Burnley Grammar School

John - your 'foggy' post of 1/9/22.

I remember one misty morning years back, running with friends down a field lane and a stag appearing out of the mist and pacing us for a few seconds. Magic!

T

Simon on 1st September 2022 at 14:09

You are right, Bill Turnbull at 66 was very young to die of prostate cancer and as I said, more men die with it than because of it.

That said, if you develop one of the virilent forms it will kill you. They way it generally does is by what are commonly known as secondaries - or metastatic cancer more accurately. From the prostate it spreads to more vital parts/organs so in the liver, bowel or bones it is far more likely to kill you. Once you have developed metastatic cancer it is much more difficult to treat, chemo will sometimes delay the progress but it is no longer operable/reversible.

Once again, if you are at ANY risk, please get checked.

Gentlemen, I've always been passionate about men's health issues, they are under funded and not as much to the fore as they should be. I will check back here for the next couple of mornings and be happy to try and answer any questions anyone wants to post but on Monday, I'm going away for the remainder of September and I will be 'off line' until I get back.

Many thanks for the interest. Yes,, you got it right New Brunswick in Canada.

I've been asked about rivalry from my four siblings who didn't go to a grammar like me, their eldest brother, well not really. They all still went to a well regarded secondary school close to the family home. They were all lucky in that regard as they could all just walk to school inside 15 minutes, or ride on a bike in 5 minutes and not leave home until about a quarter to nine most mornings and be back before 4pm. Whereas my grammar was actually nearly 20 miles from home and I had to rely on various methods of getting there from my dad taking me many times, to a bus, taxis and other lifts over the years. It meant I often left home long before 7.30am many days and on some of the worst days it could be gone 5.30pm or even 6pm before I actually got home. Not so bad in summer but a drag in winter, out in the dark and back in the dark. That was a long day especially with a stack of homework almost every night.

But as those I was at grammar with were not local to me I couldn't see them easily after school and rarely did. Then those who I had been in primary school with and lived nearby also kind of drifted away from me so I fell between the cracks so to speak. It seemed like a lot of work and very little play in term time, unlike the rest of my brothers and sister who I was sometimes rather more envious of than they were of me I think.

I never got too many chances in the week to get outside and do anything like the others, on bikes and all that. It was my dad who pushed for me to go the grammar route. Why me and not the others after me I never really got to the bottom of. They were all just as intelligent as me, no thickos in our family.

I remember the school rugby top was actually quite a dull pink and I would wear it at home sometimes during weekends. I played after I left school until my early twenties but haven't since.

I mentioned how I got a lot of confidence through sport and the requirements came easily to me. My grammar P.E definitely made me quite fit and pleased with how I looked by the age of 15. If anything I was guilty of over confidence at times looking backwards. I went through a phase where I would walk around the house much of the weekend without any top on at all and would even forget about it and once went to a neighbours and came back to a maternal berating for "making myself a laughimng stock" according to my mum at the time!

I remember comparing with my brother two years younger than me what he was doing at his school compared to me at grammar and as far as P.E goes much of it seemed remarkably similar. I think I might have had a wider range of choices but he seemed to do a lot more swimming at his secondary than I did at my grammar. But me and my brothers had all learnt to swim with an out of school intructor friend of the family at the nearby lido by the age of 8 with most of the strokes.

Unlike nowadays both myself at grammar and my brothers at secondary all seemed to do our gymwork inside predominently not wearing any tops at all. Yet the art of doing gym like this seems to have been lost over the past twenty years or so. Yet I actually think it is more likely to give the majority confidence in themselves and a healthy attitude to their own and others bodies by doing gymwork like that, rather than give people a nervous breakdown.

I'm thankful my harrasser/bully in school for the year was kicked out when I was 13 and also that he was not in my actual class. If he had been then just maybe my story would not have proved quite so okay in the end. Do you know what, even after more than forty years I have often wondered if I should own up to taking the cash from the family money tin all those years ago. You never quite let go despite everything you end up achieving and moving onto as an adult.

Agreed. Loved the foggy footy memory. That really made me smile. It sounds slightly comical that you plodded on with a game like that.

I'm a member of a golf club and often go out quite early for a few rounds with a couple of others and one occasion it was still a dense heavy lingering summer fog/mist taking ages to clear so we obviously just went into the club house for breakfast, a drink and came home not hitting a shot.

Simon I am not a doctor but I think I remember reading that prostate cancer is more likely to spread to other organs than other cancers. Terrible illness, wherever you get it though.

If you have the PSA test and the results are within certain prescribed tolerances, the you do not normally need the DRE.

Matthew P - "The funniest lesson I ever had was on 30th November that year. Fog so dense you couldn't see anyone and your shouting voice got well and truly muffled. Yet we persevered for an hour of football with a white ball we could barely set eyes on half the time and some of us running off the pitch without being noticed and our PE teacher trying to work out where we all were. "

Couldn't help laughing out loud at this, as it reminded me of watching the England-Hungary football match of 1956 (I think it was) on an old black and White TV. Fifty shades of grey with a vengeance.

Hugh, 66 seems very young for that. My own grandfather was taken by it at 91 but I remember it being said that people get it but live with it and get taken by something else along the way, is that accurate?

Silly question alert but how exactly is prostate cancer alone meant to take you? I'll admit to being one of those who probably doesn't take it seriously compared to other vital areas. I don't even know if there is a proper screening programme in the UK.

Gentlemen,

In the news today we learn that Bill Turnbull, former BBC Breakfast presenter has died and the cause was prostate cancer. He was 66, far too young. RIP.

I guess many who post here are aged 50+ and so are in the 'at risk' group.

At it's worst, it's a very nasty cancer of the worst and most virulent sort (Bill Turnbull had this), fortunately most cases are not of that type and much milder and even if you develop it in a milder form, you will probably die of old age before it kills you but if you get what Bill had and don't get treated - he recounted on air that he ignored the symptoms, you will not live too long. Unless you are screened, you don't know whether you have it or not in the early stages. Like anything else, it's easier and more effective to treat something caught early. Leave it and the probability of effective treatment diminishes every day.

The screening is not absolute, mistakes do happen but some screening is better than none. It's simple and straightforward, a blood test called a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) and a DRE - a rectal exam by your GP using a gloved finger, it doesn't hurt and takes about fifteen seconds. Your life and health are worth that.

Please think about it seriously.

Matthew P: No you are not alone!. To this day I always feel reminders of the school year starting - more so this year, as one of my neighbours has an 11 year old just about to start his Comprehensive school. He has to go for the first time tomorrow (Friday) for the induction. He is looking forward to it, so I said not a word. It concerns me that this lad has a limp and is quite sensitive. Knowing how kids can be so cruel. It doesn't help that the local comprehensive has a certain reputation for would be "gangsta" type culture, with aspiring rappers.....


Comment by: Roy C on 31st August 2022 at 22:32
Punished for rubbings out or smudges on TD work Alan? Surely not. What kind, not cane surely. Couldn't quite grasp what you were suggesting clearly enough...... Never remember any girls doing TD. Do they even do TD in school nowadays?

Hi Roy, I wasn't suggesting anything except to say this man had a formidable temper. Blackboard rubbers got slung about by him as a sort of warning. He would often start a lesson (TD was always the first subject on a Friday morning) by saying that he was in a bad mood that day and "woe-betide" (yes that word dredged out as late as the 1980s) anyone who annoyed him. It was possible to get the slipper for what he called dirty work, and sometimes the cane if he had only just given a warning about making marks or letting him see our mistakes. Usually only one or two strokes, but that was one or two too many. We had a couple of women teachers and there were times when they would threaten any lad who upset them with "sending them to Mr. B-----", so his reputation preceded him. I have to say they rarely did.

It was an all boys school so I don't know if any girls ever did it, but you are right, I doubt it is taught these days, as schools would probably teach CAD (Computer Aided Design), so I was lucky that I was one of the last to learn the subject. Back in the early 80s, no computer would have been capable of it (Uncle Clive's ZX80 and ZX81, even his famous Speccy would have been useless, as would have been the much vaunted BBC Micro). Anyway most school would only have had a few, or perhaps jut one. and we had none at all. I think there was some clunky programs for the 286/386 PCs by the mid 80s, operating under Windows 3.1. I don't know what the Macs were capable of, though the Mac SE30s must have had some capability, given their price - but they would certainly have been out of the price range for ordinary common or garden state schools

If they did have TD now, I suppose girls would have to be taught it otherwise MPs would regard it a sexist not to include them

Long after leaving school does August 31st still have a bit of a mental mindset effect on anyone else like it does to me as September 1st is about to come along with all that new school year sensation about it even in a household without any school age kids about.

My first September at secondary school in 1982 the PE teacher told us that September was always guaranteed to be a nice month and we'd spend as much time outside doing PE as we could even for our scheduled inside class of the week. It duly delivered a nice warm and dry month but by Christmas he was taking us out in all kinds of grotty weather making us as wet, freezing, dirty and miserable as he could manage topped off by the regulation compulsory shower where you try to squeeze about 30 naked boys during the same three minutes into a space built for no more than 15 and pretend to get clean but still come out whiffing of body odour.

The funniest lesson I ever had was on 30th November that year. Fog so dense you couldn't see anyone and your shouting voice got well and truly muffled. Yet we persevered for an hour of football with a white ball we could barely set eyes on half the time and some of us running off the pitch without being noticed and our PE teacher trying to work out where we all were.

If you didn't have anything at school like the above then you missed out.

Great days.

Punished for rubbings out or smudges on TD work Alan? Surely not. What kind, not cane surely. Couldn't quite grasp what you were suggesting clearly enough. One of my most constantly niggly teachers was a TD chap. Never a lesson without some boy pulled out of his chair and a shouting session going off. Never remember any girls doing TD. Do they even do TD in school nowadays?

Hi Garth. The good news/bad news for me at school was that my best subject was Technical Drawing, and the bad news was one of our two cane specialists - any signs of rubbing out, or smudges............. at least the subject was of use to me after I left school, and still today. It is a pity though when teachers don't try to encourage, because you can get more out of students when you encourage rather than punish. This particular teacher was also our science teacher, and that wasn't one of my best subjects!

Comment, Garth Maidment on 31-Aug-22 @ 3.09am.
I'm working in Fredericton (where? - look it up!) where it's just after 11pm again as I write.


Must admit you had me interested enough to look that one up and a very nice part of far eastern Canada it looks too, New Brunswick, which I had heard of, as Tim mentioned. One of those places that has magnificent autumn (fall) displays in that part of the world such as over the border in New Hampshire and that part of the world about to explode with vibrant colours. I've a geography O level Tim and never knew that part was called The Maritimes, thanks for teaching me something. Always learning!

It was somewhat amusing to see the judgement being made based purely on the time of day somebody left their comment. Time differences in this case, night work like Robbie mentioned in his case, straight forward insomniacs or even those who may be depressed and able to function best at night.

Another judgement was that because you had a year from hell as you described it, then it must have meant your whole schooling was much the same. Yet here you are coming through with a highly positive general state of mind and outlook probably not what some expected to hear. Good for you. You actually seemed at that age to be comfortable in your own skin and that is the key foundation to confidence and therefore a naturally positive stance that flows from it. Yet even in your case you managed to get it knocked out of you for a period of time in school.

Two further points, I found your realisation you actually liked doing rugby quite interesting. Doing it was better than thinking about it maybe, like so many things can be. I wonder if anyone else here had a similar discovery over something they thought they wouldn't like and took to and enjoyed in PE or for that matter any other school aspect.

Like Tim, I'd also like to hear about why you as oldest and not your 4 siblings got the grammar chance and the effects, if any it had amongst you.

Garth

Thanks for your post - New Brunswick, I suspect, must be starting to enjoy 'Fall' at this time.

I found your post interesting, especially the comments about your brothers & sister going to the local comp. whilst you went to the local Grammar. Just out of interest, was there any rivalry or friction between them & you over this?

Your phrase:
'bullied (I still have trouble with using that word about myself) was possibly some kind of misplaced jealousy' - Yes - I can agree and relate to that - even into adulthood.
Enjoy the Maritimes!
T

I'm working in Fredericton (where? - look it up!) where it's just after 11pm again as I write. A couple of nights ago it was also about 11pm when I sat down and penned my piece. But thanks anyway for the charmless night time keyboard warrior jibe, it takes a lot of effort to sustain such unpleasantness.

Many thanks for the other reply Alan. Aside from the little story I told my own education was quite decent and I was the oldest of five children and the only one my parents made the effort to put me through a grammar school. My three brothers and sister all went to local comprehensives but all bar one have done equally well for themselves. None of my brothers or sister had any major problems at school with anybody so it was rather ironic I suppose that I came across somebody like I did early on in my grammar.

I was one of those really fortunate types who gradually excelled academically at a range of subjects but also sportswise too whether as a team player or individually. When I arrived I thought I'd hate rugby for instance and ended up really liking playing it which surprised me a lot. We also ran very long cross country races and were often encouraged to remove our tops a lot I remember for those. Our gymwork was done without tops and this actually gave me quite a bit of body confidence by my mid teens and sharing showers with nothing on and lessons with my body out came to me quite naturally. A good job because I liked getting messy throwing myself about at rugby although washing the kit was a different matter altogether. I wrecked and tore quite a bit of kit.

I think the reason I was targeted, harrassed or bullied (I still have trouble with using that word about myself) was possibly some kind of misplaced jealousy. But anyone is susceptible to a determined harrasser/bully, and I was just too young by a year or two to be able to deal with it effectively at that moment.

It's not great to hear of others who had less than brilliant lives while they were in school and to be at what amounted to a condemned school where you all knew it sounds quite unsatisfactory and very unfair on not just the pupils who went there but the staff who worked there. But that is still no excuse to just give up on the job and people is it. It sounds soul destroying and if you are a clever or very clever pupil at such a place then it's going to leave one long shadowy legacy which I presume it has in your case.

Terry on 30th August 2022 at 16:36

Says the lad who blacked an eye and was too frightened to own up. But you do tell a story of miserable school days so Alan will approve of you.

What did I say that wasn't true?

I keep asking this but all I get is abuse.

You can dish out the criticisms but you can't take them can you Andy.

Barney on 28th August 2022 at 10:09

I will be away for most of September but I will turn up one Saturday soon after I'm back and see how you are playing, I think I know exactly who you are!

Garth Maidment on 29th August 2022 at 03:09

A night time keyboard warrior posting just the sort of story Alan likes about being unhappy at school. Had you not been unhappy his response would have been so different to the one he posted at Alan on 29th August 2022 at 14:05. Strange isn't it.

Jim on 29th August 2022 at 11:47

Not aware of the echo chamber? You must be deaf. We have hysteria posted about Litherland where a number of boys got the slipper and STOPP turned it into a political drama as they were prone to do.

One poster who AFAIK was new to the board posted some objective criticism of what was being said including putting the numbers into some sort of statistical framework which removed the hysteria and resulted in objective fact and the hysterical echo chamber rounded on him for all that he continued to say. Not surprisingly that poster left the board as quickly as he joined as many do who don't fit the agenda of school was a terrible place where everyone was unhappy and there was serial abuse.

That's why I don't fit because I was never abused and I loved school, particularly sport.

I must say I loved the interaction between Barney and Hugh and the possibility that you might have crossed paths with each other. If you really have that's a great coincidence.

Thankyou for sharing your story Garth.

It would be wrong to call it an enjoyable read but it was nicely said and I hope it didn't leave you with any long term concerns. You went to a good school too, sometimes they are even worse than your average achieving comprehensives.

Trying to work out people's behaviour is so often a forlorn task.

Garth Maidment: My old school in London was knocked down a year or so after I left, and it always gave me great pleasure to see it as a rebuilt branch of Tesco - though I never felt I could go in it because I would have remembered the locations where everything bad that had happened took place.

It was good that you had a teacher that finally found the lad who had made your life a misery at it, so to speak, and was able to help bring about an end to it. Sadly he probably behaved exactly the same to somebody else at his new school, but I am glad for you that it ended in your case.

The problem in my school was that you had a few teachers who would turn a blind eye to misbehavour and thereby encouraged it. It was known for a few years that our school was earmarked for closure, so therefore it didn't encourage the best teachers, and most of them were just hanging on, longing for retirement, and wanting a quiet life

It is amazing how you always remember those bad times, and I can honestly say that, though I now work for myself, none of the jobs I had after I left school ever gave me the problems school had, as nobody I worked with or for was as bad.

I'm not aware this has been an 'echo chamber' actually. Plus until all this recent antisocial activity on here I thought we'd had rather a lot of 'useful' comment and debate about many kinds of different things.

But some do want an echo chamber and have a low tolerance for any view that sits quite different from their own life experience or general life thinking. That's why we have had some of this poor attitude and wishes to cancel others with what are classed as the 'wrong' views. Robert Coulson last week was the perfect example of this when he got hit upon.

I agree with Tony, and I, too was astonished, and said so, that a man with 43 years teaching experience could be dismissed as having "limited" experience. That period of time equates to the majority of a working life.

The M.P you mentioned was Lucy Powell, but there could be even worse on the way:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-62687966


I hope HE didn't behave like that at school!

Alan it looks like you've got yourself an online stalker here doesn't it.

A bit of a chameleon too, shapeshifting himself. What a prize prat eh.

This takes me back to a year from hell I had at school during my 1978/79 school year, my second year at Royal Latin Grammar a school in Buckingham at the age of 12 to 13. For some reason unknown by me to this day another boy from the year above who I didn't previously know as we shared no classes together except seeing each other around school outside of lessons and breaks/lunchtimes etc seemed to take a dislike to something about me and began pestering me, occasionally at first but them more so, often even when I was in a group of friends, but also when by myself. It began with comments about silly things, then he kept on about me having a liking for cindy dolls. I didn't even like or ever have an action man for boys. I didn't even look girly so not sure where that came from. I got this quite a lot. I tried my best to pay him no attention but then things got worse and it developed into sustained harrassment. I always felt ashamed to admit to and use the word bullying as it felt like it made me weak in some way but it was very much that. It escalated into taking food off me, wafers and chocolate or fruit that we could eat in break times. He grabbed an entire Marathon bar I'd just unwrapped out of my hand one day while I was talking with friends and stood nearby scoffing it down in front of me, shamelessly. I never reported it. Another
time it was a bag of sweets emptied over the floor. Then for a period of a few months he began blackmailing me into bringing in food from home so he could just nick it off me out of lessons. Foolishly I did this for a few weeks for a quiet life and spent my time gathering sweets, biscuits and other snacks from the kitchen cupboards at home as a kind of currency to buy him off. I wasn't smaller than him, physically weaker than him, other than being a year or so younger. But I had no clue why he did this to me and went out to push himself into my day to day school life like he did. We literally had no reason to have ever crossed paths under normal circumstances. It was a long time after he began harrassing me before I even found out what his name was. I never told him mine but he found it out. Like so much of this kind of thing it escalated despite my best efforts, physical taunting, prodding, poking and grabbing, then I was pushed to the floor one day and I hit the back of my head very hard, it came up with a bump. There were witnesses but I brushed it off and got up. I ended up raiding a money tin at home and over a three month period took what must have been about £40 from it to be able to buy stuff to keep this harrassing older boy at bay. That was an enormous amount of money in cash at the time and although the money tin at home had a lot more where it came from I can't believe it wasn't noticed although nobody ever said anything. My good friends now noticed all this escalation and were horrified and wanted me to report it all. I refused to do so to anyone, as I said, it felt like an admission of weakness on my part that I'd allowed it to happen to me. But things did come to a head during an afternoon break when one of my teachers finally caught me being harrassed again at a quiet part of the playing fields and he was making an attempt to remove my trousers quite forcefully. He failed and was caught in the act. The rest of it all came out and some of my friends were able to corroborate what had been going on for nearly a year. He was expelled shortly afterwards and gone for good. I have no idea why it happened to me or why I was latched onto by that person for that school year like that. You can't help but look to blame yourself in some way. Previously quite confident it really knocked me back for a long time and made me wary. When somebody comes at you and you don't know why it's unsettling and disorientating to say the least and sticks with you for years just trying to work it out.

I know we are living in an increasingly polarised society with an intolerance of other peoples views. A labour MP has just been spotted wearing a t-shirt proclaiming 'never kissed a tory' as reported on the news tonight for instance. An elected representative! A lot of people are now very fearful of the future and the way the nation is going and genuinely frightened of the coming months ahead and see our country as something they no longer recognise. Mental health problems are piling up and so much is not being dealt with. People are angry, upset, fearful, edgy, anxious, you name it, the negatives massively outweigh the positives and it seems there is no end in sight.

But I do wonder how that polarisation can find its way into a quaint little history forum where a group of mainly older people over 40 come along and talk about how things were and what we got up to way back in our schooldays.

People have always disagreed with each other, that's nothing new, but what is new is the way that so many people now choose to disagree with each other with a strong intolerance of the other opinion. Take Robert the teacher a few days ago for example. What an astonishing reaction to him and because what he said didn't fit in with someone's own view he was basically delegitimised for it. In the past month both the Nicky Campbell school story and my own posting of the Litherland School have led to a strange raising of tension on here. There were other things previously.

After the past few days I've come to my own conclusions about the bad tempered content on here and why it is happening. Some of the previous comments don't appear to me to be too far wide of the mark in my opinion.

Doug on 28th August 2022 at 16:12

May I suggest then you respond to some of the good comment and let's try to bury the echo chamber in useful stuff?

Doug on 27th August 2022 at 17:25

Doug on 28th August 2022 at 12:05

Are you prone to repeating the same pointless statements?

I don't see any useful contributions from you, just criticisms.

Not surprising is it?

Alan.

There is something I don't understand.

Publishing your comment on History World is not instant like so many forums where it appears the moment you click it and send. This forum often takes a minimum of half an hour up to maybe several hours before a comment is published for all to read here. Therefore somebody is reading them and moderating them but continuing to place the obviously disruptive comments instead of weeding them out. I don't understand that part. It's so obvious what is off topic or baiting and should not be published.