One of the more memorable events which took place as part of the MGS ‘Charities Fortnight’ of 2001, was that of the ‘sponsored job-exchange’ between the High Master of the time, Martin Stephen and porter William ‘Billy’ Neild, with whom he gamely swapped places for the day in the name of charity, dressing-down somewhat, taking up the broom, serving lunch in the refectory and – to complete the H.M.’s ignominy – delivering a cup of tea to a begowned Billy at his newly acquired office desk (see picture above).
The concept of ‘Porter for a Day’ was initiated by the form 5R, who were apparently instrumental in persuading Martin Stephen to play ‘Pauper’ to Billy Neild’s ‘Prince’. 5R were just one of many forms who came up with inventive and entertaining ways of raising money for a number of charities, including the NSPCC, the Busoga Trust of Uganda, the Teenage Cancer Trust and the National Asthma Campaign. Other notable events during this busy Charities Fortnight involved spoofs of popular TV programmes including Stars in Their Eyes and Blind Date, a Westlife tribute band, and two pupils – Kyle Bentwood and Ben Levy – who cycled 22 miles in to school.
M.S. serving lunch to the new H.M.
Porter Billy Neild enjoys his moment of glory as M.S. looks on wistfully
What it was all for: the £2000 cheque raised by the ‘Porter for a Day’ initiative
Aside from the obvious fun which was clearly had by all during the ‘Porter for a Day’ event, by raising the profile of porter Billy Neild, the event also managed to bring an increased awareness and appreciation of the important work carried out by the indispensable – although often ‘invisible’ – non-teaching staff, such as porters, kitchen staff and cleaners, without whom the school would probably cease to function. This appreciation was recently shown following the sad death last year of former Head Porter Harry Bardsley, when the whole school lined Old Hall Lane to pay their respects during his funeral cortege (see also earlier postThe School Porters).
Just prior to the Old Hall Lane buildings opening in September 1931, The Guardian published a piece describing the Long Millgate site as it was closed. The Receiver, Owen Cox, and the Head Porter, Maurice Jepson were interviewed as they locked up for the last time.
“The Manchester Grammar School officially deserted Long Millgate yesterday. Mr. Owen W. Cox closed his office and removed to the new buildings at Birch-in-Rusholme. The well-known Mr. Maurice Jepson, familiarly called ‘The Sergeant,’ for the last time locked up the school as he has done every night for nearly fifty years. Each of these officials has seen ten generations of school-boys come and go. The leave-taking was painful to both.
Before he left, Mr. Cox walked through the empty building with a representative of the ‘Manchester Guardian’ taking a last look at the old classrooms. The steps of only two people echoed coldly along the corridors. It was the silence upon which he intruded that moved Mr. Cox. He did not like working in a building lacking the happy vigorous atmosphere which comes from having every room above, below, and all around packed with schoolboys. An old school during the holidays is no place in which to be. A closed school is worse.
Most of the walls have been stripped bare. But here and there are old boards bearing the names of boys, written in gold. Some are scholars, some athletes. Many are dead. Where the boards will go no one knows. The new school is concerned with the present and the future. Meanwhile Mr. Cox and Mr. Jepson can recreate the stories of scores. Their memories, fed on affection, flourish prodigiously. They know more of the lives of boys and men than they could tell in a month. Theirs is strange wisdom. The material emptiness of classrooms yesterday contrasted oddly with the spiritual fullness which they gave to them. In Mr. Cox’s room was a pile of photographs. During the upheaval he and his colleague have spent many an hour picking out schoolboys of the last century, naming them, recalling them, wondering about them. Celebrities in embryo have gazed at them from faded prints – Lord Bradbury, Professors E.T. Whittaker, R.G. Lempfert, E.D. Telford, and many others.
Now there are packing cases in the gymnasium. Schoolmasters’ desks sacred and terrible, have been uprooted with ignominy, leaving piles of pedagogic behind. Two hundred old desks, unfit for an efficient generation, are being left to stir queer thoughts in the mind of the buyer of building sites.Their tops, carved and notched in idle hours, look well enough. Mr. Cox will save one or two for talismans or charms which will awake memories. Their fronts are astonishing. Worm-eaten at first glance, on closer examination they are seen to have been devoured much more by penknives, penholders, and nails plied by fidgeting fingers while empty eyes stared at blackboards. Generations of the schoolboy ability, despite the copybooks, to do two things at once have here left their mark.
Notices remain: ‘For traffic, only during intervals,’ ‘— will leave by this door.” One blackboard bears algebraic symbols. Another has the verse, heavily underlined, beginning, ‘Hugh of the Owl was a scholar bold.’ Once enforced with pain, now they are meaningless. Yet one fancies that Mr. Cox will not wipe them into nothingness. The swimming-bath has been drained. Mr. Cox, standing at its edge, saw some of the hundreds who learnt to swim in it. He saw also the baptism which he himself gave it, for he was the first to plunge in at its filling. The bath at the new school is twice as big. He is going to be the first in that, too. Today he will descend into the strange waters. But not so Mr. Jepson. He can tell a harrowing tale of a seaside adventure close to seventy years ago. Fathers were stern in those days. Tremulous little boys were apt to find themselves hurled into the midst of the ocean. Mr. Jepson does not care for swimming.
These two friends of the school are naturally going to see that the new era opens in a manner proper to the occasion. Too many old boys – and young as well – have impressed upon them the necessity of their active presence if the school is to have the same soul in its changed body. So they will go to Birch-in-Rusholme, perhaps to suffer homesickness for those to whom their faces will be reassuring. They made their farewells characteristically. Mr. Cox walked round with his eyes on phantoms. Mr. Jepson worked with his hands on packing cases.“
Yesterday we heard the sad news that Harry Bardsley had passed away. Harry joined the School as a porter in 1982, subsequently becoming Head Porter. On his retirement in 2013, he decided to stay on as gatekeeper. Many Old Mancunians and members of staff will have happy memories of Harry. He was always ready with a kind, reassuring word for staff and pupils alike. To read a full tribute, click here: https://www.mgs.org/214/news/post/400/a-tribute-to-harry-bardsley-who-has-sadly-passed-away
Harry Bardsley
The first record we have of a School porter comes in a nineteenth century edition of Ulula where a man called Pilling is mentioned as being employed as a janitor or porter. The first porter for which we have concrete evidence is Charles Pollitt, Head Porter between 1871 and 1919. He was followed in the role by William Jepson, Porter between 1884 and 1919, taking on the mantle of Head Porter before his retirement in 1934. Spanning nearly 60 years of MGS history between them, these men appear to have made enough of a mark to be mentioned regularly in Ulula and to merit their own appreciations on retirement and death.
On Pollitt’s death, an OM wrote in Ulula:
I remember Pollitt when I first went to the School more than thirty years back. I felt great respect for him; he was so efficient and so gentle. During the time between, during the fifteen years when as boy and master I saw much of him, I have felt the respect increase and ripen into deep regard.
In 1914, Ulula noted:
On April 23rd Mr Jepson completed 30 years’ service at the School, and in the whole of that time he has only been off duty two hours through illness. This is a good record, but it is quite overshadowed by that of Mr Pollitt, who began in January 1871, and is still the same alert figure that he was in those far-off days. Evidently one of the healthiest parts of Manchester is Long Millgate.
The porters’ relationship with the boys appears to have been particularly positive; Jepson in particular seems to have been well-loved by them. Ulula records:
Pre-war generations of OMs will vividly remember the time-honoured ritual by which the procession returning from the annual visit to HOLC [Hugh Oldham Lads Club] used to halt outside the little hotel by the side of Victoria Station and call “We want Jeppy”.
Pollitt and Jepson
Pollitt is still remembered in school today; a plaque commemorating his service still adorns the wall near the porters’ lodge on the main corridor. A touching tribute to him, reminding us of his long-service and dedication, is found in Ulula in 1919:
…he got his release from work here last November the 4th, dying, almost literally, in harness, after 47 years of loyal and most patient service. He knew that the School needed him, and with Pollitt duty not merely came first but filled his whole horizon. I never met a boy who did not regard him with trust and affection, and he had in an uncommon measure the esteem and confidence of all the masters. No servant ever gave more unstinted service than he, and no one in all the School contributed more fully, in his measure, to its efficient working.
Following “Jeppy”, Thomas Sutton became Head Porter. He lived on site with his family, and therefore was the first to realise that a parachute mine had landed in the School field during the Christmas blitz of 1940. He had the foresight to protect the Porters’ Lodge windows with wooden boards each night, and so despite significant damage to the school buildings, he and his family were not injured. He retired as Head Porter in 1955 and Ulula wrote:
“After thirty-five years as School Porter, Tom Sutton has retired. His upright and military figure, quiet efficiency, ironical smile and alert eagle eye will be much missed, and his long years of faithful service will be remembered with gratitude”
These men would have been a hard act to follow, but Wilfred Robb, known universally as “Wilf”, seems to have fitted the bill perfectly. He joined MGS as porter in 1947, later becoming Head Porter on the retirement of Tom Sutton and stayed for forty years until his retirement in 1987. Many Old Mancunians have good memories of Wilf. One remarked:
“He was a kindly and reassuring presence, a man with quiet authority, who knew every boy by name (or seemed to) and was respected by all. We might misbehave in class, but would never misbehave when Wilf was watching!”
Wilf
In his tribute in 1987, Ian Thorpe noted that:
“Boys have always seen him as a friendly face and been prepared to confide in him. He has always known the first names of all the boys in the School—and the names of all their brothers and sisters. He would probably also know where they lived and who their friends were within the School. If their fathers happened to be Old Mancunians he would know their history—when they were in School, which college and university they had attended and any academic and sporting distinctions they had achieved. His memory is quite remarkable.
Wilf acquired this knowledge by talking with boys along the corridor or in the dinner queue and would have the new entry “taped” within two or three weeks of arrival. Boys loved to talk to him. In the days before we had a School Nurse, or “pastoral care” became part of the jargon of our trade, Wilf looked after those who were injured or in trouble. He once found a tiny first former in the cloakroom, broken-hearted, at a quarter past five: he had gone home without his raincoat and his mother had sent him back to School with instructions not to return until he had found it. It was obvious what had happened: a single raincoat was still hanging on the next peg. Another lad had grabbed the wrong one after school; everything would be sorted out the next day. But that wasn’t good enough for the boy: his mother wanted it sorted out now. Wilf put on his own raincoat and bicycle clips, pushed his bicycle to Burnage with the boy, and delivered him over, together with a few words of advice, to the mother, before pedalling back to School to finish locking up. Hundreds of boys could tell similar stories.”
A verse written as part of a poem to honour Jepson and published in a 1927 volume of Ulula states:
Our thoughts least centre on the men “Who only stand and wait”, And we are apt to overlook The porter at the gate.
It seems that MGS has been lucky to have had so many porters who have provided loyal service to the School. Perhaps they have been overlooked by some, but names such as “Jeppy”, Wilf and Harry are the ones long-remembered by many Old Mancunians when they look back on their school days.
Hoots from the archive 