It Was Fifty Years Ago Today.....

Rod Wilkins was at the Technical High School and left in 1958.  He writes:

I finally plucked up the courage to visit the Trinity website a few months ago as I am at an age when you begin to rake over the embers of your life.  It made be write something about the my school days as there seemed much less on the website from people of my era."

It Was Fifty Years Ago Today.....   Well not quite, but to borrow a line (almost) from Lennon-McCartney I stumbled across myself in the website photo, the “class of 58”.

My journey to this momentous event started last year.  Whilst on a visit to Northampton I drove down Trinity Avenue to find that they had demolished the old school!  While my back was turned pursuing semi-retirement in deepest Devon!  HOW DARE THEY!  And so my nostalgic trail lead to The Tower Revisited website.

Reading its pages there seems to be a distinct lack of entries from my classmates of that year.  Did they (as I) turn their back on the (then) modern edifice never to yearn for the blackboards and naivety of those formative years.  Maybe their careers became their life – for me my life became my career!

Nicknamed Jumbo by an older pupil whilst at the Northampton College of Technology (prior to relocating at the Tower).  My name is Rodney Wilkins and I left the seat of learning in 1958.  The year when the school uniform had started to mutate with the trousers with 14” bottoms, Eaton Clubman suede Chelsea Boots, large quiffs and for some – sideburns too.

As I cycled away on my last day (no more Buzzer, Gunner, etc) I was met with an incredible sight.  There were iron railings bordering the school along most of Trinity Avenue with spikes on top, and on each spike was a torn fragment of school uniform – no doubt a final gesture to the establishment from the school leavers.

I kept in touch with some chums for a few years.  I used to swap Dinky Toys with David Jeyes.  Ian Fitzhugh (who later turned up on a promotion video from Cosworth Engineering) lead me to affairs with motorcycles and café racers.  Malcolm Merchant I think ended up working in Northampton CID.  Ted Clapham (who always seemed to get 100% in exams and was the most studious of students) eventually got interested in more than applied maths and found girls.  Alan (Jammy) Chivers I last saw gunning a Triumph 650 in the 60’s.  Geoff Coles turned up years later in the motor trade as sales manager at a local car showroom.  I myself moved to Devon in December 1969 and have just retired after a lifetime of loving and selling the motor car.

So what’s the answer to the lack classmates comments? Are they so disinterested in the past – or have they signed up to that desert of broken marriages, Friends Reunited?

Now they must be 65 or over and have they forgotten about the science teacher who blew up a glass tank in an experiment with sodium, or have we all lusted after Julie Parker?  And how all the bummers and weeds (including me) ended up in Kelvin House?

At my time of life, I’ve begun to retrace my path and for an hour so looked backwards – for a time, it seemed more real than the present!!

Rod Wilkins - School Leaver 1958 from form G5 (I think)