1948-50
Someone in the education system had noted that I was a 'grammar school' boy and so I was allocated a place at Roundhay School rather than a much nearer 'ordinary school'. On the day after we moved in, Dad took me on the tram to my new school for an interview with the Headmaster. My diary tells that the Head was away and so the Second Master, Mr Hall, personally showed me around. I can remember nothing else about Mr Hall but I recall that I was mightily impressed with the sheer size of the school and its grounds. Roundhay was a huge sprawling boys' grammar school separated from the equivalent girls' high school by the shared superb gymnasium, the large indoor swimming pool, and a long avenue of tall trees. What seemed then like a vast acreage of segregated playing fields spread out either side of the avenue of trees, provided a further obstacle for any boy or girl wishing to flout the non-fraternisation orders.
The day after my conducted tour I set off at 0810 to catch the number 3 Roundhay Circular via Harehills tram from the stop at the corner of Roundhay Road and Gathorne Terrace. The number 2 Roundhay Circular via Moortown tram followed the same route in reverse. I found it a splendid but noisy and rattly ride: first up the hill to Harehills Parade, past the imposing art deco Clock Cinema on the junction with Easterly Road, and then onto the exciting, so-called high speed tracks. The speed tracks ran in a separate highway parallel to the main road and, especially on the downhill journey home, the trams swayed alarmingly from side to side, wheel flanges screaming as they were thrust violently into the rails. The speed tracks threaded their way for about a mile through the picturesque Gipton woods to gentile Oakwood village where trams and other traffic merged once more. I got off at Oakwood and walked alone up yet another hill, Gledhow Lane, feeling very conspicuous in my brand new cap and blazer. A hundred yards or so up Gledhow Lane the road divided; girls continued to the left while we boys branched right along Old Park Road. There seemed to be hundreds of boys going my way but no-one spoke to me.
I went to Reception as I had been briefed the day before but I went through the main front door. It was then I learned from the receptionist that the front entrance was out of bounds to pupils. I sat down in a small waiting room and waited. My Form Master collected me once the morning assembly had ended and took me to meet Form 1A in a classroom on the ground floor overlooking the playing fields. It felt a bit like a demotion being in 1A when I'd just left 3A at QEGS but there were no preparatory classes at Roundhay. I was feeling very apprehensive but I need not have worried. A new boy was something of a novelty and a welcome, albeit temporary, distraction from lessons, so the boys in the class greeted me warmly as I was introduced. While I was standing out at the front alongside the Form Master, the boys asked many questions: where I was from and why, what my father did my father do, what my interests were and so on. The Master let this interrogation go on for a few minutes and then he directed me to sit in a desk right at the front of the class by the windows. Obviously I had been expected and a seat had been made vacant for my arrival. (Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of our class photograph taken in July 1948.) I think that teacher is Mr T P Blackburn – but I'm not certain. I cannot name most of the boys but I am second from the right on the front row.
In my diary after my first day at Roundhay I wrote: '1A's greeting was rather more than I had expected and I was soon at home. I soon found some friends and I must say I liked the school'. Sadly that did not last long!
I'd been at Roundhay School only about a week when it dawned on me that none of my new friends lived within a mile of our house in Harehills. This had two immediate effects. In my sparkling new Roundhay School uniform I stood out like a sore thumb in the neighbourhood of Gipton Mount and Gathorne Terrace. There was a definite suggestion that since I went to the 'posh' grammar school, we must be a rich family, in which case why were we living where we did? Although I am not aware that there was any significant crime in the area then, unlike today, the fact that my Dad had to wear his Prison Officer's uniform to go to and from work, added to the suspicion with which our family was viewed by the neighbours. The second problem was that out of school hours I had no-one to play with. I did not want my school friends to visit me and see how we lived and, with one exception, I don't remember ever visiting any of their homes.
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