The Hallifordian - 2016-2017

99 and cricket in the summer. Colin got to be Captain of the Ash House team and later on he played for Sunbury Village Cricket Club. Colin can remember some of his teachers well. Mr Gordon Leary took over as Head in 1953 and took the boys up to London to hear the Procla- mation of Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne. He would begin his lessons by gently laying a cane down on the desk at the front of the room as a re- minder to boys to behave. AMaths teacher called DWADavidson ran a Cinema club in the House, but later on got into trou- ble for selling extra maths lessons to boys to help them get through exams. Major Travis taught Geography and came to the school straight from the Army. Mr and Mrs Bainbridge were a husband and wife team who taught History and English. Colin had his lunch in the school canteen, which was also in the House. If you look at the brick wall next to the door you can see exactly where the boys would queue up. The strange round holes in The old wooden gymnasium in the 1940s. the wall were made by boys waiting for their lunch, over a period of years, burrowing into the soft brick with an old pre-decimal penny, held between finger and thumb. You can try this at home with your own brick, but it’s extremely boring. Colin’s most exciting lunch-time event was finding a caterpillar in his cooked cabbage. (This is the origin of the expression ‘lovely grub’.) He pointed it out to a teacher, who said that since the caterpillar was made only from cabbage, he should just go ahead and eat it. Colin subsequently got into trouble from his Mum for making his school uni- form go green – he wouldn’t eat cabbage, and hon- estly who can blame him? He wrapped the nasty wet vegetables in his hanky and they leaked into his blazer pocket. Well, it was all a long time ago. Colin and his friends have all made successful careers after leaving Halliford and he still sees some of them regularly. I asked him if he had been happy at Hal- liford. “Yes,” he said, “extremely happy.”