Sometime last year Ms. Lenora Stanford(Music) came to The Archive to see me and she had a packet of materials with her that she wished to donate to our Archive. Amongst that material was an excellent photograph of the staff as I remember them when I graduated in 1962. Also there were many black and whites of Speech Night Plays that she and her choirs and classes had staged for the annual prize giving. I was delighted to receive them on behalf of The Archive and have most of them on the Flickr site.
While she was there with me we had a chat about how she came to teach at Bishop Feild seeing that she was from Wales and her story was quite interesting.
In the photograph in the back row is Mr. Ish Humber. I can remember him teaching us about perspective and vanishing points, making a good plan and executing it. The manual training room was always a mysterious place with that smell of sanded wood and spinning augers and the like. I made a cutlery drawer for my mother which is still in the family. It took me a year from conception to finished product but I learned a great deal from him about woodworking. Why the board of the day allowed that facility to be dismantled still rankles me.
In the front row is our headmaster Mr. Anderson. Behind his back we called him 'Bull' because of his booming voice which rang through the corridors and bounced off the marble floors of the building. I always felt a shudder of fear when I heard that thunderous voice boom through the hallways of the school. He was a tall man and as we stood to attention every morning for assembly he would come striding up the middle aisle, cloak sleeves billowing out until he reached the stage and stood in front of the lectern which always had the hymn number on the front. You could hear a pin drop.
This photograph was taken in 1965 three years after I had graduated so I did not know all of the teachers there. The lady to Mrs. Penney's left and the lady to Ms. Halfyard's left are unknown to me. Probably one of you boys may know them. Who is the lady standing next to the crew-cut Mr. Cooze? Speaking of Ms. Halfyard, when I was at Feild, Ms. Halfyard taught Grade VI and a tough disciplinarian she was. While reading she would walk up and down the aisles of desks with an eighteen inch long Confederation Life ruler in her right hand and woe to the lad who was not sitting erect with legs out of the aisle. That ruler would fall with lightning speed on the offender's leg. Although strict, in hind-sight, to me she was a wonderful teacher. She was tough and fair. Later on when she retired and became seriously ill I had the good fortune to sit with her during her last days which she faced with the same strength of character that was the backbone of her teaching.
Boys can you remember any events or stories from your time at Feild?
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