Lawrence Sheriff of yesteryear - and the rock 'n' roll renegades it spawned

The way we were… former Advertiser reporter John Phillpott studies a picture from days gone by
The school photo, split in two parts in order to be published.The school photo, split in two parts in order to be published.
The school photo, split in two parts in order to be published.

Lockdowns permitting, I make the journey to the seaside resort of Sidmouth twice a year to sit on the shingle, fill my Midlands lungs with sea air, and generally stare into space.

I also make the most of the time spent in east Devon by meeting up with old friend Brian Meredith, someone I’ve known since our Lawrence

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Sheriff school days. After liaising outside the lifeboat station, we generally drive up to Peak Hill, which affords a glorious view over the English Channel.

We then get the guitars out and have a jam session, two old wayfarers plucking strings and occasionally raising the eyebrows of any passersby.

After a while, the plectrums will be put away, and out will come the sandwiches… simple pleasures for complicated times.

Anyway, this time around we got to talking about a school photograph taken in May, 1962, of the entire complement then aboard the good ship Lawrence Sheriff.

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He told me that yours truly had obtained no small degree of notoriety at that time because not only was I showing one of my hands – strictly forbidden on pain of heavens knows what – but I’m also giving the thumbs-up sign, the sole silly boy in the school stupid enough to defy orders.

For this crime I was punished by no less than the headmaster himself, H A Staveley.

For once, it was not the cane – I seem to remember being told to write an essay that had to be done by a deadline.

Of course, this was no chastisement whatsoever, just good practice for what would be my future living once Lawrence Sheriff had tired of my troublesome behaviour.

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Brian still has a creased copy of the photograph, and he’s very kindly sent me an electronic version courtesy of the marvels of digital science, skilfully photo-shopped by him to eradicate the few tears and smudges that have inevitably occurred over the last 58 years.

And what a fascinating glimpse into a lost world this is indeed. Think about the date – it’s 1962, a strange limbo world that had not heard of The Beatles, Rolling Stones or the Swinging 60s that were about to explode within a few months in the wake of the Christine Keeler scandal.

The Cuban Missile Crisis that came near to destroying the planet was yet to occur, and John F Kennedy was soon to become president of the

United States of America.

Now take a look at those boys with their pre-rock and roll hairstyles. They look just like imitation adults, don’t they? The prefects at the front squint into the May sunshine, appearing not all that different from the stern-faced masters who control everyone’s destiny, whether First or Six-former.

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Mr Staveley, his bifocal eyes firmly to the front, sits proudly at the head of his charges, like a general leading the troops.

Of course, we have all been told that boys attend Lawrence Sheriff in order to become ‘English gentlemen.’ Thankfully, the Teddy Boy period is over.

Perhaps the nation’s young will now buckle down and become useful members of society.

My eyes search the ranks. Ah, there’s Mick Bradley, the future rock star drummer who would die tragically young. Not far away is Tom Long, guitarist-to-be with Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours, while a few faces along is Guy Edgson, soon to be a reporter on the Rugby Advertiser.

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His brother Julian faces the camera on the other side of group, near Don Eales, Nigel Makepeace, Darryl Richards and yours truly, the young exhibitionist with his thumb showing.

“Phillpott – why have you again let the side down? You have deliberately disobeyed instructions to keep your hands out of sight. See the headmaster in his study at break time… ”

My eyes dart back and forth. Why, there’s Johnny Pointon, his brother Robin on the end of a row. Robin would become head boy within a few years.

Johnny went on the have the best, most greased coiffure in the entire school. Hey, Johnny is a rock ‘n’ roll type of name, is it not?

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Finally, I locate young Brian Meredith. After joining Rugby band The Reprobates, by the time he’s aged 14, Brian is playing gigs. Picked on and bullied by one master in particular, he is sent to explain himself to the headmaster.

Mr Staveley gives him a choice. He can either ‘become a Rolling Stone’ or ‘remain a member of this school.’ Brian warms to the idea of the former, although the Stones never actually ever quite get round to replacing drummer Charlie Watts with Rugby’s ace sticks man.

Three years after Brian was forced to leave, Lawrence Sheriff had its own in-school rock band. As Bob Dylan once so astutely observed, the times were indeed a’changing back then.

So. Here are they all, the successes, failures, fighters and perhaps a handful of shirkers. They are frozen in time, yet have now long been carried away on Destiny’s four winds, like dandelion seeds in the breeze, eventually to land who knows where…

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And survivors, too. And dare I say it, rather like the two ageing friends playing their guitars and chatting on Peak Hill near Sidmouth, while watching the tides of both the Channel and the affairs of men ebbing and flowing in the endless cycle of life.

John Phillpott’s third book Go and Make the Tea, Boy! was published this year by Brewin Books of Redditch.

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