The headmaster at Lewes Grammar at the time was Roy Mead. He was a very authoritarian figure and ran the school how he saw fit. It was a small school and still is. There were only two forms per year with each form taking about 14 boys. It had a junior department on the other side of town and a girls’ school just a few doors down on the High Street. There had been a boys’ grammar school on this site since 1714. The school was founded in 1512 at Southover near Lewes. Lewes is the county town of East Sussex and is surrounded by the South Downs, the chalky hills that run parallel to the south coast.
I joined in the summer term of 1979 aged 12 years old. I was very shy and didn’t make friends easily. I was collected with about twelve other boys in a minibus driven by one of the teachers. I was so shy that at first, I waited in my mother’s canary yellow Ford Escort Estate for the minibus to arrive at my pick-up point near St. Johns Park a short walk from home. I’d had an extended Easter holiday because I had left my father’s house at the end of March where I had been living with my two brothers. I returned to live with my mother and stepfather of my own volition because I was being emotionally abused at my father’s house. The first day at my new school was on 8th May, being the day before Margaret Thatcher’s new parliament assembled for the first time. I had not spent much time with my mother in the preceding twelve months and I was upset and homesick for the first week or so. I fought back tears each morning before lessons started.
We had a pretty odd mix of teachers. Some were more dedicated than others. The headmaster’s wife Isabel taught us biology and chemistry. She was a good teacher and prepared her lessons well. She was strict and didn’t tolerate any nonsense. The biology and chemistry lessons were taken in a large wooden building built next to the hall. A few years later, there was an extension built and the sixth form moved down the road to a new site. Our physics teacher, Mr Blackwell, was known for shouting a lot. He would hand out photocopied worksheets in the lessons and leave us to it, sitting at his desk the whole time. We had a history teacher called Mr Knight. He enjoyed the chalk and talk method and as far as I can tell, there didn’t seem to be any structure to what we learned. He was frequently diverted from the topic at hand by boys who liked to ask silly questions. He had a fatwa on the use of the word ‘thing’ which he said was lazy. Our English teacher in the first year was the headmaster. He taught a lot of grammar and spelling was also at the forefront. He was extremely strict. In the second year, he was so fed up with the poor spelling of most of the class that he announced that anyone getting less than 7/10 in the weekly spelling test would have to come in for a Saturday detention. Unfortunately, I got 6/10 so had to forfeit my Saturday morning. Everyone had to use a fountain pen. Ball-point pens were forbidden. We also had to carry a notepad for rough notes. There was a dictat that we were not allowed to use contractions such as ‘isn’t’, ‘can’t’, and so on. We were set homework every evening to be handed in the following day, or on Monday in the case of a Friday. Books were handed in to the form teacher at registration and an immediate detention was handed out if anyone forgot this.
The older girls studying for O-levels attended some of the same classes as the boys. We were told not to speak to the girls in the corridors. The head of the girls’ school, Mrs Dean, was very prim and proper. She took us for Religious Education. We learned about burning bushes and other stuff of absolutely no relevance to life. The girls’ school had a very poor academic reputation.
It was made abundantly clear to any parent that if they did not like any of the rules, they could take their son elsewhere. Fees were kept reasonably low and affordable. I do believe that Roy Mead had good intentions in running his school but there were some peculiarities.
Mr Blackwell had a temper. He once threw the blackboard rubber at someone’s head and announced that we were all bastards. “All fourteen of you.” Mr Mead didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. He petrified us. He rarely used the cane to his credit because the psychological terror he employed was sufficient to keep the younger ones under control. He had a rather self-important and pompous attitude and you could smell his cologne several minutes after he had disappeared up the corridor. In the third year, he instituted a system where he ate his lunch in the dining room at a “high table” with other members of staff. Boys were made to serve them. We had to collect the meals from the hatch and deliver them to the staff, as though they didn’t have legs. At times when we weren’t serving, we had to stand like statues against the wall. My brother said that he bullied his wife openly on the geography field trip to Swanage.
I don’t recall a teacher observing another teacher’s lessons. Much of the quality of the teaching left a lot to be desired. As a result, the less able tended to rebel as they grew older. We had a very good mathematics teacher called Mrs Bloomfield. She taught me from the age of fourteen until I took my O-levels. She helped me achieve a good grade. I excelled in the sciences, but I did very poorly in other subjects except for English. I finished the fifth year with A grades in my O-levels for the three sciences and mathematics. In everything else, I achieved Bs and Cs with Ds in history and English Literature. I retook English Literature in the following November and got an A after learning most of Macbeth by heart. For a bright boy, this was a failure on the part of myself and the school. A peculiarity was that in each year, there were two forms named 1 and 1P, 2 and 2P and so forth. I still don’t know what the P referred to however those in the P form took an O-level in geography. I was not in this stream, perhaps because I joined the school late in the first year. If you were not popular, you were left on the sidelines. I never received an award for anything in my seven years at the school despite being one of the most academic pupils. There was an old-fashioned attitude that left us feeling guilty by default. We always felt in the wrong even when we had done nothing. After one of Mr Mead’s rants in assembly, I would feel as guilty as a thief. Once, a boy’s woodwork project was vandalised. He had the whole school in the hall and announced that no-one could leave until someone owned up. No one did and he had to lose face. I remember another rant about homosexuality. He had decided that the practice of boys shaking hands which had developed had homosexual undertones. He called in everyone in the third year and above and gave us a lecture on the dangers without ever mentioning the word “homosexual” once.
I had one good friend in all my time at Lewes Grammar. His name was Nicholas Lello and I befriended him in the first year. He was a bit of an odd-ball and stood out for his lack of grace and clumsiness. He was picked on and was an easy target. We shared an interest in computers and at that time, to be honest, I was happy to be friends with anyone who would accept me. I was not the chattiest boy around and came across as inept and very reticent. Sometimes, teachers mistook this reticence for stupidity. As a young child, my primary teachers had commented that I preferred chatting to the teachers to talking to my fellow students. I suppose that I felt older and wiser than my years. I was often encouraged at primary school to make a “wider circle of friends”. I had dropped out of cubs because I was shy and did not enjoy mixing with other boys of my age. I did not know the language with which they spoke or how I was supposed to be accepted into their world.
The small class sizes at Lewes Grammar meant that there was plenty of individual attention. Regular homework meant that any able child would quickly learn and prosper. It did not benefit the weaker students as there were no allowances made. There was no special needs support. So it was that I picked up mathematics and science quickly wherever the teacher took the time to explain the topic clearly. Mr David “you are all bastards” Blackwell did not fall into this category and I learned despite his teaching and not because of it. He could be kindly at times but because of his poor teaching methods, he was targeted by some of the boys and therefore grew to despise all of us. I read a lot of nonsense about him in the Sussex Express [2] when he died aged 57 in 2003. He was a teacher at Lewes Grammar for 35 years, right until his death. Bearing in mind my experience of him as a child being taught physics by him for seven terms, I can safely say that he did not do me any favours. In my third-year exam, I achieved only 59% and he refused to allow me to go up to the top set O-level class in the fourth year. He ran the CCF, the Combined Cadet Force for the school. It was optional and I and my friend Nicholas were the only two not to take part in my form. He engaged in rather inappropriate conversations with us boys. He had a fearsome temper and was dismissive when asked questions by us. On a trip to France in 1981, he gave us white wine from the back of the minibus when he pulled up into a picnic spot. He then ranted at us because we wandered off into the woods and didn’t appear for over an hour.
We had a PE teacher called Mr Phillips. I was not interested in group sports and was frankly useless at playing football or basketball, so I spent most PE lessons sitting on the bench. He allowed my classmates to bully my friend openly and even took part himself on occasions. Once, we had to take a minibus ride and there were not enough seats for everyone to sit comfortably. I was forced by the others to sit on the floor. He saw this and did nothing. He took us for Drama in the second or third year. He gave me the part of the only woman in the play.
Our French teacher, Mr Senior, was kindly but hopelessly disorganised. I passed my O-level with a C grade, but I don’t know how! His desk was always a mess. Once someone tidied it up for him and he couldn’t find anything for about a week afterwards.
In the second year, we went on a school trip to see HMS Victory, Nelson’s ship which is kept docked at Portsmouth harbour. On the way home, I and a friend of mine got separated from the group and boarded a different carriage home at Portsmouth Station. We were unable to get off the train when it stopped at our hometown of Burgess Hill because we did not realise that the doors opened from the outside. The train left and we ended up in London. A woman on the train took pity on us and explained our situation to the ticket inspector at the gate. So it was that we boarded another train back to Burgess Hill and arrived very late. I got up to all sorts of trouble with this friend Simon. We used to make nuisance calls from phone boxes. We even phoned up the father of a school friend and shouted childish insults about the quality of his eggs. He was a chicken farmer. On the bus to school the next day, we told a classmate who promptly told us that he was going to tell Mr Wood, which he did. Mr Wood made us write a letter of apology to the father. Mr Wood was a lovely man and had such a good rapport with the class. He taught us mathematics.
In the third and fourth years, I began to shoplift with my friend Nicholas. We stole batteries, pens, sweets, magazines, packs of cards and computer games. It was Nicholas who introduced me to it and it soon became addictive. We stole from WHSmith in Burgess Hill and shops in Brighton. We stole from newsagents in Petersfield when we visited my dad. I would have been between 14 and 15 years of age. I even tried to sell the things without success at school. Luckily, I realised in time how stupid my actions were and stopped it. I was lucky not to get caught. At a school disco held at the junior school, aged 15, I had asked my brother to buy me a half-bottle of whisky. I got drunk and along with others helped vandalise one of the school minibuses. I don’t know what came over me. Several years later with the same friend, I remember walking through the Burgess Hill market in the centre of town and throwing a scaffolding pole through a portacabin. I think I was very angry at my father and with authority and this was some kind of a release.
My father was frequently late paying the school fees. The headmaster sometimes spoke to me and my brother about this, which was embarrassing and uncalled for. During my O-levels and my brother’s first year of A-levels in 1983, my father was so far behind in paying that there was a chance that we would be asked to leave the school. The headmaster invited himself around to my mother’s house to ask her if she could make up the shortfall. Fortunately for us, it was obvious that we did not have that kind of money and the headmaster, pompous bugger though he could be, took pity on us and allowed us to remain at the school.
My brother Tim was in the year above me having joined the school almost two years after me. His year was particularly out of control. They smashed up the wooden panelling in the common room, tied one of the least popular members of their form to a stack of chairs so his head was touching the ceiling and tormented poor Mr Wilkins, the TD and woodwork teacher from Cornwall. “Get your ‘ands out of your pockets” was his catchphrase and “Do your top button up.” A favourite trick if a boy was being “bollocked” by Mr Blackwell was to stand behind him and make faces to try to make the boy laugh. Once a boy in their year told Mr Mead to fuck off and he was chased up Lewes High Street.
Sean Francis, a friend of my brother Tim, shared the following memory on this blog.
I do have another Tim story though and yes, he was the victim yet again. When Tim and I were in the lower 6th, the 6th form common room was still in the main school building. The 6th form moved to the Annexe the following year. Anyway, a regular sport in those days was “wellie fights”. For reasons unknown, there were several wellington boots lying around the 6th form common room and these were used as ammunition. Two teams would form at each end of the room, using the chairs for protection. We would then hurl wellies at each other until either a) break was over, b) Mrs Mead or Mr Wilkins walked in or c) some personal or property damage had occurred. During one particular fight, Tim and I were on opposing teams. I threw a wellie at the chair he was hiding behind. It was on its way – mid-air – when Tim decided to peek above the parapet so to speak and WHAM!! A full in the face hit! He had a black eye for a while as I recall.
Our lower 6th was a bit out of control behaviour-wise. One time, we tied Tim Phillips to a chair in the common room, then built a chair pyramid and put him on the top. The break bell sounded, and we left him there. I still don’t know how he got down. Happy days.
Another former student, Graham King, related this story covering the period 1966 to 1972.
Regarding some of the pranks. Mr Mead always made the mistake of warning us that potential parents would be visiting the school and for us to be on our best behaviour. This was our call to put condoms over the light bulbs in the main hall. The downstairs lights were never used, except when parents would be visiting, and the heat from the bulb would inflate the condoms to enormous size! End of term plays – Snow White and the 7 dwarfs was put on one term. “Somebody” (actually a few) went under the stage and sawed through a few of the timbers. I think it held up the first night, but during the second night, one corner of the stage collapsed. We were also press-ganged into running new wiring from the stage to the projection box at the other end of the hall. This involved lifting the floorboards, so someone (I won’t name him) was pushed under the floor and the boards nailed back down. We didn’t let him out until he reached the other end – black as soot from a few hundred years of dirt! Cling film over the toilet seats was another favourite. In the junior school (a few yards down the road by the traffic lights), we discovered we could get into the lofts and from there, through a hatch and into a wardrobe in Mr Blackwell’s bedroom. He lived at the school in those days) The wardrobe was the storage place for his dirty magazines, so these were spread out on his bed, opened at the centre pages, and we left the way we came, with him having no idea who did the deed!. We also used to fill the staff room sugar bowl with bromide, which looks just like sugar. Some of the teachers would be in a foul mood the following day!!!
A female former student made these observations.
OMG I’ve just found this blog by accident and had a big giggle over it (whilst wincing at some of the more shocking details). Seems like you boys all had a very mixed experience and mostly quite different from experiences in the Girls’ School. I was there from mid 70s in Reception to 1988. I can honestly say that I had a mostly happy time there. The worst teacher for me was definitely Mr Blackwell with his incomprehensible physics and aura of stale smoke and alcohol. Mr Dawson was a brilliant biology teacher but God knows what he was up to on the side? Mr Main was an absolute rotter – I hated everything about him: his dogged religious smugness and his callousness. Foul man. He told me that I would never be any good at chemistry, so I suppose I can thank him for giving me that “f**k off I’ll show you” attitude that has served me well since (I somehow blagged my way through and left Oxford Uni with a chemistry DPhil in 1996). Mr Senior was completely disorganised and random, Mr Knight was kind. Mr Mead, well, he certainly did strike the fear of God into most. I remember being sent to his office by my PE teacher Mrs Hewitt (re-named Mrs Spewitt after a school sailing trip which saw her barfing overboard most of the time) for not having the correct “PE knickers” and having to write endless lines. The guys recounting details of caning leaves me cold. I can remember Mr Evans giving Darren Brown the “slipper” in front of the whole class (unluckily he was the one who got caught for firing ink-soaked blotting paper bullets off his ruler onto the ceiling) – horrible. But Mr Mead’s (and the others) practices were not questioned at that time because that was the world we lived in then, where these things were accepted and not questioned. At least we are going the right way now. I do remember one particular assembly where we were all called back and questioned one by one because some little shit had pushed a roller towel down the toilet and flooded the loos – still no idea who did it. Stink bombs were often let off – never found out who did those. I also remember the little glass bottles of milk that were delivered early then left out in the warm and they were absolutely disgusting to drink by breaktime. The lunches in the Boys’ School were foul – absolutely rubbish – and I remember waiting on the 6th formers and staff. Where next? Mr Morgan my piano teacher. Ugh! Stank of alcohol and was usually half cut for my lessons. Hated them – especially when I finally ‘fessed up to my mum that he had got more than a bit letchy with me and I didn’t want to continue any more. I had to and he was very cross with me for ratting on him. Rarely played since. Many of the teachers at the Girls’ School were really kind and/or good teachers – shout out for Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Buckeridge, Miss Hinde, Mrs Langford, Mrs Dauber, Dr Bishop (I think I’ve got those right?). I was in a class of 9 boys and me for A-level physics and some of the boys were a bunch of little f***ers, poking their fingers through the stools when I sat down and lighting fully turned on gas taps. Happy days. Two last memories to be going on with – school trip to Paris – I was on the last one after which it was banned when we were caught sitting in the boys’ room (honestly we were just talking), and the most memorable outside school party at Jason Andrews’ house when all the boys decided to put “Debbie Does Dallas” on and the girls all promptly left the room.
Soon after I started in the sixth form in 1983, it moved to new premises opposite the Crown Court, which was a temporary arrangement while an extension was being completed at the boys’ school. The head of the sixth form was Geoffrey Main who did a very good job of whipping the sixth form into order. In the previous years, it had been characterised by very poor and rowdy behaviour. He was very strict and never smiled except for a sort of lopsided grimace. I did not like him very much. One day, I was knocked off my bike and nearly killed by a car while cycling to school and trying to cross a busy road intersection. Instead of expressing concern, he said that I should not have been cycling to school. Another time, he made me miss the school bus by deliberately detaining me and a friend after school. He offered no alternative transport home. He was very strange. I recall that when I was in the third year, he told me off for having creased trousers.
At A-level, I studied maths, physics and chemistry. Our A-level physics teacher was Mrs Dauber. Her husband was a physicist at the University of Sussex. She encouraged my interest in the subject. In the Upper Sixth, I attended a weekend course at Sussex University at her suggestion which was aimed at those thinking about studying the subject. She even arranged for free tuition in physics with her husband once a week to help us prepare for entrance to Oxford. This had to be arranged outside of school time because the headmaster did not permit it in school.
The head of the sixth form was a devout Christian and we thought he belonged to a Puritanical sect. He showed very little emotion and for this reason, he got the nick-name Dr Spock or Klingon. He even had the haircut to match. When he walked through a doorway, boys made a noise that imitated the automatic doors they had on Star Trek. One day, a boy reported that something had gone missing from his locker and Mr Main threatened to bring in the CID. It appeared that his wife cut his hair and he wore a jacket and trousers several sizes too small.
It was a strange school all round with strange ideas. Here are some random memories: Roy Mead lecturing the fifth form on the perils of masturbation; standing outside his office all afternoon for not having returned a book to the library; Roy Mead slamming a book down on a friend’s head in class and being slapped on the head by Mr Main for not being at my allotted duty in the sixth form during break time.
My greatest criticism of this school is that the headmaster ran it like a dictatorship. He crushed the hopes of children whom he disliked. He allowed his petty vindictiveness and puritanism to get the better of him. He bullied and picked on those who were different for any reason. He considered anyone who was not academic to be a failure.
I visited my old school on a handful of occasions in the late eighties and early nineties. On one occasion in about 1991, I met my form two form teacher Mr Wood. It was lovely to see him again. I have many happy memories of him teaching and joking with us. He had a real rapport with the class. He then told me that a student named Simon Smart who had been in my form and had left in the third year had died aged 19 in a motorcycle accident. Mr Mead had refused to put up a plaque in the school hall in memory of him. He was very small-minded.
[2] Sussex Express Obituaries 14th February 2003
Update 8th January 2019
I was kindly sent a panoramic photo of the Senior School taken in 1979. There are some bits missing but hopefully, I can get these and stitch them together. I am in the second photo, back row, fifth from the right. Thanks to Gary Andrews for the school photo.
Here I am in the middle standing at the back.
This was taken in the summer or autumn of 1979, I was twelve years old and in the first year. I can recognise and remember the names of many of those in my year but can’t recall them all.
Back row: James ?, James Andrews, Simon Smart, Brendan Denyer, Stuart Parr, David Westgate, Simon Rees, Nicholas Lello.
Front row: Chris Moore, André Layzell, Mark Bristow, Justin Sherwin, me, Michael Brooks, Richard Sewell.
It is a more recent photograph than the black and white whole school photo. We look slightly older so this was probably taken in the second year. I’m seated third from the right.
Meanderings of a peripatetic maths teacher 
All true , I remember all of it.
Hi David, long time! I last remember seeing you aged about 17 on a tractor as we whizzed through Plumpton on the school bus. I hope life has treated you well.
A great read, thanks. I was there from the late 80’s to mid 90’s, and remember a very similar establishment, with one important addition (or development of something about which you’ve been more subtle). My LOGS friends and I now diplomatically refer to ‘character building’ experiences, but I’m afraid there is a much darker truth. Roy Mead knowingly presided over, and participated in, a disgraceful culture of grooming and much, much worse. I’m resisting the temptation to name and shame, even though it was usually common knowledge, but Roy Mead and at least 3 other male teachers regularly and habitually overstepped the line of appropriateness with young boys. I was quite a confident lad, so not sufficiently vulnerable for grooming, but believe me when I say I wouldn’t post this sort of feedback without being 100% sure. It would be a travesty if they all died off before being investigated, but I’m not optimistic.
Hi Adam, I’m intrigued and would like to know more. Never had any experiences or saw anything like that in my time there. But there was one teacher (now deceased) who was as you say inappropriate with boys.
I was at the school from 93-2000. I’ve written a follow up to this blog about these years. Is there an email address for the person who wrote the original?
Cheers. Great/weird memories and I’m glad some people got called out.
Yes, thanks for your comment. Alan.evans111@gmail.com
Brilliant memories of LOGS, although my recollections of Mr Mead is somewhat different being caned at least three separate times by him, I seem to remember he had a mean swing and often left the ugliest of welts. Other memories included your friend I believe if last name Lello and the cruelty bestowed on him by some, they could be very cruel I do hope that he went on to be unafected by their taunts. Other fond memories were of Cadet nights and cross country runs along the downs, sports days and school outings as has already been said laughter all year round. Sadly I was taken away to go live with my father “up north” but often have wished I hadn’t missed the last few years with my friends from LOGS.
Hi Andy, I think I remember you. I think you were in my class with Chris Moore, Brendan Denyer, James Andrews etc. Or am I mistaken? Yes Mr Mead was a bit of a despot but he did allow me and my brother Tim to stay on when my father decided to go into arrears with paying the school fees. Otherwise, I remember him as an old fashioned and rather pompous man.
Hi Andy, I lost touch with Nic Lello years ago. He was very successful in the computer field despite leaving school at 16 and probably earns more than any of us in that year. Mr Mead told him that he would be a failure when he refused to go on to the sixth form. What a thing to say. Mr Mead used to hassle me when my dad would be in arrears with the fees. He invited himself around to my mum’s house (my parents divorced in 1967) and fortunately saw that my mum had no money to pay them.
Hi Andy, I remember you from LOGS. I can vouch for those canning welts as I think you showed the guys them..ouch! Seem to remember we nicknamed Mr Mead “Gut”?!
Just found this site and read through the article. I was there between 1966 and 1972. I think the bad times far outweighed the good ones. Our nickname for Roy Mead was Buddah and David Blackwell was known as Betsey Moo. Teaching was hit and miss – some teachers were OK, but others were totally unorganised. The dark undertones already mentioned were true too. It started right at the top and involved a number of the teachers – I’m amazed there has not been any official enquiry into it over the years. There was a deputy head teacher, whose name escapes me , who was very involved. He was moved over to a school in Chichester rather suddenly – I think the school was called Littlemead A Mr Howard used to teach us French, and always came to the Pells swimming pool , where he didn’t bother with the changing cubicles, but stripped off totally naked outside them before changing into his trunks. It’s all a long time ago now, and many names are forgotten, but I have many stories of the old place and the pranks we used to carry out. A very strange little school in those days.
Hi Graham, thanks for your comment. I’d love to hear more about the pranks you got up to if you have the time. You left 7 years before I started in 1979. Roy Mead was alive at least a couple of years ago. He commissioned a painting of himself to hang in the school from a former pupil. A couple of rather sycophantic former students from my time ended up working at the school in the long term. I’m sure it has had to modernise in recent years and a change of leadership must have helped.
An accurate portrayal of a strange little school…thanks for the memories. Happily schools seem to be a bit more professional these days as i wouldnt want my kids to be exposed to some of the darker aspects that i bore witness to in my time at LOGS. I’d very much like to make the acquaintance of Mr Main once more before he shuffles off- he was a proper dickhead. But there are happier memories to be had of the place too. Good blog.
An excellent post that rings very true to the time I spent at the school (1987 to 1992). I think of my time at the school as very dark time which lifted almost as soon as I left. It was very much an institutional based on bullying and this then had the effect of creating more bullying or making people indifferent to it. I remember how, by the fifth year, we took it for granted that some of our year had the right to pick on the younger pupils.
This blog has inspired me to think more about my time there and how it has effected me and I’m considering blogging about it myself in order to bring out and think about my experiences. I would like to thank you for being so open and making me that I wasn’t just the odd one out who didn’t fit in while everyone else had a fine experience.
As a final note, I do remember some very inappropriate behaviour from teachers, including lunchtime drinking and Mr. Mead ranting in front of the school about finding “an artists impression of an erect penis.” However I do not remember witnessing any of the grooming mentioned by Adam even if I do remember quite well the two teachers he mentioned. While they both had slightly strange behaviour, it was nothing that was particularly unusual in such a strange and inward looking institution.
I was there in 1964 & remember them trying to serve us Horse meat – I led the revolt & caused Mead to gather the whole school ( 80 boys) in the hall, he ranted & pointed at me & I said I wouldn’t eat my best friend… he was shocked & shut up! Haha
That’s hilarious! The food wasn’t too good whenI was there but at least it wasn’t horse meat. We’re not French you know lol
What a wonderful read. As disturbing as it is funny and accurate. I was at LOGS between 1977 and 1991 and would concur with the statements about grooming and inappropriate behaviour. There is currently an investigation ongoing regarding one or two of the staff there at the time that are still with us and I would encourage anybody who feels they could assist with the investigation to contact me so that I may put them in touch with the investigating officer.
Very interesting. I heard about the stories too.
If you have a phone number or contact details for the investigation, I can put it on here if that helps.
Really interesting reading your blog – I joined the school just after Mead had taken it over from the Rev, cant remember the name, there were only 70 boys, no girls! I remember Blackwell as the spy in the camp, lurking at doors to listen, I rose to Deputy Head Boy & could tell some stories! Hehe
This was forwarded onto by a good mate with whom I remain friends from Logs days-1980-84 I guess. Christ, it’s all true.
I was in the class of Holman, Tolley, Hadfield etc. I arrived a year late and as a late comer and found it hard to settle in being shy sort who had been to a private school before. Not good at sports either,
I look back at it all now and laugh. Damn right Mead scared us. His rants were legendary. A few of my favourites;
1. The 5p rent a lab coat for those who’d lost theirs. Someone had written “I am gay” on it. At assembly he sent out the lower classes and any females. He then jabbed at 10 boys and said one of them had to be homosexual. “Own up, who is it. Don’t worry you have a medical problem that can be cured”
2. The toilet orange peeling. Someone had thrown peel in the bog and he’d found it. At assembly he asked about 5 times who’d eaten an orange. We could wait all day he said. Eventually someone owned up-Denyer I think. He had to go and get it in front of the whole school.
3. The wholesome Christian Union, or CU. Of course someone had added to extra words to it on the notice board. Whole school was assembled in the middle of lessons for a mega rant. Expulsions were promised
4. Toilet seat *isser. Again at assembly. He was furious that someone had urinated on the seat and up the cubicle wall. He then proceeded to pretend to pee on the seat and wall himself. The person was disgusting and would be caught.
Yes, teaching varied. I should have done far better and left clueless about where I was going.
Maine was a swine. He punched me in the head once. He did apologise but I suspect that was to prevent me telling my parents. Of in those days we wouldn’t dream of that.
Mead had his favourites, but I don’t think he was as bad as some say. Inappropriate yes. He liked the golf pupils most from hassocks and B.Hill.
I liked his wife. I loved biology and she was a good teacher -with an acid tongue.
Philips hated those no good at sport.
In my last year I’d got accustomed to the insanity. I remember biting my tongue in assembly to stop giggling. He caught me once and ejected me to his study-I just avoided the cane that time.
I guess schooling was like that back then. He owned the school and had no governers to tell him what to do.
Happy days eh. Yes and no. Simon b.
The Christian Union had their own notice board with the tag line, “Join The C.U.”. Someone (again not me but I cried laughing when I saw it) had added the letters “N” and “T”. Absolute comedy gold. A high five and a virtual pint to whoever came up with that.
The CU was run (if you can call it that) by Martin Doe. His nickname was “Dil”. You figure it out. Again, comedy gold. Wish I’d thought of it. Still makes me laugh. Sorry Martin. 😉
Thanks for that Simon. I remember Mark Holman. He was on my bus from Burgess Hill.
I remember a similar rant about who “gobbed on the TD room door”. And another time when someone took a chisel to someone’s woodwork project. Both times involved spending hours sitting on the floor in the hall.
I recall Mr Blackwell liked to do hymn book checks – did anyone ever bring theirs? He was a bastard.
The third year field trip was something I have fond memories of. Except when we had to cook “coq au vin” and Brendan Denyer nicked my saucepan. He burned his to a crisp in the bottom of the pan.
We occasionally got lifts back home with Mr Mead if we had had to help out with something after school. I recall the overpowering smell of his aftershave and the way he used to drive way over the speed limit and cut all the corners.
Oh the Christian Union nut jobs. They believed in some weird stuff like speaking in tongues and nonsense like that.
Mrs Mead was a good teacher. She worked really hard. i remember during Easter 1983, I had so much holiday work it was no joke. I recall her losing it when our class couldn’t remember what the function of xylem was in a plant. I guess she had just taught us it the previous lesson so I can appreciate that it was annoying. But it was rather an over-reaction.
Mr Wilkins had a catch-phrase. “Get your hands out of your pockets” spoken in a Cornish accent. The staff-room reeking of stale cigarette smoke. Mr Senior’s desk looking like a bomb had got off. “Who tidied up my desk? I can’t find anything!” Mrs Corrie mocking the art work of a kid in my class in the third year because he had decided to draw Michaelangelo’s “David”. Simon Rees who kept a record of the number of every train he had ever seen and could recite the order of stations of virtually any route in England. And the party at Mark Bristow’s house in 1982 where he decided to take pot shots at Damian Graigner with his air rifle. Oh happy days!
Damian Grainer was ace. I credit him with getting me interested in computers. He brought a computer kit to school in a shopping bag. It was an Acorn Atom which he was building himself. I remember him telling me all the different things computers could do. This would have been around 1981. To put that into perspective, IBM didn’t invent the PC until 1982! Damian’s dad was Ron Grainer who was a composer. Among his many credits, he wrote the theme tune to Tales of the Unexpected and Dr. Who. No kidding! Thanks Damian. I owe you!
I remember the school buying a huge computer in about 1983. It was housed in the new building that they built about that time. I believe that Mr Blackwell was in charge and Martin Doe had access too. Martin went on to work for Honeywell Bull.
Such a interesting and hugely reminiscent blog post. I am a past student at LOGS circa 1978-1979. My interest was aroused recently about my time here at LOGS as my father sent me a black and white panoramic photo of the senior school dated 1979. I was wondering if there was anything about the school available on the internet. That is how I found this post. Some of the names I remember are Mr Wilkins, my form teacher. Mr Tuit a ancient and quite frankly a useless maths teacher, Mr Senior who I never had teach me but was a good humored guy, bit scatty. Mr Blackwell my science teacher and my house head (DeMontfort) who at the time I thought was something wrong with him but couldn’t put my finger on it at the time!
I was petrified of Mr Mead. Does anyone remember his magic act he performed at Christmas time? A rather unique dark moment I recall was when he found two students LOGS exercise books with punk graffiti all over them including doodles that deface the LOGS coat of arms. He promptly expelled the boys after he got everybody in the hall to rant and rave. Mrs Mead was good but she also had her strict side.
Some of the pupils I remember by name are Brendan Denyer, Mark Bristow, Andrew Sellen, James Andrews, and Andre Layzell, other boys I recognize fom the photos but their names escape me.
My short time here was generally good, but looking back now at my age of 51 I see now some of the teaching left a lot to be desired. But I feel the bad points outweighed the good so I’m quite pleased to have been a pupil here, even though it was for a such a short time. Thanks for sharing your blog and thoughts!
Hi Gary, I’d love to get a copy of the school photo from 1979 if you can email it.
OMG – I just found this and laughed and cringed in equal measure. It is extremely well written and quite accurate as far as I can recall, given my sentence was served from 1977 to 1984.
To be fair, I received a very good education at LOGS and will always remain extremely grateful to many of the teachers who helped me, including Mr. Mead.
That said, it was an absolutely bizarre experience. A mixture of torture, abject fear, side splitting laughs and mayhem. A couple of small edits for you. The maths teacher you referred to was Mrs Bloomfield not “Broomfield”. Got a great story or two about her, but I’d better not. The woodwork project that was attacked with a chisel (that was disclosed at the time – I had NO inside knowledge Your Honour) belonged to Andrew Middleton. He was almost universally hated – I don’t recall why – so he had it coming I guess. Sorry Andrew if you’re reading this. 🙂 And no, it wasn’t me who did the deed and I don’t know who did. Anyone care to own up now?
I’ll leave you with this anecdote. In my time, Mr Main was referred to as Klingon. As such, whenever he entered or left a room, someone in my form (often me) would make the door open/close noise from the Starship Enterprise. The trick was to do it loud enough so you got kudos from your class mates for doing it, but not so loud as to alert Klingon to what you were doing. You also had to not laugh as that would have given the game away. I’m in my 50s now and I still think it’s funny!
Thanks to Alan for the post and to the others who commented. I really enjoyed recalling those turbulent times.
OMG I’ve just found this blog by accident and had a big giggle over it (whilst wincing at some of the more shocking details). Seems like you boys all had a very mixed experience and mostly quite different from experiences in the Girls’ School. I was there from mid 70s in Reception to 1988. I can honestly say that I had a mostly happy time there. The worst teacher for me was definitely Mr Blackwell with his incomprehensible physics and aura of stale smoke and alcohol. Mr Dawson was a brilliant biology teacher but God knows what he was up to on the side…..? Mr Main was an absolute rotter – I hated everything about him: his dogged religious smugness and his callousness. Foul man. He told me that I would never be any good at chemistry, so I suppose I can thank him for giving me that “f**k off I’ll show you” attitude that has served me well since (I somehow blagged my way through and left Oxford Uni with a chemistry DPhil in 1996). Mr Senior was completely disorganised and random, Mr Knight was a kind. Mr Mead, well, he certainly did strike the fear of god into most. I remember being sent to his office by my PE teacher Mrs Hewitt (re-named Mrs Spewitt after a school sailing trip which saw her barfing overboard most of the time) for not having the correct “PE knickers” and having to write endless lines. The guys recounting details of caning leaves me cold. I can remember Mr Evans giving Darren Brown the “slipper’ in front of the whole class (unluckily he was the one who got caught for firing ink-soaked blotting paper bullets off his ruler onto the ceiling) – horrible. But Mr Mead’s (and the others’) practices were not questioned at that time because that was the world we lived in then, where these things were accepted and not questioned. At least we are going the right way now. I do remember one particular assembly where we were all called back and questioned one by one because some little shit had pushed a roller towel down the toilet and flooded the loos – still no idea who did it. Stink bombs were often let off – never found out who did those. I also remember the little glass bottles of milk that were delivered early then left out in the warm and they were absolutely disgusting to drink by breaktime. The lunches in the Boys’ School were foul – absolutely rubbish – and I remember waiting on the 6th formers and staff. Where next? Mr Morgan my piano teacher. Ugh! Stank of alcohol and was usually half cut for my lessons. Hated them – especially when I finally ‘fessed up to my mum that he had got more than a bit letchy with me and I didn’t want to continue anymore. I had to and he was very cross with me for ratting on him. Rarely played since. Many of the teachers at the Girls’ School were really kind and/or good teachers – shout out for Mrs Carpenter, Mrs Buckeridge, Miss Hinde, Mrs Langford, Mrs Dauber, Dr Bishop (I think I’ve got those right?). I was in a class of 9 boys and me for A level physics and some of the boys were a bunch of little f***ers, poking their fingers through the stools when I sat down and lighting fully turned on gas taps. Happy days 🙄. Two last memories to be going on with – school trip to Paris – I was on the last one after which it was banned when we were caught sitting in the boys’ room (honestly we were just talking), and the most memorable outside school party at Jason Andrews’ house when all the boys decided to put Debbie Does Dallas on and the girls all promptly left the room 😂.
OMG Debbie does Dallas PMSL
If it’s driving anyone else nuts, I’ll do my best with the names of the people in the photo.
4th Row (L to R):
Tim something?, Steven De’Ath, Jonathan last name begins with M, James Adam, Paul Dennier, Don’t know
3rd Row (L to R):
Simon something?, Don’t know, Don’t know, Justin Sherwin, Tim Evans, Alistair something?, Paul Rogers?
2nd Row (L to R):
Karen something?, Martin Doe, Tim Phillips, Tim Laker, Alan Evans, Don’t know, Don’t know
1st Row (L to R):
Gail Fluke, Helen Uridge, Jonathan Mason, Mr Main, Tim Harris, Not sure but it could be Di Hayes, Arianne Evans
I was in the upper 6th when this was taken, so why am I not in this picture? If anyone knows why, please let me know. 🙂
Hi Sean, here you go – filling in some names.
4th row: Tim Martin, Stephen De’Ath, Jonathan Malalieu, James Adams, Paul Dennison, Richard Burnel
3rd row: Simon Rees, Stephen Chapman, Simon Driver, Justin Sherwin, Tim Evans, Alistair Harvey, Paul Rogers
2nd Row: Karen Hope, Martin Wolfgang Doe, Tim Phillips, Tim Laker, Alan Evans, Julian ‘Bug’ Bedford, ???
1st row: Gail Fluke, Helen Uridge, Jonathan Mason, Geoffrey ‘Klingon’ Main, Tim Harris, Di Hayes, Arianne Evans.
I used to be mates with Richard ‘psycho’ Burnel and knew him on and off until 2002. He got me into cycling as he was absolutely mad about the sport. He was one of those kids who was rather obsessive about learning useless information like the distances of all the orbits of the planets from the sun. He used to go into the library and look that stuff up and learn it because he was bored. I remember him sniffing whiteboard pens during Mrs Carpenter’s maths lessons in the sixth form. He used to carry a screwdriver in his cycling jersey and regularly got into altercations with motorists on his bike, so much so that I stopped riding with him. He was a danger to himself and others.
Hi Sean, good to hear from you. I recall the Star Trek sound effects. I don’t know if you remember kneeing my brother in the balls when he was in the upper sixth. Apparently, you did some temporary damage but he was too embarrassed to go to the doctor. No lasting damage though as he has two kids now.
I remember hearing about Damian Grainer being hit by a bus crossing the road in Brighton when he was in the fourth year. He was in my class. He was really messed up and in hospital for some time with several broken bones. His mum was Portuguese I think. Anyway, he used to spend his holidays in Portugal. It was at Mark Bristow’s fifteenth birthday party that he got shot at.
I went back to LOGS for the last time in about 1991. I spoke to Mr Wood, the former Maths teacher, who told me that Simon Smart, a class-mate of mine, had been killed in a motor-cycling accident aged 19. He had asked Mr Mead if it would be okay to put up a memorial plaque for him but permission was refused. When I taught at a school in Cambridge (Cambridge Centre for Sixth Form Studies) from 2000 to 2002, I met the head of the fifth form who told me that he had taught at LOGS after qualifying as a teacher in the 90s. He was at a staff meeting at LOGS the day before school started where the PE teacher turned up without a tie. Mr Mead (AKA ‘Gut’) told him to go home and get one. This was all in front of the other staff.
I did hear that Andrew Middleton did time at one of Her Majesty’s finest institutions for growing something he shouldn’t have.
The last time I saw anyone from Lewes was in about 1998 when I met up with Paul Dennison and Terry (Jones?) at the Five Bells Inn in North Chailey with others I can’t recall. About that time, I vaguely remember staying at Mark Bristow’s flat in Eastbourne. Paul, Terry and I were pretty wrecked and I recall that we took a shopping trolley up in the lift to Mark’s flat, which really upset him.
I hope I am wrong, but I believe that Mark Bristow is no longer with us. He died in 2002 in Eastbourne but I have no idea of the cause.
Hey Alan –
Oh dear, I have absolutely no recollection of doing that to Tim. That’s awful. Probably explains why he didn’t want to stay in touch when you very graciously provided me with his address in Canada some years back. Oh well. If you’re reading this, sorry Tim.
I do have another Tim story though and yes, he was the victim yet again. When Tim and I were in the lower 6th, the 6th form common room was still in the main school building. The 6th form moved to the Annex the following year. Anyway, a regular sport in those days was “wellie fights”. For reasons unknown, there were several wellington boots lying around the 6th form common room and these were used as ammunition. Two teams would form at each end of the room, using the chairs for protection. We would then hurl wellies at each other until either a) break was over, b) Mrs Mead or Mr Wilkins walked in or c) some personal or property damage had occurred. During one particular fight Tim and I were on opposing teams. I threw a wellie at the chair he was hiding behind. It was on its way – mid air – when Tim decided to peek above the parapet so to speak and WHAM!! A full in the face hit! He had a black eye for a while as I recall.
I now realise this story and the “balls” story make me sound like a violent hooligan. I really wasn’t. I actually considered Tim to be my best friend at school. I hope he’s doing OK.
Our lower 6th was a bit out of control behaviour-wise. One time, we tied Tim Phillips to a chair in the common room, then built a chair pyramid and put him on the top. The break bell sounded and we left him there. I still don’t know how he got down. Happy days.
Hi Sean, I remember Tim telling me about the chair thing and Tim Phillips. Poor Mr Wilkins had a hard time I think. “Get your hands out of your pockets” was his catchphrase. Didn’t Mr Mead give a lecture to some of your year on the sins of masturbation when you were in the fifth form? So many stories. And Mr Blackwell was always on the point of losing it completely. I think a classic trick was to try to make someone laugh while he was giving them a bollocking by making faces behind his back.
Hi Sean, I wouldn’t worry too much. Tim told the story with much amusement.
Hi Alan, Regarding some of the pranks. Mr Mead always made the mistake of warning us that potential parents would be visiting the school and for us to be on our best behaviour. This was our call to put condoms over the light bulbs in the main hall ( in my day the school was the flint building beside the Shelleys ) The downstairs lights were never used, except when parents would be visiting, and the heat from the bulb would inflate the condoms to enormous size! End of term plays – Snow White and the 7 dwarfs was put on one term. “Somebody” ( actually a few ) went under the stage and sawed through a few of the timbers. I think it held up the first night, but during the second night one corner of the stage collapsed. We were also press-ganged into running new wiring from the stage to the projection box at the other end of the hall. This involved lifting the floorboards, so someone ( I wont name him ) was pushed under the floor and the boards nailed back down. We didn’t let him out until he reached the other end – black as soot from a few hundred years of dirt! Cling film over the toilet seats was another favourite. In the junior school ( a few yards down the road by the traffic lights ), we discovered we could get into the lofts and from there, through a hatch and into a wardrobe in Mr Blackwell’s bedroom. ( he lived at the school in those days ) The wardrobe was the storage place for his dirty magazines, so these were spread out on his bed, opened at the centre pages, and we left the way we came, with him having no idea who did the deed!. We also used to fill the staff room sugar bowl with bromide , which looks just like sugar. Some of the teachers would be in a foul mood the following day!!!
Hi Graham, that poor man – what did you do to him!!! Mr Blackwell was always a bit unhinged I thought and now I know why. I remember the senior school (in my day also the flint building next to Shelley’s – built in 1850) was a bit of a warren. Mr Blackwell seemed obsessed with petty details such as whether we had the hymn book with us when we went to assembly or if we were wearing forbidden white socks. Thanks for the update.
1981-88
Hi Alan,
Your blog makes me laugh and cry:-)
I hope you will afford me the chance to give some recollections [without recriminations]
‘Veale go to me room’ “anybody’ else? No?’ Porky. Roy [bloody] Mead. Hero, or legend. No: just an arse. When I want my children to get good marks, or tell them to behave: I don’t terrorise them: with assemblies of poorly staged-managed etiquette [poor wooden chairs for seniors; middles being coerced into appearing in ‘The Mikado’ {profit, for the next Audi} and juniors, just wondering what’s coming next: a wall-hanging? or having a too clean lab-coat/ serving Mrs T’s slop at ‘high’ table… Mead had [ maybe] a sense of grandeur it’s…
After all, his school was ‘Bonge” [ I was unlucky enough to be in the front seat of his car on the way to Compiegne [he played Edith Piaf:…and kept saying Bonge …Bon? with Hassocks accent….
Denyer. I was in Rupe’s class…but the other one [ ie not ‘d’}
Teachers:
Mr. Reeves [ Vladimir} Needed insulin, but ‘friendly’
Mr. David ‘cough cough’ [a r-hoo-hoo] Blackwell:
ATC: nightmare [ I hope my younger brother survived, I daren’t ask!] on his ‘training’ missions. Bunsen burners, just off the hall [where Porky just might leave a tenner, to ‘spot a thief’]….but the venue for the aforementioned:
Taught me little or no physics. But taught me, to speak better and the joy of smoking….
‘Take note of the C. U [nt}…. It was brilliant [ corridor from library to art dept, from bursars office]
Porky: ‘I know more swear words than you…Who did it…etc’
Mr. Knight: ‘Gaypole’ [ I think the nickname was Blackadder more than his sexuality [but who knows in that school?] Good form teacher, and no problems.
Mr Kit Wood. No problems: boozer on a bike with a keen sense of history. Good teacher.
Mr. Phillips: arse. I can do a dyke run, mate: but having to sit in your shoddy ‘rally’ car listening to Marillion is not on!
Mr J. Senior. Utter ‘groomer’. …Once stayed at his run-down pile with stupid railings found ….. years after I had left school……..
Mr. Maine: God-squad!…firm but fair: [I still do a good-isn impression of him: {deep-voice: sit down’genelmen’]
Selected others: Morgan [music] nominative determinative: an organ; the Welsh maths teacher [who kept referencing 9″ ]a twat…and Whitaker [ Zit-aker] who has posterity not only because I despise the man, but is the ‘form’ teacher of my only remains LOGS photo. [You are ‘lucky’ with Maine].
Anyway,
I’m not sure what the purpose of the blog is, but I trust you are ok [4 years older, I believe]. If you need further info….
Cheers: I look at my class photo:
back row:
Mason/Dixie/Wood{Chris}/Bristow{Jonathan}Cole/Rodgers/Sinclair/Elliot/ Rodger[?]
Front row:
[?]/ Brown{Elvis}/White sock: me/ Zittereker/ Akin/Pescod/Sheppard/Saunders
Nice days. Brutal. Kinship. hope some of the teachers get their comeuppance though. My small children will never know 🙂
All the best
‘There’s going to be a cheese and wine party next week. Make sure your parents come…And remember to bring some’ing for the harvest festival…….and don’t forget the Mikado…
‘Who’s smuggling bottles in the back of the van’ [1988 Paris trip]….
Hi Nick, thanks for your comments. It was a good read. Any photos to add from your time at the Lewes funny farm?
Hi Nick,
As I recall wasn’t it you that coughed from the stage in a certain manner that drove David Blackwell out of the back of the hall?
I remember you all very well, along that new corridor…. the mod ‘in crowd’! you Rory and Chris Cole…. all button downs and attitude! Squire anyone?
It was all very weird for sure, but do I look back now and laugh at it all. I still meed up with Simon Bailey on occasion and it is always a topic of conversation. There are so many things that I can remember about that time. I believe that it is a very different kind of place these days!
I hope that you and the family are well.
Adrian.
If anyone is still reading this blog and agrees it is an entertaining read and if would like more details and acknowledgment as to how messed up that school was then I have plenty of memories from 82 till 86.
Gut was a tyrant but better known those days ( 82 -86) as Porky !!!
Bottom line if your parents didn’t like his ways go elsewhere. Cant believe however that he had teachers grooming young lads and he didn’t know about it !!!!
Rory Mason
Hi Rory, please tell more. Would love to hear.
Hi Rory,
I remember you well. I can assure you that he knew. He even wrote to the home secretary when he dismissed Dawson stating that he should not be employed in a school environment again. Some rather unsavoury accusations (well founded in my experience, but sadly after I left the school) which appeared to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And that still sits in the school’s records…!
Thanks folks! This has given me a lockdown laugh for sure! I was witness to some of the rants and madness described. When I look back, if I am honest, in educational terms it was what I needed to progress. I did not want to go to Lewes, but the secondary school situation in the Burgess Hill area (just the one being Oakmeads that was full) meant that my parents made sacrifices to send me to a fee paying school. The only person I new from my primary school was a lad who became my best mate for many years, Matt Sands, a bit of a herbert…. especially in the school’s eyes. So, I see it from both angles, for some ‘it was the best of times’, equally for others it was ‘the worst of times’. For my part it was alright and got me to university (which otherwise may not have happened), so I am never too critical….. when asked I describe it as a rather ‘unconventional education’…. oh and I did hate the uniform!
Hi Adrian, I remember you. I remember Matthew Sands too. You were on the Burgess Hill coach weren’t you? Hope life is treating you well. LOGS was a mixed bag. There wasn’t a lot of choice if you didn’t want to go to Oakmeads but still that doesn’t let those teachers off who were bullies or just plain nasty.
Hi Alan, yes I was one of the Burgess Hill coach group. I am well, you too I trust. I have read through all of the comments and have been amused and troubled in equal measure. I guess I was lucky in that I became quite resilient to it all. I remember starting in 1980 and it was absolutely daunting. The form room was the History room directly on the left as you went up the main stairs, Chris Knight was the Form teacher for 1P (P as I recall stood for parallel). The problem that I had was that I came in to the Senior school from a larger and very different county primary school in Burgess Hill and was thrown into a very cliquey environment of a very small (9 if I remember correctly) class, the majority of who were long standing mates who had come up together through the Junior School. One of my abiding memories of the first couple of weeks was Chris Stevens informing me on behalf of the rest of the class ‘Adrian, we all hate you’… which was nice! Thankfully that kind of thing didn’t last for too long. We all got on fine in the end.
By the third year I found my feet…. yeah I know three years, not bad! and by the fourth year I had it sussed I think. Then as now I could not fight my way out of an argument (and I was only about 4 foot 10 which was never going to help!) so I used words instead. What’s more I enjoyed being quite antagonistic towards the more authoritarian members of staff. I remember doing an assembly on my own that was quite a long criticism of the Catholic Church, knowing full well the faiths of certain members of the teaching staff. It did the trick, I think that David Blackwell walked out of the hall and I was invited to discuss the matter in Roy Mead’s office).
On another occasion I went all out to wind David Blackwell up again (or Captain Blackwell as he became on Fridays). Each November there was always a big Poppy Appeal push within the school and each year a night’s reprieve from homework was on offer to everyone who sported a British Legion Poppy. Now established as being a bit cantankerous I refused to wear one based on the principle that wearing a poppy to avoid an evening’s homework was not in line with remembering the sacrifice of the Armed Forces in two world wars. So I would take the hit and do the homework, how dedicated is that to getting up teachers’ noses! Better fun was to be had a year or so later when the Daily Mail got their right wing knickers in a twist over the appearance of sellers from the Peace Pledge Union (a very long established (1934) pacifist organisation) selling their white poppies. Whilst not a pacifist or an opponent of the Red Poppy of the RBL (of which I am a member) this was a great opportunity to ruffle some feathers, especially the green khaki ones of the good Captain. The trouble was that if any any white poppy sellers had been operating in Lewes it seems that David Blackwell may have sent out cadet patrols to have them cast into the Ouse! The bottom line was that I could not buy one, so I did the next best thing and made one. The wind up worked, I recall that David Blackwell wanted me to be expelled and once again I found myself in Roy Mead’s office explaining my actions. As an aside in recent years after writing a book about my Grandfather’s wartime service, I have been a wreath layer in Normandy and Belgium on behalf of the Associations of the two Infantry Divisions with which he served.
The other occasion on which I sailed rather close to the wind and in fact the only occasion on which I was shown the cane was prior to an open evening for parents of prospective pupils to see the school. This was I think in December 1986 when I was in the Upper Sixth. As an A level student, there was an expectation to be present, man some of the display experiments and sell the school. I arrived at the required time with my uniform in a bag and was making my way to the then new part of the building accessed from the corridor where Roy’s office was located. If I remember rightly I was due to see The Damned that night and was going to go up to London as soon as my duties were fulfilled. On hearing someone walk past his office door in an otherwise deserted building this drew him out of his lair as I was walking down the corridor. To say that he took issue with my clothing was something of an understatement. ‘Mr Andrews how dare you walk into my school dressed as a punk rocker!!’ (well I was going to see The Damned!). I was in DMs and also wearing a studded belt and Matthew Sand’s bondage jacket with the Crass logo on the back of it (borrowing of clothes seemed to have been quite a common thing back them)…. at one time I thing I wore Terry Jones’s old leather jacket for about six months (with his knowledge!). The fact that it was Matt’s jacket probably didn’t help (not that he would have made the connection). Matt had been expelled after allegedly telling Peter Whittaker to ‘Fuck Off’, something to be commended for rather than punished for in my opinion (and this in fact was something that Matt was adamant he did not say even years afterwards when there was nothing to be gained by lying. Matt’s name was mud in the Mead’s circle! I was summonsed to his office after changing, threatened with the cane and instructed to hand over the offending clothing for incineration. At the end of the evening these were returned to me as he had gracefully decided not to burn my clothes.
So yes, It was as I mentioned yesterday very much an ‘unconventional’ education, very much of its time and outside of the normal rules that governed the majority of educational establishments. But, as Sean said in an earlier post for a whole raft of reasons (fear of Mr Mead, not wanting to let my parents down who in their decision to send me there to ensure that the dormant potential, that all of my primary teachers said that I had, was realised…. but mostly through fear!) I did receive a good education that enabled me to go to university. That to this day (33 years after leaving) sits uncomfortably with me as a bit of a Lefty who doesn’t endorse private education and considers that the benefits of a single sex-education are far outweighed by the positives of co-education!
Twelve years ago, we did the rounds of local schools as our son Rudi was due to enter secondary school. The school into which his primary school fed was a 1,000 pupil comprehensive. At the end of the school tour, my wife asked me what I thought….. I said ‘I’ve no idea…. it looks like Grange Hill!’. I had absolutely no points of reference coming from my own education and I felt a bit helpless!
You say you went to a primary school in Burgess Hill – not Manor Fields by any chance?
Mr Mead could be kind. When my dad failed to pay the school fees when I was in the fifth form and my brother in the lower sixth, he invited himself round to our house in Burgess Hill. One look at the threadbare carpets and he knew that my mum and stepdad couldn’t pay. Didn’t stop him from asking me regularly about the fees though. As I was lucky to get a card from my dad on my birthday, I knew he wouldn’t get his money that quickly.
I attended a get together in about 1991 and met Mr Wood for the first time in ages. He said how Simon Smart, a boy in my year who left in the third year had died aged 19 in a motorcycle accident and Mr Mead refused to put a commemorative plaque on the wall.
I had long hair then in a ponytail and remember turning up at LOGS one afternoon with Nic Lello. You should have seen Blackwell’s face. He had a haunted look on his face like he had seen a ghost.
Last time I visited was in 1995 when I saw Mrs Dawber. I was going to go out too Zimbabwe to teach and asked if I could sit in on one of her lessons. She criticised Mr Blackwell for just handing out worksheets. He would never explain anything if you asked.
I just remembered a funny thing that happened in the upper sixth. Justin Sherwin decided to nick Mrs Carpenter’s keys and drove her car around Lewes. She had a Cavalier hatchback as I remember. I think he then told her what he had done. He was a complete nutter. Then there was Richard Burnel sniffing the whiteboard markers in the maths lessons.
Happy days.
Hi Alan,
Yes I went to Manor Field from what about ’73 to the summer of 1980 when I went to Lewes. For all of the bad stuff I take away some of the inspirational stuff. Rich or poor, bright or otherwise in every education there will always be a teacher or two that if nothing else imparted a love of a subject or an attitude to learning, even if not in heir own subject. Mrs Dawber did that for me. Like you, I did ‘A’ Level physics and also spent the odd afternoon at her house (I also used to hope that their friend Jonathan Miller would call in whilst I was there… not for anything academic, only because of the Pete and Dud connection!). Likewise, I spent a summer weekend on campus at Sussex on a Physics A Level preparation course in 1986. I recall nothing of the physics tuition but do remember ‘getting off’ as they used to say back in the day with a girl from Manningtree and then trying to escape from here the following night…. this I did with Rob Walters when we escaped to the Escape Club in Brighton for a 10th anniversary of punk gig.
Mrs Langford I also has a lot of time for. As I recall she came from SA or Zimbabwe (can’t quite remember), but through her I ended up at Brunel doing a Chemistry degree. She gracefully put up with a lot from us.
French was always fun, not that I leaned the language to any degree (I just used to piss about in the main – it was the only O level that I failed). I used to write expletives lifted from the Collins-Robert dictionary in the back of my exercise book and then Julian would correct them and add new suggestions. I came close to moving into St John’s Terrace at one time…. I think the appeal was that it felt like the Young Ones house at the time.
Some of the teachers I had little time for and I guess that in 2020 the educational system, independent or otherwise would not have much time for them either.
But I have to say that whilst much of it was uncomfortable and shit, for some really shit, I am in a position when I can look back on it all and laugh (with a few others) at how bizarre it all was.
I will recall some more funny experiences over the weekend.
Cheers,
Adrian.
I went to live in Zimbabwe for two years from 1996 and loved it – probably already said that. I taught maths and physics. I have visited many times since. You can read some of my posts about the place too.
Poor Mr Senior – he was a kind man but so disorganised. I liked him and so did most of the kids.
Yes, I remember Mrs Langford well. Richard Burnel and I used to squirt ethanol from the bottles and set fire to it – like a mini flame thrower. We also took the piss out of her for her accent saying 2-4-dinitrophenyl hydrazine in a Zim accent. God knows how but I got a B in chemistry. She complained to my mother one parents’ evening – my mother was mortified. I ended up living in Zimbabwe for two years but that is another story.
Mr Senior’s lessons were pretty bad but he was kind. I vaguely remember going round to his house once. He had quite a following. I called him up once one summer when I was 17 because I had a crisis about studying physics or not at uni. I don’t think he knew what to say.
Having been a teacher myself, I know how hard the job can be. It’s not for the faint-hearted these days.
Mr Blackwell took us for English I seem to remember in the first year. I remember him reading to us. We had to learn “If” by Rudyard Kipling by heart. I’m sure Mr Blackwell would love Nigel Farage if he were alive today. He stubbed a cigarette out on Justin Sherwin’s hand – something Justin did for a bet. Madness. He had a thing about us coming to assembly with our hymn books. And he hated us wearing white socks. Always shouting.
Manor Field – I was there from 73 to 78. I can remember all the names of the teachers still. Mrs Randal, Mrs Maise, Mr Simpson, Mrs Davies, Mrs Poland etc etc. Mr Souter was a bastard and Mr Lee. I didn’t learn much there but my brothers went to Hurstpierpoint College where the bullying was really bad. My brother got a bog-wash there one day.
Keep the memories coming!!!
The two blogs covering the periods 1979 to 1985 and 1993 to 2000 reduced me to tears…of laughter.
I joined the school in 1984, year of the Brighton bombing and left in 1991, year of the first Gulf war. The Berlin Wall came down in between.
After my entrance exam, Mr Mead concluded that I might get a handful of O levels but I wouldn’t get any A levels. He let me in anyway. There was no induction and the teachers were an idiosyncratic bunch.
My first day was marred by the fact that I didn’t have my woodwork apron. So much for my mother’s parting advice that I wouldn’t have this subject on the first day. That misdemeanour resulted in Mr Santilli ordering me to out of the woodwork room.
Technical drawing was also in the woodwork room. Mr ‘Zit’ Whittaker had a pathological hatred of the melodious digital watches that became so popular in the 1980s. If your timepiece so much as chirruped, he was liable to smash it to smithereens with a woodwork mallet.
Blackboard dusters were the weapon of choice for others. I recall one flying out of the front window and landing in a passing sand lorry never to be seen again.
Mead taught us English in the dining hall next to the main road. He ordered me to stand on the pavement and watch the traffic after I was distracted by the siren of a passing emergency vehicle.
The school had acquired a suite of new IBM PCs and Mead also proudly taught us computer studies. He mini-bussed us up to IBM in Croydon. Several of us were concerned about his lack of seat belt wearing. I reminded him but to no avail.
One day, our physics lesson was disturbed by a horrendous clattering outside. It was elderly English teacher and wife of a famous children’s author, Mrs Buckeridge, falling down the front stairs with her ubiquitous wicker basket in hot pursuit.
My first art teacher was Mrs Corrie. I managed to make such an impression that she denied any knowledge of me at the end of year parents’ evening.
Our geography teacher was rumoured to eat a whole loaf of bread and un-peeled oranges for lunch. Hence his moniker, ‘Gannet’. Gannet once gave us a temperance assembly questioning why anyone would want to ‘drink poison’. I think he banned school raffles too or at least he tried to.
Another memorable run in with Mead was when he came skulking down the back stairs and apparently heard the utterance of a profanity. He quickly rounded up the half a dozen pupils in the vicinity and hustled us off to his office. Apoplectic with rage, he worked his way along the line of terrified boys trying to exhort a confession. None was forthcoming and he announced that he was ‘going to cane the lot of you’. Next came a moment of comedy as he mounted his chair to grab his cane, the chair wobbled and he nearly hit the deck. The next moment the school bell rang and he dismissed us all. We were quite literally ‘saved by the bell’.
We also had the monotonic maths teacher and bridge supremo, Mr E V Reeves. Eric was widely known as ‘Vladimir’ although the ‘V’ was short for Valentine. He claimed to have had a career in women’s underwear manufacture and was widely ribbed about his young wife…or was it his daughter..?
First year sports operated under Mr Phillips’ regime with the delights of the Dyke and Kingston Runs. The Dyke Run was particularly horrendous – across the marsh land south of the Lewes bypass, wading through ditches containing ice, leeches, dead sheep and rusting farm machinery. I remember doing it in the sleet and one poor lad peeing himself to keep warm.
Sports improved when Mr Stevens replaced Phillips. Football at Baxters, rugby at the Stanley Turner, cricket somewhere near Lewes Priory and basketball at the YMCA. We got to know Lewes rather well. I wonder if the good residents of the Kingston Road ever figured out who was moving their milk bottles?
Occasionally we went to the swimming pool at Newhaven. Once we were waiting unsupervised in the minibus on Bradford Road. People rocked it until it started moving backwards down the hill. Fortunately someone had the bright idea of grabbing the handbrake before it gathered too much momentum.
Mrs Lewis ruled the kitchen like a female Stalin. I quite enjoyed her ‘meal of the day’ where cash in advance was exchanged for meal vouchers. Alternatively there was a choice of such delights as chips, sausages and beans. A couple of pupils operated a rudimentary computer system deducting these greasy purchases from pre-paid accounts. There were rumours of food items smuggled past in blazer pockets although I don’t think anyone ever tried it with the beans.
Service was a key part of the ethos. One of the other blogs referred to ‘grovellies’. Mead recruited a group of us as waiters for his daughter’s wedding reception at Plumpton College and for a cricket club dinner in Lewes. We would also be conscripted to make teas and coffees at parents’ evenings.
I never joined the cadets. On the day of a camp, Captain ‘Delboy’ Blackwell told one cadet that he could not go because his hair was too long. A couple of his friends helpfully obliged and hacked away a large semi-circle of hair above his neck. Somehow Mead found out about his tonsure and frogmarched the poor chap to the local barbers for a ‘grade 1’ all over. I don’t think he was allowed back until it regrew.
1987 heralded the Beastie Boys’ craze of wearing VW badges. Things came to a head when some bright spark removed the VW badge from Mrs Mead’s car outside the school. I recall Mead taking us all to task about the evils of ‘The Beasties’. However, nothing topped the special assembly after he chanced upon an ‘artist’s impression’ of a phallus on his wanderings.
One Christmas, there was some kind of talent show in the assembly hall. One of my younger brothers did a cover of Roy Orbison’s song ‘Dream’. However, the lad operating the sound box ramped up the bass and the result was hilarious. I could see Mead’s broad shoulders in front of me shaking with uncontrollable laughter.
Towards the end of my time at the school was the infamous pre-Christmas party when alcohol-fuelled pupils trashed the school kitchen. Rumour had it that they found Mead’s frozen turkey, basted it in sugar and put it in the microwave.
Nice one Patrick. I’m glad to see that the craziness didn’t end after I left the school.