I was recently contacted by a former classmate of mine, Arthur Abbot. Arthur kindly sent me a copy of the 1962 Laindon High Road School Speech Day programme with the suggestion that I publish it on the website. I was delighted and hope many of our contributors will also enjoy reading it and find it as interesting as I did.
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I’m pretty sure Mr Hawkins would have joined in 1949. I vaguely remember him teaching gardening before he stepped into teach commercial subjects in 1959/60 to 5X2, when the teacher of these subjects suddenly left. I believe he had learnt shorthand and typing in the forces. He proved his worth by concentrating on bringing our typing speeds up ie 30/40 wpm so us girls would easily find employment and he gave us a sound basis to work from to improve our shorthand at night school if we so wished. I did this and obtained speeds of 110/120 wpm. I also got a better wage because I could type at 40/50 wpm.
He was also the careers officer in 1960 when I left LHR.
I left the school in July 1966 being one of the pupils who left in the 4th year, us leavers were in classes 4P1 and 4P2 those who stayed on into the 5th year graduated from 4X1 and 4X2 to the 5X forms. We were all housed in the wooden building. In late 1965 and early 1966 we enjoyed several benefits that were not available to 4th and 5th year students in previous years these were negotiated by the newly formed 4th year council and granted by the new Head master Mr Walter Day. He loaned us £10 from school funds which enabled us to buy a tea urn so as we could make tea and coffee at break times it also enabled the purchase of some boxed games including chess draughts ludo etc. Another advantage that was negotiated was we were allowed to stay in the building at break times and not have to shiver in the playground during the winter months. Like all loans ours needed to be repaid and with tea and coffee priced at 3 old pence a cup it certainly was not repaid by the time I left in the July of 1966. Just a thought I wonder what Health & Safety would have to say today about a boiling hot urn placed at the back of the classroom for any pupil to turn on the tap to make their brew. Wonderful days I wished now that I should have stayed on another year. Who knows what we could have achieved with Mr Day in charge.
Nina, I’ve just looked at this again with the magnified version. Thanks for working on it. I agree that Mr Hawkins couldn’t have joined in 1949, he maybe started in 59 after the summer break. What about Mr Cluff, joining in 1929, amazing. By summer 1962 there were some weird class numberings going on, I can see that Vanessa Crew and Josie Beasley were in 4A which I take it as being those who would not be staying on. What on earth were 4P1 and 4P2? Also there were three extended forms, 4X, 4X2 and 4X3 but the following year only two forms, 5X and 5X2. This 1962 speech day would have been the year you left and sadly, the start of my last year living in Laindon as I left the school in July 1963 aged 16.
Got very excited with this, so many names that I remember. I was in 3RF. I still have all my old school reports and speech day, I don’t know why, as I never enjoyed school..but a few good memories !!
Richard. I’m pleased you like the speech day programme. However, unfortunately it’s as good as it gets with the scanned images received. I will contact my classmate and ask if he could re-scan it at a higher resolution and re-send it to me. If he is able to do so, I will make the necessary replacement. Please bear with me.
I was surprised to read that Mr Hawkins was appointed in 1949. I thought he joined the school much later than that – I remember you and I having a discussion about that a while back.
I was also surprised to read that speech day in 1962 took place on my 16th birthday!
What a lovely article Nina. I remember a lot of the teachers’ names. I was there 1965-70 and my sister was there from 1963-1967.
Nina, thanks for adding this LHR speech day programme. What a wonderful thing to have been hidden away. I wondered if you could please re-post it page by page large enough for a 70 year old boy to read. I can see vaguely the names of many of my teachers and friends but not all are entirely clear. I well remember with a little humour, the name of Mr Alma Hatt and how it caused some laughter among us boys. Certainly I was not on the list of award winners on that day but had taken the 3rd year Technical Drawing prize in 1961 with high marks. Some early career starts for some of our teachers too with a few mentioned as commencing in the 1930s.
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