Ashleigh School - Did you go there?

[Runt 10]

I know this post is really really old but It caught my eye and I needed to say that although I walk in the shadows of my brother and sister of the Ashleigh years, thats David and Jillian Littlewood I also went to this school sadly not long before it closed. Looking at some of the pics on facbook memories I now recall it wasnt the palace that I prefer to rememeber it as but rather a dump but with excellent memories not least one which is a massive secret which is about to be told.

regards Kathryn Littlewood

[mike-s 13]

I know this post is really really old but It caught my eye and I needed to say that although I walk in the shadows of my brother and sister of the Ashleigh years, thats David and Jillian Littlewood I also went to this school sadly not long before it closed. Looking at some of the pics on facbook memories I now recall it wasnt the palace that I prefer to rememeber it as but rather a dump but with excellent memories not least one which is a massive secret which is about to be told.

regards Kathryn Littlewood

Come on then, don't leave us hanging in suspense

[potlegs 10]

As above Kathryn .............the anticipation is killing us!

[GreenTea 10]

Hi. Both me and my husband went to Ashleigh. Think he left in 1973 and i left in 1975. He was at Central Tech before it merged into Ashleigh. A few teachers i remember:-

Miss Braund

Mrs Morton

Mr Tingle

Miss Hollingsworth

Mrs Kitchen

Dr Richardson

Mr Bunn

Mr & Mrs Gears

Mr Surr (who married Miss Braund)

Mr Howell

Mr Hughes

Mr Westnidge

Mrs Blagden

Mr Green

Mr Potts

Mr Underwood

Mr Lee

just to name a few.

Names I remember:-

Ann Fisher, Tina Rawlins, Janet Platts, Pat Liversidge, Janice Newton, Susan Ward, Susan Wilson Sharon Parkin, Jill Tomlinson, Denise Lyons, Elizabeth Scott, Lynn Power, Kathleen Shaw, Gail Hessian, Ellen Armitage, David Lake, Mark Haywood, Richard Turton, John Cockram, Paul Hattersley, Andrew Jepson, Peter Issacs, Mark Staniforth, Digger Dawson, Pozzy Campbell, Pete Yates, Alan Jackson, Pop and Mini Haywood, Mally Gillot, Brian Heath.

If I sit and think back I am sure I could think of more.

[Tommo68 10]

I went there from 68-73.

 

 

It was Central Technical school when I joined. We were only the second set of first years. Intake before that had been 13+ plus 3yr entry, strangely only about half of us had passed the 11+ to get in there when we joined. The old tripartite education system. You took the 11+ plus and then your father’s occupation was used to work out whether you went to secondary, grammar or a technical school. What a con.

 

On our first day one boy arrived wearing shorts the only one, although it was allowed it simply wasn’t done. I still remember that poor bugger’s name and for no other reason. Be cruel to name him though.

 

We went Comprehensive in 1970, I think, with Hurlfield Girls from the top of the hill. I remember getting to vote on the new name and the new badge and tie. The place was labelled the lower school and looked like a multi towered green-house. All that glass and open staircases did little for the girl’s modesty. Though I think its fair to say there was not a much deliberate flashing as some of the lads used to think. The walk between schools in summer was a slog and in winter could be an ordeal. And woe betide you if you arrived late or muddy. Stick to path was the order the day even if you’d been on the grass all lunch time. Passing close to the pig farm was compulsory. Maybe it was a don’t be a famer warning, who knows.

 

 

LDL Fyfe was the Head and Hill his deputy and when turned comp and Mrs Bamford was one also. A new pastoral system was introduced and our head of year was Jarvis the woodwork teacher. Roger’s was head of upper school the kids in the year above him nick-named him god. Spent many a lesson outside his office. When he caned you he really did used to say this hurts me almost as much as it will hurt you.

 

 

Can’t remember the name of first form teacher, but I missed most of the first year. Though we did get a new guy Taylor I think. When they realised our form were a set of hooligans (in their opinion and that being based on their trying to behave like a grammar school, heads of department and above ran around in their gowns for a couple of years) they gave us John Knight who told us his name was spelled .. b a s t a r d ..Knight! to try and get us in line. Then they made the mistake of calling us 3C like the kids in the TV programme Please Sir. I think we were worse than them in a lot of ways.

 

 

There were some characters amongst the teaching staff. Bill Grimwood the hairy monster English teacher I think they canned him for drinking but don’t quote me. Carrick-Smith, blatantly gay, the less said about him and one pupil the better. Underwood who told us his only means of punishment would be humiliation, well it worked.

 

 

For Maths we pretty much had the RE teacher Williams, Creeping Jesus we called him. JGA Pickering for geography we once locked in his cupboard he always struggled to feel in control of us, and would fetch in the over-sized oaf and bully Matson, who hated us and we him. In our last week at school we had to see all the department heads and return the text books we had been lugging around, some for years the AJ MEE for one. On the last day I took mine in to Matson, he made some stupid comment as usual, he was with a first year class at the time, I offered him out and called him a bloated fat B. Needless to say he did not take me up on it but hopefully it deflated him a little in the eyes of the class he had. Odd thing is I met Pickering in around 82 and we got on ok. Sam Crisp we called him wing-nut on account of his sticky out ears. Kids are cruel aren’t they. Westnidge the metal work teacher, I think he thought he was related to Hitler back then I was convinced he was mental.

 

 

Fairbrother , the art teacher we called him clown. He wore sports jackets with the leather elbow patches, and a flower n the lapel, velvet bowties, corduroy trousers and cream shoes that looked too big for him, he had an unfeasibly large red nose, longish wiry hair but had typical male pattern baldness. In summer he drove a big antique car, we put a potato up his exhaust pipe once when he gave us detention. Took him hours to work out what was wrong.

 

 

Foster was our first PE teacher he took history as well , in his track suit till they started making him get changed, hairy little bloke he looked like caveman was a strong as one too. Howell was the other PE teacher he took French too. Nasty guy and a bully on the sports field I remember us playing football and he would shoulder barge us all over the pitch when he could I ‘accidently ‘ knocked him down a grass banking he stopped doing it after that. Adrian Potts. Pottsy came to the school as a student and got a job there, he was there for years, till he retired I think he used to recruit some of to play rugby for Dronfield RC. He started us off playing rugby against other schools we were crap at first but went on the win the sheffield cup eventually. I don’t think anyone disliked that guy.

 

 

King was our French teacher, who once had a student, we reduced her to tears, we use to swap places when her back was turned and all raise her hands when she asked a question but pretend that none of us knew the answer.

 

 

We had a Mrs Bullock for history up in the lower school. She was attractive about 30ish with a great figure and long blonde hair dyed black at the roots. We used to race up there to try and their first. Not because she was good teacher but because she wore short skirts and used to sit on the edge of her desk a lot. Getting a good seat was vital …  well it was to us boys. She left, I think it was because she had got pregnant and rumoured the father was a pupil. But don’t quote me.

 

 

There was another female teacher that stood out. I can’t recall her name. She taught PE and was a big woman that used to come into our changing rooms whilst we were either getting ready for PE or getting showered. Make sure you dry your loins she used to shout, we had no idea where they were but just assumed as it sounded a bit like groin that she meant the same area. When I saw the PE teacher in the film Porky’s I immediately thought of her. She used to check we were not spying through the key-hole on the girls in the adjoining changing room, and used to hang a towel over the door handle. I remember one of the lads had a knitting needle in his bag which he used to push through the key-hole to try and dislodge the towel. It only ever worked once.

 

 

There were a few other characters amongst the staff too. Very few of them really succeeded in teaching many of us very much. Sally Hughes the extremely ineffectual music teacher, we used to say we wanted to do band practice and mess about in his music room all lunch time in winter. We even got out onto the roof once with a master key that (I think it was bonny) had got hold of.

 

 

Pop Gregory the chemistry teacher, if you could get him talking about his land out near Ladybower somewhere you would get no work done. Chalky, I can’t remember his name could have been White, he used to set us a practical and disappear into his prep-room for a smoke, as soon as he’d gone we’d have one too. We’d burn all sorts of stuff to make sure there was enough smoke to disguise the fact we’d had one. He used to live near me and I often used to see him on his balcony with a ciggy on the go. Groak the physics teacher, rumour had it he’d been banned form caning people because he’d over done it once.

 

 

Going to Gleadless Town End was a favourite lunchtime activity, the small loaf and bag of chips sandwich . The hardware shop with its, unwittingly off putting, sign that said 10% of all ladders. Trying to get served in the pub there or at the punchbowl we’d always say we were sixth formers if asked. And, to our shame, seeing who could nick the most or biggest thing from the shops. More bravado than criminal intent. The bungalow shop used to get the same treatment, nicking eggs to throw at the buses was a craze at one time. The two old ladies that ran the place well there was this rumour that they were in fact husband and wife and he used to dress in drag because he was a draft dodger from WWII who though that one up I’ll never know. The after school fights on Gleadless Common, hidden from teacher’s eyes by the bushes.

 

 

Going into school getting your mark then wagging it till lunch time going back getting registered again and disappearing again. I got ‘done right’ by Howell and Rogers when they cottoned on I was supposed to be going to his French lessons, I’d got away with it for weeks .

 

 

In our last year there were not enough of us interested to form a full rugby team. Hurlfield was in the same boat and we ended up forming a team from both schools. It put an end to a lot of the fighting with them used to do. That used to be at the end of term then it progressed to most Fridays then one summer to almost every lunchtime. I guess they had to do something about it.

 

 

Most kids went down to the bike sheds for a ciggy by the time we were in the 5th form we were smoking pot on Fridays. Taking a big bag to school getting registered then changing into your jeans and Dockers which were banned. At same time some of the girls had a craze for wearing insanely fluorescent socks and rolling up the waist-bands of their skirts to create a mini-skirt Old Lass Bamford was always pulling them for it.

 

 

Getting ‘done’ for taking air-pistols into school and shooting the place up; all of which came to a head , when someone shot and broke a pressure gauge in the chemistry labs and a clock. Chris Wright and I ended up in court and fined for some of that. I did not help that an English teacher, I forget his name, who lived near me had seen me at night out with my mates shooting up an abandoned car and a nuisance street light near his house.

 

 

When we got to choose our options I only took Biology, with Mrs Gears, because I really wanted to get off with one of the girls that was also taking it. She already had a long-term boyfriend and I did live miles away from the school so I never told her and nothing ever came of it, sadly.

 

 

Oddly it took me an hour and a half to get to school bus, now a live 5 minutes away from the old site and yet hardly ever see anyone from back then. Though when you think about unless you were neighbours or related you hardly seemed to really know anyone that was not in your year at school, and like myself many of the kids in my year travelled a long way.

 

 

Its 40 years ago this year since our year group left, though it hardly seems it. Which is scary. I was wondering if anyone was organising a some kind of get together or reunion. It would be good to see who’s still around, catch up and see where people have got to or what they have made of this thing we call life.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Tommo68

[obbinfut 10]

spot on regarding the members of staff phil not so accurate regarding the airgun incident.Throwing bangers/airbombs into carlton club through the windows was another of our dinner time activities

[loobylou-lou 10]

Hi

 

My partner went to Ashleigh his name is Lee Bridges, think he left in 79

[Coppice 10]

Hi. Both me and my husband went to Ashleigh. Think he left in 1973 and i left in 1975. He was at Central Tech before it merged into Ashleigh. A few teachers i remember:-

Miss Braund

Mrs Morton

Mr Tingle

Miss Hollingsworth

Mrs Kitchen

Dr Richardson

Mr Bunn

Mr & Mrs Gears

Mr Surr (who married Miss Braund)

Mr Howell

Mr Hughes

Mr Westnidge

Mrs Blagden

Mr Green

Mr Potts

Mr Underwood

Mr Lee

just to name a few.

Names I remember:-

Ann Fisher, Tina Rawlins, Janet Platts, Pat Liversidge, Janice Newton, Susan Ward, Susan Wilson Sharon Parkin, Jill Tomlinson, Denise Lyons, Elizabeth Scott, Lynn Power, Kathleen Shaw, Gail Hessian, Ellen Armitage, David Lake, Mark Haywood, Richard Turton, John Cockram, Paul Hattersley, Andrew Jepson, Peter Issacs, Mark Staniforth, Digger Dawson, Pozzy Campbell, Pete Yates, Alan Jackson, Pop and Mini Haywood, Mally Gillot, Brian Heath.

If I sit and think back I am sure I could think of more.

 

Hi......I too remember all of the above, in fact am in the list of names you remember..

[Tommo68 10]

No reunion for those that attended from 68 to 73. :-(

 

I was sure one of the more social ones amongst us might have set something up.

 

Maybe we are all trying to forget we ever went there.

[tashussain 10]

hi, i went to ashleigh from 78 to 83.

 

i am sure everyone remembers the only pakistani family there!

 

i had an older sister and older brother, a younger brother came a couple of years later.

 

funny school - sad its gone!

[cra1g 10]

Just thinking the other day about this post my son as just left school he is now 16 and got a job.....God i feel old...Life rushers by and you don't even know....well to all that have posted Thanks hope this keeps going even though we are old....LOL

[Batchgirl 10]

i didn't go to ashleigh, but my mum did, and she left in 76. she was called Pam Dunstan.

and i work with someone who left in 77 i think, she was called di sollitt.

 

I remember Diane Sollitt, I was at school with her, she left in 1976, my name was Carol Methley, no longer living in Sheffield

 

---------- Post added 18-11-2013 at 14:08 ----------

 

I worked there from 1966 to 1988 and was Head from 1971

Hi Mr Tingle, I remember you as the deputy head, I was there 1971-1976 and before you did this job you worked with my dad Jim Methley at Arnold Lavers?

My name's Carol and my brother Peter also went, but he was 3 years younger than me.

 

---------- Post added 18-11-2013 at 14:27 ----------

 

Mr White apparently has now pased on?? If so god rest and bless you Mr. White you gave me a love of Maths that has remained with me always.

 

And me too, he was a top man, very fair, could be scary but if he knew you were trying he helped you