Alun Buffry's Blog: The Autobiography of a Head by Alun Buffry, Part 2

Taken From The Autobiograhy of a Head

My first day at school was the first time, I think, that I had been away from my close relatives. Nobody told me that Mam would be coming back for me, so I screamed so loud and so long that the school had to send somebody to bring back Mum!

School was OK. My teacher was Miss Vaughn. I was in a class B, usually in the top three in examinations, but they never put me up to class A because they said it was better for me to be in the top three in a B class than the bottom three in an A class. Mr Todd was our headmaster. I only got the cane once, on my hand, and it really hurt.

I was still about 5 or 6 years old when we went to London and had my photograph taken outside Buckenham Palace.

I remember going to Bristol Zoo, by train, one summer. I was fascinated by the parrots, especially the one that knew my name, Gwyneth’s name (she was still a baby) and even the name of the street where we lived. I ran back to tell my Mum and Dad. Mum said “Dad will think that’s funny when he comes back!”. It took me years to realise why he wasn’t there. Years later, Mum told the story that whenever they lost me in the Zoo, they always found me back with the parrots trying to get that one to tell me my name and address again! I had a ride on an elephant too.

During the summer, trains filed with people from the Welsh Valleys used to descent on Barry Island beach, so we used to go early and then go home and go back at about 5 o’clock. What always amazed me was the amount of rubbish they’d left on the beach, yet the following morning it was clean again. The tide had come in and taken all the trash away. Years later, when I was eighteen and on summer break from University, I took a job with the local council department responsible for emptying the bins and cleaning weeds away from drains. One of my other jobs, first thing in the morning, along with a gang of other regular workers, was picking up the rubbish from the beach.

So I survived junior school, got through my crush on a lovely tanned-looking urchin-type girl called Suzanne, survived my first kiss from the tallest girl in my class, Elizabeth and sat and failed my 11 Plus examination, I was given a place at grammar school after others refused theirs.

At eleven years old, I found myself going to a new school, Barry Grammar School for Boys, along with some of my friends and about to make new friends, but no girls. They had their own school. Instead of being a ten minute walk away, this one was a walk of forty-five minutes, up a hill, or else a bus ride. Of course my parents had to pay for the bus fares as well as the uniform and cap. My Dad was a labourer at the local train yards at the time, not earning a huge wage. They were giving me pocket money, school dinner money and bus fares. I made a deal with them that if I walked to school and back, I could keep the bus fares.

Now I had to study more subjects, some I liked and some I disliked. That included English Language, English Literature, History, Geography, Mathematics, Science, French, Woodwork, Latin, Welsh, Religious Education, Art, Sport and Woodwork. I hated History, just a string of dates. As for Latin and Welsh, why would I want to to learn languages that nobody spoke; very few people in Barry spoke Welsh and I had never met anyone that spoke Latin? Religious Education, or RE, also, was of little interest to me and was all about the Bible. To make matters worse, the same teacher, Mr Jones whom we called Tojo, took lessons in Welsh and RE. He was a boring teacher and very strict and mean. He once asked the class who believed in God. Those that said that they did not were given detention and a hundred lines. Stories were told that he had been captured by the Japanese during the war, although I cannot say that was true. My main interest was Science.

By the age of twelve I had been given a chemistry set and I loved it, mixing stuff together in the garden shed.

I remember well the first time I mixed sodium carbonate and citric acid together in water and it effervesced. I thought the two chemicals were eating each other so they were aware of each other; they were alive. That was an eye-opener for me, changed my religious beliefs and my world view; it opened my eyes.

The other teachers, all men, were a mixture of good, bad and simply bullies. We had nick-names for them all.

Apart from Mr Jones, the one I liked least was ‘Biffo’, Mr Bear, the Maths teacher, a small man but a real bully. He constantly hit boys or threw the blackboard duster across the room. At one time he hit me on the back of my head with a book. “You know what that’s for Buffry?”, he asked. “No, Sir”. He hit me again and asked me again. Again I said no. He hit me a third time, harder, and asked me again. “Yes Sir”, I said. I never did find out what it was for. Such a shame as Maths was one of my favourite subjects.

Mr Warren, “Bunny”, of course, taught History, which I did not like. He was another duster-throwing bully. He also used to get boys to put their nose against the sliding blackboard and pull it down to try to hit their nose with the metal strip that separated the parts of the board.

Frank was the English teacher. He was one of the more pleasant ones.

Any boy could be sent to the headmaster whom we called ‘Cel’ (his first name was Les) for the cane on the hands. I only ever was sent once, by Biffo, but again I did not know what it was for.. God that hurt.

When I was about thirteen, everything changed again, as the school became Barry Comprehensive School for Boys, admitting those that had not made it into Grammar School. It was more fair of course, but we found ourself invaded by boys that did not want to learn anything except sports, woodwork and fighting.

When we were fifteen we were allowed to choose what subjects we wanted to do for ‘O Levels.’

I chose Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Biology and Geography. Because of numbers, I could not study Biology or Geography and instead I had to take classes in Woodwork and German. I was already having to learn French and was not at all interested in German. Everyone also had to study English language, English literature, History, Sports (Physical Education, or PE) and for some reason, Art. But I could drop Latin (which had actually helped with French), RE and Welsh

Sadly one of the Chemistry teachers, called Basil, was another bully and also a joker. He could not say that “Nitrogen Dioxide is a brown vapour” without laughing out loud and expecting everyone else to laugh too. He taught a lot of Organic Chemistry and quite put me off; a had another teacher for Inorganic Chemistry and physics.

As I said, it was an all boys school. The girls school was a mile or so away, so only the boys with bicycles could get there in time when we were all let out after lessons. The only other chance the rest of us had to meet a girl was on the bus. I didn’t do very well.

Just about when I was fifteen, we were getting ready for GCE O Levels. Bunny Warren decided to tell each boy what he thought he would achieve. When he came to me, he said, “You’ve no chance. You’ve never passed a history exam in your life.” Strangely that inspired me and I divided up the course so I could focus on just two thirds of it. The best questions came up for me and I achieved my second highest grade, after chemistry.

I played a lot of chess whilst at Comprehensive School and was quite good but it put me off when I realised there were so many books with set openings, responses and play. As my interest in the excitement of Chemistry grew, so did my interest in Astronomy and Cosmology and I became the organiser for the Astronomy Club and took on the responsibility of inviting guest speakers for after school meetings. I wrote to Patrick Moore. He did reply apologising as he could not come along to speak to us. Also I used to take star trails by keeping the camera shutter open on clear starry nights.

One day, after getting the film developed, I spotted a very strange looking saucer shaped object seemingly still on the photograph with the background of start trails. Was it a UFO? I took it to school to show the science teacher. He contacted the Home Office or some official and then asked me for the negative which he told me he sent in. Weeks later he said he had contacted them again but they said they never received either print or negative, which was strange of course since they had asked for the negative after seeing the print!

At the age of eighteen I took GCE ‘A Levels’ in Chemistry, Physics, Maths and one 'S'’ level in Chemistry, which I passed and was accepted for a BSc course in Chemistry at UEA (the University of East Anglia in Norwich). I chose that course because it was based on continuous assessment and not just exams.