BAD SCHOOL by Steve D Parker 2008
1971 - 1976
KAISER CHIEFS at the MEN ARENA
HOW I CHEATED DEATH
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WORST TEACHERS IN THE FUCKING WORLD
At the age of four nearly five my father, mother and me found a new home after my parents’s first house was condemned by Leeds City Council, they said that it was unsafe to live in. The Council let us have a rented house on the Coldcotes estate on the eastside of town. It was a small two bedroomed house right in the middle of a Council estate that was on the verge of getting a bad reputation, this would have been around 1960.
I spent my first days at Wykebeck Infants and Junior School, just around the corner from our new home on Coldcotes Crescent. Like any school then and any school now, it had it’s scoundrels. I was being brought up by a very strict family, the Parkers of Torre Mount, all the males of my close family had served in the First World War and the Second World War, and my father had done his conscription in Egypt guarding the Suez Canal, I think he had some help from other soldiers too, don’t think he did it single handed.
So what with my very strict and old fashioned bringing up why was I left to hang out with the thugs on the street corner from a very early age. These guys were probably regarded as ‘the pits’ back in that era. They would learn me all the swear words, things about sex, smoking, you name it, if it was wrong then wrong was good. Some of these lads were well into their teens so they probably found it amusing telling me to go home and call my mother a ****. Some of them were still at the same junior school as me and I was to meet back up with most of them when I started senior boys school.
JAMMY SIXTY SIX.
So by 1966, what a year, England wins the World Cup at football and I get a little sister and later we move house. I would be starting at my new school Coldcotes Senior Boys School. It was nothing special, just a school that housed most of the wrong doers from my estate and the estate where Coldcotes School was situated, the notorious Amberton estate, both the Coldcotes and the Amberton estates came under the district of Gipton, who’s name was deteriorating as fast as most of the estates in East Leeds.
Coldcotes Senior Boys was adjoining the junior boys, which in turn was next to the junior girls and then the senior girls were kept well away from the senior boys, both buildings were at the furthest point of the school grounds. We had a prefab building dividing the senior boys from the junior boys which had a small set of concrete steps on the gable end, I think it was classed as a fire escape but it was better known as the ‘’Jammy'‘. The 'Jammy' was the first thing you learned about whenever you said that you were due to start at the senior boys school.
On the first day back after the summer break, and they were summers back then, all first year senior boys would be rounded up one by one as they entered the school yard. A gang of fourth year boys would grab a hold of you and drag you off to the 'Jammy', they would frog march you up the steps with your arms up your back, then you would be placed over the brick wall at the top, now facing head first the fourth year boys would start thumping you all over your back and dead legging you, before letting you drop on to your head at the bottom of the wall. Head butting the tarmac school yard before the guys at the bottom grabbed you again and threw you to one side before the next boy landed alongside you. Welcome to Coldcotes Senior Boys School.
HEAVY MENTAL.
If you think that was mad then wait until you meet the teachers, and I’m not joking, they were worse than the kids. In order of insanity I think I would have to draw a list up that would be hard to pick the winner. So, just in first place I decided to go with Whittle the metal and woodwork teacher and place Bongo in second place, and Ridgedale third, all only a short head apart.
THE CHISEL.
Whittle, metal and woodwork teacher, was nicknamed Whittle the Chisel, this is because in woodwork he was known to throw chisels at you if you weren’t paying attention. Like a circus act he would throw the chisel across the woodwork room, on one occasion as fast as a bullet and narrowly missing a few lads as it headed towards his target, only just a few inches from taking out the poor lads eye and millimetres from piercing his ear. The chisel actually stuck into the display cabinet just behind the totally shocked lad. I had a tendency of trying to avoid woodwork, and keeping out of Whittle’s way.
BONGO.
Second place and only losing out by a short head would be Mister Stewart, nickname Bongo. He was a white South African who took us for geography and history. He was my first year class teacher for form two, and he also trained the school cricket team. We did have one success in cricket when one of our boys went on to play for Yorkshire County Cricket Club, I think his name was Sidebottom or Shoebottom, early sixties anyway.
Bongo always kept his cricket bag by his desk, his corky balls were in his desk drawers, along with his bamboo cane. Bongo was notorious for throwing corky balls and wickets at us if we were annoying him. I remember one lad, Ovil our schools first black boy, and boy did he get it tough. He was sat at the back of the classroom, I don’t think he was doing anything wrong when Bongo suddenly reached down into his cricket bag and as fast as lightening a wicket skimmed passed Ovil’s head and stuck in the cork display board behind him. As I said I do not think Ovil was the original target and like us all he was caught totally unaware. Bongo made me sit at the front of his class because I liked to wind him up, and so did a few of my classmates too. There were four of us who tried to get the cane as many times as we could in his lesson, but one day he caught me out. I was up to something when I just saw Bongo’s hand come out of his desk drawer and launching a corky ball at me from point blank range. I thought that I had him covered as I lifted my desk lid and the corky ball struck my thumb. If I had not had lifted my desk lid then I reckon the ball would have hit me straight in the face. For the next half hour or so my thumb was throbbing and swelling and throbbing and ……….
Bongo was just as keen at lunch times when we queued for our meal, one foot out of line and you would get a whack right out of the blue somewhere on your body. I was standing next to my mate, with both my hands clasped together behind my back, waiting to get in the dining hall, plenty of room to get by us, when from behind me I was struck across the knuckles with his bamboo cane, that was a real stinger, and that was the real Bongo.
OVER THE RIDGE.
Third place by another short head goes to Ridgedale who was the other metal and woodwork teacher. This guy would punch you straight in the chest and he was strong enough to wind the best of us. On a number of occasions I was dealt a hefty punch to the chest or the middle of my back that had taken me by complete surprise.
When we went on a school outing to Ingleton a couple of the lads got a little out of hand, one kid threw a boulder at a chicken and killed it. Another kid had thrown a rock from the top of the hill we were on down into the valley below, hitting a German school boy on the head and causing the German school party to terminate their day out, while their classmate went to the nearest hospital for treatment. Ridgedale had totally lost it and the next thing I knew we were all heading back to the coach, when Ridgedale started arguing with the cock of the class, O’Brien, and the school boxing champion, Myres. The next thing Ridgedale is offering both out in a fight, he even got down on his knees and placed his right hand behind his back an told them both to take a shot at him, they didn’t take him up on his offer but they did come under a lot of verbal abuse from Ridgedale as we all climbed on to the coach and back to school and detention.
My friend trev Tyson told me that one lad in the lower class had made some saucy remarks to Ridgedales wife outside of school, the next day Ridgedale walked into the classroom and grabbed a hold of the lad and pinned him against the wall with one hand while punching him several times with the other. In full view of the entire class and the class teacher never tried to stop Ridgedale as he threatened and beat the lad up.
STAGGY.
Jim Stag must come in the top end of the headcase charts, he was a little chap but muscular who took us for physical training. His idea of dealing with a misbehaving young lad would be to have you on the wall bars hanging by your hands only, if he caught you with your feet resting on the bars he would come across and give them a crack with his bamboo cane. We always knew when he was in a bad mood because he would carry his cane around with him and think nothing of giving you a slap or two, like a race horse, to make you work harder or run faster.
Staggy also would use a running shoe to slap your butt with, on one occasion he made us all line up in the gym to punish each other with his running shoe, this was for making too much noise while getting stripped down for gym. He got two of the long school benches and placed them end to end and got the cock of the class to chase the second cock of the class around the benches, once you caught the other guy up you gave him a spank with the running shoe. Then it was the turn of the third hardest to be slapped, and so on. His reasoning behind this was if you were hit by a lad harder than yourself that you would not hit them back later. Staggy stood by the wall bars laughing at us all.
Another trick from Staggy would be to build a high platform out of the vaulting horses and benches across the top and hung on to the wall bars. Each lad in turn would climb up and do a forward summersault off the end of the ten foot or so platform he had made, if he liked you then he would help catch you and land you on your feet. However if he disliked you he would let you fall flat on to your face or back depending how you did the tipple over, he would make it look like your own fault, and the injuries were many and some serious.
MAC.
McGloughlin was the bible pusher, and English teacher. Also took us for chess classes, he was good he could play twelve games at once and remember every move in every game so we could not cheat, and he would beat us all. But he was heavy with the cane, I know because he caned me a few times, he would put every ounce of energy into his strike, on one occasion breaking the bamboo stick over Broughton’s hand, and it did hurt.
BENNY. ( see United Untied )
Wilson was his real name but when our old head teacher died and he arrived I thought he looked like Benny out of Top Cat, the television cartoon show. So I can lay claim to be the one who christened him. For those of you who have read my story called United Untied about me leaving school will already know about Benny and me, so I won’t say too much hear and ask you to read about us in the United Untied story.
CHADDY.
Chadwick took us for technical drawing and geography and was a little more together than most teachers. He had a pump, a running shoe, known as ‘Sammy’ and he kept this in his geography classroom. He would write the inverted word Sammy in chalk on the slipper before whacking you, and depending if you were the class hardman or the class wimp would depend how hard he spanked your arse. I also went home on a few occasions with the word Sammy written on the seat of my pants.
In technical drawing he would make you come out to the front of the class and he would make you kneel on a pencil. I always thought that it was point upwards but the pencil was laid lengthways across the floor, but it still hurt after a minute or so it would leave an indentation in your kneecaps and he would leave you there for what seemed to be a quarter of an hour.
Chaddy also took us for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which included various track and field events and outward bound courses, we went on a map and compass trek along the Leeds Liverpool Canal. We came across a rope swing dangling from a tree and we dared Chaddy to have a go on it and swing out over the water, but the only way he would trust us not to do anything to him was to get Mally O’Brien and Harry Myres to hold onto the rope with him, the weight of the three of them on the rope really put the swing and the tree to the test as they swung out over the water. The tree was creaking and bending with the strain and the three of them only just made it back onto the banking.
TEACHERS PETIFER.
My favourite teacher was the long haired hippy that took us for art. Andy Petifer with his bushy hair and his Jesus style beard was a very laid back teacher who was hard to rattle, he also took us for football and he could play a bit too.
I only saw him cane one guy in my class in the five years I spent in his classes, and that was for throwing paint all over which splashed his own exhibition of his work hanging on the classroom wall. I can say that the idiotic geek that ruined Petifer’s artwork deserved far more than the punishment he got that day.
After leaving school I came across him playing percussions in a jazz rock style band known as the Cherry Tree Band, they were playing the Cherry Tree pub in Leeds. Petifer did inspire me and the image I grew into.
Zebedee.
Near the end of my school days we started to get student teachers that came to our school to take their first classes and get a feel for secondary education in the real world. Well I did manage to get one student teacher to crack up completely, it would not have surprised me if he hadn’t of changed his career after what me and the lads did to him.
In walks the new student teacher to start work at our school, at first there would be a senior teacher by his side at all times, but eventually whether legally or not they would be taking their own class with no other teacher present. But from day one and first contact the dude just looked like Zebedee out of the Magic Roundabout, with his big thick black moustache he was a dead ringer.
So it didn’t take long for the class and then the whole school to be calling him Zebedee. I would see him and straight away I would either make a spring noise, or say, ’ Boing said Zebedee’, then quickly turn the other way so it looked like it wasn’t me. Across the road from the school was the ‘Pit Hill’, this was where we went to fight after school, but now we were using it for a different reason. When Zebedee walked by to get his bus me and a couple of friends would shout down from the top of the hill, ’Boing’ and start to bounce down the hill just like the real Zebedee. It didn’t take long before we had grew in number and before he knew it he was being chased to his bus by fifty or so Zeberdies all bouncing down the Pit Hill and making a right noise. Eventually he had to get a lift from one of the teachers to try and escape our antics, but it was fun chasing after the car doing Zebedee impressions.
After I left school he came into my place of work not realising it was me at first, he left his holiday snaps for processing and as he turned to walk out of the shop door I made a Zebedee sound and he turned with a look of anger on his face.
Time for bed said Zebedee.
JAMMY.
Just for the record, in my 4th year we all decided that we would throw all the bad teachers over the 'Jammy' on the last day before the summer break, not forgetting that some of us were to return as 5th years, but I think that we did get more respect from the teachers for our actions.
I remember talking to a new pupil round the back of the school, near the gym where there was a long flight of steps leading down to the school’s boiler room. I told this new lad that this was the 'Jammy' and that he would be thrown down head first from over the top of the railings, a good twenty foot drop. You know I never saw anybody run that fast before, and I never saw him again.
OVIL TEEN.
As for Ovil, a tall lanky African who was our first black pupil, inherited the nickname Ovaltine after the bedtime drink. The poor lad suffered at the hands of the school morons everyday. I would be out in the school yard at first break and I would see Ovil running across the yard with a half a dozen lads in pursuit of him. Two minutes later he would pass by running in the opposite direction but now with a dozen lads in pursuit. Another minute or two later here comes Ovil again running in the opposite direction again and this time with one and a half dozen lads after him, this would carry on for the fifteen minute break, he must have run five miles, he had to be fit because lunch times were one and a half hours long, or in ground covered in chase would have been around fifteen miles, and the afternoon break would be another five mile pursuit. So somewhere around twenty five miles per day and several beatings.
Not long after Ovil started at our school we got another black pupil, but this lad was very small and skinny so it wasn’t long before he became the fox or the hare, and just like Ovil he would be hounded at every opportunity. Out in the school yard you would see the little black lad running for his life with the inevitable pack of racist idiots giving chase, coming in the other direction was Ovil trying to shake off the herd of morons on his tail. The two black pupils would zig zag across each others trying to find sanctuary. Eventually the two became friends and they would hang out together and run together side by side trying to escape from a gang beating. They were the only two black pupils in my five year spell at Coldcotes Senior Boys School.
PIE AND A PINT.
Me and Mally O’Brien hung out together in our final months before leaving school. After we had had lunch, and it was a big lunch because we were head servers on our respective tables, I would do a runner to the local off licence for two bottles of Newcastle Brown and two pork pies, the woman in the shop knew me and knew that I was not eighteen, I was fifteen. Mally would hang out of the common room window and I would throw him the bottles of beer up while I came into the school passing by the teacher on yard duty and the headmaster’s office, it was right opposite our room, a converted cloakroom.
Once I saw Mally at the window trying to warn me that Benny was on a walk about, so I managed to get into the toilets and hide in one of the cubicles. Benny was knocking on the door asking who was in there. I told him Parker and he knew that Parker was a fifth year and a prefect and went on his way. I snuck out of the toilets and up the steps into the main building with the two bottles hidden under my jumper, into the common room and we stashed the bottles in our bags while things quietened down again.
THE WAY I AM.
Now I know some people will find these stories unbelievable, or think that they are lies, some of you maybe deeply offended by these stories and the way I have written them, and some of you may find some humour hidden behind the shock.
Now those of you who were wondering why I turned out the way I did then I hope this and the other stories I have written recently help to enlighten the darkness. Maybe I had to rebel against the way I was brought up, not just by my father’s strict Victorian and antiquated ways, and by the way I was educated as a child by the street gang, but also the way my teachers and peers treated me like a imprisoned animal. Beaten with sticks, thumped, and physically and mentally abused.
BREAKING RULES.
We had our good teachers who did keep themselves more together and for most of us we would give these teachers more respect for not hurting us. I wonder in this day and age what would happened to a teacher using these teaching methods and techniques on a daily basis. I think that most parents and the Press would have had them hung drawn and quartered for their actions. The amount of court hearings would have made a list longer than the Magna Carter, or even Motorhead’s guest list.
Steve D Parker.
Coldcotes Senior Boys School 1966 - 1971.
Extract from United Untied by Steve D Parker.
My old school, Coldcotes Senior Boys was not the best of schools but it certainly toughened me up. My headmaster had no idea who I was and had no idea what I was made of. One afternoon I was going to class when I heard him shout Broughton, I looked around and he shouted to me from the far end of the corridor, yes you, in my office now, so I tried to shout back to him that I was not Broughton but he kept interrupting me and telling me to get in his office fast. When I got up to him he was really angry, and I went in to his office still trying to tell him that I was not Broughton, but it was just not working. He went to his filing cabinet and pulled out his cane and telling me to shut up and be quiet then gave me three of the best on each hand. He really thought he had hurt me, but I just looked him in the eye and said, but sir I’m not Broughton, well go tell him I want to see him, now. I never even got an apology.
A few weeks later he summonsed me to his office and when I walked in he was sat with the Careers Officer, who was not based at our school and I had never seen him before and he had never seen me. The only information was solely based on my exam results and the Headmaster may have remembered I was not Broughton when he read out my name as I entered.
So what do you want to do when you leave school this summer, asked the Careers Officer, I want to be a press photographer I replied, well what about working in a factory, said the Headmaster, no I want to be a press photographer, I replied. Well go away and think about a factory job, said the headmaster, I got up and left the room. That is about how fast it all happened, what seemed to take ten seconds was going to change my whole life,
About three weeks later I went for an interview at Photopress Leeds Ltd NUJ, I was interviewed by the proprietor James Waite, I had no portfolio, just three six by four inch black and white pictures I had taken. He was more interested in the fact that I was thinking of going to art college fulltime and that my father worked for the same newspaper as he had some years earlier, the Evening News.
A week later I was knocking on the Headmaster’s office door with a letter in my hand, the Headmaster looked rather shocked when I walked in a said, look I have the chance of a job, he asked where, I replied at Photopress as a press photographer and printer, I think that jogged his memory back to my meeting with him and the Careers Officer. I said depending on your reference depends whether I get the job or not, and by the way my names Parker not Broughton, I think that jogged his memory too. So you’ll want to leave school then, he replied, when do you want to go. I said now, went to my class to collect my things and said goodbye to my classmates and never looked back.
The real joke behind all this was that my mates who had not left school yet would tell me nearly every Monday morning assembly that the Headmaster or one of the other teachers would announce to the whole school that our former pupil Steven Parker was seen on Match Of The Day or Grandstand, photographing Leeds United, or that I had been seen at the rugby or some other press shoot. The school claiming all the success when they gave me no help whatsoever, only grief, especially the Headmaster ( Benny, out of Top Cat cartoon TV show ) Wilson.
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