Buzzer's Corner
Lorna Eedes (now Selby) has written
this piece on Buzzer, and adding to the views of how he got to be
called "Buzzer" in the first place.
Lorna was at THS from 1947 - 54.
In the 1940’s childhood was just the waiting-room for real-life.
Real life started when you got a job and became an adult.
Until then it was best to get on with things and not ask questions.
Only now do I begin to understand the situation the early teaching
staff at the Technical High were in, especially Mr. Howard the
quiet-spoken, unassuming Head. He had to work alongside an
existing Head (of College) in the same building and answer for
problems created by sharing premises. Whatever this new
fangled ‘school’ was (and clearly there was uncertainty), it was a
cuckoo in the nest of the Technical College.
Accounts on this website show the incentives the College made to
get the school out and into separate accommodation, which happened
at last in 1958.
In the meantime the School Office, which Mr Howard shared with
Miss Wilkinson, was hardly impressive. It was located on a
bend in the noisy concrete stairs leading down to a dark, lower
corridor. At regular intervals the ear-splitting school buzzer
over these stairs would shatter the silence, a signal for us to pour
into the corridor heading in different directions. Mr. Howard
might as well get out & stand under the bell, since no work was
possible while it jangled the brain. He stood, hands tucked
behind him under his gown like a penguin, at the angle in the
corridor: to his left the general classrooms, to his right the
science labs. No-one would willingly have stood in this
position. The smell of rotten eggs from the labs always
dominated the area. Doing Commercial Studies we only ever
studied Biology (considered most appropriate for us girls) and it
was never clear who made all these sulphurous stenches. It cannot
have been a pleasure to earn the title Buzzer Howard!
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