Between 1952-55 - in the cruel way of schoolboys - Mr Williams the chemistry teacher was nicknamed 'Crippen'.  At the time he seemed so old, but hardly had a murderous appearance, to be named after the infamous murderer who was the first criminal caught 'by radio'.  I suppose he got the name because they both dabbled in poisons.  My friends and I were keen on chemistry so sat in the front row nearest the experiments.  The problem was the hardwood lab benches only had a few knee-holes the rest being cupboards, so there was a mad scramble for the more comfortable knee-holes, rather than sitting sideways-on to the benches which was awfully uncomfortable.  On entering the classroom one day I did a bum-slide over the bench to get to said knee-hole before my friends, only to be spotted by Crippen who ordered that I report to him after school for a suitable punishment, probably one hour's detention, nothing worse.  However thinking he was so old and therefore likely to be forgetful I took the risk that he would not remember me and didn't turn up.  I was right and got away with it. Dave Evan's "Long Picture" left section 1969 I think shows him in second row from front second in from left end.  Anyone know what happened to him or when he retired?

Mr "Crippen" Williams was indeed still there in 1969 and indeed pretty well all through my stay at Downer too - up to nearly 1974 when I believed be retired. But the nickname had stuck all that time!!

Hi,

I don't know what happened to 'Crippin' after I left in 1974, but I do know that in 1969, in my first impressionable year at Downer, I walked up to Mr Williams, and completely innocently asked him if he was Mr Crippin.  I had heard people calling him this, and myself, at that time, had never heard of the infamous 'Crippin'.  I received my first detention, and I was laughed at by all around. It was interesting to find out that he had had that nickname since the '50's.

Just goes to show what a dappy bird you were, even then!

Lets face it, anyone who wanted their nickname to be SHAG... (there I said it, its out now).. See you and John next week (if you are still talking to me).

Never mind about Crippen!  What happened to Miss Kendall?  The blonde Geography teacher with the great t ..... sorry I'm getting carried away there ..... with the Nordic looks.

Geography was the one subject that interested me, as I always wanted to travel, yet with the unsettling distraction of Miss Kendall's curves, I was totally unable to apply myself to the science of the earth, man and his environment.  For 45 minutes, in my mind's eye, I would hallucinate as to what they looked like in the flesh.  If I could only just cast my eye, for a few seconds, on those awe-inspiring globes then my life on earth would have been complete.  I could have gone to my grave a happy 12 year old.

Perhaps I better quit while I'm ahead here.

Oi Karl, get out of my fantasy!  But seriously I don't believe you were alone in drifting out of Miss Kendal's geography lessons dreaming of her bosom.  The other fantasy object for me was Miss Stuart, known as 'Thighs'.  She used to sit on a desk at the front of the class, wearing shortish skirts and knee length boots (steady!).

I wonder what happened to her.  She's probably not much older than us.

Hope you and yours are well.

Regards

Good to hear from you.  How are you?

The problem here is that I've always loved women. More to the point I've always loved breasts. Even as a small chile in primary school, far too young to know any better, I remember a certain teacher, not especially attractive, who would sometimes wear a blue sweater which fitted her rather snugly, stretching taut across her front and emphasizing her abundant bosom. My special nickmane for her was, "Big Bumps in the Blue Jumper".  I swear this is true.

At the time I didn't understand precisely what it was about those big bumps that were so appealing.  And the thought of grabbing hold of them had never occured to me, thank God.  But I did know that on days when she wore this blue jumper school was a lot more bearable.

I passed my 11-plus and we moved to Kenton, and although breasts were to become an increasing affection of mine, never laid eyes on Big Bumps again.  I wonder what happened to her.  I wonder if she's still teaching somewhere.  I wonder if other young scholars have noticed her knockers. Mind you, she must be about 70 by now, and has probably earned herself other nicknames.  And that's just from the other teachers.

Thanks for the reply but I think we're in the wrong message board.  Perhaps we should try bigbosom.com or schoolboyfantasy.com.  Hope you are well.  If you want to talk away from here try terry_stern@yahoo.com

There is an underscore between terry and stern.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Terry, Karl, Don't transfer the best memory recall conversation off line! Does anyone remember Mrs. Threlfall? I had her (In my dreams!) for English in the sixth form. I believe she was married to David Threlfall the actor, but I could be wrong. She had long dark brown hair, wore leather mini skirts and fishnet stockings (until Clara apparently had words with her). At least I remember her that way, it may be wishful thinking, perhaps either Chris Kieghtley or Adam Bressloff remember her , the only other chaps in the english class.  I know it made a very boring subject pass very quickly.  In contrast we also had another english teacher, possibly Miss Fenwick, who was an older spinster who took great delight in explaining the sexual double meanings in Chaucer's canterbury tales, I believe sexual repression wasn't only rampant amongst the children at school!

We've had to transfer this conversation into private e-mail, otherwise we'd probably get thrown off this site.  But if you give us your e-mail address I'll forward the transcript on to you. It's hottening up.

Karl

Karl, thanks for the reply, I have read it and will respond as soon as I can make my e-mail send a message. I don't have a problem receiving messages but cannot get out. My e-illiteracy really comes to the fore now, however even my techno-geek step-son cannot figure out what's wrong, so I don't feel too bad. So much for the Grammar school education I can't even send electronic letters! (Ooops didn't mean to denigrate the "Old School" .. don't want to be told off, it's like being back IN school being in here, isn't it?)

In the meantime I can ditto the Cupboard/Detention theme in spades! I thought I was the only 12 year old virgin!

Bob,

How weird that we all had the same fantasies. : I'm convinced that if Miss Kendle hadn't wed Mr. Thurtle, she'd have married me. What say you,Terry?

Miss Kendall was once talking about cows and milk yes you know whats coming i guy named perry put his hand up and asked in astraight face"miss kendall how much milk do you produce in a year"it was a sublime moment one which stays with me 32 years after the event.

Mr. FWG Willaims (Williams bunsen as opposed to book[merlin] or boot [Andy]) retired in the early seventies to Australia where he had family.

Regards, Tony Dymoke-Bradshaw

In the third year I was at school when we had to choose to specialise in either languages (French and Spanish I think), or science (physics and Chemistry) I was one of only three girls that year who chose science.   I can remember Crippen for chemistry.   He used to smoke a pipe and one day he came in smoking it and then tapped his pipe out on the front desk and put it in his trouser pocket thinking it had gone out.   A short while later we were all nudging each other as smoke wafted from his trouser pocket, but nobody would tell him.   We all just waited till eventually he was hopping about and had to remove it rather sharpish to put it out, amidst great sniggering from the class.  Happy days.

Crippen was alright actually. I can't remember why but S1 always had Mary Lawson for chemistry. My only real contact with Crippen was the day that Den[n]is Lindsay decided to bring some phosphorus to school.

He'd put 5 small sticks in some oil in Brylcreem jar to keep it stable. Apparantly during the morning the others had been playing with it during the geography class which was not one of my main subjects.  I don't remember the teacher's name but he spotted a bit that had fallen on the floor, picked it up and put it in his pocket.  It dropped back onto the floor, through the hole in his suit, a few minutes later.

That afternoon I decided to try some in one of the plastic ink wells during the french class with Madame Rocha [er?].  All of the windows were closed.  After a few minutes a pencil thin column of smoke rose right to the ceiling and were we all wetting ourselves laughing. She spotted the smoke, picked up the inkwell and opened a window. The ink well burst into flames in her hand before she could drop it but it did not burn her.

The entire class was ordered to the hall in front of the Head and Crippen who did the talking. When he found out that Lindsay had the sense to keep it in oil, Lindsay was complemented for his intelligence and we got away with a ticking off.

That's what I call a result.

Richard

Like you I had no problem with Crippen. I found as long as you were reasonably attentive during class and remitted your homework with a fair level of diligence he was as sweet as pie. He was most unforgiving of anyone who thought they could put one over him. However, the point of this response is to ask do you remember Ratcliffe(?) the Lurch lookalike that masqueraded as the Laboratory Assistant? If so, do you also recall the day he got carted off feet first to the local hospital after being nearly fatally poisoned by chlorine gas after some clown left the taps open (deliberately as the inquest concluded after the event) on the Kipps Apparatus? What nobody realised was that poor old Ratcliffe had defective olefactory organs and therefore, could not smell the gas. He was found semicomatose in the nick of time apparently. Anyway, I forget the name of the miscreant who was responsible but as I understood it, he came perilously close to being sacked. What info do you have on this incident?

I have 2 memories of Mr Crippen. (It was 2 years before I realised he had another name).  Firstly he wrote on my drawing of ?Leibigs' condenser that it looked like an alligator.  Secondly when I was in the 4th form the domestic science team used to ask for volunteers to do the refreshments for the 5th form dances at Christmas and at end of term.  We used to do this as we could then go into the dance after we had finished the catering.  Well horror of horrors who should ask me to dance?  Yes you've guessed it Mr Crippen!  I don't really need to say any more do I.

Val (Crooke)

Come on, Val,

Don't leave us all in suspense.  How did the evening end up? I've long held fantasies that Crippen ask me to dance, but sadly they all came to nothing.

Well I can assure you Karl Crippen's fantasies came to nothing especially as his little grey haired wife was also there.  However  I was a great source of amusement to the rest of the school for several days after.  I would however like to mention Mr Janes, the Geography Master, who brought his dance band (well I think there were 4 or 5 of them) to play for our dances.  Great stuff!!

Val

Just to make you all feel sick - I was 'Crippen's' pet! I loved chemistry and could always answer his questions and have spent a lifetime in the chemical industry after a chemistry degree.  I did nearly all the schoolwork on my own, however, as I could never quite 'warm' to Crippen (funny that).  I introduced my parents to him as 'Crippen' as I really thought that was his name, at an open day.  I remember him also for saying infront of the class, in a very encouraging way, that the world would need future successful people and they were all in our classrooms now and some of us would be 'it'.  I have never been in any way famous, but some Downer people have and I think Crippen was sort of proud of us.  Did someone say he's in Australia - I live in Sydney!

I don't know what happened to Crippen but I do remember him well. He was very quite spoken unless roused, his delivery almost priest-like, and his remarks often like parables. He had a very old Vauxhall saloon into which he was forever pouring distilled water from the lab.  His finest hour was as stand-in for our physics class as the regular teacher was away.  To demonstrate thermal conductivity he rigged up "Edser's Can", a galvanised tank from which protruded several rods of equal length but each made from a different material. Each of the rods terminated in a little spoon, into which the merest scrap of  metallic sodium was placed. Boiling water was poured into the can and we took note of the time, those of us with second hands on our watches being at a great advantage.  As heat was conducted along the rods the very volatile sodium would burst into flame and we would note the time it took.  Poor old Crippen, he had hacked off quite large lumps of sodium that did not just burst into flame but exploded and flew about the lab, which was soon filled with smoke.  Crippen valiantly stamped out the flames with a block of wood while we laughed and coughed until tears ran down our faces.  It is quite the most memorable science lesson I ever had.  I have certainly never forgotten the principles of thermal conductivity nor Crippen. (Or the lethal potential of sodium either)!  Any other memorable lab experiences? Jeff Stilton, 1953-58

Crip' was an absolutely first-rate teacher and, as others have said, only got mad when somebody was misbehaving badly.  He used to illustrate points with little anecdotes--something relevant to the chemistry of Mg by reference to how they welded tramlines in Wembley High Street; something about Cr chemistry to do with somebody spitting in the electroplating mix, that sort of thing.  

It was a bloody cruel name to give a really decent person.  the odd thing was that he came to Downer from Wembley County where he was also known as "Crippen".  How did that awful nickname follow him from one school to another?

Andy

Almost right--but it was hydrogen sulphide [used for precipitating Gp. III metals I think...] not chlorine.  This stuff is more toxic than cyanide and it laid old Ratcliffe out and it was just a chance that two teachers [Williams and Barnett I seem to remember] walked into the science block, smelled the gas, and got the unconscious man to safety.  The culprit who left the Kipps apparatus running is well-known but I shall not mention his name here...  The issue was treated seriously but no disciplinary measures were taken as it was hoped that everybody had learned a lesson in lab' safety.

It is a tribute to the day that we were indeed allowed to use "dangerous" chemicals. Go into a HS lab these days, or even an undergrad' lab, and you will find that students are not allowed access to many substances that we took for granted in our day: hydrogen sulphide, storn gacids and alakalais, volatile solvents and suchlike. Students graduate from university with virtually no laboratory skills [maybe just those picked up in a hons. year project course]. It's quite normal for a student beginning a masters or doctoral programme to have almost no lab' skills. I remember being shocked at having to teach an extremely clever student to use an analytical balance, not to put the water into the conc. acid and to absolutely not use the bloody coffee spoon to weigh-out chemicals!  [OK--you shouldn't eat and drink in the lab--I knew that...]

Andy

I attended Downer from 70-75 and he was always known as Crippen. I was in a Chemistry lesson with Mr Richardi when a very small 1st former came in and asked if 'Sir' knew where he could find Mr Crippen as he had been sent to find him for a 6th former as there was a message for him in the office!  We didn't know if we should laugh or pretend we had no idea who he was talking about.
I seem to remember Mr Richardi handling the situation well and explaining he was not around.

Karen Westlake(Cooper as was)

Crippen, or F G Williams retired in 1970 and eventually moved to Australia.. I was the teacher appointed to take his place. He was always affectionately referred to by his Colleagues as 'FG'.  I only met him once but his inventiveness in teaching Chemistry lived on - Avogadro's biscuit tins, the Biro refill turned into a rocket etc. When I did meet him I remember showing him some of the work my students had been doing - just to get feedback from a man of his wisdom and experience and to check that i wasn't too far offtrack. Now 30 years later I still teach Chemistry as a private tutor.  I do not have any regrets and look back fondly on the work of teachers like FG.
Mike Barnett who worked with FG has also retired and lives in Kingsbury.  I met him recently when I sang in a concert given by Harrow Opera.
Like Andy Forrester I was glad that I did all sorts of experiments which students don't always do today.  I learnt some good chemistry from the analysis of metal ions.