Some reflections on Heath Grammar School

They’re not very academic I’m afraid; my motivation came after leaving school when I managed to find some direction to my life. Heath Grammar School did not do careers! So... here I go...

Lunchtime at the Donkey Bridge to cop a Double Header and return with flattened pennies.

Tea cake and oxo from the tuck shop, with crisps if you were well off, I wonder if it’s still there.

Ice cream from a van at the back gate bought from an ice cream pervert.

Trips to Ilkley to watch W.M. Bussey and Robert Broughton weaving patterns in opposition defences.

Drinking cider and smoking a pipe on the bus; then throwing the pipe into the Wharfe, followed by my vomit.

God, we were good at rugby, chanting with cheer leaders, what heady days!

Playing stab cricket during French and Latin, Boycott always got a hundred and Trueman bowled South Africa out for peanuts. I played truant, it's ok to say; now the school has closed. One Saturday I went to Bradford Park Avenue to watch Yorkshire play cricket, I was there early so that I could get autographs.

There was the dreaded PD (prefects detention)... write two sides on ‘A day in the life of a milk bottle top’ or teachers detention when you missed Wednesday afternoon matches, sitting in silence for one or two hours.

There were the one liners:

Keep your wood as long as possible as long as possible Harry Lee.

The dead parrot joke by Polly Hallows ... it’s a polygon!

I don't know what to give; let’s have a bounce up Jim Mackie refereeing the rugby match on the second pitch.

Stand back it might explode Dr Fleet, as we all made for the doors.

As I said in my preamble the memories, are not very academic, but I did OK in maths. Lassey you must have had a fairy sitting on your pencil was the comment from Mr Hallows when I made top set maths.

Mr Ball inspired me in the art of map drawing and I could usually perform on the sports field. I wonder if the Beaufort Bronze is still alive (Intermediate 880yards).

So that's it. I eventually followed a career in education, did sixteen years as a Head teacher and can still remember 27 names from my form at Heath. Like the Capes and Bays of Great Britain learnt by fear, they are in my roots, never to be forgotten.

John D Lassey [Heath 1958–1963]