Keith Scantlebury

I think the only time I tried to play truant, the school board man felt my collar so quickly I was back in school before the end of the first lesson. That picture must have been taken in the 70's Foxy ? . Not long before that part of the school was demolished. The car park sign is a bit of a give away as to the era.

People still come up to me , even now , and remind me of the time Matty Hall took that blackboard ruler to my ass. I had short pants on and that ruler had a crack in it. It nipped my ass so bad I could hardly walk for a fortnight. The crap thing was I used to be at his house most nights after school [i knocked around with his daughter, Sandra] and he used to give me a gentle kick up the butt as I whent through the door. I wont mention any names but the guy who burned the school down had served a prison sentence for a particularly nasty crime he had committed in the late 60's [or thereabouts] He was sent to prison again for burning down the school and got a job re-building it when he was released.

Malcolm, Please do not be to harsh on our Welsh neighbours, show them a little respect. After all Wales is a beautiful country and a one where MEN are MEN a nd sheep are NERVOUS

Micky, I don't think the man in the picture was the headmaster of the Whitley, although it could be some relative. The Headmaster at the Whitley was called Fred Hostler, he lived in a bungalow on Stead Lane next to the cut that ran down to the Oval alongside the Oval school field. The guy in the photo looks older than Fred Hostler would have been in 1943. Matty Hall [whom I am sure you remember taught there] and my dad were school mates. Fred Hostler would not have been much older than them [my dad would have been 20 years old in december 1943], the man in the picture looks a lot older.

One in gallery Brian unfortunately it has my brother in it

Only ones taken on a steam camera

I crashed into the back of a car at the traffic lights this morning, when the driver got out I noticed he was a dwarf, he ran up to me and he said, "I'm not happy like" I replied "well which one are ya then?"

There you see, Vic knows and he is in Canada da da

That would have been the year I started the whitley, think Miss Payne was the 1st year teacher at the time. Matty Hall was 4th year. Can remember another teacher called Butler and the headmaster was Fred Hostler of course. Dont think I can remember the wall falling over.

Now theres a thought, Mercs moggy with a 10' Boa Constricter in it's gob and a spuggie looking on bricking itself. Who said that there was nowt to worry about doon the woods!!!!

Well Malcolm, we are back to your Chinese thing, we need more insect eating birds. Having said that, you encountered midges in Scotland, commonly known as the Jock-o-nese Savage [latin name - eaticusthetouristacus] The only ones in England that come anywhere close to these nasty little devils can be found at Keilder Water [the Keilder killer] So, this Spring we should encourage the nesting of all insect eating birds in our back Gardens. If you pass the fledglings to me, I could start my new business of exporting spuggies etc to the jocks in order to rid them of Jock-o-nese Savage for good, therefore improving tourism.

What a clever little kitty you have Merc. I hope you rewarded it for its skills, obviously gained from when you enrolled it on the Feline initiative to re-home lost spuggies course. I will wait with baited breath for the R.S.P.B. to issue the list of nomminees for the awards given to cats that have shown exceptional compassion towards unloved sparrows. You must be an extremely proud guardian of such a talented moggy.

Yet another example of how man can bring on a problem with catostrophic results by interfering with mother nature

ABSOLUTELY, in fact we had a street party after hearing a 3 hour lecture about our tiny feathered friends. We have decided to lobby parliament into changing this very special day so it will always fall on a Monday, then we will insist that it will be a public holiday.

It seems that every British Prime minister and American President from Margaret Thatcher and George Bush snr. has not been satisfied until they have added a war to their c.v. Up until 1982 many citizens of our wonderful Isles of Britain thought that the Falkland Islands were off the coast of Scotland somewhere. Yes, the Falkland invasion needed sorting out but did we really need to get involved with the gulf situations? Ask many citizens of Iraq and they will tell you that life under Saddam was a lot better than it is now . To us in the West he was a murdering, self worshipping tyrant that needed getting rid of for the good of Humankind. To the people of Iraq, he was as described but they knew where they stood with him and order was kept. G.W.Bush and Blair should have kept their noses out ,[ they didn't even find the W.O.M.D. that they were looking for.] The same could be said of Gaddafi. The !*!@# is no differrent now than he was 20 , 30 or even 40 years ago [it is just that world news gets around better.] A visit to the garage to put fuel in your car will jog your memory as to why the western world wants to drop a bomb on his napper. Also it seems that our armed forces are not spread thinly enough, maybe there are too many of them in one place at the moment, making them easy targets, that is why so many of them are getting shot etc. So heres an idea for the comedy Daves, bring back national service to reduce the dole queue, then when you dont have enough people to fill the jobs, INCREASE the retirement age. [tell the people that it is cos they are living longer]. The likes of Gaddafi thrive on this sort of thing. He is laughing at us arguing with each other to see who is going to give him the first smack and in the meantime the great and wonderful leaders in Westminster have still not cottoned on the fact that the ordinary British motorist does not have bottomless pockets when it comes to filling the family car up . ........ Oh, by the way, I bought a couple of bikes off e-bay for me and the wife yesterday. That is my two fingers up to the greedy gits, and we may get fitter in the meantime

all the best Brian

ALL the best Vic and I hope you have many more

I whent to the doctors the other day with a hearing problem. He said "descibe the symptoms" I replied "Homer, fat yellow bloke, Marge yellow woman with blue hair.

Well thats a relief, I was bricking it incase they published my name on that list, dear knows what would happen if the DWP found out what I was worth.

Why would you describe it as an "Italian Ristorante"? surely the word ristorante is enough to let you know that it is Italian.

Absolutely nothing wrong at all Brian [methinks I have opened a great big can of worms here like]

Thank you for the nod Malcolm , I am currently talking to Go Wansbeck about doing something of my own, which is looking quite hopefull at the moment [fingers crossed]. The last time I wore a little black dress and a white pinny in public, I got arrested !!!!

I thought that Andy, never thought about google earth . As GGG said it could have been the old Grammar school.

Bet he's making a bomb at that

Thats the one Foxy. It's probably close to the era that Ali is interested in. Those houses on the left are the ones I mentioned that were derelict when I was a kid. The ones on the right were still in use [ some of them anyway] I can remember the kids that lived in them going to the village infants [church infants as some of you refer to it] and then to the whitley memorial when I was at those schools.