I have just come across this site and would like to make a contribution since there don’t seem to be too many people that have made comments that relate to the time that I attended the school.
I started at Chandos boys school around 1971 and left in 1976. As I’m sure you know, the school changed to a Comprehensive in 1974 and changed its name from Chandos to Park High School. Up until that time it was two separate schools: a boys school and a girls school.
Both schools were accommodated within one large building and within the corridors, the schools were separated by doors through which only members of staff were permitted to pass and it was strictly forbidden for boys to enter the girls’ school or for girls to enter the boys’ school without explicit authority from the head teacher. Of course that inevitably meant that this was a common dare. I can’t remember how many times we would dare each other to go through the doors into the girls’ school.
When the school amalgamated into one comprehensive school for both girls and boys under the new name of Park High School it seemed very strange to us all. We had always been very used to all of our classes only having boys in them (and of course boys were addressed simply by their surnames) and suddenly we were thrown into a situation where classes now were of mixed genders and if I remember correctly I believe the girls were addressed by their first names? I expect the teachers were aware of the distractions on both sides but we all seemed to take it in our stride in the end.
Even though I left the school some 46 years ago I still have very vivid memories of my time there. I was a member of the school brass band, playing tenor horn, this was conducted and run by the arts master Mr Brian Harrison who was himself a member of the Watford Silver Band and also played tenor horn in that band. I also involved myself in other activities as I was one of the school librarians and a prefect.
The other notable thing from my time at the school was my involvement in sport, especially athletics for which I held the school records for the 100 metres and triple jump (although my triple jump record was, very annoyingly, broken very quickly!). I think of the school’s physical education teachers, Mr Snell was an inspiration to achieve a reasonable level in athletics but I think he was also very annoyed that I would not participate in other team sports such as football for which I had absolutely no interest whatsoever! I was always interested in racquet sports such as badminton and table tennis and we used to go to the local leisure centre to participate in those. In fact I went on to play a lot of badminton after that time.
Brian Harrison was a huge mentor when it came to music and my continued love of music came from his dedication to music and the brass band rather than from the school’s music teacher, Mr Leslie Tucker, who was quite a large, rounded gentleman and because he didn’t really have any involvement with the brass band, on the rare occasions that he visited us in the band room he was usually met with a musical joke such as the basses and euphoniums playing the theme tune to Laurel and Hardy! I don’t think he was that amused but we thought it was hilarious. I am sure that he was a good music teacher, but really all my musical knowledge came from Brian Harrison and the band so it’s no wonder that some of the band members treated Mr Tucker with a ‘friendly’ contempt!.
I would have to say that my best and favourite subject to study was mathematics and again this was purely down to the high quality teaching and in this case it was that of Mr Glazier who was quite possibly the best teacher I have ever had in any subject.
I do remember the names of a few of the other teachers during my time there: Mr Budd (P.E), Mr Lindsay (commerce/principles of accounts), Mr Willet? (Geography) and Mr White? (French) however I’m struggling to remember any more names.
I can only recall a handful of the names of other pupils such as John Flower, John Copping, Nicholas Spacey, Carol Newman, Wendy Jordan, Michael Wilkinson and William Austin but I’m sure that in my attic somewhere I still have the annual yearbooks and if I ever come across them I will look up some of those names and see what others I remember and maybe publish some of them on the site as I can’t see any reference to them here.
Graham Lockwood