IN this article I look back on three mid century giants of Bradford Grammar School.
Walsh - the only music master for the whole school!
Shaw-Smith - the Latin master who was a farmer in his spare time.
Twelves - the deeply religious French teacher who became Second Master.
All three spent decades at BGS, bridging the Second World War and the Seventies.
Leslie Arrand Walsh (at BGS from 1947-76) was a force of nature. Just think about it: Standing in front of 1,000 boys and teaching them to sing. Without a mike! Boys whose interest in mastering Stanford’s Te Deum, or In Our Day of Thanksgiving, or fancy stuff like Cecil Day Lewis’ ‘Brave isle of meadow, cliff and cloud’, was close to absolute zero.
No-one who sat in the great Price Hall year after year will forget the rousing baritone and thunderous personality that filled the entire space, and even got the grunting mid-teens who sat at the back to keep to time (if not to tune).
Leslie Walsh in his 'well deserved retirement' with his wife Monica (Image: Nigel M de S Cameron)
BGS’s sole music master was originally required to teach divinity as well! What’s more, he had the privilege of actually filling four or five different musical jobs - choirmaster, orchestral conductor, organist, and classroom teacher to dozens of forms.
Mr Walsh in Price Hall, getting 1,000 boys to sing!
His main benefit was to occupy the school’s loveliest room, named for Old Bradfordian Frederick Delius, up its own staircase in a little tower. That was where the choir met and the orchestra rehearsed and hundreds of boys would file for their required music classes. In the mid-60s it was boosted by a gift from the Parents’ Association of the very latest in hi-tech equipment, a stereo record player!
In Our Day of Thanksgiving, which pupils often sang
Two enormous built-in speakers sat behind his master’s desk. One special evening, Mr. Walsh put it through its paces as he worked the stylus to play the most dramatic tracks from his LPs. (Yes, the system was for LPs, those old things we now call vinyls.) Personal note: I sat O-level music. There were just three of us that year. We had a great time, and got to know Mr W. pretty well!)
Raymond Shaw-Smith (at BGS, 1952-89), like many of the most successful teachers, was a character! A boy named Price blundered by pronouncing a Latin “c” like an “s.” He was forever after Prike. If you did well you would be rewarded with a “valuable prize,” which might be an old egg box or a sheet of paper. There were games and competitions with boys sitting on their desks backwards and forwards. On one boy’s report he wrote, “He will pass if I work hard.”
Mr Shaw-Smith, famous for his 'valuable prizes' (Image: Nigel M de S Cameron)
Shaw-Smith was always smartly dressed, and unlike most masters didn’t wear a gown in class. Outside the classroom he sang in the choir, served as CCF Naval Officer and sailing instructor, and produced plays. In the early 60s he and his wife bought a farm, and put great efforts into raising livestock. (Personal note: One time, I got to visit the farm - it’s always rather remarkable for pupils when they see teachers out of class!)
If you teach French and your name is Twelves, it’s inevitable. Sometimes, HA Twelves (at BGS, 1941-1980) would even refer to himself as Monsieur Douze! Douzey was a leading member of the Christadelphian church, a small group whose beliefs include pacifism. The story was that he had been fired from his previous job because he was a conscientious objector. That was no problem, of course, to BGS, as the head during the war years was RB Graham, a Quaker and a vigorous pacifist himself.
HA Twelves, Second Master, 'strict disciplinarian but fun in class' (Image: Nigel M de S Cameron)
As a French master Douzey was both scholarly (he could readily have become a university professor) and, surprisingly, fun. He loved to break into song. Alouette, gentille alouette, alouette, je te plumerai! At the same time, he had a fearsome reputation for discipline - not because he caned boys (he didn’t; the worst they got was an occasional tug of the hair), but his very presence had an almost magical effect. If he walked into a corridor full of noisy boys, it broke into silence.
Douzey got on well with long-time Second Master WE Clarkson, who asked him to help out with some admin.
So it was no surprise that he became his successor, number two to incoming head KD Robinson in 1963. (Personal note: When I was in the sixth form, I ran the social service group. One time I persuaded the very formal Mr. Twelves to play Santa at a Christmas party we hosted for poor kids. We dressed him up, then wheeled him into the dining room on a dinner trolley!)
There will be chapters on all three of these remarkable men in the book I’m writing about the post-war school.