Eagle News Jan 2012 - Bedford Modern School

Philip Simms, John Comerford and Barrie Thorpe today
MICHAEL WATSON (1950-1958) writes: ‘I celebrated my 70th
birthday at a local hostelry with some of my oldest friends,
including contemporaries MIKE CRISP and ROGER
PATTERSON. Our friendship dates back to the time that we
started school together, in 1945, at Goldington Road (now
Castle Lower) School. We all joined BMS in 1950, the
academic ones continuing after I left. Both Mike and Roger left
the area when their respective work commitments took them off
to pastures new. I remained in Bedford, sending my roots deeper
and deeper into the Bedfordshire clay. We have kept in touch
over the years, occasionally getting together, with our respective
Michael Watson (centre) with Mike Crisp (left) and Roger
Patterson (right)
wives, for an evening out. We talked over old times, and our lives
under the dictatorial headship of JET. Can you imagine wearing
a school cap these days, with a white button sewn on top to
denote that you were a non-swimmer? During term time, when
the wearing of school uniform (with the shirt tucked in!) was
compulsory at all times, I was unable to go out walking with my
own sister because you were not allowed to socialise with
members of the opposite sex. And then, of course, came the
mass migration into Woolworths (just across Midland Road),
Memory Stir
after the end-of-term service, purely and simply because it was
out of bounds during term time. I well remember the day that the
school bell fell silent. It hung on the wall in the quadrangle, just
under the eaves, on the second floor, and used to ring out to
denote the beginning and end of break. One day, at the end of
break, the clapper descended to the quad amongst all the boys
returning to their classes. It landed approximately six feet in front
of me, missing one boy by a few inches. From then on we had
an electric bell. (The old bell, presented by the Revd ‘Piggy’
Langdon in 1909, remains at the School, mounted on a wooden
frame. – Ed.) 'Toots' COOPER was the master who inspired me
most during my time in the senior school. He taught English in a
way that I could understand. He was the only master I ever saw
stand up to JET. Second to him has to be BOB CLEAR. He
was always so kind, and tolerant of my lack of ability in the
metalwork classes. He treated every boy, whether First Form or
Sixth Form, as an equal.’
michael.doreenwatson@ntlworld.com
ED SMYTH (Smyth minor, 1952-56) writes: ‘Left to right in
the picture (overleaf) are my son Tony, my Mom (who is now
100), and sister, AnnaLee Atabay, in Ankara, Turkey, in the mid-
70s. The car, a 1942 Packard 110, was originally a gift from the
US Vice-President to President Inonu during the last war. My
sister and her husband, Abadin (grandson of the first Minister of
Health in the new Turkish Republic) later bought it as salvage
from the Turkish government, and used it as their everyday car,
eventually driving it through communist Bulgaria and through
Austria, and shipping it to the USA from a German port.
Widowed at 38, my sister found it was just too much to maintain,
and the car eventually ended up with a collector in California. Of
course, automobile manufacture in the USA was curtailed for
war production. When in 1942/43 our family left California,
where my father had been teaching Modern European History at
Berkeley, to join the OSS (forerunner of the CIA), he sold the
family car, a 1926 Essex coupè with rumble seat, to my cousin
Rick for $15, and we did without a car until 1948. Dad helped
with the planning for the invasion of Sicily, and later with the
establishment of the new constitution and government after Italy
surrendered in 1943. His appointment as American Editor-in-
Chief of the captured German Foreign Ministry archives, stored
in the old manor house in Whaddon, near Bletchley, Bucks, led
us to England, and my brother WALT and me to BMS and School
House, with my sister attending school in Stony Stratford, where,
again, the family was without a car for several years.’ Ed added
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