The following was the third of three articles extracted from the Eccles & Patricroft Journal 29th August 1973. It consists of memories of former pupils.
One of the most distinguished old boys is Sir Hubert Bennett, formerly of Folly Lane Swinton, who was the youngest of four brothers. He was knighted in 1970 for his work as architect with the Greater London Authority, and he is now chief architect for Star Holdings (GB) Ltd. And lives near Guilford. He is 63, and was at the school in the early 1920s.
One of his brothers started Bennetts the furnishers on Monton Green.
Sir Hubert told the Journal: "There was an excellent staff, but I enjoyed Mr. Hollis's classes best of all. Craft was the only subject I came top in except art. Actually it was called "manual". Mr. Hollis ran his room like a military academy - everything was spick and span."
He recalled the time he and his brother Norman between them won the 120 yards hurdles, the 100 yards sprint, the high jump and the long jump at the school sports and he also remembered that his class was headed by about five girls, especially the brilliant Miss Kersop.
"Girls seemed to be older by about a year in age and ability," he said. "It probably was annoying, but it was a good incentive. We boys were mostly little fellows."
He was in trouble once because he forgot to get his father to sign his homework. Discovering this on the way to school he persuaded a friend to fake the signature - but the plot was uncovered by Mr. Pollitt.
"It was explained to me that one didn't do that sort of thing."
Another time three of the boys formed a "consortium" to do their homework together in the Carnegie library, but that was discovered when they got the same wrong answers.
"I was in Manchester in my car about 18 months ago and I looked up the old school.
The caretaker was just locking up and he showed me around. A lot hadn't changed at all - but it didn't look as well kept up. Too many children probably, and not enough money.
" My reaction was 'Oh this won't do'; - but maybe I got spoilt with being used to ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) standards. Their schools are beautifully decorated and maintained."
He remembers fellow architect Emile Scherrer, who still has a flat in Eccles and who retired last year. He was the best boy singer the school had, he said.
He also recalls Sydney Greenwood, who died of heart failure six months ago at a conference. He was chief architect for 25 years at Laing Construction Company.
Peggy Brookes, of Burlington Road, Monton, was also at the school in the Twenties. She remembers acting scenes from the time of Tutankhamun for the school historical pageant, which was such a success that it was put on in the Town Hall.
She said the fees were about two guineas a term with scholarship pupils forming perhaps a quarter of the total.
If pupils were caught breaking rules they had to stand in a "defaulters’ line facing the rest of the school at assembly." It was awful, because people you knew tried to make you laugh." There was also a conduct book in which black marks were put. If you had three you saw the head.
The sports field then was off Pine Grove opposite Monton Cricket Club. "It was very slopey. When it was wet it was dreadful - especially if you were playing hockey at the bottom." The land was sold for building in about 1929.
Bill was at the school from 1945-53. Married with three children, he lives in Cavendish Road and is data processing manager of University Computing Company's Eccles branch.
He said he saw quite a change during his time at the school. At first there was no money - textbooks were pre-war, equipment was poor, and the staff all old. But things improved towards the end of his stay.
There was "far more discipline than nowadays", with the cane and the strap being "fairly prevalent" on the bottom. But he enjoyed the co-educational atmosphere, which he said was very relaxed.
He was at the school from 1950-58, is now head of the third year at Alfred Turner Secondary School, Irlam. A bachelor, he lives in School Lane, Irlam, and his parents had a photography shop in Lewis Street Patricroft.
He said he remembered having to write lines such as: Throw your cap on the floor and kick your parents' money about.
When he first arrived the school struck him as being very austere. He remembers that smoking was carried out in the usual sites - the outside lavatories and the bicycle sheds. In 1961 he was one of those who tries unsuccessfully to revive the Old Essians' Association.
Mrs. Muriel Butcher, of Colchester, Essex, formerly Muriel Davies, like her brother, Mr O. D. Davies, a former borough councillor, was at the school in the early Thirties.
Mrs. Butcher says her memories of the school have faded somewhat after 40 years, but, as is usually the case, individual teachers remain in the memory and she recalls the late Mr. Pearson, who, she says, was a very fine master in every way. She also remembers Miss Petford because "she was always very sweet."
During her time at the school, Mrs. Butcher distinguished herself in athletics, winning the junior championship in 1930 and receiving a silver and gold medal. The following year, she lost the title of Regina by one point.
Twenty years later, Mrs. Ann Normansell, then Ann Blears, was at the school. She is now on the far side of the Atlantic, living in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, and teaching chemistry, but distance has not dimmed her memories of the school in the Fifties.
She recalls the highlights of the end of term festivities, with the "resident comedians" of the Scout troop giving their version of the "Goon Show" with such sketches as the "Ascent of Everest" and How to Make Bricks out of Eleanor Chapman's Parkin", a reflection on the cooking ability of a classmate.
Mr. Alec Pearson, she remembers, wore a rose with a lapel-sized container of water in his coat every day in summer. After the last class of the day, he would ceremonially present
the rose to the youngest girl in the class - then to the next youngest each day as the season went on - while the water was thrown over whichever luckless boy did not duck quickly enough.
There was Mrs. Sainter (née Butcher) who could read Shakespeare beautifully; Miss "Nancy" Yorston, reputed to have a different outfit for every day of the school year.
Mrs. Normansell remembers Mrs. Niddrie, who organised the girls’ trips abroad.
"I went to Switzerland, France and Italy under her leadership and she gave the impression of being able to speak every language there was - I think she actually spoke six," writes Mrs. Normansell.
"Mrs. Niddrie was memorable for her pace. She always strode along as if in a great hurry and never just walked.
Another pupil of the school in the Fifties was artist Mark Hall, now a partner in the Manchester studio which produces such television cartoons as "The Magic Ball", commercial cartoons and puppet films.
With his brother and sister Bryan and Maureen, who are twins, he attended the grammar school and he remembers that among his schoolmates were Mike James, "Scotty" Bryce Fulton, Billy Watts, Peter Carton, Gordon Dixon, Elgar Howarth, who went on to fame in the musical world, and Tony Simpson, better known as Tony Warren, the creator of "Coronation Street."
Mr. Hall's talents lay in quite another direction to Mrs Normansell's, and he remembers that successive physics and chemistry teachers asked him to leave their classes to "go and paint something".
Although he failed "O" level art, and was firmly told; "Sky, lad, is blue, not orange", he was admitted to Manchester Regional College of Art, largely because the then principal, the late Mr. John Holmes, thought orange skies were exciting.
"Incredibly I passed "O" level geography", he recalls, saying this was due to Mr. Wharfe's formula SUNWACD, for remembering the rivers of Yorkshire, which is burned forever in his memory.
The Vicar of St. John's, Flixton, The Rev. F. R. Cooke, was at the school from 1947-53 and became head boy. He is currently on an exchange visit in Canada. He writes:
"Impressions of the school still fill the mind. John Ball, our senior chemistry master ambling along the balcony with hands deep in the side pockets of his lab. Coat, his weight eased back, in characteristic genial manner, preparing to dole out, in the sanctum of the laboratory, the mystery of the molecules and the wisdom of a lifetime.
"In my last year how well I remember sitting for a Cambridge scholarship in the room of the headmistress, Miss Baker, and feeling, as she fussed to make sure that everything was in order and I was fully at ease, that she would have taken the papers for me had she been allowed.
"Maybe the time has come for the school to die, as education in this country enters a new stage.
"But if what Eccles Grammar School stood for in education dies then something very valuable will have died in England."