87 January 1968

In the news…

The ‘I’m backing Britain campaign’ was launched, an initiative meant to increase productivity and get Britain back on its feet. The slogan was seen and heard everywhere; shops; telly; mini skirts; carrier bags; badges: Everywhere.

In 1968 school metalwork classes were still making a significant contribution to the nation’s wealth of ashtrays, toasting forks and pokers.

A lot of lads made toasting forks. After heating the middle of a brass rod, they clamped it in a vice and turned it a few times to put some fancy twists in it. All right for some, perhaps, but a toasting fork wasn’t for me. Not when I could make one of these…

…a sword poker with a hand guard like a cutlass. Much better than poofy toasting fork, I thought. Very satisfying it was too, to brandish the finished article, even though the wooden handle spun freely on the steel rod.

The Upbury Manor craft block is where the boys of 2A1 did woodwork while 2A2 did Metalwork, and vice versa. This arrangement put Twydall boys Kevin Garlick, Clive Ward, John Greenland, Stanley Slaughter and myself in the same building at the same time – a crucial factor in me getting pounced upon and given the bumps on the occasion of my thirteenth birthday.

The arrangement also ensured my class be first with the news when anything dramatic happened in the room next door, as happened when Clive Ward reportedly got his finger mangled in a drill. Thankfully, I learned later that the report had been greatly exaggerated.

Just as dramatic was news of Paul Parker’s flying fruit bowl. Made from different layers of wood stuck together for decorative effect, his fruit bowl disintegrated in the lathe, sending projectiles in all directions. Miraculously, nobody was hit.