and that his son died in his late twenties.  My parents are buried in Oldchurch cemetery at Romford and I visit their grave on a regular basis.  The grave of OWM, his wife and son is just a few yards away and I usually give it a quick tidy up.  Other than me, I don’t suppose it ever gets a visitor.  As I said, it’s all very sad.

All the best,

Graham

[GeorgeT]

Please, what do PGS, NWHTS and SWHTS mean?

[Stan Dyson]

Plaistow Grammar School,  North West Ham Technical School and South West Ham Technical School.

[Rennay]

I still have all my school reports from Godwin Junior 1947-1953 and from EHGS 1953- 1960

Not particularly good I might add! LOL

[ALANF]

It was after I had left the school that 'Ossie' took over as Headmaster. As has been discussed, he changed the colour of the uniform to black.  I started the school in form 1a and ended in form 4c. As I descended the academic scale. I, along with many others, stopped wearing the school uniform. In my final year at the school, nobody in my form wore the school uniform. Indeed, one boy, who came from Leyton, was dressed as a 'Teddy Boy', with drain pipe trousers and a very long draped jacket. No mention of our style of dress was ever made by the school. This falling off of standards may have been the reason the new Headmaster wanted to make a fresh start with a new style uniform.
Incidentally, my experience at this school certainly made its mark on me, because I sent both of my children to a Private School.

Alan

[Graham Starling]

Alan,

Your comments about history lessons at SWHTS certainly struck a note.

Like you, I had Mr. Dove for History and also like you I dropped it very early on as it was one of those optional subjects.  I had no interest in the content of the lessons, ancient Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, etc.  A few years ago I was chatting to my nephew about what he was learning in his history lessons at school.  His lessons included WW1 and WW2.  Why couldn’t we have been taught that?  You know, these were topics that we could have related to as our parents and grand parents had actually been involved in those conflicts.  Also, given the fact that we lived in the eastern part of London, there were plenty of bomb sites around to reinforce that sense of identity to WW2 in particular.  Could it be that those topics weren’t taught because the teacher himself hadn’t learned about them?

I also recall the art element of the lessons.  Despite having spent a couple of years in Mr. Taylor’s art classes which themselves were a total waste of time, my artistic talents were absolutely zero then as they are now.  In one of those history lessons we had the task of drawing in colour a picture of a Roman aqueduct.  By my own admission, my effort was awful.  It lacked any three dimensional quality and I still remember Mr. Dove’s written comment by it, ‘What’s it made of, tissue paper?’,  Unlike you, I kept my thoughts to myself.  If I had voiced them then they would have been, “What are these, history or art lessons?” and “Look, if I can’t draw a decent picture then go and tell Mr. Taylor to teach me.  At the moment his lessons consist of drawing squares filled in with grid lines and then writing fancy letters within them.”  I’m sure such comments would have been as well received as yours.  After I had dropped history I happened to glance at one of my classmate’s exercise book who had continued with the subject.  There, was a drawing of some mud hut of the Stone Age period or whatever.  Clearly, things hadn’t changed.

As pupils, we saw the absurdity of the situation and even now as adults, who are hopefully more objective and wiser, our opinions are still the same.  So, why was that state of affairs allowed to continue?

Now, international, national and even local history is of great interest to me.

All the best,

Graham