A.O.S.A. 2008 ANNUAL REPORT |
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Reunion |
My Life at Ayton and Beyond Madam Chairman, old scholars and friends,
I was working on a rather boring job one day at the beginning of last year, when my thoughts wondered back to Ayton. I was thinking about everything that Gill Jackson (Hinds,) Arthur Grainge and Dick Dennis have done for the Old Scholars Association over the years and how much they deserve to be chosen as President. I never thought I would qualify for such an honour. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail asking if I would consider being President in 2008 – 2009. I was absolutely astounded that my peers put my name forward for this important position. After giving the matter a little thought, I decided to humbly accept the invitation. My one worry was what the contents of my inauguration speech would be. I asked Dick, and he suggested I include some of the “adventures” during my years at Ayton. I was at Ayton from 1947 to 1952. I made many memories thee, but my favourite times by far were the Saturday and Sunday and Wednesday afternoon walks. Needless to say, I did not excel academically, but I did form many lasting friendships and as you are about to hear, I also developed the ability to make something out of nothing! I’m told I have not changed much in appearance since the day I left. Apparently other’s perceive me as a studious individual; a quiet and scientifically inclined respectable member of society. But my School friends’ remember me as having an insatiable appetite for adventure and danger, plus being somewhat of a rebel. Surely not; but judge for yourselves. In my first year at Ayton (1947,) I was friendly with Clive Olbery as he came from Blackpool and I lived in Lytham. We travelled together part of the way from the Fylde to Ayton, accompanied by our mothers. The two of us made a den out of one of the circular holes that we found up on Cooks. In retrospect, these were probably ancient grave that had been robbed over time. We covered the den with branches and bracken for a roof, to make it reasonably waterproof. Clive and I decided to start making toffee so we made a stove out of a shoe polish tin and filled it with cotton wool and paraffin. We had to nip back into the dining room after everyone left, and empty some of the sugar bowls into a jam jar to take out to the stove. Sugar was the only ingredient for making our toffee and this was a well kept secret between the two of us. One time the paraffin stove flared up out of control, and set fire to the roof of the den. We only just escaped without getting burnt – you have no idea how fast dry bracken burns and we spent at least half an hour extinguishing the fire on the side of Cooks. After this near miss, we found an old platelayers’ hut along the railway lines towards Kildale, with a pot bellied stove in it, so we resumed our toffee making exploits in a safer environment. Dick and I decided to try and make some iron (just for something to do.) We put filters in the ditches to catch the red rust that floated down. We needed to make charcoal to run a blast furnace to convert the iron ore into iron. At first we were going to misappropriate the charcoal out of the art room, but their supply was very meagre, it wouldn’t have gone very far. We had a den along the Beck near Easby where we used to make a fire and put a treacle tin full of wood chips in it. When it stopped smoking the wood chips had turned to charcoal. Oak chips produced the best results. After several weeks of charcoal making, we made a furnace out of clay with a tin in the middle of it and inlets for the air jets. When we figured we had enough iron ore, we filled the little furnace up with charcoal, some of it glowing of course, and poured the iron ore over the top of it. We had a hopper on top which held the rest of the charcoal. We had made a rudimentary blower to blow the furnace which was powered by the Beck. We left it going on Saturday and went back on Sunday. When all the charcoal had burnt out the end result was two little peas of iron that stuck on the end of a magnet, so we knew that we had made iron. |
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A.O.S.A. 2008 ANNUAL REPORT |
