1959 -1966 Grammar School and Adolescence

In earlier childhood, life seemed innocent. As I moved towards adolescence, I began to realise that there are experiences and feelings that it was better to keep to oneself rather than share openly. We were never, for example, a family to talk about feelings. We practised a conventional sort of morality and maintained a degree of secrecy about issues in family life. So as children, we never knew that Mum’s father (who died in 1941) had at times been a dipsomaniac and had bouts of the DTs. If we children happened to overhear a conversation not designed for our ears, we would be firmly told ‘You are never to repeat that outside this house’!

There are some sides to my life that I have never been very open about. I have usually wanted people to accept the ‘good side’ that I present – my talents, my cheeriness, my ‘having-got-it-together-ness’. It’s not that I haven’t known about the other sides, it’s more of having kept them in separate boxes, away from the eyes of those who didn’t need to know. Of course, this practice is probably futile, for people know more, see more and discern more than ever you give them credit for and whilst being willing to maintain my conspiracy of silence, nothing much is truly hidden. And then you want people to buy into your own best self-image that has been carefully groomed.

Most of what I’ve written to date has been in the plural – including both David and me. By the age of 11 things had already begun to change. Now we were becoming our own person, with different interests, experiences and circles of friends. We were also moving into a phase of life more independent of home and parental influence. We had for some years, been free to travel independently on local buses and to spend hours away from home with friends without too much enquiry and undue concern. Reaching the ‘changing schools’ phase, helped to cement this. We also thought it to be a benefit that we were the youngest in the family. Our parents’ parenting attempts had been exhausted on John and Margaret – and we were left more to our own devices. Times were also changing and the 60s ethos of independent thought and opportunity was with us. What did our parents want for us? They wanted us to be happy and fulfilled human beings; they wanted us to work hard and achieve more than had been available to them. (Dad always resented having been forced/persuaded/made by his Father to leave his own chosen field of coach-building to join the family butchers firm. If she had wanted to, Mum could probably have gone on to other things – she had a reasonable School Certificate and her eldest sister had gone to Teacher Training College, but I never heard her indicate that she wasn’t satisfied with the work she did in the Telephone Exchange, and unfortunately I never asked if she had ever wanted something else.) They wanted us to be happy in our own choices. They taught us subconsciously, that you had to work for what you had; that family ties were important and that what ‘other people thought’ was significant. They offered us a really secure family life and an unconditional care and love – undemonstrative but real.

In 1959, the world map was still considerably red (ie British); as a nation we were being told that ‘we’d never had it so good’; God was still in his heaven (just) and free educational opportunities, to university level, lay ahead of us. G R Steel, respected English master, reminded us that as Grammar School pupils, we were among the top 5% of our nation; he also told us that our grandmothers could use participles, synonyms and other grammar and parts of speech, even if they didn’t know that they knew! This was a time of full employment and the start of a period of intense immigration from Commonwealth countries into Wolverhampton and other industrial parts of the UK1. My father earned about £1000 a year. That made us pretty well off. My mother hadn’t worked outside the home since having children. Wolverhampton was a fairly prosperous place and before long, half of the centre of the town was due to be demolished, an inner ring road constructed and shopping and offices re-developed in brutalist 60s style. By 1 Meera Syal’s ‘Anita and Me’ is a fictionalised version of a 60s child brought from India to Essington, the Staffordshire village on the NE outskirts of Wolverhampton.

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1959, John had left Wolverhampton Grammar School and was earning, though still living at home. Margaret was 16 in 1960, and had to decide whether to stay on at Wolverhampton Girls High School after ‘O’ levels. And then there was David and me.

‘Family’ 1959 - 1966DadI find that I can think of little specific to write about my Father (Trevor Crompton Gough 1908 - 1971) in these years. He was ‘there’, but ‘not there’, in the sense that six days a week he left the house before 8am and returned about 7pm (with the exception of Thursdays when he might be home for 5pm). After eating, he would subside into his armchair. Sundays were spent cleaning the car, out in the garage or garden, maybe going for a drive or visiting a relative and in front of the TV. He smoked his pipe (cigarettes disappeared off the list sometime in this period), read the odd Book Club western (I signed him up for that) and generally wore the same sorts of clothes – grey flannels, shirt, a sports jacket, coat and hat, worn by most working men and immortalised in newsreel.

Dad’s mother (Sarah Crompton) died on March 11 1960. Apart from Uncle Harry Jones (who had died suddenly in about 1957) she was the first significant relative to die in my life time. But it didn’t make much difference to me as I rarely saw her. Dad must have seen her daily, for she travelled with Auntie Gwen to the shop in Horsley Fields each day until her final illness. I imagine she just sat2. These premises had been her home from about 1925 until they moved into Newbridge Crescent in the early 1930s, and had been the main area of work for Roy and Gwen after that time. Dad spent most of his time at the stall in Wolverhampton Retail Market but would return to Horsley Field once that was closed, to cash up and prepare a float for the next day. He would grumble that the clearing up there had never begun by the time he arrived. Her death meant that Gwen now lived on her own – for the first time ever, so far as I am aware. We now went even less to Newbridge Crescent. She now started keeping a dog. The last of her dogs was looked after by David, after her death. Dad bought himself a dark grey overcoat for the funeral (I was still wearing it in 1986, over the top of a cassock). The Sunday after the funeral, we went as a family to St

Jude’s Church, Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton – their parish church, though not one they ever attended, so far as I know. For a year or two after that, we would periodically visit the grave in Jeffcock Road Cemetery, in which she, her husband Bernard and Bernard’s mother Jane were buried3. I can’t recall that he talked of her much. He must have mentioned that she came from Rugby, that he’d grown up in Bilston (though I only discovered which school he went to prior to Wolverhampton Grammar School in 2014) and if there was talk of Crompton cousins, I don’t recall it.

He and Mum (Marjorie Hughes 1910 – 1993) celebrated their Silver Wedding anniversary in 1960. That was the biggest family celebration I can recall. David and I earned money by caddying at South Staffs Gold Club to buy them a present – a metal rimmed tray and several bunches of gladioli – and presents poured in, some of them in silver like the very elegant raised silver dish with twin handles from Roy and Betty. We had a party at home (82 Codsall Road) to which all relatives and friends were invited, with cold buffet and even dancing on the lawn under specially installed outdoor lights! If there were speeches, I can’t remember them but something must have been said by someone.

They really had the most stable of marriages, so far as we knew. They were evenly matched in many ways, enjoyed their family (most of the time) and kept themselves to themselves, with little expectation of anything much out of – what was considered then to be - the ordinary.4 The only unusual thing about Dad

2 See elsewhere for more information about her.3 By 2007, the gravestone was beginning to break up and David and I discussed whether to let ‘age wither them’ or to have it and our Hughes grandparents’ graves repaired. We agreed on the former. Ultimately, the grave surrounds and headstone will be removed by the cemetery staff.4 Nigel Slater’s autobiographical book ‘Toast’ is also set in Wolverhampton at much the same time and gives me many reminders of how things felt then.

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was his elected membership of Seisdon Rural District and Wrottesley Parish Councils. They met on Thursday evenings, otherwise he couldn’t have stood at all. He was first elected in the late 40s and served until becoming ineligible through having moved out of the area in 1963. He occasionally saw constituents over particular matters of planning; he served on the inaugural Claregate Playing Fields Committee and on the joint Burial Board that established Danescourt Cemetery. Did he have a public spirit about all of this? I never understood and (of course) sadly, never discussed it with him. How he formed what political views he had that made him stand for the conservative cause, I don’t know, except that as a small business man, his instincts would have been for private enterprise.

In earlier years (during the war I think) he had drawn and painted caricatures of people and was later to take up oils in his last few years. But at this stage I can recall no carpentry, his energies seemed devoted only to work.

It was through work that I saw other sides of him. In the early 1960s, Wolverhampton was encased with a concrete inner ring road and as part of the displacement, the old Victorian market hall (on the west side of St Peter’s Collegiate Church) was to be demolished (to make way for a new Council [later City] Centre building) and replaced by a new building, away from the centre (causing many of the traders real worry about the viability of their businesses) just inside the inner ring. Father was somehow involved in planning the layout of stalls in the meat/fish section (perhaps they all were) and ended up with a good position, between the two entrances into this section. This provided a three sided stall, perhaps 12 metres of counter space. They opened on four days a week for trading with preparation and cleaning taking the other available time. From 1964, I worked with him on Saturdays, from 8am until about 4pm, eventually working during busy holiday times as well. Initially I was paid 2/6 (12.5p) an hour, but it was soon doubled to 5/- on the (surprising) recommendation of Gwen, who must have thought I was worth the money! I was mainly concerned with preparing and serving cold meats, sausage and bacon, but would help out on the main meat counter when necessary. The other regular staff included Ron, a man then in his early thirties; Mary (about 48 and a Roman Catholic) who had worked for Dad for a number of years and was always kind and generous to me – she once gave me a man’s umbrella – and was always interested in my vocation. Then there was Emily Blunt in her 50s and who told Dad about the house for sale across the road from her in Beechwood Drive and Doris who was in the MU at St Gregory’s, Wednesfield, and once got me to go to talk to them about ‘Honest to God’ (goodness only knows what I said!). At some point she was sacked for being ‘too generous’ towards certain customers she knew.

The Dad I knew at home was passive, generally tired and so far as we were generally concerned, featured only on the edges of our lives. But through working with him, I achieved a more rounded picture. He was purposeful, knew what he wanted from his staff, and always ‘Mr Gough’ to staff and customers alike. He had a place and filled it. He had charm and humour and would use it in his handling of customers, knowing who would respond to a mild flirtation and who should be treated with circumspection. So far as I could judge, despite having heavy competition around him (perhaps 12 butchers stalls in all within 25 yards) we did as well as any in the share of customers. Loyalties were developed of course, and customers returned if they felt they got quality goods at a reasonable price. This period marked the start of a broader cultural base among Wolverhampton people. Most customers were indigenous white but Dad also began to supply a Chinese and I think an Indian restaurant. One proved to be a bad payer and the other was prosecuted for lack of kitchen hygiene so he wasn’t quick to multiply this side of the business. He certainly never appreciated anyone trying to bargain for a better price for something! It seemed a long enough day to me, but then he continued for a further three of four hours before getting home. Now I’m not surprised that he regularly seemed knackered at home.

At some point he and Mum must have discussed him leaving the family business and setting up on his own, but rejected it for fear of failure in the light of his own family responsibilities. A lot of his frustration must have been connected with the business link with his Mother, brother and sister. He gave the impression of feeling that his work supported the whole company. Certainly other independent butchers of whom I later came to know made a much better living out of it than he did. So he was locked into a work pattern that drained his energies and gave him no life for himself. Mum had times of resenting this and at this stage of course, had no idea that they would never enjoy any other style of life together.

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MumMum (Marjorie Hughes 1910 – 1993) was the mainstay of our family life. She was there. Not working out of the home, she cooked, cleaned, washed, shopped and tended. She was there to see us off to school and almost always there to see us back. ‘Your Father and I..’ might well have been the phrase that she used, but it was nearly always she that had to decide, deliver and discipline (not really that there was much of that done – my memory is that there were more battles over John and Margaret: perhaps David and I learned to be more wily in what we wanted to achieve, or that she already had learned something of the futility of battling against our wills). “You wait until you’ve got children of your own” she’d say, “Then you’ll know!”

Out of concern for what should happen if we didn’t pass the 11+ or that one of us didn’t, she had attempted to make herself employable with a typing and shorthand course, which luckily wasn’t necessary as her heart wasn’t in it. Perhaps like many lower middle class mums, she’d started to live through and for her children and this whilst uniquely benefiting us in some ways, having her undivided attention and care, made life for her doubly difficult through her long widowhood, for she had lost the knack (if she had ever had it after having children) of relating with adults who came her way and she was only comfortable with those whom she had known for half a life-time. Maintaining daily contact with her three sisters Gladys, Vi and Ethel (especially Gladys) became part of the rhythm of her days. At this stage, Gladys still taught full-time, which meant that each of them would spend time at 3 Upper Vauxhall (it had changed its address from 61 Middle Vauxhall around the time that the surrounding houses were demolished and the 11 storey flats designed and built) with their mother, Harriet Hughes (1873 – 1963).

Apart from the Silver Wedding celebration, there were three other big family events that happened in this period 1959 – 1966. The first was John’s5 marriage to Joyce Ormond6 on April 23 1962. The second was Nan’s death (Harriet Hughes) on Jan 24 1963 and the other was our move from 82 Codsall Road, Tettenhall to 11 Beechwood Drive, Wightwick on April 1st 1963.

Nan had been getting frailer and deafer for some time. She succumbed to pneumonia and other symptoms of old age after a relatively short period of being bed bound. We were taken to say our ‘goodbyes’ and unlike with Grandma Gough in 1960, went to the funeral at St Peter’s, Wolverhampton (taken by the Revd Frank Rust). She was buried with Will, her husband, in the grave in Jeffcock Road Cemetery. No doubt she was missed by her daughters (and by us) but it certainly freed Gladys, who as the unmarried daughter that stayed at home, had had her father, Aunt Ada and mother to cope with during their old age and last illnesses. Mum always showed a slight form of jealousy / resentment about Gladys and Dorothy’s friendship, and determination to have time away together during the school holidays. Both of them had elderly relatives to care for and would perhaps have lived together were it not for that. Their one strike for independence was holidays away together. Now both were retired with no dependents (though Gladys was always generosity itself to family that needed her help), a reasonable pension and a car. Mum still had dependent children and a husband with a job that consumed his energy and interest. Gladys was conscientious in entertaining

us to tea weekly. We used to cut her lawns for her and enjoyed her company and a close relationship in which there was little of the sense of duty about things. She loved us and we (unthinkingly perhaps) returned that love.

I can’t recall how the idea of moving came about. Probably it was the realisation that with us children beginning to leave home, there would be no need for so much space. The house was certainly hard work and needed rewiring, a heating system (now in fashion) and had too much garden to be comfortably

5 Trevor John Gough 23.12.1939 – 12.11.20086 Joyce Margaret Ormond ?1941 - 2003

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maintained without help. So my parents began to look out for something more manageable. They found what they thought they would like in a recently developed estate just off the Bridgnorth Road, between Compton and the Mermaid pub at Wightwick. The detached house was then about five years old – so modernly ‘appointed’. It had one through living room and three bedrooms with fitted cupboards. The garden was pleasant, on a slight slope front and back and was set against the bank of trees that crested the ridge. It was off the main road but with a bus stop within 200 yards, was very convenient indeed. Now, from this distance in time, it seems that Mum’s main concerns were what furniture to take or dispose of. The move was about ‘cost neutral’ – the Codsall Road house selling then for about £6,500. When she came to sell Beechwood Drive in about 1990, she got something over £42,000 for it and I imagine that its value at the time of writing (2008) would probably be about £350,000 - £400,000. I always thought it a very ‘nice’ address to have! In Wolverhampton terms, it was a posh place to live. We settled into it quickly and Mum always liked the house. She got to be on chatting terms with neighbours and Emily & Reg Blunt lived on the other side of the Drive for emergency help.

John and MargaretJohn had started work in 1955 for Seisdon Rural District Council, later moving to Aldridge UDC and married Joyce Ormond in 1962. Joyce was a couple of years younger and they met through Church and Youth Club (AYPA) at Christ the King, Aldersley. Joyce’s parents Nan and Jack were from Yorkshire and Jack worked for Bolton Paul and they lived in Blackburn Avenue. She was bright, vivacious and good looking and after school at Codsall Secondary Modern, worked as a secretary with Eagle Star Insurance. My parents thought that both were too young to be getting married (they had courted from teenage years but hadn’t married for about 9 years). But the average age for marrying had come down – housing was more readily available and family planning more reliable! I recall some anxiety about entertaining the Ormond parents for the first time and despite also having an interest in local Council work, there wasn’t much else in common. Their diffidence in company and uncertainty about

whether John and Joyce were doing the right thing made for some awkwardness in the relationships. However, the wedding was planned and took place at St Michael’s & All Angels, Tettenhall Regis. They were married by Charles Borrett, the Vicar and there was a reception afterwards at the ‘Newbridge’ Inn on Tettenhall Road. They had a rented flat to move into in Kent Close, Aldridge. After that, we probably saw much less of them – perhaps coming to tea on a Sunday or us occasionally visiting them. They later moved to Lincolnshire, where their two sons were born (Andrew John: Sept 22 1963 and Paul Michael: July 14 1965). I took myself to stay with them once when Andrew was a baby (he was my Godson) but for the next few years, personal contact was pretty intermittent.

Margaret was also living her own life much more. She stayed on at Wolverhampton Girls High School until after A levels in 1962. She had already had a succession of boyfriends (Martin Dews, Barry Round, a rather suave older man whose name I can’t recall, but by the time she was 17, she only had eyes for Carl Mansell, who was considered at home to be a nice enough bloke but a very bad influence on her – and they were for ever in trouble for arriving home late. He was thought to be unsettling her, so that school work was secondary and her ideas for a profession, half baked. She discounted PE teaching (which I think my parents would have liked) and settled for Physiotherapy, getting a place on the course at the Royal Hospital and being expensively fitted out for it, but then throwing it up within a few months of starting. She then got a clerking job at the Express & Star, moving later to work for BT and British Gas. From this time onwards, she was really absorbed into the Mansell family and though she lived with the rest of us at Beechwood Drive – you would hardly have known it: coming in and going out in a relatively short space of time. When she did get married, I doubt if housekeeping and cooking were rated too highly among her accomplishments!

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DavidLooking at the photographs, I can see that at the age of 11, David was thinner than me – and stayed that way through adolescence. He certainly had more of an interest in sport than I did and at Codsall, played regularly for the school team at football and cricket, whilst I played cricket once for the school, I think. At the end of our first term at the Muni, (Wolverhampton Municipal Grammar School - WMGS), both of us were described in our Reports as ‘should develop into a very useful Rugby player’. It was true of him, but never of me!

In our first year we were put into the same class (1B) but streamed at the end of that year and separated. He went into 2B and I don’t recall that we ever had lessons together again: we were either taught in class groups or later with options, he chose sciences whilst I did arts and languages. Our performance in O levels was not dissimilar – lowish grades but enough of them to get us into Sixth form and places in higher education.

He played for school teams throughout his school life and also for Wolverhampton Rugby Club Colts XV. He sang in the school choir and when the House Music Competition was founded, worked with me at a duet each year, which generally we won. He sang the role of the Guardsman in ‘Iolanthe’ and was Head of Drake House. All in all, a school career showing character and roundedness, without the need for undue effort.

Outside school, David developed friendships with the group that hung around Claregate Playing field, with Eric Pullin and ‘went out’ with Rosemary Stirling, a girl who had arrived from New Zealand, lived in Pendeford Avenue and had a reputation as a sprinter to be watched. He sang for a short time (at Ken Greenway’s instigation) in the Choir at Christ the King and we were confirmed together, and later became involved in Tettenhall Anglican Young People’s Association and went on camps at Yeaton Pevery and Ilam. At one of those he met a girl called Joan who was cooking at Dovedale House and who eventually got a job at Wightwick Court School, in order to be near to him. I think that that faded by the time he went to Cheltenham.

We worked together at the Tax Office some holidays when we were over 15 and occasionally he would work with Dad at the Market, but not often, because of team games on Saturdays. As time went on, we did relatively little together apart from sharing a bedroom, but that suited us both. Our interests and outlooks increasingly moved apart, so that neither of us found the prospect of the separation of leaving home at 18 in different directions anything other than normal. To all intents and purposes, twins we may be, but perfectly separable ones!

MeI suppose that by the time I moved from Primary to Grammar School, I was beginning to discover my individuality. What can I pinpoint now? I was always willing to help with organisational things – various monitorial tasks developed that and with it came a sense of my own importance and knowledge that I could have a place in the scheme of things! At about this time, I also started taking myself to Church, either for Sunday School – where again I would ‘help’ – or to the main service, where I was invited by Jack Hayward to become a Server. Reading lessons, speaking prayers, eventually leading a Sunday School class – all helped me to grow in confidence in the presence of adults and helped me to feel that contributing brought its own satisfaction.

In the 1st year, we were ‘unstreamed’ in Wolverhampton Municipal Grammar School (WMGS). David and I were together in 1B, with Gilbert Cleeton as our form teacher (also teaching science). The School buildings in Newhampton Road, Wolverhampton, had been the ‘Higher Grade School’ when first opened and then became the Wolverhampton Secondary School in 1921, with our Mother as a pupil. After the 1944 Education Act its named changed to the Municipal Grammar School and survived as a selective co-ed Grammar School until Comprehensive education came in the 1970s, when it became part of Colton Hills High School, established on a new site. Its Head was Gilbert Douel, who seemed a distant figure-head to us, only seen at assembly or when he had to be visited to request an exeat for some reason. But he ran a

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tight ship and in a system where perhaps the first pick of grammar pupils had been creamed by Wolverhampton Grammar and High Schools, he established respectable patterns of achievement, leading to a good proportion of students (for the early 60s) going onto further education at College or University. He attracted competent staff and over the years, staff who had been part of the school for many years retired and their replacements brought fresh insights, interests, skills and a more modern approach to education. There was a healthy balance between academics, sport, the arts and other pursuits and pupils were increasing encouraged to contribute across a range of interests. During my first year, I went with three others to the BBC in Birmingham for a qualifying round of ‘Top of the Form’ or its then equivalent, but we didn’t succeed.

I can’t recall being thrown in any way by the transition to subject learning. There was plenty that was new – French, Latin, Science (we had done very little at Codsall) – but most of it was taken in my stride and whilst not feeling that I was particularly good at anything, I ended up that first year as top in final exams and went into the A stream in the second year. But something then changed – more competition, or the need to apply myself more carefully or adolescence – and I spent the next two years at the bottom of the class of 31 right through to the times of being in selected sets when ‘position’ didn’t count so much. It never bothered me, but the sorts of comments my reports carried suggested that it should have done! I ended up doing far more languages than was sensible for me, with German added to the list (the only subject I can recall being badly taught until the teacher, through ill health, was replaced) and should have switched to Greek and been in a group of two from which there would have no escape! When given the chance I chose History, Art and Biology and eventually (only picking up Latin whilst in the Upper Sixth) ended up with 9 ‘O’ levels. My gradings were modest (except for a ‘1’ in RE), but quite good enough to get me into the 6th form.

We had some impressive teachers. Perhaps the one who influenced me most was Roy Steel, head of English and 6th form teacher. He had been at the school for the best part of 20 years and was of huge personal integrity. He was a ‘character’, high-minded - an aesthete, with interests in music and drama. He and his wife Alice, were members of the Wolverhampton Shakespeare Society and the New Midland Players, that I started to attend (with others) when about 15. They were Quakers – characteristically so. She would come in to provide cover sometimes and was warm in spirit. Roy would give time to pupils who needed it and always showed an interest in me. He helped with preparing for House Music Competitions and at one stage gave me a number of books that had belonged to Gerald Dudley, senior French master, who died shortly after retiring. Their daughter was a nurse who contracted hepatitis from a patient and died. They bore their grief nobly, but it aged both of them.

Throughout my school life I had quite a lot to do with Ken Greenway (BMus FRCO DMus), who lived at Palmers Cross and therefore a frequent provider of lifts, even when we moved to Wightwick. He had a reputation for socialising with boys, but I never had any cause for disquiet! He was always full of entertaining stories and wasn’t beyond a little staff-room gossip. Music lessons were fun (if you were interested at all). He offered to try to get me playing the piano again, but soon realised that I was a lost cause. For a short time he became organist and choirmaster at Christ the King, but it didn’t last long. Later he played at Queen Street Congregational Church and then Shrewsbury Abbey. We had plenty of opportunities for choral singing, with Choir events happening a couple of times a year, and trying quite ambitious things (‘The Heavens are Telling’, ‘Zadok the Priest’, The Plovotsian Dances’, ‘Carmen’ etc) In our later years we started doing G & S and I was involved (backstage through being in another school production at the time) in HMS Pinafore and the following year as Lord Mountararat in Iolanthe. I was Choir librarian for a time and during my 5th year in his form, often his printing assistant – running off endless copies on the spirit duplicator.

I must also mention Miss EM Mountain, senior mistress, who led for my English A level and produced ‘A Penny for a Song’ by John Whiting. “How can I teach the beauties of Shelley and Wordsworth in a room filled with empty milk bottles?” She went to considerable pains to get me to improve my prose style in the

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Lower Sixth. By the time we were ready to leave and she to retire, she was already in the early stages of Alzheimers and was being shepherded around a bit. She’d spent most of her teaching career at WMGS and was also active in the local National Trust, that opened up Wightwick Manor and Moseley Old Hall during the early 60s. Soon after retirement, she went into a Quaker Home in York. The girls pictured here were my contemporaries. Libby Race (to the left of ‘Maggie’) was always a favourite with me, but specialised in older boyfriends.

I was also extremely well taught in RE, especially for A level, by John Vickers (NT) and particularly John Highfield (OT). I was given excellent grounding ready for degree work later. John Vickers took the A level group to London, to visit the British Museum, The Kingsway Mission, John Wesley’s House and Chapel. We stayed in some fairly rough hostel in Brixton. It was an experience!

Extra-curricula activitiesIn the earlier years, I saw virtually nothing of anyone from school in the rest of my life. Groups of friends came in other ways. Whilst at Codsall, David and I had gone happily to Cubs and ‘went up’ into Scouts, but didn’t care for it so much and with losing contact with the majority of lads, gradually drifted away. But we built relationships with groups of friends with whom we spent large amounts of time centred on Claregate Playing Fields, that were commissioned at this time. I played with David Ingham in Knights Crescent, and his older sister Janet encouraged us in finding out a little more about the facts of life (no practical tuition though). Within the group were Brian Ashford, Noel ?, Roger Tovel, Clive Nichols (who had a nickname that now escapes me) and ‘Fish’ – Robert Starling. Wendy and Linda Dewes were also part of this group and provided first experience of snogging.

As a result of starting to teach a Sunday School class, I went in 1962 & 63 to Summer Camps organised for Sunday School teachers from the Diocese, one in Whitby and the other in Clevedon. These were fun, with others a little older from other parts of the Diocese with whom one got quite close – for a short period of time, anyway.

I met a number of others in the same age group that were similarly involved at Tettenhall, including Janet Oliver and Paul Lockett. This added considerably to every aspect of my education! Thus began a close relationship with Janet that lasted for several years, and although we were not involved romantically for very long, out of it grew a friendship that extended to her parents and sustained me as I struggled towards adulthood. Family life in the large flat at Henwood Manor (the other half of which was Tettenhall Vicarage and the whole owned by the Borrett family) was interestingly different from my home experience and the levels of discussion and mutual involvement exciting. Tom Oliver was Works Manager of the Canon Gas factory in Coseley. He became one of my referees for ACCM and sadly, I shared in the taking of his funeral service when he died after a heart attack in the mid 70s.

Paul Lockett was the son of the local stonemason and lived by St Michael’s, Tettenhall. Here, for the first time, was someone of the same age who shared my interests and aspirations and we hung around together for a couple of years until some difference of opinion or other blew our friendship away. He was the oldest of five children, two of whom were to die before reaching adulthood. Life at 6 Lower Street (which included a lodger) was very different from anything I’d experienced. The parents had a social life centred on the pub and both lived on fairly short fuses. Money always seemed to be an issue – working in the family firm I knew something of! With Paul, when 14, I took part in a Sunday School Teachers’ Diocesan Summer School at Carr Hall, Sleights in Yorkshire and met various other people who were to feature in my life over the next few years. I went a second year to Clevedon in Somerset. All of us went to different schools - Janet to Bilston Girls High and Paul to the Regis School.

We all met up in being members of the Anglican Young People’s Association (AYPA) though Janet came of Methodist stock and eventually reverted to non-conformity at St Columba’s, Finchfield! Membership of this national organisation was a real feature of my teenage life. It brought out my talents in organising (and I held office at Diocesan level – Vice President when 17/18) and the local branches would meet up for socials and weekends and residential holidays at St Margaret’s School, Yeaton Peverey and later at Dovedale House, Ilam. This provided lots of opportunities for meeting a wider age range of

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people, some of whom were married – AYPA had people in their 20s and introduced me to Anne and Dennis Smith from Pelsall. AYPA helped to provide a context in which faith issues could be explored and owned, but perhaps gave a little more licence that would traditionally have been allowed. The lids were coming off allsorts of things. Perhaps it was just a normal process of growing up and people discovering things about themselves they only half-suspected or feared. Certainly it fostered lots of vocations and nurtured discipleship. Arriving in Newcastle Diocese in 2001, I discovered that it had been just as influential here as it had been in Lichfield, in the 50s and 60s. Its day was done by the mid 70s and I’m not sure that it continues to exist.

From the age of 15, I wasn’t ever short of money. I started earning with holiday jobs (Wolverhampton Tax Office on several occasions) and with my father at the stall in Wolverhampton Market. I eventually worked Saturdays and for part of most school holidays. Earning 5/- an hour was princely and added to my £1 pocket money, enabled me to finance most of the things I wanted to do. It did however, take up quite a lot if time – the thing that got squeezed, was school work, not that I ever considered that it required more. I must have been totally deaf to any teaching (if any) we were given about study principles! I enjoyed working for my father – it showed me another side of him. It also appealed to my sense of business and I enjoyed the contact with the public and other staff. What I did I was quite good at, but I never seriously considered taking the business on, and my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to.

We lived at 82 Codsall Road, Claregate, until 1963 and then moved to 11 Beechwood Drive, Wightwick. At this point I moved Church. I had been baptised at St Michael’s and brought up at the daughter church of Christ the King, Aldersley, where I was prepared for confirmation by Revd Humphrey York in 1961. I was taught there to serve and also acted as assistant Sacristan when Jack Hayward was away. I taught in the Sunday School, helped with social events and put myself about a bit. I’d also been regular in attendance at occasional mid-week services at St Michael’s and for a year or so, happily ‘shadowed’ Ernie Nicklin, the Verger. But on moving, I introduced myself at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Castlecroft and found there a rather more modest churchmanship but an interesting group of people roughly my own age. So for a couple of years, I got quite involved in Good Shepherd and in the parish of Tettenhall Wood – destined to feature again in my life at a later stage. I was interested in liturgy and its performance, in music and its contribution and in mixing with people who were growing up in a Christian context. I mixed the churches and youth groups together and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Through a friendship with Andrew Wilkinson (a few years older than me at WMGS), I was introduced to the Brethren at Thornley Street, and discovered a more immediate way of worshipping, in which ritual played no part.

What else happened during this time? For a while I attended school Rugby matches and wrote reports on the games for the ‘Express & Star’. During two or three summers I frequented Codsall Cricket Club (where John played) or Tettenhall Cricket Club at Danescourt and either scored or kept the scoreboard (a free tea came with either). In my early teenage years, I often caddied at South Staffs Golf Course (Tettenhall – opposite us on Codsall Road) for 4/6 a time plus the possibility of a tip. I can recall now the beauty of an early summer’s morning, with the dew still heavily on the ground. At school we were given free tickets for organ recitals and the occasional concert at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall. One year I was second in the Wolverhampton branch of the International Toastmasters’ Speech-making Competition. I went to a residential Schoolboy Conference organised by CACTM7 at Jesus College Oxford in 1964 and met Deans and Bishops and public schoolboys. I asked a question at one of the sessions which left the speaker (Dean Carpenter of Westminster I think) saying that he would have to think about it over night. When he replied I didn’t understand a word. I think it was ‘why if children in a family were brought up in the same way, some might be ‘religious’, but others not’. I was in a second floor room with loos in the basement – I learned about peeing in the basin – and I’m afraid that I helped myself to the occupant’s coffee. I crept down at night to the conference bookstall to buy a copy of ‘He and She’ – the nearest thing to a sex manual at that time. The following year I went to a local equivalent at the Royal School, Wolverhampton and met Ian Beer (on his way to becoming Headmaster of Harrow) and the Earl of March – a prominent, youngish layman who later kicked over the traces in some way. I also met Peter Barnett, whom I met again at St Chad’s, Durham. During my sixth form years I took part on a performance of

7 Churches Advisory Council for Training for the Ministry – precursor of ACCM, ABBM and now Ministry Division!

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‘Macbeth’ with the Shakespeare Society and in a couple of plays with the New Midland Players, for which we rehearsed at Compton Grange. I also went as a delegate (I’m not sure now for whom) to the Wolverhampton Council for Youth, the purpose of which was never very clear to me, but no doubt I thought it would look good on my University application form and CV.

So it was a rich time really. I marvel at how much I got away with and I was allowed to do. Sometimes there was payback: One morning in the school holidays, the phone rang at home. It was one of the secretaries asking if I would come into school – they had a job for me. The previous year I must have helped one of the staff with responsibility for the timetable (an absolute nightmare before computers and still difficult now) to draw the grid for the master copy that hung on the wall in the Secretary’s office. Evidently, no-one had thought about it this time, but an eagle eyed Mr Douel had noticed a tiny ‘CRG’ in the bottom right hand section. ‘Send for Gough’, he must have said, ‘Ask him to do it again’ – so I did!

© Colin Gough August 2008 and May 2009 June 2013

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