Stand Grammar School

Church Lane, Whitefield, Manchester
Demolished 2001 AD?

Forty Years On!

These pictures will download, and can be viewed at, at their original size. Right-click on them and select 'view image', or whatever. Sorry about the size of some of these images (huge!) but I feel they are worth the wait.

Firstly, thanks are due to Terry Mitchell for sending these in. A lot of you are going to be surprised to see yourselves!

Also available, is what is probably the earliest known work by acclaimed author Howard Jacobson, contained within this extract from the Standian of 1958. Click here to download, in PDF format.

Most of the following commentary is by Terry:

Here's the prefects of 1958 to 1959. Anyone know any more of the names?
Yes, we do, it seems. The character 4th from left in the middle row is Gabriel Jacobs

This picture is of the School Scouts off to Liechtenstein in July 1958 - the scene is Whitefield Station - Geoff Allen (in shorts as I promised) is 3rd from left - Harry Wilkinson (who wrote recently) is 8th from left. I, of course, am taking the pic. The figure in the kilt on the left is Norman Dobbin, then Art Master at Stand and Scout Leader - a really great character. He had a rather short fuse, however, & would not put up with any comments about his kilt! When we camped in Barmouth in 1957, some local yobs made a disparaging remark as they passed us on the promenade - the next thing they knew they had "fallen off" the prom & down to the beach - Norman just steamed into them. We were never sure whether they were commenting on him or on us in our shorts but his motto was "get in first".

The football First XI of 1953 - 1954. Who's that in the tweed jacket?? No, it can't be!

I have now found my copies of the Standian - I didn't realise how many I had from 1951 to 1962 with a 1967 thrown in. There is some quite good stuff in there: probably Howard Jacobson's first excursion into print - a short story written when in the 2nd form, plus this picture, very poor, but showing the actors in a school play including one Lawrence McGinty (now ITN's Science Correspondent).
This picture was in the Summer Standian, 1963. Also the listing appears reversed viz start with Glenny as the RIGHT HAND character & it makes more sense.

The picture to the left is an extract from Lancashire Life of February, 1960.

I have the full article if anyone is interested, together with several Standians of the same vintage.

Regards

Dave Jones
dgjones@supanet.com

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Author: Martyn Arnold

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