Boys will be boys

He flew a desk at the Ministry of Defence, admittedly, but had Henry Smith been the first man on Goose Green, the action could hardly have been more courageous than the night he led the raid on Neddy Deans's apple orchard.

Edward S Deans, known briefly as Dixie, after the footballer, and more permanently nicknamed Neddy, was headmaster of King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland throughout the 1950s. He may most kindly be described as fearsome, a caning head who left his mark on many. "I saw him in the supermarket just before he died," recalls David Ainscough, among H C Smith's contemporaries."I was getting on 60 myself, and my heart was still in my mouth as he approached."

Henry, David and Neville Kirby - known as Rip after a character in a long gone Daily Mail cartoon - are organising a reunion, on November 3, of the boys who began there in 1949, having passed both parts of the "scholarship".

We met them reconnoitring the golf club, where the do will be held, where they will sing Heart of My Heart and We'll Meet Again and where the Ven Derek Hodgson - former head boy and later Archdeacon of Durham - will sing The English Rose from Merrie England as he did at speech day in the Eden Theatre in 1950.

There'll also be a bottle of whisky for Rex Pybus Dixon, if they can find him, the boy who took six of Neddy Deans' best without making a sound or moving a muscle. "He showed more fortitude than any of us on the playing field," says Neville Kirby, "or in the exam room, either."

If the reunion of the Forty Niners - as now they call themselves - is half as nostalgic, as entertaining and as memorable as last Thursday evening in Bishop Golf Club, then it's going to be tremendous.

They were deemed the top ten per cent in an area that stretched to the top of Teesdale and included Shildon and Willington. The Girls' Grammar School, across the playing fields, was as out of bounds as Neddy Deans's orchard and possibly more inviolate.

Bishop Auckland had three cinemas in those days - Odeon, Kings, Hippodrome - and the Eden Theatre where David Ainscough's father was licensee and the formal school speech day was held. They sang Nymphs and Shepherds and The Old Superb, the proceedings immeasurably enlivened by Lord Lawson of Beamish, the miners' leader, who told unexpected jokes in a broad Durham accent.

Rossi's caf, recalls Neville, was in the style of an Italian speakeasy, Funky Trueman sold newspapers in his "inimitable but unintelligible" style and sports master Lez Rawe helped build outstanding athletics teams.

There was a debating society which considered the motion That Men are Clay and Women Make Mugs of Them, a geography teacher called Tommy Hodgson who charted the previous evening's Goon Show before proceeding and a mock election in 1950 which aroused much interest among the pupils but mainly irritation among the staff.

"They seemed to think," says Neville, "that the whole thing was a distraction from boys learning about the West Indian cocoa trade or why plumes of tantes should end up in jardins of oncles."

What they thought when Philip Hutchinson marched in as Communist candidate accompanied by Vincent Smith playing The Red Flag on the trumpet, may only be imagined. One is now vice-chancellor of Clanfield University, the other a leading Salvationist and director of Darlington Choral Society.

The lads all had nicknames, of course - "Mouser" Morley, "Tich" (if not Mini) Cooper, Kidder Verdon and Curly Thompson. John George Bainbridge from Willington was so taken with the soubriquet Skittles, that he carved it on a new desk. After assiduous inquiries, recalls Neville, the headmaster discovered the culprit and demonstrated his disapproval in the time honoured way.

The teachers - "some of them seemed to have the great Wackford Squeers as their role model," says Neville - lived largely in a smoke-logged staff room whence only the brave approached and then only to report something serious, like a firing squad among the fourth form.

Latin master Terry Yeoman was Tasher - his initials were TRY, it was something to do with the Latin (or Greek, possibly) for hair - Mr Eden, the French teacher, was N'est Ce Pas, music master Peter Brown was forever Jezzer, after his outraged reaction when Grammar School boys of 1950 suggested that their favourite song was Jezebel, by Frankie Laine. We differ, however, over the reason that Mr Robinson, the maths master, became Ichabod. The Forty Niners reckon it's from a character in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; those of us who started at King James I a decade later believe the more imaginative etymology to be from Eli's son Ichabod, in the First Book of Samuel. Ichabod is Hebrew for "The glory is departed." Poor Mr Robinson was completely bald.

Henry Smith moved from Cockfield to Shildon, worked at Paton and Baldwin's in Darlington, joined the RAF, worked his way to the skies, became a teacher and is now in Stockton. They've a school photograph. "You can tell it's me by the hole in my trousers," he says.

David Ainscough, nicknamed Scoffer, joined the family bookmaking form and for 14 years until his retirement was sub-postmaster at Tindale Crescent, near Bishop Auckland.

Rip Kirby, another Cockfield lad, became the Coundon polliss, then a teacher, and is now a well-known musician and director of Gainford Choral Society.

Jim Clarkson, a Shildon lad who made millions in America, will travel furthest for the reunion - a Forty Niner from North Carolina. Others will arrive from all over Britain, joined by Lez Rawe and his teaching colleague Des Bone.

It'll be a great night.

ANOTHER reunion: writing a few weeks back about Jimi Hendrix in Darlington, we mentioned a support band called The Concordes. They've been taking off again. The band began in 1963, first paid to play at Barnard Castle parish hall. They turned professional in January 1965, broke up eight months later.

Last year four of the original five - Dave Coulthard, Jim Blenkhorn, Doug Yates and Roger Tyrell - were joined by Roger's son Adam to make a one-off CD. "We pretended we were 18 again," says Jim, still in Darlington, who sends a copy. It remains great, atmospheric, strutting sixties stuff - Beatles numbers like Roll Over Beethoven and I Saw Her Standing There, others like Cathy's Clown and Sweet Little Sixteen. They hardly sound a day older, honest. Jim's on (01325) 483501.

BARELY half a mile up the road from Bishop Auckland Golf Club is the hamlet of Canney Hill, head down all these years and now, coincidentally, begging for attention. An article on The Canney Hill Pottery in the Durham County Local History Society's bulletin has just won joint first prize in the British Association of Local History's annual awards. It was written by Cliff Howe from Billingham, who travelled to London for the presentation. The pottery began in the 1840s alongside the Bowes to Sunderland Bridge (Croxdale) turnpike and closed in 1913. It made earthenware, stone bottles, antique figures, jugs and mugs, chimney pots, flower pots and malt kiln tiles.

Just about the only other thing we know about Canney Hill is that there's a very decent pub called The Sportsman. A pint with the award winning Mr Howe is called for very shortly.

...and finally, Shildon lad Bob Whittaker - ex-Auckland Chronicle, Tyne Tees Television and now big in ITV - sends a PS to last week's small world note. His eldest son has married a Russian girl he met via the Internet, the middle one's in Bangkok with his Thai girlfriend and the youngest living with a Japanese violin player in London. Bob's now planning a family drama - "I needn't look beyond my own three sons," he says.