Upton house school remembered with fondness
Like most boys leaving junior school in 1977 a letter dropped through the door to advise what senior school I was to attend after the six weeks holiday.
For me this was to be Upton House a large intimidating 7 floor modern (for the time) building that sat at the top of Homerton High street in Hackney.
The school had 6 houses Allard, Montgomery ,Vyner, Sutton ,Tyson and Urswick. All of the kids I was friends with at the time were either in Urswick or Tyson. Me I was to be in Allard.
My first actual experience of the school was my induction meeting with the head of Allard house, a formidable man by the name of Oliver Mclintock!
Mr Mclintock was around 6 foot in height, which seems very much higher when you are a small boy. As well as being very tall Mr Mclintock was also very large around 26 stone I am led to believe.
As I recall it I was waiting outside the office whilst Mr Mclintock met with my mum, once I was called in Mr Mclintock proceeded to show me the contents of the cupboard behind his desk.
It contained several different canes, riding crops and slippers for the purpose of discipline! He then proceeded to stricke the chair next to my mum to demonstrate how precise he could be at it. My Mum jumped out of her skin! Needless to say so did i!
Mr Mclintock was quite a character however and an exceptional teacher he was a brilliant badminton player and also had some incredible trampolining skills. His process for deciding the amount of strikes a person would receive from his hand was by the roll of a dice! I also recall on one occasion him sitting on a boy who was made to lay on a table in front of the whole class. those of us not underneath him thought that this was hilarious.
One of the other discipline processes I recall was the metal ruler across the palm. This was employed each day for each missing item from the list of pen, pencil, ruler, rubber and crayons. Each day there would be a roll call to check that we had each item. Just before there would be a mad rush to break pencils cut rubbers in half and share crayons to avoid that stinging palm.
Mr Mclintock was not the only teacher dispensing punishment in those days. There was also a chemistry teacher named Mr Brown. Mr Brown was a no nonsense West Indian guy he took no messing about and his favorite punishment tool was a bunsen burner tube. I recall him hitting one lad across the face without flinching, much to the shock of the rest of the class. Needless to say pissing about with the gas for the rest of that lesson ceased with immediate effect.
One of the subjects in the curriculum at the school was French, not a popular subject to be fair. But for us just approaching our teenage years the fact that the new French teacher was a young attractive french mademoiselle made it a little more palatable.
One day the young teacher thought it would be a good idea to wear a pair of skin tight white trousers which you could see right through. As young boys the sight of a ladies knick knacks quite an event. The lad sitting in front of me (who will remain nameless) thought it would be a good idea to faintly run his middle finger under the teachers under carriage as she leant across the desk adjacent to him. gasps rang out as the teacher spun 180 degrees slapping the lad across the face with a large amount of force.
So much so that the hand print seemed to last the rest of the day.
The boy however worn the hand print as a badge of honour telling people it was worth it! not a chance, but a great memory.
Talking of memories we had the battle of the ice cream vans take place just outside the school. There was a dead end road out the front of the building and there had always been an ice cream van there at lunch times. Not only did he do ice cream but he also did crisps cans of pop chocolate bars and best of all hot dogs!
Out of the blue another ice cream man turned up one day and battle commenced. The prices tumbled at one point they were almost giving stuff away to drive the other out of business.
I don't recall who actually won but there was talk of a fist fight to resolve the dispute. That pitch must have been worth a few quid.
Once we reached the third year we were then allowed to eat out at lunch times. I loved this as the there was so much choice. On Homerton high street there was a cafe which had the first Space Invaders machine I remember. Then there was Chatsworth road where the Wimpy did a roaring trade. Wimpy special grill 48p!
Alternatively there was Well street for good old pie and mash (god i miss pie and mash).
However a big group of us though made the bakers in Mare street our main hang out, and many a lunch time and afternoon lessons to be honest were spent there checking out the girls from Clapton girls school.
It was a tough school with some tough teachers and rules, but if you're on Trevor Fogah-Griffiths facebook page reading this then you can see we all still view that tough school with fond memories.
