Photo kindly supplied by Jill Riches
Here we see pupils who joined the "Long Hair Protest" outside the Main Archway entrance to the School in Chatham Street.
In a protest that made the National Newspapers, pupils of the School demonstrated about the Headmaster's imposition of a one inch above the collar rule for, what he called at the time "untidy" hair.
We'd love to hear your memories of this, the names of the pupils in the photo or any other comments.
Jacko
The faces are all familiar but most of the names are gone. Second from left Brian Vine, second from right Mark(?) West.
I remember the day well. The protest began after lunch as a sit-in in the 6th form common room, i.e. the cricket pavilion. Three of us 5th years were ambling past and invited to come in. Great fun – Led Zep playing loudly and a spirit of rebellion in the air (that was thick with cigarette smoke). Far better than triple Maths or whatever we were supposed to be doing. After some time, and probably a failed negotiation or two, headmaster Keith Potten appeared and addressed the rebels. Promising that the situation would be reviewed (don’t remember anything coming of it) we were now free to go and talk to the press gathered outside. I don’t know who it was that tipped off the press, but I seem to recall seeing them getting out of the back of the pavilion and escaping those waiting outside towards the nearest phone box.
We saw the photographers outside the main entrance taking photos like this one, but legged it up Chatham Street and an early bus home without getting spotted. It didn’t help though; the gaps in the register showed who was at the protest and the next day we three were among the many summoned to the Headmaster’s office.
Keith Potten was rather baffled by us, especially why as 5th years were we in the 6th form common room and why were we at the protest at all? You see, we three were in the 438 Squadron Air Cadets (a sergeant and two corporals) and all had regulation ‘short back and sides’ haircuts. Where was our sense of responsibility that we apparently showed outside of the school? He didn’t appear to grasp support for a principle, or that spur of the moment promise of something different was much too alluring.
Later that year, when in the 6th form, I left the cadets and grew my hair long enough to break whatever rule existed and also to annoy form master Sam Lane. His little trick was to deliberately get everyone’s name wrong by the odd syllable or letter, so we retaliated as subtly as we could, for he was a decent sort really. At least I learnt some maths from him.