INGATESTONE SECONDARY SCHOOL & AES INGATESTONE 1959 - 2013
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An exhibition to take place at Essex Libraries Ingatestone from 21 October to 01 November 2013, which will run alongside the AES Ingatestone 40th celebrations and the talk to be given at the school on Wednesday 23 October (Details from: Essex Libraries Ingatestone: 01277 354284 or Robert Fletcher: 01277 354431/rfletcher189@aol.com) 1
Cover of “Ingazette�, the Secondary School magazine from July 1971 showing the original building which is to be replaced from 2013
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Back in 2009, I was interviewed by the Brentwood Gazette regarding the 50th anniversaries of the opening of Ingatestone Secondary School (partially opened April 1959 with the first full school year starting in that September) and the A12 Ingatestone By-pass (November 1959), as it appeared that these two seminal events in the history of the post-war village had almost been completely forgotten. I have gone over this ground before so I will not expand on that here, but the AES’s 40th anniversary this year (the new European school opened in September 1973) gave me another way of reflecting further on these events and the history of the school since the 1970s. Looking at 1973 it is remarkable what similarities there are to current 2013 pre-occupations: the coming to an end then of some 30 years of industrial and economic progress in Western Europe since 1945 and our sense now that the banking crisis has also signalled some sort of end of time, and the early 1970s energy crisis (a time of “...strictured Arab oil:...” as Roy Fuller described it2) which combined the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East and a reappraisal by the then mainly Arab oilproducing countries of what the real price of energy in a new age would have to be for the West. Does some of this sound a little bit familiar to you? It has been nice to be able to look through my old headmaster’s log book covering the years 19591973, courtesy of David Barrs, and embarrassingly finding myself in there in relation to exam successes (he doesn’t record the ribbing given to me for turning up to a Chelmsford Cathedral service in 1970 to celebrate 100 years of the 1870 Education Act wearing a tomato-red Pierre Cardin shirt plus my green striped school tie) and the mentions he made of successful school operatic productions and the school sailing club (boats Inga 1 and Inga 2) and school car (Ingabomb). At times the entries were very amusing and often touching, as when he signed off in July 1973 wishing the new school the very best for its future and ending with the old school motto adapted from the description of the Oxford Cleric in the Prologue of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales : “Gladly would we learn, and gladly teach” I think to this, as one old pupil of 1964-1971, I should add, “and gladly exhibit and lecture”, if even in an old style “Bog standard” way. Plus, of course, the AES Ingatestone’s current aims: “Special quality – Intercultural worth – L’Avenir”
Robert W Fletcher Ingatestone, Essex 21 October 2013
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Taken from “LVII AGES IN THE MAKING” from Fuller’s collection of poems From The Joke Shop (London: Deutsch, 1975, pp.57-58). This poem actually contains the phrase “An Essex man!” which pre-dates its supposed first recorded use; another dusty, forgotten memory!
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Essex Chronicle: 20 November 1959
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Haslers New Mill, Fryerning Lane, once in the corner of the school site - 1950s
Brentwood Gazette: 2 December 2009
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INGATESTONE COUNTY SECONDARY MODERN SCHOOL APRIL 1959 – JULY 1973 HEADTEACHER: MR L A W MOSS SCHOOL MOTTO: “GLADY WOULD WE LEARN, AND GLADLY TEACH” “A Clerk there was of Oxenford .. ...Sounding in moral virtue was his speech, And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach”. From the Prologue to “The Canterbury Tales”, Geoffrey Chaucer (c 1342-1400)
END OF SCHOOL YEAR ASSEMBLY HYMN FAREWELL 334 God Be with You till We Meet Again Text: Jeremiah E. Rankin, 1828-1904 Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1872-1958 (Hymns A & M) Tune: RANDOLPH, Meter: 98.89 1.
God be with you till we meet again; By his counsels guide, uphold you, With his sheep securely fold you: God be with you till we meet again.
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God be with you till we meet again; ‘Neath his wings securely hide you, Daily manna still provide you: God be with you till we meet again.
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God be with you till we meet again; When life's perils thick confound you, Put his arms unfailing round you: God be with you till we meet again.
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God be with you till we meet again; Keep love's banner floating o'er you, Smite death's threatening wave before you: God be with you till we meet again.
http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh673.sht
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“I was part of the first intake to the school. It was like entering the promised land after the horrors of the Moulsham School in Chelmsford where I spent 2 terms. Within 5 years though the school was packed to the rafters, I remember having lessons in the entrance hall!! The potting shed was our sixth form room”. (Tony Willis of Harpenden on Facebook to RWF-16.07.13)
AES Ingatestone – June 2013
The Sanctuary, AES Ingatestone – June 2013
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RWF school photograph - 1964
Ingazette school magazine (Tony Willis as Wilfred Shadbolt in Yeoman of the Guard) - July 1965
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1966
From RWF’s autograph book (the signature has gone “Singing in the rain” somewhere!)
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1966
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RWF school photograph – 1966
RWF physics exercise book cover with the school motto
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1967
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Panoramic school photograph taken in the playground, the site of building in 2013. RWF top left in the enlargement.
RWF photo of The Horse Bridge, Bruges, Belgium (School trip) – March 1968
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1968
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1969 (both new retail shops in The Limes now open)
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Ingazette school magazine – July 1970 (the fight to keep the school open starts)
RWF in uniform in 1970 (with the “Famous Tomato-Red Pierre Cardin Shirt” – see Introduction)
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From Ingazette July 1970, an interesting summary of the school’s history to date
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From Ingazette July 1970. I visited this event with Howard Noquet, Robert’s brother, and spent a weekend in a tent with him and my uncle and aunt with their two small children, one of whom would later win the Le Mans 24 Hour Race and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. I lived on nothing but water and Murray Mints surrounded by Hells Angels burning telegraph poles. Never, never again; although I loved the music.
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Ingazette school magazine July 1971. The fight to save the school continues
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Mr Moss’s wit shines through in his 1971 report in Ingazette
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I seem to have caught the “missives to the Press” disease at an early age. Margaret Thatcher “Milk Snatcher”
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How the First Form (Year 7) girls should dress in 1971 (Ingazette)
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How the First Form (Year 7) girls actually dressed in 1971. Goodness; fake tan, fishnet tights and sunglasses on Essex Girls, whatever next (Ingazette)
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The fight to keep the school continues in 1971
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Having left the school in July 1971 I helped out my aunt by writing a poem on “An animal” for her English homework, which was spotted by teacher Max Meadows. In his words, “Very good Victoria, it would have been even better if you had written it yourself”.
Max died in 2010 and this obituary and article by him appeared in the Essex BTO magazine. On reading through the “Moss Log” earlier this year I discovered that Max had, in heavy snow in January 1970, walked home with the Blackmore pupils from the school as the coaches couldn’t travel on the back lanes.
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The new AES recruits staff (Essex Chronicle: 3 August 1973)
Motor Fuel Ration Books, issued in the autumn of 1973 but not used; a sign of those times
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My cousin Susan Ainsworth (Sue Bryan) in the AES Year 7 during 1973-74 For a short time in 1964-65 her late father Gerald, who held a senior post in the Youth Education Department at Essex CC, actually ran the Youth Club, located in what is now the Euro Lounge
Sue’s first school report book in 1974
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An interesting summary the AES’s first study subjects in 1973-74
Norman Pitt, the first AES Head Teacher, sign’s Sue’s report and he has also signed her old school blouse when she left the school later on in the 1970s
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I attended this concert with Janet Lutkins, Chairman of the Parish Council in 1992, and she was a bit worried by the Malec item I seem to recall John Georgiadis was born in Southend on Sea Essex CC had a cultural arrangement with Picardie and this was all long before any TransManche project worried The RT Hon. Eric Pickles MP and the members of the Conservative Party, or indeed, UKIP
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My cousin James Anthony George Lodge in 1992 about to go to the AES (for a while he actually lived in Willow Green having, like me, gone to all the local schools) Obviously into the fashionable long-line jacket look Now living and working for an IT recruitment firm in Amsterdam
AES football team including my cousin James and James Harper, once of Reading Town FC
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Ingatestone YC sea angling trip to Bradwell on Sea in the early 1990s I personally don’t recommend an old converted lifeboat in heavy swell The Youth Centre sadly closed in 1996 as the school required the additional space
Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club and Ingatestone & Fryerning Cricket Club using the old AES Sports Hall cricket nets in c1994
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IBOC Cricket Section in the AES nets in 1994 (Messrs J Lodge, C Dover and A Pudney)
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IBOC Cricket Section in the AES nets in 1995 with Adrian Rollins, who at that time opened the batting for Derbyshire (he hailed from Barking and was a member of Frenford Clubs) The top photograph has two present policemen with the Metropolitan Police standing next to each other (Sean McDermid and Ian Steel)
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Poet Lavinia Greenlaw, one of the first 1973 intake, writing in the Guardian in April 2013 about the influence of television when she was growing up in Stock (1)
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Poet Lavinia Greenlaw, one of the first 1973 intake, writing in the Guardian in April 2013 about the influence of television when she was growing up in Stock (2)
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Start of the new building to replace C-Block in the old playground – September 2013
Ingatestone Secondary School’s Mr Filbee, the Rural Science Master in 1967 (A sign of the times that “Rural Science” was on the curriculum) He later left to take up a teaching post at Writtle Agricultural College
The old “Rural Science Laboratory” now The Sanctuary, in September 2013 (Pupils can now enjoy peace where Mr Filbee experimented with reconstructing Fox skeletons)
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Essex Libraries Ingatestone hold a “European Crime” promotion to celebrate the AES 40th anniversary
Brentwood Gazette advertising A-board outside Budgens supermarket – October 2013
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INGATESTONE SECONDARY SCHOOL & AES INGATESTONE 1959 - 2013
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An exhibition to take place at Essex Libraries Ingatestone from 21 October to 01 November 2013, which will run alongside the AES Ingatestone 40th celebrations and the talk to be given at the school on Wednesday 23 October (Details from: Essex Libraries Ingatestone: 01277 354284 or Robert Fletcher: 01277 354431/rfletcher189@aol.com) 3
The original school building at the AES Ingatestone which is to be replaced from 2013 (Robert W Fletcher - June 2013)
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