Regular readers of "County Yarns" may recall my participation in a project to create a book recording the remarkable story behind the Memorial Chapel that stands in the grounds of Lewes Priory School. The building was the inspiration of Neville Bradshaw, Headmaster of Lewes County Grammar School, an educational establishment that closed in 1969 when the Priory Comprehensive School came into being upon the amalgamation of the town's Boys and Girls Grammar Schools with Lewes Secondary Modern.
Bradshaw was Headmaster of the Grammar School during the Second World War (and for many years afterwards) when he was appalled at the toll the fighting was exacting on his former pupils; fifty-five would die before the end of hostilities. Bradshaw determined to have them remembered and the idea of building the Chapel took shape in his mind.
Such an edifice needed to be funded privately. Even before the war’s end, money was being donated, most often from the parents of Old Boys who had lost their lives. Fundraising began in earnest post-1945 via a plethora of initiatives, all undertaken with gusto.
In collecting stories of how money was raised, I was conscious we were trawling for memories from some six decades ago - the Chapel was not completed until 1960. Even so, we've got a rich haul for the book. Former pupil Ted Dixon provides a good example: "It was so much easier collecting for the Chapel Fund than doing bob-a-jobs for the Boy Scouts. With the Chapel, all I had to do was knock on doors and say what I was collecting for to mostly get warm words and generous donations. With bob-a-job, if people didn't pretend not to be in when I knocked, I sometimes had to earn my shilling doing really tedious chores. Although I did decline one offer from a man on Kingston Ridge who wanted me to wring the neck of one of his chickens!"
We've also come across some fascinating photographs. One is reproduced above. On the right is Neville Bradshaw and the youngsters to his left are obviously pupils. The gentleman in the middle with fag in hand was once painted in the tabloid press as "... bad tempered, irascible and undoubtedly the rudest man in Britain". Though to be fair Gilbert Harding looks to be quite a happy chappy in our picture.
Harding was born in 1907 and grew up to be variously a schoolmaster, policeman, disc-jockey, journalist and television presenter. His rise to fame came with the BBC panel show "What's My Line" in 1951.
Harding had an inability to suffer fools gladly. Miillions would watch "What's My Line" less for the quiz than for the chance of another Harding tirade live on air. He once upbraided a somewhat smug contestant and called him a bore. Such outrageous stuff went down a storm with viewers.
He was equally acerbic in normal life. Once, at a wedding reception, a fellow guest remarked that the bride and groom looked the ideal couple. Harding loudly retorted, "You should know, you've slept with both of them".
Though he was the most famous British media personality of the Fifties, unlike today such elevated status wasn't reflected in his pay. When he interviewed a more mature Mae "Come up and see me some time" West he was asked if he could speak in suitably husky tones. Harding came back, "If, Sir, I possessed the power of conveying unlimited sexual attraction through the potency of my voice, I would never be reduced to accepting a miserable pittance from the BBC for interviewing a faded female in a damp basement."
According to the Grammar School's "Barbican" magazine of January 1953, Harding came along to open the School Fete. His presence helped draw a huge crowd and the day raised some £540 (equivalent to £15,000 in today's money) for the Chapel Fund.
With the Chapel book project I am working alongside the Trustees of the Priory School, Lewes Memorial Trust. One of them is former pupil Alan Pett. His father Harold was a teacher at the Grammar School. Alan told me, "I remember Dad talking about Gilbert Harding's 1952 visit. I think he was staying at The White Hart in Lewes whilst recording a radio programme."
It wasn't just former Grammar School pupils who went off to war. Harold Pett joined the Navy in April 1941 as a Navigation Officer. Alan told me his father joined "HMS Cumberland" and served on the Russian convoys before teaching at "HMS King Alfred" in Hove and other "stone frigates". Harold resumed as Head of Mathematics at LCGS in 1946.
Alan kindly supplied me with a photograph taken at 22 Highdown Road in Lewes. Alan says he still has the brown leather gloves his father is wearing. Another photo shows Harold in line to be presented to King George VI in January 1942.
One of Harold's shipmates was Alan Hardacre, later "Sir Alan" of the Football Association. Another was the already famous writer, Godfrey Winn, who could have been an officer but chose to serve as an able seaman. Winn became a star columnist for the "Daily Mirror" and compere of the popular BBC radio show, "Housewives' Choice". In later life he lived at Falmer near Lewes.
If you have any memories or memorabilia connected to the Memorial Chapel or Lewes schooldays of yesteryear do please let me know. See my contact details above.