My father, who had a war time Commission in the RAF, was stationed in Scotland from 1940. When we returned to Grimsby in June 1945 the first thing my mother did was to put me down for St James’s School and  I arrived in September.  

My first form mistress was Miss Stevenson, a tall and kindly lady who attempted to teach French to six year olds – rather an advanced thing to do in those days.  My second form mistress was Miss Macilvean, who taught art throughout the school and who was a beautiful calligrapher.  She could be quite firm and forbidding but in later years I came to value her friendship and enjoy her impish sense of humour.  She produced a nativity play, in which I was supposed to have a starring part, in 1947 but I talked too much during rehearsals and was demoted to the role of second merchant.  I still have the programme somewhere.

Mr Harvey was our Head Master, a wonderfully avuncular figure, of whom all the small boys were in considerable fear.  My first personal encounter with him was when he told  me that he had seen me in town the previous day and that I had not stood with my cap off as a funeral passed.  I never forgot the lesson – just as I never forgot to learn the Collect for the week. We never knew which boy would be asked to recite it on a Monday morning.

It was a happy school and all my memories of it, save one, are happy too.  The exception was a tragic accident in the playground in, I think 1946, when my small friend, Trevor Hunt, fell and was taken into the head Master’s study unconscious .  We were all grief stricken to be told he had died the next day.

I left to go to grammar school because my parents did not feel St James’ could offer enough of a range of options in the senior school.  I have always somewhat regretted it but in 1958, being landed with an unexpected gap year (because I had succumbed to the Asian ‘flu just as I was about to go to University the previous October). I returned to the school to teach some junior history and English, and a fair amount of cricket. And I had the opportunity to produce parts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Vicarage garden.

I fell in love with the school again, and with school mastering,  and taught during each of my long University vacs until I graduated in 1961, when I immediately returned to the school as a full time Master with quite considerable responsibilities for a new graduate.  I was in charge of the first form in the senior school and of the teaching of history, and of the Library.   Two years later I became Second Master and assumed responsibility for the timetable and all public examinations.

I had five extremely happy years under Michael Lloyd’s Headship.  I fought two general Elections whilst I was there, one at Bolsover in 1964 and then in Grimsby in 1966.  Colleagues on the staff, and boys in the newly re-established Sixth Form, were enormously enthusiastic and helpful. 

My memories of that time are of lively boys and of a Common Room with some fascinating characters - Alan Moore who had been a Captain in the Gurkas; Stephen Floyd, one of our clerical part-timers – Vicar of Thornton and a former senior Wrangler; Jock Coates, who had fought in the First World War and who had been at Balliol with Harold Macmillan. 

It was an old fashioned school with old fashioned values – but all the better for that.  Boys left St James’ knowing how to behave, In 1969, after I had been adopted to fight the apparently hopeless seat of Cannock, I was telephoned by the Chairman of the Governors to say that Michael Lloyd was leaving. Would I care to put my name in and be considered for the post?  It was a very , very , tempting offer but I had set my mind on a political career and so, with a degree of reluctance and sadness, I said no.