Down Memory Lane, Up Memory Tower… – events 3

On Tuesday October 11th I was up bright and early… yikes, I had to get to school in time for assembly! Not just any old school either, but my Old School – or one of them. My senior school, which I attended up to the age of 15 (eleventy hundred years ago), was a dancing school, but for my two years of Sixth Form I went somewhere else: to King's High School in Warwick, to be precise. And it was to King's High that I was returning this particular Tuesday. In time, as I said, for assembly.

Once upon a time King's High was a direct grant school – now it is an independent school, and it has expanded and become glossier since I was there: today it has lots of new shiny buildings with fantastic brand new facilities. In my day it was, in part, a connected jumble of old quaint buildings. One of them, in fact, was Warwick's East Gate, shown here.

Eastgate in Warwick. Photo © Copyright David Stowell and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence

In my Lower Sixth year, my classroom window was the larger of the two arched ones that you can see below the blue clockface. I clearly remember sitting in there studying the Tudors for my A level History (a great setting for a History lesson!). These days the school no longer rents Eastgate – instead it has been turned into a holiday apartment (note to self: stay there one day!)

In my Upper Sixth year, my classroom was a low-ceilinged, wonky-floored little room in a building known to the school simply as 'Cottage'.

Landor House, with a bit of 'Cottage' visible on the left. Photo © Copyright David Stowell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 

Cottage is the half-timbered building you can just see on the extreme left of this picture. It is still part of King's High, but my former classroom is now the office of a member of staff. The grand red brick building next door, known to us pupils as 'Landor', is also still part of the school, and was once the home of the poet Walter Savage Landor. I remember taking an A level French exam in an upstairs room there – though without any help from the two ghosts who are said to haunt the house.

I had a lovely morning at King's, experiencing a strange mixture of recognition and surprise as I walked along corridors I had forgotten I remembered, and passed through doors that were never there in my day… I spoke to lots of the pupils, (who were – without exception – fantastic) and had my first go at being Oprah Winfrey (well, not quite) with a hand-held mic (so how do you then hold your notes and the laptop remote as well? Note to self: grow extra hand!). And the staff looked after me wonderfully, even down to the break-time provision of chocolate biscuit cake (oh my, how did they know about me and chocolate biscuit cake??).

Result: one very happy author. Many, many thanks to all!

Oprah (not) in action.

Wishing I had a 3rd hand... Photo by Mrs Bray of KHS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signing in the Library. Photo by Mrs Bray of KHS.

 

 

 

 

 

Patient waiting...