— Some Memories of Days at King George V School
Some Memories of Days at King George V School …
Form 1B & 2B – September 1958, 1959 to June 1960
When I first got to KGV, we were not allowed to use biros to write with. We had to use fountain pens and we had to make sure that we blotted our exercise books carefully as, like in primary school, smudges were not appreciated!
Ever since then I’ve had a love of Parker pens but now I’m seriously relieved that we don’t have to write letters any more as having very arthritic hands, I can no longer write nicely ?
When I first got to KGV in September 1958, there were only three streams of forms, ie – Form 1A, Form 1B and Form 1C; however when I got my report at the end of the First Form’s summer term, Mr Lowe wrote in it that they would be adding another stream – D – to all the Forms 1-5 the next year.
We had to wear pinafores in winter for the first three forms and I must say we all felt very grown-up when we were allowed to wear skirts in the fourth form! However we still had to wear white socks with both summer and winter uniforms! ?
Open Day, May 18, 1960
We had classes from 9-12:20 in the morning of the Open Day so that our parents could come and see us working in the classrooms, then at 12:30 there was a gymnastic, skipping and dancing display on the left quadrangle.
Then at 2:30 sharp we had a Pet Show and Competition, which I’d entered Brutus entered into ?
Our dogs were judged on obedience, their condition and also what we, as their owners, knew about caring for our pooches!
There were prizes for the dogs which came first for Girls HK side, Girls Kowloon side, Boys HK side and Boys Kowloon side.
Brutus was a star and I won First Prize for Girls HK Side, collecting my prize from Mrs Thornton, the wife of Dr Thornton, who was with the Zoology Department at HK University ?
Dr Thornton spent looking at all the other animals, fishes, birds and whatever else the students brought!
My aunt, Jenny, and her daughter, Chucha, came along to enjoy the Pet Show and they seemed to enjoy themselves ?
Christmas Party, December 1960
We had a Christmas party in 1960 which was held in the gymnasium. It was a lot of fun but I had to dance with Anders Nelsson, poor guy, and neither of us look particularly impressed with the whole deal! ? I’m sitting with Douglas Fyfe and Antoinette Devonshire at the table in the gym.
I remember a really embarrassing episode during lunch one day ?
It was winter, so the cookboy filled my Thermos flask full of rice with beef and bamboo shoots to have for lunch.
The Thermos was a short, fat one – for food rather than for drinks – and I used to take it filled with something delicious every day during the cooler months. It looked a bit like the picture on the left but I remember that mine had a tartan check as a pattern.
I was sitting with my friends and we were all yakking away while we ate and as my flask got more and more empty, I saw a couple slices of bamboo shoots at the bottom.
I love bamboo shoots so I tried to get them but it was difficult, so I pointed my fork downwards and stabbed hard on a shoot…….
KAAAAAAAAAAA
Oooops!!! ?
Well that was a good way to get everyone to stop talking and look in my direction – hahahaha!!! ?
God I was mortified and didn’t know what to do! The inside of the Thermos had shattered into a million little shards so there was no hope of rescuing any bamboo shoots!! I was not looking forward to what my mother and Ah Sam would say to me when I brought the destroyed Thermos back home ?
I always had penny loafers as school shoes which my mother had to order from the States (due to my big feet – no HK shoes I liked were available) ! We weren’t really allowed to stick pennies into the slots but there were some days, like the end of term, when I was a rebel enough to stick coins in!
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Passing notes between friends/boyfriends! Oooh la la … «c’était la chose à faire» (oooh la la …. that was the thing to do)!
It certainly was but the thing was the method of delivery ? Which way was better? Asking a (good) friend to pass the folded up piece of paper without reading it, or being daring and throwing it to the person and hoping the teacher, or another pupil, wouldn’t see or have it land on their desk by accident!
Form 2B & 3B – September 1959 to June 1960
I remember in 2nd/3rd Form, I had a beau called John Smith! Can you believe that name? Seriously – his name was John Smith, and he and I invented a special code to send notes to each other! I wish I had kept the code but unfortunately when the “romance” cooled, I threw away the code ?
This photo was taken on my 13th birthday party at a Japanese restaurant in Tsimshatsui …
L-R back: John Smith, Joan Pegg, Chris Heron, Hirome Watanabe, Richard Kent. L-R front: Chucha Yatskin, me, John Kilbee (Click to enlarge) John Smith left HK in 1961 and I actually got to see him in London when we were on leave during that year! I remember he took me to a ballet concert and had a box of chocolates. He offered me one, which I refused, and when he was unwrapping his candy, the other members of the audience were quick to shush him. I was mortified!! ?
In 1962 the most exciting thing that happened was that I won first prize for throwing the discus at the Athletic Sports carnival! Yay me ?
4B & 5B Forms – September 1961 to June 1963
Now I’m not sure if it was in the 4th Form or early on in the 5th Form when we had to study for Mock GCE exams. We used to go to the left hand side of the school grounds (if facing the entrance) to do our swotting. From memory, we fooled around more than we studied and it was evident in my results when I took the “O” levels!
You can see we were all pretty idiotic during our swotting time! The names of our crazy group from L-R in the top left photo are : me, Jenny Watt, Antoinette Devonshire, Suzanne Pearson, and Hilary Bradley, and the photo on the right shows us with Fifi (Douglas Fyfe – who was at QBS with me)!
I had no idea what the “bench” was in this photo below – Jenny Watt trying to topple Liz Marshall – until my dear husband (many years later) told me it was for cricketers to practise throwing and catching balls on there!!
Talking about cricket – you can see the school’s pavilion in the background of most of the photos in the collage!
Now back to the “O” levels business … students needed to pass 3 “O” levels to get into Lower 6 and in my first attempt, I only got 2 so my parents were not very happy with me. ?
However – in my defence – I used to get almost paralytically anxious when I took exams and my folks were aware of that. My grades for a term which didn’t have exams at the end were always mainly Bs with a couple of Cs, although for Maths it usually was a D+ ?♀️
Having only got 2 GCEs in the exam, my parents told me I would have to spend the coming school year in Form 5 again, but this time in 5A to try and get more GCEs so that I could go into the sixth form to try for my A levels if I wanted to go to university ?♀️
Form 5A – September 1963 to June 1964
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