Tony Cunnane's Early Years 1935-53

In my final year at St James' Junior School I'd got used to the idea that I would be moving on to the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School - as long as I won a scholarship by excelling in the Eleven Plus examinations. I am sure it was not my personal choice - I was too young to make that sort of decision - but, after my stubborn refusal earlier in the year to consider applying for entrance to the Cathedral School as a chorister (see this page), my parents had obviously decided that there would be no further argument and that I would go to QEGS, like it or not! I know Dad regretted not having had a grammar school education.

In my time QEGS was always referred to as The Grammar School, never as QEGS (pronounced 'kwegs') - that must have started years later. There was another grammar school in central Wakefield: Thornes House Grammar School, which was always called simply Thornes House and was beautifully situated in the grounds of Wakefield Park. Thornes House catered for boys and girls; there was also the Girls' High School located just a stone's throw from QEGS. I don't think I knew at the time, or cared, that Thornes House had the status of grammar school. I only learned many decades later, principally from my brother-in-law and a girl friend from St James' School, that this really irritated students at Thornes House. My parents repeatedly assured me that QEGS was so much more desirable than the Thornes House Grammar School. The way things turned out in the next five years, with three enforced home moves because of Dad's occupation, it was probably a good decision and my life and career would undoubtedly have turned out quite differently had I gone to Thornes House and not QEGS. For myself, I have never for a minute regretted going to QEGS, only that I didn't complete my education there before going on to university.

There was no separate examination for the Storie Scholarship; the winner was the boy who obtained the highest marks in the Eleven-Plus examinations. There was also a Storie Scholarship awarded to the girl who got the highest marks in the Eleven-Plus examinations – I was reminded of that in 2001 when I met again, for the first time in 50 years, a girl from I knew at St James' School. Valerie Singleton had won her Storie Scholarship the same year as I won mine. Valerie told me, when we met in the Sainsbury's car park in Lincoln in 2001, that I had been the school heart throb at St James’. I wish I had known that then! Valerie also told me that she had chosen to go to Thornes House rather the Wakefield High School. Thornes House closed in 1993 and what buildings remain now form part of Wakefield District College.

And so, in early September 1947, just two weeks before my 12th birthday, I joined this elite school where most of the boys were fee-paying and quite a few were boarders. The cost of the mandatory uniforms and sports gear almost reduced my parents to penury although, ungrateful wretch that I was, I didn’t know that then. I don't remember how I got to school from home but I probably walked it. It was almost exactly one mile: walking along Denby Dale Road, up Market Street past the GPO, through the City Centre and along Northgate. It used to take me 20 minutes to walk the route but later I sometimes used to go by bus, particularly at dinner time (it was still dinner not lunch; there was a break of exactly 90 minutes between morning and afternoon lessons).

On my first afternoon, it was an afternoon start at 1430hrs on day one, I was apprehensive and shy. Most of the boys already knew each other because they had been in the adjacent Prep School for up to two years and they, naturally, congregated in small groups. If the truth were known, they were probably also shy and nervous as they tried to keep out of the way of the senior boys. I stood on my own near the entrance gate, trying to appear as though I was looking out for someone, until someone started a movement into school when I, thankfully, joined in the throng.

Above:
The front of QEGS photographed in 2007. (Click on it to pop up a larger version)

My best friend, Peter Moore, went to Thornes House as did several of the other boys and girls from St James'. The remainder, those who had failed Eleven Plus, went to Ings Road school which closed in 1971 when the site disappeared underneath one of Wakefield's inner-city relief roads. Never again did I see any of those former school friends - nothing to do with status or class distinction but because of our family's move away from Wakefield early in 1948.

The only other friend I knew starting with me that day at QEGS was Geoffrey Holt, also the son of a Prison Officer. He lived in a house in a terrace close up against the outer wall of Wakefield Prison and had attended Lawefield Lane Junior School from where he had won a scholarship. Although we had met occasionally at children's parties at the prison, we were not regular friends at the time we started at QEGS. That was one friendship that came later.