Musis Respublica Floret
Happy Days - Jocky Cunningham - The Terminator!
Summer of 1966
Here's a little reminiscence from exactly forty years ago. I was a prefect at the old R.H.S. in the summer of 1966, marking time over my last few weeks as a schoolboy. The old building was picturesque, but full of nooks and crannies where small boys could, and would, get into mischief. With this in mind, there was a prefects patrol during the lunchbreak, when a pair of us would stroll languidly around the perimeter of the school, making sure that the normal sense of puerile anarchy was contained within reasonable bounds, and also to vaguely discourage The Smoking Club, whose members habitually gathered in the dungeons.
A Serious Assault
One day, John McNicol and I were doing the rounds as the bell rang for the end of the break; we were taking a cursory glance down one of the long stone staircases. Collapsed at the foot was a boy, in tears and bleeding profusely from the nose and from a bad cut over one eye. We ascertained that the boy had been beaten up by an older pupil, known to us as a singularly aggressive nutcase. This was serious. In those days the prefects operated as the N.C.O.s of the school; we wielded a remarkable degree of power, and were supposed to have our finger on the pulse. This was no schoolboy scrap - this was a serious assault, carried out on school premises, on our patch. The injured boy was taken to the office; John and I yanked the perpetrator out of class (yes, we really could do that) and he was brought to the office as well.
Respect!
Jocky Cunningham, the Deputy Rector, appeared and took in the situation - the victim, eye swollen, shirt and blazer soaked in blood, being attended to by Jennifer Moody. Somebody else 'phoning for an ambulance, and the boy who did it lounging up against the wall, looking rather pleased with himself. Jocky turned to the attacker, did his famous narrow-eyed stare with mouth slightly open, and spoke one word, "Why?" The boy, exuding maximum dumb insolence, then made his mistake - he stared back at Jocky and shrugged. Jocky's back-hander caught him full on the side of the face, emitting a loud smack, and whipping his head back onto the wall. I've never forgotten the look on his face. His legs buckled and he slid to the floor. Jocky left to meet the ambulance at the gate. I know, I know, it was wrong, it was indefensible, and in today's world Jocky Cunningham would probably have faced the sack, and possibly a criminal prosecution: but I'll tell you this, at the time it seemed exactly the right response, and when the story got round the school, Jocky was afforded the maximum (to use today's parlance) RESPECT!
Inglesby (nickname Arnold)
Room 1
Anyone remember a maths teacher called Inglesby (nickname Arnold) at
R.H.S. around 1963-'65?
He was English, from somewhere oop north as I recall, ruled the roost
in Room 1 (that little one all on it's own down at the front of the school on Regent Road) and
wielded a belt that was rumoured to have broken some gyte's little finger!
He had this catchphrase:- "I shall move amongst you laddies, and there'll be nothing left but a little
pile of dust on the ground!"
Flossie
No Mercy
Another golden memory:- Picture Flossie Duncan, also a maths teacher,
and possessing a very noticeable retrusive "R",asking one Alan Aithie to define a
parallelogram. Aithie, scenting blood, replied "A pawawewogwam is a quadwiwatewal with opposite sides equawl and
pawawewl."
Flossie, bless her, had NO chance; we were teenagers, and we showed no
mercy.
Interestingly though, I can still remember what a parallelogram is.
NEXT PAGE --->Election - the 1967 Mock Election
- Jocky the Terminator
- Prefects with Power