— Schools – King George V (KGV) 1958~1964
History
I found it quite interesting to read that in the early 1900s, the Education Department tried having two secondary schools in Hong Kong, one on the island called Victoria School and the other on Nathan Road called Kowloon British School!
By 1919 KBS had a thriving junior school and an ever-growing secondary school and a new headmaster, George Nightingale, whose vision turned KBS into a busy secondary school within 14 years.
In 1923 KBS changed its name to Central British School as it was decided, two years earlier, that all children aged 12 and over should study in Kowloon as there were not enough pupils to make Victoria School a viable option.
By 1935 CBS was bursting at the seams with nearly 400 pupils so it was time to move to somewhere where they could have larger buildings and more space, and the foundation stone for the new building was laid at its new site in Homantin.
Aerial view of CBS in Homantin in 1936. (Click to enlarge) Photo credit: KGV 1900-2002 The new school was opened on September 14, 1936, by the Governor, Sir Andrew Caldecott, with the new headmaster, Reverend George Upsdell. The plans had included a swimming pool but due to a blowout of costs, there was only enough money left to build a small sports pavilion ☹️
When the Japanese occupied Hong Kong, the school was used as a Japanese hospital, having been turned into one for the Allies before the invasion.
After the Liberation, CBS Hospital was under the command of Wing Commander JHL Newman and it was he who ordered the incomplete wartime quote by Churchill … «Never in the Field of Human Conflict» … be carved on the wall above the doors to the entrance of the school hall!
The rest of the sentence was «Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.»
KGV 1949 (Click to enlarge)
The school reopened for “business-as-usual” in September 1946 and some of the Russian kids I knew growing up who were the first pupils there were Luba Skvorzov, Natalia Sokoloff and Ira Smirnoff. They’re on the right hand side, Ira is the third girl up, Luba is the dark haired girl to the left of her and Natalia is behind her in the photo on the left ?
Then, on April 30, 1948, the name of the school was changed again … to its present name, King George V School, known to everyone as KGV (pronounced K-G-Five)!
The reason for the change of name was because some of the students admitted for the first time were … and I quote … «non-European»! *Gasp!!* *Shock!* *Horror!*
And the reason it was KGV and not KGVI, who was king at that time, was because the foundation stone was laid during KGV’s reign! ?
I must say that KGFive rolls off the tongue but KGSix sounds weird ?
[Source: KGV 1900-2002]
As an aside … it probably is just as well I didn’t know what I know now about King George V refusing to grant asylum to Tsar Nicholas and his family during the Revolution! Knowing me, I probably would have hated going to a school with his name ?
… and I joined KGV 8 years after her!
- The uniforms stayed pretty much the same from 1947 until I graduated in 1964.
- Summer uniform for girls – white shirtwaister dress for summer with the KGV badge on the left hand pocket, white socks and brown shoes. Girls in Forms 5, Lower 6 and Upper 6 wore the same shirtwaister but were able to wear white or brown shoes without socks.
- Summer uniform for boys – white shirt with the KGV badge on the left hand pocket, white shorts, short white socks and brown shoes. Boys in Forms 5, Lower 6 and Upper 6 were allowed to wear white slacks instead of shorts,
- Winter uniform for girls up to Form 3 – brown pinafore, white shirt, blue & brown striped tie, white socks and brown shoes and a brown blazer with the KGV badge on the left hand pocket.
- The horror of being girls in the junior section of the school was that we had to wear BROWN BLOOMERS for our gym sessions! Oh God how I hated those bruddy bloomers! Akkkk! ?
- Winter uniform for boys up to Form 3 – white shirt, blue and brown striped tie, grey shorts, long grey socks, brown shoes and a brown blazer with the KGV badge on the left hand pocket.
- The girls in Form 4’s winter uniform was a white shirt, blue and brown striped tie, brown skirt, white socks, brown shoes and a brown blazer with the KGV badge on the left hand pocket. There was always a deep desire to get to Form 5 because then we could wear brown shoes with pantyhose, and how much cooler would that look than socks ?
- The boys in Form 4’s winter uniform was the same as the girls’ one but instead of the skirt and white socks, they had long grey slacks and grey socks! That was the same as the 5th and 6th Form students!
When I was first admitted to KGV, I was put into Upsdell House as Lindy had been in it and all sibling coming after the first student were put in the same House.
The names of the Houses were all after educators who were in HK and connected to the school.
When I first got there, there were just three Houses :
Upsdell (colour red) (first headmaster of the new KGV building)
Rowell (colour blue) (the educator who discovered the best design for the school in the UK)
Nightingale (colour brown) (headmaster of CBS who suggested a new building)
When the house badges were introduced, all pupils had to wear them on the pockets of their summer uniforms above the school badge, and on their blazer pockets above the school badge in winter.
As more and more pupils were admitted, the powers-that-be decided we needed another House so in 1961 the school introduced another one called Crozier (colour green) (D Crozier had been one of the teachers when the school first reopened after WWII). I was away on leave when that happened so came back to finding we now had four Houses!
So in September 1958 I made the big jump from primary school to secondary school … we had no idea which friends from QBS would be in our class, as the stream was from A to D. A was for the brightest kids, B for those not quite as bright, then C was for those slightly less bright and D was for the not-as-bright kids!
I was fortunate to go into Form 1B and joined other kids who came from Peak School (we used to call that school Pig Sty!) and Kowloon Junior School (aka Kowloon Junk Shop!) as well as those of us from QBS (aka Queen’s Best School!) Hahahahaha! Too funny! ?
September 8, 1958, dawned bright and beautiful and to say I was a bit apprehensive while trying to swallow my breakfast is putting it mildly! ?
I was a very tall, shy and very gawky 11 year old whose mother put her hair in tight, tight plaits on the first day of school! ?
The Vargassoffs lived one floor below us in Morrison Hill Road so as Vera and Nicholas were at KGV, as well as Deanna Medina who lived a couple of apartment houses along, and Mrs Vargassoff used to drive the kids down to the Star Ferry. My father and Mrs Vargassoff did alternate weeks when Lindy was at school and now that I was a KGVer, the tradition continued!
It was a big of a squeeze in the Vargassoffs’ Veedub but in our car there was a lot of space since we’d upgraded our old car when on leave in 1957 ?
(Click to enlarge) Photo credit: Flickr
It was pretty exciting to be going off to school with the big kids!
We were dropped off in front of the Star Ferry terminus…
(Click to enlarge) Photo credit: DonnyB flickr
…and when going to the turnstile to pay my fare, I noticed a shop which sold big, meaty wah muis and lovely vinegary slices of pumpkin in big jars!
I made a mental note to bring enough money to buy some goodies the next day ?
We marched along the pier to get on the Star Ferry. Just to show you how we all boarded, see this photo by (Sir Lawrence) Lord Kadoorie …
The photo on the right shows the old pier, which had a wooden floor and fairly large gaps between each plank where I could see the harbour water slushing underneath!
In the photo you can see the 1st class passengers going onto the plank to the top part of the ferry, while the 2nd class passengers went down to the lower section.
This was the 2nd Generation Star Ferry pier but they built a 3rd Generation pier in 1957 so that would have been the one we would have walked on to the ferry!
It seemed like the walk to the gate to wait before we were allowed to go on board was a lot longer than the old pier but at least we walked on concrete and not wooden planks ?
Back in 1958 the harbour was a lot wider than it is these days as there wasn’t as much reclamation going on as nowadays! It was always a fun trip, and there was always a lot of activity on the harbour in those days!
Junks plowing their way to various fishing areas, passenger or cargo ships either arriving or leaving their berths. US ships or aircraft carriers at buoys or RN ships tied up to piers at HMS Tamar.
The photo below gives you an idea of how wide and busy the harbour was in those days…
(Click to enlarge) Photo credit: seewide.com
The photo on the left shows the Kowloon side Star Ferry terminus and if you look at the picture on the right, you can see the bus ranks where our bus was waiting.
We boarded the Number 9 bus. This was a double decker which, when it was time to go, trundled up Salisbury Road, took a left at Nathan Road and made its way to Argyle Street.
We had to be at the school by 8:15-ish and when I was there, we had separate entrances – the entrance closest to Tin Kwong Road was for Girls, and the one on the opposite side was the Boys entrance.
Then I had to find my classroom, Form 1B, and see if there were any familiar faces from QBS there. Had to pick a desk — the boys were on the right facing the blackboard and the girls on the left — and then, stomach churning, sit waiting for the class teacher to come and speak to us ?
This photo of a classroom was taken after I left, as the uniforms are different, but the desks and the room are exactly the same!
We had lift-up tops to these desks and had to put our books inside them. One of our teachers, Mr Hollies, who taught History in our early years had a very finely-tuned radar for kids who talked while he had his back to us when jotting things on the blackboard. If he heard voices, he would spin around and throw the duster at the talker, and his aim was usually spot on! ?
As the boys got used to him, they used to lift their desk tops to stop the duster in its tracks, much to his annoyance!!!
After roll call, we all had to walk single file on the left hand side of the corridor to the Assembly Hall and make our way to the front row where we had to sit on green metal chairs.
All the first form kids in the above photo have their rattan bags at their feet. I confess I don’t remember us kids having to do that on our first day/days but maybe we did – I cannot remember ?
The pupils standing along the side of the wall were prefects, I would imagine to keep an eye on the young kids’ behaviour!
We always stood up to sing a hymn during assembly, lower our heads for a prayer then sat to listen to a prefect read a few verses from the Bible, before our head master talked about the topic of the day and then we might hear from some of the other teachers before it was all over.
I remember those green chairs we had to sit on were lethal. *Sigh!* Their memory has been seared into my brain!! ?
Some would pinch us on the bottoms, or nip our shoulder blades! It really was hell if you sat on a really bad chair! I think most of them had been in use for many, many years so were pretty rickety ?
Those chairs were stackable so they were laid out for the whole school in the morning and after Assembly they were all stacked up and left in little “towers” on each side of the hall, waiting to be unstacked the next morning ?
So after assembly we all filed out and went back to our classroom for the first lesson!
We had classes till around 10-ish and then we had a break for 15-20 minutes, and then back to class until lunch time.
There was a canteen on the floor above the Assembly Hall, I think! Never went there so can’t really remember. I do remember the guy who ran the canteen was called Foxy and, if my memory serves me well, the food wasn’t anything to rave about ?
Those of us who brought our own lunches from home used to go to the undercover area, where they had tables and benches for us to sit and eat.
The photo on the left shows the undercover area where my mother, aunt and Brutus, our Alsatian (whom we took to the Pet Show in 1960) sat. I’ve written about the show on this page – Some Memories of Days at King George V School!
After lunch it was back to lessons and until the bell went signalling the end of the day! We all gathered up our books, either put them in our desk or in our bags and then we all trooped out of the correct entrance, then headed back down Tin Kwong Road.
We walked to the bus stop for the Number 9 bus, got on board and when we got to the Kowloon Star Ferry terminal, we would either walk or run to get the ferry to get back to HK!!
We had about 3 months for our summer vacation, short breaks for Christmas and Easter holidays, and if lucky (in our opinion), a typhoon would head towards the Colony and the No 5 signal would be hoisted which meant no school! It was too dangerous to go over to Kowloon and risk the chance of being stranded over there if a higher signal was raised and the ferries stopped running.
This was our routine for six years … err, no, for 5 years, as we were away on leave during 1961!
The left photo shows the Girls entrance, the middle one shows the main entrance and the right one shows the Boys entrance. The left photo is what our view of the school would be when we hiked up Tin Kwong Road!
Some Memories of Days at King George V School
Memories of Teachers at King George V School
People I Remember at King George V School
and – if you’re interested in pupils in KGV during the 1950s – please check out this page which I made about my sister, Lindy, when she was in KGV in the 1950s…
This video is great for showing those of you who haven’t been to HK what it was like going onto a ferry from Kowloon side. It was never quite as busy as in the film when we crossed back to our side! ?
100th anniversary of KGV (SCMP)
1958 Sept - 1964 June ~ King George V School
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