Povey Prattle

THEY ALSO SERVE St. Boniface on Siesta Key, FL is my home parish. But I have another “once a month” parish which I attended this morning – All Angels on Longboat Key, FL. The very good Rector at All Angels was away, and the Eucharist was led by a retired colleague, The Revd.Bill McLean. The Director of Music, Dale Hooey dragooned me into singing in the Choir. I was more than willing to be press-ganged! At Coffee Hour I chatted with a couple who I thought to be new to the parish. It turned out they are related to the Revd. Bill McLean. They are each a school teacher at Sarasota’s “Booker Middle School”. My conversation with them led me to muse. My thoughts led me this way. “We often honour those who ‘serve their country’, and in doing so we mostly think of the fine women and men in our Armed Forces. But ‘they also serve’ who are school teachers. They are honourable men and women who serve us so well in oft-times difficult circumstances. They are answerable to pol...

I’ve entitled this series “School Misery”, for when I was attending Fairfield Grammar School, it indeed was a miserable time. But my memories sometimes belie this. Other Old Fairfieldians have told me something similar. They hated F.G.S. whilst they were there, but look back with fond memories. I suppose that we chiefly remember the teachers, an odd, but mostly dedicated group. I have previously mentioned “Gadger” Gay and Dot Worthington. F.G.S. pupils delighted in the nick-names we assigned to our teachers. Senior Master, Mr. Jervis, was of course “Jerry”. I seem to remember that he walked with a slight limp, and that he swanned around the School wearing an Academic Robe. He was never one of my classroom teachers, and I haven’t the slightest idea of his teaching subject, but he seemed affable enough. Mr. Parrott, who taught Geography, was one of my favourites, (don’t ask me why!). He, of course, was known to the students as “Polly”. I can even now see him teaching u...

My Grammar (High) School held a reunion for my class, some 12 years ago. I happened to be in England on holiday, so I was able to attend. I discovered that many in my year group had something in common. We each hated Fairfield whilst we were there, but looked back at the school with fondness! We especially remembered the teachers. I’ll tell you about some of them in the next few days. Our teacher of Latin was Miss. Worthington. Even then we thought that she was a bit prissy, and having discovered that her first name was Dorothy, we always (behind her back) referred to her as Dot. We thought that we were smart, as only pubescent boys can be. We had discovered that the barrel of a ball point pen, sans the ink cartridge, made an excellent “rice shooter”, our home made version of a pea shooter. So of course we “shot” bits of uncooked rice at each other between lessons. “Dot” called us to task on this. She wondered out loud “why our classroom floor was covered with bit of rice” (Of...

I soon discovered at Fairfield that I was not good at many things. I was a weedy little kid (aged 11), and P.E. (physical exercise) was clearly not my thing. And the weekly out door sports led to more misery. We would be ‘bused across town to the school playing field at Combe Dingle. There we would change in old Nissen (Quonset) huts, one for the girls, one for the boys. In the autumn we played football (soccer), or rugby. In the spring it was track and field. In the summer, cricket was offered. But I could not (and still cannot) kick a ball, hit a ball, throw a ball or catch a ball with any modicum of skill. Cricket terrified me. I tried for Rugby - a foolish choice for me. So in the autumn I kicked a soccer ball around with the dozen or so other klutzes, not really playing football. I was dismal at track and field, and feared cricket, so in the spring and summer was set at running laps around the field. A huge sign hung over my head, and that of my fellow nerds. It read...

Richard Marsden and Stephen Meyer. They were to become my school chums. Richard was eccentric, to say the least. He came from a fairly prosperous middle class family. At one time his father bought a little grocery store in my neighbourhood, on the corner of Victoria Parade and Whitehall Road. I suspect that the store was a “time filler” for Richard’s Mum. It failed dismally. Richard affected to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Later he joined a N-zi Party in Great Britain. He once tried to rape me. In due course, Richard committed suicide. Stephen was a different kettle of fish. His parents were Jews who’d escaped from Germany in 1939. Stephen was/is very bright, and he lives in retirement in Shropshire. I loved to be in the Meyer home. Dad, Martin Meyer, was a bit taciturn, but always gracious to me. He was the only Kosher butcher in Bristol. Mum, Greta Meyer, was a total sweetheart. I will never forget her gentle accent, and her all embracing hospitality. Nor will I forget my...

Form 1D at FGS. F.G.S. had a handsome building. The school has moved from them to new premises and is now know as Fairfield High School. Old Fairfieldians such as I, even though we hated the School, are glad that the name has continued. See http://www.fairfield.bristol.sch.uk/ We hope that the old premises will be preserved one way or another. They are lovely buildings. ** And we even have an Old Fairfieldians Society. http://www.oldfairfieldians.org.uk/ I am an overseas member, and by dint of coincidence, have been able to attend a couple of reunions in Bristol. At the first, (1991?) wearing my clerical collar, folks wondered “who is this American Priest, and why is he here?” I sat at dinner with a woman I did not remember, but she was good company. Her father, of whom I had known, had been Vicar of a very “low” Church in Cotham, Bristol. She now lived in New Zealand, and is a Bahai. At the second, (1998?) my old object of “crush”, Clive Hargett was present. He had ta...

And so I entered Fairfield Grammar School at aged 11 years, and three and a bit months. Others had blazed the trail. My Great-Aunt Bess (she who had promised to finance my education - but died penniless) had been a scholar there, when it had been known as Fairfield Higher Grade School. Archie Leach had also been a Fairfieldian. Surely you all know Archie Leach by another name! First I had to get used to wearing a school uniform. Short trousers (pants) until puberty; blue or black blazer with a school badge; gray calf length socks with Fairfield colours at the top; school tie and school cap. A “Prefect” (an older scholar in the lower or upper 6th forms) could discipline you if you were caught on the way to or from school without wearing the hat. (I still have my school hat and tie!). At aged 11+ I was now in the “First Form”. There were probably some 100 first-formers, and we were arbitrarily divided into four groups (home rooms in the U.S.A.), form rooms in England, named 1...

In 1955, having passed the infamous 11+ exam’ (still known to older folks as the “Scholarship”), I was enrolled in Fairfield Grammar School. (In England at that time, “Grammar Schools” were what Americans would know as “High Schools”. They were schools designed to prepare “brighter“ pupils for University, whereas “Secondary Schools were for those who would work in the trades, or in industry). So began five of the most miserable years of my life. I learned to hate F.G.S., and I was a miserable student. In “elementary” schools (Infant and Junior schools in England), I had shone. I was good at arithmetic, reading, writing - the 3 R’s. So it was no surprise that I passed the 11+ exam. Mum and Dad had hoped for a high pass so that I might attend the elitist “Bristol Grammar School”, or the well thought of “Cotham Grammar School” (for boys only). But that did not happen. Instead I was assigned to Fairfield. A good consolation prize, and much better in our minds than the local “St. ...