Interviewed by Troy Jenkinson
Mr Andrew was a Head Teacher at Dayncourt from 1976 to 2000
Mr A The only people who were there before it became a comprehensive school, well there are two people, one of them is Dave Holmes who still lives in Radcliffe, have you spoken to him
TJ I haven’t spoken to him but I have spoken to Maggie (Brown). I do see them around but they have moved now.
Mr A They have moved from the big house to a bungalow… Dave was there in the secondary modern days. He will have memories of the secondary modern days.
TJ So when did you start at Dayncourt?
Mr A 1976. The school opened as a comprehensive in 1972. The previous head, David Butterworth was there for four years, then he moved to Norfolk and I took over in 1976.
TJ When you moved there, what was it like?
Mr A It was pretty much a building site, in the sense that the main teaching block had been built, but there was no Sixth Form Block and the Lower School was only half been completed. So for several years it really was a building site. The Lower School was the first to be completed and when we had the first bulk of the intake coming through into the Sixth Form, they didn’t have a base, they were shunted around from base to base without having a common room or decent classrooms. They just had to use the normal classrooms.
TJ So when was the Sixth Form completed then?
Mr A It must have been the early 80s.
TJ That late? And what about the swimming pool? There’s always been a bit of controversy around it.
Mr A It’s always been a bone of contention. The swimming pool was there because it had been built by public conscription but I can’t remember when. It has always been a bone of contention because when the school was built, when it became Dayncourt, it was sort of forced onto the funding and we had to pay, alright we got an allowance for it, but we had to pay the maintenance and heating and upkeep generally for the swimming pool.
TJ And I bet the allowance didn’t cover that did it?
Mr A No it didn’t, well you went to LMS that was just horrendous. While you are on the swimming pool, I know you are going to edit this as it will be a bit illogical. There was a story about one of the caretakers of the school, drowning in the swimming pool. Have you picked this story up? I think it was suicide. I can’t give you a date, it was before I got there. The caretaker who worked most of the time when I was there called Alf Jackson always said that he hated doing the late night lock up at the school because he came across this guy walking around…
TJ The ghost?
Mr A The ghost of the caretaker who died in the swimming pool. It wasn’t a story that you put around for the kids.
TJ You mentioned earlier about the houses, tell me more about those.
Mr A Well this came about because of the link with the Canadians who came over who were housed on the Canadian Estate… is it still called the Canadian Estate?
TJ It is.
Mr A Its still got the names of the roads? The Secondary Modern as it was had to absorb these kids. They thought they had to make them feel at home. So they had these houses that were named after the Canadian provinces. Somehow, the totem poles were created and erected outside and some inside the school as well.
TJ So the totem pole I know about was the one that was out at the front of the old school…
Mr A So where is that now?
TJ I think some of it has rotted away now. I can’t be quite sure. I know they have replacement ones now but I do know it was created by a Canadian student but I don’t know when it was created.
Mr A It was there when I came… I would think it dates back to pre-Dayncourt, to the time of the Secondary Modern. When they also had Canadian teachers there, I understand…
TJ They ran an English and a Canadian curriculum.
Mr A Yes they did.
TJ So when you were there in 1976, were the Canadians there then?
Mr A No.
TJ And the houses were…
Mr A Alberta, Brunswick, Columbia, Manatoba, Ontario. Manatoba was on the middle floor of the main block. Brunswick was on the top floor. Columbia was difficult to describe, out on a wing somewhere and Alberta was in the art department. They were only four that had designated house areas with a sort of coffee bar type social area.
TJ I remember one of them being around the theatre area.
Mr A Now let me get this right, that was Ontario.
TJ Tell me about when you got there. You went there as a head? So what was your experience of being head in that school?
Mr A My experience was that it was a well run school. It wasn’t full to capacity because the comprehensive intake, the big intake which was 11 form entry, had started coming in and it had only got up to Year 10 and so the school expanded and expanded.
TJ So how many kids were there?
Mr A 1800 at one time. That was at its peak. They were taken from Cotgrave, Radcliffe, Shelford and Holme Pierrepont. At that time, Cotgrave was big. You lived in Cotgrave… I don’t know how many buses we had from Cotgrave. There was a fair number. Although I think some from Cotgrave now go to South Wolds.
TJ I think they were encouraged to do that. I think there’s only 3 now.
Mr A I think at its peak, there were about 11.
TJ They were all the Lam-banger buses… (referring to Lamcote Motors buses).
Mr A Oh the Lam-crates! I can tell you some stories about buses… one of the buses was setting off from Cotgrave one morning and they had had a new driver who didn’t know the route. And they got to the cross roads, before you get the A52, at The Shepherds, you can go right can’t you? The kids on the bus were directing him and told him to go right so he ended up on the A46 towards Leicester before he realised he was going intently the wrong direction. The kids were going yay, we’ve got the day off!
TJ The buses were always interesting. I hated the bus journey in.
Mr A I’m not surprised.
TJ But it was a means to an end because Cotgrave didn’t have a school.
Mr A That was a bone of contention all the way through. I think we bent over backwards to accommodate Cotgrave pupils and parents. We used to have parents evenings at the Miner’s Welfare. Certainly initially we had them in the Miner’s Welfare and we would take the staff over. It was not a comfortable experience because some of the kids who perhaps had it in for teachers felt that they were on their own territory and could do what they want. At one stage we had to have someone on the car park making sure the cars weren’t tampered with.
TJ I can well imagine. You mentioned you went on trips earlier, I’m going to drop Jason King in it now. He said you could go and ask Philip if you wanted to do something and his problem was he always said yes. And it would be the last person who he said yes to who got what they wanted.
Mr A Jason always got what he wanted. I was a great believer in school trips. They are the things kids remember. I was happy that Jason would organise the trips to the Battlefields and the French department would organise a trip to Le Touquet. Did you go on that?
TJ I did. I loved it. It was the first time I had been abroad. It was when you could get a one year passport. Mum got one because she said we probably wouldn’t go abroad again.
Mr A I will tell you about something about one of the Le Touquet trips that I went on, cos I was invited on trips as I had a very light teaching load so if I was out of school, you didn’t need to get too much in terms of supply cover. So I got one or two perks of the job. One of the things staff did on the trips… this is in the days when you could get sort of decent French beer. You would go to one of the supermarkets and stack one of the boots of the bus with one or two bottles of wine and crates of beer which was alright. Except on one of the trips we went and a certain Mr Froggatt suggested that we should do the supermarket visit right at the beginning of the tour. Which was fine apart from one of the nights when we were staying over there in Le Touquet, the coach was broken into and all the wine and beer was taken. So Mr Froggatt was not well pleased by that.
TJ I remember staying with Mrs Kawalec for three years and at the end, she threw a BBQ at her house for her whole tutor group. Did you encourage staff to do this kind of thing?
Mr A I didn’t encourage it but I didn’t frown upon it. I encouraged them to stay in the same year groups to build relationships and get to know their students. You had been with the same teacher for three years, so…
TJ So tell me about some of the other trips…
Mr A Well the ones I remember are the Battlefields Trip and the Le Touquet trip. There were geography field trips that obviously you went on… did you go to Skye?
TJ We went to Arran… I think it was a joint trip.
Mr A With the biologists with Mr Woodcock.
TJ There was a day visit. I think it must have been A-levels and Mr Boggild took us out in the minibus to Birmingham and it was sold as a field trip to look at Spaghetti Junction, which sounds very boring but it was fascinating because he had this way of making things sound a lot better. We looked at how the junction of the canal influenced the road junction. We also went to Biddulph, the source of the River Trent and we did the Boneo experiment. Funnily enough, I was talking to another student who is off out on a trip there today and he is doing exactly the same thing.
Mr A What is the Boneo experiment?
TJ When you throw in a dog biscuit into the stream to measure the speed of the water. Obviously you’re not a geographer.
Mr A Ah, like poo sticks.
TJ You mentioned you had a light teaching commitment. You were a French and Philosophy teacher?
Mr A No, I wasn’t a French specialist at all. I was only put on the French timetable, and it was almost special needs French in the first and second years, because when your deputy does the timetables and they are slaving away at this time in the term and they say, I’ve got it all sorted but I’ve got these two slots…. How’s your French? Well I did O’Level French, so put me down. But I enjoyed it. Initially because my first degree was in Chemistry. I did teach Chemistry to start with. My second degree was in Psychology and when Psychology became a popular A Level subject, Chris Francis, the head of the Sixth Form, came to me and said I think we ought to put on some psychology. He came to me and said, you have a degree in psychology and I have done a bit so why don’t we put on a psychology course? It was quite popular. I’m jumping about a bit and thinking of something you might not have come across.
One of the things they had that you might not know was they had a nationally known wrestling team. Did you know that? Well it was very unusual. One of the parents was into wrestling and asked my predecessor if he could start a club at school, which he did. He got a significant number of boys who trained regularly and competed throughout the country. It was legit. It was good. They made quite a name for themselves. The member of staff who liaised with him and organised the links with the school was Hilary Johnson who taught Rural Studies. She is still around. She was the link there. It was fascinating. They used to meet in the gym by the front door of the school, with their mats. It was all very well done.
TJ What would you say were the big things for Dayncourt? The Big Push? Links with School?
Mr A Basketball. That was John Jones
TJ What were the big things Dayncourt was known for within the community?
Mr A Erm, I hope it was known for catering for all abilities. Trying, not always successfully, to weld the two communities of Cotgrave and Radcliffe together. That was difficult at times. Just going to the success at the top and the bottom end if you like. There was one year, I know we shouldn’t measure success in terms of Oxbridge entries, but we had 5 Oxbridge successes in the Sixth Form one year. I remember when the results came out, getting a phone call from the head of the High School in Nottingham. He asked how did you do it?
TJ Its interesting because this is something that Maggie Brown picked up on. She said for a Comprehensive school to have that many people with Oxbridge entrants was pretty much unheard of. But, I’m guessing you were quite proud of that?
Mr A Yes, but equally, I got satisfaction from people who didn’t achieve very much in school but have gone on to do things in business. We had some windows replaced in the house recently and it was an ex-Dayncourt pupil who’s business it was. He’s now got his business. It’s that sort of thing. Just another thing. Jason sent me a cutting from the local paper about Joy Jordan. Do you know much about her? She used to be a senior lab technician… she has recently celebrated her 90th birthday I understand but she was an Olympic runner.
TJ This is great. So, how many other famous or infamous people have we got at Dayncourt?
Mr A I can’t think of any more Olympic runners. Oh, Mr Ingham was the National Scrabble Champion and did loads of game shows. I mean, people left and got headships and moved on. I don’t think anyone became an MP. There was Nathan Robertson, he did Badminton. He did doubles and became quite high up in Badminton. There was Tom Graham, he played Tom in The Archers. He did a degree in psychology at Manchester. Acting was just a sideline. He was picked up at Central Television Drama. There was also Clive Simms and the Dayncourt Singers. He was head of music for a while. A Welshman and a singer. He formed the Dayncourt Singers which was a group of girls, I’m sorry to say, and they became well known and made various recordings that were sold on big vinyls.
TJ So I am going to go back to something you said at the beginning when you were talking about the building of the different blocks. I’m fascinated by this and how it has all changed. Do you know of anyone who has any photos of it as it was being built.
Mr A I don’t. I think the best contact would perhaps be Dave Holmes, because he has been around from the Secondary Modern. I’m surprised the local history society haven’t got any.
TJ So next to the A Block was the old wooden building.
Mr A Where the Admin was and the science labs.
TJ How did that change? I’ve spoken to people who remember it from before when what was your office was…
Mr A The library in the Secondary Modern school. The changes had been done when I got there. What were the science labs had housed all sorts of different subject areas. They were converted into Science blocks when A Block was built. All the none-science things were taught in there but then the Science labs were created in the old wooden Secondary Modern Block. The Maths Block was also in the wooden building.
TJ What about the Music block? That seemed to be stuck out on a limb…
Mr A It was. I don’t know why. That was a completely new block that was there when I got there. It was one of the buildings that was built first. It was built before the Lower School.
TJ Have you been back since?
Mr A The last time I was there was that evening that was organised before they knocked it down. They offered a tour of the new school but I couldn’t make it. It is quite some building.
TJ The only bits that are still remaining are the sports hall. That was quite new wasn’t it?
Mr A That was there initially. That was one of the first buildings to go up. It was modified. It was built initially as a sort of open barn type. Then they walled it and heated it. We had all sorts of problems trying to get the heating right and the floor wasn’t right. It always had moisture on it. It was always dangerous. Anyway, it was there. The changing rooms were never adequate…
TJ The changing rooms stank. I hated them.
Mr A They were awful. Never adequate.
TJ That’s one of the few things that’s left. And there’s the old wall that used to go around the Lower School building. That’s still there. They used the old tennis courts for the car park and you mentioned there were some bungalows, they are still there. The caretaker’s bungalows. I know a caretaker lives on site in one of them. I’m not sure about the other. Anyway, have you got any funny stories? That are printable…
Mr A Funny stories that are printable? I’m sure I can dredge something up. I was often mistaken for the caretaker… probably because I liked to wander around the school and put my nose in here, there and everywhere. If a visitor came, they would sometimes ask, are you the caretaker. Well, I have got a story, its not necessarily a funny story.
In fact in retrospect, it might not be something you want to include. At one stage the Local Authority used to let out parts of the building without telling you. One year we got a sort of command I suppose from County Hall in the days when they organised everything. They said oh we require your sports hall for a week. Why? Oh we have let it out to a recording company and we have let it out. They are going to record a series of shows and they want children to come in. Its basically a children’s programme they are recording and we are going to bus children in from different parts of the county to take part as an audience in this. And the star of the show who appeared; Rolf Harris. So he was performing and being filmed in the sports hall every day for the week. I think they were city kids being bussed in. Our kids really resented this. I mean why should these kids come in and do a show with Rolf Harris and we aren’t anything to do with it. Radcliffe had nothing to do with it. It was during the daytime. We couldn’t use the sports hall for over a week. They had their lights and their equipment. We did have, and I don’t know what happened to it, one of Rolf Harris’ paintings. You know how he used to do those quick daub things. One of them was left behind and we inherited it. They were at one time worth quite a bit of money; I don’t think they are now. But that’s the sort of strange story that you have.
One of the bains of my life there was the heating system. It was a coal fired heating system because being in the coal field and the Cotgrave link it had to be coal fired. The number of times it broke down either the coal was wet or froze in the winter, therefore the screw that was taking it into the boiler didn’t work. IT was not a very efficient system. And being flat roofed of course meant it leaked. I’m sure you remember leaking roofs and buckets and things.
TJ When was the tour before they demolished it?
Mr A I can’t remember. It must be about 10 years since South Notts Academy opened.
TJ I don’t know. I remember going in and it having the same smell. It had still got the same smell, especially in the gym and the art rooms. I remember… I could tell you some stories in the art rooms. There was a lad in my year. As he was running through the art department towards another person with scissors; the pair of scissors went into his artery and the blood shot up onto the ceiling. When we did the tour of the building before it was knocked down. The blood was still there on the ceiling. I think he was taken to hospital but he obviously survived.
TJ So when did you leave and how did you feel?
Mr A I left in 2000 to take a short term contract as Executive Headteacher at Gedling School as the school was without a Head. It was tough but staff responded to a new management style and my contract allowed me to retire after a year when a new head was in post. I had very mixed feelings. Part of me said I should stay and see my time out there (at Dayncourt) but on the other hand I felt I could do some good work elsewhere, if only for a brief time.
Troy Jenkinson 