THROUGH THE YEARS. PART 4

Shottery, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1945 to 1979.
From the age of 11 I attended what was then Hugh Clopton High School,this was about 1/2 a mile from our house. Once I started here my education started going down hill,I never really enjoyed schooling there at all.I can't put my finger on quite why,possibly the fact that I was taught by up to 8 different tutors each year, where as i'd only been used to one for 2-3yrs at a time(poss excuses as it was the same for all of us from this school).Anyway I went from an "A" class at 11yrs, to a"C"class at 15yrs.Outside of school I grew up much as most boys do, I had a small group of friends from around the village,we used to play in the fields behind Shottery school which were locally known as the "Brook fields"or "The Brookers" for fairly obvious reasons.The names I remember from back then were(from the village)Roy Brookes,Peter Dale, Eric Payne,Peter Bliss,Robin Bowles,Chris Godman,Mick Drinkwater,Stuart Isson(sadly Peter is no longer with us).When I was 9 ish there was the Queens Coronation, just opposite where I lived(then in Hathaway lane) there were a row of cottages called post office row,these were decorated from one end to the other (8-9 of them) with glued on Coronation banners plus garlands, flags etc,the banners that were glued on were still there until they knocked them down in approx 1962-3. Other friends that I had, moved away when these cottages were knocked down,these included Linda Allum,Stuart,Brenda,Sylvia Parsons and next door Marcus Hetherington.As I got older we used the brookers as a meeting place for the gang,and made bike tracks there,we also ventured further afield going up the" range".This was the old rifle fireing range which was used during the war mainly by the home Guard but occasionally by Regiments out on manoeuvre's,this range was not used after the war.We used to dig up spent (occasionally unspent) cartridges all around and made bike tracks up, down and through there too.From the" brookers" you went up a path through orchards on both sides, here there were Apples of all sorts, several types of Pear plus at least two different plums but our favourite Scrumping fruit was Gooseberries(Goosegogs we called them),Altogether there were five different Orchards to scrump from,(naughty boys)These Orchards were known to us as Uptons orchards,many's the day the shout would go up "run lads Uptons coming"luckily he never managed to actually catch us although I think he knew who we were.Around this time we went through lots of teenage stages throwing Fireworks(silly boys) Catapults,Air Rifles, but one of our favourite tricks was tying two door knockers together with fishing line, then knock one door and run, as they opened that door it would pull up the knocker of the other one then when the line broke it would drop knocking the other one,the two occupants would often stand glaring at each other, each blaming the other,they could'nt see the thin fishing line that would have broken by then, mean while we would be hiding trying not to laugh out loud.
PICTURES me with Chris on my left and Peter on my right at 17yrs old. Look at 2nd picture on the left onThrough the years 2 (any likeness)?
Pic 2 Me at 11years old at Weston- Super- Mare on holiday.
Pic 3 At 11 yrs old my last school photo.
Pic 4 At 18 yrs old, just starting out with girls.