I didn’t expect to return to stories of Didsbury College, written back in 2015.
After all it was eight months ago when the last farewell party on the green took place and since then the buildings have waited their fate.
Now the Admin Block along with the old chapel and the Gatehouse are listed and will receive some tender care and attention before their future is determined.
But that assortment of 1960s buildings along with the huts have no such future.
The Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building still look respectable enough but many of the other additions on the site are tired and pretty much show their age.
So for all those who remember them all with a mix of fondness and other emotions here are two of Peter’s paintings of a little bit of the college which will soon be gone.
They were part of the big expansion in 1967 which the Guardian reported would double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*
It would be another five years before I walked through the door of the Assembly Hall, signed up to the NUT and began a post grad course which set me off on 35 years of teaching in Manchester schools.
Not that this was my first encounter with the college, two years earlier I can remember standing in the Drama Hall and listening to Duster Bennet singing amongst other songs the magic Bright Lights.
It was not the best attended of shows but his performance was all you needed, along of course with the bottle of Newky Brown.**
I can’t even say that I enjoyed drinking the stuff but it came in a bottle, was easier to walk around with and was the chosen drink of all serious students.
What I didn’t know was Duster Bennet was just three years older than me had already had a fine musical career and sadly died in a car crash in 1976 aged just 29.
So standing in front of the Drama Hall brought back many memories.
I can’t claim that I ever spent much time in the grander buildings.
Miss Hargreaves my personal tutor had an office in that imposing 18th century building which was once a home, became a school and Wesleyan college before finishing up as the admin block for the College.
We had the occasional seminar there and on a cold November day in the 1980s I went looking for an old colleague who was based in one of the small rooms off the main corridor, and later still my old friend Pierre showed me round the place just before its closure.
As for the other two listed buildings, the library which was the chapel was somewhere I rarely went and had no reason to call in at the Lodge.
So for me it was those 1960s buildings where I filled my time along with the huts whose floors creaked, and which were cold in winter and stuffy in summer.
The huts are still there and may be just maybe Peter will paint them as part of his collection of the college buildings; after all I guess some may even predate the Drama Hall and Simon Building.
And I rather suspect that for most of the students who passed through in the years after 1967 it will be the Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building which will loom large in their memories.
Paintings; the Drama Hall, Simon Building and Lodge © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967
**Newcastle Brown
 |
| The Drama Hall |
Now the Admin Block along with the old chapel and the Gatehouse are listed and will receive some tender care and attention before their future is determined.
But that assortment of 1960s buildings along with the huts have no such future.
The Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building still look respectable enough but many of the other additions on the site are tired and pretty much show their age.
So for all those who remember them all with a mix of fondness and other emotions here are two of Peter’s paintings of a little bit of the college which will soon be gone.
They were part of the big expansion in 1967 which the Guardian reported would double the number of students to two thousand making it “the biggest training college in England and Wales.”*
 |
| The Simon Building |
Not that this was my first encounter with the college, two years earlier I can remember standing in the Drama Hall and listening to Duster Bennet singing amongst other songs the magic Bright Lights.
It was not the best attended of shows but his performance was all you needed, along of course with the bottle of Newky Brown.**
I can’t even say that I enjoyed drinking the stuff but it came in a bottle, was easier to walk around with and was the chosen drink of all serious students.
What I didn’t know was Duster Bennet was just three years older than me had already had a fine musical career and sadly died in a car crash in 1976 aged just 29.
 |
| The Lodge |
I can’t claim that I ever spent much time in the grander buildings.
Miss Hargreaves my personal tutor had an office in that imposing 18th century building which was once a home, became a school and Wesleyan college before finishing up as the admin block for the College.
We had the occasional seminar there and on a cold November day in the 1980s I went looking for an old colleague who was based in one of the small rooms off the main corridor, and later still my old friend Pierre showed me round the place just before its closure.
As for the other two listed buildings, the library which was the chapel was somewhere I rarely went and had no reason to call in at the Lodge.
So for me it was those 1960s buildings where I filled my time along with the huts whose floors creaked, and which were cold in winter and stuffy in summer.
The huts are still there and may be just maybe Peter will paint them as part of his collection of the college buildings; after all I guess some may even predate the Drama Hall and Simon Building.
And I rather suspect that for most of the students who passed through in the years after 1967 it will be the Drama Hall, Assembly Hall and Simon Building which will loom large in their memories.
Paintings; the Drama Hall, Simon Building and Lodge © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
*Plan to cater for over 4,000 student teachers, George Hawthorne, The Guardian, April 19 1967
**Newcastle Brown
No comments:
Post a Comment