Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Black History Month

Then unless you also buy the neighbouring houses and rent them out, you'll unfortunately have no choice in who comes to live next door.

We are all forged by childhood experiences and influences and then by lifetime experiences and influences.

So we all look at the world from a different place.

I dont care about colour, religion or ethnicity. But I do care about how people behave and what they think and say.

Our neighbourhood is relatively uncomplicated, because most people keep themselves to themselves, and don't cause ripples. Just occasionally somebody creates an issue, but most get resolved.

People are people. Howard is right. Looking back, especially in anger solves nothing. Humanity never learns from history.

I went to a terribly conventional middle class boys Grammar School. In my year we had one Indian, everyone else was white caucasian.

We had 2 boys who were living with a single mother, everyone else went home to two parents.
In the 6th form one lad got his girlfriend pregnant.
Another had an affair with the wife of a teacher.
About 70% went to University or into a "blue chip" Company training scheme.

At home most of us lived in 1930s and 1950s semi detached houses. Some lived in council houses (social housing today).
Some had less than wonderful neighbours, but as DW said, everyone cared about the way people behaved and everyone "knew their place".
Even the settled travellers in the council house across the road caused no problems: he was a used car dealer working off abandoned land nearby.
At the end of our road was a small estate of pre-fabs. Most of the tenants had nothing, but it was far from a slum.

At school we had all male teachers, many with WWII service. The Deputy Head, Guss Hillier, spent from the fall of Singapore to the end of the war as a guest of the Japanese. He had memorised all of the book of 4 figure log tables: one amazing Maths teacher, one seemingly stern Deputy Head with a heart of gold.


Looking back to those times is pointless, but they contained some important truths.
Respect your fellow person
Work hard
Expect no help from anyone.
Enjoy life.

My Grammar School was almost identical.

A few female teachers. Many of the men were ex forces. The HM was ex RAF, and drove an MGB. He built an aeroplane in the school workshop and flew it from the playing fields. Had he not been such a fearsome HM, I would have loved to talk about his war experiences.

I was one of a small number at that school without a father.

Same here - RGS Worcester.

Not many ex forces by the time I was there (1980 to 88). I had to stay on and retake my A levels as by 17 I was more interested in cars, bikes, drugs, and women than academia. In my retake year I 'borrowed' a car, smashed it up and ended up in intensive care. Recovered (with some impressive scars) and persuaded my consultant to write a letter to the exam board to help me get some grades. Thankfully it worked.....

We did have far too many cricketers working there - Curtis, Newport, Boynes, Horton to name but a few. Imran Khan studied there. I was a worse cricketer than academic....

We did have a CCF, and I joined the Navy section. Had some fabulous trips down at HMS Raleigh and a week on HMS Orkney were we took part in a NATO exercise around the Orkneys. Ship caught fire half way through which was rather exciting. When all finished, got dumped at Wick Harbour with a Rail Warrant and told to find my way back to Worcester......

Apologies to the forum for spitting out my dummy yesterday.....but there's only so much one can chew without swallowing.


Over 45 years ago I moved away from where I was brought up in the Midlands, whilst my family is still there, I had lost contact with school friends many had to move away in the 70's during the Midlands economic decline etc so I joined a local area facebook page a few years ago. Besides postings on old photographs of the area, and do you remember this or so and so from the 50's, 60's and 70's type posting I did manage to make contact with a few old friends and acquaintances thru the site. As many of the contributors are slightly older than myself, what struck me overtime was how poor and deprived some of the families were, when the state benefits were almost non-existent and the lengths they had to go to eg by pawning clothes on Monday to get money, only to get them out of hock on Saturday for Sunday church. Many had fond memories of living on the famous council housing estate called the 'Lost City' and recount tales of younger children still not having shoes all the time even into the 70's. Despite all of this hardship many went on to have successful careers as a result of their hard work and determination to succeed and to better their circumstances. It was a sobering reminder of where we have been and how far we have come and still how much more we need to do.

Howard made a fair point about integration and assimilation of all sections of the community, the reality unfortunately is somewhat different for many coloured and Asian people living in the UK. Many are living in Ghettos centred around poor inner city areas like Bradford. Leicester, Birmingham, London that often don't share the same opportunities and infrastructure ie quality housing, schools, hospitals as others. Having said that as Peter and Dave noted about their social environments many of us here grew up in less privileged neighbourhoods that faced economic and social hardships and disadvantages that were prevalent during our formative years. Some things never change, but we need to do more remove those inequalities from our society.

Something we can 100% agree upon.

Another product of the Grammar School system, in my case the Marling School in Stroud. Good traditional school, I enjoyed my time there, but they were absolutely hopeless at career guidance if you didn't have Oxbridge/Civil Service in your sights. But plenty of decent teachers (albeit with a fair few crusty old psychopaths) and they did a good job of teaching critical thinking.

And, this morning, purely by coincidence, taught a lesson on the Battle of Hasting to Year 7, on the 955th Anniversary.

You guys have a totally different educational background to me. Born in the front bedroom of one of Birminghams Back to Back houses, ending up going to a Cadburys funded boarding school because of Asthma when I was eight and at aged 12 moved to a Secondary Modern. Was already getting close to 6 foot tall and because of long walks at boarding school every day was so fit made the football team for the under 15s in the first week at school aged 12. From that moment on school was a delight nothing to do with academic studies it was all about sport as one teacher said ‘you have zero talent as a footballer but you are big enough and daft enough to kick anybody so you’re in the team’. I loved it.

Left school at 15 because the family needed the money and my mother secured me a job filling shelves in a supermarket and I hated every day. Got my apprenticeship off my own back by walking in and asking as you could back in those days and after 5 years at Tech College day release qualifying worked at a couple of BL Main Dealers before starting work for British Leyland at the Midland service centre. From there via Jaguar experimental I moved into training in 1977 and worked in that field until I retired.

Along the way and to the amazement of everyone in the family I managed to get a training and development degree at Wolverhampton University in my early 30s.

The biggest hurdle to early education failings is my dreadful spelling and use of grammar but I can screw a nut on a bolt and that gave me a living and gave me worldwide travel whilst working at Volvo cars so not too shabby 🤣.

BR
Colin