The Luckiest Lads in Derby

Peter Saunders, of Hoylake, Wirral, may have moved away from the area but his memories of his schooldays at Derby Central School (1944-49) remain with him. He looks back at those special days.

WHEN I return to Derby I study faces in the town centre shopping crowds, hopeful that one day - it has not yet happened - I may recognise features that will remind me of an era of post-war austerity when bread was rationed, winter fuel was in short supply and the Rams won the FA Cup. 

Fifty years ago, having negotiated the hurdle of the 11-plus, then somewhat pretentiously called the 'scholarship', I was a pupil at Derby Central School, conspicuous in my new blazer bearing the school badge, with its Centaur design and its motto Celer et Certus (Swift and Sure). 

I left the town of my birth when I was called up for National Service at 18. I never returned but my schooldays at Darley Park, home to the Central School, remain a vivid memory. They helped to shape the pattern of my life.

The school had been evacuated to the leafy outskirts, presumably due to the threat of Second World War bombing, although for one day each week we went back to the old Abbey Street School in the town centre for woodwork, physics and chemistry. 

Darley Park was an idyllic environment for boys growing up in the streets of a Midlands industrial town. No other Derby lads were so lucky - going to school in a Georgian country house, overlooking undulating parkland dotted with oaks.

To some it was as good as being at Greyfriars School, the haunt of Harry Wharton and the Chums of the Remove, in the once-famous boys' comic The Magnet.  In the spring, daffodils and narcissi nodded in the breeze and a blaze of rhododendrons later dropped their petals on the drive. Although out of bounds, the shrubberies yielded chestnuts, beechnuts, walnuts and apples to the miscreants who explored them. Our first form room overlooked the formal garden, with its ancient mulberry tree.

We had our French lessons here from 'Fanny' Ferguson, who had a fiery temperament. French was not one of my better subjects and when, at the end of a double period, she said: "Now then, Form 1A, I won't be seeing you again this week, will I?” my instinctive reaction was a muttered "No, thank goodness." I could not lie when she asked me to repeat the remark. 

The outcome was an invitation to the staffroom at morning break. Impatience must have been mounting, however, because half way through the next lesson, a messenger arrived from Form 3C, presenting Miss Ferguson's compliments and asking for the presence of Saunders in that form room. The sequel was a caning on both hands in front of the older boys, who did not trouble to suppress their grins. By break time blisters had started to appear on my palms and my sympathetic classmates jostled to inspect them. I do not recall bearing any grudge towards our Scots French teacher. C'est la guerre! 

Virtually all the staff had nicknames. 'Cess' Poole was the physics master. He had little success in implanting Ohm's Law and Boyle's Law into my thick skull, but I can still see him walking the corridors of our mansion in his cloth cap, carrying a large tea pot to the staff room, trailing clouds of blue smoke from a pipe wedged in his mouth. 'Avro' Hanson presumably derived his nickname from the aircraft which gave long service to the RAF but I am not sure why ‘Chad’ 'Joseph.  'Laddie' Hawksby took us for art lessons in an extension now used as a cafe for visitors to the park, and the only surviving remnant of the original building. Mr. R.J. Cook was the English master, a lanky, loping figure with thinning, black curly hair, who fired my enthusiasm for reading - and cricket. He had hopes of my developing into a competent batsman which, alas, I did not fulfil. Nevertheless, he continued to persevere with me as an opening bat in the school XI. 'Corky' Coates was our fifth year form master, coaching us in soccer tactics and firing my emerging enthusiasm for classical music. 

Although the surroundings were beautiful. the house had its drawbacks. Accommodation was inadequate, and must have imposed strains on the staff. Conditions worsened after a severe fire in 1948, described by Mr. Cook in the school magazine as the dream of every schoolboy come true. It happened at night and a spontaneous cheer arose from the throats of pupils who turned a bend in the drive next morning and saw the blackened building. 

Two classrooms and a staffroom were burned out. and two other classrooms were unusable due to fire damage. The rest of the school was a sorry mess of piled furniture, teaching equipment, scattered books and papers. We anticipated a long holiday but miracles of salvage and cleaning were performed and we only had a week off. 

There was talk that we might be transferred to Markeaton Park but we soldiered on at Darley, our fifth form room being a former stable with a concrete floor and tiny windows, known as the 'Oss 'Ouse (Horse House). 

Derby Central School ceased to exist long ago but I remain grateful for my schooldays in the sylvan surroundings of Darley Park. They gave me a lifelong appreciation of the countryside and its natural beauty, which was one of the most important consequences of my five years of secondary education. The Georgian house has gone, like many features of the Derby of old ... but I am sure that the ghosts of Old Centaurs still haunt the park. 

Derby Evening Telegraph: Tuesday January 6^th, 1998