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Wolverhampton Municipal Grammar School- Old Pupils Association |
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Archived Page - Part of Bob Tame's unofficial web site for:
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Wolverhampton Municipal Grammar School- Old Pupils Association |
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| January 11th 2004 - Jim Taylor (1949-54) asks in my guestbook "I wonder if anyone knows where Maureen Mather is these days. She couldn't wait to leave as soon as she was old enough. She was a big girl, and I mean big, and a fanatical Wolves supporter". | December 28th 2003 - I'm just recovering the computer from a major crash and the first mail I received is from Mr Cleeton - Maths and Physics teacher at the school from 1959 to 1961. Surprisingly enough he's still teaching, at the age of 69, in Buffalo, New York. He would like to know what happenned to Mr Darby- does anyone know? Mr Cleeton used to call us "you fools" according to Phil Smith's article |
December 3rd 2003. I meet
up with John Bennett, a colleague from my year at School, after
39 years. I recognised him as well! Realising we lived
within 10 miles of each other in Northants, we recently
got in touch and arranged to go out for an evening meal
at a local hostelry where we reminisced over old times. As well as being in the 'A' stream, John was very good at sport when at School, and was in the school Cricket and Rugby Teams as well as the school athletics team. As a result he has pictures of all these teams which I have borrowed and will shortly add to the site. We cannot remember all the names on the pictures, so help from pupils of our era will be appreciated in adding names to faces. Ian Hemsley has already supplied me with a number of the names from the cricket teams. |
| My Sister, Rose(mary) Tame (1961-68) went to visit her old muni classmate Sudarshan, in Toronto early this year. I don't think much of Rose's sense of timing as it clashed with the warning about not going to Toronto because of the SARS virus. However they managed not to catch it and they had a good time. Sudarshan was in the Science groups at the School with Howard Bampfield and others. | Early last year Jim Taylor organised a re-union for Pupils who started
at the Muni in 1949. This was held at the Park Hall Hotel, Wolverhampton on 12th April 2003 with a sit down meal. Click here for his comments. There are some pictures of this re-union in the Autumn 2003 newsletter. |
One of the names to appear in my Guestbook this year is David Morgan, who was at the School during its final few years 1971-74, before it transferred to Colton Hills. He moved away with his family to Gloucestershire and now works for UCAS in Cheltenham. He was also at the 2003 AGM/ Memorabilia day and would like to hear from contemporaries from his era at the school. |
| Thanks to Lynda Chugg (Lynda Roper when at school) for passing me contact details for Gill Hartley - Gill is now in New Zealand! I wanted to know because Gill's pictures are on the Teachers page and she was not aware of this. She is now, as I have written to her and she has given me her permission to keep them there. Thank you, Gillian. I have now found out Gillian's mother lives about ten doors away from my mother in Wolverhampton! | Jean Arblaster (1960-65), now
Jean Terry, contacted me through friends re-united and
asked if I used to get on the No 12 Bus at Springfield
Road to go to School. What a memory some people have! Yes - that was me. Jean claims she was the smallest girl ever to start at the Muni but despite that she was involved in the Hockey teams through her time at the school. She now works in Stafford and lives in Rugeley. |
14th June 2003 - Memorabilia day and AGM at the school, and I finally catch up with three other members of my year group. Philip Smith, Bill Griffiths and David McSorley all return to the school, and we are caught on camera by my sister Dorothy.
From L to R Philip Smith, Bill Griffiths,Bob Tame, David McSorley. |
| November
27th 2003: Martin Gaskell sent me an Email from Nebraska where he now
lives and works. I'll post it here for a while to see if
it stirs any memories. Anyone who wishes to contact
Martin can do so through the link to his site below.
Dear Bob, I just found the link to your WMGS site from David Solomons site, and I'd be glad to be in touch with old WMGS pupils. I was there from 1964 to1971. I was Raleigh House music captain (I think that was the title of the position) in 1971 (we won!), and from 1969 to 1971.I would play the grand piano quite often for hymns at assemblies in the morning. I sang in HMS Pinafore twice, once in the "gallery chorus" (or was it "the balcony chorus"?) in the 1964 production, and then I had a minor solo role in the next production (1970?) when I was in the 5th or 6th form. I also sang in the chorus at the "Victorian Evening" (1969, I think) and had a non-speaking part in "Patience" (1968?). In 1971 I also played the male lead in the Raleigh house production of the last scene from Miller's "The Crucible" at the Speech Contest. I've spent most of my adult life in the USA. I got a Ph.D. from the University of California, then I returned to England as a Research Fellow at Cambridge University, but I've been an astronomer in the USA ever since then. I now lecture at the University of Nebraska in the USA. This is the biggest university in the state of Nebraska (almost exactly in the center of the USA). Here are some web pages (with photos of me as I look now): http://physics.unl.edu/directory/gaskell/gaskell.html http://physics.unl.edu/directory/gaskell/gaskell.html http://incolor.inetnebr.com/gaskell/gaskell.html My American wife and I are homeschooling our children. I'm still very active performing and composing music. Best wishes, Martin Gaskell |
| The
2002 Christmas Dinner was held on Thursday
November 28th 2002, in Sir Jack's Restaurant
overlooking the football pitch in the Molineux
Football Ground. I went to this event with
my Sister Dorothy, but we did not see any of our
old classmates. That's probably the first and
last time I shall ever get into a corporate area
of a football stadium. The Billy Wright boot room
brought back some pleasant memories of the Wolves Golden Years |
David Solomons has a website at http://www.dws.ndirect.co.uk so visit him there if you want to find out what he's up to now. He sent me a few pictures and cartoons drawn by a classmate which I am gradually adding to the site. (See the teachers page) |
| Other contacts I
have through the internet include Dave
(Graham) Barnham, Howard (Horace) Bampfield, (1961-68, now living in
Colorado, USA) , Geoff Dillow, David
McSorley
(1959-66), Malcolm Grosvenor, (1959-64), now
running a PR company in Kingston On Thames but
still drawn back to W'ton regularly to watch the
Wolves (good man), Mike Tatem, (1961-68), working in UK
for an Austrian Company, Ingrid Ault
(1960-65), Lyn Darby (1965-73), Christine
Evans (Price) 1951-56
and Steve Williams (now Derry, 1969-74). Dave Barnham used his second name at School where he was known as Graham Barnham. Come to think of it, I called myself Robert at School, but only my mother calls me that nowadays. Dave reminded me that John Stevenson, being a big lad even at the age of 11, was one of the only two boys who started at the Muni in long trousers (The other was Robert Howes). The rest of us started in short trousers and had to put up with them until second year in most cases. And we all wore our caps all the time, of course, didn't we? |
| Contacts I had last year
included Haydn Jones (from my class of '64), Paul Wakefield and Barbara Knight (nee Hockey) . Paul is teaching at a school in Rochdale and
sings in Manchester Cathedral Choir (as does David W Solomons (1965-72). Paul was trying to contact John Stubbs and Mike Butler. Barbara is in 'admin' at a school in Wiltshire and
likes Scuba Diving - she has been in contact with Des Whitehouse through the guestbook on this
site. Haydn sent me a few memories - the fog being so thick that it got in the hall and caused the trolley buses to stop running at 3.00pm, having to walk home to Penn as a result. He remembers the old bus we used to go to Dunstall park for games and being soaking wet when we got back on it to come back to school, (I think we all remember those buses!) Haydn was also involved with Iolanthe, Pirates of Penzance etc... I'll try to fit them in this site somewhere at a later date. |
| Graham Carter (Vice Chairman of the Old Pupils Association) has been trying to locate the 120 pupils from the 1955 intake and the last I heard was that he had accounted for 97 of them. (five of whom have sadly died). If you are one of the missing 23 please get in touch either via myself or by post via the address on the official page. | A
re-union of the 1957 intake took place on Saturday 9th
March 2002, at The SummerHouse, Nr W'ton. This was
organised by Janet
Wilkinson (nee Jones) who's contact details are in
my guestbook somewhere. Janet says it went off very well,
although due to the adverse gales in the South of the
Country some of the ex's were unable to make it, although
they had set out. |
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In the beginning |
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Page last updated - November 1st , 2004
