In the 1950s your parents had the option of selecting your school, subject to the results of your 11+ results.
My father determined the best school in Middlesex was Merchants Taylor’s and his second choice was Bishopshalt Grammar School, recognised I believe as the best grammar school in the area. This is where my result told me where to and I loved it.
My cousin, Pauline Tanner, was in the sixth form and took me on my first day.
The trip for me for many years was a 15/20 minute walk to Eastcote Station. There I took the Piccadilly line train to Uxbridge, via Ruislip Manor, Ruislip, Ickenham and Hillingdon. which was a 12-minute journey. Then I caught a trolley bus up to the school. Another ten minutes. So not much change out of an hour twice a day with waiting for trains and buses. In the sixth form, I quite often went by bike, which didn’t take much less. Of course, in those days it never rained!
There were four houses then, Cranmer, Stanley, Livingstone and De Salis, although it now has six. I was in Cranmer (blue)
I was more interested in sport than school, particularly football and athletics and played in the house teams at football and cricket (captain for one year). Long jump, throwing the javelin (and cricket ball) and sprints were my main talents. Like many other wimps, I hid in the toilets when we had to do cross-country.
In the Fifth Form, you could go to The Spinney at lunchtime, where I remember we played cards, and in the Sixth Form we went to the ‘Ornamental Gardens’ at lunchtime where we played croquet!
However, I managed to be able to cram just before exams which produced 7 ‘O’ levels and 4 ‘A’ levels. failed all the science exams I recall and had a school record for getting 0 out of 10 for oral French mock ‘O’ level.
Some information on Wikipedia
and here is an extract from their recent website
Our History
The school’s unique charm can be partly attributed to the beautiful mansion and conservatory, built in 1858, which houses the Sixth Form tutorial area. The mansion has been home to Bishopshalt School since 1928.
The name Bishopshalt is derived from the history of the site, as for 500 years, the Bishops of Worcester halted at the grounds of the school on their journeys to and from London, hence Bishops halt.
Television crews have deemed Bishopshalt School to be suitable for the filming of Jeeves and Wooster starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as well as the film adaptation of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, directed by Gurinder Chadha, and the BBC comedy Big School starring David Walliams and Catherine Tate, in which 200 Bishopshalt students acted as extras and two of our senior Performing Arts students were given speaking roles.
No mention of me!
Here are some photos of the school taken about 2010 when I took Diana there for me to remember it, but it hadn’t changed much except the old music room was the computer room!!.
Bits of paper from my time there which I carried around for 50 years. But first the headmaster’s introduction. Also my school reports as well as my ‘O-Level’ and ‘A-Level’ results
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