Author: Richard Howard

Reading the History page, I remember that the Grenfell Park football pitch was certainly used by the School, probably before we had to go all the way to Stafferton Lodge. It does get a 'muddy' mention later on Chris Simpson's full memory page. The pitch was much more level than the slope at Stafferton Lodge. The bank on the side of the pitch below South Road gave an elevated view of the play which was good for spectators of our matches.

Quite a coincidence that eventually Winbury chose seafaring names for their houses, not only Howard, but also Drake as well, as that was my mother's maiden name and given to me as my third Christian name.

I remember taking a minor part in the school play 'Treasure Island' at the Methodist Church hall on the corner of King Street and Castle Hill, when I believe that I played 'Hunter' who was a servant to Squire Trelawney. I got killed off before the end according to the story.

On your gallery with the Scouting picture at Kidwells Park, the tall scout on the left with beret and dark blue shorts, looks suspiciosly like me, as I went on to attend the senior troop based at the County Boys School, because a lot of a family of friends opposite my home had been scouts there for a long while.

I did not go to Rottingdean, but from those pictures I see some of my close friends, David Roper who lived along the Windsor Road, and Robert May who lived on Fishery Road, close to Michael Szekely's home in the same road. Michael (who is in the 1953 school picture) and I were keen trainspotters for a while. I was with him when he had his unfortunate accident when a bamboo stalk flicked back into his eye resulting in him losing his sight in that one which was a tragedy.

Two other of my comtempories in the 1949 picture, John 'Paddy' Powell and David 'Bart' Sams later joined with me again in the 60s at Maidenhead Rugby Club, as did Peter Prior later from the 1953 picture.

I was born and lived in a house, whose garden went down to the towpath of the River Thames, in Court Road, which is off the Lower Cookham Road beyond Boulters Lock towards Cookham. I remember other old boys who lived close by, as Donald Bird also facing the river in Court Road, Jimmy Cowan down Cliveden Mead into Lock Mead, and Rory Nicholas in Lower Cookham Road. I am sure Rory won the Victor Ludorum at one of the Winbury Sports Days.

To get to Winbury I had to walk up Lower Cookham Road about 1/4 mile to the bus stop for the No.20 coming in from High Wycombe. There were no pavements along this road, and if it was wet you would get splashed a lot by passing traffic hitting the puddles. Going towards Maidenhead Bridge, the bus would stop in Ray Mead Road to pick up David Harrold. When we got off at the clock tower, we would often go along an alleyway beside the railway station entrance, which came out opposite Grenfell Park, which we would go up through to reach an exit towards East Road and High Town Road.

When going home from school, sometimes I might just miss the bus from the station approach, and if I ran down Queen Street and York Road to the bus station by the Rialto cinema, I could often catch it there, because it had to go round King Street and the High Street via the junctions in the town centre.

At times when our home area got badly flooded I missed school, as the buses often found Widebrook Common impassable coming in from Cookham, and as my father worked away for the Admiralty in Portsmouth, staying there Monday to Friday, I used his flat bottomed boat with a punting pole to go to the top of road to meet the various delivery men and ferry them to various houses in the road, which earnt me some useful pocket money.

Jimmy Cowan's picture at Hewens Garage shows the water approaching a foot deep, but around our house it was over three feet deep and sometimes flooded the ground floor as well. In February 1947, we were evacuated from our house in an amphibious DUKW, and went to stay near Bath Road / Courthouse Road junction with a friend who was in the Red Cross with my mother. (see pictures G37 and G38 'Maidenhead in Flood' on the 'Gallery' page).

I remember well that the wooded area at Winbury was cleared to make way for the new hut with three classrooms, as I suffered a serious accident with a tree stump that had some of the splintered trunk left sticking up, which I fell on cutting my calf to the bone. I was rushed to Hospital, stitched up and kept in. Unfortunately, unknowingly, they left some wood in my leg, which went septic, so that I ended up having upteen injections of penicillen in my backside. Luckily, my mother who had been a sister at St. Thomas's Hospital, asked to see the wound and recommended a regular hot sterilised swab treatment, which brought the splinter to the surface. In the end I was in hospital for six weeks including the Christmas holiday. I also suffered a wrist fracture another time after falling off a bank in the playground. I am not sure how my nickname of 'Buster', as Mr. Spicer called me, actually started, maybe I broke other things!

I remember being a border for a while up in a dormitory on the second floor, certainly for my last summer term. Although I lived in Maidenhead, this was as a practice to being away from home before I went off to Brighton College.

I think we went to the open air swimming pool in Maidenhead on occasions with Mr. Spicer, but cannot remember any school competitions. Living beside the Thames, I had learnt to swim in the river, and this became my main sport at Brighton. After I returned home at the age of 19, I won the river swim from Boulters to Bray on six occasions.

Richard Howard - 21/06/2012