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| David Janes - left 1951 | |
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Transferred into 6th Form from Dunstable Grammar School (all boys), in order to take Biology (not taught at Dunstable G S) and Chemistry and Physics at Advanced Level GCE. Combination of new subject and GIRLS was very demanding!! Subjects were necessary for me to enter Chelsea School of Pharmacy to study to be a Pharmaceutical Chemist, which I had set my sights on from the 5th Form. I have been a Pharmacist for 51 years - 32 years with Boots The Chemists, and latterly as a freelance Locum Pharmacist in small independent Pharmacies. Practices have changed dramatically from the hand-made ointments and mixtures of the 50's to the potent factory produced tablets and capsules of today, with a much greater emphasis on their effect on the human body. A very rewarding career. |
 Cedars Cross Country Team 1951 (David Janes: back row, 5th from left) |
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I represented The Cedars School at Cross Country Running at the Bedfordshire AAA Youth Championships, when we came 2nd. Picture shows the team with the PE teacher Mr Adams in 1951. I am the shortest one next to the suit. Other teachers of that era were Mr Catling (supremo of the Library who punished offenders in detention by forcing them to use steel wool to clean ink spots off the oak desks and tables); Mr Plenderleith (Chemistry) who died only a year later; Mr Westcott (Physics) who enlivened his lessons with anecdotes about his wartime experiences; Mr Redfearn who failed to get Advanced Maths into my tiny skull; Miss Burrough (Biology and Zoology) who went to South Africa after my first year, being exchanged for a younger lady whose accent was rather difficult to understand at first, but who got me through my exams. Dogfish dissections were kept between lessons in a tank out on the balcony, and the smell of Formaldehyde is still with me! Roy Maycock and Sheila Smith and June Meacham were my co-students. The Sixth Form Party was a great success at Christmas 1950 after we undertook Ballroom Dancing lessons in the Gym at lunchtime, tutored by the PE teachers Mr Adams and Miss Rowe. Along with a number of other pupils, we travelled by public bus from Luton and Dunstable to Leighton Buzzard each day, one bus going "via Hockliffe" and another "via Tilsworth and Stanbridge" picking up more at each stop on the way.Others in my form came from Wing, Bletchley and Stewkley - some by train - quite a wide catchment area. The dining room was at first in the basement below the Hall, alongside the road to Linslade, but then a new dining hall was built in the Memorial Garden. Our sports field was reached by a walk over the bridges of the River Ouzel and the Grand Union Canal into Buckinghamshire and Wing Road, Linslade.[ I believe that is now the site of the new Community School?] Back to home |
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