welcome to accy web hope you enjoy :wave:

Hiya Jambutty,

Seems we have a bit in common. I wuz dragged up in Church, and the lived on India Street. I also went to Accy (Ossy) Tech from 1956 to 1959. Then I joined the RN.

So nice to have you on the site, might get back to you later.

Hi Darby,
Nice to meet an ex-pupil of Ossy Tech. You are one of a few. I left in ’52 but I suppose that you still had the same teachers that I had. Mr Marsden was top of the shop. Mr Abbott the science teacher who came to school on his Corgi scooter. I wonder did he also pull his ‘observation’ stunt on your class as he did ours? He would dip a finger into a beaker of very mucky water and then lick it. We all went Uggh! Sir! But he just asked if anyone saw what he had just done. Of course no one had. He went on to do it again several times and no one twigged what he was doing until he explained that he had dipped his index finger into the beaker and then licked his middle finger. But it did teach me to look at life in a slightly different way.
Mrs Archer a rather largish woman taught geography and English and drove to work in her car. Mrs Westwell the art teacher. Miss Street a very young teacher who taught music and had the fourth formers hanging their collective tongues out. Mr Cunliffe with his rimless glasses looked like a Gestapo officer and could hit a ‘talker’ with a piece of chalk without seeming to look. Mr Roberts did maths, PE and sports while Mr Gladstone, a yank, taught history and was very handy with a plimsoll. Bend over lad! Whack! Ouch! Now go and get a drink of water! I can’t remember the rest of the teachers but on balance they were really OK although we didn’t think so at the time.

Yeah, that's the mob of teachers, as I remember them in 1959 we had:

Marsden (Headmaster)
Abbott (Physics)
Roberts(Science)
Waterhouse(Maths)
Eland (Metalwork)
Howland (Woodwork)
Gordon (English)
Westwell (Mrs) Art
Archer (Mrs) Geography
Cockroft (History)
Shaw (Mrs) French
Cunliffe (PE)
O'Hare (Tech Drawing)

:smokin: :smokin: I woz bad lad number 1, and given an opportunity to leave (or be expelled) in 59. Being and honourable lad I did the former, and joined the Navy (Ganges - which was a sight worse and 10 times harder), from there, there was only one way to go :drunk:

Hi Darby,
Ah! Yes! Some of those names come back to me as the skunk said when the wind changed direction. I haven’t been past the old school for a year or two and I read a while back that it is coming down to make way for houses.
Ganges eh! I went straight to Collingwood to train as a radio electrician but we did have a day at Ganges to climb the mast. It sure was a long way up.

For Jambutty and Darby
 

A special piccy for you both. Thought you might enjoy! Its well before your time, but .. the only one I have at the moment.

Thanks Atarah, It's still looked like that when I was over at Xmas. Although the trams and tram lines have been gone for some time.

What was on at the Palladium at the time?? Charlie Chaplin??

I was wondering where the school was, i knew it as Rhyddings Annex.

alas but the shops onthe right have all gone now, i remember the cloggers that was there , used to take dad shoes there .

One Sunday afternoon in May 2000 I were driving down Union Road in Ossy approaching my old school and listening to Desmond Carrington on Radio 2 playing music from the 50’s when for one fleeting moment it seemed like I was back in that time. I stopped and took this photograph.



Thanks for the old photo Atarah and it looks like the school hasn’t changed at all in all those years. You can use my ‘modern’ picture if you want Atarah.



The Rhyddings’ girls used to use our football pitch size playground after school hours to play netball or rounders and we of course gave them vocal support until their teachers told us to clear off.



In spite of what we thought at the time ASTS was a good school. Once a week we were taken to King George’s playing fields to play football or cricket and once a week we went to the baths just a bit lower down than Scaitcliffe Street pit for swimming lessons. But then the school hours were from 9 until 12 and 1 until 4 so there was time for these ‘outings’. We didn’t get cluttered up with silly lessons. Just maths, English, geography, history, science, art, technical drawing, music, RE, French, PE, games and half a day each for woodwork and metalwork down in a building that was behind the Grammar School. We had an annual sports day at the Church cricket ground and a town sports day as well as the school swimming gala and a town swimming gala. Best of all was the cake shop next door to the school where we could buy hot muffins or penny loaves of bread also still hot.

Hello Jambutty,

So you were'nt taught gender, media & comparative cultural studies then?

Nope tealeaf, we found out about gender the practical way. It were much more fun. I don’t think that the word media existed in those days. Comparative cultural studies? Didn’t do that either unless you consider that being a part of geography and a small part of history we were learning comparative cultural studies? But we had a sizable Polish community in Accrington and they integrated with the English without too many problems so we had practical experience as part of the normal day. I can only ever recall seeing just one West Indian and there were no people from the Indian sub continent. Plenty of Irish and from other parts of the UK though.

if you don't get "media & gender" studies - all a load of rubbish, of course - rammed into your head as a kid now you're considered socially disadvantaged.
You've not yet commented on my media study of your piccy of Acct Town Hall & the sunken garden. Were my comments right? Do I deserve an A++ in media studies?