Old Boys, Girls and Teachers Guestbook

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Welcome to the Guestbook
Feel free to add messages relating to the site and the school. The only rules are: real names only, no personal attacks and no unrelated messages (inappropriate messages may be edited/withdrawn without warning).

It would be appreciated if you gave an email address, where you now live and said when you were at the school, but you don't have to.

Plase note that if you click on an email address below you will need to replace ~DOT~ with . and ~AT~ with @ in your email program. The Guestbook presents these this way to avoid email address harvesters collecting your email addresses from the page. I know it's a pain, but it's very much better than the alternative.

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There are 500 messages in the guestbook
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Viewing messages 121 to 130

Neale Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Inspector Alex is after me again.
Dear Alex, of course I don't expect you brylcream boys in the RAF to have heard of such a low class term as Subject Normal, but in the ranks of Her Majesty's Royal Corps of Engineers it was common chatter, along with all the other disgusting epithets that were bandied about. In my private life I have tried terribly hard, even using terms like terribly hard, to live down the ghastly stigma of having rubbed shoulders with common soldiers. It was only when I was on my Para course at Abingdon that I was able to appreciate the superior manners and hauteur of the Air Force personnel. They even allowed us to eat alongside them, provided of course that we used our knives and forks. And that was hard on us as we usually used our jack knives and spoons. But I must say they were really kind to us, took us for nice rides in aeroplanes, provided that we jumped out of them. Yes that experience with the RAF boys probably changed my life for the better and made me appreciate the finer things in life. So Alex , by all means pick out any other malaprops that I might utter. It's all part of the "Went in a boy and came out a man" syndrome that I'm still working on.
Cheers, Neale (Sapper, that is )

Thu 31-Mar-2022 02:19 - Victoria BC

Alex Patterson VUA 1946-1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Mike and O.B's.,
This one's for Neale. I have never heard the term "Subject Normal" Perhaps it is exclusive to the army, I certainly don't remember it in RAF slang and I couldn't find it anywhere on the internet. Please elucidate.
Thanks,
Alex.

Wed 30-Mar-2022 17:09 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

I knew I shouln't have mentioned that short gymslip, but at least it got you going if not salivating!!

Vivienne's growth to the age of 14 sort of parallels my own experience when I left the school after 'O' levels to begin my RAF Apprenticeship.

I was a very immature not quite 16 year old - voice not fully broken and all of the other things that go on at that time with teenagers.

In the next 2 years I grew from my induction height of 5 feet 7 inches to 6 feet 2 inches. Result - none of my RAF uniforms fitted properly and it took me a long while to get everything sorted out.

Mon 28-Mar-2022 19:51 - ruskington lincolnshie

Neale Backhouse | nealebackh~AT~gmail~DOT~com

My goodness,
"She walks in beauty , like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies"

Our venerable Guestbook has erupted in Byronesque rapture over what we would call in the army, "Subject Normal."
Even our esteemed leader, who rarely comments on our ramblings, has joined the search for the elusive Ms Gelson.
I'm sure she would be flattered(or would she) that a bunch of old codgers were salivating over her abbreviated gym slip. She must soon join the ranks of other great femmes fatale, like Cleopatra and Anna Karenina. Little did she know that she would stir up such a storm!
Mind it's great to know that Subject Normal is alive and well among my fellow octogenarians. After all that's what keeps us going, right.

Sun 27-Mar-2022 17:30 - Victoria BC

Mike Todd | m~DOT~todd~AT~miketodd~DOT~net

Thanks for all the kind comments, especially from Bruce & Alex. Yes, it's a shame that the girls' school doesn't have a site - but (and I really don't want to be sexist!) I'm not sure how many Old Girls would have had the technical interest, but also had the access to school archives like I did.

More than once I've been asked if I could do the same for them, but I've never had the time - indeed, just look at how rarely the site gets updated!

As for Gelson, public records show someone of the same name born in South Shields in 1939, and married in 1961 in Yorkshire, so would have surname of Tarver.

Fri 25-Mar-2022 10:20 - Rothbury

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Alex and all

I've looked for her too, with no luck. Of course her surname would have changed, but I thought that Gelson was an unusual name and someone may have known the family.

You're absolutely correct in our good fortune in having Mike's masterpiece at our disposal.

Thankfully her Aunt and my mother recovered from their time in the tuberculosis ward which many will recall was a great scourge at that time.

Thu 24-Mar-2022 19:21 - ruskington lincolnshie

Alex Patterson VUA 1946-1951 | ad1935ap~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Hello Mike and O. B’s.,
I was intrigued by Bruce’s story regarding Vivienne Gelson, and her “duckling to swan” transformation. I’m sure that must have happened to many a girl (and boy whatever the male version is…cub to lion(?) ) and “she was also a very talented tap dancer “with an abbreviated gym-slip. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!!
All of this led me to go onto Facebook to see if I could see this tap-dancing goddess. Of course she will be an 80’s + goddess by now. Facebook only showed a Vivienne Gilson, who looks like she could be in the time frame…but no mention of South Shields in her profile. Then I went into Google to look at the Girls’ High School website, but there is no equivalent to our Mike’s creation.
This made me realize what a treasure we have in our website with some 10,000 names and photos and this correspondence feature. I’ve looked and still haven’t found anything remotely like it; our site is all about people, it’s all about us.
So thanks Mike for all the good work you have undertaken on this site, and, thanks to all the contributors who keep it alive and thanks to Bruce and the mysterious Vivienne Gelson, wherever she may be, for triggering this stream of consciousness.
Best wishes to all,
Alex.

Wed 23-Mar-2022 18:43 - North York, Ontario, Canada

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

To add to the school dances story. One of the reasons I remember the girls from their 3rd year coming to teach us to dance was one particular girl. They all arrived in their school uniforms (gym slips in those days) and this particular girl was obviously still wearing the uniform purchased when she went to the school. She had grown and at 14 the hem of her gym slip was embarrassingly (for her)high.

The reason I remember this so vividly is that her Aunt and my mother were both patients in the TB ward at Harton hospital and she went to show her aunt her ball dress before coming to the dance. Talk about a transformed creature - ducks and swans come to mind - my mother was entranced and so were most of the boys!!

Her name was Vivienne Gelson and she became a target of most of the boys in my year (me Included) with lots of innocent dating and tennis matches at West Park, close to where she lived.

She was also a very talented tap dancer.

Thu 17-Mar-2022 20:01

alan wightman | aconlan111~AT~gmail~DOT~com

Good Morning, Mike & Everyone,

Rally round the flag, Old Boy,
Recruiting `scribes´ to re-deploy!
Shouts of "Hurrah" for billeted `Sandancers´
Legacy `armoured´ by Old Guard `Enhancers´!

`Sandancer´- `Geordieland´.

Fri 11-Mar-2022 11:33 - south Shields

Bruce Graham | bsgraham~AT~btinternet~DOT~com

Ah, the 6th Form.

I didn't realise they had a separate school dance because I left the school after O Levels to begin an RAF Apprenticeship (just like Alan Whitakker a few years later)

The 6th Form. They were the ones with deep voices and needing to shave. Nowadays I seem to see these same teenagers at that stage in their lives at about 13 or 14.

Thu 10-Mar-2022 17:00 - ruskington lincolnshie

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