— Memories of Teachers at King George V School

Memories of Teachers at King George V School

When I first got to King George V  (KGV – pronounced Kay Gee Five), our headmaster was Charles Lowe, a really lovely man! Here’s a photo of him with all the teachers…

 

Front Row L-R : Miss Edmunds, Mrs Lawrence, Mrs Laufer, Mr Barton, Mr Lowe, _?_, _?_, Miss McCorkindale, _?_
Second Row L-R: Mrs Winfield, Sheila Stead, Mr Magdalino, Mrs Aquilina, Miss Hall, Mrs MacDonald
Third Row L-R : Miss Hall,  _?_, Mr Creswell, Mr Blackburn, _?_
Fourth Row L-R : Miss Apter, Mr Reeve, _?_,  _?_, _?_
Fifth Row L-R : Mr Hughes, Mr Griffiths, Mr Winfield, Mr Hollis (on the higher step), _?_

 

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Headmasters

Mr Lowe left KGV in 1959, a year after we joined, and I was sorry to see him go as he struck me as being a really caring headmaster, not that I was ever told to go to the Headmaster’s Office for any offences ?

After Charlie Lowe left, Mr Watson was our headmaster for a couple of years until Frank Findlay took over.  Poor Mr Findlay died a year later in a car accident when he was on leave and then … dum de dum dum … we got Mr Gore ?

I think we were all terrified of Mr Gore – he certainly didn’t appear to like the students and always seemed to glower at us if he passed us.  No doubt he was a charming man socially but as a headmaster … I was happy to leave KGV when I did!!! ?

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Teachers I remember

Mrs Winfield (DS) : In 1st form we had a teacher called Mr Winfield who taught us Civics. His wife also taught at the school – she was the Domestic Science (DS) teacher.

Mrs Winfield was under 5 foot tall, I’m sure! As I already said, I was very tall for my age so even at age eleven, I would have towered over her! I honestly hated DS classes – in winter we had to learn to cook English dishes. Horrible, tasteless, stodgy food which we had to make from scratch — so if we were making pastry, we had to rub lard in flour and it was a GROSS sensation! Ugh! ?

I suppose it was a hopeless situation for her as no one in her class would go home to cook her recipes.  We all had cookboys or amahs who cooked meals for us, so there was no real incentive to roll up our sleeves and learn all the dishes we were taught.

No doubt it was necessary for Mrs Winfield to prepare any girls who were heading back to the UK to go to boarding school to make her English recipes ?

Anyway, Mrs Winfield knew my heart wasn’t in the lessons she taught and I remember for some reason she stood in front of me, looked up while waving her forefinger under my nose and called me “a naughty little sausage“!  ? God knows what I did to deserve that but I never forgot it ?

Well … I think we were in 2nd form at the time and it was April Fool’s Day. It was standard procedure for the students to think of tricks we could do to the teachers coming into the classrooms. Standard one was balancing the lap sap tung (rubbish bin) on the top of the front door so that when the teacher pushed the door open, the bin would fall onto their head.

My friends and I decided we would do this when we had our DS class but that we would go a few steps further.  There was a fan right over Mrs Winfield’s desk so I climbed up and put flour on all the blades, and then we smeared her chair with lard! Oh what a joke!!!

Suffice to say that our April Fool’s joke wasn’t appreciated by Mrs Winfield.

We had to stay behind after school finished and she made us all take off our socks and she boiled them in the great big copper boiler in the class ?  She was going to boil our shoes as well but we all told her that our parents wouldn’t be too very pleased if she went through with her threat so thankfully she listened!

Students in the junior forms were not allowed to wear shoes without socks so we all had to put on our squelchy socks before we were allowed to leave for home! Ugh!

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Mr Reeve (RI) :

We used to get Religious Instruction classes when I was in the 1st, 2nd and (I think) 3rd Forms at KGV and Mr Reeve was our teacher.

The Catholic, Jewish, Sikhs, Buddist and other kids used to leave the classroom to go to their teachers and we “Protestant” students were the ones who remained.

I do confess I felt rather odd as I was Russian Orthodox and I would have appreciated learning about my own religion but since I was probably one of a dozen RO students at KGV, it just wasn’t going to happen.

One of things I remember to this day was Mr Reeve wanting us all to learn the Lord’s Prayer and I confess I still say it in my prayers to this day!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

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Miss Hall / Mrs McArdle / Sue Hewson (PE) : Miss Hall was our Physical Education (PE) and/or Physical Training (PT) teacher and in the first two forms, we had to wear brown bloomers during our PE lessons!

The bloomers in the left hand photo are very, very similar to the ones we had to wear in the junior forms, although we never had to do anything like that on the bars!

My mother had my brown bloomers made by her sew sew amah and the elastic waist and legs used to cut into my flesh. Ugh! I think we only had to wear them in Form One and Two, thank God!

We also had a horse like the one in the right hand photo which we had to jump over. There was a springboard at one end so we had to run, jump on the board and leap over the horse.

Mwahahahahahahahaha ????

I never made it over the horse – always managed to land on the middle of the horse! It always was an “OW” moment for me ?

Miss Hall left a couple of years after we arrived at KGV and Mrs McArdle took her position.  She was a lively Scottish lady and she loved to teach us gawky girls Scottish dancing!

Of course being probably the tallest girl in the class, I always had to be the boy ? I was always a tomboy until I hit 16/17 years old but, I did confess to getting a little jaded about always having to lead the girl I was partnered with ?

However I’d imagine that I and the other tall girls would have learned the girl’s part in the dancing so as that we wouldn’t be leading the boys during an actual dance?! I certainly knew my part when invited to the St Andrew’s Ball later in life!! ?

When I went back to the Fifth Form (5A) to resit my GCE (having only scored one in the first exam when I was in 5B ?), Suzanne Hewson was our PE teacher! She was in the same year as Lindy, so knew me when I was just a kid!

This photo is of Helen Feldman, Lindy and Suzanne when Paquerette organised a fashion show featuring the senior girls at the school! ?

She was great fun and had me as Left/Right Back in our hockey practice. I do remember her hitting a ball from the goal at the other end of the pitch and … WHAM!!!  It made a dent in my right shin, which I still have! So good to have such fond memories of school ?

Even better, when we finished our GCE exams, she organised a canoe trip around Tolo Harbour (in the New Territories), and that was an incredible experience! I will write about it in a separate page, as it was just so much fun and such an adventure for us kids ??

This photo is of us returning to KGV after the week – the truck carried the canoes and all of us exhausted after canoeing around Tolo Harbour  ?

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Miss McCorkindale (French) : Miss McCorkindale (aka Corky) was a Scottish lady and she wafth our French teacher!  Of course she had taught Lindy and Lindy was a lot better at French than I was so I used to get a lot of … “your sister knew the answer“, or “your sister’s accent was perfect, why can’t you speak more like your sister?“! I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that Lindy went to a French tutor to learn how to speak it fluently!! Grrrr ?

I’m sure French people would have squirmed with embarrassment if I’d gone there speaking with a heavy brogue like Corky!

She wasn’t my favourite teacher but I’ve heard that she really was a funny, lovely lady when she wasn’t at school!  Perhaps she didn’t like us back in those days ?  Corky was our form teacher when I was in 2B, for any pedantic souls out there who read this page ?

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Mrs Lee (English) : So if a Scottish lady taught us French, we had to have a French lady teaching us English ?‍♀️

Seriously!

Mrs Lee was a lovely lady but I’m afraid she didn’t fill me with enthusiasm about learning grammar and I found myself doodling during much of her lessons ?  I also used to hate it when my father made me talk in French when we visited France during our leaves!  I’m afraid I was more attracted to Italian than French and was always happy to speak to Italians in their language we visited that beautiful country!  I think it was that the Italians always seemed to be happy with foreigners who tried to speak their language and encouraged them with help, whereas the French seemed to look down their noses if the language wasn’t spoken professionally ?‍♀️

Apropos of nothing, Mrs Lee was married to a Chinese gentleman and they had a son, Charles, who was a few years younger than me and who also attended KGV.

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Mr Hollies : Mr Hollies had a Bob Hope-nose, it really was like a sky jump! I’m not sure if he taught us Geography or History, I *think* it was History.

Of course it was all English History as the school followed an English curriculum so that all the Civil Servants’ & other Government Officials’ kids were not at a disadvantage when their families returned to England or if they went to boarding school in the UK.  However I digress!!

Mr Hollies must have bat genes because if he had his back to the class and was scribbling something on the blackboard, if he heard a boy whispering to their friend he would whip around and throw the blackboard duster at the offending student, and he’d hit the naughty whisperer bang on the head or shoulder or chest!  My God, can you imagine a teacher doing that these days to a student? He’d be crucified and lose his job!!! ?

Of course after being hit a few times the boys would get savvy and if they did whisper to their friends, they had their desk tops open so that the duster would bounce off that rather than their bodies!!  Student 1 | Mr Hollies 0  ??

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Miss Simmonds (English Lit & Language) : Miss Simmonds was our English teacher in 5th Form and she was great! I always found English I had always found English grammar incredibly boring but Miss Simmonds brought it all to life with her enthusiasm and fun teaching.

She was a very flamboyant person – wore clothes that no other teacher at KGV would have dared to wear. Her skirts were like a flamenco dancer’s – wide and flouncy – and she had bright coloured tops, was always made up perfectly and she could have been Spanish with her pitch black hair!

In fact, when I watched the Aussie show called “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries“, Phryne really reminded me of Miss Simmonds ?
Phryne Fisher

She was a fabulous teacher and I was thrilled when I passed my GCE in both subjects (English Literature & Language)! It was truly an amazing achievement as I used to think English was an incredibly boring subject!

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Mr Blackburn : Mr Blackburn reminded me of a pirate! He had very dark hair, a goatee and moustache! He taught us Latin in the first two forms and then he returned to the UK. If I remember correctly, Mr Winfield took over with the Latin once Mr Blackburn left but I could be way off beam!

“Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant”

We had 3 years of Latin and no more once we got into fourth form.  I wonder why?!

I remember standing on the balcony and reciting my Latin verbs like I was some Roman! According to my reports, I must have enjoyed learning it as I got good grades in my exams.  Amazing!! ?

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Mr Magdalino : Mr Magdalino taught us Biology and the thing which sticks in my mind is that his son was in my class. We were in the lab one day and Mr Magdalino was in the process of dissecting a frog.  There was a crash behind me and when we turned, we saw that Paul, his son, had fainted at the sight of the frog being cut open!

Mr Vaughn : I’m pretty sure Mr Vaughn taught us Geography and he was a very theatrical type ?

He had a mop of white hair (even though he wasn’t that old) and I remember him jumping up onto his desk and waving his ruler around like a conductor when he got excited and went into raptures about the moors or the dales or even certain features of the Pennines ?

The art teacher : I can’t really remember her surname – maybe Miss Apter?! That sort of rings a bell ?  She was young and, of course, very artsy.

I wasn’t particularly good at art and one day I was talking to a friend instead of drawing and she got really angry at me! She made me go and stand in the corridor outside the class!!  I was horrified and it was the one and only time I was punished by a teacher ?  Fierce loss of face for me ?

Miss Edmunds (aka Stringbean) : can’t remember what she taught us just remember her nickname ?

There were so many other teachers that we had but I guess they didn’t make that much impression on me for me to talk about them here!

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