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The picture above shows what used to happen to
boys who were caught smoking, they had to spend four
hours up the pole. The boys would sing "Come and Join us"
to the few passing motorist, then a school favourite " A
slice of bread is called a Jinner, it maybe half an inch or even thicker, first of all you pick it up,
then sling it on the floor, if it doesn't break you sling it out the door,
please sir I don't want anymore, as
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh".
Second verse,,,, this form of punishment continued till the mid 50s
when by chance the Bishop of Hertford drove by on his way to Waterford and he heard the boys rendition of
"Spuds and Beetroot, feed me till I want no
more"
to a well
known Welsh hymn. The Bishop demanded that this Dickensian punishment be
stopped. With no real punishment the boys started the easy life at Goldings, running
water from a tap in the main house. The boys no longer needed
to drink from the toilet cistern to quench their thirst at night. Some
or all of this is made up, what part do think is the truth? A
Vice-President of
Barnardo's
today could confirm the fact from fiction or you could try tracing the
Bishop of Hertford for the
truth. The truth is out there!
Do you remember your first day at
Goldings WBTS? being introduced to your Housemaster or Matron or
did your house captain meet you as was depicted in the Goldings film. Then
being taken to your dormitory and given your allotted bed and locker,
meeting the other boys and that first meal in the large open plan dinning room, do you
remember ever getting two sausages? Your first morning wake-up call and your
first helping of Jacks porridge with those little black bits. What were
those black bits? That talk that most of us had with the headmaster "not only have you let me
down, you have let the school down, but most importantly you have let
yourself down" was said to make you feel like a deflated balloon? This web site hopefully will bring those memories flooding
back.
 I arrived at Goldings
like most of the boys in the
back of the stores wagon that was driven by
Mr. Whitbread
on the
8th September 1964 with two other boys from
Barkingside
and not in a
car as was depicted in the film "The Way Ahead" that some of us had seen at our branch home.
We were deposited by the pig bins and shown in a back door. Out of the gloom ( I was standing
just inside the kitchen back doors) a voice said unto me
"Smile and be happy as things could be worse" So I smiled and was happy and
behold, things did get worse as we only got one sausage and not as depicted in the film, now a
video and also on DVD
reproduced by Goldings Raincoat
Productions.
It
was
Mr. J. H. Clarke
SRN,.
MPA
known as
"Nobby Clark"
the then Housemaster of Cairns who had said those words to me, he
was also on dinning hall duties so while the two other boys Stephen and John
were taken to Somerset house to meet Skip I was put to work cutting the marge into little round pats with the aid of a machine. I noticed the skylights of
the dinning hall were over full with flies buzzing around and made the off
the cuff remark "so when do we eat the flies?" Nobby without thinking
remarked "oh they are for our non-Christian boys, its so they can eat some
meat on Fridays if they choose" had he read my file or was it just another
off the cuff remark.
This site is
of our time at Goldings so please send information and photos so it can
displayed on site, the good or the
bad if you had them. Post your story
of your years or months at Goldings and criticise anything that's on
site. but also remember, that each and everyone is entitled to his/her
own opinion.
The web pages are made up from some articles copied from our
old school magazine "The Goldonian" as well as other sources. If your name or photograph appears on this site
without your permission or we have used your copy from The Goldonian school
magazine and you as the originator of the copy do not want it to appear on this site, please advise and it
will be removed as I do not want to offend any person for whatever reason,
but we had to start with some content.
The language used at Goldings was sometime confusing to the
outside world and even some masters,
click here to view the Goldings Thesaurus.
Mr. N. T. Powell the
then editor of the school magazine The Goldonian wrote in the final edition
Vol. XXI
NUMBER 2 SPRING 1967 " I think the magazine
has served the school well, and it has kept old friends in touch. Au revoir,
but not 'goodbye' -- I hope!" to see full version
»
click here
Have fun and hope you enjoy looking around
this web site.
Frank Cooke
Editor and general dogsbody
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