Recollections of an Old (but young at heart) Oswestrian, circa 1952 - EPISODE 38, RAILWAY JOURNEYS, ROMANTIC MOMENTS, AND REGRETS

Chimney stacks belching out smoke in nearby Burnley

The county of Lancashire, home of cockfighting, Chorley cakes, and chimney stacks, was a fertile area of recruitment for Headmaster Williamson in the forties and fifties.

"Where there's muck there's money," was an oft-heard expression in my part of the world, and there was certainly plenty of muck and grime spilling out daily from hundreds of tall, forbidding cotton mill smokestacks, not too far distant from our home, as my brother and I were growing up amongst the rolling hills of the lower Pennines.

Picnicking in the locality of our home in 1952

Word must have spread amongst the better off in East Lancashire that Oswestry School was a good place to educate your children, and at the start of every term more than 20 of us would travel from Exchange Station, Manchester, southward bound for Oswestry changing at Crew and Whitchurch. 

On arrival at Crew, it was a race against time to catch our connection for the next leg of our journey, as we only had a few minutes in which to dash over the bridge and board the train which was preparing to leave from another platform. 

At Gobowen we caught an ancient train we christened the 'Rattler', which shook us to bits as it rattled its way along the track for the few remaining miles to our destination, and we would all groan as the tannoy operator took great delight in announcing that the train to Welshpool would stop at Oswestry and Pant! (the next station down the line). 

Pant railway station

Invariably there was a reception committee of girls as we alighted from the train at Oswestry, and several boys would be passionately reunited with their term-time inamorata amidst wolf-whistling, catcalling, and ribald comments that would make your hair curl!

One of the girls meeting her beau lived in the house adjoining the LAST DAY sign on the wall at the entrance to the school. 

For some unknown reason her father was known as 'Bagwash', and he was a keen gardener, growing a diversity of fruit and vegetables in his back garden, which was just under the magnificent horse chestnut trees and beyond the wall at the back of the school playground. 

In the summertime a trickle of boys lacking any sense of taste, desperately hungry, or maybe both, would sneak over the school wall to sample the dubious delights of Mr Bagwash's goosegogs whilst hoping to catch a glimpse of his beautiful daughter. 

Brief encounter at Oswestry Station

Alack, and alas, the lovely girl's heart had been stolen by a boy from Holbache House, and I well remember the pair's final fond farewell play out on Oswestry Station in 1954, reminiscent of a sad scene in David Lean's much-acclaimed 1945 film Brief Encounter, as the lovers parted, perhaps never to meet again. In this instance, the boy leaving school would soon receive his call up papers to do two long years' National Service in foreign parts. 

Looking at this wintry playground scene brings out a tinge of sadness in me as I mourn the loss of those wonderful conker trees, which added such character to this part of the school. No doubt they were felled in good faith with an eye to improving the amenities of the school as a whole, but the area is now, regrettably, a shadow of its former glory. 

I liked to be one of the early arrivals back at school after the holidays to get the exciting gossip first hand, as boys could not wait to tell their stories, often tall stories, of romantic love affairs, tales of derring-do, and exaggerated holiday adventures.

It was always fun to be back amongst our school friends, but I do think some of the boys were still in fantasy land after having read too many Famous Five books during their time at home.

 As stories were passed from boy to boy they became embellished like Chinese whispers, and the air would be abuzz with excitement for several days until tales finally fizzled out having reached their tell - by date! 

When I look back in time there are inevitably a few regrets, the main one being that my A level studies coincided with the arrival of Mr Frankland. Having passed all nine O levels in the calm waters of Mr Williamson's era, I subsequently only managed one A level and, in part, I put this down to the sequence of events that were unfolding in the school, particularly in 1959/60. A prophetic entry in my diary for 18 July 1960 reads, "Round 2: this place is nearer to rebellion than it has ever been. Several more boys are threatened with expulsion, and the school is seething with a hatred I can not express in words....." 

David's five year diary

Just over one week later, on 26 July I walked past LAST DAY painted on the wall, never to return as a pupil; my time at Oswestry was over, and a new chapter in my life was about to open up!