Back to school

In the early years of World War II my brother, Harry, and I were evacuated first to Appleby in Westmoreland and then to Hexham in Northumberland. My experiences are recounted in the second article: (Chapter 2: Evacuee!)

Harry and I were very glad to be back home from our evacuation but we had effectively lost two years of our lives. I hadn't had any consecutive education and although we had been told that the school in Tynemouth was to have been closed, it never was. I had been good at most subjects when I was in the junior school but I had missed out on the things which need a foundation like mathematics and French. Here I was, expected to start the third year without any grounding in these subjects. However I was able to cope with English, History, Geography and even Chemistry (which was a new subject to me). I was a year too young anyway because I has taken the ten-plus examination in South Shields whereas North Shields took the Eleven-Plus. At one time it was thought I might drop down a year but the headmaster decided that as I had done so well as a junior I could probably catch up. Nobody suggested that I should read textbooks by myself or offered additional study sessions. I wasn't sporty but I enjoyed playing everything. Not that I was any good but I used to play a lot of tennis and I was in the house teams.

Harry wasn't offered any help either and wasn’t inclined to seek it out for himself. Even at the age of 14 years he had made his mind up he wanted to follow his father and go to sea. He discussed his career options with Father who told him not to go as a deck hand like he had done. However if Harry went as an engineer there would be all sorts of jobs he could get when he left the sea. Harry agreed to that and wanted an apprenticeship at Smiths’ Docks or the Wallsend shipway and therefore anything in the school was a damn nuisance. He made no attempt to conform with the rules of the school. He was caught smoking so often that the headmaster said to him: "Simpson, if you are ever found smoking cigarettes in this school again I will expel you immediately". So Harry went out and within 48 hours was caught smoking in the boys’ toilet. The head said: "Simpson, you have been caught smoking again!". "Ah, yes", said Harry, "but I was smoking a small cigar, not a cigarette!". On this technical point (and the headmaster being a reasonable sort of fellow!) Harry was allowed to stay.

Tynemouth High School (it is now called Tynemouth College) was on Hawkey's Lane, North Shields. To the side of the building was the playing field and underneath that were subterranean air raid shelters. We were taken down there on occasions for practices. I remember one of the lads reciting "As we went to the shelter I heard a boy mutter, What have we here? The Black Hole of Calcutta?" Another thing which now seems unbelievable was that we were put through a gas chamber. They would bring up a furniture van which had been sealed. We all had to put on our gas masks and walk through the van which had been filled with gas and stand for a certain length of time and then come out of the door. If there was any sort of smell you then had to get a new gas mask.

The troubles with Harry

I remember one thing Harry did which caused a bit of trouble. There was a glass roof in the school hall and at the start of the war it was painted over with black emulsion paint to stop light beaming up into the sky, bringing in the German bombers to bomb the place. Harry had got up there one night and scraped the paint off making three large letters "PYM" - his nick-name. Of course it was identified immediately. It was sheer bravado but I don’t think he was expelled even then. Anyway, shortly after that he left, went to evening classes very conscientiously twice a week, took his National Certificate, went to sea and became a Chief Engineer in a very short time.

Harry was very sociable and enjoyed going out and meeting people. Although he could never dance or anything like that, he was still a ladies man and certainly he enjoyed company. I was in the same class at school for one year with Dorothy Nessworthy, whom he subsequently married. In the fifth year I got promoted to a different level and she left after doing school certificates. We met her again at the Church youth club where we were having Irene’s (my future wife) 20th birthday party. Harry came to the party with another girl (also called Dorothy but I can’t remember her surname) and left with Dorothy and took her home. After that they went out together.

Peter came to the school about the same time as this. He had been physically weak as a small child and had a nervous disposition. He was quite sociable but shy. He was generally well liked throughout his life by anybody who came into contact with him. He failed his eleven plus through sheer nerves the first time he took it which upset him badly. However the following year he was given a second chance at the examination and got it quite easily. Later he got good O Levels including a distinction in Technical drawing and could have done virtually anything. Unfortunately when he was about 14 my father had been talking to him about his career and he said he’d rather like to do the same as Harry had and go to sea. He had already seen Harry earning money and enjoying himself. My father said “Oh well my friend, Captain Blaylock, is a big wig at Smiths’ Dock and I’ll see if he can get you in there”. So, Peter agreed and Captain Blaylock was delighted to have Peter. (Really this was unnecessary because as a well educated youth he would have been accepted as an apprentice with open arms.) Unfortunately when his results and the school certificate came out they were much better than HE had expected and he said he would change his mind and stay on and do his higher school cert and then perhaps go in for something entirely different. Father said “Well I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get you into Smiths and Captain Blaylock’s done me a favour by having you taken in and I’d look a bit of a fool if you were to change your mind. In any case, you know what you’re like, before any examination." Peter was told that he had made up his mind and he had to stick to it. So Peter went into Smiths Docks and from the first day he detested it, he loathed it. He did evening classes, got the national certificate, and then he took the higher national - he was the youngest boy in his year - and did very well. He never did go to sea.

Brian didn't have a stable childhood because from the time he was three at the beginning of the war members of the family and people around him were always coming and going. Harry and I were sent away twice. Consequently he made a lot of friends outside of the family. He was a very good sportsman too. He played for Northumberland Country juniors and the school cricket team.

Higher and higher seats of learning

At school I found the English and History teachers quite congenial. The English chap, "Slasher" Liddle, had been a company commander during the first world war and, having personal knowledge of the trenches, he introduced us to the first world war poets. He was also a follower of the Romantic movement, Wordsworth, Coleridge. He was a marvellous teacher.

The history teacher was entirely different. He had been a stretcher bearer during the first world war and he had an absolutely ferocious temper. It largely showed itself to people who didn't make much effort. He had himself a very tough time as a boy in the Victorian institutions at the turn of the century. To see a pupil come into a Grammar School and then not take advantage of it made him absolutely furious. If people were late for school you had to go and report to him - he was deputy head by then - and he would go screaming berserk at you which is something you did your best to avoid and in a school of over 500 people there were never more than to or three who were ever late and it was due to his ferocious attitude.

I was never late because I had to start out from home to get to school so very early in the morning. As I described in the previous chapter my father was assistant harbour master at the Northumberland Docks in Howdon and we lived "on the premises". The largest house was occupied by the Dock Master Captain Green and two of the Assistant Dock Masters. In the basement was a Customs and Excise depot with huge barrels eight feet wide. There were also four big rooms, all the same size. The Dock Master and his wife used one as their air raid shelter. The Assistant Dock Masters and their wives and children used the next one and then dozen or so ordinary workers used the other two. Ours was the large brick house which was the next one along and it had a fine view of the whole of the dock. The dock office was a small building built of brick with a red roof and inside had been designed by my father to suit the office requirements. It stood on the other side of the railway line.

Continued in column 2...

It's a very long way from Northumberland Dock to Hawkey's Lane. If you had a bike you had to give yourself three quarters of an hour to get to school. If you didn't, you had to walk because there was no bus service which was convenient. On top of that, if you had to go home for something to eat at lunchtime, you had to walk not only all the way back to Northumberland Dock, have ten minutes for your meal and then walk all the way back to Hawkey's Lane. I think he realised that I was doing this and he was very nice to me. When I joined the church I found that he was in the congregation. He was a university lecturer teaching in the school and he was excellent. The stuff that he taught us was magnificent.

I was only fifteen when I got into the sixth form and some of the other people were nearly eighteen. The upper and lower sixth sat together and did the same work. The sixth form English was divided up into certain playwrights, novelists and poets and they did one lot one year and the rest the next. So it didn't matter which order you did them in. Some of the girls looked years older than me.

I took English, History and Geography at A-level. Of course the Education Act came into force in 1944 and the Headmaster sent for my friend Alan, myself and a girl called Moira Everett and said to us that we three were elegible for a major scholarship and we could go to University if we wanted to. I had a word with my parents who felt that if I got the scholarship then I could go. We all three told the Headmaster that that was what we wanted to do. He then pointed out to us that there was one snag and that to be qualified to go to University by the Summer of the following year (this was in the September) we would all need Latin. Unfortunately because of the war situation none of us had done any Latin and we would have to pass the equivalent of the five years course for the school certificate (O-level Latin) between September and the following May or June. This was in addition to the three A-levels. He did arrange for Mr Liddle to take us for private tuition but we would have to pay him ten shillings a fortnight. I asked my father as it was quite a lot of money to him but he agreed. The three of us went together every Wednesday evening over the year and Moira and I took the examination (sadly, Alan died of TB about half way through the course).

I was only 16 when I applied to the University. I wrote to the Professor in the Education department, a chap called Brian Stanley and he wrote a very nice letter back saying that he would see me on a certain afternoon. I went along,found his room and rapped on the door with my knuckles. There was some hesitation, scraping noises and then the door opened revealing this very burly, red faced, white haired chap, beaming at me. He was always a very welcoming sort of man. He shook hands with me and said “Well, do come in”. Actually, he started by saying “Good afternoon, Mr Simpson”, and I looked over my shoulder and thought my father had come in without telling me! But I realised I was for the first time Mr Simpson, so I went in. He had a letter which he received from my headmaster and he said “I see you’ve been secretary of your house and president of a magazine. Oh, you are also the school Librarian”. I said “Yes, that’s right, I’ve always been very interested in that”. He said “Well cast your eyes round this room”. Actually I’d been doing this ever since I got in the room because from floor to window level, right round there were piles of books on desks and chairs and tables. He said “I’ve just moved into this room within the last 24 hours and I’m trying to get these books on the shelves so perhaps you could give me help. Do you know the decimal system?” I told him that I did. He said: “Well come on, let's get cracking”. So he went up the ladder and shouted out what sort of books he wanted. I picked them from the pile and handed them up to him and all the time we talked about my possible career in the University. This went on for about 45 minutes and I still maintain that I’m the only student in the British Isles that was ever introduced to University on a set of ladders!!.

................ to be continued

The next episode: ME AND MY BROTHERS: Chapter 4: Graduation, Separation, Consolidation!

References

1. Municipal High School, Tynemouth: "Tomorrow's History"; North East Museums Libraries and Archives Council
2. Northumberland Docks: "Tomorrow's History"; North East Museums Libraries and Archives Council
3. The ruins of the Northumberland Dock Master's House: English Heritage.
4. Photograph of Northumberland Docks (1960): "Images of England - Around North Shields: The Second Selection" - Tempus Publishing 2000

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Added: July 20th 2007
Last updated: May 1st 2012

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