Charney Hall School, Grange-over-Sands

The name Windscale probably doesn’t mean much to the children of today but in the October of 1957 the newspapers were full of an incident which took place just around the Cumberland coast near the small village of Seascale. We knew all about Seascale because we played football and cricket against its preparatory school. Fully exposed to the Irish Sea its location was forbidding, cold and wind swept, not at all like the more gentile, protected shores of Morecambe Bay. Now reinvented as Sellafield, Windscale was Britain’s first nuclear power plant. It was originally built to produce the ominously named plutonium, a radioactive chemical element used in the hydrogen bomb, and a constituent of ‘Fat Man’ the atomic bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan and hastened the end of World War II. Plutonium was a product of the Manhattan Project, a top secret American venture during World War II that worked exclusively to develop an atomic bomb. Los Alamos Laboratory tested t

The Injection I can’t recall  when  and I can’t remember  how  I found myself one ill fated day, standing at the end of a queue outside Matron’s office, located mid-way down the first floor corridor.  My fear of needles has never really left me to this day and in the 1950s the sugar lump had not been invented and so, to my horror, we were to be given our first shot of anti-polio vaccine by injection into the upper arm. With the cold steel of needles came the smell of cotton wool soaked in antiseptic spirits and kidney shaped stainless steel trays. Dr Jonas Salk, an American, was responsible for developing the vaccine and the torture that went with it but we were told that he was an eminent scientist and the procedure was perfectly safe. What we did know was that it was better than catching that terrible disease in the local swimming pool*.  The government of the day were also culpable as they had decreed that all children should be vaccinated in an attempt to eliminate the dr

See Roger Beaumont’s article in The Marketing Mentor.  Great stuff Roger, puts me to shame! Your description of Maxwell Duncan is spot on..... but you will know what tigers do when they are cornered....they come out spitting and fighting! http://marketingstrategymentor.blogspot.com/2009/11/great-content-from-friend-in-high.html Here is another reminder of how lucky we were! Beautiful photographs! https://grangeoversandshistory.weebly.com/history-grange-over-sands.html Let’s have more comments/photos please.....

Updated 14 April 2024: Conrad Podmore’s portrait added   The Gill, Duncan and Hirst families and their connection with Charney Hall Most old boys who remember Barbara Duncan and Alison Hirst, the wives of Maxwell Duncan and Raymond Hirst, will recall that there was a rumour that they were in some way related - they were sisters! The Gills were Fylde Coasters. The 1901 England and Wales Census records Barbara and Alison’s grand parents living at no.106 Hornby Road, Blackpool, a street running at an angle behind Blackpool Tower. Today it is a busy thoroughfare with many hotels and guesthouses which blossomed during the Lancashire Wakes weeks when Cotton was King. No.106 now forms part of the Beechfield Hotel which has evolved from a terrace of houses. Some of the original terrace appears to have been demolished to provide guest car parking, leaving the Gill’s house exposed gable end to form the end of the hotel block. John Gill, their grandfather was an ironmonger, born in Blackb

Charney Hall The Hampsfell Race This fell race marked the end of the school’s annual summer sports week. All the school took part and at the ‘start’ the pupils formed an ordered line, two abreast, just short of the last stile nearest the Hospice. The oldest boys were handicapped in that they were positioned at the back of the queue with the youngest forming the front. The secret to winning the race was to sprint past the whole pack at the start, which was no mean feat, and then take advantage of the gradient on the sloping grass path down the fell until the pasture of Spring Bank Farm was reached. Once through the farm a sloping stoney path ran down to join Ashmount Road which formed the western boundary of the school grounds. It was here that you had to take extreme care not to slip and fall down, simultaneously maintaining top speed to avoid being overtaken. Once onto the even finish of Ashmount Road it was a quick sprint to the open gate, turning left onto the cricket field an

It was after Sunday lunch, sweets in hand, that we had time set aside to write home.  “ Dear Mum and Dad,  Thanks for sending me this week’s Eagle comic. At 4.5d it is good value and I really enjoy reading about Dan Dare and the Mekon, that green man with a big green head. We played football against Rossall this Saturday and got thrashed 4-0 as usual and I met the great Stanley Matthews. He is their coach now as he plays for Blackpool.* Courtesy Daily Mail I’ve cut my middle finger on my left hand. We were chopping up matchsticks with chisels in the joinery shed and I was about to pick up some when Milburn’s chisel missed a matchstick and stabbed me instead. He didn’t mean to but Mr Hirst had to take me to the doctors in Cartmel and I had one stitch in it. The cut was very long and extended from my knuckle to the tip of my finger. Mr Duncan was incandescent but I told him it wasn’t Milburn’s fault. It’s now bandaged up with a splint so I’ll have to write with

Charney Hall Old Boys - Published Articles John Michael Castle, dentist and angler https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/tributes-pour-in-for-much-loved-dentist-1-1166711 Derek V Alexander http://www.hambo.org/kingscanterbury/view_man.php?id=6 Arthur Adolph Baerlein https://gw.geneanet.org/pfdm?lang=en&pz=israel&nz=fleischmann&ocz=1&p=arthur+adolph&n=baerlein Charney Hall Old Boys - War Records Hubert Podmore https://www.masonicgreatwarproject.org.uk/legend.php?id=2440 https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/13040 Thomas Haworth Preston http://www.cpgw.org.uk/soldier-records/thomas-haworth-preston/ Philip Overend Simpson http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/simpson-philip-overend/

Updated Sept 2021 Updated July 2023  Being sent away to boarding school was a baptism of fire. For the majority of new boys who were usually no more than 8 years old, it was most probably their first experience of being separated from their parents and it could prove traumatic. The first two weeks were the worst when feeling homesick and losing sleep could lead to emotional upset which in turn could be manifested in a physical form: crying, wetting the bed, irregular bowel movements...... A watchful eye was kept on all new boys by Matron who was well briefed at spotting any potential problems. Even Barbara Duncan, the headmaster’s wife was known to occasionally show compassion and reveal the maternal side of her character.* However after parents had said their goodbyes, depositing your trunk packed full of crisply ironed school clothes, neatly labelled by your Mum, the school timetable took over and life followed a predetermined set pattern - meals, lessons, sport, homework