Memories of Wirral pavilion make me cringe

1:39pm Tuesday 14th August 2012 in Letters

I KNOW that the Ingleborough Road playing field issue is very serious but for personal reasons I wish they’d demolish the pavilion there.

I visited there in the late 1970s as a member of my school’s girls’ athletics team for a tournament.

The building contained changing facilities which although clean were very basic – four bare dressing rooms (plus one for teaching staff) and two huge team baths instead of showers.

I was very self-conscious in my mid-teens and tried to change whenever I could for sport or swimming behind a partition or screen but there were no such concessions to modesty at Ingleborough!

Even the wondrous Jessica Ennis would struggle to perform in such adverse circumstances.

The icing on the cake came when the tournament finished and the mistresses who had been acting as umpires had to join us in the team bath. Though there was plenty of room they didn’t look too pleased about it!

My memories of the Ingleborough pavilion still make me cringe with embarrassment. Knock it down!

Name and address supplied

Comments(15)

uncatom says...
8:13pm Tue 14 Aug 12

Why would somebody comment on an incident that happened thirty three or four years ago?let me think would it be to do with the current status of Ingleborough Memorial Field, maybe a disingenious attempt to sway some opinion as to the unsuitabilty of the field as a sports venue, to follow on from the outraged TRFC supporters over the gravestones issue, some of the same supporters that had been disrespectful to the memory of those that gave their lives and to the status of Ingleborough as a memorial in earlier posts.

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bickyboy says...
9:45am Wed 15 Aug 12

I remember being bullied at Oldershaw Grammar School back in the 1960s because my Mum couldn't afford to send me to school in proper shoes. Should I call for the entire school to be demolished to assuage that awful memory?

Ridiculous letter, and I think you've hit the nail on the head, Uncatom.

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Ben Beaconsfield says...
10:24am Wed 15 Aug 12

This is a red herring.

Anyway, I wallowed about in these communal baths over a seven year period, and it never did me any harm. Oh no, not at all. No harm whatsoever. Never. Oh no. Harmless. Absolutely no harm at all. Not a bit of it......

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Dantealighieri says...
11:28am Fri 17 Aug 12

After a good few weeks away on business it was nice to tune into the Globe website and read about a rather pleasant and slightly amusing trip down memory lane from the letter writer. Unfortunately the Lady in question did not inform the readers the type of school she went to. Perhaps she considered it unimportant to her story, or maybe if it was a Grammar School, mentioning the fact would give the impression of showing off. I must admit I'm rather surprised that anyone should have attended a Grammar School in the 60's with unsuitable shoes. It was in the 60's that Lady Dante ran a charity called Suitable Shoes for Grammar School Pupils( SSGSP) to overcome such a problem. As there were few takers, the whole thing folded within a year. One of the committee members did suggest that perhaps the charity should become Suitable Shoes for Secondary School Pupils (SSSSP), but Lady D. thought that was not good idea, as Secondary school pupils never wore shoes, suffered from rickets and were always covered in soot.

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bickyboy says...
11:02am Sat 18 Aug 12

It was indeed a grammar school I went to, Dante--shoes or no shoes. Hang on, those words should be in capitals. It was a Grammar School. No, that still doesn't look right. It was a GRAMMAR SCHOOL. That's better--one should always shout at one's intellectual and social inferiors, given that they are bound to be either deaf from working in the vicinity of loud machinery, or just plain stupid.

My poor mum did without lots of things and sent me to a private school before I went to Grammar School, Dante; so you see, the sin is compounded. In another life, you wouldn't have had the opportunity to poke fun at my (perhaps unwise) honesty concerning my footwear, because you would have been unable to write; and in any case would have had better use for your fingers during your fifteen hour working day. Outside those fifteen hours you wouldn't have been allowed within a mile of me, with your ragged clothes, your total lack of personal hygiene, your habit of eating raw slugs and your clunking, monosyllabic speech. The only time I would deign to allow you within my personal space would be when you hailed your scrawny frame up inside my chimney and scoured it with your bare hands to improve the airflow to my impressive Adam fireplace; to be packed off with a shilling, a kick up the backside and a curse when you'd finished, you stinking ragamuffin.
You would have had to call me Guv'nor, or even Yer Lordship, and may even at some point have stood before me in a court to answer for stealing a **** sparrer, a sin for which I would most definitely have packed you off to Oz-tralia. Instead, here you are poking self-consciously clumsy satirical fun at my honest but perhaps unwise admission that I passed the eleven plus but that it didn't buy me proper shoes.
Just shows how well the comprehensive system has served second class minds such as yours, and levelled those intellectual playing fields,doesn't it?

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Ben Beaconsfield says...
12:14pm Sat 18 Aug 12

I too went to a grammar school and to be frank, it was at times difficult, coming as I did from a poor working class back ground (see past 'times were hard' postings ad nauseum).

I don't want to get into a "Hole in the ground? Luxury" debate, but the mention of shoes is interesting. I remember one of my shoes splitting at the back. Getting a new pair was out of the question at the time, and I recall taking a thick needle and some thread and sewing it back up - pretty unsuccessfully, but never mind.

This did not in any way traumatise me - in fact, in some respects the whole business made me more resilient than some, and appreciative of the good things in life that many take for granted today.

Grammar schools gave people like me a real opportunity to prove ourselves in a world from which we would otherwise have been excluded. Their demise was in my view a big mistake - a victim of Crossland's experimentation in social engineering which Margaret Thatcher seemed to follow through with gusto (even if she was only a rubber-stamp Education Secretary for long-planned comprehensive plans submitted by various local authorities).

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uncatom says...
12:53pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Yes indeed there is nothing wrong with being honest bickyboy,society could do with a good dose of being honest these days,army coat as a duvet,shoes from a jumble sale, newstuff on a cheque when your parents could afford it,I thank my parents for bringing us up as well as they could afford,I still remember the happy times around the kitchen table in front of the fire,times were hard for most people in the 50's and sixties,I did'nt make grammar school but good luck to those kids that managed it.

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Ben Beaconsfield says...
1:09pm Sat 18 Aug 12

"I thank my parents for bringing us up as well as they could afford."

Couldn't have put it better. Spot on, a magical statement uncatom.

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Dantealighieri says...
2:01pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Bickyboy- ' I remember being bullied at school in the 1960's because my Mum couldn't afford to send me to school in proper shoes. Should I call for the entire school to be demolished to assuage that awful memory'. Find the missing words. The point being made is exactly the same without Oldershaw Grammar School being mentioned, so why bother, no doubt you have your reasons, but that's up to you. To be quite honest it isn't that important, and if it hadn't been for your rather pompous remark about the letter being 'Ridiculous' I wouldn't have taken that much interest. Obviously some of those who take the trouble to write letters to the Globe aren't familiar with the Globe website. If they were, then they would know that people like yourself set a very high standard, and that standard is not always easy to reach, but I, at least, certainly hope that doesn't mean they'll give up trying.

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ordinary personn says...
3:13pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Bicky – you’ve been around this forum long enough to see how Dante enjoys poking fun at people - he has had a go at enough people, me included (his last attempt occurred soon after I dared to say I was tired of what I saw as his admittedly clever but increasingly tedious and sometimes unnecessarily mean ramblings). So I am not a bit surprised at his response to your challenge. BTW How dare you – you nasty upstart! ;) Although, I have to say it is a bit rich of Dante to accuse anybody of being pompous.

Uncatom - yup spot on!

Dante - much as you mock, these past few posts have shown more humanity than I can remember being in your posts.

Re grammar schools - I’m another child from a poor background who went to a Grammar School but in my case it was not a great experience . I really was not bright enough to be there so didn’t shine academically, was rubbish at games and my parents were not employed in a profession, so the teachers weren’t that interested in me or my other less than academic council estate mates. The main thing I learned there was that life is not fair, hence I spent the greater part of my life with a huge chip on my shoulder (some would say it is still there). However, I agree with Ben about learning to be resilient. That resilience and the remnants of the chip have resulted in me believing that it is possible to change things so that they are fairer and when I become an ex person if l have done even a little bit towards that, my 5 miserable years at Grammar School won't have been a complete waste.

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bickyboy says...
3:27pm Sat 18 Aug 12

Dantealighieri wrote:
Bickyboy- ' I remember being bullied at school in the 1960's because my Mum couldn't afford to send me to school in proper shoes. Should I call for the entire school to be demolished to assuage that awful memory'. Find the missing words. The point being made is exactly the same without Oldershaw Grammar School being mentioned, so why bother, no doubt you have your reasons, but that's up to you. To be quite honest it isn't that important, and if it hadn't been for your rather pompous remark about the letter being 'Ridiculous' I wouldn't have taken that much interest. Obviously some of those who take the trouble to write letters to the Globe aren't familiar with the Globe website. If they were, then they would know that people like yourself set a very high standard, and that standard is not always easy to reach, but I, at least, certainly hope that doesn't mean they'll give up trying.
I bothered to mention the words "grammar school", you silly person, because at the time I started, Oldershaw WAS a grammar school. It was purely about accuracy, that's all. Maybe I should also have omitted the word "school" lest I intimidated those who never attended a place of learning?
It was YOU who chose to make an issue out of the fact that I mentioned the phrase; and had you not done so, over half the posts on this thread in which grammar schools are mentioned might not have been written. So whilst thanks are due to one or two of our most esteemed and competent correspondents for taking advantage of the direction in which the discussion went and pondering upon the advantages of passing the eleven plus, then I suppose I must grudgingly admit that thanks are also due to you for putting grammar schools on the front page of this excellent website.
I assure you: it was not my intention to advance the cause of selective education when I mentioned shoes in the same breath as GRAMMAR schools; although somehow I've quite enjoyed the challenge that your original piece of adolescent self indulgence provided. :0)

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Dantealighieri says...
1:06pm Mon 20 Aug 12

Oh! Come on Bickyboy, you can do better than that. Stop waffling. You know, I know, accuracy adds nothing to the point you were trying to make. So why don't you just cough to it? You were blowing a little toot on your own trumpet weren't you? Go on, admit it.- Ordinary Personn- Re. Grammar Schools. Such pathos. Anyone reading it would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

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ordinary personn says...
3:03pm Mon 20 Aug 12

Ah Dante LOL - if my post enabled you to experience a genuine human emotion there is hope for you yet. Maybe the next one you could try is empathy ;)

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bickyboy says...
9:29am Tue 21 Aug 12

Dante: laughter? You should get up on the stage and do it professionally, old Lad.

Being called "pompous" by you is like being called a "stubble chinned, big bellied, cow pie scoffing, protruding-jawed cowboy who don't know his own strength" by Desperate Dan.

You don't merely take the biscuit for hypocrisy: you've just emptied the entire Digestive factory and started on the Hob Nobs too.

By the way, did I ever tell you that I went to a Grammar School? :0)

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uncatom says...
11:51am Wed 22 Aug 12

I see the letter in this weeks Globe praising Ingleborough field as a sports facility has been ommitted from this site,maybe the editor is frightened of the wrath of TRFC supporters fo being biased.

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