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Nainotlam (1966 - 1968)
An alternative to the School Magazine
These cheap and cheerful pages were produced on stenograph and banda for the princely sum of 3 pence, in foolscap format, on that soft duplicating paper that tears easily. They were bound in six volumes, but unfortunately the school archive only has volumes 1, 3 and 6, and some of these have torn pages. Eddie Lucas has the full set in good condition, and he loaned them to me in 2004. Some digests are below.
Schoolboy and schoolgirl humour is very much the order of many articles in Nainotlam. If I describe them as humorous, please read this more as a description of "attempted humour". Perhaps you need to have been there, or you need to be a certain age, to fully appreciate the jokes.
Volume 2 The March 1968 edition has an interesting presentation of recollections by Philip Taylor, reproduced in full below.Later volumes also cover Mr Bower's and Mr Lucas's early lives.
Volume 2 October 1967 - July 1968
Volume 1 December 1966 - July 1967
October 1967
Saturday morning jobs versus playing for a school team - observations. Swimming lessons for all (except 4th form) timetabled throughout the year - because Norton Baths are now enclosed.
Letters address no swimming (from a 4th year), the decline of uniform, ("anoraks are being worn"), erratic radiators, the missing Dramatic Society, Speech Day prizes and a request for a school council - agreed by Mr Taylor.
The Record Club came into being in September, organised by Mr Whiteley. Beethoven, Sitar, Bob Dylan.
Malton became "with it", with the opening of its first boutique, "Face" - owned by Mrs Dobson.
Sports report, tips for would-be drivers, Beautiful People, Chess Club, ATC.
November 1967
The last issue sold 283 copies - and there were only 280 pupils in school. A profit of £6-11-6d was made.
Letters address can we have a trophy cabinet, aprons for art, cold custard, underwater chess, small chairs for 5B.
Suggestions of combining with the County Modern appear under "how good a neighbour are we". "Although it has never been publically stated by the North Riding Education Authority, most people seem to agree that it seems likely that M.G.S. will one day in the future be combined with Malton County Modern School."
Results of a thorough fish and chip survey are published. Fish was 1/-, chips 8d. I think the Silver Grid comes out best, - others were Jackie Taylor's, Lonsdale's, Old Lonsdale, Maw's, and MGS canteen.
A formal report of Speech Day appears, followed by a more cynical views "in words of no more than two syllables".
Cyclo Cross, Showboat, a study of nicknames, Geography Lecture, Dirger's badges arrive (from the Lyke Wake Walk), Poetry page, Political Column, is York minster worth repairing, Jokes and Puzzles, Crossword, Cartoons, Limerick competition, Sports report - including a photo of the Hockey XI printed courtesy of the Northern Echo.
December 1967
Santa in pink on the front cover. Last month's edition sold out at 235 copies, and Mr Lucas had to buy some back to re-sell. The Northern Echo had used sections of the magazine to run stories on fish and chips, and the hint at MCM and MGS merging.
The term ends with a junior school party - 5.30 - 9.30 pm, Carol service, informal concert, Christmas dinner, Old Maltonians Football and girls hockey matches, Senior School Party (8.00 - midnight), and an exhibition basketball match in aid of Dr Barnados.
A staff v school chess match was underway, but results are not yet complete.
Christmas cookery, a School Charity Christmas Card, Crossword, more nicknames, a letter commending MGS for relatively few rules, Record Club report ( a list of 35 records), Jim's Christmas carol, more driving tips, more limericks, sports reports and a list of those moving to higher education.
January 1968
Are the juniors losing interest in Nainotlam? Too much concentration on [sorry - text lost somewhere]
A parent writes to question the value of the school beret - seldom worn, cold round the ears in winter.
A report on Christmas week. Junior news gets a full page, a brief report on the summer dig at Wharram Percy. A list of Coming Events. The newly formed school council has met. School meals, a summer fete, and magazines for the library were discussed. An esoteric article called The Rumble. Batman and Robin. A Clive Burns - Dicky Wilson interview. More nicknames and sports reports.
March 1968
Charity work spreads from the official charity - Dr Barnados - to include helping relatively new charity Shelter. A letter pleads for the continuation of quad cricket - it suggests that the caretaker has been trying to ban this. Mr Bower is on a challenge from Mr Martindale: a free dinner if he can cycle fully laden to Whitby. More nicknames. An article from Don Low on banking - from the position of having started with Barclays on leaving school.
Mr Taylor reminisces on his early days. Most of the article is reproduced below:
Mr Taylor lived "in the middle of the triangle formed by Manchester and the big cotton-spinning towns of Oldham and Rochdale. ... we could count from our garden over two hundred cotton mill chimneys. My primary school was on the fringe of Oldham. Of those days two memories crowd out all others. First, the heady excitement of the post 1914-18 was 'boom', so soon to be followed by the great depression. ... In the small town where I lived the unemployment figure at the height of the depression was 75%. Second, my headmaster, Mr Robinson. He had been wounded by a shellburst in the war and had shrapnel permanently embedded in his lungs. On four or five days every month his face was ashen with pain and he coughed agonisingly and incessantly. To this courageous man I owe one incalculable debt - my love of music. It was his hobby, and by the time we were ten years old all of us at school knew by heart a score of Schubert's finest songs.
At 11-plus I won a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School. As I entered its dors on my first day, I had no idea what a unique institution I was joining. The School consisted of two huge three-storey buildings in the centre of the city, joined by a bridge at first floor level. One of the buildings is now demolished, the other is a teacher training college; the school is now in a suburb.
I travelled the six miles into Manchester by train and from those days acquired an interest in railways which has never left me. I could quite happily work on the railways, especially on the planning of track layout and signalling. We had one delightful daily custom. There were always several compartments completely full of MGS boys, and the train had to negotiate two tunnels of about a quarter of a mile each. There were never any lights on in the carriages and the drill was that at the precise moment at which the train entered a tunnel (but not a split second before - that would have been no playing fair) you all leaped onto the seats and holding onto the luggage rack behind, you kicked out vigorously in front of you. The 'loser' was the slowest to get up on the seat. Believe me, after being kicked a few times in ribs and in the face, you became as quick as everybody else! Through the windows of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company's carriages I lost, through horseplay in my first two terms, six schoolcaps. After losing the sixth, I dared not tell my father; but the very next day I found an abandoned cap behind some cloakroom pipes and kept it (though I didn't say 'wore it' - but that's another story).
Every Thursday my best friend and I would go to the Halle concert, and at that time the Halle Orchestra was acknowledged to be the finest in the world. On leaving school at 3:10pm we patronised a Lyon's cafe, eating baked beans on toast to the music of a trio playing such thrilling numbers as 'In a monastery Garden' or 'Love's dream after the ball'. Then at about 4 o'clock we formed the first two members of the queue for the unreserved seats - we had already bought our tickets for one and twopence. Under the portico of the Free Trade Hall we did our homework or just talked by the light of the streetlamps filtering through the arches. At about 6:45pm, by which time the queue was about fifty strong, the portico lights came on, the doors opened and all fifty of us rushed madly up a tortuous staircase to secure the best seats. I can still remember with complete clarity the particular evenings when some great work or some great performer opened up new horizons for me.
As I write, an odd memory comes floating back. When we got into the VIth form we were allowed to go into the city at lunchtime. Our walk was often through a fantastic Victorian building - long, narrow and high - with galleries inside on iron pillars. Resembling nothing so much as the inside of a prison, it was the centre of the cheese distribution trade - 'Cheese Alley' we called it; it was fascinating to progress from one cheese odour to another along the eerie promenade.
As for school life itself, I remember best - as you will in later life - the personalities of the staff. We too had our crop of teachers nicknames - Boozy Madden, Gadrill Newbould, Polly Parrott, Puggy Dakers, and Bruiser Clarke - surely the only Clarke in the world not to have been nicknamed 'Nobby', but he was an amateur boxing champion. These and many others I remember affectionately, for that other MGS too was a happy place. And in one special way the fact that the school was right in the centre of the city was just right for young lads eager to get on in the world: as we sat in our classrooms, the very air seemed to be vibrating with the energy of the great industrial city stretching for miles on every side."
A cryptic summary of the Valentine's Dance. An interview with four student teachers - Judy Lewis, Michael Scott, Alan Harris, and Mike Lee. Topics include maxi or mini, uniform, school dinners, and "are you jealous of Mr Pay's hairy chest". Batman in bondage. More hints for drivers. Shelter - can we raise £325. A meeting of the natural history society rekindled the interest of the old Field Club. Square Games.
A biogrpahy of Royston Edward Bower, born 5 August 1936, near Winston Green Prison in Birmingham. "An orange-sucking, meditating, bridge-playing, cheese pie maniac. An advertisements, tripe 'n onions, girls in trousers hater.
Royston ... went to London University. Before that he was educated at the Liverpool Institute for normal (?) people, and then at Northallerton G.S. He was caned on occasions by a man-hating woman. Asked if he was one for the girls at school he replied "I was quite normal". Royston has taught at Slough G S and a French school. He met his wife in a toy factory, behind a pile of bricks. His earliest memory - seeing his cat with its kittens in the coal shed.
Get well soon Mr Pay - currently in Scarborough hospital. Football, Basketball (Willoughby snatch the title from Fitzwilliam, Dunning leads the individual averages), Hockey, Cross Country. A potted history of MGS takes the form of four cartoons.
April 1968
Congratulations to Mr Bower on his appointment as Senior Modern Language Master at Cleeve Comprehensive, Cheltenham.
Letters, more driving hints, a survey of whether males at MGS wore pyjamas (60% do). More fashion design from Lins and Pop. Michael Smith (60-65) reports on his Aircraft Engineering Apprenticeship. Poetry, The Papal bull (a Hornett story), the Lyke Wake Walk, a report on the kidnap of the Rotary Club president
(this photo was in the press); More Batman; A report on the visit to France - Bayeux - Caen - Mt St Michel - but it doesn't say who. An interview with Mr Pay by Pop, Lins and Malc: Born Lincoln 29.1.36, educated at Lincoln School. Then to College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea. He met his wife at a college dance, has three children, likes mini skirts, pop and trad jazz, food, sport and good films. A page on Canadian Schools, a long joke, an article called Not Many Years Ago. It was pointed out that the linesman on TV in the West Brom v Liverpool match was Mr Mason - he has acted as an official in a number of first division matches. The staff football team beat the school 3 - 1. Fitzwilliam win the hockey, Holgate win the Cross Country (Beilby heads the seniors, K Wiggle the juniors); MGS basketball 58 - Fylingdales American Rams 63. Fitzwilliam house football champions.
May 1968
What to do with exam candidates after the exams finish. At MGS it is help with school activities, some 6th formers have the opportunity to teach junior school; films to watch; a concert; possibly a review. Mr Joannidis is about to start. Miss Blake is about to go to a school near Cheyenne and Laramie. Mr Don Childs is due to exchange with her. A letter discusses the rule about boys having to wear a tie to school, but then being allowed to remove them at school. A report by Alison Ware on the Shelter Walk of Sunday 5th May, from Rievaulx Abbey to Mount Grace Priory (17 miles). £150 raised. Philip Gaskell (Head Boy) had written to various major figures, and replies from Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, Lambeth Palace (which included a five guinea cheque), local MP's, and many more. A diary from Paris.
Mr Lucas reminisces - he attended King Edward VI School, Southampton. His recollections centre around a member of staff known as Snoop, and are far from reputable. Jennifer Masterman writes on joining the Civil Service. Pay at age 16 was £6-6-6 rising to £14-14-6 at age 25 for a Clerical Assistant, for a Clerical officer it rises to £1457 per annum eventually. Adverts, puzzles and odds and ends. Carlise win the Sports day trophy by 3.5 points. Andrew Hornett was Victor Ludorem, Wendy Johnson was Victrix. Cricket was not going well, basketball was.
June 1968
A thinner volume due to the proximity to the last edition, and exams. A look forward to Miss Helen Barry joining in September to replace Mr Bower. Half way to the £325 Shelter total. Mrs Taylor contibutes a page and a half to the series of staff reminiscences. Perhaps one day this will be scanned. In summary she and her two sisters were raised in a manor house between Bradford and Halifax, the daughter of the local Headmaster of the village church school, later an Educational Adviser and Personnel officer. Educated privately at a 'dame school', then on to a city school caled Belle Vue in Bradford. She notes that as late as 1945 female teachers were required to resign on marriage - no doubt accounting for many female teachers remaining single. She travelled to school by tramcar until moving to Bradford later in her schooldays. 200 pupils paid 2d each to see Mr Pay's cine film of MGS, which he had made for Miss Blake to take to America. [I wonder if it still exists?]
A report on the Lyke Wake Walk undertaken by 29 dirgers, in "a murky, swishing greyness, out of which emerged an incessant downpour." Six packed it in at breakfast time, too wet. Two more left at Ralph's Cross. The clouds lifted by Wheeldale moor. It sounds like hard work and a great effort to keep the morale going.
A tribute to Sir Herbert Read, the art critic, who lived at Stonegrave, having been born at Muscoates Grange, Ryedale. He was buried at St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale in June of this year. Sir Herbert used to open his old house at Stonegrave every so often.
A full page reports on the Field Trip to Malham - Mr Reed, Michael Geldard, Neil Bielby, Paul Gorford, Linda Witty, Ann Thompson, Christine Foster and Alison Ware, who wrote the report.
An article on "twenty years on" reports on the student body's hopes for their futures. All expect to be married, with children, by the age of 25. All seem to want a large house with a garden - no housing estates and no semis! All want two cars.
Competitions. Batman Battles on. Progress towards the Pennine Way walk continues. The Head Boy and Girl contribute a brief article. A brief resume of sporting activity closes the issue.
July 1968
A new committee takes over Nainotlam, whilst the old battle with producing the September 1968 Maltonian.
A panoramic picture of the whole school was taken recently, and is available price 7/6d. Mr Taylor has been appointed chairman of the local council. A coffee bar survey follows the recent Fish and Chip survey, with results on service, type of cup, length of time to arrive, number of cc's per penny, and temperature being reported in a table. The Ceylon Cafe, Stevenson's, Pop-Inn, Holden's, Bowers, Green Man, Malton Station, Bolero, Milton Cafe, Prep Room MGS, Staff Room MGS, and the Headmaster's study are included. Prices range from 9d to 1/-. Holden's were hesitantly noted as the best. A very brief interview with Mr D. (Mr Dowding). A sample of some of the writing found on desks - with a request that the practice cease. Various short contributions. Sports reports include one on the first Swimming Gala, deemed a success. Holgate won with 32 pts, Carlisle 23, Willoughby 20, and Fitzwilliam 19.