We were in no Hurry to go back to School
No disrespect to the kids of today who bemoan that the schools are closed and can’t wait to get back, but in the early 1940s schools were closed down too while the buildings were fortified against expected bomb damage and retired teachers were brought back to replace those called up for the war.
But there was a different cultural attitude abroad then than that which exists today. Schools were staffed by strict Victorian teachers who welded the cane with gay abandon (I was no stranger to the cane, myself). Remember how the comics of the day, Dandy and Beano would have a school feature with kids bending over to receive ‘six of the best’. And the cruel tales of the public school bullying. So, just like with National Service, which came later our peers who came before us did not encourage us to like school. (In fact we liked them both looking back). So we saw school as prison and out of school as freedom
If you had a bad day the day of the eleven plus you were out to work in full employment at the end of the fourteenth year anyway. (it had only recently moved from the end of the thirteenth year) but at least we were streetwise, can you imagine today’s generation of thirteen/fourteen year old kids being told at the end of the lockdown you’re not going back to school lad or lass it’s out to work for you now. Would they be able to cope with that?
A few years ago we were in the hall of a large comprehensive school discussing local history for a project with the headmaster, when a lad came charging by shouting something at the top of his voice. We were surprised when the headmaster just said, ‘Stop running boy,’ and the lad just ran on. My pal said to the headmaster, ‘What’s happened to administering a swift clip behind the lug ‘ole? The headmaster was aghast and answered, ‘I can’t do that now-a-days, I’d get the sack!’ How things have changed.
The other major difference was that we were not anchored to the home by electronic gadgetry and of course currently by the pandemic, we were free to roam far and wide and get our knees mucky, so being off school always seemed preferable to being ‘in school’ and we made the most of it. The one thing I hope today’s kids will not miss out on that we would have hated to miss was, school sport, especially inter-school football. The first time you saw your name on the notice board for being selected for the school football team was a red letter day and you didn’t sleep a wink before the day of the match.
In our old East Leeds there was a myriad of mostly small Victorian built schools almost on every corner we had: St Hilda’s, Mount St Mary’s, St Charles’s, All saints, Ellerby Lane, Victoria, Saville Green, Leeds Parish Church, South Accom. We should have had one more: Richmond Hill School but that was bombed down on the 14th March 1941, I heard the bombs fall. We were a happy community but very competitive on the football field.
The highlight of the Leeds Schools football year was the Schools Cup Final and it is hard to believe this year, 2021 makes seventy years since the iconic cup final of 1951/2 between two of our local East Leeds Schools, Ellerby Lane and Victoria which became infamously known as the ‘Lucky Dressing room Final.’ I remember the day of that final, being Friday our school was attending Victoria School for wood-working instruction as was our lot every Friday afternoon. We were chivvying their lads a bit, as lads will do saying how Ellerby Lane would murder them tonight, Ellerby Lane were favourites they had a great football team and a rugby League team too that year and they were winning everything put before them. But there was to be a little caveat regarding the ground where it was to be played, it having one lucky and one unlucky dressing room to contend with. I have told this tale before on this site but as it is the seventy year anniversary here it is again.
THE LUCKY DRESSING ROOM SAGA
By
Alan Allman
The School’s Cup Final was the pinnacle of the Leeds schools’ football year. In 1951/52 the finalists were: Ellerby Lane and Victoria – two East Leeds rivals the match was to be played at East End Park’s ground at Skelton Road. In those days the dressing rooms consisted of a large wooden hut at one end of the ground and consisted of: a large tea room, a dressing room for the officials and two dressing rooms for the teams; one of which were deemed to be the ‘lucky dressing room’ and was twice the size of the other. Folklore had it that the victorious team would be the one that changed in this dressing room.
I was ordered by Brian Monk (our school captain) prior to the match to go sit in the ‘lucky dressing room’ and save it for the Ellerby Lane team. I was only a young lad and in awe of Brian, I did exactly as I was told. It was to be an evening match and I was in position in that ‘lucky dressing room’ an hour before the kick-off but before our team arrived the Victoria team turned up and one of the Victoria team, Terry Renouccie (who in later years became a footballing colleague and good friend) turfed me out and told me in no uncertain matter to go sit in the smaller ‘unlucky dressing room’. When Brian and our team arrived he was furious that I hadn’t managed to keep the Victoria lads out but what chance had I, a thirteen year old, against the whole of the Victoria team? Folklore held good, Ellerby Lane had been the favourites to lift the trophy but Victoria playing out of the lucky dressing room won the match two-one.
Although there is more than one version of this tale the lucky dressing room saga is still a bone of contention between Victoria and Ellerby lane former pupils on occasions of reunions for old East Leeds folk even through more than sixty five years have passed since that legendary match. Mischievously we bring a group of former Ellerby Lane lads and a similar group of old Victoria lads together and then drop the bombshell, do you remember that lucky dressing room final? Step back and watch them go!
As a footnote We really loved our teachers, stern as they were and we are sad it is too late to truly thank them for the hard work they had educating us.