As you may know, the Masters were men, of course, and wore black gowns while teaching.

Jim Dye (1936-41)………………….One of the real characters amongst the teaching staff was ‘Sark’ Mercer. It was his wont to make a noise which I can only represent by “Maw”. He made Physics a very interesting subject and, on one occasion (using our textbook ‘Heat, Light and Sound’) he suggested that if one or two boys could collect animal eyes from a slaughterhouse we could examine them in a lesson. At the next lesson he invited those who had brought something to bring it to the bench whereupon 75% of the class emptied bags of mixed eyes on to his bench. He responded with “Maw, I suppose you think you are very funny” and invited about a dozen boys to go to his bench, take a razor blade and cut eyes open to extract the lenses. The joke was, of course, on us……

When the Germans bombed London in daylight during 1940-1 we were herded into the shelters at the sound of the sirens. It was rather boring there because the interior lighting was poor, but the few seats near the entrance had the benefit of some daylight by the security wall at the entrance. I was one of the lucky few who grabbed one of these places as often as possible because our Maths Master, Mr. Burridge was happy to introduce us to the rudiments of Bridge. The result for me was to whet my appetite to do something I have enjoyed for some 62 years so far…!!

Corporal punishment at school is now considered a crime. However, I can only say that I experienced plenty of it at Shene and none of us ever thought it was unreasonable punishment because we knew we deserved it. Mr. Osmond the Latin master started his lesson by walking up and down the aisles between the desks and clipping every boy round the head with his hand to make sure we were all awake for the (boring) task of translating Virgil…….. Editor’s Note: Reg. Brigden later maintained this tradition in Shene Latin masters…….!!!!  

Bob Mousley (1940-45)......................I was 11 years old in October 1939 and was due to go to Richmond and East Sheen County Grammar School for Boys, but in the rush of evacuation entered Windsor County Grammar School. There the tuck-shop sold magnificent greasy, sugary doughnuts that staved off my starvation at the hands of the poor OAPs with whom I was lodged. My parents came down to see me, and as they left the old boy had his hand out for a tip. Shortly after, I was relocated with a young milk-roundsman and his wife. The late nights and cards I could stand but my fellow evacuee, an East Ender, dropped an axe on me when we were up a tree. I returned from Windsor to the happy though well-bombed bosom of my family, missing the choral singing but never recovering from the phonetic alphabet of the French schoolbook.

Back in Sheen, Mr Hyde was my French master and very kindly.  After the war I met him again and invited him and his wife to tea, and he never mentioned French. The final French oral exam we attended in twos. I was paired with Mowat, who was great at sports. I was a duffer, and during football the games-master used to send me down the road to buy his fags. The external oral examiner volleyed a load of French at me, and while I turned this over in my mind he delivered some more; but then immediately addressed Mowat, who replied with just two words: roughly “Weeh Msewer”. He passed & I failed. I had tried to teach him some Chemistry, starting easily with the preparation of hydrogen but found his concepts didn’t include zinc or acid. He made the mistake of standing as a tongue-tied candidate in a pseudo-political election organised by the Headmaster

The chemi-master (Mercer?) was good at the occasional spectacular, such as heating ammonium chromate in a quartz test tube, nearly spraying the front row with toxic green steam. My home chemistry was rather advanced, including chemiluminescence that entailed careful control of experimental temperatures, and trips to Hatton Garden chemical warehouses for supplies. During a hands-on experiment at school I was rather keen to present an accurate result, measuring the neutral point reached by adding acid to an alkali. Of course some swine swapped distilled water for my 1/10^th normal acid, and I copied the result off the lad next to me. A classmate, Arnold Raymond was also keen on chemistry and we did some projects together, including a rocket, unwisely propelled by our version of ammonal. I got the throat-size wrong and as I approached the garden-pergola to see why it had hung-fire it detonated. We never did find the remnants of his father’s glass lampshade used as a launch pad. Arnold’s preference for chemistry as a clean and well-labelled parade of bottles close-stoppered on a shelf was thus reinforced.

The headmaster, Mr Sheppard was logical in his allocation of duties so the chemi-master was in charge of gas-raid precautions. Mr Sheppard roamed the corridors keeping his eye on things through the clear patch in anti-blast netting on the door glazing. The history master “Billy” Bacon was naturally put in charge of the book cupboard as his favourite attempt at discipline was a book thrown at ones head, or a cuff from behind. Our history book was a thick lend-lease job written from an USA point of view and not considered reliable by me, and rarely thrown. B B also taught religious instruction ineffectually, the majority of us seeming to be irreligious. One fellow pupil came to our school ejected from a religious school and from his family; befriending him I learnt about intolerance.

Mr Sheppard did considerable roaming the corridors when late in the war we got some female supply teachers. One unlikely incident remains in my memory. The lady teacher came out from behind her desk with her skirt pulled up enough to adjust one of her suspenders. What she or we thought she was up to I have no idea, but it caused some craning sideways to get a better look. In general we were incredibly naïve compared with youngsters of the present time. and I can remember the physical shock when I was twelve and stood transfixed as a muttering man cycling-by attaching the adjective “bloody” to every noun. The wartime removal of railings between our school and the secondary girls’ school next-door seemed to cause little difficulty, though a rumour circulated about someone getting “the paper girl” in trouble.

Betts (whose father was in rubber bands) and Castro were two chums in our class who were frequently out of favour. I got involved with Castro in a doomed attempt to mix a mouldable plastic from ex-army paint and sawdust.

One bit of enterprise I enjoyed was the chess club where we got out to play other schools. I particularly remember the write-up in the school magazine “Mousley is equally fast at wining or losing”. My father had taught me, and later I played Derek Marshall, eventually finding I hadn’t enough time for serious chess.

English language was taught by Mr Gardner, a moderately short man with pudgy fingers, who nevertheless could sit on a desk, reading and gesturing a Shakespearean part, making you forget he smelt of pipe tobacco. When we went to see a production of our exam play “Henry the Fourth, Part 1”, I thought the professional Falstaff comparatively weak.  Mr G so thoroughly enjoyed declaiming; reading both parts when boasting Glendower proclaims “I can call spirits from the vasty deep” and is put-down with “Ay, so can any man but will they come when he calls”.  He used to argue with me about photography as an art, and never could convince me that English grammar was logical. Reading A P Herbert’s “What a Word” in the school library and then various contradictory authors such as Partridge, Vallins and Gower consolidated this opinion. I was fascinated recently to find a school essay by me on the character of Hotspur that was so deep that the present me could hardly get to grips with it!  At the end of the war the library boasted the enormous book by Abercrombie detailing the proposed rebuilding of London, it would make an interesting contrast with present reality.

The Headmaster took maths with a very well behaved class, since he held the ultimate sanction. I was a natural at maths and couldn’t think why anyone found it difficult or needed to study. His dictum “There are more ways of killing a cat than stuffing it with cream” was not helpful to those who, at that age, didn’t know of any way. He marked one exam out of 105, and I was mightily displeased but inaudible when he marked me down to 98 for poor handwriting.

The geography master Mr Goodbourn was effective and kept discipline; his main claim to fame was drawing maps on the board using a piece of chalk in each hand. I still have some information in my head about the products of Australia in 1940.

I enjoyed art but was no good at it and in woodwork have since limited myself to halving joints, and can remember little about the teachers. A failed artificial-diamond producer, who shared an enthusiasm for science, taught physics. Its not surprising after all this my career was in structural and materials research. My other enthusiasm is gardening which somehow was not spoilt by the dreadful experience of digging for victory in the dusty rubbish that was on the south of the school. I don’t remember any crop reaching maturity there.

I only experienced the finale of one episode, when what seemed hundreds of us followed a lad out of school along the Upper Richmond Road. He had made himself leader of a gang of heavyweights, but his lieutenants turned against him, and he was hounded out. This strange incident has stuck in my mind but I lack the whole story.

At the end of the war on VE night pupils ran around the school grounds exuberant and noisy, but we went home when some vandal set fire to the straw of a crate of glass.

It was a successful education but not always what was intended. In my War most memorable events happened after school. A bang and the lights went out, when they came back the French-doors were in the garden and we had traipsed about in soot. A V1 later, plaster-pinned grandpa in a broken bed but he was unharmed, I pulled myself up a ski-slope of plaster to my attic lab worrying about a possible acid/phenol reaction, etc.

Bill Balmforth  (?  - 1933)………………Jack Harris was my closest friend at school - we were 2 scholarship boys - but I was the one good at sport enjoying playing in the football and cricket teams. I had to leave school at 17 in 1933 starting work in Barclays Bank retiring as manager in 1976 from Andover branch, Hampshire. I continued my interest in sport becoming Captain of Basingstoke Golf Club for a year before I retired. I have 3 children, 7 grandchildren & 5 great grandchildren and live with my wife and our West Highland terrier Brandy in the small village of Chilbolton in Hampshire.

Larry Elliott (1935-42).............................In my first meeting with the college Vice Principal when I went up to Oxford in 1942 he asked what school I came from to which I replied Richmond and East Sheen County Grammar School for Boys.   In his exaggerated plummy accent he said "I wonder who thought up that label".   With a chip on my shoulder I added that some snobs were talking of changing the name to Shene School.   Seven years later, after the MA degree ceremony, the same gentleman who had by now become Principal, greeted my parents in the main quadrangle and commented on the beauty of my Mother's accent, out of the Scottish Highlands.   He added that he himself grew up in Glasgow, as a schoolboy conversing with his peer group in the roughest of Glaswegian accents.

A Shattering Experience as told to David Richardson, Text Editor…………..

……………………The war years of loud bangs and explosions in the immediate area were to have a inspiring effect on certain enquiring young minds and it was not difficult to distract the local Home Guard while detonators from the Ordnance store in the Park were quietly removed for experimentation and a particular group made it their business to enliven the day-to-day proceedings within the School.

On a November afternoon they had busied themselves with wiring the detonators inside the lamp holders of the classroom lights having first removed the bulbs.   Mr Bayliss had the misfortune to be taking the final class of the day and, bounding into the room, could not fail to notice that the lights had no function as he stood on the dais and enquired “What’s wrong with the lights then?”   No satisfactory explanation being received he almost leapt from the dais to the set of switches on the wall by the door.   The class were to raise their desk lids in anticipation of the approaching mayhem as an enormous explosion blew the four lamp sockets to bits taking with them Bakelite lampshades and large parts of the ceiling plaster.   Four smouldering lengths of flex hung from the badly damaged ceiling.

Mr Bayliss, who had been invalided out of the army did not survive the School after this episode.

This group was to become the scourge of the school and were from bomb blasted backgrounds and had all lost someone dear.  Most had been pushed around from one relative to another.  This group would ultimately be described as the Remove and one individual has described them as animals and vagrants of a horrible war with no feelings, no concerns for others and little interest in whether they lived or died.

An old anti-aircraft shell case had been obtained and a small task force was to fill it with saltpetre, sulphur, iron filings and fertiliser and crimp the end of the case in the carpentry shop vice.   The pressure inside the shell case was now close to explosive and weighed in at about eight pounds.   A fuse trail of locally-produced gunpowder was laid out in a small scratched out furrow of a ditch across the playing field to a further pile of gunpowder alongside the Physics laboratory.   The task force was now sited approximately 30 feet away from the ‘bomb’.   The fuse was lit and it fizzed, spluttered and extinguished itself.   One of the group, now sited only 15 feet away from the ‘bomb’ was to accelerate proceedings by tossing a lighted match at the gunpowder trail which reached the device in a second causing a colossal explosion.

Editor’s Note:  Some of this group were to suffer severe injury from burns and shrapnel wounds although others were unharmed.  The Physics laboratory had lost all windows and ceiling and the wall where the device had been placed had suffered a foot-wide gap that could be walked through. 

Of this group at least one is now a well-respected pillar of society although the later development of the others is unknown.

John Currie (? - ?)...........................................Does anyone remember the Boy Scout Tattoo organised by Messrs. Shackell, MacLaren and Green, the Scoutmasters of the School Troop (1st East Sheen) and  held on the School playing field in the 30's..?   Various displays of Scoutcraft were on offer and when darkness fell parents with cars were asked to train their headlights on the scene.   This event would have been about 1935 and ended, of course, with a Camp Fire and Singsong.

At one particular Parents' occasion shortly after I had become a pupil at the School my father was to meet Mr. Hyde and, to their mutual surprise, they recognised each other as Old Boys of Upper Latymer School.   In addition to his French teaching Mr Hyde also ran a Nature Study group and was Games Master..........

By 1941 I was in the Army and en route to North Africa on the Queen Mary.   She was a dry ship as far as the troops were concerned but carried a contingent of Royal Naval gunners, manning AA and other pieces of artillery.   The Navy had their own mess and canteen...............To my amazement, one of the sailors was an ex-schoolmate named Brown.....!!...He was one of two brothers and lived in Barnes.   I am unable to state his first name but can report that I supped several illicit pints in his company......

In the 1960's Mr. Neville Chapman (father of Jeremy (1957-61)) taught Biology and also ran the school Drama Group in which my son Robert was a participant.   Neville was one of the producers of the Richmond Community Association Players and was instrumental in encouraging my wife, daughter and myself to take to the amateur stage...a very enjoyable hobby which was to absorb my family for many years.

Dave Wright (? - ?).....(now living in South Africa)...................Thanks for including me in your distribution list for the Old Boys Reunion at the Foxhills Golf club on the 26th March, 2004.   I regret that I shall be unable to attend as one of my three sons, with his family, will be coming to visit us from Atlanta, USA on 3rd April and I think the timing will be somewhat tight.

Please give my regards to Alan Bloxham (who also lived in Palmerston Road), Pete Jeffs (who used to sit next to me at school and do my English provided I did his Maths) and all the boys who played soccer with me.

I was at School during the War and was reported by Mrs. Dancer, the Secretary when she observed that, at the sound of the warning siren for enemy aircraft that required us to report to the air raid shelters, I turned my bike around at the School gate and headed back to Sheen Common to resume a game of cricket.   I duly received the cane from HHS, the Headmaster........

John Beardmore (1930-37).............................The County School system was the phenomenon of twentieth century education when a boy could be accepted after an entrance examination and be given a sound education which would set him on course for University or a promising entry into business if he so wished.   There were scholarships available, otherwise the fee was £4 per term (an average weekly wage) until one passed the University of London General School Certificate examination at the age of 15 when education at the School was free.   The system embraced a good standard of discipline and healthy competition both in academic study and sport and was led by dedicated headmasters and teachers.

Our Headmaster Mr HH Shephard MA was in his 30s and had served in Mesopotamia during the First World War.   He could sometimes be prevailed upon to relate his experiences to an eager class of boys.   He was the youngest appointed head in the country and was allowed to choose his own team of masters, all with good degrees, to teach some 320 boys from the ages of 10 to 16 1/2.

The Deputy Head was Mr Bacon who taught History.   There was also Mr Hyde (a fine cricketer despite an astigmatism of the eye) and Mr. Maclaren both of whom taught French.   Mr. Gardner who became a Professor of Literature and a famous Oxford Don and Mr Beresford both taught English Literature.   Mr. Goodbourn taught Geography and another two good cricketers Mr Hunter and Mr Davis both taught Latin.   Messrs Burridge and Stone (nicknamed Granite) taught Mathematics while sallow faced Mr TEG Green (nicknamed Teggy) taught Chemistry while Sarky (for sarcastic Mr Mercer) taught Physics.   The Head taught Religious Instruction and current and foreign affairs (but no politics).   Mr. Shackell taught Biology and also how to use a saw and chisel without shedding blood.   Mr. Douglas Percy Bliss, the Art Master who wore a bow tie (very daring), exhibited at the Royal Academy where one summer a picture of the school under snow received a mention in the national press.

The school was divided into four houses:  Fife, York, Temple and Hood and a 'top house' cup was awarded at the end of the school year.   The school's aim was matriculation success and academic achievement was fairly high.   Several boys went on to University before the Second World War engulfed them.   Good manners were the norm and the class would stand when the master first entered the room.   Discipline was strict but fair.   Insolence and cheek were rare but usually dealt with by a clip around the head.   Lines were freely handed out as was the occasional punishment of Wednesday afternoon detention (normally a half-day).

I canot recall the cane having been adminstered by the Headmaster in private, and if it was, it was very rare, nor can I recall anyone being expelled.    On the whole we were a fairly well behaved lot who doffed our caps to masters and adults alike.   One or two of the masters were a bit free with the slipper and I recall popular Mr. Maclaren (a Scot, of course) who raised the window, put the boy's head out, lowered the window and administered four of the best on the miscreant's backside.   As one's head was outside and the punishment was taking place inside, one did not really believe it was happening at all.   There were no hard feelings on the part of the boys who had been slippered and they were often treated as heroes.   School punishment was regarded by parents as richly deserved.

Mostly boys lived locally within a mile or so of the school in Sheen, Barnes and Mortlake.   All wore the school cap and tie but blazers were optional.   Most boys came from middle class families

There was an hour or so of homework and also a 'home reader'... a book to be read at leisure and upon which one was tested at the end of each term.   There was plenty of after-school activity:  Library, chess, stamps Debating Society, sports training, dramatics, scouting and even gardening.   These were run by masters in their own time given freely.

Parents were expected to to attend Sports Days and Speech Days.   The format for Speech Days would also include the School Choir and a play preceded by a visiting VIP who awarded the prizes and made a suitable and comforting speech to the parents.   The Headmaster and masters were treated with much awe and respect by the parents.   The boys barely knew each other's Christian names.   Always surnames and often just 'man' which sounded very macho...

At Christmas it was usual for each Form to collect sixpence a head and present the form master with a present costing about ten bob...often a hideous table lamp or tie or pipe or cigarette box if the master smoked.   This would be accepted with grace by the master who would always confirm the desirability of the item proffered.

The First World War was still fresh in the minds of parents and masters and Armistice Day was strictly observed......... Woe betide any boy who made a noise during the two minutes silence when the entire country would come to a complete standstill.   On Empire Day we gathered in the hall to sing 'Jerusalem' and watch the Union Jack being reverently unfurled.

Later in school life a third of a pint of milk was issued to boys at the morning break.   This cost our parents a halfpenny a day and was said to have body-building powers. 

Certain older boys were hero-worshipped chiefly for the sporting and athletic prowess.   Notable were Matthews an exceptionally fast swimmer and Furneaux who ran 100 yards in 10 seconds.   There was also the notable Crofts, a scholarship boy whose parents were too poor to provide him with a school cap.........the Headmaster provided one.   Crofts was to become Head Boy and went on, like Morrel another boy with pebble glasses, to sweep the academic board with honours and a place at Oxford University.

I matriculated at 16 and left a few months later.   Within three years I was receiving my baptism of fire as an Ordinary Seaman on a destroyer in the first Battle of  Narvik.   Some of my class had volunteered to train as fighter pilots in the RAF and were to lose their lives and I was to frequently wonder what had happened to my contemporaries during the War....who had died...and who had survived...?   It was not until sixty years later during the VE and VJ ceremonies of remembrance that I returned for the first time to my old school.  It was a general sale event and I was able to speak to a master and a parent who gave me a warm welcome.  

The Girls School close by in Hertford Avenue from which we were separated by a high wire fence was strictly out of bounds.   Both schools have now joined forces and become a Comprehensive School of some 1200 pupils many of them coming from as far afield as Wandsworth.   The playground has shrunk to accommodate more classrooms as has the gardening plot at the rear.  Where classrooms now stand boys dug for Victory in the Second World War.  The Tuck Shop where we had purchased toffees at ten for a penny has been swallowed up by more office and teaching space.   Unfortunately the buildings look shabby and appear to lack care with loose bricks, a collapsed wall and the inevitable graffiti.   It looked very sad.   The revered space in front of the Headmaster's study, once billiard table green was now trampled down and a short cut.

I was to wander into the School Hall and under the balcony behind stacked chairs found the Roll of Honour of those lost in the War.   I was moved to read 80 names, at least half of them boys I had known, many of them close form mates.   As I read the names I could easily put faces to them and realised that it is only their school fellows who can even remember what they looked like.   I came away saddened.

Our generation likes to think that things were better in our day.   Today's problems in education are many.   We are told this relates to funding or the lack of it.   However, the mind and the will to study and achieve is free.  Determination and self-discipline come from within.    These are basic and it is at home that education really begins............

John Leach (1938-1944)..............................I got into the County School by passing an entrance examination and had to pay some fees, I think.   The School was due to close in one year as it had been condemned.   We were to join the East Sheen County School on their premises and War was declared during the Summer Holidays.   Plans were in hand for evacuation to the country.   Half of the School went with the masters and I went to Sheen with all the other boys who were left at home.

Boys and masters reappeared at school from evacuation at different periods over the War years.   School carried on pretty much as normal although we were frequently in shelters during air raids.   At first masters read books to us in the shelters but later lessons and exams were undertaken in the shelters.   Exams were disrupted and some were deferred and some pupils were able to read exam papers that they had obtained from friends in other schools while other pupils missed exams completely because they were at home for lunch during raids and returned late after the All

Clear.   The Mortlake Girls School was bombed so the girls came to the empty buildings next to the Boys school.   These buildings had been occupied by Sheen County Girls before they joined up with Richmond County Girls at Parkshot.   Mortlake Girls entered their school by the Hertford Road entrance and the Boys County by Wallorton Gardens with a gate and fence between.   The boys were allowed to park their bikes in sheds in the girls school and this led to problems since the girls finished their day earlier than the boys and were known to sabotage the bikes.................. We were to be known as 'County Closet Cleaners'

I was at school with the brother of Wing Commander Paddy Finucane DFC, an air ace who was deservedly headlined in the newspapers as a hero.   The Wing Commander was unfortunately killed when shot down in a Spitfire over France.

I recall Roy Parsons particularly well since he was regularly picked to play in goal for the School Juniors, a position that I coveted.   Roy's name appeared on the team sheet far more regularly than mine but I did get my chance eventually.   Roy lived at 'The Hope' public house in Kew Road with his parents and brother Dennis who went to Gainsborough Road School.   Dennis served in the RAF and was also to be lost over the Aegean Sea.

There was much to amuse us out of school and activities included cycling to the aerodrome on Saturdays, making model aeroplanes, School Scouts and Air Scouts (there was great rivalry between East Sheen and Petersham Scouts), Air Spotters Magazine, reading Soviet news to be informed on Russian war news, looking for shrapnel after air raids, cigarette cards, metal soldiers, ships, tanks etc and playing war games.

I was almost expelled during my last two months for throwing stones down the air raid shelters while the school dinner boys were still inside.   We were on our  way back from lunch and were spotted running away.   The Headmaster was to tell me that "If he (the Headmaster) was my father he would not employ me in his shop".............I was still at the shop 50 years later and a Director of a Company with 1400 shops and a Governor of the college that replaced the School.   Unfortunately the Headmaster never lived to see it............................