Recollections of an Old (but young at heart) Oswestrian, circa 1952 - EPISODE 6, FLAT VOWELS, FLAT CAPS AND FERRETS

Several weeks into our new life at Oswestry School and my brother and I were beginning to develop friendships and adjust to a different kind of lifestyle from the one we had back home amongst the Lancashire cotton mills, which continuously belched out plumes of highly polluting smoke from tall chimney stacks, as depicted in LS Lowry's pictures.


The air was much cleaner for one thing and it was a pleasure to breathe it in as we dashed about the large playground during daily games of football. We played with a tennis ball, and held cricket matches using a section of the Laboratory wall (now the music school) as wickets. If you look closely at the photo below you can just make out the wickets chalked in white on the wall of the Lab to the left of the door.

We always looked forward to Wednesday and Saturday afternoons when we played football or cricket on the Maes-y-Llan, and I remember the joy of scoring my first goal during a hectic game of what seemed more like 15-a-side football! Something I found difficult to come to terms with were lessons on a Saturday morning and I was not alone in this.

Initially my brother and I were known as the 'Pickies', and our broad, flat Lancashire accents gave away our roots, causing some merriment and ribbing as we would shout out at playtime, "All agin't fence fur a bit o' footie!" The way our more cultured friends would have put it would go something like, "Would all boys wishing play a game of football please line up along the fence". Our way was shorter and had more urgency about it.

Cricket match in progress. (Left) Jack Greves and (right) Edward Goff

Once a line of boys wishing to play was in place I would pick my team, and Bernard his, each of us choosing alternately from the talent before us. We would sometimes agree privately to pick some of the less talented boys early on so that they were not always last to be chosen. Bernard and I were never on the same team and the schoolyard matches were very competitive. Only when we were much older and played for School or in House Matches would we play alongside one another, and we fought many battles together on the famous playing fields of Oswestry School.

Lancashire boys in flat caps (NOT the Pickups!)

A common interest in sport, coupled with being 'New Boys' drew Bernard, myself and Jack Greves together, and later in the year Jack's mother took 'Ma' Walton, the Headmistress of the Prep Department to one side - Cobber Walton, who overheard the conversation, told me that she wanted to know more about these Lancashire Pickup brothers with whom Jack was associating. Getting to know her much later we concluded that she had been worried that her only son might come home speaking flat vowels, wearing a flat cap, clogs, and braces!

Jack saw the funny side of it and wound us up saying she had also asked him if we kept whippets and raced pigeons back in Lancashire, and did we really eat tripe and onions and black puddings? She may even have wondered if we kept a couple of ferrets in our tuck boxes so we could go rabbiting in the Dingle.

(Left) David Pickup and (right) Bernard
Pickup in the Dingle

She was actually a very nice lady, but somewhat haughty; married to a Squadron Leader (later promoted to Wing Commander) serving out in Aden defending our dwindling Empire, she was a little detached from reality and devoted to Jack. We went to stay with him a couple of times during school holidays and his mum was always very kind, correcting our peculiar speech irregularities into the bargain! We were at Jack's in the summer of 1956, glued to the television, when Jim Laker took 19 wickets in a test match against Australia. England won, and his record stands to this day.

It was during our first term that, along with the other 'Newbugs', we were thrown unceremoniously into the large holly bush which was situated on the lower paddock right next to the school orchard. This initiation ceremony was brief and rather prickly.

Time flew by and we were soon at the end of our first few weeks at boarding school,  looking forward to a return to Lancashire and our home in the foothills of The Pennines.

No doubt the whippets, greyhounds, and pigeons would all be pleased to see us and we were in eager anticipation of Friday night treats of tripe and onions, bare knuckle contests on Saturdays, and cock fighting on a Sunday after twice attending Church 😉

The holly bush is central and left of the three trees.