Devonport High School

October 2024

Or to give it its full title - Devonport High School (DHS) for Boys, since there was another Devonport High School for Girls who wore, If I recall, a brown uniform that would have been unflattering on runway model.

Ah memories. I hated high school. I hated most school if we’re going to be honest, but high school was right up there in my hatred. It probably wasn’t DHS’s fault, I’d have probably hated any high school I went to, but it didn’t help that it was a school stuck in the 1950s, not unrelated to when the current headmaster had taken the reins. He died at his desk (not literally, I don’t think), I sang at his funeral, and that’s all I have to say about that.

I spent much of my time scheming ways of not going to school, or if I went to school to be able to leave early. In my early years I was probably more conformist, I remember digging my cap out of my bag so I could wear it as I left the grounds, for fear of being stopped and admonished (and possibly more) for not wearing it. I also remember removing it as soon as I was out of sight of the school - much like most of my peers.

As the years passed I grew less respectful of the traditions, like going to home room at the start of the day and after lunch so they could take attendance. This seemed a pointless exercise to me and it was 10-15 minutes I could avoid being at school so I skipped it. At some point they just marked me present by default, because if they had marked me not present then we’d have had the truancy officer involved and since I did actually turn up for school it was all going to be difficult to deal with. So my default presence was something I was able to take advantage of from time to time.

We rode to school, which was pretty much on the other side of the city, on the regular city buses. We lived far enough away that we could get a bus pass that let us ride for free. I can’t remember for sure how we got our bus pass, I do remember that getting it was a pain in the butt. We were lucky enough to be able to take one bus, the number 27, from just down the road from our house all the way to school. It ran on the half hour, I think. In the morning there was also a bus run by another company (National, the bus was green) that was a special put on for school. It was an old Routemaster so the driver was isolated in the cab up front, this led to some hilarious trips to school where the driver would take the wrong route because there was nobody to prompt them on the correct route and they only ran the route once a day.

Once I was old enough to ride a moped I purchased one. There was a motorcycle shop down on Union Street that I purchased a 50cc Honda moped from. I think we loaded it in my Dad’s van (or maybe he had an estate car at the time) and drove it home. I then learned how not to kill myself on the local roads and from then on, rain or shine, I rode my moped to school. It gave me the freedom to more easily come and go as I pleased, although in order to support some of my more egregious coming and going it wasn’t always parked on the school grounds. At some point, I think due to the vagaries of the UK motorcycle regulations I was eligible to upgrade, and I purchased a Honda 70cc (I think) motorbike. This was not exactly scenes from The Wild One (look it up) but I was happy. I only recall falling off once, when there was ice on the road, at a busy roundabout near the school. I’m not sure I told my Mother.

Once I had a drivers license I would drive whatever car I could get, which tended to be my Mother’s car, since I’m not sure anyone was allowed to drive my Dad’s car except my Dad and probably God if he’d dropped by for a spin. But I didn’t have access to a car much, given my Mother had to get to her job as a school teacher and the hours tended to cross. I worked for a theater company and we’d have access to their vehicles from time to time, and that was nice. I remember my brother bringing Bessie the bus, a short Bedford bus half-heartedly equipped as a camper, to school. I may have also brought it a few times, but to be honest that seems unlikely.

I don’t have a lot of recall of the rest, or rather I have small vignettes in my mind, but I can’t connect them to anything in particular. I remember that the members of the sixth form had a hut we used at break times, but I don’t recall being in there much.

My last, and frankly most delicious memory, pertains to the Honors Boards in the school's assembly hall. This was considered quite prestigious to be up there, I think if you were accepted to Oxford or Cambridge you got up there, or one of the more important military academies or if you were good enough to get yourself killed in some war or another. My name is up there, people have reported seeing it, although I myself could never bring myself to go back to the dump and see it myself. There was (maybe is) something called the Kitchener Scholarship for children of service members who were going to university. It may have been more complex, maybe the service member had to have served in a war zone, it might have been Navy only, or who knows. Whatever it was we qualified, and when I say we, I mean my Dad who spent 12 years in the Navy and served in the Korean War. I had to have an interview, at which I assume I didn’t curse or physically assault the interviewer, but the bulk of the submission was paperwork proving my Dad’s service and that he had been a good and dutiful servant of the Queen. I was awarded this scholarship, which provided a regular, if small, cheque every term, semester, year (I forget) I was at university. It turns out however that receiving this scholarship, which I had qualified for mostly by having a pulse, meant my name would be etched in gold on the Honors Board. It’s been reported that some staff members were physically sick upon seeing it. They loved me just about as much as I loved them.

So schooldays, not the happiest days of my life.