Photos and articles about Brighton and Hove in the time of coronavirus. See our collection and add your own!

Memories of a student in the 1950s

I have been reading the comments regarding Fawcett School, and as an ex-student way back in the 1950’s it brought back a lot of memories.

Remembering the teachers
I certainly remember some of the teachers like Mr. Lane, whose favorite trick was throwing chalk at inattentive students, and Mr. Bond, who vainly tried to teach us the violin. If you were not paying attention and he felt that his strap would not be sufficient punishment, he would send you off to get a more lethal one from another teacher.

Art lessons
I forget the name of our art teacher, but  I liked him because he would send us out for the afternoon to sketch whatever we wished. My efforts were miserable but who cared! It got us out of class for an afternoon. There was one boy in my class who was an incredible artist, so I would tag along with him and try to copy what he was drawing. My effort looked as though someone had thrown up on my drawing pad, and his looked as though it should be hanging up in a museum. I think his name was John Heath and I often wonder if he made a career in art?

My best times
Although I was a lousy student, I wasn’t bad at athletics, so my best times were at the Preston Park Cricket Grounds for the local schools’ competitions. My wife, who is famous for never throwing anything away, still has some old certificates. Note that there are none for academic acheivement.

Annual Athletics

Comments about this page

  • An interesting read. I was a pupil at Fawcett School at a later date (in the 1960s) and moved with the school when it became Patcham Fawcett. The new school seemed to have been very badly designed and built and generally ill thought out and located. It leaked from very early on, builders were still there when we moved in, the mortar mix was wrong and could be taken out from between the bricks with a forefinger, covered ways between areas of the building provided no cover as wind blew rain underneath, there was no central stockroom and part of the library had to be given up for this and finally part of the swimming pool roof fell in, fortunately not injuring anyone. Truly a terrible piece of architecture that now no longer exists to my relief.

    By Edward Castle-Herbert (19/03/2007)
  • Keith, I think the artist Heath you wrote about went on to be a famous cartoonist and indeed he is still drawing for the Sunday Times. We had a good artist in our class too – Barry Pym. I was at Fawcett from 49/53 and thought, in retrospect, it gave a good education. I like the School Sports certificates of which I also have some.

    By Tony Brookes (25/09/2012)
  • Re Art Teacher.
    I Remember Mr Joe Vernerde (Not sure of the spelling ) it has been over 50 years.
    He was a nice teacher ( one of only two that I ever had time for )
    If memory serves he was a little bit of a Hippy.
    Very amusing at the time.
    Would love to know if he is still alive.

    By Peter Miller. (14/12/2019)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.