Unbelievable Fact Of The Day

via the comments at Socialist Unity, the revelation that the father of jazz-funk maestro Gil Scott-Heron (try this for a happy holiday sound) played football for Kidderminster Harriers.

Old Bromsgrovian Dies

When I mentioned the few notable alumni of my alma mater and the fee-paying place up the road, I completely forgot to mention Bromsgrove School's most famous OB - the actor Ian Carmichael, who made a career playing silly-ass public school types, and has just died at 89.

Excellent Guardian obituary here.

A Few Shotgun Blasts From the Curate's Coppice

The IPPR are right !

An exodus of high-skilled immigrants leaving Britain should have us more worried than the current debate allows, a thinktank has claimed. Research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests the number of 're-migrants' - those who come to work in Britain but return to their country of origin soon afterwards - is set to remain on the increase for several years to come.

In the year to September 2008 the number of non-British nationals leaving the country rose by 30 per cent... It recommends that, as well as attracting these higher-skilled workers to come to Britain, ministers should consider doing more to dissuade them from returning home.

They came over here, stabbed the Poles the locals just didn't want to stab, and now they're off home !

A judge has issued police with a European Arrest Warrant in their hunt for a second man who has fled the country to avoid being jailed for an horrific knife attack in Bradford. Remigiusz Klata, 26, of Seaton Street, Barkerend, Bradford, was due to be sentenced yesterday. But the court was told he was believed to have fled bail to his native Poland having already admitted his part in the unprovoked attack on fellow countryman Artur Wojtowicz.

Mr Wojtowicz suffered multiple stab wounds to his shoulder and hand and was also struck by a bottle in a two-hour orgy of violence at his home in Newforth Grove, Bowling, Bradford, on February 17, 2007. After he had been stabbed with a kitchen knife, Mr Wojtowicz was urinated on by his attackers in a final act of indignity.

Rafal Kamil Krajewski, 31, then of Manningham Lane, Bradford, and Grzegorz Holubowicz, 29, of Parsonage Road, Tyersal, Bradford, were jailed for a total of 16 years at Bradford Crown Court last month. Sentencing went ahead in the absence of Krajewski, who is also on the run – again believed to be somewhere in Poland, after he skipped court bail last Christmas. Once caught he faces nine years in prison. At yesterday’s hearing, the court was told that absent accomplice Klata had previously pleaded guilty to attacking Mr Wojtowicz.

Recorder Jonathan Sandiford adjourned sentencing to the first available date after November 1 to give police more time to try to recapture Klata, as well as the missing Krajewski.

This story is another in the Reality 1, Satire 0 genre. Julie Bindel's not going to like it one bit.

The refusal to move a pre-operative transsexual prisoner from a men's jail to a women's prison is a violation of her human rights, says the High Court. Deputy Judge David Elvin QC quashed Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to keep the 27-year-old, who cannot be identified, in a male prison.

Referred to as "A", she is serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape, committed when a man.

That's up there with the schizophrenic strangler in the next black cab you stop :

London taxi drivers are planning to demonstrate against a paranoid schizophrenic killer being allowed to study to become a black-cab driver.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, strangled his wife in 2000 and was jailed indefinitely for manslaughter in 2001.

Just don't query the fare !



I've said before that the ire projected at the anti-immigration BNP would, in their absence, be projected at anti-immigration UKIP. Here's the kind of stuff you'd see - via former Euro-MEP Richard Corbett - he lost his seat when Nick Griffin got in, ironically.



Told you so department. Laban :

Now when Labour supporters talk about 'working class' or 'working people' - they are most often referring to NON-working people - the underclass - unemployed and unemployable despite the boom years.

News :

“It means they’ll save about £109 million on housing benefit,” said Mr Orr. “But against a spend of almost £16 billion a year this is marginal. For the 40% of tenants who pay their own rents the average saving would be about £1.36 a week. But, the majority of tenants we’ve spoken to would rather keep their services and see new homes built than have reduced rents."

Or, washing the golden stat from the mud - 60% of "social housing" tenants don't pay any rent. 60% !

Laban can remember the days when 'social housing' was full of people who worked for a living.



The website of David Rudkin - the Bromsgrove High School teacher and playwright who had a huge critical success, never quite to be repeated, with 'Afore Night Come'. Memory is failing, but I seem to remember playing bridge against him at Aston Fields Working Men's Club as was.




"the council is prepared to voluntarily grant a reasonable amount of expressions of freedom"

Decent of them, I'm sure.

The Orange Lodge will have to pay thousands of pounds in costs under secret plans being drawn up by police and council chiefs, if traditional parades continue.
The Scotsman can reveal that the Lodge will be warned that unless it contributes a share of the estimated annual £1.5 million policing bill, a new law restricting the number of marches could be invoked. The threat signals a tougher approach to the parades, especially in Glasgow, where city bosses have run out of patience after discovering that the city now hosts 250 parades every year – more than Belfast and Londonderry combined.

Glasgow city chiefs say financial penalties would also apply to Irish Republican marches which are increasing in number. Other councils, such as West Lothian and West Dunbartonshire, are understood to be observing developments and plan to introduce their own charges if the plan is invoked.

I can see the police's point. Idiots on either side try to disrupt the marches and it costs a bomb. But what price is freedom ? Couldn't the idiots be given exemplary sentences instead ? I suppose that's not the Scots way.

Dalrymple - and Bromsgrove !

Bromsgrove recently hit the headlines when the (Conservative) council ordered an allotment-holder who'd been targeted by thieves to remove the barbed-wire he'd erected to protect his plants and tools - in case someone hurt themselves on it.

"With regard to the barbed wire, when this is identified on site, we are obliged to request its removal or remove it on health and safety grounds to the general public, as this is a liability issue. This is a requirement enforced by our health and safety department."

The great Dalrymple - whose old stamping ground of Cape Hill wasn't so very far from Marlbrook - is not amused.

The Empty Shops of Bromsgrove - A Field Guide

Some twenty-five years back the council of Bromsgrove took the decision to close the old High Street to traffic and to pedestrianise it. It was a new, modern, forward-looking, progressive thing to do - and the council liked to think of themselves as new, modern progressive etc. At the same time they put a ring road through Crown Close, the old, quiet lane and associated green space at the back of the High Street, and sold off half the adjoining meadow (on which the Town Fair had been held since King John granted the charter in 1199) for car parking and a large supermarket.

When I retire I think I'll research who the councillors involved were, then start a new career vandalising their graves. I'll knock down the stones, put plain brick up and cover all with gobbets of chewing gum. Any grass will be paved.

Now a statue of A.E. Housman looks out upon gum-spattered pavements and a lot of empty frontage. I dread to think what the sensitive aesthete and classical scholar would make of it all.





I think this one was Scotts the Jewellers (used to have a fine clock) before it became Halfords and then McDonalds. Jack Scott was a stalwart of Bromsgrove Cricket Club. A fine old building with hideous modern frontage. The charity shop to the right is on the market as well.




Not sure what this was - greengrocers ?




Note the modern maisonette style of building in what was a long Georgian/Victorian street.




A nice old place, but the cheap'n'cheerful eaterie next door makes it unlikely that Beatrice von Tresckow will be snapping it up for her next store. The legendary Beau Brummell Coffee House, den of iniquity for a generation of High School students, was up the stairs somewhere round here.





No redeeming features whatsoever. This section of High Street (the top right), from Lloyds Bank up to the Stratford Road (or Alcester Road for you real oldies) was extensively redeveloped in the early Seventies. Crowning vandalism was the destruction of two beautiful old Georgian coaching inns, the Roebuck and the Coach and Horses. The site is now an Argos.



You've seen the top right - this is what they did to the top left.




The very end of the top left. Just round the corner, the Queen's Head was a real old fashioned place, which had extended opening hours on cattle market days and served a decent pint of Ansells Mild. It isn't very old fashioned now, but at least they haven't knocked it down.




They haven't knocked down this beautiful building either - Rainscourts Delicatessen, a Bromsgrove institution for as long as I can remember. Great place for cheese and a pleasure to shop at.

Easter Graves

In Bromsgrove today to add some Easter flowers to my mother's grave. The daffodils from St David's Day are still in remarkably good nick.

I like the cemetery. Just as at Christmas, most of the graves have new flowers. It's good to see. Walking the perimeter of the graveyard, I recognise many of the names as old Bromsgrove names, the names of my primary school register - Pinfold, Giles, Banner, Lammas, Chance. There are ornate graves for the Giles family (funeral directors) and the Smith family (travellers), including that of 20 year old Lemintina Smith. Was she as pretty as her name ? And some lump in the throat graves too - mostly children's. A grave with a photograph - a pretty young woman on her wedding day. She died aged 36.

"The sweetest thing I'll ever see
Is my Mummy, smiling at me"


When I started for Cefn y Blaen only two or three people were in the churchyard with flowers. But now the customary beautiful Easter Eve Idyll had fairly begun and people kept arriving from all parts with flowers to dress the graves. Children were coming from the town and from neighbouring villages with baskets of flowers and knives to cut holes in the turf. The roads were lively with people coming and going and the churchyard a busy scene with women and children and a few men moving about among the tombstones and kneeling down beside the green mounds flowering the graves. An evil woman from Hay was dressing a grave (Jane Phillips).

I found Annie Dyke standing among the graves with her basket of flowers. A pretty picture she would have made as she stood there with her pure fair sweet grave face and clustering brown curls shaded by her straw hat and her flower basket hanging on her arm. It is her birthday to-day. I always tell her she and the cuckoos came together. So I went home and got a little birthday present I had been keeping for her, which I bought in the Crystal Palace in January, a small ivory brooch, with the carved figure of a stag. I look the little box which held it out into the churchyard and gave it to her as she was standing watching while the wife of one of her lather's workmen, the shepherd, flowered the grave that she came to dress, for her.

More and more people kept coming into the churchyard as they finished their day's work. The sun went down in glory behind the dingle, but still the work of love went on through the twilight and into the dusk until the moon rose full and splendid. The figures continued to move about among the graves and to bend over the green mounds in the calm clear moonlight and warm air of the balmy evening.

At 8 o'clock there was a gathering of the Choir in the Church to practise the two anthems for to-morrow. The moonlight came streaming in broadly through the chancel windows. When the choir had gone and the lights were out and the church quiet again,
as I walked down the churchyard alone the decked graves had a strange effect in the moonlight and looked as if the people had laid down to sleep for the night out of doors, ready dressed to rise early on Easter morning. I lingered in the verandah before going to bed. The air was as soft and warm as a summer night, and the broad moonlight made the quiet village almost as light as day. Everyone seemed to have gone to rest and there was not a sound except the clink and trickle of the brook.


(Kilvert's Diary, April 16th 1870)

George Arthur Hall DFC

As a schoolboy in Bromsgrove I was blissfully ignorant that my headmaster, EJS 'Ernie' Kyte, had been an RAF Squadron Leader and mentioned in despatches during WWII.

I didn't know about the Town Clerk (presumably of the old Urban District Council, destroyed by a modernising "Conservative" called Peter Walker in the 1974 reorganisation that wiped out so many historic counties) either. Fancy him flying with Tony Benn's big brother ! And when I read of that brother's death, I detest Tony Benn less - even have some human sympathy for him. Careful, Laban.



Times obituary :

In Second World War night-fighter operations the understanding between the navigator, who acquired the target with his airborne interception radar, and the pilot, who carried out the attack on it was crucial to success. Without it, all the technology and flying skill in the world could not deliver a result.

In two tours, one in Beaufighters and the second in Mosquitoes, the instinctive rapport between Arthur Hall and his pilot, Leslie Stephenson, was the key to their eventual tally of ten combat victories, gained in the very different operating conditions over North Africa and northwest Europe. Pilot and navigator were each twice awarded the DFC.

Hall and Stephenson were one of the outstanding night-fighter crews of the war. Unlike German night-fighter pilots who had the pickings of huge bomber streams over their cities night after night, the RAF's fighter men had, by comparison, somewhat slender pickings as the war went on.

George Arthur Hall was born in Yorkshire in 1920. His mother was a Pudsey mill worker and his father a taxi driver who had to give up work through ill-health. Hall got a scholarship to a grammar school but in the Depression years had to take odd jobs to help to replenish the family coffers. There was no money to send him to university so he became a local government junior clerk.

On the outbreak of war he went to an RAF recruiting office in Leeds to volunteer as aircrew. A sight defect ruled him out as a pilot so he trained as a navigator. When he became aware of an increased requirement for night-fighter navigators, he volunteered and trained on airborne interception (AI) radars. At 54 Operational Training Unit (OTU) he teamed up with the pilot Michael Benn (the elder brother of Tony Benn, who followed him into the RAF). The pair were commissioned and posted late in 1941 to 141 Squadron, flying Beaufighters.

On one of their early sorties their Beaufighter was hit by “friendly” fire at 10,000ft over the Firth of Forth. Hydraulics were damaged, making it impossible for Benn to control the aircraft. To attempt a landing would have been suicidal, so the ground controller directed both men to bale out at 6,000ft over the moors of Northumberland. Hall landed close to the mansion seat of the Marquess of Tweeddale, by whom he was sumptuously wined and dined until retrieved by service transport. The Hon Michael Benn, the elder son of the 1st Viscount Stansgate (himself a decorated pilot from the First World War), also landed safely and found his way to a labourer's cottage, where he spent the intervening interval wholesomely but somewhat more frugally entertained — a contrast much relished by the mill town-reared Hall.

In the autumn of 1942 Benn left No 141 to join a squadron being formed to participate in the Anglo-American “Torch” landings in French North Africa. Hall then teamed up with Stephenson. Three months later they, too, were to find themselves in North Africa with 153 Squadron, also a Beaufighter unit.

As the Allies advanced to the frontiers of Tunisia, the ports and airfields they occupied came within range of German bombers based in Sardinia and Sicily, and the night fighters soon had more “trade”. Stephenson and Hall opened their account on April 17, 1943, when in the fading light of dusk they attacked a formation of ten Ju88 bombers which were approaching Algiers from the east. The lead bomber selected as the target of the attack dived steeply away and disappeared. But Hall maintained radar contact until Stephenson could again see the bomber, sending it into the sea with a few bursts of his cannon.

May was to prove a most dramatic month for the pair. On the night of 11-12 they shot down two Ju88s in a single sortie, arriving back at base to be cheered by their ground crew. The Tunisia campaign came to a close the following day, but with Allied forces building up to the assault on Sicily there was continuing and intense Axis air activity. On the night of May 23-24 they were to exceed their previous perfomance with a remarkable three-kill sortie — all Ju88s — which brought a telegram of congratulation and the award of an immediate DFC to each from the AOC, Air Vice-Marshal H.P. Lloyd. In this, the vital contribution of Hall to the night's successes was fully acknowledged: “...the skill displayed by this officer was outstanding and it was largely due to his efforts that the pilot was successful in destroying three enemy aircraft.”

Both men were very nearly killed the following day when one of the Beaufighter's engines exploded on takeoff and, without power to climb, Stephenson had to slam it back down on to the ground. There, at flying speed, it soon ran out of runway and ended up slicing through a small wood at the end of it, without, however, breaking up. As they fled the wreckage away from flames and exploding ammunition Hall and Stephenson were able to thank their lucky stars for the Beaufighter's robust build.

After the Sicily landings in July, Hall and Stephenson were rested from operations as instructors in different OTUs. But they were reunited in 1944 in 219 (Mosquito) Squadron, which after D-Day was soon busy in the night skies over Normandy. Their first combat victory, in August, was over a Ju188 over Caen, acquired by Hall on his radar at four miles range and finished off by Stephenson from 250 yards with two bursts of cannon fire.

They were soon operating in German air space, and their second kill, in September, was of a Ju88 over Erkelenz in the lower Rhineland. They next accounted for an Me110 over Krefeld and, their tenth and final kill, another Me110, over Hasselt, Belgium, on Christmas Eve. From this sortie they landed on Christmas morning, shortly afterwards to be awarded Bars to their DFCs. A few days later Hall learnt with great sadness that his first pilot, Michael Benn, had been killed in action, having won the DFC.

The pair might have had an eleventh kill when Hall's radar acquired what turned out to be a twin-engine, twin-boom aircraft over the Rhine in February 1945. The only aircraft of that configuration known to them was the American Lockheed P38 Lightning, and they withheld their fire. It was only later, in discussion with a debriefing intelligence officer, that it emerged that their sighting was undoubtedly a Focke-Wulf Fw189 “Uhu”, a reconnaissance type that had only just begun to operate in the area. A Luftwaffe crew had had a lucky escape.

After the war Hall qualified as a solicitor and worked in local government. He was town clerk to Bromsgrove Council, Worcestershire, 1961-74. He is survived by his wife, Irene, whom he married in 1946, and by a son. Another son predeceased him.

Arthur Hall, DFC and Bar, night-fighter navigator, was born on October 31, 1920. He died on October 24, 2007, aged 86

DFC Citation 1943

Flying Officer Leslie STEPHENSON (118959) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 153 Squadron.
Flying Officer George Arthur HALL (120955), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, No. 153 Squadron.
As pilot and observer respectively, Flying Officers Stephenson and Hall have flown together on a large number of sorties and have displayed great skill and determination throughout. They have been responsible for the destructio of 6 enemy aircraft, 3 of them in one night. Flying Officers Stephenson and Hall have displayed exceptional keenness and fine fighting qualities.

The pair received the Bars to their DFCs in 1945 whilst with 219 Squadron

Bromsgrove Rovers 2 Willenhall 1

Like Leeds United, only playing better football, the Greens have fallen from their high estate in the 90s, when under the great Bobby Hope they finished second in the Conference. Since then they've been reduced to the Southern League Midland Division, playing against much smaller teams. Bring back Alan Craddock and Chris Hooper say I. Much internal politicking and bad feeling means they don't currently seem to have a website, but there is a Supporters site and an unofficial forum.

They've just beaten Willenhall Town 2-1 after extra time in the playoff final, and are promoted to the SL Premier division, from which promotion back to the Conference is possible.

Congratulations to the lads, to manager Rod Brown, and to Sam Allsop for the equaliser and Jermaine Clarke for the winner.

Blogging Bromsgrove

Would you believe it - a Bromsgrove Rovers blog ! Particularly good news at present as the club are lacking - among other things such as a tall striker and a midfield general - a website.

We were there on Tuesday to see them chuck away a two-goal lead against the might of Bishops Cleeve, a Gloucestershire village side who've battled their way up through the little leagues to the heights of the Southern Midland. Very well they battled too, their seventeen-year old number 2 and their big centre-half did well. I think my eldest son may have played against their No 2 - if he played in their Cheltenham and Gloucester League team a couple of years back.

We made it down to Rodney Parade last Friday to watch the Dragons see off Premiership leaders Bristol in a cracking match. Bristol dominated but Dragons defended heroically and put points on the board every time they attacked. With advance entrance at £3 for children (it's £8 at Gloucester, or £10 on the gate) I just fill a car up with children and schoolfriends . At the end of the week I'm tired, but after jumping up and down shouting for 80 minutes I feel surprisingly refreshed and in no danger of falling asleep on the way back.

I digress. Bromsgrovian bloggers. Are there any ? This one moved to York. This one goes there for adulterous liaisons. There's always this expat Bromsgrovian. Digby Jones doesn't blog.

This lunatic thinks Bromsgrove is 'a quaint village'. He's right about the enormous ASDA carpark though. It used to be a large green field, where the fairs were held each Midsummer's Day (all children had the day off school to attend). The council sold it off.

One other person claiming to be a Bromsgrovian. The man who brought us the late lamented Trouser Quandary Resolution has moved to Little Frigging. From a cursory read the medication seems to have had no effect at all.

In the beginning, the world was without form or chip shops. Then the semi-omnipotent Skhighhibhoss said ‘let there be stoats’ and lo, only 28 days later the stoats were delivered – but to the wrong address.

After another week of increasingly frantic phone calls to various places in the delivery chain, Skhighhibhoss finally received his crate of stoats, and a credit note for £1.75 by way of compensation for his inconvenience.

Back To The Old School

Frank Chalk was looking at school mottoes, and I wondered about my old school, Bromsgrove County High School, whose motto was "Abeunt Studia In Mores". Despite the fact that Latin was compulsory for the first two years, everyone from the Head down seemed a bit vague about the exact meaning - "Study Forms Character" was the best guess. It makes Jack a dull boy, that's for sure.

When the old grammar went comprehensive it changed name to North Bromsgrove High School, went downhill faster than Franz Klammer and is now in special measures. The school profile makes for depressing reading.

So I wondered if it had a new motto and what it might be.

"In Pursuit Of Excellence (As It Disappears Round The Corner)"

"Maintaining Mediocrity"

"Exclusions R Us"

To my surprise, the motto is unchanged (it's the .gif at the top left). The school website can't spell 'absence' or 'activities', however. The site looks like it's come from one of those 'web-in-a-box' kits, as it contains lots of drop-down links to unpopulated template pages.

The school magazine seems to have dumbed down a fair bit from the old 'Boar', a few copies of which lurk obscurely in the corners of bookshelves. I'll try and dig them out, but I'm pretty sure Mr David or "Killer" Drury wouldn't have been too impressed with :

• Ant or Dec ?
• Pretty Women or Bridget Jones ?
• Pink or Blue ?
• Romance or Thriller ?
• George Clooney or Kevin Costner ?

The old house system has changed, too. Whatever happened to Appleby, Hibbins and Co ? No longer will the houses be named after Victorian heads with 36 years service. Instead we have Red, Green, Blue and Yellow, though the houses will get new names when the school is completely rebuilt under a PFI initiative. After all, the buildings are all of forty-five years old.

Current favourites for the new names ? Rooney House, Big Brother House, Hard House, In Da House ?

It's not all doom and gloom, though. The links with a school in Gambia are a great idea, and the insights of a Gambian pupil, Abdoulie Drammeh, are spot-on.

The other surprising thing is that the students in the UK have almost more rights than the teachers, which is also very different from my country. There are less sanctions here if a student does not pull his or her weight.There is less pressure for students to learn from their mistakes and correct them.

In my view, there needs to be some rules governing the attitudes of students towards their teachers. I’m not really saying that students’ rights should be abolished, but at least there is a need for some kind of encouragement to make students respect their teachers.

In The Gambia, students are very respectful to their teachers. They do their assignments and they pay attention in class when the teacher is talking.

I think this difference arises because the British are much more developed than The Gambia. This makes the English students feel that they don’t need to work extra hard because they can survive whatever they do. The Gambian students would want to work extra hard to be the best among all the other students to have a chance of getting employment.

You said it, Abdoulie.

The school hasn't run out of good material yet, either.

Harry Hutton reports that "Pippa von Humbolt-Parker (second from left; 19 'A's) plans to spend her gap year in the Congo, teaching Pygmies to bungee jump".

What did you do in your gap year, Head Boy 2004 Andrew Hazell ?

I spent eight months serving with the TA (Territorial Army) in Afghanistan. I am currently reading BA (Hons) War Studies at Wolverhampton University. Recently I have started an officer training course with the TA and am hoping to join the Regular Army as an officer after Uni.

Eight months soldiering in Afghanistan. That's a pretty impressive gap year CV.

Social Mobility And The Corner Shop

Near Bromsgrove is a newsagent and general store which has been run by an Indian family for the last twenty years. I've called in off and on when visiting the old home town. When I first went there, the children were small, in and out from the back of the shop. As they grew older, they served customers under the eye of the matriarch. In time, they went away to university.

Called in a while back and there was a shiny executive saloon in front of the shop. Inside, the eldest son, now obviously doing very-nicely-thank-you in his chosen career, was behind the counter. His parents were having a well-deserved weekend away. With him was a child of about three. Also behind the counter - a blackboard on an easel. The child was being taught his letters in the intervals between customers.

The values of this Indian family - self-help, co-operation inside the family, respect for education - were once the common coin of the British working class, and the motor for their upward mobility from Victorian times up to the 1960s.

I was reminded of this by a Dalrymple aside from a piece entitled "Is The Guardian Institutionally Racist ?".

"These humble businesses, incidentally, have been the motor of a great deal of social mobility, something which their owners understood a great deal better than the intellectuals, moral entrepreneurs and bureaucrats. The quiet heroism of parents who have kept a little store for twenty or thirty years, often in the face of very difficult conditions (despicable racist abuse among them), that their children might be educated, ascend the social scale and enjoy richer, fuller lives than their own, moves me far more than the rage of those who see only racism and discrimination."

Once Upon A Time ...

Back in the 1960s, there was a State grammar school called Bromsgrove County High School. It took around one third of the children of the area.

It was run on traditional lines by E.J.S. "Ernie" Kyte, a tall, patrician disciplinarian (and ex-Bomber Command Squadron Leader - a fact of which we children were totally unaware) who wore a gown and mortarboard in Assembly. All the teachers wore academic gowns. So did the prefects. It was an offence for a boy to be seen in the street without his school cap on - until the dizzy heights of the Sixth, when a different tie, college-style scarf and lack of cap proclaimed maturity. Blazers, an overcoat (school mac) for winter. Straw boaters in summer for girls.

All this flummery was, as we all know, meaningless. Why should a uniform make the teaching any better ? Isn't it just a strange coincidence that you can pretty much exactly correlate a school's results inversely with the number of boys wearing their shirts outside their trousers ?

The education was good. After two years pupils were split into Science and Arts forms. Latin was taught to every pupil for the first two years. Latin and Greek were mainstream subjects for Arts students, the big three of Physics, Chemistry and Biology for Science. Most of the Sixth would head for University, some to teacher training, two or three to Oxbridge.

The school had a swimming pool and a huge acreage of playing field - ten or more pitches.

Discipline problems were rare - nearly always related to individual teachers. Even nice kids can sense weakness and children are merciless. (So are other teachers. I can still remember my maths master, the late lamented 'Phil' Davis, rolling his eyes as the hysterical shouting of another teacher at her class came through the wall. She retired soon after on health grounds.) The ultimate sanction of the cane still existed but was rarely applied. The thought of the letter home and the long, dreaded wait outside the Head's study were deterrent enough.

The school went comprehensive in 1970, while I was still there, but my cohort had come up under the old regime and weren't affected. It changed name to North Bromsgrove High School.

Even thirty-plus years back you'd get a few rebels - the kids whose shirts were deliberately not tucked in, tie cut off short or left off - kids who either made an effort to subvert the uniform or who just didn't give a flying one.

If you watch the kids coming out now, the percentage wearing the uniform correctly is about the same as the number of rebels thirty years ago - a few per cent.

More than half of the playing fields were sold off for executive-detached style homes as the native Brummies moved south. The swimming pool was derelict last time I looked.

The school was put into special measures as failing last year and the governors sacked. The headmaster, would you believe it, has been given a job at the local education authority - to share worst practice among other schools ?

By what I'm sure is another strange coincidence, the local public school now takes twice as many pupils as it did back then.



I write all this because my old school, like hundreds of others in special measures, didn't become the main headline on Radio Four news last night.



This school did. I wonder why ? At least, following my mail, they've removed most of the mails claiming incorrectly that Unity Academy is controlled by Peter Vardy.

Of course the reason the BBC, like the rest of the left, loves this story is that the Academies are outside the control of the education establishment. Can't have that, can we. Any number of LEA-controlled comprehensives can fail and the BBC/Guardian won't give a monkeys. But let's make this one headline news, shall we ?

I have little time for the public school educated Charles Clarke, who as Education Secretary worked hard to deny working-class kids the sort of education he got.

But anyone interested in the Academy debate should thank the anonymous adviser who wrote this for him.

Longbridge

When I was a child, every other house in my street contained someone who worked at "the Austin". The nearby Charford council estate was divided between Austin workers and employees of Garringtons, at the time the world's largest drop forging manufacturer, whose hammers lulled me to sleep. Those were the days when 'social housing' contained people who worked for a living, the days when the middle-class complaint was of a working class earning too much - the Jag parked outside the council house syndrome. Garringtons closed in 2002, leaving a large hole in its pension fund. The site is a housing estate for Native Brits fleeing Birmingham. And Charford is now the kind of place where they kick disabled people to death for fun.

Many free-market, libertarian bloggers have seen the Rover receivership, if not as a good thing, at least not as a bad one. Only Mr S&M has reservations. After all, if other people can make cars cheaper than we can, so much the better. We get cheap cars out of it - good for us. Let people do what they're good at. The workers ? They can get other jobs - perhaps those fabled high added value jobs that I hear about every time a cheese factory closes in Goole.

As the ASI Blog said, "Adam Smith's dictum that the end of all production is consumption is now more widely accepted, and the main purpose of industry is seen as the production of goods and services which people will freely and willingly buy.

This no longer, alas, includes Rover cars, but there are new products and services taking their place every year for which the UK can find ready markets. Better, perhaps, to be part of a viable and vibrant future than to lock ourselves into a past of outmoded and unwanted products."

Well, yes. Better indeed to be part of a vibrant future. It's just that isn't the place where the Rover employees and their suppliers find themselves. That little weasel word, 'perhaps'. After all, it's better to have a nice Georgian house with an acre of lawn than a three bedroomed semi. Try knocking dowm someone's semi and then telling them what an opportunity they have.

So, the good folk of Bromsgrove, Rubery and Longbridge can create the new products and services "for which the UK can find ready markets". Let's start by taking a look at the new products, shall we ?

Well ?

I'm waiting.

Can anybody tell me what these new products are ? That we're going to sell to the world ? My new Pentax comes from the Philippines. My PC was assembled in Thailand from Chinese components. When we do invent something, like the Dyson vacuum cleaner, production is offshored and the UK operation consists of 50 highly paid designers and a few bean counters and marketing men. Actually I made those figures up. Halve the number of designers and add 50 marketers !

In the 20s and 30s, the height of the Depression, huge new industries were emerging in the UK. Chemicals, aircraft, electronics, cars. Where are today's equivalents ? Double-glazing that we don't export ? Perhaps pharmaceuticals and biotech stuff, if the animal rights boyos can be kept at bay. Anything else ?

"Oh alright then - we meant services. Look at the City."

I suppose the theory is that a combination of lethargy and convenience (between time zones) will keep the dosh rolling into the City, even when world manufacturing is centred in Asia. Just the way that Florence and Antwerp remained the capitals of world banking despite the rise of Britain, the USA and Germany, eh ? It may take time, but inevitably the services will follow the manufacturing. Ah, but think of the expertise we've built up ! I don't know about you, but when I've opened my commercial insurance company in China I think I'll get the underwriting done by Chinese rather than imported Brits. Who's likely to be able to gauge the risk best ?
Already lower and middle level (like research) City and legal jobs are being outsourced to India. IT jobs are going there too.

"We mean cultural services - books, music, plays, films"

The Churchillian phrase is "the acme of gullibility". The reason American popular culture dominates the globe is connected with the fact that the US is currently the most powerful nation, economically and militarily, on earth. Lose that and see how many people want to see your movies. Percentage wise, it'll be something like the European audience for Chinese films. The market for our stuff in Asia in 50 years will be on a par with, say, the Edwardian Brit market for Spanish novels and music. It'll be interesting to see how a nation of 75 million (remember the new immigrants have a high birth rate) survive on selling the equivalent of So Solid Crew CDs.

And we'll be as a nation on a par with Edwardian Spain. If we're very, very lucky.

Let's just revisit the "high value jobs" theory. This, of course, presumes a highly educated nation. Next question ?

Last, the "cheaper cars" idea. From that perspective, Burkina Faso must be a fantastic place to live. You see, just about everywhere in the world can make cars cheaper that the Burkinistas. What a paradise !

Trouble is, no one in Burkina Faso has got any money.





UPDATE - I posted this, on a similar theme, nearly two years ago. Spot-on with the prediction about call centres, less so on Labour's doom.

UPDATE 2 - the future ? Via Black Informant, the World Intercollegiate Programming Championship results paint a gloomy picture. Nice to see Bangladesh in the top 30, but China, India and the old Eastern Bloc seem to be where the cleverclogs are.