Ryebank teachers

Miss Twomey & Mr Illingworth

Most of the children at Ryebank stayed for lunch but I walked home and back again every day. So did Rex Goldstone. That didn't stop us from being caned along with everyone else in the class for some general misdemeanour that had taken place during lunch! I didn't mind the caning - that was quite usual - but I did object to the injustice. I recall that caning was carried out by Mrs Flynn - the hedamaster's wife - normally it was Miss Twomey who inflicted the punishment - she had a stronger right arm and used it to good effect. She also used a thick cane which made your hand bruised and made it throb. Mr Illingworth - who only caned me once, and that on someone else's orders, used a thin whippy cane that momentarily stung but the pain of which was gone in a few minutes. Nice man! I recall there was an England cricketer by the name of Illingworth and we speculated as to whethere they might be related - one did not ask teachers personal questions in those days so the issue remained unresolved.

Photography

A standard photo of CJE - face hidden behind a camera. I got my first camera when I was about 11 and have only been without one briefly - at college when I was too broke to afford film.

My first camera was a Kodak bellows camera which resembled this one and which took an odd roll film which got harder and harder to buy as time went on.

Ryebank Preparatory School

The Villa Belamonte (a private house) prior to becoming Ryebank Preparatory School - it still had the cannon outside the door when I went there.
In those days you didn't start school until the age of five but because I was going to a Prep. School I was allowed to start at the age of four, in January 1954. After a few weeks it was realised that I had learned enough at home to be in with the five year olds so I was moved up from Kindergarten to Miss Dowling's class. That meant I had missed the first term and a couple of weeks more and I remember having a dictation that included a comma and I just wrote 'comer' because I didn't know what a comma was.
Being a year ahead of myself also meant that I took my 11 plus at the age of ten and was still ten when I started at the Holt. That backfired on me but that's a tale for the sixties…

Playing the coffee pot

This was the Gang of Five from Holt High school. We were in the same form at school for some years and went on meeting long afterwards in the more congenial atmosphere of the Fiveways Pub. and each other's houses. This was taken at our house - 68 Renville - in October 1964, probably after a game of cards, on my fifteenth birthday. Left to right are - CJE downing the port; George Bell on coffee pot; Keith Foddy being spooky; Paul Richardson smoking the candle snuffer and David Wynne Jones beflowered.
Paul is retired on ill health, lives in Liverpool with his wife Phyllis, is Richard's godfather and was last seen at Mum's funeral; George is a retired accountant and he and his wife Chris called in on a visit to Merseyside from their South Wales / Spanish homes last year; I'm not sure what David Jones is doing but he still lives in Speke with his wife Alison and is in touch with George; Keith is the only one we have lost touch with entirely.

Thurstaston 1963

In 1963 Dad and I stayed at Rosa's caravan at Thurstaston for a few days. Only a dozen miles from home but it's the thought that counts. When the tide goes out at Thursaston it goes out a long long way.