The class of ’68 part 7 ……. Ranger's House and a folk concert

Now, a little bit of my past has bounced back into my life in the form pf a program and a folk concert ticket.

'....... all that life can afford', 1967

And what follows is less a bit of vanity and more just a comment on how exciting it was to be at one of our big three comprehensives in the late 1960s.

The three were Crown Woods, Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I went to Crown Woods.

And in the December of 1967 along with some close friends and lots of other people, I took part in two performances of “all that life can afford” at the Ranger’s House in Blackheath.

The house dates from the 1720s and was a fitting venue for a performance of selected verse, prose and music from the 18th century.

The show lasted for two nights, and drew on the writings of Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Wesley, along with Voltaire, Bernard de Mandeville and the duc de Liancourt.

From the program, cast, writers and researcher, 1967

And dominating the evening was Samuel Johnson, whose throwaway comment that “He that is tired of London is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford”, provided the title for the show.

The sequence was in two parts, the first offering up “pictures of the streets [with] gin drinking, poverty and crime and punishment”, and the second exploring “the intellectual and religious life, as well as entertaining in high society, the military and naval activities of Blackheath and Greenwich and the famous Greenwich Fair.” *

The night concluded with the sonnet Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, which is near you will get to the perfect piece of praise for the city of London.

I remember I had been less than willing to participate and had a long conversation with Mr. Marland who was Head of English and put forward a series of reasons why I couldn’t take part, each of which was more desperate and unconvincing than the one before.

When finally, I gave in, and agreed, Mr. Marland gave me the script with my name at the top and the part I was to play already identified.

Some of the class of '68, 1968

The two nights were a great success but were only one of a number of different performances which the school had offered up.

These included, The Causian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Billy Liar, Antigone, The Peterloo Massacre, and the sixteenth century play Gammer Gurton’s Needle along with other dramatic and musical anthologies.

All of which sat beside regular evenings of poetry, prose and music performed by the staff and students of the English Department.

Ranger's House and Samuel Johnson, 1967

Now I fully accept that similar events went on at Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I do remember the annual Sixth Form Conferences attended by schools from across the capital which featured some of the best figures from the sciences and the arts who were invited to speak.

The point is that these were put on by comprehensive schools, and not grammar or public schools and in doing so were proudly asserting that they were the equal and perhaps superior to the older and established “places of education”.

Nor did it stop there, because Crown Woods gave us the opportunity to act independently.


In the winter of 1967 Dave Hatch and I were allowed to do our own radio show, featuring folk music, which went out on the internal radio system.

And a little later, when I asked if I could run a series of folk concerts with local singers in the school library, the answer was yes.

Folk at Crown Woods, 1968

I long ago forgot the details and had just a vague memory of who performed, but here Dave came to my rescue again, by telling me “you said that you couldn't remember many details. 

The names of two performers stuck in my mind; Gordon Giltrap, who you recruited one Friday night at the Tigers Head, and Terry Yarnell, who worked with Anne's father in Silvertown at International Paints”.

All these opportunities could be replicated by countless others, but I think there was something special in being at one of the “big three” in Eltham and Kidbrook back then.

Pictures; Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”, the folk concert ticket, and the picture of some of the class of ’68, program courtesy of Anne Davey who kept them in her scrap book and Dave hatch for sending them up to me

*Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”. 

A name …… some reports ...... a heap of friends ...... and the memories …… Crown Woods ..... 1966-68

Just what survives from our school days is a lottery.

It’s usually a mix of luck, self-interest, and our parent’s determination to save something of our childhood.

Me …….. I have just five school photos from my days at Samuel Pepys Secondary Modern, nothing from my Junior School and little from my time at Crown Woods.

 And I guess it’s the absence of much from Crown Woods that irks me the most given that they were the happiest of my school days.

Just why they were lost is still a puzzle, but I have rediscovered the reports from our Stella.

All five of us went through its doors, from September 1966 when I was 16 and new to the Sixth Form to my four sisters who attended in the late 60s into the next decade.

The reports span the winter and summer of 1970/1971 and are fascinating on many levels.

First of course they remind me of our sister and that in itself is a bonus.

But then there is the school badge and the names of the teachers including Mrs. Husain who was my first tutor and head of History but who had become a deputy head by 1971.

And there is the style of reporting which I recognise so well from my 35 years of teaching.

Some of the comments are spot on, others very subject specific and some vague and generalized.

All of which I can vouch for over the decades in what I struggled to write about my students, running from the supportive, constructive to the diplomatically critical.

“Always remember” I told myself that “this is a person, not a number on a register who should always be treated with respect”, unlike one poor soul who a colleague of mine in the 1970s summed up as “feeble”, no more no less.

But reports are not all of what lingers with most of us.  For me it is the friends I made, and who I still talk to today fifty-eight years after I met them along witha heap of memories which range from the good to the indifferent and the bad.

In there I include some girlfriends, some impressive teachers and the drama and musical evenings which still live with me.

And now I read that the successor to the Crown Woods I knew is discussing changing the school’s name.

Am I sad? Well, a little, but then the building I knew has already been demolished and it is over half a century ago that I went there.

Added to which of the seven educational institutions I studied at and taught in, only one has survived, and that was Edmund Waller in New Cross. The rest from my secondary school to Crown Woods, the places I did a degree and obtained a Cert Ed along with the schools I taught at ... all have gone. Some are now apartments, or housing estates while one changed its name, was then demolished and is now an academy with a new name.

So, not much to show for the biggest part of my life as a student and teacher.  Still to misquote Rick Baine from the film Casablanca we will always have the memories.*

Location; Eltham

Pictures; report for Stella Simpson, 1971 in the Simpson collection

*“We will always have Paris” Rick Baine, Casablanca, 1942

When Crown Woods went vinyl ………………..

I will always be grateful to Crown Woods.

Being 16 and turning up at Crown Woods, 1968

It took a raw sixteen-year-old newly arrived in the September of 1966 and offered up an exciting new world.

My previous five years had been spent at a secondary modern school in New Cross which was the end result for all of us who failed the eleven plus and were judged academically unsuited to the world of Shakespeare, John Donne, and Shelley.

To be fair many secondary moderns did punch above their weight, put students through O and A levels and suggested some of us could walk the hallowed corridors of universities.

That said I had an indifferent five years and was ready for Crown Woods.

And what a revelation it proved to be, from the teachers to the assumption that we would get involved in the drama, and musical productions, while encouraging us to cross the city in search of plays and films just because they were being performed.

crown woods at southwark, 1966

These jaunts included nights at the Old Vic, and Joan Littlewood’s theatre in Stratford as well as tiny amateur presentations of the classics in small smelly venues over the River in obscure parts of north London.

Musical night, 1966

All of which complimented the big inhouse drama productions from the Price of Coal, Crown Woods at Southwark, heaps of music nights and the small intimate evenings hosted by the English Department.

Over the years I have written about those experiences but until yesterday I wasn’t aware that Crown Woods had gone vinyl.*

It was in 1978 and consisted of selections from a series of concerts performed in 1977/78 school year, and the magic is the variety.

Crown Woods went vinyl, 1978

From the classics to items from popular musicals and jazz, and as befitted a comprehensive school the participants were drawn from all age groups.

The magic was in the variety, 1978

My only regret is that I wasn’t there although there will be people who remember those three magic nights and my have participated in one of the concerts. 

But by 1977, I was doing my bit for education in an inner-city Manchester school trying to emulate the spirt of Crown Woods.

That said I came across a copy on ebay for sale at £24.**

It is listed as "CROWN WOODS SCHOOL IN CONCERT   L.P.  EXCELLENT CONDITION. CATALOGUE NUMBER:  SPS130

This brilliant album by Crown Woods was released on a private pressing back in 1979. This copy is in great condition (as described above).  Along with some truly timeless music it has a great sleeve!  RARE !!"

Now I am intrigued that it was a private pressing, and wonder just how many were made.

I am tempted to make a bid but that would involve repairing our record deck, but that might just be the incentive I need.

A different sort of musical event, 1968

For now I will just reflect that Crown Woods did allow me to stage a folk concert which I guess at 17 was something given the artists who turned up.  

With that passage of time I have no idea how much they were paid.

Leaving me just to thank Chris Mentiply for permission to reproduce his copy of the LP and make a story.

And to conclude where I began that Crown Woods did really offer up the lot.

 Location; Crown Woods, Eltham

Pictures; That raw 16 year old, 1966 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Musical nights at Crown Woods from the collection of Ann Davey 1966, crown woods at southwark, 1968, Margaret Copeland Gain, and Crown Woods, the vinyl from Chris Mentiply

*The class of 68, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20class%20of%20%2768

**Crown Woods in Concert, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112343918748

The class of ’68 part 8 ……. doing drama the big way*

Now if you went to Crown Woods in the 1960s and into the next decade, chances are you will have been part of the big block buster performances, involving the English, Music and Art departments.*

The Price of Coal, November 1968

And if that performance was The Price of Coal which was performed in November 1968, then you could add the History department to that list.

These were the inclusive productions which set out to include as many students as possible from all age ranges, skills and talents to show case the school and show just what a comprehensive school could achieve.

The Price of Coal, not only brought together the traditional departments but was researched by students doing history, and told the story of the impact of coal mining in the late 18th and 19th century.

It was performed in the same year that Newcastle Playhouse’s production of "Close the Coalhouse Door" which was written by Alan Plater, based on his friend and mentor Sid Chaplin's mining stories, and with music by Alex Glasgow – all three of them born in the County Durham mining area.

I should remember The Price of Coal, and Peter Grimes, because I entered the school aged 16 in the September of 1966.

Peter Grimes, March, 1968

But I did perform in two others which were All that life can afford and Crown Woods at southwark.

These productions were were spoken of with a mixture of pride, but also a nonchalance, based on that confidence that this is what a comprehensive school can do.

I have no doubt that the neighbouring schools of Eltham Green and Kidbrook did the same, but Crown Woods was my school.

And for someone who came from a small all boys secondary modern, on the borders of Brockley and New Cross, Crown Woods was something very different, very exciting and ultimately very rewarding.  

Not only for his academic standing but also because it was a co-educational school and for a lad from a single sex institution that was something else.

But that is for another story, leaving me just to thank Margaret Copeland Gain, who sent over the two covers from the productions of The Price of Coal and Peter Grimes.

crown woods at southwark

Location; Crown Woods, Eltham

Pictures, covers from the productions of The Price of Coal, crown woods at southwark,and Peter Grimes, 1968, courtesy of Margaret Copeland Gain

*The class of '68, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20class%20of%20%2768

**Close the Coal House Door, Alex Glasgow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGPSqE74F0Q

Last Train to Clarksville ....Daydream Believer ..... and a romantic moment accompanied by the Monkees

Now you can be quite sniffy about the Monkees, which were an assembled band for television, and featured as such on NBC television from 1966-1970.

1967

I first saw them sometime around 1966-1967 on the BBC when the show went out on an early evening Saturday slot.

I have to admit to my shame that I publicly followed the line that they were not serious musicians, but secretly I liked them.  Some of the songs have survived the test of time, and are still exciting to listen to while the story lines were funny.

But that is not surprising given some of the songs and scripts were written by accomplished and well known professionals, added to which some of the Monkees themselves became popular musicians.

I suppose my time with them will have been during 1966 and early 1967 when I was dating Jennifer who like me went to Crown Woods.  Jennifer’s father was in the army and she was one of the students who spent term time living in the Lodge which was attached to the school.

1969

So on some Saturday nights we spent a few hours in the common room watching the Monkees and other things before I was banished before lights out ….. or I suspect when she had enough of me.

Such is the twisty turny time of adolescent love.

Even now some of those Monkess songs take me right back to that period of intense emotions with the girl I thought I had fallen in love with in that room.

And in a year and a bit on after we had long parted it was where I sat some of my A levels, and during the efforts to construct an essay on King Lear or Disraeli my mind would wander back to the daft moments with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork and  Davy Jones of the Monkees and Jennifer.

Location; the 1960s

Pictures, the Monkees, 1967, and 1969, from the collection of NBC