Next OTA Reunion Dinner and AGM Saturday 30th April 2011

John Chapman

I received the following email from John Chapman. (Dated 21 October 2009):

Sir:

My name is John Chapman, the grandson of CH Chapman who attended Thetford Grammar School sometime around 1889. My grandfather went on to become well known as an illustrator of comic books (Billy Bunter, Ally Sloper were his best known characters). You can check his background and history by Googling CH Chapman.

I have attached,for your interst, several photographs I found in his personal belongs after he died . The reason for this communication is that I'm writing up a family history, mainly for our internal interest, and I'm researching as much as I can about his early life. Can you help me in letting me know what the school and the community was really like in the period from about 1880 till 1890? I would also like to know a little about the master and children in the photographs - is there any way to identify any of them?

Thank you for your interest,

John Chapman

John B. Smith 1943 - 45

I received the following email from John. (Dated 26 March 2007):

Dear Chris,

I have just received the 2007-2008 Fulmerstonian and found it as interesting as ever. I thought perhaps I should drop you a note and share something of the past! Thetford Grammar School is the subject of Chapter Five of a book I have written and the attached is an extract from that Chapter.

I am afraid that I will not be able to join you at the Reunion - I am eighty years old and mobility is somewhat restricted!

Thank you for your efforts on behalf of us "oldies".

With kind regards,

John B.Smith

(1943 - 1945) 

(As my parents moved to Buckinghamshire I transferred from TGS to The Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe)

Here is the extract from John’s book:

Chapter 5 – Thetford Grammar School

School Fees – Settling Down – Mr Fraser – Impending Doom – My Academic Achievement

 For a number of years, in fact ever since I was a small child, Delia, the granddaughter of the local Squire would call at the house to see if I was available to go for a walk with her. Apparently she found my company entertaining! Mum was in constant dread of what family secrets I might share with her but on one of our walks I shared my disappointment that I had failed to obtain a scholarship for the Grammar School. On our return from the walk Delia wanted a chat with Mum.

 “I am determined that John must go to the Grammar School,” she said.

 “I’m afraid we’ve just heard that he has failed to get a scholarship,” Mum replied.

 “I know that, but I want to pay the fees for him to go. Would you mind?”

 Mind! Mum thought she was a veritable angel from heaven. So my future education was going to be at East Anglia’s most famous school. Founded in 900 A.D. Thetford Grammar School had a reputation for sound scholarship. I was destined to be one of its unique students, but, alas, not one of its adornments!

The School was nearly eight miles from home which involved a round cycle journey of sixteen miles a day. Short for my age in any case, it was discovered that by the end of my first term I was actually an inch shorter! The Headmaster’s report said: “He appears to be settling down nicely”!

 Things didn’t settle down at all nicely during the second term. The rot started in the woodwork room. The class was divided into teams of four and assigned the task of making an oak stool. It didn’t take long before my three team mates discovered that I was no carpenter and decreed that I should confine my activities to sweeping up and pretending to look busy. The woodwork master was a small Highland Scot with a most pronounced accent and the name of Fraser. His sparse ginger hair was plastered down with brilliantine and a thin ginger moustache adhered perilously to his upper lip giving him a sinister appearance. Much of Mr Fraser’s time during lessons was standing over an evil smelling glue pot which bubbled and burped over a Bunsen Burner. It is highly likely that our Mr Fraser was one of the original “Glue Sniffers”!

 Clearly this didn’t occupy the whole of his attention for during the stool making programme, which took up a number of lessons, he must have observed a curious lack of constructive activity on my part for during one lesson he stood behind our group in what was an unmistakably threatening manner. One of the team thrust a piece of wood into my hands and told me to cut it to the length where it was clearly marked.

 The piece of wood was intended to be one of the four legs – which in itself showed Mr Fraser to be a tyrant. Any understanding master would have instructed us to make a three legged stool when the lengths didn’t need to be so precise! Delighted to have a real job for a change I set to with a great deal of enthusiasm but very little skill.

 I had only been going a few seconds when I was interrupted by Mr Fraser’s sinister voice. “Wa dya think ya doon boy?”

 “I’m cutting this stool leg to length, sir.”

 “An hoo many times ha ya bin toold to cut to the west wood side?”

 To knowledgeable carpenters it is of course standard practice to cut a piece of wood if anything a little longer than is needed. If it is a shade too long you can always trim it back in a number of ways but if you cut it too short you’ve wasted the wood and have to start again – hence the term “cutting to the waste wood side.” I hadn’t caught on to the logic of this nor had I realised how misleading was the Scottish accent! I replied: “I was cutting it as you told us, sir.”

 “An hoo do ye mek that oot?” By this time all work had stopped and the whole class was watching this interchange with more than passing interest.

 “Well sir, you told us always to cut to the Westward side. So very carefully I lined the wood up according to the weather vane on the library roof there and I am cutting to the Westward side, as you said.” To my complete and genuine surprise and to Mr Fraser’s great anger, the whole class erupted in a shout of laughter to be instantly followed by a deathly and fearful silence. Mr Fraser’s wrath was the greater because, understandably, I wore a genuinely innocent look. I think I must have been the only one in the room who was unaware of the cause of Mr Fraser’s evident fury.

 Through thin lips he hissed, “For blatant insolence, boy, you will have an appointment with the Headmaster tomorrow morning after assembly.”

 As news of the event spread throughout the school I was completely bemused to find myself acclaimed a hero, not only by my classmates but by seniors as well who evinced a covert admiration for this wholly unexpected display of sheer valour. Wiser heads foresaw dire consequences! In fact circumstances were to conspire to make those consequences worse than had been foreseen.

 That evening a senior class, of which my brother Fred was a member, had been in the gym and had been left by the PT instructor to lock the building for the night. The shower room adjoined the gym and in a moment of sheer wickedness it was decided to plug all the drains and leave the showers running. By morning water was everywhere but especially all over the beautiful parquet flooring of the gym. The grounds-men had done their best but everywhere was distinctly damp.

 At assembly the headmaster was in a towering rage. He stormed up and down the platform threatening to thrash every member of the delinquent class. Knowing I was in for a hiding anyway, I was earnestly praying that the Head would carry out this threat. He was a very big man but my hope was that by thrashing twenty six real delinquents a great deal of that formidable strength would be drained by the time he came to me! The hope was short lived and I had to face the Head’s pent up fury alone. In growing horror I watched him divest himself of his jacket and waistcoat and roll up his sleeves to reveal mighty biceps of which even Samson himself would not have been ashamed.

 Determined to keep a stiff upper lip throughout the ordeal I was very nearly overset by the evident sympathy and support I received on all sides. Arriving at length to my appointed classroom I was greeted with a round of applause by the class. The teacher was Mr Tromans, the Deputy Head and he quickly restored the class to order but again nearly broke down my defences by kindly inviting me to “remain standing – if that will be more comfortable!”

 The cycle ride home that evening and for the next week was carried out standing on the pedals. In the privacy of my bedroom Fred, who was surprisingly sympathetic, carried out an assessment of the injuries. He was able to announce solemnly at school the next morning that the blisters were at least half an inch high!

 Perhaps my first real conscious act of heroism occurred at the end of my first year. Thetford Grammar School had a proud history of academic achievement going back over a thousand years. In this hot house of learning I achieved what might well have been a “First”. In the examination results I came last in every subject – twenty-sixth out of twenty-six in everything. You’ve got to be very good at being bad to be as bad as that! But the heroism lay in the fact that I took my school report home!

John Smith

(1943 – 1945)

Jonathan Wheeler “Watercolour Artist “ Thetford Grammar Schoool 1972-76

Jonathan originally wrote the following piece for the TGS School magazine 'The Fulmar 2003/4'

I have fond memories of my four years at Thetford Grammar School. I remember it as a place of many friendships and with a close friendly feeling.  I have stayed in contact with many of my fellow school friends.

I was born in Lancashire but moved to Thetford with my family when I was fourteen years old. Since leaving school I have lived in different parts of the United Kingdom as well as for some time in Australia and Brazil. I still have strong roots in East Anglia where my family have lived since 1972.

I studied Physics at Oxford and in more recent years trained as a Psychosynthesis Counsellor. I worked for twenty years in industry - printing, publishing, consultancy - but then I decided it was time for a change!

Determined to renew my life and live my values, I became a full-time artist three years ago, built an ecological house in the north of Scotland and married my Brazilian wife Marilza. My art business relates more closely with my life interests - beauty and people.

 Beach Huts at Wells

I am constantly discovering new ways of expressing myself through my art. I love to bring a feeling of joy and vibrancy into my paintings. I have my gloomy moments but I would rather emphasise the positive in life.

I was always a keen artist, continually drawing faces when I was a teenager - an excellent way to develop my draughtsmanship.

 Long Melford (Suffolk)

I experienced a breakthrough in my art following a visit to Brazil with my wife in 2001. I came back and found myself painting in ways that surprised me - the colour was vibrant and my painting style became very free and loose. I am inspired by the work of Charles Reid, a contemporary American watercolourist.

I publish my own prints which can be found in galleries around Scotland and England and via my website. Please have a look - send me an e-mail.

 Eilean Donan Castle

Tel: 01309 692202  e-mail jonathanwheeler@lineone.net

website address: www.jwart.co.uk