Ronald Fairfax

Firth Park grammar School....Foch Raleigh , Beatty, Haigh. An indication of the school's founding Foch WW1 French General, Raleigh (Walter) Beatty British Naval Admiral, Haigh British WW1 General

There was reference in a post about Firth Park Grammar School (I attended 1950-56) to Gerald Brooke an old boy l.. Gerald was a brilliant language scholar at a school famous for language teaching. French, Italian, Spanish,German and in Gerald's case Russian. Firth Park was one of the few State schools in the country that offered Russian .Gerald was described in the post as a spy because he was arrested in The Soviet Union while on a study visit there. In 19 65 I was in Czechoslovakia and I met a journalist in Prague who reported his trial in Moscow. Gerald was hardly 007. He spent some time in Paris and became involved with an anti-Soviet White Russian Group. They gave him a bundle of leaflets to distribute when he got to Moscow. They expected him to hand them out to any students he met there. Instead he went to the top of a high-rise building and pushed them through a lavatory window so that they floated down into the street. He was arrested for distributing anti-Soviet material and was sentenced to 3 years in Lubiyanka. He did his time and then when back in England earned a lucrative living for a time writing books and newspaper articles about his ordeal. I remember him for other reasons. He was a prefect and he caught me smoking in the outside lavs I was given 6 on the backside by WRC Chapman, the head. Ron. Fairfax

I was at Firth Park Grammar school from1950 to 1956. I am afraid I left with no GCEs. I only wish the masters who taught me were alive to see how I redeemed myself largely as a result of the excellent educational foundation they provided. I gained matriculation qualifications at Evening class and on to undergraduate and post-graduate studies and a career as a lecturer away from the multiplicity of dead-end jobs I had after leaving school. I went on to write two novels and a history of a WW1 Medic plus a number of TV/VDO documentaries two of which were "The Sheffield Story " and "Sheffield at War" It is a long time now but I had very good friends there....Daz Smith, Gary Lycett, Tony Deacon, Rob Kaye, Tony Justice, Stu Gulliver Mick Harker, Barry Littlewood Brian Moorhouse Others have escaped my memory Ron. Fairfax