Biology field trips remembered – Michael Tanton (1946-54)

Raymond Crowther, the biology teacher at the time, established the Burton Grammar School Field Club to some enthusiasm in 1950. In its first year, Mr Crowther took a group from the club, that included me, to the New Forest, where we camped on the edge of heathland and in sight of the Balmer Lawn Hotel at Brockenhurst. The trip had been organized ahead in typical Raymond Crowther style, and to us the arrangements just seemed to happen – I doubt that we appreciated at the time the amount of slow correspondence required in those days to make such trips successful.

All the camping gear was manhandled by us to the guard’s compartment on the train from Burton to London, then from the train down into the Underground station where we were expected by the station staff. The train on the Underground was held while we loaded everything into one of the carriages for the journey to Waterloo Station where the staff again held up the Underground train for the similarly tedious job of off-loading it all again. It then had to be manhandled again onto the Southern Region train, and then off again at Brockenhurst. After some delay, Mr Crowther was able to find his contact at Brockenhurst, who turned up with a lorry to take us and all our gear to the camp site.

The summer of 1950 was very hot, so we had a wonderful two weeks in the New Forest, with many long hikes and a trip across the Solent to the Isle of Wight.

The above photograph shows Raymond Crowther crouched in front of the tent I shared with several others at the edge of the heath near the Balmer Lawn Hotel.

Mr Crowther of course had his own tent, for the rest of us, it was two or three pupils to each tent. They were former army tents which were made of heavy canvas with wooden poles and took quite a lot of effort to erect compared to modern tents! No sewn-in floor of course, and we had to dig a channel all round to lead water away from the tent if it happened to rain (it didn’t – it was a very hot summer!). We had to braille the sides up each morning to air inside, and dig hip holes and fill with bracken from the scrub behind our tent. Sleeping on the ground was then reasonably comfortable. The camping and cooking gear Raymond had managed to borrow from Byrkley Scout Group – but that is almost another story in itself.

The following year, 1951, the Field Club went to the Lake District and camped for three weeks near Watendlath Tarn, again by train and with much man-handling of our gear. My main memory of that trip is of day after day of rain, with damp clothing and bedding that we were assured would be fine once it had been warmed up with body heat!

On several occasions a number of the group walked into Keswick, and at that time one could walk all the way along the middle of road and never encounter a car on the round trip – just the occasional bicycle! In those days the local dialect was very broad, and we found it quite difficult to follow what the locals were saying. On my last trip there, in 2003 with my wife, I found things were very different – cars everywhere, and little evidence of the broad dialect I’d encountered over 50 years ago.

In 1952 and 1953 Raymond found a different venue for the Field Club – Flatford Mill Field Centre. We went to different courses in the two years, the first on freshwater biology, and the next year on estuarine biology. They were a valuable learning experience and we were able to make the most of the good weather in both summers. Best of all, we didn’t need to transport all that camping gear of previous years!

In those days the train trip itself was an experience – first of all from Burton to Leicester on the Leicester Line, then change at Leicester for Kettering, change again at Kettering for the cross-country trip to Cambridge, change at Cambridge for Ipswich, then yet another train to Manningtree where we were met by transport from the Field Station. Many of the railway lines we travelled on for those trips fell to the Beeching axe of the 1960s. Our group, including me, Alan Bull, John Jones, Tony (‘Charles’) Neville, Gordon Pritchard nearly all finished up continuing in one area or another of biology.

The photograph shows Raymond Crowther walking across a salt marsh near Flatford. This was his characteristic summer garb – brown shoes, khaki shorts and white safari jacket. When we were in the cooler, wetter conditions in the Lake District in 1951 the white coat was replaced by his old RAF tunic top. On these expeditions, he always had his walking stick, his pipe, a tin of Mick McQuaid tobacco, and a hand lens with him.

I used the box camera through to the Flatford Mill Freshwater Biology Course in 1952, but then an uncle gave me an old Zeiss Baby Ikonta camera with a Tessar lens and speeds of 1/25, 1/50 and 1/75th of a second. I used that for the Estuarine Biology course at Flatford Mill in 1953. Another uncle had given me a lens for enlarging – a fairly simple lens, mounted in a tube made of gummed brown paper – he had made it for some device he had been constructing, but had found a better lens.

I pulled out my old Meccano set, acquired an empty National Dried Milk tin as a light box and with balsa wood and two sheets of glass and constructed myself and enlarger. My uncles would have made Heath Robertson look like and amateur, and I’m glad to say some of the Heath Robinson aura seems to have shone on me too. So the attached photos of Flatford were enlarged and developed in my bedroom, and washed in the bathroom sink and glazed on the bedroom window!

During the 1950s, a number of Grammar School subjects introduced field trips. This photo was taken during July 1960 when R.G. Haywood and Ron Illingworth escorted a party of 20 pupils to the Lake District.

Back Row: M. Elson, G. Garner, Bennett, R. Bluff, Atkin
Middle Row: M01, M. Haynes, Thomas, Peter Jordan, Payne, Smith, M07, David Brunning, M09 (obscured), Stirton
Front Row: P. Hill, P. Gardener, R.G. Haywood, Ron Illingworth, J. Diggens, Taylor, M. Whitewood

The party of boys left Burton on Friday, 15th July for a week’s geographical work in the Lake District under the supervision of Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Haywood. The journey used Stevenson’s Coach and the route taken took them through Preston and Lancaster (being of course, before the availability of the M6 motorway) and through the Lakes to their final destination of Newlands, three miles south-west of Keswick, on the western shore of Lake Derwentwater. Finally arriving at Newlands Hostel around five o’clock, the first thing to do was to unpack everything and have dinner.

Saturday, the first full day, was taken up with a ridge-walk along Causey Pike to the village of Buttermere. The Cumbrian coast and Southern Uplands of Scotland were just visible on parts of the walk. Due to the dangerously steep descent and the time factor, a visit to the actual Buttermere village was abandoned, favouring the less steep descent of Whiteless Pass to the Valley of Soul Beck and following the ‘Becks’ back to Newlands.

Sunday saw the party in the lovely countryside of Watendleth and Borrowdale. The Loclere Falls was the starting point after a boat trip across Lake Derwentwater. The first stop was Watendleth Valley where the local shop did good trade in chocolate, postcards and stamps. From here, the walk took them through Borrowdale to the small village of Grange.

On Monday, the party was taken on an ‘Urban Morphology’. The two towns of Keswick and Cockermouth had been chosen and the party split into two groups with a master going to each town to supervise their studies. Back at the Hostel in the evening, the various findings were recorded. The next day, reports on the work was presented by Mr. Haywood.

Tuesday saw the first bad weather. The planned route for the day was along the Cat Bells Ridge to Dale Head Tarn but half way along the ridge, thick dark clouds came down with the start of some rain so the party returned to the Hostel, finding the best possible shelter on the way arriving back some time before dinner time.

Farm studies were the task for Wednesday. The party was this time divided into three groups with a nominated leader in each. The three areas surveyed were Borrowdale Valley, Bassenthwaite Lake, east-side and Bassenthwaite Lake, west-side. During the course of the day, Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Haywood visited all three groups and after dinner back at the Hostel, the group leaders gave their report.

The last full day, Thursday, was spent climbing the Great Gable. The party was taken by bus to Thornywaite. From here, they walked through the village of Seathwaite and, in what became fairly heavy rain, they proceeded to the summit (2,949 ft.). Despite the light veil of cloud, the view was thought well worth the effort ( pictured ).

Friday morning was spent packing before the Stevenson’s Coach arrived for the return journey.

Burton Grammar School Master (Biology 1948-1973)

Raymond Crowther was educated at Heath Grammar School in Halifax. He qualified from here for a degree at University College, Durham but, during his time there, war broke out which meant that he was to join the RAF. During the war, he spent most of the time with the coastal command in Iceland. At the end of the war, he made the decision not to go back and complete his degree but rather, to complete teacher training.

He was appointed as Biology teacher at Burton Grammar School in 1948 and was to go on to complete over 25 years there. He was affectionately known as ‘Joey’, for which reason, I had always assumed that his name was Joseph. It was only in the preparation of this website that I was corrected to the fact that his name was Raymond which just didn’t seem to fit after all those years!

Raymond always had a strong interest in microbiology and in physiology. He had a contact at Birmingham University who supplied a whole range of bacterial cultures which were maintained in the small sanctum off the Biology laboratory at Bond Street. The Grammar School had what would nowadays be considered a quite frightening collection of pathogens. The marine tanks also had an interesting origin. Raymond sourced them from contacts at the Marine Biological Station in Plymouth who supplied carboys of seawater and the specimens of marine life – which were far from easy to keep thriving!

Michael Tanton was one of the first monitors for the Biology lab and remembers the mammoth task of operating the Roneo machine to produce the mountains of typed notes from the stencils he typed out on his portable typewriter. Michael was the first of a number of his students to go to Imperial College, London, to study Zoology, Applied Entomology and Parasitology.

Raymond’s enthusiasm for his subject was considerable. From somewhere he had acquired a dead dog, and decided that the skeleton would be an excellent teaching tool. The problem was, how to get rid of the flesh? The solution was to ‘let nature take its course’ by allowing natural bacteria and flies to do their job! The dog was ensheathed in chicken wire and suspended out of the lab window, more or less above the door into the cloakroom area and opposite the door to the woodwork room.

The next problem, after a week of so, was Mr Redfern the school janitor objecting strongly to maggots falling from above. A school monitor was despatched up a ladder to deposit the dog on the roof, out of site and out of mind. That is, until complaints from the staff room about the smell pervading the upper floor. At that point, discretion played the better part of valour, and the dog was brought down and ‘spirited away’.

After a stint in hospital, he married Mary, one of the nurses he met there and they moved to a house at the bottom of Ashby Road as their home.

He corresponded with many other educational biologists in schools and universities, including London, Oxford, Cambridge and Aberdeen, who held him in high regard. He was also on the national committee for the constant reform of the ‘A’ Level Biology syllabus to reflect the needs of the microbiology industry.

He established the Field Club by popular request and in 1950 took a group to the New Forest, where they camped on the edge of heathland and in sight of the Balmer Lawn Hotel at Brockenhurst. The trip down had been organized ahead in typical Raymond Crowther style, and to students the arrangements just seemed to happen with no regard for the much time and correspondence required by Mr Crowther to ensure that the trip was very successful.

The following year, 1951, the Field Club went to the Lake District and camped for 3 weeks near Watendlath Tarn, again by train and with much man-handling of equipment. In 1952 and 1953 Raymond found a different venue for the Field Club – Flatford Mill Field Centre. Different courses were attended in the two years. The first was on freshwater biology; the following next year was on estuarine biology. They were a valuable learning experience and we were able to make the most of the good weather in both summers. Best of all, they didn’t need to transport all that camping gear of previous years!

Significantly, almost all of the involved groups followed careers in one area or another of biology. Greater detail of these trips may be found in the School Trips section.

At the Winshill School, Mr Crowther always seemed to be a little detached from the rest of the staff, apparently preferring the solitude of the small side-room at the back of the biology laboratory to the staff room. His success as a teacher cannot, however, be denied and many of his pupils went on to start careers with degrees in such fields as microbiology, medicine and dentistry. He also very avidly corresponded with other biology teachers and had some influence on the content of ‘O’ Level biology papers.

He is probably best remembered by many he taught for ‘Percy’, his faithful baton. When the class was being rowdy, he used to stand an old table leg on the front bench, lay ‘Percy’ by its side and utter the Latin phrase “signum bellum sto” (Symbol of war stands) as a warning that the next offender would receive a lump on the cranium with a size proportional to level of misdemeanour; the worst offences being punished by a ‘Crunchie’. This was fairly effective but it is unlikely that the tradition would have survived today!

He was very interested in classical music and a fairly accomplished player on the piano, organ, violin and viola.

Unfortunately his wife Mary suffered from severe arthritis and Raymond relentlessly researched the latest cures and reliefs. In 1973, after a normal day at school, Mr Crowther died very suddenly and without any real prior warning, suffering a heart-attack while helping his wife from the bath. They did not have any children.

This set of pictures shows the Bond Street premises towards the end of its time, shortly before work was finally about to commence on the newly planned school in Winshill.

Biology Lab

(From Left) Hassop, David Runacre, L03 –  R01, Raymond ‘Joey’ Crowther (Master), Michael Tanton, Keith Day, Robin Shorthose

Chemistry Lab

(From Left) K. Smith, Ralph Hodson (new Master), Mike Freegarde, Hassop, Geoff Shone, Norman Jones, J. Simnett, K. Stanyon, M. Wilkins, John Pickering, Shaw

Science Lab
Harry ‘Brab’ Smith, who first taught General Science (Physics) and Chemistry as well as maths.

Woodwork Workshop

Dai ‘Taffy’ Davies keeping everyone busy

Library

Standing (left to right): I.G. Halliwell, R.A. Lester, P.G.W. Bond and Chazzer Brown (Master and Librarian)
Seated (left to right): G.D. Evans, S02, J.E. Hancock, I.J. Cotton, R.G. Keightley

Gym (actually, School Hall in one of its many roles)

(Left wall from front) Ebberley, Hassent, Gostelow, Cotton, Hunt, Robertson, Knowles, Weston
(Rear wall from left) Cooper, Cartwright, Robinson, Laud, Harrison, Attwood, Ling, Woolett
(Handstands from front) Sharp supported by Cox, Richards supported by Mortimer, ? supported by Bentley
(Horse) Recently started Vic Roebuck watching Whysall
(Vault) Watts watched by Gibbs

I can certainly remember ‘Elementary Calculations in CHEMISTRY’ by J.C. Mathews and was delighted to get hold of a copy.

Chapters were:

• I – Molecular Weight and Percentage Composition
• II – Formulae from Composition
• III – Reacting weights
• IV – Boyle’s and Charles’ Laws
• V – Gram Molecular Volume
• VI – Reacting Volumes of Gases
• VII – Vapour Density and Molecular Weights
• VIII – Diffusion of Gases
• IX – Equivalent Weights of Elements
• X – Atomic Weights
• XI – The Law of Multiple Proportions
• XII – Equivalent Weights of Acids and Bases
• XIII – Volumetriv Analysis
• XIV – Electrolysis
• XV – Solubility
• XVI – Revision Exercises 1,2,3

Obligingly, this being well before the introduction of the electronic calculator, at the back of the book were Logarithm and Anti-Logarithm tables!

The following page extracts provide a tantilizing glimpse into the past; somehow, they don’t seem to be anything like as fearsome as they seemed at the time…

Stumbling across an old Grammar School Timetable brought back many memories. This was the timetable for Form 1B in 1960.

The day was split into seven 45 minute periods; some were double periods. There was a break between periods II and III and lunch-break followed period IV

The whole class stayed together for the same timetable. Only later, after ‘Science’ or ‘Modern’ options were taken, did the form split to do different subjects.

The timetable shows Physics but no Chemistry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, there were several experiments on what science subjects should be taken in the first year. In this particular year, science subjects were rotated each term so that the A, B and C streams swapped Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

By 1963, things had been fixed so that first-formers did Chemistry and Physics but no Biology until later.

I can remember some speculative discussion on the first day about what ‘Physics’ actually was! In the days of Bond Street, it was encompassed by ‘General Science’ which only later split into more focused subjects.

Practical Physics has a double significance with Burton Grammar School. Firstly because it was used by those who took ‘A’ Level Practical Physics in the Sixth Form during the 1960s, and secondly, because the author was Ezra Somekh who taught Physics at the school from 1956 to 1967.

The book contained a number of novel experiments that Ezra himself had designed and it became a widely used text book. Mr Somekh, partly due to the success of the book, eventually, became a chief A-Level examiner.

The following text books were in use in 1900. Tantilizingly, some of these books are still obtainable from book collector websites.

Maths
A Treatise on Arithmetic – James Hamblin Smith
Exercises in Algebra – James Hamblin Smith (Later re-published by Hall and Knight).
Euclid – Isaac Todhunter (Euclid was still fashionable to be eventually replaced by general geometry).
Elementary Trigonometry – Hall and Knight
Differential and Integral Calculus -  J. Edwards

Science
The Elements of Statics and Dynamics I & II (Mechanics) – S.L. Loney
Heat for Advanced Students – Edwin Edser
Modern Chemistry (!) – Henry Roscoe

Other
French – Chardenal for Grammar and Sentences. Set books for Cambridge Local.
Latin – Kennedy’s Latin Primer, Caesar to Division III. Gepp’s Latin Prose. Vergil, Ovid and Cicero for Divisions I and II.
English – West’s Grammar. Verity’s Texts for Shakespeare.
History – Ransome.
Geography – Longman’s series for political and physical geography.

An Account by P. Cartwright:

The party, which was led by Mr Ellick (Ernie) Ward the French teacher, consisted of boys from the Senior section of the school and one boy from the Technical High School; there were eighteen of us altogether.

Our coach to take us to London left from Burton Town Hall at 4:45am on the Thursday morning after we had broken up for the summer holidays. The 10:00am boat train from London’s Victoria Station took us to Dover where we caught the 11:00am boat to Ostend, Belgium. The channel crossing was calm and we arrived in Ostend three hours later in bright sunshine, welcomed to the Continent but reminded of England and Burton by a large advertisement for ‘Bass Beer’ on the harbour.

We spent our first night in Brussels, where we arrived at 5:30pm by express train direct from Ostend. The city has a well used tramcar service and the small single-decker tramcars travel underground as well as on the streets,many of which are not tarmaced but instead surfaced with small square slabs of concrete. We stayed the night at the Flemish Youth Hostel, an old country building which had been restored and we were somewhat discouraged by both the accommodation and the food. Fortunately, this hostel turned out to be the worst one we stayed in.

At 8:30pm the next morning, we set out for the train station to catch a direct express to Luxembourg City. The train passed through the hilly, wooded countryside characteristic of Southern Belgium and Luxembourg. We arrived in Luxembourg City, the capital of the Grand Duchy, at 12:30pm and, after lunch, we walked round the old city of tall buildings until after four o’clock, when we caught the auto-rail to Ettelbruck, 25 Km north on the river Shzette. We stayed the night at the Youth Hostel here and next morning, caught the auto-rail to Goebelsmuhle. From here, we walked in the pouring rain across wooded countryside to the small village of Kautenback and on to the town of Wiltz, this time along the road because of the very wet conditions; a distance of 17 Km in all.

Soon after we arrived, the rain stopped and the sun shone for the rest of the day to raise spirits. Among the attractions at Wiltz was an Operatic Festival and an American tank which stood as a relic of the Second World War.

We left Wiltz the next morning, again in bright sunshine and headed on foot for Clervaux in the north. The weather and scenery were magnificent and, after stopping on the way to have refreshments and the usual mid-day meal of bread and jam, we arrived at Clervaux, a quaint old town in the bottom of a deep valley cut by the river Clerf. With its pointed roofs, a castle and a monastery, the town felt like one straight out of a fairy tale.

The next day, it was raining again so, instead of walking, we caight the auto-rail to Ettelbruck where, because of the weather, we hardly did anything until 5:30pm when we caught the train to Diekirch, ‘The Burton-on-Trent of Luxembourg’. We travelled by bus from Diekirch to Vianden where we stayed for the following two nights, again, in a Youth Hostel. Vianden is on the eastern border of Luxembourg, bordering with Germany and catered for tourists. The town is situated in yet another deep valley where a river had cut deep into the surrounding wooded country which seemed to characterize Luxembourg, and a chair-lift passes from the town, across the river and up to a chalet on the mountainside. At the top of the mountain was a 13th century castle overlooking the town. We could see a scheme in progress for damming up the valley to provide power or a supply of water.

After staying two nights at Vianden, we hiked to Beaufort to the south-east, a town with a another 13th century castle. Having spent a night at Beaufort Youth Hostel, we set out in more pouring rain for Echternach. Our route was through some soaked woodland but a spectacle worth seeing was the ‘seven sisters’; seven deep gorges or narrow faults in solid rock, each only a few feet wide. It was still raining when we arrived at Echternach, which is the second largest town in Luxemburg. It had an ancient Basilica and a very modern Youth Hostel where we spent our final night in Luxemburg.

From Echternach, we travelled by bus the next day back to Luxembourg City where we caught the train to Brussels. From Brussels, we travelled to Bruges. Bruges had long been a favourite destination for Burton Grammar School trips being a much visited tourist centre as one of the most important commercial cities in Europe during the 13th and 14th centuries. We marvelled at the buildings, monuments, churches, palaces and bridges with its network of canals which connected up with the wide sea canal to Zeebrugge. We also saw the white statue of Madonna by Michelangelo in the ‘Church of Our Lady’. The new Youth Hostel at Bruges was plagued with mosquitoes resulting in many bites but nothing stopped us having an enjoyable time. Back the same way as we came through Ostend, Dover and London, we finally returned to Burton on July 31st.

In 1954, William Howarth’s in High Street was often the first port of call for new school shoes; and I must admit, I can see why – at 49/9d (£2.49), for a pair of X-Ray checked stout brogues, I could even be tempted myself.