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Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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Viewing messages 471 to 480

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Mike,

Thanks so much for your update on the 75th anniversary dinner. It sounds like a really good evening.

You have certainly set yourself a huge task to transcribe all of the information that has been uncovered, " Watch this space" you say - we most certainly will and wish you all the best in the task.

There have been suggestions that it may be possible for some old boys to have a look around the "new" school. Organising such events which rapidly become something like the reunion of several years ago is,I know, horrendous but I wonder if it is, or could be, on the radar?

Mon 28-May-2012 20:53 - Ruskington, Lincolnshire

From Mike T: Yes, it's certainly a huge task. As well as clearing a small backlog of material, the main task at the moment is to scan (or re-scan) the form photos from 1955, and to put definitive names to them.

Most of the admission registers and pupil records have already been digitised, but transcribing them really is a huge job.

Although I hope that the site will benefit, my real thought is to give the school a well-documented archive for genealogical researchers and future generations.

As for looking around the school, I'm expecting there to be an Open Evening event some time in July. It will be open to all, and Old Boys will be welcome of course.

I don't know what decisions have been made yet, but I'm down at the school tomorrow and may know more then.

Garry Craig | garrycraig~AT~hotmail~DOT~com

Is that Mr Fox P.E.? I have just emailed Mike saying I have some pics of the Sking trip to Italy you were in charge of.

Wed 23-May-2012 00:31 - Southampton

Trevor Denham | trevordenham~AT~sky~DOT~com

The 75th Anniversary Dinner was an excellent evening. Looking around the school brought back some very happy memories. A lot of the character of the old building has been retained and complements the new 6th form facility.
Thanks to the old boys who shared the evening and Mike Todd and Tony Eldridge who performed the school song

Thu 17-May-2012 22:52 - South Shields

Malcolm Fox | malcolm~DOT~fox4~AT~virginmedia~DOT~com

Hi Mike...by pure chance saw a snippet in the Gazette about the Dinner....where else has it been advertised?....regardless.. got on your site and started looking through the photos...I left in 1955 but know that the guy to the right of Bob Smith(looking at the photo) is Les Wardle,currently living in the wilds of Alaska...I may be able to get to the Dinner....cheers, Malcolm...forgot to mention the team was the 1955/6 Rugby Ist xv

Fri 4-May-2012 16:39 - Cleadon Village

From Mike T: Malcolm - I don't think that the dinner has been advertised very widely. There is a handful of Old Boys from these parts going, but quite a few from businesses and the like.

If you're going to go to the dinner I would recommend getting in touch with the school fairly soon as I think they're finalising numbers with the caterers.

And thanks for the name - will update soon.

clouston chalmers | clouston1~AT~shaw~DOT~ca

On the subject of the "right of way" on the East side, I believe it is still there. I have a cousin in law living at #70 Lisle Rd.Second or third house from East Entrance gate. You can access his property from the rear through the High school grounds.
Talking to my two brothers today. Both played "RUGGA" on the YMCA grounds. My older bro. played there when the school grounds when not available. My younger bro. (1953/58)played on them for the under 18 Westoe club.
As to my "Orcadian' roots.
My Dad was born in Stronsay in 1898.
My mother, who was a Clouston, was from Bedlington. However , I'm sure the family is connected in some way.

Wed 2-May-2012 20:57 - Cranbrook BC Canada

From Mike T: When I last looked, there was certainly still a stretch of paved pathway along the rear of numbers 66 to 74. Whether this is a right of way in a general sense is unclear, but it isn't shown on the definitive rights of way map. My understand of the history of that 3yd strip is that every effort was made to avoid its becoming a legal right of way.

Robin Leslie | robinleslie~AT~alumni~DOT~lse~DOT~ac~DOT~uk

Clouston do you have connections with Orkney? The reason why I ask is because my grandmother on my fathers side was an Orcadian and lived next door to a Jenny Clouston and her husband in Osborne Avenue, South Shields (overlooking the original High School site). They were both Orcadians
and I wondered whether you might be related to them in some way? It would be very interesting if you were.

Tue 1-May-2012 21:35 - Buckinghamshire

Robin Leslie | robinleslie~AT~alumni~DOT~lse~DOT~ac~DOT~uk

Tue 1-May-2012 21:35 - Buckinghamshire

clouston chalmers 1941-46 | clouston1 ~AT~ shaw ~DOT~ca

Yes indeed those buildings were purposely built for the school dinner program. Prior to that , we had to walk over to Harton Juniors to have a hot lunch. If I remember correctly, they were cooked there also.
At that time we also had a "pigery" behind the bike sheds, and a victory garden.

Sat 28-Apr-2012 17:50 - Cranbrook BC Canada

From Mike T: That's useful information, Clouston. Thanks.

I have looked at Land Registry files for the school and found that the section at the south of the YMCA field was sold to the Borough in 1938, and is designated as "School Meals Centre" on a plan which seems to be dated 1949.

So I'm guessing that the School Meals Centre was built pretty soon after 1938. I do recall someone hereabouts mentioning that the buildings were used during the war (but they don't show on wartime photos).

There is an additional curiosity in that there was a 3yd-wide track down the entire east side of the land that seems to have been the subject of some confusion.

Initially it ran all the way down to where Marsden Road now is, but when Fairview Avenue was built it led to a gate and stub road). It may have been intended as farm access, but is later subject to its own deeds and transfers.

I do remember that there was something about the gate into Fairview Avenue that meant nobody was allowed to use the gate.

Do you recall when they were built? Obviously some time between '41 and '46, but roughly when. It would help tracking down details.

Thanks

Brian Lawrenson | b~DOT~lawrenson~AT~lineone~DOT~net

Regarding the mystery buildings - I remember in 1952 going into the shorter one on the left with the school scout troop at Christmas for cake and lemonade etc, and at that time it was the canteen used for school dinners. The Scoutmaster at the time was Peter McNeaney and I have a Gazette photo taken in this hall.The YMCA sports field had its own showers - terrible primitive things, which we used very occasionally if we were sent to play soccer/rugby on that area. Could these be the strange tall building in the middle? And could the whole complex have originally been built for the YMCA?

Fri 27-Apr-2012 22:09 - Fife

From Mike T: That's one avenue that I've been trying to pursue.

In the beginning, the farm fields around there were divided into two lots.

One ran from where Marsden Road would eventually be built, south to a few feet from where the road in front of the school would end up.

Owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, it was sold to Smith's Dock Company in 1920, and became Smith's Park. Here Smith's Dock built a pavillion, a WWI memorial and a number of other buildings.

Later, they sold the land in two chunks. As far as I can tell, they sold just over two of the nine acres at the north end for residential development, which became Fairview Avenue.

The remainder was sold in 1928 to the YMCA for £3000, about the same time that the 12-acre L-shaped plot was sold to the Borough Council for the building of an elementary school, but in fact where the High School was built in 1936.

In 1938, the YMCA sold the 1.4 acres at the south end to the council for "education purposes" and this is the land which became the tennis courts, and on which the buildings in question were located.

There is no indication whether the land had those buildings on it at the time and, having examined a number of OS maps, it's not clear when the buildings appeared.

So it's still a bit of a mystery. I've not found anything in any of the school's records, nor in records in the Tyne and Wear Archives, but there are big gaps in the archives.

As for the YMCA showers ... I remember them well. They were indeed primitive, and had only cold water, and being told that you were playing on the YMCA field was a sure sign of the torture to come!

However, this shower block was actually on what initially remained YMCA land, and not on the section we're talking about.

Eventually, the YMCA field itself seems to have been sold to the Council for the school, but that's a conveyance that I cannot locate.

Bruce Graham

Mike

Good luck with your further research on all of the building work at the school.

As I mentioned in a previous reply, I started at the school in 1950 and so lived through almost all of that first expansion.

As I recall the changes were announced in 1951 and work began in 52. For more than a year the school assembly hall existed with a builders cloth partition along the whole of the western side while the new hall extension was constructed in what had been the western courtyard area (opposite the Head's office). Certainly by the summer of 54 the new hall was in use, turned through 90 degrees, in time for the O Level exams that year. The new gymnasium and technology block were also in use by then.

Sat 14-Apr-2012 14:24

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