I was at Rowlinson Comp' from 1970 - 1977. A little snippet to update the files regarding Fred Barker ( History Teacher ) I left Rowlinson and joined the Department of Health and Social Secuirity on West Street. There was a Job Centre a few doors away and I spotted Fred Barker there. I actually went in and we met up for a beer one lunchtime ( circa 1978/1979 I think ). We had a good old chat and never really met up again. However I have fond memories of the pipe, his VW Beetle, and trips home at lunchtime for his steak and Guinness.

Dear old Fred B was definitely working at the Job Centre when I met up with him. He was there for perhaps a year or so. At the time, with steelworks closing down etc there was a bit of an influx at the Job Centre and certainly my Social Security Office was pretty overwhelmed. I remember thinking that Fred B was possibly in the wrong place at the wrong time as the place was probably inundated with umpteen 16/17 year olds all job hunting and having no idea what to do.

Gill Dammers my once English Teacher was, I believe, the sister of one Jerry Dammers - of the the band "The Specials". I can't remember when I was told, or who told me but it must have been a year or two after I left Rowlinson when The Specials started to get "big".

Another couple of names for the listing's - A fella called Benskin ( possibly first name Alan ) who taught "Humanities" to the my first incoming year of "comprehensives". An amazing chap. For the entire school year as I remember he always wore the same cord(uroy) jacket. It must have been during my first year ( 1970/1971 ) that a party of Russians visited the school. I think it was S.O.P that we kid's had to stand up whenever a teacher stepped into a classroom, even if just visiting. So these Russian guys were really impressed at our synchronised jumping up to attention.

Another English teacher "Pip" Ward, a girlie! who probably arrived about 1975.

And another bizzare chap - Chris Hawes, who I think was an English teacher. A sort of hairy bloke who had a habit of inviting students into his cubby hole for a quick smoke.

Another maths teacher was [Chris] Fuller. He was also in charge of the School Film Society. We turned up for our Maths lesson one Friday afternoon to be greeted by something like "bugger this. let's watch a film" - so we had the first hour of West Side Story!

Going back to Fred Barker - being a chap of the "old school" ( literally ) he would make frequent reference to those "hippies" that taught English. Used to have me in hysterics!