MANOR PARK GRAMMAR SCHOOL
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Archive                                            [Click here to see where original documents and ephemera are preserved]

The First Year 1950-1

Thanks to John Smith who has donated, along with other items, a copy of the programme for the sixteenth speech day, 1969, filling a gap in the archive.

Right, the recently rediscovered page 34 from 'The Wheel', number XII.  Dusan Vucinic was infamous for his 'Cross-Figures' that regularly appeared in the school magazine around this time.

There may be typing errors, etc that make this not the easiest quiz to complete, but anyone who learnt under Mr. Bacon, Mr. Mills, Mr. Sidall or Mrs Humphies et al should have little trouble!

   
Nine years ago, when research for what became 'A Short History' began, there was little material from Manor Park Grammar School in any archive.  Nuneaton's Public Library had a few copies of old school magazines while the County Record Office at Warwick held almost nothing.

This situation has been very much corrected thanks to generous donations and loans by several old scholars. All of these have been scanned to form a digital archive and the donated original documents, including an almost complete set of school magazines, have been passed onto the County Record Office. The digital archive is available to see at Nuneaton Library, the Chilvers Coton Heritage Centre and at Warwick.

But we are always open to receive additional items, stories, photographs etc. either donations or loans. Your chance to be recorded for posterity! In particular we would like to see:-

       Form photographs that were taken during the school year 1956/7. It seems that every form was photographed plus the staff and the choir. We appear to be missing forms 3D, 4M and the sixth form.

      'The Wheel', early editions, numbers 2,4 and 5 published between 1952 and 1956.

 

Not typical of magazine content, but the first two and a half years of the technical school's history were itemised in 'The Wheel' No.1.

The Wheel No.1, No.6 & No.7

Thanks to old scholars John Bell, Frank Parker and Joyce Wardle we are slowly closing the gap in our collection of each edition of 'The Wheel'.

The school magazine has proved to be the most valuable resource in recording the history of the school.  I'm sure that Mr Mason et al would be very impressed by the first hand accounts of the contributors, especially when viewed from 50 to 70 years after they were written.

From No.7 we can update 'A Short History', appendix 1 to show that it was the first edition to be produced 'in house' by the commerce department in quarto format, rather than the last of the professionally printed editions.

And details in appendix 2 updated to show that Abbey won the Rugby and the House Championship, while Croft won the netball in 1955-56.

Further scrutiny of the table shows that, unusually,  Park came top (or bottom depending on how you look at it) of 'Detentions'.

Russian and Russia

Mr. Frank Carter  arrived in September 1958. He immediately offered the seven 4th year pupils who had opted to study German, alongside the French that they had studied since the 1st year, the option of learning Russian instead of German. The pupils all passed the O-level two years later and Russian was established on the curriculum, uniquely for any school in the area.

 

In August 1965 a party of twenty-nine led by Mr. D. Slinn travelled to Russia. After the ferry to Ostend there followed a three day journey by train to Moscow. It was noted that both necessities; clothes and shoes, and luxuries; chocolate and sweets were expensive, but of poor quality. Three days in Moscow were followed by an overnight journey to Leningrad, where "the hotel was luxurious and the food was excellent". The return to England was by the Russian ship "Ivan Franko" to Tilbury.

[Extracts from 'A Short History']