Bernard Wood 1938-44
Many of my memories have already been covered by others, but here goes.
Masters
I was in the B stream from form 2 to form 5. Twinkle Bradley was the form master for all this! Others have described him. At heart he was probably a kindly man, but he did like to play the firebrand. One of his favourite sayings was "Silence while I make an entry in my diary!". I did have one moment of triumph when I remembered a reference in 'The Merchant of Venice' which he had forgotten.
I'm not sure whether I liked those masters whose subject I was good at or whether I was good at a subject because the teaching was good. Anyway, I liked all the maths staff (Billie Duke, Killer King, Joe Brister, and Easy Evans), and the science staff. One master I liked but was not good at his subject was Mr Parkinson for History. Another master and subject I liked was Mr Attridge for German.
Incidentally, nobody seems to have mentioned Mr Lunson, who I always thought of as half a double act 'Crinson and Lunson'. They both went off to the war.
''Difficult" masters included George Neal, who never made any attempt to teach me art. He was more concerned with those who were naturally talented. His chief concern though was that the paint boxes should be scrupulously clean!
In Form 2 (1938-39) we did woodwork with Cobb Webb at Harrow Tech but when wood became difficult to get he changed to engineering drawing, which was probably why I eventually went on to do an engineering degree.
RE was a closed book to me. We had a variety of teachers: Mr Guy, and a short term teacher, Mr Crawley.
I greatly enjoyed VIth Science with Mr Duke, Mr Brister and Mr Evans
Mr Evans (Easy) also ran the VIth Form Society and introduced me, at least, to a lifelong interest in 'Classical' music.
ATC
I was an enthusiastic member of the ATC, under Flight Lieutentant W.G.E Duke. We paraded every Sunday morning and during the week as well. We visited the American Air Force at Bovingdon where we were given food we had not seen since the start of the war. We camped at Rochford, near Southend. Morse code was a major subject: one Sunday we were introduced to a new instructor, Mr Crawley's (see above) mother! This genteel lady appeared only the once though as I recall.
Sport
I was hopeless at sport. But I've always thought it strange that, whereas with most subjects the school would try to improve the less gifted, in sport the main concern seemed to be to get a school team, which they could do from the naturally gifted.
I remember being picked for a cricket team to play Harrow Weald County. Jumbo Jones was in charge. I went in to bat and was out first ball. I remember the look on his face, and that was the end of my cricket career! No second chance.
Grumbles apart, my memories are essentially fond, and I'm glad to have discovered the HCS web site.
Some names I remember (are you on the web?): Cornish, Slater, Fitzgerald, J. Evans, Partridge. Adkins from 'B', and Moffat, Donaldson, Drain (a maths genius) from 'A'