Schools show region heritage

Mr Lawley of Hughes Place, Bilston, not only awoke his own grey cells but also mine with his memories of Etheridge Secondary Modern School in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ah, these were the bad old days when the few went to the grammar school and the rest, dubbed failures, went to the secondary modern.

Yet here were some of the brightest pupils, even though the head, George Daley, was old-fashioned enough to stream his school.

There were three streams - sometimes four: A, B, C and D - in allegedly descending order of intelligence and worth.

I was particularly interested in the Cs and Ds, reckoning that every pupil was more intelligent than me in some respect, if it was only being able to count backwards from 301 at the dart board, which I could never do.

I taught history, and there came the realisation that our Etheridge pupils sat on top of the legendary 10-yard seam of coal which drove forward the Industrial Revolution, making the Black Country a horrendous place where day was turned into night by the smoke of furnaces, and night into day by their glare, and that it was generations of craftsmen who had started out like the boys I was teaching who had created the wealth of the likes of the Earl of Dudley.

It was also clear that the improved conditions from about 1750 came not from benevolent capitalists and landlords but from the working people and the institutions they created such as trade unions and political parties.

This heritage must never be lost, and I was pleased to see that Mr Lawley (whose name I do not remember but whose face I might recognise) has the right idea when he says "a country that forgets its past has no future".

It is time for a reunion. There was a reunion once, but it was so little advertised that not many attended. There is a groundswell of support for another, I am told.

The first was organised by Etheridge Girls, so perhaps they will organise, another.

Every ex-pupil will have their own memories. I should like especially to meet the boys who conducted with me the archaeological dig in the 1950s to determine the line of the Roman road at Barnhurst Farm.

It is letters of appreciation such as Mr Lawley's that makes teaching the rewarding profession it is.

George Barnsby, Henwood Road, Wolverhampton.