School things [Cardinal Heenan]

For those few regular readers, this will make no sense. It's the result of a post on Secret Leeds and is for anybody from that forum to whom it may mean something.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the new building that is Cardinal Heenan. It’s built in the “New Millennium, Brutal Rotunda” style.
Not that things have gone down in the world since its predecessor. If I were a betting man, I’d bet my last ciggie that the teaching staff [or are they now called the “Faculty”] are just as damaged a bunch oddities that they were in my time.
I went to Cardinal Heenan when it changed from being St John Bosco and St Thomas Aquinas. Two of my brothers had previously been at Tommy Akkers when it first opened so the precedent was already set.
Some of the staff who had taught my brothers were still there when I attended. Mr McCormack, the headmaster had taught my brothers Latin and, I think, English. Mr Crossen had taught them chemistry and taught me the same twenty years later. Fr Creasy ministered to our spiritual needs, well, not mine exactly, because I never had any. More recently he was the hospital chaplain at Jimmy’s and ministered to my day, a non-Catholic, when he was dying, also doing his funeral service. As my brothers noted, he hadn’t changed a bit. And he hadn’t!
Some of the others who attempted to teach me were Mr Brockwell, French. And in keeping with the habits of that nation, he didn’t use deodorant. Mr Hopley, Physics. Bulging eyes and a manic demeanour. Mr Gibbons, English, had been a pupil at Tommy Akkers with my brothers. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree [now, I believe, the Deputy Head]. Mr Jones, Art. Aging hippy with a silver Datsun ZX sports car. Never taught me much art, spending most of his time making toys for his daughter. Mr Firth, PE. The un-fittest PE teacher in the world. Mr Tomlinson, Computer Studies. Doubtless called something else now, an aficionado of combed hair and pink ties. Mr Donovan. English. Famed for wearing pyjama jackets in lieu of shirts. He smelled like a pole cat and when we left, was bought a present of a bar of soap and a box of paper hankies by some wag, who’s name I forget. I saw him many years after, in the New Penny. I didn’t introduce myself because 1. He wouldn’t have remembered me. 2. I didn’t want it to seem like a chat-up line. I don’t mind a bit of rough but Ted Donovan was well below even my horizon! Ms Wilmott, History. History for me was not as it’s portrayed in Alan Bennett’s “History Boys”. Wilmott being a vile, bitter woman who in a class of mostly boys, had the smallest breasts of all then present. [Miss, Miss, you’re a real treasure. A proper sunken chest!]. Butch, who’s name I cant recall. He was just and always Butch. He taught PE and I think Chemistry. He took us for rugby occasionally and I attribute this to never understanding the rules of that game.
There are others but they are too insignificant to mention, not that any of the above are significant.
Some of my co-conspirators in being educated were; Pavlo Andrusiac, Peter Cook, Paul Durkin, James Connel [dead], Kevin Caufield [somebody told me he murdered somebody], David Greene [murdered his Father]. Paul Miller [I worked with his Dad at Barnbow], Mark Keane [cute], Tom Nutgens [ginger & bullied], Barry Holdsworth, Paul Midgley, Brendan Davey, Jeremy Wood. There are more but that’s for a later post.