Fair enough - I just had my suspicions when random northern kids appeared around the time the school happened to get good at rugby league (which I was surprised they played!).
@ReturnToSenda consider yourself lucky, we never got to play football in PE during the 90s, it was jumpers for goalposts on Uplyme at lunchtime only.
I can confirm that students have been allowed there due to rugby ability, as I complained about it to Dingle in my final year, not long after his appointment. I got a patronising brush off in return. Knew he was a wrong-un!
Swerved the RGS, but went to a local equivalent, perhaps without the wannabe public school type bits.
But yes, as per @floyd, as much as I hated a lot of those years, I can definitely appreciate the benefits of such a school versus pals who didn't get the chance.
Good school but I share the distaste for all the elitism and pseudo-public school crap…when a school has its own masonic lodge then you know something’s not quite right.
‘Strewth ! The nearest we had (70 years ago and a few years after the end of WW2) was a Combined Cadet Force. I joined the RAF section and, in theory, could have ‘piloted’ the school glider for a couple of hundred yards across the school playing field a couple of feet off the ground. A group of lads towed it at little more than jogging speed (if memory serves) before the bungee line was dropped.
I heard soon after I left school that a stronger towing effort had resulted in a ‘flight’ terminating against the wall of the school building at first floor level next to the library.
I think it's only for former pupils, but it's not really my thing so I never really studied the joining requirements too closely. Maybe it's not even a thing any more, but it certainly existed in the 90s.
@arnos_grove The Wellesbourne section of the site might be a bit poorly attended. Mind you, so was Wellesbourne for a lot of people.
Mention a couple of pages back of Wycombe Abbey gives me the chance to recommend this documentary about one of its alumni https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4552298/
I can't comment on any masonic lodge (apart from how come the bastards never invited me??) but even as a schoolchild did find the RGS (yes I am another) CCF simultaneously both sinister and hilarious.
The army section seemed to do little else but march around the school in their shiny uniforms before lounging in a corner of the field with one poor sod on guard with his little fake gun against a shock attack by either an elite Russian flange of paratroopers (mistiming their attack on a Thursday afternoon when the RGS crack troops were ready for them and not instead doing double maths) or failing them Wellesborne. The navy section suffered from the singular failing that you really couldn't get much geographically further from the key essential pre-requisite for their section - they seemed to do nothing at all - but funniest of all were the air "force" who each week spent the first 60 minutes of their two hour "lesson" assembling their mock glider plane, five minutes milling around looking at it and 55 minutes deassembling it. Did no-one ever ask "what's the bloody point?" As I recall the rest of us who refused to join this farrago did "thursday afternoon activities" which for most involved sitting in a room with nothing to do staring out of a window laughing at the "air force". Think one term somehow I got roped into building a skateboarding park which never seemed to get far beyond repairing the vandalism on the half built park from the last seven days. I wonder if they have finished it yet.....
Good old Roland Brown desperately wanted to be head of a "public School" but presumably never got offered a role. His sole useful purpose seemed to be entertaining the boys at assembly with his unique pronounciation of Auuuuuuustria.
The alumni (if we can use such a term) must be getting thin on the ground.
We stand a good chance of being the last survivors - I can see a BFP piece accompanied by a pic of you watching The Chase with a tartan blanket over your knees.
I did the RAF thing, mostly pointless as you say but we did get let loose to fly a plane once (obviously with instructor with secondary controls), which was pretty interesting.
To be fair, flying (once a term, max) vs.book binding, or 'gardening' in the quadrangle, was a no-brainer. Walking to school on Thursday mornings, in that stupid cadet uniform, with Wellesbourne shouting the 1980 equivalent of 'bus wanker' - slightly less fun...
Comments
It depends how you define "private tutoring" as well.
I had a family friend do a few sessions with me on a couple of science sessions for a few weeks in a row once.
That's quite different from paying 40k a year to be drilled by highly paid teachers in small classes.
RGS tiptoes the line between grammar school and private school though doesn't it? Having paid boarders?
Fair enough - I just had my suspicions when random northern kids appeared around the time the school happened to get good at rugby league (which I was surprised they played!).
Yeah, I knew one guy who boarded despite only living in GX.
We also had this guy as headteacher...
“gasrooming”? A bit like gaslighting but less sinister and a bit more floaty and tangential?
He was quite the change from Roly Brown who was head when I was there!
Someone was telling me the other day that Dingle had turned to stand up and even had a run at the Edinburgh festival.
I saw he was doing stand-up - didn't realise he'd had some success with it!
@ReturnToSenda consider yourself lucky, we never got to play football in PE during the 90s, it was jumpers for goalposts on Uplyme at lunchtime only.
I can confirm that students have been allowed there due to rugby ability, as I complained about it to Dingle in my final year, not long after his appointment. I got a patronising brush off in return. Knew he was a wrong-un!
What if this thread hadn't been derailed/gasroomed ...
Hang on…*hang on* you and I were at RGS at the same time?
I’m not sure what is untrue as @ReturnToSenda didn’t say what it was that RGS let some kids do.
Is there anyone participating in this discussion who didn’t go to Grammar School? 🥸
I went to a grammar…the same school as Jermaine Jenas (after me) and Michael Jayston (before me).
Never realised the Gasroom had so many RGS old boys. Surprised you’ve not got your own (locked) thread with extra features 😉
I’d set up a Wellesbourne thread but it’d probably get closed by a Tory.
Not that I’m bitter or anything…
Very much enjoying the distaste for RGS here. Another old boy in the list.
Perhaps I should add some balance by saying I'm thankful every day I went to RGS, and I dread to think where I'd be if I hadn't.
Swerved the RGS, but went to a local equivalent, perhaps without the wannabe public school type bits.
But yes, as per @floyd, as much as I hated a lot of those years, I can definitely appreciate the benefits of such a school versus pals who didn't get the chance.
another ex-RGS here.
Good school but I share the distaste for all the elitism and pseudo-public school crap…when a school has its own masonic lodge then you know something’s not quite right.
‘Strewth ! The nearest we had (70 years ago and a few years after the end of WW2) was a Combined Cadet Force. I joined the RAF section and, in theory, could have ‘piloted’ the school glider for a couple of hundred yards across the school playing field a couple of feet off the ground. A group of lads towed it at little more than jogging speed (if memory serves) before the bungee line was dropped.
I heard soon after I left school that a stronger towing effort had resulted in a ‘flight’ terminating against the wall of the school building at first floor level next to the library.
Is that to entice the next lot of dodgy handshake brigade. Or is it for staff or Parents of RGS boys.
Surely not 14 years old running around in aprons and Len Ganley white gloves ??
"Everyone's doing the Len Ganley stance"
I think it's only for former pupils, but it's not really my thing so I never really studied the joining requirements too closely. Maybe it's not even a thing any more, but it certainly existed in the 90s.
I see your Len Ganley, @LeedsBlue, and raise you a man of constant sorrow (with a garage in constant use).
@arnos_grove The Wellesbourne section of the site might be a bit poorly attended. Mind you, so was Wellesbourne for a lot of people.
Mention a couple of pages back of Wycombe Abbey gives me the chance to recommend this documentary about one of its alumni https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4552298/
I can't comment on any masonic lodge (apart from how come the bastards never invited me??) but even as a schoolchild did find the RGS (yes I am another) CCF simultaneously both sinister and hilarious.
The army section seemed to do little else but march around the school in their shiny uniforms before lounging in a corner of the field with one poor sod on guard with his little fake gun against a shock attack by either an elite Russian flange of paratroopers (mistiming their attack on a Thursday afternoon when the RGS crack troops were ready for them and not instead doing double maths) or failing them Wellesborne. The navy section suffered from the singular failing that you really couldn't get much geographically further from the key essential pre-requisite for their section - they seemed to do nothing at all - but funniest of all were the air "force" who each week spent the first 60 minutes of their two hour "lesson" assembling their mock glider plane, five minutes milling around looking at it and 55 minutes deassembling it. Did no-one ever ask "what's the bloody point?" As I recall the rest of us who refused to join this farrago did "thursday afternoon activities" which for most involved sitting in a room with nothing to do staring out of a window laughing at the "air force". Think one term somehow I got roped into building a skateboarding park which never seemed to get far beyond repairing the vandalism on the half built park from the last seven days. I wonder if they have finished it yet.....
Good old Roland Brown desperately wanted to be head of a "public School" but presumably never got offered a role. His sole useful purpose seemed to be entertaining the boys at assembly with his unique pronounciation of Auuuuuuustria.
@our_frank Tough hand to beat, in fairness.
The alumni (if we can use such a term) must be getting thin on the ground.
We stand a good chance of being the last survivors - I can see a BFP piece accompanied by a pic of you watching The Chase with a tartan blanket over your knees.
I did the RAF thing, mostly pointless as you say but we did get let loose to fly a plane once (obviously with instructor with secondary controls), which was pretty interesting.
To be fair, flying (once a term, max) vs.book binding, or 'gardening' in the quadrangle, was a no-brainer. Walking to school on Thursday mornings, in that stupid cadet uniform, with Wellesbourne shouting the 1980 equivalent of 'bus wanker' - slightly less fun...
You may not have known it @floyd, but I was always there watching out for you, nuturing and encouraging you.
When you look back at your time at school and see just one set of footprints in the sand..it was I who carried you.